Offstage Villains and Telling a Balanced Story
Two books on the history of nuclear secrecy - and my sister's novella
Recently, a book on the history of nuclear secrecy that I'd read a few years ago came back to my mind: Restricted Data, by Alex Wellerstein. It's a good history, but it's imbalanced. It talks a lot about the program to keep information about nuclear bombs secret, and the various Americans who had an interest in parts of it being made public, but nothing about the threats the secrecy was responding to. And in the end, this imbalance leaves readers with a distorted picture of the historical story Wellerstein is trying to tell.
I thought for a while this imbalance was inherent in the topic area. I didn't see how a writer could include those threats in a story about Americans and the American government program.
But what spurred me to think about this again was that I read another book - Red Cloud at Dawn by Michael Gordin - that goes a ways toward redressing that imbalance. I think that the contrast between these two good books' approaches can illuminate an important point about storytelling, whether telling fictional stories or history.
Wellerstein's history of nuclear secrecy in the United States is a history of just that: the secrecy program in the United States government, and the American interests (such as the civilian nuclear industry) that it interacted with. The main theme is the tension between the two competing goals of liberty and security. We see the US government making significant sacrifices in the name of security, such as essentially aborting industrial laser fusion because that was held to be too close to bomb-making. There is a point to this, as Wellerstein acknowledges: we really don't want other powers using nuclear weapons.
But he doesn't spend much time on that point. We get that bare acknowledgement, but we don't see the threat on the page. We don't see other powers' nuclear programs; we don't even see them secondhand through rumors of them or seeing how the US secrecy apparatus reacts to them. The Soviet bomb is mentioned, but as a bare fact. The villain is offstage, and we don't even see their shadow, so we don't think of their threat as real.
What feels real to us, when we read the story Wellerstein tells, is the conflict between American liberty and the American government's ideas about keeping nuclear information secret. That's the conflict he talks about. We read about the US government discouraging industrial laser fusion research, which could be very useful for sustainable energy. We don't hear the story of why - how they're afraid it could give other countries a leg up on developing nuclear bombs. So unless a reader really thinks about what he might not be including, they'll want to conclude the secrecy program - both about industrial fusion and everywhere else - is overblown.
Of course, in reality, this's just part of the story. Foreign powers wanting nuclear bombs are real, even though Wellerstein doesn't talk about them. Perhaps because he recognizes this, to his credit, Wellerstein doesn't attempt any recommendations at the end of his book. But the framing of the story has led to a blanket conclusion that Wellerstein perhaps didn't intend.
This can easily happen when you're writing a fictional story, too.
I'm remembering one novella my sister wrote when we were teenagers, about young dragon-riders conscripted into a war. When I read it, I told her she'd portrayed really well how uncaring their commanders were, and said I was waiting for them to join the other side to fight against their own commanders.
It turns out that my sister had meant to portray both sides as bad and uncaring. When I looked again, there were a couple scenes that mentioned that. But, because our protagonists' own commanders got so much more time visible on the page, they're the antagonists that I as a reader cared about. So, I walked away with a different picture than the one she'd meant to tell.
This's the same thing that happens with Wellerstein's story, where Americans get so much more time on the page than the other antagonists of foreign nuclear programs. It's as if someone was writing a story about arguments about Gondor's military, without really talking about the evil Dark Lord Sauron whom they're fighting.
My sister shelved her novella (not primarily for this reason, but it was one of them), and she says she still doesn't know whether or how to fix the problem without fundamentally changing the story she's telling.
At first, I thought Wellerstein couldn't fix the problem either.
It did seem inherent in the story he's trying to tell. The characters in the story of American nuclear secrecy are the American government and American citizens who interact with it in some way - which usually means opposing it. Maybe there's enough information to tell the story of foreign nuclear programs, but that's a different story barely interacting. And, terrorists' nuclear efforts are clearly unknown. At least with the story of computer security, you can talk about successful hacks. But thankfully, there've been no nuclear wars to talk about.
But then, I read Red Cloud at Dawn by Michael Gordin. Gordin tells just one part of Wellerstein's story: how the United States nuclear program related to the initial Soviet nuclear program. We get alternating sections on the American and Soviet stories: how America released information or Soviet spies stole it, and how the Soviet program used it. (They used it only in limited ways - Wellerstein and Gordin both say it wasn't vital - but it definitely helped them.) Here, the foreign antagonists are present onstage. We feel how the US security establishment isn't just playing against domestic civil liberties advocates, but against foreign foes.
Gordin doesn't dig as deep into the founding of the secrecy program as Wellerstein does, but he easily could have. At the time of his story, in the late 1940's, the whole national security establishment was forming. The debates about how much nuclear information to release had even more impact than Gordin shows: as Wellerstein explains, they set precedent for everything Wellerstein talks about in his book. For the first time, we had a concept of secret information in peacetime, beyond details of individual military operations. The two books could easily have been combined into one larger story.
This combined story wouldn't have fully shown the adversaries Wellerstein alludes to. For that story, we'd also need to hear about the nuclear programs of many other countries and whatever plots terrorists and other non-state actors might have. This would be a very long book even if it could be told - and most of it isn't public knowledge to tell. But even telling the story of one adversary, the Soviets, would - I'm now realizing - be a very significant something.
Back when my sister and I were talking about her novella, I seem to remember suggesting a similar solution: have one plot arc about the other side of the war, to show how their leaders aren't any better than our protagonists' own commanders. If I remember correctly, my sister objected that it would cut up the flow of the plot and not fit with the rest of the story. The story she told was focused on our protagonists, and it wouldn't fit with the world for them to spend time on the other side of the war.
Wellerstein could make a similar objection: one chapter on the Soviet program would've disrupted the flow of his story. Also, since he's writing about actual history, he could also object that it'd require a lot more research.
This's a valid objection. My idea about combining his book with Gordin's would mean telling a different story: a broader story, less focused on American politics, more focused on international espionage. But if you want to leave people with an accurate picture of the characters you're talking about, I believe you need to tell that different story. Otherwise - like in my sister's novella - the person whose misdeeds you do talk about ends up looking like the villain even though there might be another (perhaps larger) villain offstage.
Sometimes you might not want to. For example, it's valid for an academic historian to write a paper about the Soviet government's laudable literacy program which doesn't spend much time on all the evil things they were doing. Most people reading those papers already know what the Soviets were doing. But, if you're writing for a general audience that doesn't know much about your characters, I think it's important to tell a story that leaves them with the right impression of them.
(Or, if you're writing fiction, you can just change around your characters. I don't think my sister ever considered that solution, because the characters were already firmly set in her mind. People telling stories from real history don't have that option even if they wanted to.)
All in all, I'm not sure I got much from Wellerstein's book. I'm glad the story is told, but the only conclusion I drew is that the whole national security establishment may be regrettable. But, I was asking myself, is the alternative any better? Wellerstein doesn't let me even begin to answer that question, because he doesn't show the dynamics they're thinking about from the inside.
Gordin's book made me realize that, no, the alternative wasn't any better. Or, at least, he helps me understand why the United States government made the choice it did. I know the people now as characters. Together, this's a more balanced story.