In 1949, after the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, there was speculation in the Western press that famed Nuclear Scientist Pyotr Kapitsa had played a crucial role in the bomb's development. But Kapitsa, according to Khrushchev, refused to get involved in military research. Here is Khrushchev's version of their relationship.
I asked him, "Comrade Kapitsa, why won't you work on something of military significance? We badly need you to work on our defense program." To the best of my recollection, he answered, "I'm a scientist, and scientists are like artists. They want other people to talk about their work, to make movies about it, to write articles about it in the newspapers. The trouble with military topics is that they're all secret. If a scientist does research in defense problems, he has to bury himself behind the walls of an institute and never be heard of again. His name disappears from print. I don't want that to happen to me. I want to be famous. I want other people to write and talk about my work."
I must admit that this line of reasoning made a strange impression on me—one not at all favorable to Academician Kapitsa.
"Comrade Kapitsa," I said, "what choice do we have? We're forced to concentrate on military matters. As long as there are antagonistic classes and antagonistic states with armies, we simply must push ahead with defense research. Otherwise we'll be choked to death, smashed to pieces, trampled in the dirt."
"Not I, I refuse to have anything to do with military matters."
How could a Soviet citizen say such a thing? A man who'd lived through World War II and seen what our people had suffered at the hands of Hitler. If he had made the same speech to Stalin, you can be sure Stalin would have drawn a very different conclusion, although I admit I was upset.
Then Kapitsa expressed a desire to go abroad. I could tell he wanted the press to raise a lot of hoopla about his traveling to other countries. We deliberated the matter in the leadership. Even though we had let [Atomic Physicist Igor] Kurchatov go to England [in 1956], we decided to wait a while before sending Kapitsa abroad. We still hadn't accumulated enough atomic weapons. Therefore it was essential that we keep secret from our enemies any and all information which might tip them off about how little we had.
We knew Kapitsa had many friends and colleagues in the West, and we were afraid that if we let him make his trip, he might drop a few words here, a few words there. I have to admit that [one] reason I refused Kapitsa permission was possibly that Stalin was still belching inside me. Keep in mind, I'd worked under Stalin for years and years, and you don't free yourself from [Stalinist] habits so easily. It takes time to become conscious of your shortcomings and free yourself.
Now that I've told the story, I feel I've done penance. Kapitsa, too, is only human, and he made a mistake by refusing to work on military problems. My mistake was in refusing to let him go abroad. So, as people used to say when I was a child, we can call it quits. I now ask Academician Kapitsa, whom I've always respected as a great scientist, to forgive me.