Pandora's Keepers

by Brian Van DeMark

  The logic of deterrence has worked. But how long can this precarious balance continue as more countries obtain a nuclear capability? There are at least eight nuclear powers in the world today, and many more nations—such as Iran and North Korea, and transnational movements such as Al Qaeda—seem intent on joining them. Third World countries are racing to acquire warheads and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. The spread of nuclear weapons is now not only a global fact but also an intention for some of the Third World’s most belligerent and angry regimes. This aggressive proliferation threatens to lead to nuclear anarchy, as regional arms races fed by national and religious rivalries—such as India versus Pakistan, Iran versus Israel, and North Korea versus Japan versus China—gain dangerous momentum and become intertwined with terrorism. Rather than a taboo, nuclear weapons could become symbols of identity, power, and status. All of this threatens the stability of deterrence. And the consequences of deterrence’s failure are simply awful: the use of only a fraction of the world’s nuclear stockpiles would shred the delicate fabric of human civilization and leave the survivors so miserable that they might envy the dead, outdoing the death and destruction of World Wars I and II in just hours.

  Many things are known. It is true that fears, ambitions, and political differences—not weapons—trigger most conflicts. It is true that military strength can be a critical element in a confrontation. It is true that perceptions of military superiority can affect the thinking and behavior of adversaries and third parties in a crisis. It is true that arms control negotiations cannot substitute for the settlement of political differences. And it is true that the outbreak of a nuclear war depends more on political issues than on the numbers and technical specifications of weapons. Yet it is also true that the United States cannot credibly persuade other countries to forgo proliferation as long as it arrogantly insists on retaining its own sizable nuclear arsenal. What message does that send to the rest of the world? If actions speak louder than words, then America must lead by example.

  All of this seems a rather grim picture. Yet there is hope. Fear need not lead to passive despair; it can also get people moving. In this race we are riding a wild horse, and we must learn to tame it, for we have no choice but to ride—what the atomic scientists did assured that. We must recognize, and accept, that the clock that determines our destiny moves in one direction only—forward—and that is the direction on which we must fix our gaze, teaching future generations to do the same.

  We sometimes overlook the fact that every future age of man will be an atomic age, and if man is to have a future, it will be one overshadowed with the permanent possibility of thermonuclear holocaust. About that sobering fact there is no doubt; our freedom consists only in facing the danger and minimizing it by minimizing our reliance on nuclear weapons. The means for doing so are primarily moral and political, not military or technological. Morally, we must rouse people to ponder the truly terrible destructiveness of nuclear weapons, awakening an abhorrence that pushes governments and their military establishments to minimize reliance on instruments of mass destruction that in the long run endanger everyone. Politically, we must negotiate verifiable international agreements that reduce national nuclear arsenals as much as possible.

  Niels Bohr once defined a pessimist as a man who is always right, but who gets no pleasure out of it. There has never been a time in human history when one was not able to make a good case for pessimism. Goals are of little use if they are not set so high that we always fall short of their fulfillment. The pessimist will be able to make a good case against this goal, too, but it will be a cheap and hollow victory. Hopes and goals are the mortar with which we must build, and any “realism” which doesn’t admit that isn’t serious.

  An all-too-common human weakness is a refusal to face and deal with unpleasant facts. And we face a fact of truly gigantic unpleasantness: namely the existence of atomic and thermonuclear weapons capable of inflicting death and destruction on an unlimited scale. The reaction of most people to this fact is apathy, which covers over profound feelings of vulnerability and helplessness. Inattention and irony, silence and suspicion, are just some of the materials out of which we build our defensive walls of denial. Perhaps we can break through such walls and honestly face the human implications of nuclear weapons.

  One has to find a place for that truth within the self, morally and psychologically, in order to live and act from it. The atomic scientists did this over the course of their own lives, even though they started out having less knowledge—and came to bear more personal responsibility—than do we. Facing the realities of nuclear weapons and coming to terms with them may be a tall order, but to fail to try is certainly a dereliction. For the first time in history it is not humankind’s limited abilities that prevent us from destroying ourselves, but only our good sense. Not the atom, not physics, not science and technology, but man’s fears and hopes—these are the determinative forces, now as always. The atomic scientists—very intelligent men—came to understand that.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book owes a primary debt to Geoff Shandler, Executive Editor of Little, Brown and Company. He brilliantly edited the manuscript, seeing how it should be structured and precisely where it should be cut. I am deeply indebted to him for enriching the book and bringing it to publication. Emily Loose of Crown Publishers was another splendid editor: demanding in her expectations and incisive in her criticisms. In clarifying many problems of writing and interpretation, she made this a better book than it would otherwise have been, and for that I am grateful.

  Few readers are aware of the endless, essential details of transforming a long manuscript into a printed book. Elizabeth Nagle of Little, Brown has been superb at this, working with problems of text and photographs and many other things. There were others at Little, Brown whom I must also thank for helping to create this book: Steve Lamont and especially Karen Landry for their careful copyediting; and Debbie Lindblom for thoroughly preparing the index.

  My literary agent, Anne Sibbald of Janklow and Nesbit Associates, did something special: she kept the faith—giving me unwavering support and encouragement over the many years it took to research and write this book. Anne never doubted the project, even when I had occasion to doubt it myself. Thank you, Anne.

  Robert Dallek, a steadfast mentor since my graduate school days at the University of California, Los Angeles, nearly twenty years ago, offered incisive comments on an early version of the manuscript and wise counsel from beginning to end. I feel very fortunate to call him not just my teacher but my friend. The same holds true of Robert McNamara, whom I had the privilege of assisting on his Vietnam memoirs. Although a busy man, he always found time to share keen insights into the people and policies addressed in this book during conversations over the years.

  I am thankful to the many archives and libraries—and the dedicated people who work in them—where I have been privileged to conduct research: the Niels Bohr Library at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland; the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego; the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago; the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; the Lamont and Pusey Libraries at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware; the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Archives of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico; the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England; the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California; the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; and the University Archives at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

  I also profited from discussions during my stints as Freeman Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies from 1999 to 2000 and as a Visit
ing Fellow at St. Catherine’s College and the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford in 2002. I had the privilege of lecturing on this book at both universities. In Nanjing, I benefited from discussions with economics professor emeritus Clark Reynolds of Stanford University; and in Oxford, with Daniel Walker Howe, recently retired Rhodes Professor of American History.

  Toby Godfrey, who transcribed the tape recordings of my interviews (and spotted unseen errors in them), proved as before — when we worked together with Richard Holbrooke on Clark Clifford’s memoirs—that she is a secretary without equal. Walter Montano, a graduate history student at American University, independently and thoroughly reviewed the manuscript of this paperback edition.

  Among many others who helped in various ways, I wish to acknowledge the administration of the U.S. Naval Academy, which supported a sabbatical that allowed me to finish the book; the Naval Academy Research Council, for summer research stipends; my colleagues in the history department at Annapolis—especially Ernest Tucker—all of whom offered valuable friendship and useful suggestions; and—not least—my lively and intelligent students at Annapolis, past and present, whose commitment to service inspired me to do my best.

  My wife, Dian, and our son, Grey, gave me their love, their support, and above all their patience for many—too many—years. All the while, they never questioned that “the book” would someday be finished. How can I adequately express my admiration and gratitude for all they have done?

  NOTES

  Preface

  1. I am thinking here especially of Richard Rhodes’s two magisterial works, The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun.

  2. I have used primary sources wherever feasible, but I have also relied on a large body of work by other writers for historical and biographical information, general guidance, and many insights and references. In addition to the two books by Richard Rhodes, the following works were indispensable throughout:

  On Bethe: Bernstein, Hans Bethe, Prophet of Energy, and Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb.

  On Bohr: Moore, Niels Bohr, and Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity.

  On Compton: Blackwood, The House on College Avenue, and Johnston, The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton.

  On Fermi: Fermi, Atoms in the Family, and Segrè, Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

  On Lawrence: Childs, An American Genius; Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer; and Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory.

  On Oppenheimer: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer; Kunetka, Oppenheimer; and Michelmore, The Swift Years.

  On Rabi: Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist,” and Rigden, Rabi.

  On Szilard: Grandy, Leo Szilard, and Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows.

  On Teller: Blumberg and Owens, Energy and Conflict, and Blumberg and Panos, Edward Teller.

  Four general works—one of scientific history and three of political history—were particularly germane: Kevles, The Physicists; Bundy, Danger and Survival; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb; and Sherwin, A World Destroyed.

  Prologue: Nine Physicists and the Discovery of Fission

  1. Quoted in Kevles, The Physicists, p. 324.

  2. Ernest O. Lawrence to Enrico Fermi, February 7, 1939, Ernest O. Lawrence Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as EOLP, BL, UCB).

  3. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 208–209.

  Chapter 1: Exodus

  1. Weisskopf, The Joy of Insight, p. vii.

  2. Quoted in Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist—I,” p. 70.

  3. Paul Ewald interview with Charles Weiner, May 17–24, 1968, Oral History Collection, Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics (hereafter cited as OHC, NBL, AIP), College Park, Md.

  4. Quotes are in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (Simon and Schuster, 1960; reprint, Fawcett Crest Books), pp. 345–346.

  5. John von Neumann to Oswald Veblen, June 19, 1933, Oswald Veblen Papers (hereafter cited as OVP), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as MDLOC), Washington, D.C. Hitler quote is in Edward Y. Hartshorne, Jr., The German Universities and National Socialism (Allen and Unwin, 1937), p.112.

  6. Quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 5.

  7. Ibid., p. 4.

  8. “Outline,” Leo Szilard Papers, Mandeville Special Collections Department, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego (hereafter cited as LSP, MSCD, GL, UCSD).

  9. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 49.

  10. Leo Szilard to I. I. Rabi, July 1, 1932, I. I. Rabi Papers (hereafter cited as IIRP), Box 7, MDLOC.

  11. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 116.

  12. Quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 17.

  13. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, pp. 134–135.

  14. Leo Szilard to Hugo Hirst, March 17, 1934, quoted in ibid., p. 38.

  15. “Atom Energy Hope Is Spiked by Einstein,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 29, 1934.

  16. Quoted in the New York Times (hereafter cited as NYT), April 13, 1935.

  17. Lord Rutherford, The Newer Alchemy (Cambridge University Press, 1937), p. 65.

  18. Maurice Goldhaber interview with Gloria Lubkin and Charles Weiner, January 10, 1966, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  19. Leo Szilard to Gertrud Weiss, March 26, 1936, quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 38.

  20. Author’s interview with Rose Bethe and Jane Wilson, Ithaca, N.Y., June 8, 1997.

  21. Quoted in Segrè, Enrico Fermi, Physicist, p. 98.

  22. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 175.

  23. Quoted in ibid., p. 167.

  24. Quoted in NYT, January 12, 1988, p. Al.

  25. Quoted in Howe, World of Our Fathers, p. 256.

  26. Quoted in Rigden, Rabi, p. 23.

  27. Quoted in ibid., p. 21; and Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist—I,” p. 50.

  28. Quoted in Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist—I,” p. 53.

  29. Quoted in NYT, January 12, 1988, p. A24.

  30. Rigden, Rabi, pp. 79, 117.

  31. “Reminiscences of Norman F. Ramsey (1962),” Oral History Research Office, Columbia University (hereafter cited as OHRO, CU).

  32. Fermi, Atoms in the Family, p. 154.

  33. Addendum D.9, Rudolf Peierls Papers, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (hereafter cited as RPP, BL, UO).

  34. Quoted in Weisskopf, Joy of Insight, p. 63.

  35. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 92.

  36. See John Wheeler interview with Finn Aaserud, May 23, 1988, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  37. Leo Szilard, Book Manuscript “Book—Apology (in lieu of a foreword),” LSP, Box 40, Folder 4, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  38. Lanouette, “The Odd Couple and the Bomb,” p. 106; and Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, pp. 181–182.

  39. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 25.

  40. Quoted in Laurence, Men and Atoms, p. 9.

  41. Quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 54.

  42. Ibid; and Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 25.

  43. Remarks at Nation banquet, December 3, 1945, reprinted in ibid., p. 55.

  Chapter 2: The Gathering Storm

  1. Teller with Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 10.

  2. Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 139.

  3. Quoted in Sebastian Cody, “Edward Teller,” December 1985, RPP, BL, UO.

  4. Author’s interview with Herbert York, La Jolla, Calif., March 12, 2001.

  5. Quoted in Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 15.

  6. Quoted in Coughlan, “Tangled Drama,” p. 89.

  7. Ibid., p. 49.

  8. Quoted in Cody, “Edward Teller.”

  9. Quoted in Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 143.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Quoted in Moore, Niels Bohr, p. 267.

  12. George Pegram to Admiral S. C. Hooper, March 16, 1939, Enrico Fermi Papers (hereafter
cited as EFP), Box 9, Department of Special Collections, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago (hereafter cited as DSC, JRL,UC).

  13. Quoted in Szilard, “Reminiscences,” p. 114.

  14. Quoted in Szilard, “Book—Apology.”

  15. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 26.

  16. Szilard notes for interview, April 18, 1955, Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 83.

  17. Transcript, A Is for Atom, B Is for Bomb (WGBH-TV, 1980), p. 2.

  18. Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt, August 2, 1939, Roosevelt-PSF, Confidential File, Alexander Sachs Folder, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter cited as FDRL).

  19. Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician, p. 116.

  20. Leo Szilard to Albert Einstein, October 3, 1939, reprinted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 101.

  21. See Alexander Sachs’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, 79th Congress, 1st Session, November 27, 1945, pp. 2–29; and Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 28.

  22. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 28–29.

  23. Quoted in Blumberg and Owens, Energy and Conflict, p. 98; and Edward Teller, Energy from Heaven and Earth (W. H. Freeman, 1979), p. 144.

  24. Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 85.

  25. Quoted in Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 20.

  26. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 19; and Wigner, “Are We Making the Transition Wisely?” p. 28.