by Craig Nelson
“That is indeed the misfortune”: Office of Strategic Services: Correspondence; January 5–July 31, 1945; Moe Berg Papers, box 6; Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
“a bitter, disappointed woman”: Hahn.
“Bohr at Los Alamos was marvelous”: Rhodes, “I Am Become Death.”
“It is already evident that”: Bird and Sherman.
“Atomic weapons have similar complementary”: Baggott.
“The implication was that Roosevelt”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
“The war taught us much”: V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobrainie sochinenii, vol. 26, 5th ed. (Moscow, 1958–65).
“worked harder than anyone else”; “It seemed to us that if”; “that it was necessary to promote”; “Where that influence came from”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“Many of us looked with deep”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
7. The First Cry of a Newborn World
“We spent several days finding”: Bird and Sherman.
“In May, one hundred tons”: Kelly.
“Comparison with TNT”: Oppenheimer Papers, H. A. Bethe folder.
“Oppenheimer was really terribly worried”; “All the senior scientists who”: “Dan Hornig.”
“I started dreaming Kistiakowsky had”; “I was told that [Oppie] came”: Calloway.
“on whether or not the bomb”; “Now we’re all sons of bitches”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
“I think I’m the first”; “The theoretical people had calculated”: Calloway.
“At the instant of the explosion”; “At about thirty seconds, the general”; “After a few seconds the rising”; “The column looked rather like”: “Trinity.”
“The enormity of the light”; “Well, there must be something”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
“The whole country was lighted by”: “Primary Resources.”
“I could see that crack”; “Then an amazing thing”: Calloway.
“We’ve done it”: Bernstein.
“It was like being at the”: Jones.
“When one first looked up”: Bird and Sherman.
“Apparently no one had told”: Kelly.
“A tremendous cloud of smoke”: “Trinity.”
“Practically everybody at the Trinity”: Kelly.
“The big boom came about”: Alice Smith, “A Peril and a Hope,” New York Times, September 26, 1945.
“My grandmother shoved me”; “We saw this huge, huge light”; “I went out there”: Calloway.
“About one hour after the explosion”: Rhodes, Atomic Bomb.
“Feynman got his bongo drums”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
“One man I remember, Bob Wilson”: Feynman.
8. My God, What Have We Done?
“flabbergasted by the assumption”: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, The New World, 1939/1946 (Washington: US Atomic Energy Commission, 1972).
“general demeanor and his desire”: James Byrnes, All in Our Lifetime (New York: Harper, 1958).
“If we were to offer to”; “to push ahead as fast as”; “The most desirable target”: Bird and Sherman.
“steps should be taken to sever”: Baggott.
“I was one of those”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years, Mandate for Change, 1953–1956 (New York: Doubleday, 1963).
“Even if the Japs are savages”: Truman’s diary, Harry S. Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/fulltext.php?fulltextid=15.
“You’ve got to kill people”: Larrabee.
“I heard the huzzle-huzzle”: George Martin, “Black Snow and Leaping Tigers,” Harper’s, February 1946.
“scorched, boiled, and baked to death”: Larrabee.
“I was a little fearful that”: Calloway.
“LeMay said if we’d lost”: Morris.
“The people from Trinity had”; “As we came in from”; “The bomb blast hit us”: Loader, Rafferty, and Rafferty.
“There is a moment of calm”: Langewiesche.
“My God, what have we done?”; “We heard the strange noise”: Hersey.
“I found that there was”; “A woman who looked like”: Matsumoto.
“Hundreds upon hundreds of the”; “I found people who, when”: Burchett.
“What regrets I have about”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“This is the greatest thing”: Rhodes, Atomic Bomb.
“The force from which the sun”: “Henry L. Stimson prepared statement for the public regarding dropping the Atomic Bomb forwarded to President Truman”: July 31, 1945, Harry S. Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/fulltext.php?fulltextid=20.
“A surprising number of the”: Hersey.
“The people of Hiroshima, aroused”: Ibid.
“As I peered through the dark”: William L. Laurence, “Eyewitness Account of Atomic Bomb over Nagasaki FOR RELEASE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1945,” Bureau of Public Relations, US War Department.
“At night, the town, the”: Dor-Ner.
“The day after Trinity”: Orear.
“known sin”; “Sometimes, someone confesses a sin”: Hargittai, Martians.
“Oppenheimer seemed to lose his”: Conant, 109 East Palace.
“I have to explain about Oppie”: Orear.
“You see now that the”: Sayen.
“Had I known that the Germans”: Staff, “Atom.”
“What would Harry Truman have”; “The firebombing of Tokyo was”: Hargittai, Martians.
“completely unnecessary”: Eisenhower.
“Japan would have surrendered”: United States Strategic Bombing Survey.
“because of the vast sums”: Mee.
“In March 1944, I experienced”: Kelly.
9. How Do You Keep a Cold War Cold?
“And Fermi said, thoughtfully”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“It was a place where”: Hargittai, Judging.
“Just to show you what”; “At the yearly Christmas parties”; “One day my father brought”: Orear.
“My general conclusion would be that”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“I neither can nor will”: Teller and Brown.
“their appetites for weapons work”: Rhodes, Atomic Bomb.
“General Groves told me very briefly”; “The time needed [for another country]; “just like poison gases after”; “The years after Los Alamos”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“We should prefer defeat in war”: Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy file.
“And God bless General Groves!”: Lanouette with Silard.
“it is not too much to expect”: Lewis Strauss, “Speech to the National Association of Science Writers,” September 16, 1954.
“Russia was traditionally the enemy”: Hargittai, Martians.
“was rather diffident in his approach”; “You don’t know Southerners”; “Stalin summoned [atomic bomb chief]”; “sparkling bluish black”; “I never forgave Truman”; “I soon realized . . . that he was”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“casually mentioned to Stalin that”: Truman, Memoirs.
“I was sure that [Stalin] had no”: Mee.
“invite the nations of the world”: Bush and Conant.
“If the Russians have the weapon”; “In that case, we have no choice”: Bird and Sherman.
“Weisskopf vividly described to me”: Bernstein.
“You have to recall that in 1948”: Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly.
“necessary to have within the arsenal”: Memo to GAC, January 13, 1950, nuclearfiles.org.
“that we had to do it”: Eben Ayers Papers, Truman Library.
“but the third time, nobody”: Grimberg.
“that someone (designated by the code)”; “Then, in mid-September [1949]”; “that someone in the British embassy”; “sort of a British Columbo character”; “Were you not in touch”; “reason to believe that someone”; “most logical suspec
t for [another]”: Lamphere and Shachtman.
“came out of World War II”: Barnet.
“like children lost in the woods”: Weiner.
“After about one minute”; “hot . . . something is happening”; “I’ll never be able to read”; “Julius had money”; “The day after my wife”; “I told . . . the FBI right”: Greenglass FBI files, http://vault.fbi.gov/search?SearchableText=greenglass.
“make people realize that this”; “I believe your conduct”; “And what of our children”: Rosenberg trial testimony, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/Rosenberg/RosenbergTrial.pdf.
“took all the left-wing stuff”: Yourgrau.
“The June evening of the executions”: Hiss.
“the attack will be swift”; “According to information coming”: Gaddis, George F. Kennan.
“I would cut them off”; “I would have dropped thirty”; “Our mission called for me”: Cumings.
“Anybody who says twenty thousand”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“If you say why not bomb”: Hargittai, Martians.
“America had a powerful air”; “When America elected General Dwight”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“The war of the future would”: President’s Farewell Address to the American People, January 15, 1953, Truman Library.
10. A Totally Different Scheme, and It Will Change the Course of History
“every time he reported, we”; “Both Gamow and I showed”; “What Ulam did was not”; “that the President would not”; “You would swear that the”; “The United States is said to”; “deliberately precipitate war with the USSR”; “There was a look of hatred”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“The computers of [Polish mathematician]”: Orear.
“What we are creating now”: George Dyson.
“originally came with my friend”; “[Ulam’s] suggestion was far from original”; “Our first computer at the”; I went down into the”: Teller.
“adding that perhaps it was”; “Engraved on my memory is”; “From then on, Teller pushed Stan”; “Teller accused the leadership”; “Lawrence believed Edward”; “Of course, we worried about”; “An absolutely insane task”; “When you see the burned birds”; “Even if you strike first”: Grimberg.
“I was well placed to watch”; “Nobody will blame Teller”; “Before the end of the summer”; “Once Teller left Los Alamos”: Bethe, “Comments.”
“I felt strongly that that”: Bush and Conant.
“We called the place the Rock”: Michael Harris.
“That’s so I don’t forget”: Gaddis, George F. Kennan.
“We threatened with missiles we”: Sergei Khrushchev.
“On no one did there ever”: Bird and Sherman.
“was a man of great talent”: Hargittai, Martians.
“delayed or hindered development of H-bomb”; “in view of the fact that”; “felt that if this case is lost”: Oppenheimer FBI files, http://vault.fbi.gov/rosenberg-case/robert-j.-oppenheimer.
“Teller feels deeply that [Oppenheimer’s]”; “had been instrumental in bringing to”; “Lewis, let us be certain”; “The truth is that no matter”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“a dangerous engineering undertaking”: Herken, Brotherhood.
“I have thought most earnestly”: Strauss.
“The day the Oppenheimer case”: Orear.
“had no obligation to subject”; “The trouble with Oppenheimer is”: Pais.
“I felt sick”: Stern and Green.
“There was an approach made”: United States Atomic Energy Commission.
“Teller thought Oppenheimer was somehow”: Brian Kaufman.
“Q. Is it your intention”; “I’m sorry”: United States Atomic Energy Commission.
“The whole damn thing”: Dyson, “Oppenheimer.”
“I’ve never seen [Teller]”; “I really do feel it”: Seife, Sun.
“If a person leaves his country”: Hargittai, Judging.
“a great debt of gratitude”: United States Atomic Energy Commission.
“I think it broke his spirit”; “I was indignant”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“The real tragedy of Oppenheimer’s”: Dyson, “Oppenheimer.”
“One of the last times I saw him”: Segrè, Enrico Fermi.
“I personally have discussed”: Orear.
“We’ve considered every astronomical source”: Mosher.
“ghost towns”; “thought scientists, like other people”: Foreign Relations of the United States: 1958–60, 3:572.
“A lot of the talk of Livermore”: Teller.
“If worse comes to worse”; “The hospital was even more”: Hargittai, Martians.
“I’m not strong in English”; “Let’s go for a little walk”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
11. The Origins of Modern Swimwear
“keep from contaminating the general”: Cockburn.
“We Marines were brought”: Dor-Ner.
“The bomb will not start”; “The explosion was going to be”; “A mixture of radioactive materials”: Michael Harris.
“I was on a ship that”: Grimberg.
“small and devastating”: Mahaffey.
“An Air Force photographer was”: Cowan.
“Immediately, it felt as if”: Grimberg.
12. The Delicate Balance of Terror
“If you go on with this”: quoted in Reader’s Digest, December 1954.
“I remember President Kennedy once stated”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“The cost of one modern”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” Washington, DC, April 16, 1953, http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/ike_chance_for_peace.html.
“I will give you a simple”: Jerome Wiesner, “We Need More Piefs,” SSI Conference Proceedings, SLAC, Stanford University, 1984.
“The atomic bomb makes surprise”; “Thus far the chief purpose”; “If two thousand bombs in”; “We no longer need to argue”: Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon.
“If there is another war”; “a realistic combat mission”; “There was a time in the 1950s”: LeMay, Mission.
“During the early to mid-1970s”: Rosenbaum, How the End.
“We have to keep the scientists”: Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon.
“The reason for having RAND”: Rhodes, Dark Sun.
“Under this concept, the United States”: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger on US Policy of Nuclear Deterrence in a Testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December 14, 1982.
“Our missiles were still imperfect”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“the USSR had a total”: Sergei Khrushchev.
“Of course we tried to derive”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“It would take really very few”; “A fallout shelter for everybody”: Cited in Rose.
“One thing that was rarely”: Roy.
“They called them mannequin families”: Grimberg.
“Well, yeah, we could do that”: Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon.
“And we call ourselves the human race”: Hoffman, citing MaGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival (New York: Random House, 1988).
“learned all the facts of nuclear”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“The cornerstone of our strategic policy”: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, “Mutual Deterrence” speech, San Francisco, September 18, 1967.
“the principle of the threat”: “Cold War Strategy,” nuclearfiles.org.
“I could go into the next room”; “the need of keeping a berserk president”: Murray Marder, “Two Recall Nixon’s A-Remark,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1976.
“All of us, more or less”: “Colonel X’s Warning: Our Mistakes plus Your Hysteria,” Détente, October 1984.
“Let’s put it this way”: Steven Kull, Minds at War (New York: Basic Books, 1988).
“For thousands of years peoples”: Sergei Khrushchev.
“like a prize-winning pear”; “a thermonuclear Zero Mostel”; “a moral tract on mass murder”; “It doesn’t work
that way”: Menand, “Fat Man.”
“A Navy captain was saying”: Miller.
“The present nuclear situation is”: Southern.
“senses a nuclear explosion in”: Rosenbaum, How the End.
“provocation . . . I wonder what our attitude”; “just as if we suddenly put”; “knows we don’t really live”; “an explicit threat to the peace”; “It doesn’t make any difference”; “How gravely does this change”; “I don’t think there is a military”: Sheldon Stern.
“We had no desire to start”: Nikita Khrushchev.
“There was a fear that if”: Gunther Klein.
“During its entire history Russia”: Sergei Khrushchev.
“Curtis LeMay called [the quarantine]”: Ted Sorensen.
“The Russian bear has always”; “During that very critical time”: LeMay, Mission.
“LeMay talked openly about”; “It wasn’t until nearly thirty”: Errol Morris.
“Later we learned that the submarine”: Klein, Brauburger, and Knopp.
“Everything came to a halt”; “The president said we are prepared”; “Father sensed that he was losing”; “Castro thinks that war will begin”; “That is insane”; “The Soviet government has ordered”: Sergei Khrushchev.
“To any man at the United Nations”: Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon.
“In my seven years as [defense] secretary”: Errol Morris.
“the greatest defeat in our history”: LeMay, Mission.
“The results were very painful”: Nina Tannenwald, ed., Understanding the End of the Cold War, 1980–87: An Oral History Conference (Providence, RI: Watson Institute for International Studies, 1999).
13. Too Cheap to Meter
“observe what kind of disturbance”: Seife, Sun.
“If your mountain is not”: Hargittai, Martians.
“potential for serious radiological consequences”; “everything is under control”; “more complex than the company”; “danger was over”; “crisis had passed”: Peterson.
“We didn’t learn for years”: Gilinsky, “Behind.”
“They can’t get rid of”: “Three Mile Island Emergency.”
