The panel's initial recommendation represented a last attempt to forestall the advent of thermonuclear weapons by urging the U.S. government to not undertake a first test of the hydrogen bomb.
[4] However, beginning with the Teller–Ulam design breakthrough in March 1951, there was steady progress and by 1952 there were additional resources devoted to staging, and political pressure towards seeing, an actual test of a hydrogen bomb.
[6] The five members of the panel, and their organizational affiliations at the time of its establishment, were:[6] The two most prominent members were Oppenheimer, a physicist who as head of the Los Alamos Laboratory had been a key figure in the Manhattan Project that created the U.S. atomic bomb, and Bush, an electrical engineer who as director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development had played a pivotal role in persuading the United States government to initiate said project.
Oppenheimer had chaired the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, which had issued a report opposing development of the hydrogen bomb, while Bush had remained always influential in nuclear policy discussions.
[1] The main argument against the panel's proposal was made to Acheson by Paul Nitze, the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department and a lead architect of the NSC 68 blueprint for the Cold War.
[25] The panel had little chance of any of their pleas succeeding in Washington, where they were almost completely lacking in political allies: some of those who had opposed the H-bomb in 1949 had since left positions of influence, while many others had changed their views and now supported it.
[16] Truman wanted to keep the thermonuclear test away from partisan politics but had no desire to order a postponement of it himself; however he did make it known that he would be fine if it was delayed past the election due to "technical reasons" being found.
[29] AEC commissioner Eugene M. Zuckert was sent to Enewetak to see if such a reason could be found, but weather considerations indicated it should go ahead as planned; and so Ivy Mike did, on the date intended.
[30] A few days later, in a secret meeting at Augusta National Golf Club, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower was briefed on what had taken place; the report forwarded to him from the AEC stated in simple fashion that "The island ... which was used for the [test] ... is missing".
[35] Nor was the report optimistic about the possibility of arms limitations agreements being reached between the two nations, given the vast differences between their politico-economic systems and the level of unbending deceitfulness with which the Soviet Union operated.
[40] The panel's report also triggered a desire by Eisenhower to seek a new and different approach to the threat of nuclear war in international relations,[41] one that would give some measure of hope to the American public despite the realities of "enoughness".
[45] Indeed, the Eisenhower administration's "New Look" defense posture emphasized a greater dependence on strategic nuclear weapons, as part of concern for balancing Cold War military commitments with the nation's financial resources.
"[50] Oppenheimer's stances in the panel, first in unsuccessfully urging a postponement of the initial test and then in somewhat successfully advocating for general openness toward the public on nuclear matters, ended up being to his detriment.
[51][53] Those actions against Oppenheimer were part of even greater effort, led by AEC commissioner Lewis Strauss, to rewrite post-World War II American nuclear history to find supposed villains who had delayed and obstructed the U.S. development of the hydrogen bomb.