Professor Bernstein is analyzing major issues involving scientists (mostly physicists) and nuclear-weapons policy. These issues include radiological weapons, 1941-54; the development of tactical nuclear weapons, 1943-54; and the quest for the H-bomb, 1942-54, including the establishment of Livermore Lab and the 1952 and 1954 efforts to secure a test-ban. In this study, Professor Bernstein is examining the roles of leading scientists in weapons and defense policy: their thinking about the development, deployment, and use of weapons; their efforts to slow, redirect, or propel the buildup of the nuclear arsenal; their actual influence on weapons policy; their relationship to the military and AEC funding; and these scientists' beliefs about the ethical responsibilities of scientists. This research is partly an effort to understand the rise of the defense scientists by studying their activities, in depth, in the development of these weapons. This research has grown out of Professor Bernstein's earlier work on World War II and postwar policy. The study is based heavily on archival research in over 45 collections, and also on use of oral histories and on interviews or correspondence with over 20 scientists.
