Brotherhood of the Bomb

by Gregg Herken

  111. Possibly with Lawrence in mind, Bush reminded committee members that “they [were] asked to report upon the techniques, and that considerations of general policy ha[d] not been turned over to them as a subject.” Rhodes (1986), 377–78; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 45–46.

  112. Lawrence later thought his own role, not Compton’s, crucial to FDR’s decision to proceed with the bomb. “Notes,” Nov. 27, 1945, folder 4, carton 29, EOL.

  113. Rhodes (1986), 387.

  114. Compton (1956), 56; Hershberg (1993), 139, 149.

  115. Lawrence to Compton, Oct. 14, 1941, and Lawrence to Compton, Oct. 17, 1941, folder 19, carton 27, EOL.

  3: A Useful Adviser

  1. Smith and Weiner (1980), 216–17.

  2. Even on the eve of the Nazi invasion, Oppenheimer was still evidently promoting the anti-interventionist cause. Author interview with Paul Pinsky, San Francisco, Calif., Sept. 3, 1997, Schwartz (1998), 333–34.

  3. Minutes of meeting, Oct. 21, 1941, folder 1, carton 27, EOL.

  4. Oppie also spoke of possible countermeasures to the bomb, including using the cyclotron beam as a kind of death ray to defend especially important targets. Minutes of meeting, Oct. 21, 1941, folder 1, carton 27, EOL.

  5. Compton (1956), 57.

  6. Lawrence to Compton, Oct. 22, 1941, folder 13, carton 22, EOL.

  7. Hamilton, “A Report…,” Feb. 24, 1941, folder 25, carton 8, EOL.

  8. Lawrence, “Historical Notes…,” 7, Mar. 26, 1945, folder 4, carton 29, EOL.

  9. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 36.

  10. Rhodes (1986), 386.

  11. Smyth (1989), 71–72; “Autobiography,” series 7, box 1, Smyth papers.

  12. Lawrence to A. H. Compton, Nov. 29, 1941, folder 19, carton 27, EOL.

  13. Smyth (1989), 188–89.

  14. Mass spectrograph: Rhodes (1986), 487–88.

  15. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 44.

  16. Smyth (1989), 66; Childs (1968), 320.

  17. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 57.

  18. Smyth (1989), 66.

  19. Bush to Lawrence, Dec. 13, 1941, folder 18, carton 27, EOL; Vincent Jones, U.S. Army in World War II, Special Studies, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 34.

  20. Chevalier (1965), 49.

  21. Davis (1968), 120–21.

  22. Kamen (1986), 148.

  23. Childs (1968), 326–27; author interview with William Douglass, Orinda, Calif., Dec. 17, 1992.

  24. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 52.

  25. Lawrence, “Historical Notes…” (1945).

  26. Wilson interview (1996).

  27. Ibid.

  28. Isotron: Smyth (1989), 197–99; James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (Pantheon, 1992), 143–44; “Final Report, Oct. 1943,” series 7, box 1, Smyth papers.

  29. Wilson interview (1996).

  30. Lawrence to Smyth, Dec. 29, 1941, Lawrence folder, box 24, Smyth papers.

  31. Compton (1956), 58; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 54.

  32. Lawrence, “Historical Notes.…” (1945); Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 57.

  33. Lawrence to A. H. Compton, Dec. 24, 1941, folder 19, carton 27, EOL.

  34. Lawrence to Smyth and reply, Dec. 24, 1941, folder 24, carton 27, EOL.

  35. Lawrence to Smyth, Dec. 29, 1941, no. 209, Bush-Conant file, records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, RG 227, National Archives (OSRD/NARA).

  36. Rhodes (1986), 388.

  37. Alvarez (1987), 112–13.

  38. Compton (1956), 81.

  39. Compton to Lawrence, Aug. 25, 1945, folder 10, carton 4, EOL.

  40. Lawrence to Conant, Jan. 24, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  41. Alvarez (1970), 263–65.

  42. Glenn Seaborg, Journals (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, 1992), vol. 1, 255–58.

  43. Kamen (1986), 148–49; author interview with Kenneth Pitzer, Berkeley, Calif., May 30, 1997.

  44. Transcript of Robert Stone oral history interview, Library Archive, UCSF.

  45. Childs (1968), 331.

  46. Author interview with Owen Chamberlain, Oakland, Calif., Aug. 4, 1993.

  47. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 57–58.

  48. Ibid., 60–61.

  49. Rhodes (1986), 406.

  50. Lawrence to Briggs, Jan. 31, 1942, folder 17, carton 27, EOL.

  51. Lawrence to Conant, Feb. 28, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  52. Calutrons: Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 91–93, 142–45; Childs (1968), 335.

  53. Lawrence to Conant, Mar. 13, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  54. Lawrence to Conant, Mar. 26, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  55. Lawrence to Conant, Mar. 26, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  56. Childs (1968), 309.

  57. Chevalier (1965), 31. Another of Oppenheimer’s early romantic interests—Ann Hoffman, Haakon Chevalier’s sister-in-law—observed of Oppie: “He liked to be fought over.” Author interview with Ann Hoffman, Mill Valley, Calif., May 1, 2001.

  58. Kitty: Army Military Intelligence Division (MID) report on Katherine Harrison, Oct. 2, 1943, sec. 5, CINRAD file, no. 100–190625, FBI; Rhodes (1995), 122.

  59. Schwartz (1998), 360.

  60. Stern (1969), 30.

  61. Army MID reports, Sept. 2, 1943, and Oct. 28, 1943, sec. 5, CINRAD file, FBI.

  62. Tolman: Serber (1998), 35.

  63. Serber (1998), 60.

  64. Telegram, Nov. 1, 1940, folder 9, carton 14, EOL; Serber (1998), 58–60; Smith and Weiner (1980), 214; Molly Lawrence interview (1992).

  65. Chevalier (1965), 38.

  66. Frank: Transcript of interview with Frank Oppenheimer, Bancroft Library; summary report, Apr. 22, 1947, COMRAP file, 60–62, FBI.

  67. Transcript of 1985 Frank Oppenheimer interview, Caltech archives.

  68. ITMOJRO, 101. Caltech president Robert Mullikan told the FBI that he considered Frank “an appendage to his brother, not so capable and a close follower of his brother’s ideas.” Army MID report on Robert Oppenheimer, Aug. 27, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  69. Robert to Frank Oppenheimer, n.d., box 1, Frank Oppenheimer papers.

  70. Robert to Frank Oppenheimer, Mar. 12, 1930, box 1, Frank Oppenheimer papers.

  71. Smith and Weiner (1980), 158. Interviewed by the FBI, Caltech physicist Charles Lauritsen, a friend of Frank’s, described him as “very hard to understand [and] not too prone to accept discipline and leadership by others.” Army MID report, Sept. 7, 1943, sec. 5, CINRAD file, FBI.

  72. Transcript of Frank Oppenheimer interview, Caltech archives.

  73. ITMOJRO, 9, 101.

  74. Transcript of Frank Oppenheimer interview, Caltech archives. Copies of the couple’s party membership cards, later obtained by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, show that they paid dues from 1937 to 1939; Frank claimed that both he and Jackie quit the party in 1941. Romerstein and Breindel (2000), 272–73. Robert told the FBI that he had tried to talk Frank out of joining the party and thought he had succeeded, only to find out that his brother joined a week later. ITMOJRO, 184.

  75. Iris Chang, Thread of the Silkworm (Basic Books, 1995), 80, 159.

  76. Smith and Weiner (1980), 195; ITMOJRO, 102.

  77. Army MID report on Frank Oppenheimer, July 28, 1943, series 8, box 100, records of the Manhattan Engineer District, RG 77, National Archives (MED/NARA); summary report, Jan. 31, 1947, CINRAD file, FBI.

  78. ITMOJRO, 199.

  79. Ibid., 117.

  80. “Q: You knew that if it were known that your brother was a member of the Communist Party, he could not get the job, didn’t you? A: Yes. My honor was a little bit involved because of my having talked to Lawrence.” ITMOJRO, 187.

  81. Childs (1968), 320.

  82. Clifford Durr to Frank Oppenheimer, Dec. 10, 1969, Durr folder, box 1, Frank Oppenheimer papers.

  83. Tenney Committee: David Caute, The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truma
n and Eisenhower (Simon and Schuster, 1978), 77; Edward Barrett, The Tenney Committee: Legislative Investigation of Subversive Activities in California (Cornell University Press, 1951); and Ingrid Scobie, Jack B. Tenney: Molder of Anti-Communist Legislation in California, 1940–49 (University Microfilms, 1970).

  84. “I may be out of a job by [April],” Oppenheimer wrote to a friend, “because UC is going to be investigated next week for radicalism and the story is that the committee members are no gentlemen and that they don’t like me.” Smith and Weiner (1980), 216.

  85. After his expulsion, May became the education director of the Communist Party in Alameda County. Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (Oxford University Press, 1986), 74–75, 135; Schwartz (1998), 322.

  86. ITMOJRO, 156.

  87. San Francisco field report, Nov. 18, 1952, 65, sec. 14, JRO/FBI.

  88. FAECT file, no. 61–7231, and Marcel Scherer file, no. 100–34665, FBI; Pinsky interview (1997).

  89. Pinsky claimed that Oppie joined FAECT in either 1939 or 1940. George Engebretson, A Man of Vision: The Story of Paul Pinsky (HICL, 1997), 15; Pinsky interview 1997. David Jenkins, a Bay Area labor leader and Communist, remembered in a 1980 interview that “Oppenheimer had been helpful to [FAECT] in organizing the Shell scientists and technical workers, and, of course, knew Pinsky.” Transcript of David Jenkins interview, Bancroft Library.

  90. FAECT was interested in replacing the American Association of Scientific Workers, which was also riven by factional fighting, and which Oppenheimer had joined in 1939. Chevalier (1965), 38. The FBI considered FAECT “communist-dominated.” AASW and FAECT: Donald Strickland, Scientists in Politics: The Atomic Scientists Movement, 1945–46 (Purdue University Press, 1968), 82; Peter Kuznick, Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America (University of Chicago Press, 1987), 230–31.

  91. Kamen (1986), 184–85; transcript of Martin Kamen interview, Bancroft Library. The FBI identified Eltenton as the “ringleader” of Shell’s FAECT Local 25. San Francisco field report, Apr. 7, 1943, sec. 3, FAECT file, FBI.

  92. Oppenheimer claimed in 1954 that he opposed joining the union, the American Association of Scientific Workers, at this meeting. ITMOJRO, 131. Kamen, however, asserted in his memoir that Oppenheimer was a vocal advocate of AASW. Kamen (1986), 183–86. Since Oppenheimer volunteered to hold the meeting in his own home and had previously championed FAECT’s cause, Kamen’s account seems the more plausible. Kamen interview (1997).

  93. Kamen (1986), 185.

  94. Kamen made a futile attempt to tell Lawrence his side of the story: “He urged me to ‘get out,’ whereupon I somewhat hotly asserted that I had never been ‘in.’” Kamen (1986), 185.

  95. Ibid.; Childs (1968), 319–20.

  96. Army records from 1943 indicate that an “investigation of the Subject (Robert Oppenheimer) was made by the administration of the University of California several years ago.” Army MID report on Robert Oppenheimer, Aug. 27, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  97. By May 1941, both Oppenheimer and Chevalier were on FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s “preventive detention” list of persons to be rounded up in the event of a national emergency. FBI field report, Mar. 28, 1941, box 1, JRO/AEC; Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Little, Brown, 1998), 106; and Barton Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,” Stanford Law Review, July 1990, 1391.

  98. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1941, sec. 1, Haakon Chevalier file, no. 100–18564, FBI.

  99. The government would later try, unsuccessfully, to deport Schneiderman. Schrecker (1998), 103; summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, 196, COMRAP file, FBI.

  100. Folkoff: Summary memo, Dec. 15, 1944, 85–88, COMRAP file, FBI; author interview with Philip Bowser, San Mateo, Calif. May 21, 1997. Bowser, the FBI’s “wire man” in San Francisco, claimed that he found the wiretaps on Schneiderman and Communist Party headquarters already in place when he arrived at the office in early 1941.

  101. In May 1940, President Roosevelt overrode the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing wiretapping, authorizing the FBI to use wiretaps and bugs in cases of “persons suspected of subversive activities against the Government of the United States.” Schrecker (1998), 106. The legal status of the wiretaps—and, specifically, whether they would be considered admissible evidence in a courtroom trial—remained unclear, however. Author interview with Robert King, Eugene, Oreg., Mar. 26, 1997; Branigan to Miller, “Major Intelligence Programs,” May 31, 1972, House Un-American Activities Committee file, no. 61–7582, FBI.

  102. King and Bowser interviews (1997); “Re: Installation of Microphones and Technical Survelliance,” Nov. 24, 1942, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.

  103. Author interview with Philip Scheidermayer, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1998.

  104. King interview (1997).

  105. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1941, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.

  106. San Francisco field report, Feb. 10, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC; ITMOJRO, 183.

  107. Summary report, Jan. 31, 1947, CINRAD file, FBI.

  108. San Francisco field report, Apr. 23, 1943, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.

  109. Steve Nelson: “Report on Soviet Espionage in the United States,” Nov. 27, 1945, 30, entry 11, Central Intelligence Agency records, RG 233, National Archives (CIA/NARA); “Memorandum for the file: ‘COMRAP,’” Feb. 6, 1948, Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939–1957 (Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), 105–6; John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale University Press, 1999), 229; Nelson file, vol. 1, and summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, 58–61, COMRAP file, FBI.

  110. Nelson and Oppenheimer: San Francisco field report, Sept. 19, 1946, vol. 3, Nelson file, FBI; Stern (1969), 30–31; Steve Nelson, James Barrett, and Rob Ruck, Steve Nelson: American Radical (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 240, 268. Nelson and Kitty: ITMOJRO, 574–75.

  111. Nelson et al. (1969), 251–65.

  112. Smith and Weiner (1980), 220.

  113. ITMOJRO, 9.

  114. Pieper to Hoover, Jan. 26, 1942, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.

  115. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1942, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.

  116. The OSRD questionnaire, dated Apr. 28, 1942, is in box 1, JRO/AEC.

  117. Lawrence: “To Whom It May Concern,” Jan. 15, 1943, series 8, box 110, MED/NARA.

  118. Lansdale diary, Feb.–Mar. 1942, and “John Lansdale, Jr.—Military Service” (unpublished manuscript), 14–22.

  119. Lansdale, “Military Service,” appendix; author interview with John Lansdale, Galesville, Md., Sept. 6, 1996.

  120. Lansdale, “Military Service,” 16; Barrett (1951), 11.

  121. Segrè (1993), 173.

  122. Ernest and John Lawrence, engaged in negotiations with a potential funder for expansion of the Donner Laboratory, were unavailable when Lansdale dressed down the boys.

  123. Lawrence to Bush, Apr. 20, 1942, box 46, Lawrence folder, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  124. Seaborg (1992), vol. 3, 51.

  125. Lawrence to Conant, May 23, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.

  126. Rhodes (1986), 407.

  127. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 70–71.

  128. “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL.

  129. E. O. Lawrence to Bush, June 15, 1942, box 46, Lawrence folder, Bush papers, Library of Congress.

  130. Seaborg (1992), vol. 1, 77; Jones (1985), 53, 70.

  131. Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build An Atomic Bomb (University of California Press, 1992), xxix.

  132. Segrè believed that Oppie’s students deliberately walked flat-footed—“an infirmity of their master’s”—just as he and others among Fermi’s students had unconsciously mimicked Fermi’s intonation. Segrè (1993), 138.

  133. Author interview with Rossi Lomanitz, Sackett’s Harbor,
N.Y., July 15–16, 1996; army MID report on Rossi Lomanitz, July 15, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  134. Author interview with Arthur Rosen, San Luis Obispo, Calif., Mar. 11, 1997; army MID report on Arthur Rosen, Aug. 5, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  135. Weinberg: San Francisco field report, Aug. 19, 1949, box 6, JRO/AEC; army MID report on Joseph Weinberg, Aug. 2, 1943, Weinberg file, no. 100–190625, FBI; Michaelmore (1969), 51.

  136. Bohm: David Bohm file, May 23, 1952, no. 100–17787, FBI; F. David Peat, Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm (Addison-Wesley, 1997), 39–60.

  137. Friedman: Army MID report on Max Bernard Friedman, Aug. 21, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; Lomanitz interview (1996).

  138. Peat (1997), 58; transcript of Mar. 29, 1943, wiretap, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; Lomanitz interview (1996).

  139. Lomanitz interview (1996); Peat (1997), 49–50.

  140. Eldred Nelson interview (1999).

  141. “Uranium was never mentioned. It didn’t need to be.” Lomanitz interview (1996).

  142. ITMOJRO, 126, 275–76; Lomanitz interview (1996).

  143. Oppenheimer told the FBI in 1946 that Weinberg “ha[d] an extremely nervous temperament and for this reason, he disapproved his employment at Los Alamos.” San Francisco field report, Sept. 19, 1946, vol. 3, Nelson file, FBI.

  4: An Adventurous Time

  1. Breit: Rhodes (1986), 410; Allan Needell, Science, Cold War, and the American State: Lloyd V. Berkner and the Balance of Professional Ideals (Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), 49.

  2. ITMOJRO, 11.

  3. Serber (1998), 25–27.

  4. Ibid., 11–13, 46–47; Teller (2001), 151.

  5. Serber (1998), 51.

  6. “Peace and War: Berkeley and Los Alamos,” transcript of Robert Serber lecture, June 7, 1994, Brookhaven National Laboratory, N.Y.

  7. Anne Fitzpatrick, Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapons Project, 1942–1952 (University Microfilms, 1998), 57–60.

  8. Seaborg (1992), vol. 1, 73.

  9. Bethe believed that Teller’s personality underwent a change in 1932, when Edward was humiliated by physicist George Placzek while studying in Rome: “Placzek treated Teller very roughly. He made fun of him.” Author interview with Hans Bethe, Santa Barbara, Calif., Feb. 12, 1988.