Doctoral Dissertation Research: Nuclear Arms Control in American Science, Politics, and Culture

本期博士学位论文改进基金为技术史研究提供资助。具体地说，该项目将考察从20世纪50年代末导弹时代开始到冷战结束期间，防止、控制、防御核战争，甚至解除核战争并消除其可能性的努力，这些努力大致收集在广泛的核军备控制画布下。它侧重于参与这一时期各种核军备控制努力的核专家的科学、政治和体制工作。它跟踪他们在各种场所的活动：基于大学的研究、国防咨询、国家媒体和美国国会的公共政治参与，以及新的非国家军备控制组织。这笔赠款主要用于支付在华盛顿特区、伊萨卡、旧金山和圣迭戈进行档案研究的旅费。智力价值该项目将展示军备控制的结构是如何工作的，以及核武器控制的意义在这一时期如何变化和扩大。在20世纪60年代，军备控制本身就是冷战的追求，是核安全国家自己的特权。到了20世纪70年代和80年代，军备控制已经具有了21世纪观察者更熟悉的一些内涵，作为一项国家本身似乎不情愿或根本无法正确执行的事业。该项目试图通过展示它是如何从专家、联邦政府和公众之间不断变化的互动中出现的，来绘制和解释这种实践和意义上的广泛变化。许多学者记录了美国设计和制造核武器的努力，而不是记录为防止核战争所做的努力。广泛的影响这个项目的结果将引起现代美国政治史学家和科学史学家的兴趣，以及核时代和冷战的所有学者。除了在论文研究的基础上出版一本学术书籍和学术文章外，研究人员还打算为读者撰写专业历史学家之外的文章。预计会产生更广泛影响的两个一般领域。一个是专业物理学家群体，他们与核武器和核武器控制挑战有着长期而复杂的关系。另一个是安全政策和国际事务，他们对军控政策、导弹防御和冷战遗留问题有着持久的兴趣。总而言之，该项目有可能为思考核武器以及外交政策、国内政治和科学技术之间的关系做出广泛贡献。

IntroductionThis doctoral dissertation improvement grant supports research in history of technology. Specifically, the project will examine efforts to prevent nuclear war, to control it, defend against it, and even to disarm and disable its possibility, efforts loosely collected under the broad canvas of Nuclear Arms Control, from the beginning of the missile age in the late 1950s through the end of the Cold War. It focuses on the scientific, political and institutional work of nuclear experts who were involved in various nuclear arms control efforts in this period. It follows their activities in a variety of venues: university-based research, defense consulting, public political engagement in the national media and the U.S. Congress, and in new non-state arms control organizations. The grant is predominantly for covering travel expenses for conducting archival research in Washington D.C., Ithaca, San Francisco, and San Diego.Intellectual MeritThe project will demonstrate how the structure of arms control work and the very meaning of Nuclear Arms Control shifted and multiplied in this period. In the 1960s, arms control was itself a Cold War pursuit, the nuclear security state's own prerogative. By the 1970s and 80s, arms control had taken on some of the connotations more familiar to a twenty-first-century observer, as an enterprise the state itself seemed reluctant or simply unable to properly execute. The project seeks to chart and explain this broad shift in practice and meaning by showing how it emerged from a changing interaction between experts, the federal government, and the public. Numerous scholars have documented American efforts to design and construct nuclear weapons, by contrast with documenting what was done to prevent nuclear war.Broader Impacts The results of this project will be of interest to historians of modern U.S. politics and historians of science, alongside the full range of scholars of the nuclear age and the Cold War. Besides publishing a scholarly book and scholarly articles based on the dissertation research, the researcher intends to write articles for audiences beyond that of professional historians. Two general areas of broader impact are envisioned. One is the community of professional physicists, which has had a long and complex relationship with nuclear weapons and the challenges of nuclear arms control. Another is the security policy and international affairs community, which has an enduring interest in arms control policy, missile defense, and the legacy of the Cold War. In sum, the project has the potential to contribute broadly to thinking about nuclear weapons and the relationship between foreign policy, domestic politics, and science and technology.