"The U.S. and Russia are engaged in a race whose outcome may determine the course of history. The goal: development of the most frightful weapon conceived by man - a virtually unstoppable 16,000-mph intercontinental ballistic missile that can drop a hydrogen warhead on a city 5,000 miles away. At stake is not only the security of the free world , but our position as the world's most technological and industrial power." When it became clear to all that the Soviets had the bomb - and Washington was the target - the egg-heads in D.C. decided it was time to disperse various government offices to the suburbs:
"Given any warning at all, the National Security Resources Board now seems confident it can preserve at least a skeleton Government. But as for the run-of-the-mine Federal employee, he'll have to take his chances amid the irradiated rubble..." This article concerns the observations of a Japanese diplomat who was privileged to tour a Chinese Army base. He spoke at length about all that he saw during his tour and used his surveillance, mixed with his general knowledge of China, to understand what their general capabilities would be in the event of war. When asked what was most impressive about the Chinses military, the diplomat replied:
"The mining. They explained that the antipersonnel mine is their most unusual weapon, developed primarily to sap the enemy's morale."
This is a 1948 Soviet poster that foreign correspondents of the day reported as having been widely distributed across the Worker's Paradise. A veiled piece of patriotic pageantry, it was clearly intended to intimidate the Western democracies; it made its appearance a few weeks into the Berlin Blockade (June, 1948 - May, 1949) - an international stunt that gained the Soviets nothing. From Amazon:
Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin
This article from February, 1950 goes on in some detail explaining why Americans should not be worried in the least about the fact that the Soviets now have atomic capability because the U.S. military has bigger and far more destructive bombs.
"A hydrogen bomb could cause damage almost without limit. The Nagasaki plutonium bomb affected an area of 10 square miles. The new weapon could destroy an area of 100, or 1,000 square miles." | 
