H-Bomb “Secret” Explodes – But Published Article Contains No Actual Secrets
The Progressive Magazine on this day published an article by Howard Morland on the hydrogen bomb, which the government claimed revealed the alleged “secret” of how to make the bomb.
The government enjoined the publication of that issue (March 9, 1979), but after lengthy legal proceedings finally gave up. Morland argued that the article only discussed the conceptual aspects of the H-Bomb, with no technical engineering details necessary to make one. And no authority has since claimed that the article contains the “secret” to the H-bomb.
The affair echoed an incredible incident nearly 30 years earlier when government officials, on March 31, 1950, seized and burned all 3,000 copies of the respected magazine Scientific American, because they alleged that an article on atomic energy revealed the “secret” to the atomic bomb. Coming at the height of the Cold War, the incident passed with only very limited news coverage and public protest.
Read about the case: Howard Morland, The Secret That Exploded (1981)
Learn more about the making of the H-Bomb: Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995)