Barry is no Harry

On July 24, 1945, Harry Truman spilled the beans. As he recalls in his memoirs, “I casually mentioned to [Joseph] Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make ‘good use of it against the Japanese’.” All versions of this story agree on one point: Stalin feigned disinterest in news about the atomic bomb. We know now that the Soviets knew all about our supposedly secret atomic program and were keenly interested.

Indeed, they were racing to build their own bomb … and stealing U.S. secrets just as fast as they could. Stalin’s desire to get ahead of the Americans as a nuclear power was unrelenting.