Brotherhood of the Bomb

by Gregg Herken

  62. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 127.

  63. Ibid., 116–24; transcript of interview with Robert Stone, Oral History Collection, Library Archive, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

  64. Lawrence to Leuschner, April 12, 1935, folder 13, carton 20, EOL.

  65. Joliot-Curies and Fermi: Boorse et al. (1989), 362–65, 340–50.

  66. Childs (1968), 190, 215; Alvarez (1970), 266.

  67. Childs (1968), 221.

  68. Martin Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics: A Memoir of the Nuclear Age (University of California Press, 1986), 117.

  69. Hamilton and human radiation experiments: “The University of California Case Study,” Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, supplemental vol. 2, Sources and Documentation (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 600–30.

  70. Childs (1968), 146.

  71. Transcript of interview with Robert Stone, Library Archive, UCSF.

  72. Childs (1968), 263.

  73. Among the brothers’ early guinea pigs were Oppie and Joe Hamilton. Alvarez (1987), 63.

  74. Molly Lawrence interview (1992).

  75. Childs (1968), 249.

  76. Ibid., 250.

  77. The boat had been built by Luis Alvarez’s uncle. Alvarez (1987), 62; Molly Lawrence interview (1992).

  78. Gunda Lawrence to Elmer Seubert, n.d. (c. May 1939), folder 39, carton 10, EOL.

  79. Alvarez (1970), 270–71; author interview with Patricia Durbin, Berkeley, Calif., Aug. 11, 1994.

  80. Childs (1968), 278, 283; Davis (1968), 76–77; transcript of interview with John Lawrence, Bancroft Library.

  81. Alvarez (1987), 44.

  82. Ibid., transcript of telephone conversation between EOL and C. D. Shane, Nov. 12, 1945, folder 16, carton 1, EOL.

  83. Segrè (1993), 112, 118, 215.

  84. Ibid., 128–29.

  85. Ibid., 135, 138.

  86. Ibid., 136, 158; Raymond Birge, “History of the Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley” (unpublished manuscript, in Bancroft Library, n.d.), vol. 5, chap. 18, 4–10.

  87. Author interview with Martin Kamen, Santa Barbara, Calif., March 12, 1997.

  88. Kamen (1986), 132.

  89. Heilbron, Seidel, and Wheaton (1981), 20.

  90. Davis (1968), 69; author interview with Edward Lofgren, Berkeley, Calif., Jan. 22, 1998.

  91. Childs (1968), 273, 280–81.

  92. Alvarez (1987), 74–75.

  93. Rhodes (1986), 348.

  94. Lawrence to Fermi, Feb. 7, 1939, folder 15, carton 7, EOL.

  95. Childs (1968), 297.

  96. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 445–46.

  97. Quoted in ibid., 444.

  98. Smith and Weiner (1980), 208–9.

  2: A Practical Philosopher’s Stone

  1. Lawrence to parents, Aug. 29, 1939, folder 39, carton 10, EOL.

  2. Szilard, Wigner, and Teller already knew each other, having grown up in Budapest, where Edward and Leo attended the Minta (Model) gymnasium. Stanley Blumberg and Gwinn Owens, Energy and Conflict: The Life and Times of Edward Teller (Putnam, 1976), 14–15; Rhodes (1986), 14–15.

  3. Edward Teller, Energy from Heaven and Earth (Freeman, 1979), 145.

  4. “Almost eighty years later, I still feel the discouragement of that moment,” Teller wrote in his memoirs. Teller: Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery, Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics (Perseus Press, 2001), 32, 65; Edward Teller and Allen Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima (Doubleday, 1962), 7–10; Blumberg and Owens (1976), 42–88; author interviews: Edward Teller, Los Alamos, N. Mex., July 7, 1993, and Milton Plesset, Pasadena, Calif., Mar. 15, 1988.

  5. Szilard and Teller: Teller (1979), 141–43; Edward Teller, Better a Shield Than a Sword: Perspectives on Defense and Technology (Free Press, 1987), 46–47; William Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb (Scribners, 1992), 182–87.

  6. Teller (1987), 48–49.

  7. Spencer Weart and Gertrude W. Szilard, eds., Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts (MIT Press, 1978), vol. 2, 84; author interview with I. I. Rabi, New York, N.Y., Oct. 26, 1984.

  8. Transcript of interview with Edwin McMillan, Bancroft Library; transcript of interview with Robert Oppenheimer, box 2, Childs papers.

  9. Notes by George Harrison, n.d., folder 14, carton 3, EOL; Lawrence to Bush, Oct. 12, 1939, Lawrence folder, box 64, Vannevar Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  10. Vannevar Bush: G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (Free Press, 1997), 23–38; transcript of interview with Vannevar Bush, reel 1, 178, Vannevar Bush papers, MIT.

  11. Confidential memo, Sproul to L. A. Nichols, “Radiation Laboratory, EOL” folder, box 39, Robert Sproul papers, Bancroft Library.

  12. Lawrence to Bush, Nov. 9, 1939, Lawrence folder, box 64, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  13. Childs (1968), 295–96.

  14. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 488.

  15. Childs (1968), 298.

  16. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 478.

  17. Childs (1968), 299.

  18. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 480.

  19. R. W. Wood to Lawrence, Nov. 13, 1939, folder 37, carton 24, EOL.

  20. Transcript of Vannevar Bush interview, reel 6, 366, Bush papers, MIT.

  21. Childs (1968), 300–301.

  22. Loomis: Alvarez (1987), 78–81; Robert Buderi, The Invention That Changed the World (Simon and Schuster, 1996), 38–39; “Alfred Lee Loomis: Amateur of the Sciences,” Fortune, Mar. 1946, 132–69.

  23. The setting was perfect for a murder mystery and in fact became one later that year, in a novel written by James Conant’s brother-in-law, who had worked at Loomis’s lab. Willard Rich, Brain Waves and Death (Scribner, 1940); James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (Knopf, 1993), 137–38.

  24. Author interview with Eleanor Davisson, Pacific Grove, Calif., Aug. 22, 1992.

  25. Childs (1968), 300–301.

  26. Serber (1998), 46.

  27. Smith and Weiner (1980), 211; San Francisco field report, Sept. 22, 1941, vol. 1, Steve Nelson file, no. 100–16847, FBI Reading Room (FBI).

  28. Oppenheimer did not vote in a presidential election until 1936. “Tell me, what has politics to do with truth, goodness and beauty?” he asked one of his students in those days. Smith and Weiner (1980), 195.

  29. R. Oppenheimer to F. Oppenheimer, supplemental folder, box 294, JRO.

  30. Jenkins, 24; author interview with Phillip Morrison, Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 17, 2000. Informed of Tatlock’s suicide in 1944 by an army security agent, Oppenheimer wept. “He then went on at considerable length about the depth of his emotion for Jean, saying there was really no one to whom he could speak.” My thanks to Marilyn de Silva for a copy of the outline of her husband’s unfinished book about Oppenheimer.

  31. Tatlock: Jenkins (1991), 21–23; ITMOJRO, 4, 8, 153; Stephen Schwartz, From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind (Free Press, 1998), 378–80; Goodchild (1980), 30–32; Phillip Stern, The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial (Harper and Row, 1969), 15–16; author interview with Robert Serber (1992).

  32. A 1944 FBI report listed Addis as “active in 27 Communist Front organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area during the last ten years.” Addis: San Francisco field report, May 17, 1944, sec. 4, FAECT file, no. 61–723, FBI; Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors (Regnery, 2000), 266.

  33. “E. told me of O[ppenheimer] having last summer gone East.… Is better read than most party members. A phenomenal fellow, quite obviously,” Chevalier wrote in his diary in 1937. “Our friendship was initiated by a common wish to participate in an activity that seemed to us to hold out the greatest hope for the future, which is to say the work of the communist party,” Chevalier wrote in notes for his unpublished memoir. Entries, July 20,
1937, and Aug. 31, 1980, Chevalier diary, Haakon Chevalier papers, Valreas, France. The author thanks Karen Chevalier for granting him access to her father’s diary and private papers.

  34. New York field report, Dec. 29, 1943, sec. 21, Haakon Chevalier file, no. 100–18564, FBI.

  35. In a 1964 letter to Oppenheimer, Chevalier wrote that he and Oppie had been members “in the same unit of the CP from 1938 to 1942.” Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1964, Chevalier folder, box 200, JRO.

  36. Haakon Chevalier, The Man Who Would Be God (Putnam, 1959), 80. Chevalier intended to call his autobiographical novel Flight Is Ended. Dec. 11, 1933, diary entry, Chevalier papers.

  37. In Mar. 1940, the FBI listed the house as “one of those to be used as a ‘hide-out’ by Communist Party members in case of an emergency.” Chevalier (1965), 31; undated field report, sec. 1:2a, Chevalier file, FBI.

  38. Jenkins (1991), 25; Dec. 24, 1933, and July 13, 1934, entries, Chevalier diary, Chevalier papers.

  39. Schwartz (1998), 290.

  40. “Subject: Jean Tatlock,” June 29, 1943, records of the Personnel Security Board, U.S. AEC Division of Security, box 1, RG 326 (JRO/AEC), National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  41. Teachers union: Chevalier (1965), 25; ITMOJRO, 8, 156; Goodchild (1980), 32.

  42. Through his association with Tatlock and Chevalier, Oppenheimer also met key figures of California’s radical political scene, including labor leader Harry Bridges and journalist Lincoln Steffens. Jenkins (1991), 23; Serber (1998), 31; author interview with Richard Criley, Carmel, Calif., Sept. 21, 1998.

  43. Serber (1998), 31.

  44. Lofgren interview (1998).

  45. In a 1973 letter, Chevalier identified those members of “the secret C.P. unit” who had since died. Chevalier to Beeferman, Apr. 25, 1973, “Correspondence, 1972” folder, Chevalier papers.

  46. In 1964, Chevalier wrote to member Lou Goldblatt, asking him to confirm that Oppie also belonged to the group: “I had originally planned to reveal the fact that O. had been, from 1937 to 1943, a CP member, which I knew directly. On thinking it over, I decided that I shouldn’t, even though the fact is of considerable historical importance.” Goldblatt, hinting at his own concern with self-incrimination, sent a noncommittal reply. Possibly because he feared the legal consequences of doing otherwise, Chevalier described it as “a discussion group” in his memoirs. In a letter to Chevalier, Oppenheimer denied ever being a member of the Communist Party. Oppenheimer subsequently sent a copy of his letter and Chevalier’s letter to his lawyer. Chevalier to Beeferman, Apr. 25, 1973, “Correspondence, 1972” folder, and Chevalier to Goldblatt, Aug. 25, 1964, “Correspondence, 1964” folder, Chevalier papers; Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1964, and reply of Aug. 7, 1964, Chevalier folder, box 200, JRO; Chevalier (1965), 19, 207; draft of “The Bomb,” unpublished manuscript, 39, Chevalier papers.

  47. The epigram was from the poet’s “September 1, 1939”: “Hunger allows no choice / To the citizen or the police; / We must love one another or die.” W. H. Auden, Another Time (Random House, 1940). The first report took the Soviet Union’s side in the war against Finland and deplored attacks upon the Communist Party in this country. Copies of both reports were sent to President Sproul’s office by concerned administrators on other campuses. My thanks to Bancroft archivist Bill Roberts for locating the two reports in the university archives. William Roberts, Feb. 21, 2000, personal communication.

  48. There were evidently earlier broadsides that Oppenheimer had a hand in. Phillip Morrison, Oppie’s then-graduate student, remembered arranging the printing of a glossy pamphlet that Oppenheimer wrote and which argued against intervention in the so-called winter war between the Soviet Union and Finland. The publication was prepared in response to a speech by Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk in Berkeley’s Greek Theater on Charter Day, Mar. 23, 1939. As with the subsequent reports, Oppenheimer paid for the cost of printing and distributing the 1939 broadside. Morrison interview (2000) and personal communication, Dec. 8, 2000.

  49. Thomas Powers, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (Knopf, 1993), 173; author interview with Hans Bethe, Ithaca, N.Y., 1996; Schweber (2000), 108; ITMOJRO, 441.

  50. “I think we’ll go to war—that the Roosevelt faction will win over the Lindbergh.… I see no good for a long time: & the only cheerful thing in these parts is the strength & toughness & political growth of organized labor.” Smith and Weiner (1980), 217.

  51. Transcript of interview with Robert Oppenheimer, box 2, Childs papers.

  52. Transcript of interviews with Luis Alvarez and Philip Abelson, box 1, Childs papers.

  53. Rhodes (1986), 314–17.

  54. Teller (2001), 149; Blumberg and Owens (1976), 100–101; Rhodes (1986), 335–37.

  55. Bethe interview (1996).

  56. Childs (1968), 299; “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL.

  57. “Nobel Prize Awarded to Lawrence for Invention of Cyclotron,” Daily Californian, Mar. 1, 1940, Bancroft Library.

  58. Stassen to Lawrence, Mar. 29, 1940, folder 46, carton 16, EOL.

  59. Transcript of telephone conversation, folder 30, carton 15, EOL.

  60. Jewett to Compton, June 24, 1940, folder 5, box 139, Karl Compton papers, MIT.

  61. “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL; Childs (1968), 302; Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis, “Biographical Memoirs (National Academy of Sciences, 1980), vol. 51, 327.

  62. Rhodes (1986), 361; Childs (1968), 309; O. Lundberg to F. Stevens, Sept. 23, 1940, folder 18, carton 46, EOL; Lawrence to Compton, July 21, 1940, folder 10, carton 4, EOL.

  63. Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (University of California Press, 1999), 315–17.

  64. Childs (1968), 302–3.

  65. Lawrence to K. Compton, May 21, 1940, folder 3, box 133, Compton papers; “Vast Power Source in Atomic Energy Opened by Science,” New York Times, May 5, 1940.

  66. Childs (1968), 301; Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 444–45.

  67. Rhodes (1986), 298.

  68. Childs (1968), 328; Alvarez and Oppenheimer to Furman, June 5, 1944, Los Alamos National Laboratory archives, Los Alamos, N. Mex. (LANL).

  69. Richard Hewlett and Oscar Anderson, Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, vol. 1, 1939–46 (University of California Press, 1990), 33–34; Rhodes (1986), 348–50.

  70. “I am puzzled as to what, if anything, ought to be done in this country in connection with [fission],” Bush wrote in May 1940. Zachary (1997), 190.

  71. Besides being busy with the great cyclotron, Ernest was helping John build his own empire at Berkeley. “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL.

  72. Lawrence to Urey, folder 40, carton 17, EOL.

  73. Bush to Lawrence, Aug. 30, 1940, Lawrence folder, box 64, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  74. Childs (1968), 306.

  75. Ibid.

  76. Draft telegram in pencil, Bush to Lawrence, n.d., Lawrence folder, box 64, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  77. Buderi (1996), 39.

  78. Alvarez (1987), 87, 91; transcript of McMillan interview, Bancroft Library.

  79. W. B. Reynolds, “Notes on the 184-inch Cyclotron,” June 16, 1945, folder 4, carton 29, EOL.

  80. Kamen to McMillan, Feb. 1941, folder 10, carton 10, EOL.

  81. Kamen (1986), 141, 145.

  82. Transcript of interview with Vern Denton, n.d., LLNL.

  83. Kamen to McMillan, folder 10, carton 10, EOL.

  84. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 29–32.

  85. Childs (1968), 311.

  86. Stanley Goldberg, “Inventing a Climate of Opinion: Vannevar Bush and the Decision to Build the Bomb” ISIS, 1992, 429–52. Lawrence, “Historical Notes on My Early Activities in Connection with the Tuballoy Project,” Mar. 26, 1945, folder 4, carton 29, EOL.

  87. Arthur Compton, Atomic Quest (Oxford, 1956), 48.

  88.
Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940–1945 (Stanford University Press, 1989), 64–65.

  89. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 41.

  90. Transcript of interview with Luis Alvarez, box 1, Childs papers.

  91. Lawrence to Bush, July 29, 1941, Lawrence folder, box 64, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  92. Oliphant: Childs (1968), 206, 210; Rhodes (1986), 360.

  93. The British were also upset that the Americans continued to publish the results of their work on fission. After the article by McMillan and Abelson appeared in Physical Review, the British sent an envoy from their San Francisco consulate to reprimand Lawrence.

  94. M.A.U.D. report: Powers (1993), 76–77; Robert Williams and Philip Cantelon, eds., The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present, 1939–1984 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 19–23.

  95. Rhodes (1986), 372.

  96. The Australian naturally assumed that Oppenheimer’s presence during his discussions with Lawrence meant that Oppie, too, had been initiated into the secrets of the uranium project. Powers (1993), 174; “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL; Compton (1956), 6.

  97. Rhodes (1986), 373.

  98. Compton (1956), 6.

  99. The lecture concluded with the demonstration of a radiosodium tracer. Two Rad Lab alumni, current members of the Chicago faculty, drank the isotope cocktail.

  100. Compton (1956), 7.

  101. Smyth (1989), 52.

  102. Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 523.

  103. Ibid., 515.

  104. Childs (1968), 317.

  105. Hershberg (1993), 149.

  106. Compton (1956), 8; Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 523.

  107. Wallace was also a friend of Compton’s. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 45.

  108. Compton (1956), 55.

  109. Childs (1968), 319; Hershberg (1993), 150; Powers (1993), 174; Oliphant to Oppenheimer, Sept. 25, 1941, box 53, JRO.

  110. Transcript of Vannevar Bush interview, reel 1, Bush papers, MIT. Members of the Top Policy Group were Henry Wallace, Henry Stimson (secretary of war), and George Marshall (army chief of staff), as well as Bush and Conant.