The Khariton Version

Abstract

Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not keep an historical record of the Soviet atomic project. Trying to create an accurate account of the program from existing fragmentary knowledge is a difficult task. Recently, some members of the secret service may have exaggerated the role the intelligence community played in the development of Soviet nuclear weapons. Given here are the viewpoints of Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov, who refute the claim that Soviet intelligence, and not Soviet physicists, were responsible for the first Russian bomb. The authors present their personal historical account of the Soviet nuclear program. 37 refs.