The chilling document that traces nuclear weapons back to Britain – and the threat we now face
Eighty years ago today, an American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
It was the dawn of the atomic age, but the birth of the bomb can be traced beyond the deserts of New Mexico to Britain, five years earlier.
A copy of a hand-typed document, now in the Bodleian library in Oxford, is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon.
The Frisch-Peierls Memorandum was written by two nuclear physicists at the University of Birmingham in 1940.
The memorandum is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon
Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls don’t feature in the film Oppenheimer, but their paper is credited with jump-starting the Manhattan Project that ultimately built the bomb.
Both Jewish scientists who had both fled Nazi Germany, they built on the latest understanding of uranium fission and nuclear chain reactions, to propose a bomb made from enriched uranium that was compact enough to be carried by an aircraft.
The document, so secret at the time only one copy was made, makes for chilling reading.
Not only does it detail how to build a bomb, but foretells the previously unimaginable power of its blast.
“Such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area,” they wrote.
“The size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city.”
Radioactive fallout would be inevitable “and even for days after the explosion any person entering the affected area will be killed”.
Both lethal properties of the bombs that would subsequently fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing around 100,000 instantly and more than 100,000 others in the years that followed – most of them civilians.
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The atomic bomb was dropped by parachute and exploded 580m (1,900ft) above Hiroshima
‘The most terrifying weapons ever created’
Those bombs had the explosive power of around 16 and 20 kilotonnes of TNT respectively – a force great enough to end the Second World War.
But compared to nuclear weapons of today, they were tiny.
“What we would now term as low yield nuclear weapons,” said Alexandra Bell, president of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which campaigns for nuclear disarmament.
“We’re talking about city destroyers…these really are the most terrifying weapons ever created.”
The atomic bomb flattened Hiroshima – but is much less powerful than modern nuclear weapons
Many of these “high yield” nuclear weapons are thermonuclear designs first tested in the 1950s.
They use the power of nuclear fission that destroyed Hiroshima to harness yet more energy by fusing other atoms together.
Codenamed “Mike”, the first test of a fusion bomb in 1952 yielded at least 500 times more energy than those dropped on Japan.
Impractically devastating, but proof of lethal principle.
Variants of the W76 thermonuclear warhead currently deployed by the US and UK are around 100Kt, six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
Just one dropped on a city the size of London would result in more than a quarter of a million deaths.
The largest warhead in America’s current arsenal, the B83 has the explosive equivalent of 1.2 megatonnes (1.2 million tonnes of TNT) and would kill well over a million instantly.
But modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are designed to carry multiple warheads.
Russia’s Sarmat 2, for example, is thought to be capable of carrying 10 megatonnes of nuclear payload.
They’re designed to strike multiple targets at once, but if all were dropped on a city like London most of its population of nine million would be killed or injured.
If that kind of power is incomprehensible, consider how many nuclear warheads there now are in the world.
Nine countries – the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – have nuclear weapons.
Several others are interested in having them.
The US and Russia have around 4,000 nuclear warheads each – 90% of the global nuclear arsenal and more than enough to destroy civilisation.
According to analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China us thought to have around 600 warheads, but has indicated a desire to catch up.
Beijing is believed to be building up to 100 new warheads a year and the ICBMs to deliver them.
Five more nuclear powers, including the UK, plan to either increase or modernise their existing nuclear stockpiles.
The nuclear arms race that created this situation was one imagined by Frisch and Peierls in their 1940 memorandum.
Given the mass civilian casualties it would inevitably cause, the scientists questioned whether the bomb should ever be used by the Allies.
Chinese soldiers simulate nuclear combat
They wrote, however: “If one works on the assumption that Germany is, or will be, in the possession of this weapon… the most effective reply would be a counter-threat with a similar bomb.”
What they didn’t believe was that the bomb they proposed, and went on to help build at Los Alamos, would ever be used.
Devastated by its use on Japan, Peierls disavowed the bomb and later campaigned for disarmament.
But that work is now as unfinished as ever.
Non-proliferation treaties helped reduce the expensive and excessive nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US, and prevent more countries from building nuclear bombs.
A Russian airman on a nuclear-capable strategic bomber
‘Everything trending in the wrong direction’
But progress ground to a halt with the invasion of Ukraine, as nuclear tensions continued elsewhere.
“After all the extremely hard, tedious work that we did to reduce nuclear risks everything is now trending in the wrong direction,” said Alexandra Bell.
“The US and Russia refuse to talk to each other about strategic stability.
“China is building up its nuclear arsenal in an unprecedented fashion and the structures that were keeping non-proliferation in place stemming the spread of nuclear weapons are crumbling around us.”
The US president is always in reach of the ‘nuclear football’ , a bag which contains the codes and procedures needed to authorise a nuclear attack
‘New risks increasing the threat’
The world may have come closer to nuclear conflict during the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, but the fragmented and febrile state of geopolitics now is more dangerous, she argues.
Conflict regularly flares between nuclear armed India and Pakistan; Donald Trump’s foreign policy has sparked fears that South Korea might pursue the bomb to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat; some states in the Middle East are eyeing a nuclear deterrent to either nuclear-wannabe Iran or nuclear armed Israel.
Add to the mix the military use of AI and stressors like climate change, and the view of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is the situation is more precarious than in 1963.
“It’s more dangerous, but in a different way,” said Alexandra Bell. “The confluence of all these new existential risks are increasing the threat worldwide.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for Israel to take full military control of the Gaza Strip has been condemned, amid fears a reoccupation could put the lives of Palestinians and the remaining Israeli hostages at risk.
Asked in a Fox News interview on Thursday if Israel would “take control of all of Gaza”, the prime minister replied: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.”
Latest updates from war in Gaza
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” he continued. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
Israel already controls around 75% of Gaza and has largely sealed its borders.
To take full control, it would need to launch ground operations in the remaining areas that have not been destroyed, where most of Gaza’s two million population have sought refuge.
Israel’s security cabinet, which would need to approve the military operations, began a meeting on Thursday evening, but for now no official announcement has been made.
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Netanyahu on Israel’s plans for Gaza
Plan will ‘put hostages and soldiers in danger’
The plan has been criticised by many, including families of hostages being held by Hamas and a top Israeli Defence Force (IDF) official.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, said Mr Netanyahu promised her that he would pursue a deal to free the hostages.
She said in a post on X: “Someone who talks about a comprehensive deal doesn’t go and conquer the Strip and put hostages and soldiers in danger.
“Netanyahu and his partners are about to condemn [Matan] to death.”
Israel’s military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, has warned against occupying Gaza, saying it would endanger the hostages and put further strain on the IDF, according to Israeli media reports.
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In an illustration of the kind of opposition Israel could face internationally if it purses the plan, a Jordanian official aid Arabs would “only support what Palestinians agree and decide on”.
“Security in Gaza must be done through legitimate Palestinian institutions,” the source said.
“Arabs will not be agreeing to Netanyahu’s policies nor clean his mess.”
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Israeli hostage families sail near Gaza
At least 42 more Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, say hospitals
It comes after at least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals.
At least 13 of those people were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone where UN aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by desperate crowds and looters.
An Israeli soldier, standing next to an Israeli flag, looks out across Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Another two were killed on roads leading to sites run by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
The GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday.
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The war in Gaza began when Hamas killed about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – in its attack on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. They still hold approximately 50 of those hostages – with 20 believed to be alive – after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
Vladimir Putin has played down the possibility of a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that while it is possible, certain conditions must be met.
The Russian president was responding to an American proposal of a trilateral meeting between him, the Ukrainian president and Donald Trump.
The idea was floated by Steve Witkoff, the US president’s envoy during talks with Mr Putin on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Mr Ushakov said the three-way option was “simply mentioned by the American representative during the meeting in the Kremlin”.
He added, however: “This option was not specifically discussed.”
On the prospect of meeting Mr Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin said: “I have already said many times that I have nothing against it in general – it is possible.”
However, he distanced himself from any such meeting happening soon, adding: “But certain conditions must be created for this. Unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.”
Pic: AP
Mr Zelenskyy offered to speak to Vladimir Putin in May, challenging him to meet in Istanbul for talks on ending the war in Ukraine – an invitation the Russian leader declined.
While a trilateral meeting appears to be off the agenda, Mr Ushakov said an agreement had been reached for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet “in the coming days”.
After the US president touted a “very good prospect” of the leaders meeting for Ukraine ceasefire talks, Mr Ushakov said on Thursday that Russian and American officials had started working on the details.
“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was essentially reached to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,” he said.
“We are now beginning concrete preparations together with our American colleagues.”
Regarding a trilateral meeting, Mr Ushakov said: “We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive.”
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Will Putin agree to Trump’s condition to meet Zelenskyy?
It would be the first time the two leaders have met since Mr Trump returned to office, and follows a three-hour meeting between Mr Putin and Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday.
Following the meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it appeared that Russia was “more inclined to a ceasefire”.
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The Ukrainian president said he planned to speak on Thursday to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as well as contacts from France and Italy.
He said he planned to discuss a ceasefire, a leaders’ summit and long-term security, adding: “Ukraine has never wanted war and will work toward peace as productively as possible.”
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A poll from Gallup suggests 69% of Ukrainians support a negotiated end to the war with Russia – an almost complete reversal from 2022, when 73% favoured fighting until victory.
Most said they were sceptical the war would end soon, with 68% saying they believed it was unlikely that active fighting would stop within the next 12 months.
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Seven hours is a long time in US politics.
At 10am, Donald Trump accused Russia of posing a threat to America’s national security.
By 5pm, Mr Trump said there was a “good prospect” of him meeting Vladimir Putin “soon”.
There had, he claimed, been “great progress” in talks between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.
It’s difficult to gauge the chances of a meeting between the two leaders without knowing what “great progress” means.
Is Russia “inclined” towards agreeing a ceasefire, as Ukraine’s president now claims?
Is Mr Putin prepared to meet with his Ukrainian foe, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too?
The very fact that we’re asking those questions suggests something shifted on a day when there was no expectation of a breakthrough.
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Mr Trump repeatedly vowed to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.
On day 198 of his presidency, he might, just might, be one step closer to achieving that.
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