After the fall of Germany in World War II and the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, two super powers emerged in a race to be the best nation in the world.  These two super powers were the United States of America and the United Soviet States of Russia or the USSR.  These two super powers became deadlocked in a race to have the greatest nuclear capablity.

    After the drop of the atomic bomb on Japan by the U.S. the Soviets wanted to develop its own nuclear weapons.  In August of 1949 this feat was accompished.  The Soviets called it the "First Lightning."  An observer from 9 miles away described the bomb, when detanated form the detonation tower, as an "unbearably bright light ... a white fireball engulfed the tower and the workshop."

    On September 23, 1949, president Harry Truman announced the Soviets nuclear capability.  This struck fear in the hearts of American.  A man named Lewis Strautuss argued that that it was "high priority" to have a program to develop the hydrogen bomb or as it was called the super bomb.  A panel of scientists voted unanimously against the development of the hydrogen bomb.  Against the scientists decision President Truman anounced that development on nuclear weapons and the H-bomb would continue.

    The first confrontation between these two super powers was in the Korean War.  Though no nuclear bombs were dropped the U.S. dropped 4,000 tons of bombs on North Korea.

    On August 20, 1953 the Soviet press announced that they started testing on their hydrogen bomb.  It was called the Layer Cake test.  Before the testing of the bomb the surrounding area had to be evacuated.  The people were not allowed to return to there homes for 18 months.  When the bomb was dropped, it turned night into day and made a dust cloud of 6 km.  The testing of this bomb raised the
already high tensions of the Cold War.
 

  In 1954 the Federal Civil Defense Agency insitituted a plan where the were required citizens were to take cover for 15 minutes.  This plans was called Operation Alert.  If they did not take cover for they were fined $500.  In 1961 hundreds of college students organized major protests on the east cost.  Because of the protests, in 1962, Operation Alert was permanently cancelled.

    The first peace talks to end the Cold War took place in Geneva, Switzerland.  There was disagreement on ever aspect of Germany but everyone agreed that there should be limitations on nuclear arms.  The second conference was held at Camp David.  The talks were going great until the U-2 incident.  The U-2 incident was an American spy plane was shot down in Soviet air space.  The Soviets walked out and the conference was shattered.

    The cold war contiued on for another three decades with the two super power building up weapons powerful enough to obliterate the world.  There were many confrontations including the Cuban missle crisis and Vienam.  The cold war finally ended in 1992 with collapse of the Soviet Union.  During the cold war the U.S. spent nearly 5.5 billion dollars on over 70,000 nuclear weapons.  This was a major over production of weapons considering it would only take 1,000 long range missle to defend the U.S.