Brotherhood of the Bomb

by Gregg Herken

  61. Oppenheimer-Lansdale interview: Ibid., 871–86.

  62. Summary report, Apr. 18, 1952, 19, Robert Oppenheimer file, FBI/JRO.

  63. Among those Lansdale suspected of being the contacts were Robert and Charlotte Serber and Phillip Morrison, another of Oppie’s grad students. Morrison interview (2000).

  64. A list of candidates that Jim Murray sent Pash included not only Weinberg but Birge. Murray to Pash, Nov. 22, 1943, box 1, AEC/JRO.

  65. A few days before going overseas, Pash sent Lansdale a list of nine individuals he considered likely candidates for Eltenton’s go-between; the list was drawn from the physics and chemistry faculty at Berkeley.

  66. Alsos: Groves (1962), 191–92.

  67. Minutes of Nov. 1943 Coordinating Committee, book 3, box 27, LBL; Jones (1985), 135.

  68. Transcript of Nov. 10, 1943, telephone conversation, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  69. Transcript of Nov. 25, 1943, telephone conversation, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records; minutes of Nov. 1943 Coordinating Committee, book 3, box 27, LBL.

  70. Transcript of Nov. 26, 1943, telephone conversation, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  71. Transcripts of Dec. 1943 telephone conversations, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  72. Childs (1968), 348–49.

  73. Groves arrived at Y-12 on Dec. 14 to find things little improved. Transcript of Dec. 28, 1943, telephone conversations, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records; Jones (1985), 136.

  74. Minutes of Dec. 1943 Coordinating Committee, book 3, box 27, LBL; Jones (1985), 136–38.

  75. Interview with Duane Sewell, July 30, 1993, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory archives, Livermore, Calif. (LLNL).

  76. Transcript of Dec. 31, 1943, telephone conversation, book 1, box 1, Rad Lab records; Lawrence to Conklin, Jan. 5, 1944, book 3, box 27, LBL.

  77. This account is taken from FBI interviews done in late 1953 and early 1954 with Groves, Lansdale, and William Consodine. Frank Oppenheimer, also interviewed at this time, denied ever being approached by Chevalier. Interviews, box 1, AEC/JRO. In spring 1946, Chevalier would tell the FBI that he had approached only Oppie, while the two men were mixing drinks in the kitchen of the Eagle Hill home, at a dinner party shortly before Oppenheimer and his family moved to Los Alamos. By that time, however, the two had gotten together socially and would have been able to coordinate their stories, as Chevalier himself acknowledged. Chevalier (1965), 68–69.

  78. Consodine reasoned, as he later told the FBI, that Oppie was “more inclined to protect a blood relative than a friend.” Newark field report, Jan. 5, 1954, box 1, AEC/JRO.

  79. Joseph Volpe, Mar. 9, 2001, personal communication.

  80. It was not the first time that Groves sought an extralegal solution to a security problem in the project. Earlier in the war, Groves had wanted to intern physicist Leo Szilard for the duration as an enemy alien. Stimson to Attorney General, Oct. 1943, no. 61, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA; Lanouette (1992), 240; Stern (1969), 70.

  81. The available record does not indicate whether Groves knew of and tacitly approved this plan, or Consodine and Lansdale arrived at it independently.

  82. Pash was already in Europe and did not learn that Oppenheimer had identified Chevalier as the go-between until much later. ITMOJRO, 817, 153.

  83. Lansdale, however, did notify Hoover in writing on Dec. 13 that Oppenheimer had identified the professor as Chevalier. Lansdale to Hoover, USSR file, no. 47C, Army/NARA.

  84. There is no indication in Nichols’s memoir, published in 1987, that Groves told his second-in-command what Oppenheimer had said about Frank’s role. Lansdale confirmed his late-night visit to Tamm and Whitson during the 1954 Oppenheimer hearings and, previously, in a private letter to Groves. ITMOJRO, 262–63; Lansdale to Groves, Dec. 16, 1953, box 5, RG 200 (Groves/NARA), National Archives.

  85. Author interview with Duane Sewell, Livermore, Calif., July 30, 1993; transcript of Jan. 1, 1944, telephone conversation, book 2, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  86. Seaborg (1992), vol. 4, 117.

  87. One particularly enterprising worker used a screwdriver to adjust the gauge. Sewell interview (1993).

  88. Kamen soon made the unpleasant discovery that chemical processes that worked in the lab failed to give the same results when tried on an industrial scale. Transcript of Jan. 8, 1944, telephone conversation, book 2, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  89. Jones (1985), 144. Cyclotroneers made a distinction between water-soluble “gunk” and insoluble “crud,” which had to be laboriously scraped from the machine. Lofgren interview (1998).

  90. Transcript of Jan. 22, 1944, telephone conversation, book 2, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  91. Transcript of Jan. 18, 1944, telephone conversation, book 2, box 1, Rad Lab records; Dobbs to “Officer in Charge,” Aug. 31, 1943, and attachments, no. 8, box 100, MED; army MID report on Fox, Sept. 13, 1943, box 99, AEC/JRO.

  92. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 164.

  93. Brown and MacDonald (1977), 170–71.

  94. Segrè (1993), 186–95.

  95. Alvarez (1987), 130–35; Badash et al. (1985), 55.

  96. Badash et al. (1985), 16–18.

  97. R. Oppenheimer to Groves, Mar. 25, 1944, no. 4, pt. 2, series 1, MED/NARA.

  98. Oppenheimer to Groves, Jan. 1, 1944, “Design and Testing Bomb” file, Army/NARA.

  99. Hoddeson et al. (1993), 137, 181; Hawkins (1983), 118; J. Askin, R. Ehrlich, R. P. Feynman, Jan. 31, 1944, “First Report on the Hydride,” LAMS-45, LANL.

  100. Hoddeson et al. (1993), 137, 181.

  101. Implosion crisis: Ibid., 1–3; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 252–53; Rhodes (1986), 548.

  102. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 311; Hoddeson et al. (1993), 245–48.

  103. “Fast” implosion: Hoddeson et al. (1993), 130, 159–60; Rhodes (1986), 545.

  104. Teller to Mayer, n.d. (early 1944), box 3, Mayer papers.

  105. Hoddeson et al. (1993), 203; Fitzpatrick (1998), 108.

  106. Opacity: Serber (1995), xxi; Teller to Urey, May 18, 1944, LANL.

  107. Teller (2001), 127; Teller to Mayer, n.d. (May–June 1944), box 3, Mayer papers.

  108. Teller interview (1993).

  109. Hoddeson et al. (1993), 204; Fitzpatrick (1998), 110; Rhodes (1986), 546; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 240.

  110. Teller (2001), 180, 220; R. Oppenheimer to Groves, Mar. 25, 1944, no. 4, pt. 2, series 1, MED/NARA.

  111. Fitzpatrick (1998), 112; Hoddeson et al. (1993), 157–60; Teller (2001), 177.

  112. Fuchs was subsequently one of the authors of a top-secret, five-volume series of reports on implosion theory. Teller told his biographers that he had no memory of refusing Bethe’s requests, but acknowledged that he balked at doing the calculations. Rhodes (1986), 545–46; Hoddeson et al. (1993), 162; Blumberg and Owens (1976), 131.

  113. Williams (1987), 189.

  114. New York to Moscow, Feb. 9, 1944, Venona decrypts. Fuchs-Gold meeting: Rhodes (1995), 107–8; Albright and Kunstel (1997), 78.

  115. Independent of Rest, the Russians had other sources of information on Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. Just two days after Anton forwarded Fuchs’s information, Fitin received another encrypted cable from New York, relaying a report by Vogel that dealt with construction of the facility at Oak Ridge to make heavy water. New York to Moscow, Feb 11, 1944, Venona decrypts. Eleven days later, Kurchatov wrote an assessment of new “materials” derived from espionage that may have included Vogel’s information, since it dealt with heavy-water production in the United States.

  116. One of the Soviets’ sources in England was Hola, a secretary in Britain’s Non-Ferrous Metals Association, who was later identified as Melita Norwood. Another British spy, Eric, remains unidentified as of this writing. Andrew and Mitrokhin (1999), 115–16; Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 181–83.

  117. Kurchatov to Pervukhin, July 3, 1943, reprinted in Sudoplatov, et al. (1994), 455.

  118. New York to Moscow, Aug. 12, 1943, Venona decrypts. The nam
e of the “progressive professor”—redacted by the censors when they declassified Venona—was reportedly “Lawrence.” If so, Moliere’s political intuition was no better than his grasp of California geography. Mikhailov sent his cable the same day that Ernest was formally inducted into the Soviet Academy of Sciences. See chapter 5. The author thanks Nigel West for these insights.

  119. Late in 1941, Pinsky left FAECT to become research director for the CIO in California. Pinsky interview (1997).

  120. San Francisco to Moscow, Mar. 9, 1944; San Francisco to Moscow, Dec. 11, 1943, Venona decrypts.

  121. San Francisco to Moscow, Nov. 2, 1943, Venona decrypts.

  122. Benson, Venona Historical Monographs, nos. 4 and 5.

  123. San Francisco to Moscow, Feb. 8, 1944, and Jan. 14, 1944, Venona decrypts.

  124. Strong: Tracy Strong and Helene Keyssar, Right in Her Soul: The Life of Anna Louise Strong (Random House, 1983), 206–8; Haynes and Klehr (1999), 367; Philip Scheidermayer, Jan. 14, 1998, personal communication.

  125. Miller: San Francisco to Moscow, Nov. 1, 1943, Venona decrypts; San Francisco field reports, Feb. 25, 1944, May 31, 1944, and Apr. 22, 1947, COMRAP file, FBI; Haynes and Klehr (1999), 358.

  126. San Francisco to Moscow, Nov. 1, 1943, and June 22, 1944, Venona decrypts. Corday was Marat’s assassin in the French Revolution; she was guillotined for the murder.

  127. The previous day, Pieper had put Chevalier back on the FBI’s watch list. Pieper to Hoover, Dec. 17, 1943, sec. 1, Chevalier file, and “Haakon Chevalier,” n.d., sec. 30, COMRAP file, FBI.

  128. Chevalier to Oppenheimer, n.d., and Dec. 3, 1943, Chevalier folder, JRO.

  129. “Haakon Chevalier,” n.d., sec. 30, COMRAP file, FBI.

  130. Summary report, Apr. 22, 1947, 37–38, COMRAP file, FBI.

  131. Summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, 222–24, COMRAP file, FBI.

  132. The following day, Bransten and Chevalier went to Washington, D.C., where they met with Silvermaster. Summary report, Apr. 22, 1947, 37–38, COMRAP file, and summary report, Mar. 6, 1946, CINRAD file, FBI.

  7: Break, Blow, Burn

  1. Kamen (1986), 164–65.

  2. Lansdale to Osborne, July 17, 1944, Tolman papers, OSRD/NARA; Lyall Johnson interview (1996).

  3. San Francisco field report, May 7, 1956, John Hundale Lawrence file, no. 77–32400, FBI.

  4. Kamen incident: U.S. Congress, Excerpts from Hearings Regarding Investigation of Communist Activities in Connection with the Atom Bomb, (1948 HUAC hearings), Sept. 9, 14, and 16, 1948 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948), 11–49; Sudoplatov et al. (1994), 214, 298; Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 334.

  5. Lyall Johnson interview (1996).

  6. Fred “Dusty” Rhodes, Apr. 12, 2001, personal communication.

  7. Philip Scheidermayer, May 8, 1998, personal communication.

  8. “Summary: Russian Situation,” n.d., “Recently Declassified Extracts,” MED/NARA; Glavin to Tolson, Sept. 29, 1948, 56–57, HUAC file, FBI; Kamen interview (1997).

  9. “Summary: Russian Situation,” n.d., “Recently Declassified Extracts,” MED/NARA.

  10. Fidler to Lawrence, July 11, 1944, folder 10, carton 10, EOL.

  11. Fidler interview (1992).

  12. “I still want to do something about the war besides having a son in it … but so far nobody will have me.” Chevalier to Edouard, Feb. 20, 1945, “Correspondence, 1944–45,” Chevalier papers.

  13. The wartime personal correspondence of Jackie and Frank Oppenheimer is in an unmarked folder in the Frank Oppenheimer papers, Bancroft Library.

  14. Perhaps the best evidence that Oppie was not a spy surfaced in 1999: in a February 1944 cable reportedly sent to Moscow Center from New York, the NKVD was still evidently hopeful of recruiting Oppenheimer, possibly with the assistance of his brother. The message also identified Robert Oppenheimer as a “secret member of the Compatriot organization,” or Communist Party. However, there is no independent collaboration of the authenticity of this cable as of this writing. Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 183–84.

  15. An electronic device found in Oppie’s overcoat occasioned some excitement until the G-men realized that it was a dry-cell battery.

  16. During his Berkeley visit, Oppie had discussed with Lawrence whether Bernard Peters should be dismissed from the Rad Lab staff. Stern (1969), 43.

  17. Jones (1985) 265; U.S. Congress, HUAC, Testimony of James Sterling Murray and Edward Tiers Manning (1949 HUAC hearings), 81st Congress, 1st sess., Aug. 14 and Oct. 5, 1949, 877–78.

  18. Titus to Groves, Feb. 20, 1946, file 132.2, entry 5, MED/NARA.

  19. Lyall Johnson interview (1996).

  20. Peters was a German-born Communist and anti-Nazi activist who had escaped from Dachau and come to America in 1934, later becoming a naturalized citizen. His wife, Hannah—another German refugee and a friend of Oppie’s and Jean Tatlock’s—was a physician at a San Francisco hospital and a party member close to Steve Nelson. Oppenheimer was probably aware that the army and FBI were already investigating the couple, since Bernard was prominent in FAECT. Bernard Peters’s name had been on a list of four that DeSilva showed to Oppenheimer; the list also included Weinberg’s name. DeSilva to Calvert, Jan. 6, 1944, box 1, AEC/JRO. Peters: Childs (1968), 353; ITMOJRO, 120–21, 150–51; Bernard Peters MID file, Aug. 6, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.

  21. In Jan. 1944, army agents monitoring the bug in Weinberg’s home overheard Joe tell his wife about Lomanitz: “They would not have sprung a trap on [Rossi] if they did not have reason to believe that something was wrong with [Rossi’s?] activities. They’re wrong but they have reason to believe.” Weinberg also said that he and Bohm were in “complete cahoots.” Summary report, Jan. 31, 1947, 19–21, CINRAD file, FBI.

  22. Summary report, Apr. 22, 1947, 57, COMRAP file, FBI; Albright and Kunstel (1997), 104–5.

  23. Lansdale, “Military Service,” 44–45.

  24. Rhodes (1986), 654.

  25. Frank’s meager responsibilities at the lab included drafting a list of safety “dos and don’ts” for the upcoming bomb test. “Safety Precautions,” n.d., no. 90339, Coordination and Information Center, U.S. Department of Energy, Las Vegas, Nev. (CIC/DOE).

  26. Frank Oppenheimer interview, box 2, Child papers; Childs (1968), 354.

  27. Lansdale to R. Oppenheimer, n.d., Lansdale folder, JRO. Soviet atomic espionage: “Issues in the History of the Science and Technology” (translation of Russian title), 3/1992, St. Petersburg, Russia, 128; Holloway (1994), 222–23; Rhodes (1995), 244–46. A copy of the journal article, withdrawn from Russian libraries shortly after publication, was obtained from the Hoover Library at Stanford.

  28. Lawrence to Conant, May 31, 1944, OSRD/NARA; Oppenheimer to Lawrence, May 24, 1944, Los Alamos file, box 7, Underhill papers, LANL; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 166.

  29. The first hybrid racetrack—using the magnet and vacuum tanks of the Alpha I but Alpha II’s higher voltage four-beam source—began its inaugural run on June 3, 1944. Hopes for the improved Calutron faded immediately, however, when insulators broke down under the greater load and the new machine sputtered to a halt. Improved heat shielding and better insulators solved the problem. Brown and MacDonald (1977), 170; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 155.

  30. Author interview with Herbert York, La Jolla, Calif., Mar. 14, 1997; Jones (1985), 145.

  31. Jones (1985), 143.

  32. Serber (1998), 104.

  33. Conant, “Report on Visit to Los Alamos,” Aug. 17, 1944, no. 86, Bush-Conant file, OSRD/NARA.

  34. Brown and MacDonald (1977), 171; Rhodes (1986), 600.

  35. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 168–73.

  36. Ibid., 300.

  37. Nov. 13, 1944, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.

  38. Childs (1968), 357.

  39. Tolman’s committee: Groves to Tolman, Aug. 29, 1944, file 334, series 5, MED/NARA; Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 324–25; Jones (1985), 556–58.

  40. Tolman to Lawrence, Sept. 16, 1944, fi
le 334, series 5, MED/NARA.

  41. Oppenheimer to Tolman, Sept. 20, 1944, file 334, series 5, MED/NARA; Rhodes (1986), 563.

  42. Untitled memo, Oct. 1944, folder 37, carton 29, EOL.

  43. Notes, Nov. 8, 1944, box 9, Tolman file, OSRD/NARA.

  44. ITMOJRO, 956.

  45. Nov. 8 and Nov. 23, 1944, Groves diary, Groves/NARA; transcript of telephone conversation, Jan. 19, 1945, book 6, box 1, Rad Lab records.

  46. Nonetheless, Lawrence telegraphed Groves on January 6 to badger him again for “a continuing construction program to the end of the war.”

  47. Dec. 27, 1944, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.

  48. “Report of Committee on Postwar Policy,” Dec. 28, 1944, file 3, pt. 2, series 1, MED/NARA.

  49. Ernest was still not willing to admit defeat. Lawrence to Groves, Jan. 6, 1945, folder 37, carton 28, EOL.

  50. Transcript of telephone conversation, Jan. 19, 1945, book 6, box 1, Rad Lab records; Jan. 20, 1945, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.

  51. Transcript of telephone conversation, Feb. 27, 1945, book 6, box 1, Rad Lab records; Feb. 27, 1945, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.

  52. Jones (1985), 510.

  53. Hoddeson et al. (1993), 335–49.

  54. Tatlock’s death: Jenkins (1991), 24–25; Schwartz (1998), 378–79.

  55. Brown and MacDonald (1977), 171; Jones (1985), 148.

  56. Workforce reductions at Y-12 and Rad Lab: Entries for Apr.–May 1945, Cooksey diary, folder 23, carton 4, EOL; transcripts of telephone conversations, book 7, box 1, Rad Lab records; May 3, 1945, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.

  57. Oppenheimer continued to foil Underhill’s efforts to find out about the project. Transcript of interview, box 2, Underhill papers, Bancroft Library.

  58. In addition to Fuchs, David Greenglass, and Ted Hall—an idealistic nineteen-year-old Harvard physics graduate, who had arrived at Los Alamos the following Jan. and began to spy shortly thereafter—there were reportedly other Soviet spies, as yet unrevealed, at the New Mexico lab. Sudoplatov et al. (1994), 172–219; Albright and Kunstel (1997), 100–109.

  59. Kurchatov to Pervukhin, Apr. 7, 1945, reprinted in Sudoplatov et al. (1994), 460–61.

  60. Kurchatov to Pervukhin, Mar. 7, 1945, reprinted in Sudoplatov et al. (1994), 446.