Brotherhood of the Bomb

by Gregg Herken

  114. Author interview with Carl Haussmann, Livermore, Calif., July 30, 1993; transcript of transcript, “Dr. Teller’s 80th Birthday,” LLNL.

  115. The radical design of the W-47 also made it particularly susceptible to accidental detonation—a problem that was reportedly not solved before the test moratorium went into effect. The W-47, writes Hansen, was “an explosion in search of an accident.” Starbird to Mills et al., Mar. 25, 1958, no. 104003, CIC/DOE; Hansen (1995), “W-47,” 19.

  116. “Needless to say we are all extremely happy with the results of these two shots.” Teller to Starbird, July 23, 1958, no. 102007, CIC/DOE.

  117. Hewlett and Holl (1989), 544.

  118. Hardtack-II: Strauss to Eisenhower, June 12, 1958, no. 72692, CIC/DOE.

  119. Hewlett and Holl (1989), 545.

  120. FRUS: 1958–60, vol. 3, 654–59.

  121. Ambrose (1984), 479; AEC press release, Aug. 29, 1958, no. 137262, CIC/DOE.

  122. Loper to Durham, Aug. 29, 1958, no. MCCXCVI, JCAE.

  123. The fact that the Soviet Union promptly detected the secret Argus tests demonstrated the viability of the Geneva agreement, Killian told Eisenhower. Two weeks after an article in Izvestia attributed a previously undiscovered band of radiation to an unannounced U.S. nuclear test, the New York Times published an account of Argus. Argus: York (1987), 128–32; 149–50.

  Epilogue: “As Streams Are…”

  1. The French detonated their first nuclear device in the Sahara on Feb. 13, 1960. The Soviets had never made it clear in the test-ban negotiations whether they would consider a French test a violation of the moratorium. Glenn Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (University of California Press, 1992), 21–22; Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (Penn State University Press, 2000), 346–48.

  2. The Soviets’ last test was Nov. 3, 1958. Steven Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–2000 (Smithsonian Institution Press, draft manuscript, 2000), 76–78. Resumption of testing: Khrushchev (2000), 295–302, 466–67; William Taubman et al., eds., Nikita Khrushchev (Yale University Press, 2000), 262–63.

  3. Decoupling theory: Killian (1977), 166; Voss (1963), 272; Latter interview (1985); Teller, “Comments on the Geneva Conference on Nuclear Test Detection,” Sept. 13, 1958, Teller folder, LLS/HHPL; Teller (2001), 443.

  4. Herken (1992), 115; “Visit with Ed Teller,” Oct. 13, 1958, Teller folder, Murray papers. Murray remained Teller’s steadfast, if unlikely, ally in opposing the test ban until his death from a heart attack in spring 1961.

  5. In his memoirs, Killian described decoupling as “a bizarre concept, contrived as part of a campaign to oppose any test ban.” Killian (1977), 166; Herken (1992), 115.

  6. Author interview with James Killian, Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 16, 1985; Killian (1977), 168.

  7. Pfau (1984), 223.

  8. Ibid., 233–35.

  9. B. B. to Oppenheimer, May 6, 1959, Robert Brode folder, box 23, JRO.

  10. A key test-ban supporter, William Fulbright, described Teller to Kennedy as “John L. Lewis and Billy Sunday all wrapped in one.” Blumberg and Owens (1976), 370; “Winning Senate Support for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 1963,” belt 26C, Presidential Recording Transcripts, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Mass.

  11. Teller and David Griggs had originally proposed underground testing in 1956 as a way of avoiding weather delays and calming public fears over fallout. But the success of the first U.S. underground test in Nevada—Rainier, on Sept. 19, 1957—awakened Teller, and Livermore, to the possibility of moving all subsequent tests underground. Rainier: Teller and Griggs, “Deep Underground Test Shots,” Feb. 1956, UCRL-4659, LLNL; AEC press release, Sept. 20, 1957, no. 71470, and York to Starbird, Oct. 4, 1957, no. 74196, CIC/DOE.

  12. Herken (1992), 307–8 fn.

  13. Lilienthal’s diary describes the scene at a National Academy of Sciences’ reception which followed the White House ceremony: “Robert Oppenheimer … a figure of stone, gray, rigid, almost lifeless, tragic in his intensity.… Kitty was a study in joy, in exultation almost.” David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 5, The Harvest Years, 1959–63 (Harper and Row, 1971), 529–30.

  14. Strauss to Donovan, Dec. 31, 1963, box 78, Life magazine folder, LLS/HHPL.

  15. Birge to Oppenheimer, Apr. 6, 1963, box 20, JRO.

  16. Rabi to Oppenheimer, Apr. 5, 1963, box 59, JRO.

  17. Lilienthal (1969), 307.

  18. Wrote Lilienthal in his dairy, following a visit to Oppenheimer in early 1961: “The tension in him about the problems we were asked to face sixteen years ago is gone. It shows in his manner, in his face and voice. The reason: ‘There is nothing I can do about what is going on; I would be the worst person to speak out about them in any case.’” Lilienthal (1971), 275.

  19. Transcript of Childs interview with Oppenheimer, Apr. 27, 1963, Oppenheimer folder, box 1, Childs papers.

  20. Bohm to Oppenheimer, Dec. 2, 1966, box 20, JRO.

  21. Thomas Cochran et al., Nuclear Weapons Databoook, vol. 1, U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Ballinger, 1984), 7–9.

  22. Origins of neutron bomb: Morse to Henry Jackson, July 18, 1961, and Strauss to Morse, July 21, 1961, box 1, John Morse papers, Hoover Institution Library. In an appeal to presidential candidates in 1960, Thomas Murray cited the need to develop “a ‘third generation’ weapon, as radically different from the H-bomb as the H-bomb was from the Hiroshima-type A-bomb.” The next day, Rabi and Bethe were among the first to denounce the neutron bomb. Press release, Nov. 4, 1960; “Four Top Scientists Deny Neutron Bomb Potential,” New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 5, 1960, folder 24, carton 22, EOL.

  23. Origins of SDI: Frances Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War (Simon and Schuster, 2000); Herken (1992), 199–216, and “The Earthly Origins of Star Wars,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Oct. 1987, 20–28.

  24. William Broad, Teller’s War: The Top-Secret Story Behind the Star Wars Deception (Simon and Schuster, 1992), 245–67; Teller (2001), 535–36.

  25. Typed notes for “The Winter of Our Discontent,” n.d., Chevalier papers.

  26. Chevalier had evidently come to believe that the premise of his 1965 novel, The Man Who Would Be God, was what had actually happened in Oppenheimer’s case: namely, that Groves used the Chevalier incident to blackmail Oppie into supporting the bombing of Hiroshima. Chevalier’s unpublished memoir was tentatively titled “The Bomb.” Chevalier to Jon Else, Jan. 6, 1981, Chevalier papers.

  27. “Do what we may, by your unfathomable folly, you and I are linked together in a cloudy legend, which nothing, no fact, no explanation, no truth will ever unmake or unravel.” Chevalier to Oppenheimer, Dec. 13, 1954, box 200, JRO.

  28. The FBI had evidently stopped its physical surveillance of Chevalier by the time he returned to California for his eightieth birthday, on Sept. 10, 1981. Frank attended the party with his new wife, Millie.

  29. “Steve Nelson, Ex-Communist Tied to Ruling on Sedition, Dies at 90,” New York Times, Dec. 14, 1993; Robert Nelson and Josephine Yurck, Feb. 1, 2002, personal communication.

  30. Lehman interview (1996).

  31. Lomanitz interview (1996).

  32. Stephen Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Brookings, 1998), 3.

  33. Cochran et al. (1984), vol. 1, 15; Stan Norris, “Table of USSR/Russian Nuclear Warheads: 1959–70/1971–96” (Natural Resources Defense Council, 1996).

  34. Molly’s efforts were vigorously opposed by John Lawrence until his death in 1991. Molly Lawrence interview (1992).

  35. Broad (1992), 55–56. Accounts differ on the results, which remain classified. Author interview with Robert Budwine, Livermore, Calif., June 5, 1997.

  36. Interviews: Mark (1991) and Gerald Johnson (1991).

  37. “Who Built the H-Bomb?: Debate Revives,” New York Times, Apr. 24
, 2001.

  38. In his memoirs, Edward would argue that he and the others who had first brought the atomic bomb to Einstein’s attention—Wigner and Szilard—had “a shared vision of needing the bomb to deter Hitler’s use of such a weapon,” whereas Oppenheimer had not only approved dropping the bomb on the enemy but had even lobbied for its use. Teller (2001), 376, 395–96.

  39. Schweber (2000), 107–14. Bethe once made the observation that there are two things that warped Teller—being denied power and attaining it. Bethe interview (1996).

  40. The declassification of Bethe’s 1954 article on the Super and of Teller’s reply revived their decades-old debate over the H-bomb. Bethe, “Comments on the History of the H-bomb,” Los Alamos Science, fall 1982, 43–53; Broad, “Rewriting the History of the H-bomb, Science, Nov. 19, 1982, 769–72; Broad, “Hans Bethe Confronts the Legacy of His Bomb,” New York Times, June 12, 1984.

  41. “National Defense and the Scientists: An Open Letter to Hans Bethe from Edward Teller,” Policy Review, Mar. 1987.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

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