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This report is an unclassified-and consequently, somewhat abridged-version of a document prepared during the summer of 1954. Except as required to remove classified references, and to restore continuity, it follows the original. The earlier document (issued on October 1,1954) was the first draft of a chapter for a proposed history of the technical work at Los Alamos from the end of the war up to 1954. This particular chapter was to cover the Los Alamos work on thermonuclear weapons from 1946 to January 1950-the time of President Truman's decision concerning U.S. work on the hydrogen bomb. Several other sections for such a hiitory were also drafted (by other authors); but the project as a whole began to appear to be too onerous to carry further-at least in the hands of a group of persons already fully occupied (and much more intensely interested) in the more immediate undertakings of the Laboratory. This unclassified version has been prepared in order to provide a factual account of the Los Alamos work on thermonuclear weapons during this particular period. Because of necessary classification restrictions it would not have been possible many years ago to release an account which was both factual and coherent. Many such restrictions are, of course, still in effect; but the steady progress of declassification has now reached the point (or may even have reached it several years ago) at which it is possible to make the present report available. Inasmuch as a distinctly erroneous impression of these matters is rather widely held, it will seem worthwhile if this report should ultimately help establish a better understanding of what actually took place.