Man of the Hour

by Jennet Conant

  “This would include the great literature of all countries that should not be lost, such as everything written by Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dante, and Goethe,” Metcalf advised, adding there would be no need to preserve more than a few of the thousands of volumes written about these writers and their works. This would also be true for other great authors of books about music, the fine arts, history, philosophy, economics, and—perhaps especially important—the sciences and all the new developments. It would be difficult to select the material, but he believed it could be done. That said, he thought it would be a “mistake” to go ahead with the project.

  “It could not be done without the world learning about it,” he told Conant. “Everyone would be so upset at the idea of such a catastrophe as the destruction of what we call our civilization that it would be unwise to undertake the task.” After handing in his report, Metcalf heard “nothing more about it,” and concluded that the normally levelheaded university president had only temporarily lost his bearings in the confusion of momentous events. In fact, Conant had concluded that in the event of a nuclear war, university libraries outside the major cities would most likely escape destruction, eliminating the need for the expensive project.

  Conant was hardly alone in experiencing a kind of delayed reaction to the bombings. He and his fellow atomic scientists had lived with the fact of the weapon for years, had experienced what Ernest Lawrence called the “mighty thunder” at Alamogordo, so, unlike the public, they were not stunned by the news from Japan. For them, the psychological repercussions lay in their growing horror of the nuclear holocaust—the grisly scenes reported in the aftermath of the attacks, and the deadly long-term effects of radiation poisoning that emerged in the weeks and months that followed. And in the very real fear that it would happen again. Oppenheimer, according to an FBI report, was a “nervous wreck” after Nagasaki, the descriptions of the dreadful effects being no less painful for being expected. His moral uneasiness had begun after the first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert, when the blinding light had brought to mind lines from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  Many of the Los Alamos scientists experienced a deep personal “revulsion” at their part in killing so many Japanese civilians, especially in regard to the second attack, which seemed so unnecessary. Their initial pride in saving the lives of thousands of American and Allied soldiers faded quickly when, among the praise, the Vatican registered its disapproval, and other accusing voices condemned the United States’ action as “barbarism,” “mass murder,” and “sheer terrorism.”

  Some managed better than others with the crush of ambivalent emotions, finding solace in the idea that the bomb was so decisive, so destructive, that it could not be used again—that “war was now impossible.” The atomic era must and would see the banning of nuclear weapons. For his part, Enrico Fermi did not believe that technical advances in weaponry would frighten men into not waging war, but felt, as a scientist, that moving forward had been a necessity: “It is no good trying to stop knowledge.” Ignorance was not an alternative. Besides, if they had not built the bomb, someone else would have soon enough, and then where would they be? Better that it end up in American hands. Still others regretted the bombings but felt they could not criticize, rationalizing that they had no say in political and military decisions. Teller regretted the loss of life, but his explanation of why he did not regret working on the weapons took the form of a single question: “What if we hadn’t?”

  For most, however, a sense of guilt, “felt more or less deeply, more or less consciously was there, undeniably,” recalled Laura Fermi, who watched how her husband and the other scientists were changed by the knowledge of what they had done. “They assumed for themselves the responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and for the evils that atomic power might cause anywhere, anytime.”

  On September 1 Samuel Allison, speaking on behalf of seventeen atomic scientists gathered for a luncheon at the Shoreland Hotel in Chicago, expressed their sorrow and outrage at the “tragic use” made of their discovery, and criticized the dropping of the second bomb. With the future of the project uncertain, he used the occasion to protest their ongoing imprisonment in the semiluxurious military camp known as Los Alamos, and to plead for the free dissemination of scientific knowledge and unhampered research in nuclear physics. Unless the army removed the restrictions on their freedom, Allison declared, America’s physicists would stage a strike and “begin an elaborate study of the colors of butterfly wings.”

  The butterfly wings remark, the first public manifestation of the rift between the project scientists and their military supervisors, received widespread coverage in the national press. “Scientist Drops A-bomb: Blasts Army Shackles” was the next morning’s headline in the Chicago Tribune. Ten days later, James Franck and sixty-four other University of Chicago faculty members signed a petition protesting the military’s failure to involve them in the decision-making process, and urging the president to share the atomic “secret” with other nations to avoid an armaments race. They also formed an association to “clarify and consolidate” the opinion of the scientists on the consequences of atomic power, with the hope of influencing policy. Similar groups were organized at other project sites, including the Association of Los Alamos Scientists—with its mordant acronym, ALAS—and more appeals for free interchange and international control were published, as the increasingly frustrated scientists lost faith that anyone in Washington understood the atomic predicament.

  “This place is a bit of a madhouse,” a harassed Bush wrote Conant from Washington in late September, what with the scientists up in arms, various bills on atomic energy coming up before Congress, and basic policy issues in a tangle. “I have a good deal of worry in my mind that I am having to handle important matters without the full mature consideration that their importance warrants,” he added, noting that he “missed the times you and I could resolve difficult points by discussion.”

  Conant, who was back at Harvard full-time and feeling somewhat removed from the “center of affairs” in Washington, was more than happy to vent his opinions on the array of atomic issues stirring public and congressional controversy. He agreed that the atomic scientists should not be subject to rigid military censorship, and hoped that Truman would follow Bush’s advice and approve “letting them loose.” Open communication and the exchange of ideas were the lifeblood of their community. The imposition of compartmentalization and secrecy ran counter to everything they believed and was at the root of their pent-up resentments.

  Even his own family had not escaped the “poison of deception,” Conant would later note in his memoir, and he would pay dearly for the many lies he had told to cover his tracks. When he tried after Hiroshima to tell his wife about his role in building the bomb, she had turned away from him in cold fury and snapped, “What makes you think I would be interested?” He realized her anger reflected more than just the “years of frustration” at being kept in the dark. She had discovered a book of matches from the Santa Fe Chief in his suit jacket after a trip he claimed had taken him no farther than Chicago and believed that he was hiding an affair. It was a hurt that could not be undone with an apology.

  With regard to the project scientists, Conant was aware that his stinginess with the truth had made him an object of considerable contempt and “hostility.” But it could not be helped. Although he sympathized with their concerns about freedom of research, he did not hold with their confrontational—and often self-righteous—tone. Moreover, he felt that as he was still formally a member of several wartime committees, he had to abstain from publicly criticizing Groves and other government officials. In any case, he preferred to exert his influence anonymously by shaping policy in the councils of the executive branch. By now, discretion had become more than a habit, it was his modus operandi.

  Conferring with Bush confidentially on the essential issues involved in the future of atomic energy and US–S
oviet relations, Conant did not hesitate to speak his mind. He weighed in forcefully in letter after letter, alternately persuading and exhorting his old friend to go all the way in pushing for an international organization to control the bomb in his first major postwar address. The end of the war had brought to the surface the mounting differences between Russia and the West, and Conant was convinced they needed to act quickly to make Moscow accept an American plan for an atomic monopoly with the promise of sharing technical information as the incentive.

  In July he and Bush had presented Stimson with a plan for a scientific commission under the United Nations Organization that provided for limited interchange with Russia—“to test out their good faith”—and stipulating that for at least five years, the agency would have no jurisdiction over American laboratories involved with manufacturing fissionable materials and bombs. The agreement would go into effect in stages, the quid pro quo for each stage being opening Russian laboratories to unlimited access by foreign scientists and then acceptance of unlimited inspection of all nuclear facilities. If all went well, and the inspection process was working, and frequent checks revealed the Russians were honoring the system, then and only then could they consider broadening the agreement so that all fissionable materials would be used only for the production of commercial power.

  This gradual approach to sharing the atomic secret might be a hard sell, but there was no hope of obtaining a reliable agreement for proscribing nuclear weapons unless America was willing to get tough with its powerful ally. “I think your statement about not threatening the world with our present power will not stand up under careful analysis,” Conant wrote Bush, reflecting the Truman administration’s new policy of firmness. “It seems to me, you do essentially threaten or bargain if you do anything short of ‘blandly giving away the secret,’ and I think we should bargain and bargain very hard.”

  Conant sent Bush a copy of an extremely detailed six-page letter on the future of the bomb he had prepared as a kind of primer for Grenville Clark, who had organized a conference in Dublin, New Hampshire, for forty-eight prominent peace-seeking thinkers who were in favor of some form of “world government” to remedy what they saw as the fatal weaknesses of the United Nations. There had been a groundswell of public support for the idea, thanks to the powerful appeals by prominent figures, from Einstein to Saturday Review of Literature editor Norman Cousins, who insisted it was “world state or world doom,” as the columnist Max Lerner put it.

  While Conant could not attend the gathering in Dublin, he spent a weekend in late September at Clark’s country retreat, Outlet Farm, where they “talked atomic bomb for five hours,” according to Clark’s diary. Conant, who confided he was thinking about stepping down as president of Harvard—presumably to devote all his energies to atomic energy—no longer believed a world government was the way to save the world and stressed the urgent need for a strong international authority to control the new weapon. The recommendations outlined in his letter, which was read aloud at the conference by US Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, bluntly called for realism and extreme caution in the dangerous new era in which Russia and other countries “could shortly have the bomb”:

  What has the future in store for us in the way of further scientific and technical advances? Much more destructive bombs, of that we may be sure . . . If we are to avoid a destruction of our modern arsenals, the industrialized areas, and a large number of civilians, we must avoid another major war. As a step in this direction, international control of the atomic bomb would help, and failure to control it would certainly work in the other direction. But an attempt to eliminate the atomic bomb as a weapon by international control seems to me to be a mistake. Any such proposal has a slim chance of working, confuses our military thinking (playing into the hands of the diehards in the army and navy), and does nothing to make another war less likely.

  Without international control, and rigorous international inspection, he predicted, “We shall have a secret armament race, which to my mind can only have one eventual result: war.” In a frightening assertion, which left a pall over the audience of educators, businessmen, lawyers, and journalists, he warned, “Throughout this letter, I have assumed that in another war atomic bombs will be used. For us to plan otherwise would be the height of folly.”

  The issue came to a head quickly with President Truman’s message to Congress on October 3, promising to pursue with other nations an agreement “under which cooperation might replace rivalry in the field of atomic power,” and asking for prompt passage of domestic legislation to take care of the situation in the United States. The administration’s atomic energy bill, based on a proposal Conant and Bush had submitted to the Interim Committee the previous fall, was introduced to Congress immediately after Truman’s speech in hopes of getting a warm reception. Their ideas had been developed into draft legislation by two War Department lawyers, Kenneth Royall and William Marbury, and while the general outline of the bill was recognizably the same—establishing a nine-man atomic energy commission with strong government support and leadership—the Royall-Marbury version called for continuing strict military control of atomic energy more or less at wartime levels.

  Conant and Bush had wanted the agency to return to a peacetime status, ensuring complete publication of all current information on nuclear physics, limiting the commission’s sweeping powers over basic research, and making it an all-civilian body. The release of technical data might shorten Russia’s road to the bomb by two years, but, on the other hand, it seemed the best way to avoid the greater risk of an arms race. They were overruled by the army’s lawyers. Strong military representation was preserved, and it was very much a War Department bill that Robert Patterson, who had replaced Stimson as war secretary, hoped to get enacted hastily.

  Patterson arranged for Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado, the ranking member of the Military Affairs Committee, and Andrew Jackson May, chairman of the House committee, to rush it through public hearings in just five hours with the intention of sending it to the floors of both chambers by the end of the week. All four expert witnesses—Groves, Conant, Bush, and Patterson—testified that the extraordinary powers granted the proposed commission were necessary to control atomic energy, and nothing else would be enough to protect the nation’s security and keep people from being poisoned or possibly blown up by careless experiments.

  “The misuse of such energy, by design or though ignorance,” Conant testified, struggling to convey the depth of his feelings about the potential threat, “may inflict incalculable disaster upon the nation, destroy the general welfare, imperil the national safety, and endanger world peace.”

  If Patterson was hoping that the project leaders’ wartime record of accomplishments and aura of prestige would allow them the last word on the matter, he was sorely mistaken. No sooner had the experts finished than came an avalanche of outraged protests from a large contingent of Met Lab and Oak Ridge scientists who descended on Washington, convinced the restrictive measure was a drive by Groves to extend the Manhattan Project and his own dictatorial powers. Leo Szilard led the opposition, arguing that the army was trying to silence the scientists, and that the provisions for iron security were part of the military’s plan to retain their monopoly on what the president called America’s atomic “secret.” But there was no secret to keep, scientist after scientist swore to reporters and legislators. The laws of nature could not be withheld for long, the workings of the atom belonged to the world, and the bill would just stifle scientific research and start an arms race.

  The passionate outpouring moved the public, which stood in awe of these brilliant “Men Who Made the Bomb,” as the project physicists were dubbed by the press. Men who seemed so young, as evidenced by the parade of boyish faces, bow ties, and crew cuts, and yet at the same time so sure of their subject—in contrast to the tired, old politicians. In response, Congressman May grudgingly reopened the hearings—for a day. Even though Oppenheimer and the Compton brothers went o
n to endorse the bill as reasonable, and expressed confidence in Conant and Bush, tensions rose precipitously.

  Eleven weeks after Hiroshima, little progress had been made toward either “international security or international morality,” scolded the New York Times’s Hanson Baldwin. “They have been weeks of confusion and divided counsel, of lack of leadership, of claims and contradictions—and all the while, the atomic bomb has clouded the skies of tomorrow.” Conant, who continued to demand the bill’s immediate passage, increasingly became the focus of the scientists’ wrath. Some felt betrayed by the NDRC chairman, believing he no longer had their interests at heart and was in league with the military officials. Those who had clashed with him during the war, including Szilard and Urey, were sharpest in their attacks, accusing both him and Bush of trying to retain their hold over atomic policy. Conant weathered the onslaught of criticism with his usual Yankee stiff upper lip, writing Bush that it “doesn’t bother me in the least, but it does indicate in a small way just what a storm would have broken over our heads if the bomb hadn’t gone off. I hope that thought cheers you up. It does me.”

  As the clamor continued into November, it was obvious that the May-Johnson bill was hopelessly stalemated. The president quietly withdrew his support. Congress, paralyzed by the fear and uncertainty that surrounded the entire subject of atomic power—“sweating at the very thought of legislating about it,” mocked Time magazine—regarded the issue as “a monster that seemed to be getting bigger, more red-eyed, and more terrifying with every passing day.” Seizing the opportunity, freshman senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, who had managed to get appointed chairman of the Special Committee on Atomic Energy, held hearings throughout November and most of December to educate both the politicians and the public on the issues at stake. He succeeded in introducing an alternative bill calling for the creation of a purely civilian agency to administer America’s research and weapons program. Groves’s many objections to the McMahon Bill almost guaranteed that the scientists would enthusiastically embrace it, but their delight diminished when the much-amended bill, which finally passed the Senate in the spring of 1946, contained a powerful military liaison embedded in the framework of the Atomic Energy Commission. The Atomic Energy Act was passed by the House in July and signed into law on August 1, 1946.