Lavrentii Beria , head of the Soviet secret police and in charge of the Soviet nuclear program, is provided top-secret details on the U.S. plutonium bomb by a spy working inside Los Alamos . It analyzes Soviet foreign policy in alarming terms. Fuchs describes certain structural characteristics of the superbomb. Reactor A at Chelyabinsk reaches full criticality, enabling the USSR to produce plutonium. Secret negotiations between the USSR and Western allies begin to solve Berlin crisis.
Plutonium separation begins at reactor in Chelyabinsk.
The first General Curtis LeMay war plan for the Strategic Air Command envisions attacks on 70 Soviet cities with 133 bombs. A U.S. weather plane flying off the coast of Siberia picks up evidence of radioactivity. U.S. government approves program to expand production of uranium and plutonium. In London British physicist Klaus Fuchs confesses to being a Soviet spy. The plan appears not to work.