Brotherhood of the Bomb

by Gregg Herken

  64. Louise Bransten: “Rich Woman Balks at Reply on Spying,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 1948; “Apricot Heiress,” New York Mirror, Nov. 8, 1948; “Biography,” n.d., and “Statement of Louise R. Berman to Committee on Un-American Activities,” Sept. 20, 1948, Louise Berman papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Louise married Lionel Berman in 1947 and changed her name.

  65. Richard Bransten was heir to the MJB coffee-importing business founded by Morris J. Brandenstein. Bransten later became a successful Hollywood scriptwriter, providing financial backing to the magazine New Masses. Bransten had been the subject of an FBI investigation since 1941. Summary report, n.d., 444–45, pt. 6, Silvermaster file, FBI.

  66. Louise Bransten and Silvermaster: Summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, no. 100–17879, COMRAP file, FBI; Weinberg and Vassiliev (1999), 158. In Nov. 1945, the FBI obtained a copy of a lengthy autobiography that Bransten had prepared for Mikhail Vavilov, then the Soviet consul in San Francisco. Preparation of such an autobiography was one of the final steps in the recruitment of an agent. Summary report, Apr. 22, 1947, COMRAP file, FBI.

  67. San Francisco field report, May 31, 1944, sec. 44, COMRAP file, FBI.

  68. Bransten’s Rosenberg Foundation also bankrolled the publication and distribution to Bay Area schools of a children’s book that Dolly had written while in Russia, The Boy from Leningrad.

  69. Transcript of Louis Goldblatt interview, 1980, “Working Class Leader in the ILWU, 1935–1977,” vol. 2, 959–60, Bancroft Library.

  70. Louise Bransten was the subject of two lengthy COMRAP reports, in 1944 and 1947. Summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, and Apr. 22, 1947, COMRAP file, FBI.

  71. Interviews: King and Bowser (1997). A May 1943 FBI report, noting the “illicit relationships” between Bransten and Kheifets, concluded, “These possibilities will be borne in mind in future investigations.” San Francisco field report, May 7, 1943, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.

  72. Jerrold and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Brassey’s, 2002), uncorrected page proofs, 47–50, 315–16. In their previous book, written in collaboration with Soviet spymaster Pavel Sudaplatov, the authors had claimed that Oppenheimer also informed Kheifets that American atomic scientists “were planning to move from Berkeley, California, to a new site to conduct research in nuclear weapons.” In Dec. 1941, of course, neither the Met Lab at Chicago nor the laboratory at Los Alamos could have been discussed by Oppenheimer or anyone else. Sudaplatov et al. (1994), 174–75.

  73. In the winter of 1942–43, the Chevaliers hosted another party for Russian war relief which Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer attended. “And of course the Soviet consulate was represented.” Chevalier (1965), 51.

  74. San Francisco field report, n.d. sec. 5, Chevalier file, FBI.

  75. Oct. 13, 1942, entry, “Snipe’s Diary,” Chevalier papers.

  76. Chevalier to “Snipe,” Apr. 4, 1943, “Snipe’s Diary—1935,” Chevalier papers. Chevalier was hoping to get a posting in North Africa, which, Schwartz writes, was “then a major target of the KGB, as revealed in the Venona traffic.” Chevalier (1965), 55; Schwartz (1998), 410.

  77. George Eltenton told the FBI that he had arranged Chevalier’s meeting with Lattimore. Eltenton interview, June 26, 1946, Eltenton FBI file, box 6, JRO/AEC. Lattimore: “Statement Before Foreign Relations Committee,” Senate Hearings folder, box 33; and Ladd to Hoover, Oct. 25, 1949, correspondence, April 1944–June 1952 folder, box 28, Owen Lattimore papers, Library of Congress; Owen Lattimore file, no. 100–24628, FBI; Schrecker (1998), 248–50.

  78. King interview (1997).

  79. Harold Fidler, Feb. 20, 1997, personal communication.

  80. Pash: “Biography” folder, box 1, and “Colonel Boris T. Pash—Teacher, Soldier, Dedicated Worker for the Orthodox Church,” Russian Orthodox Journal, Feb. 1971, 6–11, photo box, Boris Pash papers, Hoover Institution Library, Stanford, Calif.

  81. Pash to “Coney,” June 9, 1942, correspondence folder, box 3, Pash papers.

  82. After the war, Pash went to work for the CIA’s Directorate of Plans.

  83. Robert King, Feb. 6, 1997, personal communication.

  84. San Francisco field report, Feb. 10, 1943, JRO/FBI. Oppenheimer investigation of 1942–43: Burton to Ladd, Mar. 18, 1943, JRO/FBI; Hoover to Strong, Mar. 10, 1943, and Strong to Hoover, Mar. 18, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC; “Re: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Apr. 16, 1954, JRO/FBI.

  85. Hoover to Strong, Mar. 10, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  86. Jones (1985), 256.

  87. Hoover to Strong, Mar. 10, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  88. Hoover to Pieper, Mar. 22, 1943, JRO/FBI; Pieper to Hoover, Dec. 2, 1943, JRO/FBI.

  89. The transcript of the Nelson-“Joe” conversation, without date or title, was kept by Groves in his personal safe during the war. Transcript, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA. Excerpts are also in a memo of Aug. 19, 1949, Joseph Weinberg FBI file, box 6, JRO/AEC.

  90. Doyle was the organizational secretary of the Communist Party in Alameda County. She and Nelson had met with Joe the previous Thursday, Mar. 25. Glavin to Tolson, Sept. 29, 1948, 50, HUAC file, FBI.

  91. Transcript, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA. “Joe dictated and Steve wrote down at this point approximately 150 to 200 words, largely indistinguishable, but believed to be from the conversation a basic formula of some type,” Branigan noted. The “magnetic spectrograph” was Lawrence’s Calutron. The “velocity selector” referred either to the Isotron or to an apparatus used by Nelson and Frankel in measuring uranium cross sections. A 5-centimeter sphere may have referred to the critical-mass calculations performed by Nelson and Frankel; the plutonium core of the first atomic bomb would have made a solid sphere approximately 5.5 centimeters in diameter. The mention of deuterium suggests that “Joe” might also have passed along information about the 1942 summer seminar that discussed the Super, since deuterium plays no role in electromagnetic separation. David Hawkins, Project Y: The Los Alamos Story (Tomash Publishers, 1983), pt. 1, 99–100; transcript, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; personal communications: Herbert York, Nov. 5, 1997; Eldred Nelson, Jan. 25, 1998.

  92. Ironically, Nelson told Joe that he and his friends “should never talk in a house but only when they were outside.” Nelson-“Joe” transcript, 26.

  93. King interview (1997).

  94. Coincidentally, Nelson’s meeting with “Joe” occurred just a week after the FBI and the FCC discovered the secret radio transmitter at San Francisco’s Soviet consulate. See note 35.

  95. Pieper to Hoover, Mar. 31, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, FBI.

  96. San Francisco field report, May 7, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, and Glavin to Tolson, Sept. 29, 1948, HUAC file, FBI.

  97. Zubilin’s real name was Zarubin, his code name Maxim; both he and his wife, Elizabeth (code names Vardo and Helen), were senior NKVD agents. Zubilins: Haynes and Klehr (1999), 394; Robert Louis Benson, Venona Historical Monograph, no. 2 (U.S. National Security Agency, 1996), 4–6; Benson and Warner (1996), 51–54.

  98. A 1952 publication by the House Committee on Un-American Activities contained a slightly different version of this conversation. U.S. Congress, The Shameful Years: Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), 31. The version here is taken from verbatim transcripts contained in two contemporaneous FBI reports on Nelson. Ladd to Hoover, Apr. 16, 1943, 1–9, vol. 2; and San Francisco field report, May 7, 1943, 10–22, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.

  99. Nelson has been suggested as a candidate for a still-unidentified West Coast Soviet operative who appears in Venona messages, code-named Butcher. Nelson’s real name, Mesarosh, means “meat-cutter” in Hungarian. Haynes and Klehr (1999), 428 fn.

  100. Although “Bernstein” is deleted from the transcript in most of the FBI’s report, a subsequent analysis of the Nelson-Zubilin conversation by the bureau notes a reference by Nelson to “the Bernstein woman,” whom the bureau concluded was Louise Branst
en. San Francisco field report, May 7, 1943, 30, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.

  101. Tamm to Hoover, Apr. 6, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, FBI; Groves (1962), 138.

  102. Ladd to Hoover, Apr. 7, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, FBI.

  103. “Under no circumstances should this matter be discussed at conferences with representatives of G-2 and ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence],” the FBI director instructed. Hoover to SACs, Apr. 9, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, FBI.

  104. The Hoover-Hopkins memo is cited in Benson and Warner (1996), 49–50. It is unclear whether Hopkins ever responded to Hoover’s warning. However, Robert King remembered Pieper telling him that the reaction from the White House had been simply, “Do nothing to embarrass our ally.” King interview (1997).

  105. Lansdale to Strong, Apr. 5, 1943, “DSM Project” folder, box 2, Pash papers.

  106. Lyall Johnson, July 19, 1996, personal communication.

  107. Author interview with Lyall Johnson, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 1996.

  108. House on Forest Avenue: John Titus to Groves, Feb. 20, 1946, file 132.2, entry 5, MED/NARA; Lyall Johnson interview (1996).

  109. Stanley Goldberg, Aug. 13, 1994, personal communication; Jones (1985), 125; author interview with Harold Fidler, Oakland, Calif., Dec. 16, 1992.

  110. Goodchild (1980), 87.

  111. DeSilva: Davis (1968), 188–89; Hoddeson et al. (1993), 96. Pash and de Silva found the instructions puzzling; Lansdale seemed to be suggesting that they not scrutinize Oppenheimer too closely. Lansdale to Pash, Mar. 13, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  112. Hoover’s Mar. 1943 letter to General Strong wrongly asserted that Lomanitz had been present in the meeting with Nelson and volunteered to commit espionage.

  113. Lomanitz interview (1996).

  114. De Silva to Lansdale, June 12, 1943, box 3, JRO/AEC.

  115. Weinberg to “Opje,” Apr. 12, 1943, box 77, JRO. Technically, Weinberg’s conversation with Nelson in late March may not have violated the security act, since Weinberg filled out the OSRD’s personnel security questionnaire on Apr. 14, 1943, and was put on the Rad Lab payroll on Apr. 27. Marshall to Groves, July 24, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA. When Nelson asked whether any experiments had yet been conducted, Joe’s answer indicates that his friends were still being tight-lipped: “Joe stated that he did not know, that he had asked his friends the results of the tests but that they had refused to say, these friends feeling that possession of the knowledge was extremely dangerous.” Transcript, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  116. Eldred Nelson interview (1997).

  117. Hoover to Strong, June 22, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  118. They were, observed one reader of the transcripts, “the most boring conversations imaginable.” Weinberg folder, CINRAD file, FBI. My thanks to Stan Norris for copies of CINRAD documents on the investigation of Weinberg and his family.

  119. Weinberg’s Rad Lab personnel file contained this notation by a security agent, quoting Birge: “Oppenheimer knows all about this man. If he wants W. it is his decision.” Marshall to Groves, July 24, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  120. Lansdale to Strong, June 12, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  121. ITMOJRO, 197.

  122. Ibid., 116.

  123. Hawkins: Hawkins MID file, Sept. 20, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; “Subject: David Hawkins,” June 29, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  124. Serber interview (1992).

  125. Murray to “Officer in Charge,” July 14, 1943, and Pash to Lansdale, June 29, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  126. Calvert to Pash, July 6, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.

  127. Ladd to Hoover, Apr. 24, 1943, and Pieper to Hoover, June 30, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  128. Lansdale to Groves, July 6, 1943, entry 8, box 99, MED/NARA. On plans to replace Oppenheimer, see also Pieper to Hoover, June 30, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  129. Welch to Ladd, July 28, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  130. Groves to “District Engineer,” July 20, 1943, entry 8, box 99, MED/NARA.

  6: A Question of Divided Loyalties

  1. Lansdale to Groves, Aug. 12, 1943, box 9, AEC/JRO.

  2. Lansdale, “Military Service,” 35; author interview with John Lansdale, Washington, D.C., Sept. 28, 1993.

  3. Welch to Ladd, July 28, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  4. Jones (1985), 128.

  5. Beta Calutrons: Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 295.

  6. Y-12: Jones (1985), 130; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 129.

  7. Jones (1985), 132; Childs (1968), 343; Anthony Cave Brown and Charles MacDonald, eds., The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb (Delta Books, 1977), 159.

  8. Brown and MacDonald (1977), 169.

  9. Minutes of Feb.–Apr. 1943 Coordinating Committee, book 1, box 27, LBL; Jones (1985), 142.

  10. Transcript of Aug. 16, 1943, telephone conversation, book 1, box 1, records of the Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab records), Bancroft Library.

  11. Minutes of Sept. 2, 1943, Coordinating Committee, book 2, box 27, LBL.

  12. Minutes of Nov. 4, 1943, Coordinating Committee, book 3, box 27, LBL.

  13. Welch to Ladd, Apr. 12, 1943, sec. 1, CINRAD file, FBI.

  14. Hoover to Strong, June 22, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  15. Pieper to Hoover, July 23, 1943, sec. 4, CINRAD file, FBI.

  16. Welch to Ladd, July 23, 1943, sec. 5, CINRAD file, FBI.

  17. Weinberg folder, CINRAD file, FBI.

  18. Interviews: King and Bowser (1997).

  19. Groves to Wallace, Stimson, and Marshall, Aug. 21, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  20. Groves to Bundy, Aug. 17, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  21. Stimson to FDR, Sept. 9, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  22. Stimson to Roosevelt, Oct. 20, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  23. Roosevelt to Stimson, Oct. 26, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  24. Anna Marie Rosenberg to Roosevelt, Nov. 2, 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

  25. Author interview with Lyall Johnson, Washington, D.C., Feb. 11, 1993.

  26. Oppenheimer-Lomanitz meeting: ITMOJRO, 128, 136, 208.

  27. Oppenheimer-Weinberg/Bohm meeting: Ibid., 208–9, 277.

  28. Tipped off to a meeting of the four suspects with Steve Nelson and Bernadette Doyle at Weinberg’s flat, army CIC agents crowded onto the landing of an adjoining building on the evening of Aug. 17, 1943.

  29. Weinberg to Oppenheimer, Apr. 12, 1943, box 77, JRO.

  30. Summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, COMRAP file, FBI.

  31. Lyall Johnson, May 1, 2000, personal communication.

  32. Oppenheimer-Pash interview: ITMOJRO, 845–63; Lyall Johnson, Apr. 4, 1997, personal communication.

  33. Ironically, Oppenheimer suggested that Pash find out the names on his own by planting a spy in FAECT.

  34. King interview (1997).

  35. The Aug. 7 letter was probably written by Lieutenant Colonel Mironov of the NKVD, an aide to Zubilin. Mironov was subsequently recalled and confined to a mental institution in the Soviet Union. Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 274–75. The anonymous letter is reprinted in Benson and Warner (1996), 51–54.

  36. King interview (1997); ITMOJRO, 813; Lansdale to Hoover and Whitson, Aug. 27, 1943, USSR file, no. 47C, U.S. Army Chief of Staff records (Army/NARA), RG 319, National Archives.

  37. Murray to “Officer in Charge,” Sept. 6, 1943, Weinberg folder, CINRAD file, FBI.

  38. Pieper-Hoover, Sept. 8, 1943, sec. 6, CINRAD file, FBI.

  39. Lansdale to Strong, Sept. 18, 1943, sec. 10, CINRAD file, FBI.

  40. Herbert York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva (Basic Books, 1987), 33.

  41. Peat (1997), 84; San Francisco field report, May 23, 1952, Bohm file, FBI.

  42. Weinberg FBI file, Aug. 19, 1949, box 1, AEC/JRO; U.S. Congress, HUAC, Report on Atomic Espionage (Nelson-Weinberg and His
key-Adams Cases). 81st Congress, 2nd sess., Sept. 29, 1949, 8–9.

  43. California Legislature, “Third Report: Un-American Activities in California, 1947” (Sacramento, Calif., 1947) (Tenney hearings, 1947), 212.

  44. Beyond not wanting to tip its hand, the government had no clearly admissible evidence to use against Weinberg. Lansdale to Hoover, Aug. 2, 1943, Weinberg folder, CINRAD file, FBI. Since Weinberg was the only part-time scientist at the lab, the army issued an edict firing all part-time workers. Lyall Johnson interview (1993).

  45. L. Johnson to Fidler, Sept. 20, 1943, and Friedman to Oppenheimer, Sept. 25, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  46. Friedman to Oppenheimer, Sept. 25, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  47. ITMOJRO, 119; Peat (1997), 5.

  48. Bohm would later be assigned to work with the Rad Lab’s British contingent on theoretical calculations related to the Calutrons. Peat (1997), 64–65.

  49. Lansdale to Groves, Aug. 2, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  50. Army MID report on Lomanitz, July 15, 1943, Weinberg folder, CINRAD file, FBI. Lansdale arranged for Lomanitz to be assigned to a signals unit of the Forty-fourth Infantry Division, which was training in Washington State.

  51. Lansdale to Groves, July 19, 1943, and Lansdale to Groves, July 31, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  52. Goodchild (1980), 91; Stern (1969), 52.

  53. Murray to “Officer in Charge,” Sept. 22, 1943, box 1, AEC/JRO.

  54. Groves may have wanted to draft Lomanitz so that Rossi could later be court-martialed. When the general raised the idea with aide Joseph Volpe, however, Volpe, a lawyer, pointed out that Lomanitz could call his own counsel to challenge the charges. Groves dropped the idea. Joseph Volpe, Mar. 9, 2001, personal communication.

  55. Friedman to Oppenheimer, Sept. 25, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  56. Murray to “Officer in Charge,” Sept. 22, 1943, box 1, AEC/JRO.

  57. When Lomanitz telephoned Los Alamos from his home in Oklahoma, where he had gone on furlough before basic training, Oppie refused to take the call. Oppenheimer to Lansdale, Sept. 29, 1943, no. 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  58. ITMOJRO, 815.

  59. Ibid., 816.

  60. Ibid., 186, 277–78.