The new technological image of civilization — smartphones and supercomputers — could not appear without the atomic bomb. The president of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk spoke today about this connection unexpected at the first glance. From the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service, previously classified documents on developments that played a key role 70 years ago were handed over to the National Research Center.
Alexander Evstigneev has the details.
It's 6 a.m. Academician Kurchatov stopped the time. This is the moment the nuclear reactor was launched. This was the start of a new era — the era of the Soviet atom. In 1946, the USSR, tormented by the war, became the world's second nuclear power. This was a triumph of Soviet science and foreign intelligence. Unique intelligence documents were given to the Kurchatov Institute. These are pre-war analytics. England and the U.S. were creating the most powerful weapon. Amid WWII, Soviet physicists launched their nuclear project. Scouts persuaded the elite of American science to cooperate.
"We created a network of spies that systematically supplied us with valuable information and valuable technical materials".
Looking like a world symposium of nuclear physicists, but anonymous and secret even for the participants, the intelligence project Innormus was personally supervised by Lavrenty Beria. Kurchatov posed scientific questions, and intelligence passed them overseas. Kurchatov could read but not put down the answers in the Kremlin or the office at Lubyanka. Obtaining the material is of immense, invaluable importance for our state and science.
Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of the Kurchatov Institute: "In order to realize this strategic priority, it was very important to have a fundamental research base in the country. And I should say that we've been at the forefront since the beginning of the century".
In August of 1945, the Americans tested a nuclear bomb. The Soviet Union tested the nuclear reactor F-1 less than a year later.
The first Soviet nuclear reactor looks like a piece of art, contemporary art. In 1946, this was art indeed — from the joint efforts of science and intelligence, piece by piece, from units of information, they created the facility, which as much as the world's fate depends on. The world ceased to be unipolar. In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its nuclear bomb, which wasn't a part of the U.S. leadership's plans. They've had to consider it for 70 years now.
Sergey Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service: "The guarantee of Russia's security is the fact that it has the most advanced, high-end means to deter a potential aggressor. Russian science and Russian Soviet foreign intelligence accumulated unique experience in cooperation, and this cooperation still continues".
Of course, the American participants in the Soviet project understood who they were working for. But the goal was more important.
Irina Rekhovskikh, head of the Kurchatov Institute's museum:
- They transmitted this data to us for absolutely free because they believed that one country couldn't have nuclear weapons.
- They saved the world, right?
- Yes, they saved the world. The balance was necessary for that because the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings followed.
It was a fight not for fame, it was for the USSR's survival. The U.S.'s Dropshot plan provided for a nuclear bombing of the USSR. The scientists who prevented the apocalypse were awarded in this hall. The scouts were awarded only in 1995-1996 by a classified decree. Today, they opened a few of these historical pages.
Alexander Evstigneev, Oleg Dubinin, Vasily Yurchuk, Mikhail Vitkin, Vladislav Mirzoyants, Maxim Shchepilov for Vesti.
