A lengthy article, appearing on the Russian website, lenta.ru, discusses the development of the first tokamak, the T-1 which was developed by the Soviet Union in November 1954. The article outlines how Igor Kurchatov, the father of the hydrogen bomb, after viewing his third test of a hydrogen bomb, determined to move in the direction of developing this energy in the service of mankind, following, as the article clearly indicates in the footsteps of Vladimir Vernadsky, the real father of nuclear energy in the Soviet Union, who in 1922 said that the atom could become the basis for a potentially infinite source of energy for mankind.
The article also relates the development of the “fusion bagel” concept of Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, which became the basis for the Soviet investigation of nuclear fusion in the building of the first tokamak in 1954. Aware that the task of developing fusion energy as an energy resource could well be beyond the capability of any single nation, and seeking a means of overcoming he divisions of the Cold War, Kurchatov announced at the famous 1956 Party Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced the crimes of Stalin, that the Soviet Union should seek a means of working with foreign scientists, including American scientists, to develop this important source of energy for mankind.
