2016 Volume 26 Issue 1 Pages 25-41
The first nuclear power plant in the world went into operation at Obninsk, a southern suburb of Moscow, in July 1954. One year later, the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held a large-scale international conference, the Session of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy, as an international stage to demonstrate their scientific achievements in nuclear science and technology. Soviet scientists subsequently challenged the United States' nuclear advancement at the First United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy at Geneva. Could the Soviet scientists succeed in gaining international acceptance and prestige? Could they gain self-confidence? Drawing for the most part on previously classified archival sources in Russia, this paper tries to shed new light on these questions.
