Atomic Shield, 1947-1952; A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission: Volume II

University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969. Presumed first edition/first printing this volume. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xviii, 718 pages. Illustrations. Sources. Notes. Appendices. Index. DJ has some wear and is in a plastic sleeve. Foreword by George E. Mowry, the Chairman, Historical Advisory Committee. DJ has some wear, soiling, chips and tears. Richard Greening Hewlett (February 12, 1923 - September 1, 2015) was an American public historian best known for his work as the Chief Historian of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. He received his master's degree in 1948 and his Ph.D. in 1952. In 1952 he joined the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), compiling classified progress reports from all of the many branches of the AEC for the Commissioners. In 1957, Hewlett became the first official historian of the AEC. Hewlett produced his first volume of the official history, covering the time period of the Manhattan Project through the formation of the AEC. The New World, 1939-1946, published in 1962, and was a runner-up for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize. Hewlett continued his work and published the second volume, Atomic Shield, 1947-1952 in 1969, which received the David D. Lloyd prize from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute. For both of these books, Hewlett was awarded the Distinguished Employee Award by the AEC, the highest employee award given by the agency. Hewlett retired in 1980 while he was still working on his third volume of AEC history. It was published in 1989 as Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961. The book won the Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians as the best book of the year on a U.S. federal government agency. In 1947 the nation's atomic energy establishment amounted to little more than the remnants of the military organization and facilities which had produced the world's first atomic weapons. By the end of 1952 the Commission's domain included an arsenal of nuclear weapons, a refurbished and greatly enlarged complex of research and production facilities, and a dozen experimental or research reactors. Even more significant, the Commission's activities were no longer completely isolated from the rest of American life, as had been the work of the Manhattan project during World War II. By 1952 hundreds of nuclear scientists were receiving financial support from the Commission for research in their own laboratories, and private industry was beginning to take an active part in developing nuclear power. The Commission itself was no longer unique among Government agencies in terms of its independence and special status; it was becoming an integral part of the Executive Branch. Our task-to explain how this transformation occurred-proved more difficult than the one faced in Volume I. In place of a concentrated effort focused on a single goal, we were confronted by a variety of complex forces, by a rapidly expanding and evolving program which was documented by a mass of records several times that available for Volume I. Although we felt a temptation to adopt a topical and analytical approach, which several of our advisers urged upon us, we rejected this form of organization in favor of the narrative, chronological style of Volume I. A string of loosely joined essays would have been easier to write, but we thought it our duty as
historians to attempt a more fundamental synthesis. We are content to stand on the position set forth in the Preface to Volume I: "Whatever the subject, whatever the essential significance of the event, whether and how we relate that event depends on its relevance to the central perspective. We think this criterion makes for good history. Indeed, the complex interrelationships of modern science, industry, and government make it impossible to take any other approach if history is to be kept within reasonable bounds."The central perspective of Volume II was clearly to be that of the five Commissioners, but it was more difficult to define the unifying theme of a book encompassing a spectrum of subjects from radiation genetics to cost accounting and from community management to foreign policy. No one theme could bridge all these topics, but we soon detected in the documents a strong undercurrent of development around which most of our material could be organized. This central idea was the inexorable shift in the Commission's aims from the idealistic, hopeful anticipation of the peaceful atom to the grim realization that for reasons of national security atomic energy would have to continue to bear the image of war. Hence our title, Atomic Shield, a phrase used by scientists, military leaders, and the Commissioners themselves to justify, or perhaps to rationalize, the nation's expanding nuclear arsenal.