Translated material
Riddles of the cannibal -eater torpedo
If you look at the “products” presented [in the President’s Epistle], then at least one of them clearly traces the covenants of the great humanist of the 20th century - academician Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. ... The Sakharov idea was that a series of super-minute explosions along the coast of [America] could provoke a giant killer wave. That secret Soviet project was called T-15.
"Testaments" of Academician Sakharov frightened modern America [1]
Great -power patriots of former times maliciously reminded that the vaunted humanist of sugars, in his own expression, invented the "cannibal" weapon. Now he is attributed to the covenants supposedly frightening America, and the “cannibalist” epithet is hidden, breaking off a quote from his “memories”. Here is the quote completely: “After the test of the“ large ” product [“ Tsar-bomb ”, 1961] I was worried that there was no good carrier for him (bombers did not count, they are easy to knock down)-that is, in a military sense we worked wasted. I decided that such a carrier may appear a large torpedo launched from the submarine. I fantasized that you can develop a direct-flow water-pair atomic reactive engine for such a torpedo. The goal of the attack from a distance of several hundred kilometers should be the enemy ports. The war at sea is lost, if the ports are destroyed - the sailors assure us in this. The case of such a torpedo can be made very durable, mines and a barrier network will not be terrible for it. Of course, the destruction of the ports-as a surface explosion of a torpedo “jumped out” from the water with a 100-megaton charge, and an underwater explosion-is inevitably associated with very large human victims.
One of the first with whom I was discussing this project was Rear Admiral P.F. Fomin (in the past-a combat commander, it seems a Hero of the Soviet Union). He was shocked by the “cannibal ” character of the project and noticed in a conversation with me that military sailors were used to fighting an armed enemy in open battle and that the very thought of such a massacre was disgusting for him.
I was ashamed and never discussed my project with anyone again. I am now writing about all this without fears that someone will seize these ideas-they are too fantastic, clearly require exorbitant expenses and the use of great scientific and technical potential for their realization and do not correspond to the modern flexible military doctrines, in general, they are of little interest. It is especially important that with a modern level of technology, such a torpedo is easy to detect and destroy on the way. ”
The second paragraph, of course, does not need great -powers, since it neutralizes the first, prevents the nuclear electorate interferes and prepare thermonuclear.
If you read Sakharov’s full story carefully, intriguing questions arise. Who is this noble admiral, with whom Sakharov had the right to discuss courageous ideas? Do the quotes mean the word “cannibalist” that the admiral uttered him, or so Sakharov expressed his impression of the conversation twenty years later? What exactly is he "ashamed"? Is the “ordinary” thermonuclear bomb, in the invention of which he played a decisive role, is a less cannibal weapon? The typical power of the thermonuclear bomb - 5 mt - was three hundred times higher than that exploded in Hiroshima. Is it possible to destroy the city with an air nuclear explosion more humane than underwater?
In search of answers to these questions, we recall Sakharov’s warning in his “memoirs”:
“ About the period of my life and work in 1948-1968. I write with some defaults caused by the requirements of maintaining secrecy. I consider myself a life -related obligation to preserve state and military secrets, voluntarily accepted by me in 1948, no matter how my fate has changed. ”
Military historical facts
In 1994, five years after the death of Sakharov and three years after the collapse of the Soviet regime, the Military History Journal published an article “How Sea Nuclear Weapons were created”. The author-Vice Admiral E. A. Shitikov, the former head of the nuclear weapons department of the Navy-relied on his thirty years of experience and declassified documents. Then the book “The History of Nuclear Weapons of the Fleet (Essays on the Creation of the training ground and tests on the New Earth)” was published [2].
These military-historical works revealed the details about which the “father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb” had no right to write, but could not know about some.
1. The idea of a giant nuclear torpedo for the attack of coastal objects arose long before the king-bomb of 1961 and even before the test of the first thermonuclear bomb, and not at all with Sakharov . Back in September 1952, Stalin signed a decision on the creation of an atomic submarine, for the weapons of which two types of nuclear torpedoes were developed: 24 m long and a weight of 40 tons, with a code name T-15, and 20 times smaller-the T -5 of traditional caliber.
The initiator of the giant T-15 was the captain of the 1st rank V. I. Alferov, who, despite his naval rank, in the Ministry of Environment, in the Nuclear Center in Sarov (KB-11, or the object), and at the end of his career, became deputy minister.
In the Navy, as Shitikov writes, the attitude towards Alfierov was “extremely negative” after his denunciation, led by a group of admirals led by N. G. Kuznetsov (rehabilitated after Stalin’s death). It was extremely negative that the sailors' attitude towards a giant torpedo was also, but for reasons purely naval: the submarine, which took on board this giant, could no longer take any other torpedoes. And, despite the influence of Alferov, in 1955 the work on the T-15 was stopped.
2. The revival of the idea of the super-torpedo prompted because of the ocean , where American bombels rackled their heads in search of military meaning in the 1961 super-powerful Soviet explosion. And they did not find such an object for the destruction of which the power of 50 megatons would be required. It was difficult for business Americans to admit that this was only a demonstration designed for a propaganda effect. And now the commander of the American submarine, who watched the super -bombed in advance by the Soviet test (at the northern landfill, at the New Earth), in the story to journalists suggested that such a charge can be used in naval weapons, where a giant wave such as tsunami could be added to ordinary amazing factors. Khrushchev was delivered from the magazine, and he entrusted the "ministers of medium engineering and defense with the involvement of [academician] M. A. Lavrentiev to work out this issue."
Admiral Fomin, about the conversation with whom A. D. Sakharov, led the nuclear weapons of the fleet and tests of all types of nuclear weapons - bombs, missiles, torpedoes. Under his leadership, the American “RAC offer” was also worked out, and the result was negative.
How to understand the story of Sakharov?
Judging by all testimonies, Admiral Fomin was no less a sound person than a Saharov physicist. Therefore, they could not discuss what is more humane: to destroy the city with an air nuclear explosion or underwater. The question was completely different: will the nuclear suicide of mankind occur or not? The invention of thermonuclear weapons convinced the leaders of the great powers that nuclear weapons were necessary not for use, but for intimidation.
The ancient connection of war and peace has not changed: you want peace, frighten a potential aggressor. In the world, separated by barbed wire along the borders of the social camp, on both sides there was no doubt who he was a potential aggressor. For one side - those who resist the onset of a bright communist future, for the other - those who want the whole world to drag their social camps for the thorny wire.
Such mutual intimidation is called the doctrine of mutual guaranteed destruction, or, “on the other hand”, Mutual Assured Destruption (MAD). It was a serious business to provide this crazy one, but both Fomin and Sakharov were engaged in a guarantee. Both worked in a military-industrial complex.
The Military-Industrial Complex expression was introduced into English by President Eisenhower in his farewell speech of 1961. The five-star general, commanding the Anglo-American forces during the war, and then NATO forces, warned:
“Our government should prevent the unlawful influence of the military-industrial complex, acquired intentionally or inaccurately. The possibility of destructive growth of such an influence exists now and will remain in the future. We must not allow this complex to threaten our freedoms and democratic processes. You should not consider anything guaranteed. Only a vigilant and informed civil society can achieve a reasonable combination of a powerful industry and a military machine with our peaceful methods and goals so that safety and freedom flourish together ”[3].
In the Soviet language, the expression “military-industrial commission” appeared back in 1938, and the complex of the same name actually determined the life of the USSR. Those who worked within this complex were guided by the consciousness of state necessity, generously rewarded and related to fascinating scientific and technical tasks. In different people, these three factors developed in different proportions.
Fomin was a generation older than Sakharov, in the military -industrial complex he solved the tasks only administrative and is hardly very exciting. And Sakharov, in addition to the leadership of his department, remained a physicist-inventor. He had a rare combination of talents of a theoretical physicist and an engineer-inventor. Generally speaking, such two abilities are contrary to one another, but in the creative laboratory of Sakharov they successfully “collaborated” in solving the tasks that life set for him. One of these tasks was raised by the question of a super -traffic, lowered to elaboration from the very top. The study included the question of which engine can move super -leisure torpedo. An exciting scientific and technical issue. And “Bombodel No. 1” fantasized the answer - “ direct -flowing waterfall atomic reactive engine ”. He, apparently, decided to discuss this scientific and technical idea with Admiral Fomin, the head of the Navy for nuclear weapons, who led all nuclear trials in 1954-1966.
Given the declassified military-historical circumstances, we can imagine that the admiral first asked the academician why he thinks that to restrain the potential aggressor of the no existing types of cannibal weapons-nuclear bombs and missiles. Both knew that the sword nuclear Damocles was already hanging over the leaders of the great powers, and they know that in the event of a nuclear war, he and all their loved ones would not settle in a deep rear or in a deep bunker, and their country would become uninhabited. What will change if I will attach a super -foam to Damoklov Super Supers? Why do you need to spend folk remedies for this? It is possible that the admiral remembered the old days when the military sailors were ready to defend their native land, parents, wives and children in an open battle. But the military deliberately choose a deadly profession, but the children do not choose something! .. Nuclear weapons are kept so far from the new World War, but to see the hostages in the peaceful population is very dreary.
Sakharov could well be ashamed, realizing that he succumbed to the inertia of the military-industrial complex, in which inventive people-“on duty”-come up with more and more types of weapons of mass destruction. And when the weapon was invented, it is already difficult to say to the authorities: "Enough." What if the potential enemy already came up with and made this weapon?! This is the essence of the “ unprofitable” influence of the military -industrial complex, about which Eisenhower said.
The father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb knew what a heavy burden for the country was a military-industrial complex. When the king-bomb was needed for the nylon king-parashit, the production of nylon stockings was suspended in the USSR. “The country did not spare anything for ...” - the template Soviet formula read. Or the rulers did not spare the country? Sakharov regretted. The USSR economic lag from the United States was then to explain - a destructive war with fascism. Accepting the need for nuclear deterrence to prevent war,
Sakharov was proud that he came up with a cheap “thyroid” for the country.
One of the veterans-bombers, who worked under his leadership, told me somehow not without annoyance about his imagination how to improve a certain nuclear “product”. He came with his radiomation to the boss. He took a memorandum, but ... "Paid under the cloth", perhaps, recalling the lesson of Admiral Fomin. The veteran with whom I talked was an honest, conscientious specialist. He very highly appreciated the scientific and technical level of Sakharov, but did not understand his humanitarian-political thoughts and actions at all and did not even want to think about them. It was outside his interests.
It can be assumed that Admiral Fomin helped the theoretic of Sakharov to think about the role of the military-industrial complex in world politics and his own responsible role.
Why did Sakharov talk about the king-trace?
Why did he “give up” for himself? After all, if not for his own story, no one would have known about the "cannibal" episode.
He wrote his memories on the initiative of his wife in the Gorky exile, considering it likely that they have to finish their lives there. Thinking through this life - in all the severity of his conscience - he was engaged in paper. Then his idea of his native country and the world has long changed, but he looked at his evolution, not giving himself concessions and sometimes exaggerating his inconsistencies in the past.
It is unlikely that anyone would have believed if Sakharov himself had not written that in 1953, under the impression of the death of Stalin and his state mourning, as he put it, he “entered”:
“In a letter [wife] , I wrote:“ I am impressed by the death of a great man. I think about his humanity. ” I can’t vouch for the last word, but there was something like that. ”
However, his then employee V.I. Ritus remembered the other: “ When Stalin died, everyone was in some kind of numbness, they thought something should happen. And Andrei Dmitrievich said: “Nothing will happen, society is a complex system, and all flywheels will rotate as before” ” 1 .
When Sakharov wrote his memories, he had long seen Stalin on the same bench with Hitler, and he made a ruthless diagnosis for himself: “He created an illusory world for himself as excuses.” From his text, however, it is clear that he did not hold the letter he mentioned before his eyes, so that the phrase he had been he had been in the full sense is not a quote.
His phrase in the story of the “cannibalist” torpedo is equally conditional: “ I decided that a large torpedo can appear in such a bearer ... ” These words give the impression that it was he who was the initiator of the “cannibalist” torpedo itself, but in this way he did not reveal the secrets: that in the USSR, weapons of this kind were developed since the early 1950s, which in February 1956, at the direction of Minister of Sakharov Mr. Sakharov with colleagues They evaluated “ Parameters of products with a capacity of 150 megatons and one billion tons of TNT ” (the weight of the 150-megaton “product” was estimated at 100 tons) that the “study” of the suprapex was resumed at the direction of the head of state [4]. What they thought, giving these instructions, high Soviet leaders with a very low level of education, history is not known.
Potential aggression, intimidation, political illusions and weapons fantasies were the realities of the world in which these leaders and highly educated physicists who worked in the military -industrial complex lived. This, largely illusory, the world gave birth to, as Sakharov wrote, "a feeling of exceptional, decisive importance of work to maintain world balance in the framework of the concept of mutual intimidation (then they began to talk about the concept of guaranteed mutual destruction)."
In the illusory world, Khrushchev lived and Khrushchev. Judging by his memoirs, he really did not understand the objections of A. D. Sakharov against his decision to resume the trials in 1961, but understood what kind of forces moved by the physicist who had overwhelmed him. And therefore, he experienced something like reverence for him, even called him a "moral crystal among scientists" 2 . And when, after the tests, the king-bomb of 1961 was given to Khrushchev for approval of the award list and he did not see the name of Sakharov there-because he was against testing,-the Secretary General was indignant. And Sakharov received his third star of the hero of social law 3 .
In his memoirs, Andrei Sakharov peered into the evolution of his picture of the world and denounced what he did not like in himself:
“I needed years to understand and feel how many in [Soviet] concepts of substitution, speculation, deception, inconsistency of reality. At first, I thought, in spite of everything, contrary to what I saw in life, that the Soviet state was a breakthrough into the future, a certain (although still imperfect) prototype for all countries (mass ideology acts so strongly). Then I already examined our state on equal terms with the rest: all governments and regimes are bad in the first approximation, all peoples are oppressed, common dangers threaten everyone. ”
И наконец, пришел к выводу: «Нельзя говорить о симметрии между раковой и нормальной клеткой. А наше государство подобно именно раковой клетке — с его мессианством и экспансионизмом, тоталитарным подавлением инакомыслия, авторитарным строем власти, при котором полностью отсутствует контроль общественности над принятием важнейших решений в области внутренней и внешней политики» .
Советские властители своими действиями, конечно, способствовали эволюции его взглядов. Но главными помощниками были несговорчивая совесть и сила мышления.
Таких помощников нет у нынешних служителей Военно-информационного комплекса (ВИК), которые пытаются приспособить для своего агитпропа всё, что попадет под руку, включая загадочный эпизод из сов. секретной жизни великого гуманиста XX века. Служащим ВИК, впрочем, некогда разбираться в загадках истории, им надо побыстрее обслужить ВПК, и неизвестно, какая из этих двух служб вознаграждается щедрее. В наше время, забывшее иллюзии коммунизма, трудно предположить, что внутри ВПК и ВИК есть и люди, подобные адмиралу Фомину и физику Сахарову. Но если есть, то они в изложенной истории могли бы найти наглядные пособия для уроков, важных и сегодня.
Gennady Gorelik
1. www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2992713
2. elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn1_t1_2006/go,7/
3. www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
4. elib.biblioatom.ru/text/atomny-proekt-sssr_t3_kn2_2009/go,441/
1 Ритус В. И. Беседа 7 июля 1992 года.
2 Хрущев Н. С. Воспоминания. Избранные отрывки / Сост. В. Чалидзе. — New York: Chalidze Publications, 1982, с. 236.
3 Хрущев С. Н. Пенсионер союзного значения. — М.: Новости, 1991, с. 341–342. Сахаров стал пятым физиком — трижды героем после Курчатова, Харитона, Щёлкина (1949, 1951, 1954) и Зельдовича (1949, 1954, 1956).