The Big Bang

H-bomb propelled nation, area into new era
Web posted Wednesday, November 1, 2000

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By Chasiti Kirkland
South Carolina Bureau

AIKEN - The Savannah River Site is woven into the fabric of South Carolina, but half a century ago what would be locally known as the ``Bomb Plant'' ripped some communities apart and cloaked the state with a sense of responsibility mixed with dread.

The first U.S. hydrogen bomb test, on Nov. 1, 1952, destroyed Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific's Marshall Islands. Three years earlier, the Atomic Energy Commission destroyed the hamlets of Ellenton, Dunbarton, Meyers Mill, Hawthorne, Robbins Leigh and Sleepy Hollow in Aiken County, and others in Allendale and Barnwell counties, to make way for the Savannah River Plant, where the H-bomb would be developed. ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE

It was built to make radioactive materials for U.S. hydrogen bombs and the arms race against the Soviet Union.

The Washington Post said President Truman's choice to manufacture H-bombs ``may be the most cosmic that has confronted any chief of state in war and peace in American history.''

First known as the Savannah River Plant, SRS was a product of its time.

Surrounded by thousands of weapons that could be launched from land, water and sky, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War neither controlled.

As relations with the Soviets crumbled, the Truman administration increasingly became convinced that the American arms monopoly would bully the Communists into keeping peace. Mr. Truman was wrong.

On Sept. 23, 1949, he shook the nation with this brief announcement: ``We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR. ... Ever since atomic energy was first released by man, the eventual development of this new force by other nations was to be expected. This probability has always been taken into account by us.''

The president's message caused panic and created a stir of activity in scientific and political circles, most of it in secret.

The first reaction was simply to step up production of the atom bomb. But it was one that didn't set well with physicist Edward Teller and Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss. They lobbied for a ``high priority'' program to build a hydrogen bomb, and within months the who's who in Washington were on their side.

In October, the AEC turned to its scientists on the advisory board for advice. They said no to a crash program to build the H-bomb. It was an answer two of its members, including Lewis Strauss and Mr. Teller, who demanded that it be built, didn't like.

But critics said it was an ``immoral weapon of mass destruction.''

Mr. Truman listened to arguments on both sides during the fall of 1949, and on Jan. 31, 1950, to stay ahead of the arms race, he made his decision. It was final, but he did not directly say so. He did say, ``It is part of my responsibility as commander in chief of the Armed Forces to see to it that our country is able to defend itself against any possible aggressor. Accordingly, I have directed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bomb.''

Powered by the same energy that fuels the sun, the ``Super'' was christened as the most lethal weapon ever built by human hands and believed to be at least twice as powerful as those dropped on Japan to end World War II.

The bomb's earliest casualties were the Aiken County hamlets of Ellenton, Dunbarton, Meyers Mill, Hawthorne, Robbins Leigh and Sleepy Hollow, in addition to others in Allendale and Barnwell counties. All were wiped from the map, made extinct by the federal government's plan to build a nuclear-weapons reserve along the Savannah River.

Two months before Mr. Truman told the nation that the hydrogen bomb would be built, the AEC announced that 250,000 acres in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties would be swallowed up by a nuclear-weapons plant. Six thousand residents were sent packing, and 12,000 graves were dug up.

The Augusta Chronicle reported the next day that the plant would be an economic boon for Augusta, but also detailed a bittersweet tale.

Government contractors moved area residents' homes to locations around the plant's border, and compensated landowners for their losses. But such measures could not replace homes.

``It is hard to understand why our town must be destroyed to make a bomb that will destroy someone else's town that they love as much as we love ours,'' an Ellenton resident wrote on a hand-painted sign posted at the city limits. ``But we feel that they picked not just the best spot in the U.S. but in the world.''

A well head at what used to be the train depot is about the only reminder of what old-timers remember as Ellenton. Buildings were demolished out of fear that they could harbor communist spies.

The government turned to proven professionals to operate and build the site. But before DuPont agreed to take the job, the company made it clear that it didn't want to profit from its services. That's because newspapers called the chemical firm a ``merchant of death'' for making much of the ammunition used in the first World War.

The Delaware company's work during the Manhattan Project - the research group credited for inventing the U.S.-built nuclear bomb during World War II - put DuPont at the top of potential contractors for South Carolina's Savannah River Plant.

For DuPont to accept the mission, the company asked to be paid only $1 when it stopped operating the site. The government paid that amount in the late 1980s when the firm relinquished the reins to Westinghouse.

Mr. Teller and Joseph Rotblatt were key figures in the Manhattan Project, and after the war the men followed very different paths: Mr. Teller went on to father the hydrogen bomb, while Mr. Rotblatt won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-war efforts.

Mr. Teller and his team of dogged scientists tested the ``Super'' for two years on the remote Marshall Islands in the Pacific. And on Nov. 11, 1952 - 10 months after Mr. Truman mandated the bomb be built - the crew detonated it. Witnessing the destruction from ships and planes 50 miles away they saw what their creation could do. An atoll named Eniwetok was annihilated.

When Winston Churchill said he was thunderstruck at the weapon's power, Mr. Truman replied, ``I would have been more happy if our plan for international control had been carried out.'' He also knew that the United States had a weapon for which there was no defense, and once again put the country that he led ahead in the nuclear chess game.

But in 1953, the Soviet Union called ``check'' and detonated a hydrogen bomb of its own. Determined not to be beaten, the United States dropped its second bomb in two years on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

After the Bikini incident, America finally learned how lethal the weapons were - deadly enough to destroy major cities in one blast. They also learned that if the bomb didn't kill them, the gas that it released would.

And that brought with it a new invention - bomb shelters that ranged from bare bones to glamorous. They were stocked with everything from Geiger counters to volumes of Shakespeare, from oxygen tanks to Virginia hams.

In 1998 Mr. Teller told CNN: ``I've been asked again and again, `Aren't you sorry for the hydrogen bomb?' My answer is no, I'm not. I'm even happy about it. And I tell you why: Without me, it would have happened anyway.''

Reach Chasiti Kirkland at (803) 279-6895.

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