Soviet Press and Radio Reaction to the first Public Announcement of the Atomic Bomb.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-01617A000400230002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 56
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 4, 2005
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 14, 1949
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
14 April 1949
I INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM NO. 158
SUBJECT: Soviet Press and Radio Reaction to the first Public
Announcement of the Atomic Bomb.
We have been requested to prepare a comparative
study of Soviet press and radio reaction to the first public announce-
ment of three items concerned with unconventional weapons of ward
the atomic.bomb, the Merck Report, and Mr. Forrestal's press
release of 13 March 1949 on biological warfare,. We have been given
to understand that the purpose of this report is to afford guidance in
the release of information on subsequent developments in. these and
other fields.
Close investigation of the scientific periodicals RdrgdA
and Nauka l Zhizn' to the end of 1946, and Moscow papers from 3
January to 6 February 1946, and monitoring of Soviet broadcasts
from 3 January to 28 February 1946, have revealed no press and
radio reaction whatsoever to the Merck Report. Current processing
of Soviet newspapers and radio broadcasts has as yet revealed no
reaction to the Forrestal release. We are, therefore, unable to
provide the comparisons requested. The single item on BW (Appendix
D, p. 8) cannot be directly related to the release of the Merck Report
or Mr. Forrestal's statement.
Our report, which is attached as Appendix A, is based
upon careful scrutiny of Soviet press and radio material. It examines
in some detail the reaction to the first announcement of the atomic
bomb. Appended also are
Appendix B - Chronology of Coverage
Appendix C - Digest of Press Reports
Appendix D - Digest of Radio Broadcasts
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APPENDIX A
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS
A. Press and Radio Coverage.
Announcement of the dropping of the first combat atomic bomb
on Hiroshima was made in a White House communique on 6 August;
the announcement was printed immediately in the Moscow papers fief
7 and 8 August as a news item paraphrasing the communique0 It
appeared in similar form in the provincial papers the ,following few
days. There was thus no attempt to delay the first announce, rent,
but editorial comment was withheld for more than a week. 1, On the
other hand, no announcement was made of the Nagasaki bomb (dropped
8 August) until. 1 September, when it appeared in a periodical of limited
cir?culatir n. It was not further mentioned until after the end of the
year. 2/ References to the Nagasaki bomb which appeared in US
statements and speeches were apparently deliberately omitted in the
Soviet summaries, at least up to the beginning of 1946,, Press and
radio silence on the Nagasaki bomb is attributable possibly to the
immediately prior Soviet entry into the Pacific War and possibly to
a desire to conceal the US capacity to produce more than one atomic
bomb, or possibly to bother
B. Phr0
Soviet interest in the atomic bomb was not transitory, and atomic
energy remained a subject of continuing interest in the Soviet prgss
and radio. Its treatment appears to fall into three phases:
(a) Initial phase (from the first announcement to the arnz-
istice on 1 Septe ber): In this phase, reporting was largely In the
form of brief news items, given little prominent.-e, and generally sub-
ordinated to news of the victory in the Far East0 There was. little
i/. Some "editorializing" was done in an Enali
h-language broadcast,
25X1
2/ An early Soviet mention of the Nagasaki bomb appeared in a small
book on nuclear energy by Ya.o Io Frenkel', published in 1946; its
preface was dated October 1945 This almost appears to have be n.
an oversight.
A 1
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editorial comment. Articles (as distinct from news items) tended
to stress the entry of the USSR into the Pacific War and directly
or by implication to minimize the effect of the atomic bomb as a
factor in the collapse of Japan. The general impression is that
the announcement of the atomic bomb was submerged by the mass
of reports on the Soviet victory over Japan. Dozens of articles
reported military operations, mostly of local importance, men-
tioning many persons even of lower rank
This handling of the question appears to indicate (a)
initial uncertainty as to how to treat it; and (b) an early recogni-
tion of the military significance of the bomb and the need to mW-
mize it,
The predominant effort of the Soviet press and radio
in this phase appears to have been to belittle the importance of
the weapon, not only through the space allotted to the items on it,
but also in the content of editorial comment and articles,
(b) Second phase (from the end of the war to the end
of November 194 a leas-'phase, the creasing but still inter-
mittent and scanty references in the press consisted largely of
articles on the scientific aspects of atomic energy and the wider
political implications of the bomb. Articles dwelt on the secretive
attitude of the US respecting production techniques, and gave rela-
tively large coverage to the Molotov speech of 6 November and the
statement of the Western leaders that they were determined to
preserve the secret of the atomic bomb. Popular terest in atomic
energy appears to have outrun material available in the Russian
press. Two numbers of British Ally (a Soviet Ministry of Informa-
tion publication) dealing w-TEEWe were commanding a. black
market figure thirty times their list-price in October. In the follow4-
ing month a public lecture on atomic energy was announced.
During this phase the fact of secrecy was freely depre-
ciated, and the theories upon which the atomic bomb was based were
claimed as common knowledge. It was optimistically promised that
the secrets of production could not long remain in US hands, Molotov
declared that, "'We shall have atomic energy and more. " Soviet
research in atomic energy and in cosmic rays was stressed,,, with
the emphasis always upon the pea.'eful uses to which these would
be put.
A 2
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On the other hand, while depreciating the fact of
secrecy, the Soviet press, and r?&&,dio belabored the US for keeping
the secret, reading into this an intent to use the atomic bomb as
a diplomatic weapon, and perk ps ultimately as a mil ta.ry?y Weapon
directed against the USSR itself. In comments on the foreign press.,,
both the press and radio disparaged articles which urged the reten-
tion of the secret and extolled these which advocated its being shay(-'