“That at the time . . . and political will”: MSL, 302.
“terrible toll,” “That nightmare . . . physically overrun”: DAS, 61.
“The losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . .”: Wilson D. Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision, 114.
“There was never a moment’s discussion . . .”: Robert Dallek, The Lost Peace, 128.
“Monday morning quarterbacking”: JBC to Harvey Bundy, September 23, 1946, JBCPRESP, Harvey Bundy correspondence, HUA.
“The difference between . . .”: MSL, 303.
“Truman could have canceled . . .”: MSL, 303.
“I am considerably disturbed . . . against the Japanese”: JBC to Harvey Bundy, September 23, 1946.
“professional pacifists . . . next generation”: Ibid.
“distortion of history . . . Mr. Stimson”: Ibid.
pointing out the conditions . . . for this decision”: Ibid.
“eleventh hour,” “I am quite unrepentant . . .”: Ibid.
“I expressed my views . . .”: Ibid.
“affirm the rectitude”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 36.
“pride and utter lack . . .”: Paul Ham, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 466.
“the criticism of Hiroshima . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 282.
“saved hundreds of thousands . . . effective”: Karl T. Compton, “If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used,” Atlantic Monthly 178 (December 1946): 54–56.
“I think it’s excellent . . .”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 44.
“A bad example . . . ,” “I must say I am . . . most unfair way”: Walter Lippmann to JBC, October 28, 1946, JBCPRESP, HUA.
“squarely”: JBC to Walter Lippmann, November 1, 1946, JBCPRESP, HUA.
“Of course, the whole thing . . .”: VB to JBC, November 4, 1946, VB Papers, LOC.
“might endanger the international . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 291.
“cheery imbecility”: “The New Pictures,” Time, February 24, 1947.
“scribe”: DAS, 92. Winnacker’s casualty figures: Winnacker to Stimson, November 12, 1946, as quoted in Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 50. For more on the making of the myth of “over a million” US casualties, see Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, 458–97.
“a little high”: Barton J. Bernstein, “A Postwar Myth: 500,000 U.S. Lives Saved,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June/July 1986, 38.
“I was informed”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 50.
“Eliminate all sections . . . line of argumentation”: JBC to McGeorge Bundy, November 30, 1946, Henry L. Stimson Papers, YU.
“the product of many hands . . . cold and cruel”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 50–51.
“ARTICLE PROVES . . .”: Ibid.
“It seems to me just exactly . . . another war”: Ibid.
“Mr. Stimson shows . . .”: NYT, February 2, 1947.
“very well,” “almost entirely”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 55.
“The men who were on the ground . . .”: Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision, 116.
“clear recollection . . . countrymen in the face”: HLS, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harper’s 194 (February 1947): 97–107.
“In this last great action . . . There is no other choice”: Ibid.
“We had no bombs . . .”: HC, February 14, 1947.
“I have certainly . . .”: JBC to GRC, February 15, 1947, CFP.
“realistic,” “President Conant has written . . .”: Bernstein, “The Decision to Use the Bomb,” 57.
“We deserve some sort of medal . . .”: Ibid.
“generously took a greater share . . .”: Sean L. Malloy, Atomic Tragedy, 161.
“Conant’s reaction . . . immediate nuclear disarmament”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 304.
“America was heading into a period . . .”: Ibid.
“claimed too much . . . ,” “preemptive purpose,” “What is true . . . thought it irrelevant”: DAS, 88–89.
“the bomb did not win the war . . .”: Ibid., 93.
CHAPTER 19: FIRST OF THE COLD WARRIORS
“Dr. Conant is a man . . .”: Saturday Review, January 8, 1949.
“organizer of victory”: Henry Kissinger, “Reflections on the Marshall Plan,” Harvard Gazette, May 22, 2015.
“be pleased to make a few remarks . . .”: Bethell, Harvard Observed, 185–86.
“epic making”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 321.
“He is expected to deliver . . .”: NYT, June 5, 1947.
“I need not tell you . . . no assured peace”: George C. Marshall, the Marshall Plan, George C. Marshall Research Library, www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan.
“lifeline to sinking men . . .”: Kissinger, “Reflections on the Marshall Plan.”
“Our financial intervention . . .”: Steel, Walter Lippmann, 441–42.
“to lose almost all the hope . . .”: MSL, 306.
“a ploy . . .”: Kissinger, “Reflections on the Marshall Plan.”
“but the men in the Kremlin . . . might rust away”: JBC, “Education and the Prospects of World Peace,” September 8, 1947, JBCPP.
“nook and cranny,” “unanswerable force . . . political points”: Steel, Walter Lippmann, 443.
“strategic monstrosity”: Wilson D. Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 66.
“defensive,” “disintegrate in a whirlpool . . . ,” “sword of Damocles . . .”: JBC, “Education and the Prospects of World Peace.”
“unwise,” “exceedingly dangerous . . .”: Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic Shield, 268.
“against-the-wind battle . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 323.
“crystal ball,” “armed truce,” “A divided world . . .”: JBC, “Education and the Prospects of World Peace.”
“I do not believe . . . atomic fuel underground”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 341.
“trying to put the genie back in the bottle”: Ibid., 347.
“written off as soft-headed”: JBC, Education in a Divided World, 28.
“alarmingly clear and grim”: Ibid.
“lingering doubts”: MSL, 506.
“one of the first of the Cold Warriors”: Tuttle, “James B. Conant,” 385.
“sent a shock . . . ,” “showdown”: Steel, Walter Lippmann, 450.
“Conant Sees . . .”: BG, March 18, 1948.
“you being the only person . . . present planning”: JBC to VB, March 19, 1948, JBCPP.
“But what annoys me . . . stop and think”: Ibid.
“wastebasket”: Ibid.
“The proper pattern . . .”: JBC, Education in a Divided World, 219–20.
“ideological and political thrusts . . .”: Ibid. Also MSL, 521.
“Since Russia might . . .”: Ibid.
“scrupulously honest”: MSL, 359.
“atomic-capable”: Herken, The Winning Weapon, 253.
“There has been a definite . . .”: Isaacs and Downing, Cold War, 79.
“do something foolish . . .”: JBC, “Some Problems of an Armed Truce,” March 24, 1948, JBCPP. Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 364.
“accidental president,” “clean up the mess . . .”: Dallek, The Lost Peace, 219–20, 224.
“soft on Communism,” “treason of Yalta”: Ibid., 217–25. Also see Philip M. Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 115–16.
“The American people admire . . .”: McCullough, Truman, 715.
“firm hands”: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 8.
“nuclear oracles”: Richard Terry Sylves, Nuclear Oracles: A Political History of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, 1947–1977 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1987).
“Five Greatest Living Americans . . .”: Atlanta Constitution, July 27
, 1949.
“glamorous . . .”: MSL, 494.
“Conant tried to find the practical world . . .”: Sam Bass Warner Jr., Province of Reason, 233–34.
“Father of the A-bomb”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 107.
“Mr. President, I feel . . . ,” “cry baby scientist”: Conant, 109 East Palace, 343–44. Monk, Robert Oppenheimer, 493–94.
“leftist,” “Communist tendencies,” “appeaser of Russia”: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 7–9.
“Americanism,” “Communist proclivities”: Ibid.
“derogatory information”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 101.
“brilliant and driving leadership”: Ibid.
“regret . . .”: Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, 163.
“seriously impeach”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 101.
“I can say without hesitation . . . is an absurdity”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 318.
“complete and unswerving loyalty . . .”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 105.
“its misguided and traitorous . . .”: Herken, The Winning Weapon, 273.
“incredible mismanagement”: Ibid., 242–43.
Groves situation: Ibid., 273.
“Personal and Confidential . . .”: JBC to JRO, January 5, 1948, JBCPP.
“Groves must get out”: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, 502.
“not a bit worried”: Herken, The Winning Weapon, 243.
“military insurance”: JBC, “Force and Freedom, “Atlantic Monthly, January 1, 1949.
“like a cake of ice . . .”: WP, April 25, 1947.
“preventive war,” “Let’s smash ’em now . . .”: JBC, “Force and Freedom.”
“their nuclear plants . . .”: William L. Laurence, “How Soon Will Russia Have the A-Bomb?,” Saturday Evening Post, November 6, 1948.
“develop a Machiavellian foreign policy . . .”: “JBC, “Force and Freedom.”
“ugly question . . . different morally from peace”: Ibid.
“can be protected only . . . in time of peace”: Ibid.
“a perilous knife edge”: Ibid.
“these confused and gloomy days”: JBC, “Force and Freedom.”
“Fishing Party”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 385.
“the present haphazard methods . . .”: Ibid.
“not very proud”: Ibid., 390.
“passing excitement”: “Text of Conant’s ‘Red Scare’ Talk,” DBG, June 23, 1949.
“one of the weakest links”: David Caute, The Great Fear, 471.
“certain that he was an innocent victim . . .”: MSL, 561.
“red herring”: McCullough, Truman, 652.
“nobody is safe . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 428.
“pumpkin papers”: Caute, The Great Fear, 60.
“After the conviction . . . certainly in order”: MSL, 561, 454.
“preserve their integrity . . . ,” “those who now choose . . .”: Ibid.
“spirit of tolerance”: Ibid.
“highly inadvisable . . .”: JBC, “Education and the Federal Government,” December 12, 1946, JBCPP.
“pinkos”: Bethell, Harvard Observed, 188.
“reducators”: Smith, The Harvard Century, 181.
“Kremlin-on-the Charles”: Bethell, Harvard Observed, 188.
“as a consequence of panic . . . armed truce”: WP, January 21, 1948.
“the value of our freedoms . . . intelligently”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Vital Center, 210.
“the overemphasis on ‘loyalty’ . . . ,” “We must be realistic . . . we seek to save”: WP, January 21, 1948.
“poor security risk . . . exposed to public shame”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 437.
“The government . . . confidential information,” “the hope that you . . .”: Ibid.
“extreme measure”: Schlesinger, Innocent Beginnings, 491.
“A lot of people would say . . .”: MSL, 457.
“Harvard cannot be influenced . . .”: Ibid., 455.
“an almost indefensible position”: Ibid., 457–58.
“In this period of a cold war . . . members of the staff”: Ibid.
“answer to end all answers . . . ,” “I would send . . .”: Ibid., 459.
“Conant talked one way . . .”: “Conant & the FBI,” Sigmund Diamond letter to the editor, New York Review of Books, October 20, 1994.
“the locus of a fruitful . . .”: Sigmund Diamond, Compromised Campus, 50–51.
“some peace and quiet . . . can’t always count on!”: GRC to MTR, August 11, 1949, CFP.
“burned out,” “done his job during the war”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 470.
“personal ambitions . . .”: JBC, handwritten list of future plans, July 19, 1945, JBCPP.
“having an experience . . .”: GRC to MTR, August 29 and September 2, 1949, CFP.
“You can imagine how happy . . . uninterrupted sunshine”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 20: A ROTTEN BUSINESS
“When I am in Washington . . .”: JBC to BMB, February 24, 1950, BMB Papers, PU.
“They have it”: Kenneth P. O’Donnell, “Professor in a Hot Spot,” Saturday Evening Post, September 5, 1953, 141.
“We have evidence . . .”: NYT, September 24, 1949.
“overwhelming superiority”: DAS, 204.
“The time has come . . .”: Ibid.
“Just go back to Los Alamos . . .”: Monk, Robert Oppenheimer, 565.
“With the war over . . .”: Conant, 109 East Palace, 344.
“false sense of security”: Herken, The Winning Weapon, 306.
“bloodthirsty” trio: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 385.
“only louse up the world . . .”: “I. I. Rabi: Man of the Century,” A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company, PBS, New York, aired July 25, 1984.
“over my dead body”: Edward Teller interview, 2003. Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 138.
“They wanted to stop me . . . Why did he say that?”: Edward Teller interview.
“the miserable thing . . . think about it,” “have to hear some good arguments . . .”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, 139, 137.
“mostly psychological”: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 382.
“political and strategic . . .”: Richard Polenberg, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 385–87.
“almost translucent, so gray . . . ,” “flatly against it . . . for the second time”: David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, 581.
“a result of Conant’s intervention”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 475.
“surprising unanimity”: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 383.
“a better than even chance . . . ,” “some hundreds of times . . .”: Ibid., 383–84. DAS, 208.
“it would be wrong . . .”: Ibid.
“We believe a superbomb . . . hope of mankind”: Ibid.
“conditional on the response . . . ,” “necessarily an evil thing . . .”: Ibid.
“renounce and announce,” “experienced promoters”: Ibid., 537, 378.
“hawks,” “superhawks,” “full-fledged doves”: Herbert F. York, The Advisors, x.
missionaries for the project: Ibid., 390.
“If we let Russia . . . ,” “with all possible expedition . . .”: DAS, 211, 222.
“intolerable”: Ibid.
“After listening to Conant . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 481.
“start with the assumption . . . ,” “immense distaste . . .”: DAS, 218, 216.
“all forms of atomic weapons . . .”: WP, February 1, 1950.
“when he called attention last week . . .”: “Letter from Washington,” NY, February 11, 1950, 50.
“anti-information”: Ibid.
“for heck’s sake . . .”: Polenberg, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 86.
“good soldier . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 482.
“The majority’s flat recom
mendation . . .”: DAS, 216.
“worrying about the situation . . .”: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 768.
“Communists in government,” “bad security risk”: Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, 362–64.
“on moral grounds”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 483.
“When I am in Washington . . .”: JBC to BMB, February 24, 1950, BMB Papers, PU.
“They ganged up on him . . .”: George Kistiakowsky to GRC, May 1, 1980, CFP.
“the revolt . . . WWII”: MSL, 499.
“sensitive personality,” “the most painful . . .”: George Kistiakowsky to GRC, May 1, 1980.
“too busy . . .”: MSL, 499.
“in the hands of the surgeons”: Harvard College class of 1914, TFAR.
“police action”: NYT, June 30, 1950.
“the whole international situation . . . ,” “unbiased by the fait accompli . . .”: MSL, 507–8.
“the number of relative strangers . . .”: GRC to MTR, three letters in July 1950, CFP.
“trade ideas,” “irrelevant . . . of their own”: MSL, 508.
“citizen’s lobby”: Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, 61.
“From what I have just heard . . .”: MSL, 508.
“global stalemate”: JBC, “The Present Danger,” February 7, 1951, JBCPP.
“an undertaking of great importance”: MSL, 511.
“the extreme peril . . . ,” “the price is high . . .”: “A Stern Program for Survival,” Look magazine, December 19, 1950, 33–35.
“Your memorandum rings the bell with me!”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 503.
“a success,” “same old salesmen”: MSL, 512, 526.
“Fellow citizens . . . ,” “preservation of a free America . . . dangerous period”: JBC, “The Present Danger.”
“Eisenhower’s mantle,” “build a secure wall . . .”: MSL, 516.
“the coldest of cold . . .”: Smith, The Harvard Century, 184.
“Kremlin’s design . . .”: Dallek, The Lost Peace, 298.
“uncritical militancy . . . ,” “But they were held”: Ibid., i, 299.
“deeply troubled by the unwillingness . . . global war”: JBC, “The Present Danger.”
“undemocratic,” “cherished”: MSL, 527, 519.
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