The Age of Radiance

by Craig Nelson

  Eugene Wigner, Ed Teller, and Leo Szilard discussed what would prod the American government into researching and producing atomic bombs before the Nazis could. The Hungarians knew that the Nazis were about to take Belgium, that the Belgian Congo held the world’s biggest uranium mine, that the Germans already controlled the Czech mine that had been so useful to Marie Curie, and that suddenly, the Nazis had halted exports of all their Bohemian ore. With nuclear weapons, Szilard worried, Hitler could conquer anyone. A few months before, they tried directly contacting the Pentagon, but got nowhere. George Pegram, the Columbia dean who’d brought Fermi to America, arranged for Enrico to meet with Admiral Stanford Hooper, technical assistant to the chief of naval operations, and Fermi, while waiting for his appointment, got to hear the desk officer receptionist tell the admiral, “There’s a wop outside.” Wigner, Teller, and Szilard thought they should write to the leaders of Belgium to protect that nation’s colonial Congo ore—the biggest source of uranium in the world—from the little housepainter, but wondered if it would be proper to contact a foreign government without the approval of the American State Department. But then Leo remembered that Albert Einstein was friendly with the queen of the Belgians (so friendly that his letters to the queen included such comments as “Princeton is a wonderful little spot, a quaint and ceremonious village of puny demigods on stilts”).

  Leo and Gene decided they must go see Einstein, vacationing, sailing, and daydreaming the calculus of physics (what he called “thought experiments”) in Peconic on the north fork of eastern Long Island. On Wednesday, July 12, 1939, they drove out in Wigner’s 1936 Dodge, past the glorious World’s Fair, which featured Calvin Coolidge’s pet hippo, Billy; England’s Magna Carta; pavilions from every major nation (except Nazi Germany); a cat named Hitler with a “mustache” of black under his nose who joined his mistress for the jitterbug contest; and a streamlined moderne architecture that was promised as the World of Tomorrow. In fact, the real world of tomorrow was about to be ignited by two eccentric Hungarians driving by in a rickety Dodge.

  Szilard and Wigner got confused by the Native American names of the region and ended up in Patchogue on the south fork instead of Cutchogue on the north. It took two hours to fix that mistake, and then when they asked everyone in Peconic where Dr. Moore, Einstein’s friend, lived, no one knew. Finally, Szilard insisted, “Let’s give it up and go home. Perhaps fate intended it. We should probably be making a frightful mistake by enlisting Einstein’s help in applying to any public authorities on a matter like this. Once a government gets hold of something, it never lets go.” But Gene insisted, and they kept driving, this way and that, utterly lost. Then Leo thought, “How would it be if we simply asked where around here Einstein lives? After all, every child knows him.” Almost immediately they spotted a little boy, perhaps seven years old, sunburned and playing with a fishing rod by the side of the road. Szilard called out to him from the car, “Do you know where Einstein lives?” “Of course I do,” the child said, and gave them directions that took them straight to the doctor’s white bungalow.

  Einstein had spent the morning sailing and was now relaxing in a screened porch at the back of the house, drinking iced tea. After Szilard described fission, Einstein was quiet for a moment, then explained, “Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht”—“I hadn’t thought of that at all.” If it worked, Einstein explained, it would be the first source of energy for human beings that did not derive from the sun. (This is still technically and convolutedly true, as the sun’s heat leads to wind, and that wind moves the rain that begins hydro, while the sun’s light powers photosynthesis—the origin force of coal, oil, and natural gas—and its heat and light together generate solar, while uranium is derived, like all elements, from supernovas, meaning a sun but not the sun.) While Szilard drafted, Einstein dictated in German a letter to the Belgian queen, and also one to the US State Department, for its opinion about the protocol for resident aliens’ contacting a foreign power.

  Returning to the King’s Crown, Szilard had second thoughts about the approach they were taking and decided to ask around for opinions on dealing with Washington. A Berlin economist acquaintance put him in touch with Alexander Sachs, a Lehman vice president who was one of FDR’s economic consultants. Sachs told Szilard that Einstein shouldn’t be writing to the queen of the Belgians about such matters, but to the president of the United States himself, and that Sachs would deliver such a letter to the Oval Office personally. For if any scientist could get FDR’s attention, after all, it was Albert Einstein. He was the Franz Liszt of physicists, with young girls mobbing him, people fainting in his presence, and the London Palladium offering a three-week engagement for a one-man show on anything he’d like to say. And, after all, immediately after arriving to exile in America, he’d been invited to sleep over at the presidential mansion by the Roosevelts themselves. Additionally as Szilard noted, “The one thing most scientists are really afraid of is to make fools of themselves. Einstein was free from such a fear and this above all is what made his position unique on this occasion.” Laura Fermi: “In the United States of those days there were no links between government and the universities, such as the ministry of education in other countries; and virtually no channels of communications were available. So the scientists took the initiative. In the typical devious Hungarian way, Szilard and Wigner agreed with Einstein, the tallest figure in science, that they would write a letter to President Roosevelt, and he, Einstein, would sign it.”

  Szilard returned to Peconic to redraft on August 2, this time driven by Ed Teller in his 1935 Plymouth. Back at the King’s Crown, he paid Columbia secretary Janet Coatesworth to take dictation for a letter from the world’s most famous scientist to Franklin Roosevelt about a bomb that could destroy the world. Szilard: “We did not know just how many words one could put in a letter which a president is supposed to read.” Janet thought Leo was a crackpot, and she would continue to think this until 1945, when she learned of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At war’s end, Einstein insisted that, with his letter to FDR, “he really only acted as a mailbox” for Leo Szilard.

  Szilard and Einstein then thought they might ask Charles Lindbergh to discuss the matter with FDR, but learned soon enough that the president and the aviator were politically opposed and thus returned to Sachs, who met with the president on October 11 and 12, bringing Einstein’s letter for FDR to read directly:

  Albert Einstein

  Old Grove Rd.

  Nassau Point

  Peconic, Long Island

  August 2nd 1939

  F.D. Roosevelt

  President of the United States

  White House

  Washington, D.C.

  Sir:

  Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:

  In the course of the last four months it has been made probable—through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America—that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

  This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.

  The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in mo
derate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.

  In view of the situation you may think it desirable to have more permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an inofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:

  a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States;

  b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.

  I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.

  Yours very truly,

  (Albert Einstein)

  After reading it, the president said, “Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up.”

  “Precisely,” Sachs replied.

  Roosevelt called in his aide General Edwin “Pa” Watson and said, “Pa! This requires action!”

  The White House

  Washington

  October 19, 1939

  MY DEAR PROFESSOR,

  I want to thank you for your recent letter and the most interesting and important enclosure.

  I found this data of such import that I have convened a board consisting of the head of the Bureau of Standards and a chosen representative of the Army and Navy to thoroughly investigate the possibilities of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium.

  I am glad to say that Dr. Sachs will co-operate and work with this committee and I feel this is the most practical and effective method of dealing with the subject.

  Please accept my sincere thanks.

  Very sincerely yours,

  FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

  FDR’s presidential advisory uranium committee—created six months after the Nazis had begun their own uranium group—would be known as the Briggs Committee, for its chair, Lyman Briggs, head of the Bureau of Standards, the federal physics lab, and a known sloven. On October 21, Wigner, Teller, and Szilard attended the committee’s first meeting and tried to convince army and navy ordnance officers to expedite the development of atom-splitting technology before the Nazis beat them to it. Herb Anderson: “Szilard came to the conclusion that a large-scale experiment using carbon for slowing down the neutrons ought to be started without delay. It was a gamble, but the other possibilities looked less practical at the time. The problem was where to get money for the graphite. This was the kind of problem Szilard liked. Fermi, on the other hand, was not very good at the kind of promotion this required. . . . [Szilard] estimated they would need about $10,000 for the graphite. Since this was much more than he could hope to get from any university, he thought of going to the government for support, especially in view of the military implications. . . . A meeting had been arranged with Lyman J. Briggs, Col. Keith R. Adamson of the army and Cmdr. Gilbert C. Hoover of the navy.”

  Ed Teller: “After the initial presentation, Adamson began by voicing his doubts about novel scientific projects: ‘At Aberdeen, we’re offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can use a death ray to kill a goat we have tended to post. That goat is still perfectly healthy.’ ”

  Herb Anderson: “The question of money arose. Szilard thought $6,000 would suffice for the test of graphite in mind. There followed a long declamation from the army representative about the nature of war. In the end he argued it wasn’t weapons that won wars, but the morale of the troops. [Eugene Wigner] said, in his high-pitched voice, that it was very interesting to hear this. He had always thought the weapons were very important and that this is what cost money, that this is why the army needed such a large appropriation. But he was interested to hear that he was wrong; it’s not weapons but morale which wins the wars. If this was correct, perhaps one should take a second look at the budget of the army, maybe the budget could be cut. Col. Adamson wheeled around to look at Wigner and said, ‘Well, as far as those $6,000 are concerned, you can have it.’ ”

  The navy’s $6,000 for Szilard’s graphite surprisingly did not arrive with due haste from Washington. In early 1940, Peter Debye, who had headed the post-Meitner physics section of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and had then been forced to resign by the Nazis for being Dutch, visited his American colleagues and warned everyone he could that the Germans were developing uranium bombs in their Virus House. Fermi guessed that since the Nazis did not bring their atomic scientists into one research facility but left them dispersed, their efforts would go nowhere (and this would turn out to be true). But Debye’s report alarmed Szilard, who got Einstein to send a second letter to FDR, and the $6,000 was finally released to Columbia.

  By the end of 1939, four Curie Institute associates had patented a uranium oxide chain reaction using deuterium—heavy water—as the moderator. Norway’s Norsk Hydro plant in Vemork was the sole industrial European source of heavy water. IG Farben approached Norsk Hydro to buy it, but the Norwegians declined. When, tipped off by the Joliot-Curies, a lieutenant in the French intelligence agency offered to purchase all of the company’s supply for FF 36 million, the Norwegians refused. Instead, to “aid France’s victory,” they shipped it gratis to France in twenty-six cans on March 9, 1940. Three months later Paris fell, the French government fled to Bordeaux, and the British sent in the War Ministry’s liaison with the French Ministry of Armaments—Charles Henry George “Mad Jack” Howard—to abscond with as many French scientists, industrial diamonds, machine tools, and other matériel that he could spirit out from under the Nazis, including the deuterium.

  Mad Jack and the Curies split up the shipment, with physicist Hans von Halban packing as many cans as possible into a touring car, covering them with cushions and blankets, having his children sit on the blankets, and telling them that no matter what, they had to look happy. In trying to ship the rest out of the country, Mad Jack arrived to find the port in utter chaos, so he corralled the crew of the British coal ship SS Broompark, got them too drunk to float, loaded up his cargo, and set off through the Gironde on June 19. With everyone at the Curie Institute save the Joliot-Curies themselves now evacuated, Fred and Irène pretended to be busy with obscure problems in theoretical atomic physics while risking their lives to manufacture explosives and radio equipment for the Resistance. When another French ship hit a mine and sank, Fred Joliot told the Nazis that this was the one with the heavy water. Von Halban’s and Mad Jack’s supplies, meanwhile, successfully reached Britain.

  With the Germans approaching Denmark, Otto Robert Frisch and Rudolf Peierls fled to England, finding jobs at the University of Birmingham. Since the needed isotope for explosives, U-235, was only found in 0.7 percent of natural uranium, many, notably Bohr, believed it was technically unfeasible, even absurd, to attempt fashioning a uranium bomb. But Frisch and Peierls at Birmingham finished calculations proving that a tremendous device would only need a few kilos of uranium-235. Simultaneously, in April 1940, Lise Meitner was visiting the Bohrs when the Nazis invaded Denmark. As they prepared to evacuate Copenhagen, Bohr asked Meitner to send a telegram from Stockholm to British physicist Owen Richardson with the news that the Bohr family was fine. It concluded, “Please inform Cockroft and Maud Ray Kent M
eitner.” The British physicists who received this thought “Maud Ray Kent” was a coded message about German atomic weapons research, so the British fission committee called itself the MAUD Committee. At war’s end it was revealed that the Bohr’s governess, Maud Ray, lived in the town of Kent, and Bohr was hoping to get word to her that all was well. The MAUD report to the British war effort was based on the Frisch and Peierls research: “We have now reached the conclusion that it will be possible to make an effective uranium bomb which, containing some 25 lb of active material, would be equivalent as regards destructive effect to 1,800 tons of T.N.T. and would also release large quantities of radioactive substance, which would make places near to where the bomb exploded dangerous to human life for a long period. . . . The committee considers that the scheme for a uranium bomb is practicable and likely to lead to decisive results in the war.”

  On May 5, 1940, the New York Times reported, “Vast Power Source in Atomic Energy Opened by Science. . . . A chunk of 5 to 10 pounds of the new substance, a close relative of uranium and known as U-234, would drive an ocean liner or an ocean-going submarine for an indefinite period around the oceans of the world without refueling, it was said, for such a chunk would possess the power-output of 25,000,000 to 50,000,000 pounds of coal, or of 15,000,000 to 30,000,000 pounds of gasoline. . . . The main reason why scientists are reluctant to talk about this development, regarded as ushering in the long dreamed of age of atomic power and, therefore, as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, discovery in modern science, is the tremendous implications this discovery bears on the possible outcome of the European war, it was explained. . . . Germany, it was asserted, may regret her act of having sent into exile Dr. Lise Meitner, who, with Professor Hahn, made the first observations that led to the discovery of the fountain-head of atomic energy that German scientists are so feverishly working to harness.”