ABSTRACT
Let me finally mention Kurchatov's role in declassifying and promoting research on controlled thermonuclear fission. This work was started in 1950 at the initiative of Sakharov and Tamm. This research was top secret (code 'top secret, special file') . This secrecy was, to a certain extent, understandable, because during the first phases of research it seemed that the goal was near and it would be possible to build a controlled thermonuclear reactor in the near future. I always thought that the most attractive aspect of all this was the possibility of obtaining a practically unlimited source of energy. I N Golovin, who kindly read the first version of this article, told me, however, that at that time nobody thought about this aspect of the project. It was thought that the reactor would be used as a source of tritium and neutrons. Tritium and neutrons are formed in reactions of synthesis in the course of collisions of deuterium nuclei (it was planned to fill the reactor chamber with deuterium). 4* I was also working on the problem of controllable thermonuclear synthesis and in 1950-51 wrote a number of reports on this issue. It was good to learn from the book by Golovin [8] that Kurchatov and others had read them. I mention this because either at the end of 1951 or at the beginning of 1952, the 'First Department' terminated my access to my own classified working materials on thermonuclear synthesis (reports, workbooks), i.e. my permit to work on this topic was effectively withdrawn-so high was its value.3 With time it became clear, however, that experimental realization of controllable thermonuclear synthesis is extremely hard to achieve. I am sure, nevertheless, that because of inertia this work would still have been kept secret for years. Luckily, Kurchatov was bold and resolute and ensured that the thermonuclear synthesis problem was declassified. He did it in a dramatic way by giving a lecture on this topic at the British Centre for Atomic Research in Harwell on 25 April, 1956 [11].
