Pandora's Keepers

by Brian Van DeMark

  27. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 29.

  28. Albert Einstein to Alexander Sachs, March 7, 1940, LSP, Box 17, Folder 4, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  29. Vannevar Bush to James B. Conant, February 24, 1942, Bush-Conant File Relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1940–1945, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227, Manhattan Engineering District Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA).

  30. Lieutenant Colonel S. V. Constant, Acting Chief of Staff, G-2, War Department, August 13, 1940, U.S. Intelligence and Security Command, Freedom of Information/Privacy Office, Fort George G. Meade, Md.

  31. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 30.

  Chapter 3: The Manhattan Project

  1. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 114.

  2. Quoted in Rudolf Peierls interview with Charles Weiner, August 11–13, 1969, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  3. Rudolf Peierls to Mr. Murphy, May 2, 1993, Addendum D. 110, RPP, BL, UO.

  4. “On the Construction of a ‘Super-bomb; Based on a Nuclear Chain Reaction in Uranium,’“ reprinted in Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, pp. 389–393.

  5. Frisch, What Little I Remember, p. 126.

  6. Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 24–25.

  7. Ibid., p. 26; and MAUD Committee Report, reprinted in Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, pp. 394–436.

  8. Quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 146.

  9. Seaborg with Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 28.

  10. Ibid., pp. 50–51.

  11. Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 7.

  12. Author’s interview with Philip Abelson, Washington, D.C., March 23, 1999.

  13. Robert Wilson interview with Spencer Weart, May 19, 1977, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  14. Cited in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 7.

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

  16. Edwin McMillan interview with Charles Weiner, June 1, 1972, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  17. Quoted in Childs, An American Genius, p. 251; and Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 48.

  18. Quoted in Childs, American Genius, p. 281.

  19. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 87.

  20. Ernest O. Lawrence to Carl and Gunda Lawrence, August 29, 1939, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  21. Quoted in Groueff, The Manhattan Project, p. 40.

  22. Martin Kamen to Edwin McMillan, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  23. See Vannevar Bush to James B. Conant, October 9, 1941, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  24. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 131.

  25. Quoted in Johnston, The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton, p. 11.

  26. Quoted in Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 6.

  27. Ibid., p. 8.

  28. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Uranium Report to the President, November 6, 1941, BCF, Folder 18, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  29. Quoted in Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 62.

  30. Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 45–53; see also December 6, 1941, entry, Diary, Harold Urey Papers (hereafter cited as HUP), Box 145, Folder 19, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  31. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 168.

  32. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 34.

  33. Vannevar Bush to Frank Jewett, November 4, 1941, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  34. Vannevar Bush to James B. Conant, February 24, 1942, in ibid.

  35. Quoted in Frank Oppenheimer interview with Charles Weiner, February 9, 1973, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  36. Quoted in Childs, An American Genius, pp. 343–344.

  37. Seaborg with Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 115; and Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 216.

  38. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 221–222.

  39. Seaborg with Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 116.

  Chapter 4: The Met Lab

  1. Quoted in Arthur H. Compton, “Operation of the Metallurgical Project by the University of Chicago,” July 28, 1944, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  2. Seaborg with Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 82.

  3. Quoted in Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 54–55.

  4. Grandy, Leo Szilard, p. 83; and Leo Szilard, “Memorandum on My Visit to Chicago, January 23–24,” January 26, 1942, LSP, Box 41, Folder 6, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  5. Leo Szilard to Enrico Fermi, December 31, 1941, LSP, Box 8, Folder 6, in ibid.

  6. See Leo Szilard to Arthur Compton, January 27, 1942, LSP, Box 6, Folder 30, in ibid.

  7. Author’s interview with Philip Morrison, Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 1998.

  8. Quoted in Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 54–55.

  9. Author’s interview with Philip Morrison, Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 1998.

  10. Arthur Compton to Members of the Metallurgical Project, February 11, 1942, Courtesy of Harold Agnew.

  11. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 125.

  12. Author’s interview with Philip Morrison, Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 1998.

  13. Diary entries, January 3, 1943, and February 3, 1943, Crawford Greenewalt Manhattan Project Diary, Crawford Greenewalt Papers, Hagley Museum Library (hereafter cited as CGMPD, CGP, HML), Wilmington, Del.

  14. Quoted in Groueff, The Manhattan Project, p. 29.

  15. Kenneth Nichols, quoted in Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 56–57.

  16. Groves, Now It Can Be Told.

  17. Vannevar Bush to Harvey Bundy, September 17, 1942, Folder 7, Harrison-Bundy Files Relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942–1946, Record Group 77, Manhattan Engineer District Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as HBF, MEDR, NA).

  18. Minutes of Coordination Meeting, April 16, 1943, Box 19, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Archives, Berkeley, California.

  19. “What Is Wrong with Us?” September 21, 1942, reprinted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, pp. 153–160.

  20. Transcript, Lansing Lamont Oral History Interview, Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Missouri, p. 258.

  21. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 120.

  22. L. R. Groves to the Attorney General, October 28, 1942, 201 File (Leo Szilard), MEDR, NA.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, pp. 243–244.

  25. Brigadier General Groves to Major Calvert, June 12, 1943, MEDR, NA.

  26. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 242; Arthur Compton to Vannevar Bush, June 1, 1942; and Arthur Compton to Leslie R. Groves, November 13, 1942, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  27. Quoted in Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist—I,” p. 84.

  28. Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 15.

  29. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 120–121.

  30. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 71–72; and NYT, February 19, 1967, p. 66.

  31. Quoted in Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 15.

  32. See Herbert Smith interview with Charles Weiner, August 1, 1974, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  33. Quoted in Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 77.

  34. Quoted in NYT, February 19, 1967, p. 66.

  35. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 195.

  36. Robert Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, Box 294, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers (hereafter cited as JROP), MDLOC.

  37. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 143.

  38. Ibid., p. 135.

  39. Author’s interview with Robert Christy, Pasadena, Calif., July 29, 1998.

  40. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 103.

  41. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 135.

  42. Emilio Segrè interview with Charles Weiner and Barry Richman, February 13, 1967, OHC, NBL, AIP.

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

  44. Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 171.

  45. Libby, The Uranium People, pp. 98–99.

  46. Author’
s interview with Robert Christy, Pasadena, Calif., July 29, 1998.

  47. Frank Oppenheimer interview with Charles Weiner, February 9, 1973, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  48. Quoted in Goodchild, J Robert Oppenheimer, p. 25.

  49. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 8.

  50. Ibid., p. 10.

  51. Quoted in Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 36.

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

  53. Quoted in Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb, p. 108.

  54. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 80.

  55. Robert Oppenheimer to Ernest Lawrence, October 2, 1931, in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 144.

  56. Ernest O. Lawrence to Arthur Compton, October 17, 1941, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  57. Carl Anderson interview with Harriett Lyle, 1981, California Institute of Technology Oral History Project.

  58. Quoted Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 127.

  59. Hans Bethe interview with Charles Weiner, November 17, 1967, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  60. See Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 37.

  61. Author’s interview with Hans Bethe, Ithaca, N.Y., June 6, 1997.

  62. Hans Bethe interview with Charles Weiner, November 17, 1967, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  63. “A Conversation with Hans Bethe and Victor Weisskopf,” Cornell University, 1993, videotape copy in Audiovisual Archives (hereafter cited as AA), AIP.

  64. Hans Bethe to Arnold Sommerfeld, May 20, 1947, Sommerfeld Papers, Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, cited in Schweber,In the Shadow of the Bomb.

  65. Quoted in Blumberg and Owens, Energy and Conflict, p. 72.

  66. Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 173.

  67. “A Conversation with Hans Bethe and Robert Wilson,” Cornell University, 1993, videotape copy in AA, AIP.

  68. Quoted in Bernstein, Hans Bethe, p. 73.

  69. Robert Oppenheimer to John Manley, July 1, 1942, Accession #A-92–024/2–25, Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives (hereafter cited as LANLA), Los Alamos, N.Mex.

  70. Edward Teller to Enrico Fermi, July 17, 1942, Accession #A-84–019/73–17, in ibid.

  71. Author’s interview with Harold Agnew, Solana Beach, Calif., March 13, 2001.

  72. Quoted in Groueff, The Manhattan Project, p. 77.

  73. Ibid.

  74. Quoted in Ackland, “Dawn of the Atomic Age,” p. 12.

  75. Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 137.

  76. Ibid., p. 138.

  77. Fermi, Collected Papers, p. 270.

  78. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 243.

  79. Author’s interview with Robert Christy, Pasadena, Calif., July 29, 1998.

  80. Quoted in Groueff, The Manhattan Project, p. 96.

  81. Ibid.

  82. Herbert Anderson, quoted in Wilson, All in Our Time, p. 95.

  83. Diary entry, December 2, 1942, CGMPD, CGP, HML.

  84. Libby, The Uranium People, p. 126; and Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections, p. 240.

  85. Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 144.

  86. Anderson, “Fermi, Szilard and Trinity,” p. 45.

  87. Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections, pp. 240–241.

  88. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 245.

  89. Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 146.

  90. Author’s interview with Kathleen Manley, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 21, 1997.

  Chapter 5: Los Alamos

  1. Jon Else, The Day After Trinity (KTEH-TV, 1980); and I. I. Rabi, “How Well We Meant,” Speech at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1983, LANLA.

  2. Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 63.

  3. Quoted in Joseph J. Ermenc, ed., Atomic Bomb Scientists: Memoirs, 1939–1945 (Meckler, 1989), p. 257.

  4. Enclosure to Frederick T. Hobbs to H. T. Wensel, June 10, 1942, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  5. Leslie Groves to the District Engineer, United States Engineer Office, Manhattan District, Station F, July 20, 1943, in ibid.

  6. Quoted in Herbert Smith interview with Charles Weiner, August 1, 1974, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  7. Rabi, “How Well We Meant.”

  8. See Robert Oppenheimer to John Manley, November 10, 1942, Accession #A-84–019/63–1, LANLA.

  9. Quoted in Edwin M. McMillan, “Early Days at Los Alamos,” in Badash et al., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 15.

  10. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 161.

  11. Quoted in “Julius Robert Oppenheimer” in Charles Montz, ed., Current Biography Yearbook, 1964 (H. W. Wilson, 1964), p. 331.

  12. “Reminiscences of Norman E Ramsey,” OHRO, CU.

  13. Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer, June 29, 1943, Box 62, JROP, MDLOC.

  14. J. R. Oppenheimer to the President, July 9, 1943, Box 36, in ibid.

  15. Author’s interview with Donald Hornig, Cambridge, Mass., May 14, 1998.

  16. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 118.

  17. Quoted in Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 113.

  18. Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 181; and “Reminiscences of Norman F. Ramsey,” OHRO, CU.

  19. See Graph 1 in Hawkins, Toward Trinity, p. 483.

  20. Robert Wilson to Henry Smyth, November 27, 1943, Accession #A-84–019/7–7, LANLA.

  21. Major N. E. Davis to Occupants of Dormitory T-187, March 8, 1945, Accession #A-84–019, in ibid.

  22. Elsie McMillan, “Outside the Inner Fence,” in Badash et al., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 43.

  23. Robert Wilson to Henry Smyth, November 27, 1943, Accession #A-84–019/7–7, LANLA.

  24. Author’s interview with Donald Hornig, Cambridge, Mass., May 14, 1998.

  25. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 12 ff.

  26. Author’s interview with Louis Rosen, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 16, 1997.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 226.

  29. Quoted in Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 216.

  30. Ibid.

  31. “Reminiscences of Norman F. Ramsey,” OHRO, CU.

  32. Author’s interview with Beverly Agnew, Solana Beach, Calif., March 13, 2001.

  33. Norris Bradbury with Arthur Lawrence Norberg, February 11, 1976, History of Science and Technology Program, BL, UCB.

  34. Author’s interview with Kathleen Manley, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 21, 1997.

  35. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 178.

  36. Quotes are in Blumberg and Owens, Energy and Conflict, p. 124.

  37. Author’s interview with Robert Christy, Pasadena, Calif., July 29, 1998.

  38. J. R. Oppenheimer to General L. R. Groves, October 6, 1944, Box 36, JROP, MDLOC.

  39. See I. I. Rabi to Robert Oppenheimer, “Suggestions for Interim Organization and Procedure,” February 10, 1943, Box 59, in ibid.

  40. Quoted in Blumberg and Owens, Energy and Conflict, p. 129.

  41. Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 177.

  42. Ibid., pp. 177–178.

  43. Quoted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 273.

  44. Author’s interview with Philip Morrison, Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 1998.

  45. Hans Bethe Personal Papers (hereafter cited as BPP), Ithaca, N.Y.

  46. Author’s interview with Kathleen Manley, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 21, 1997.

  47. Author’s interview with Hans Bethe, Ithaca, N.Y., June 6, 1997.

  48. Author’s interview with Kay Mark, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 19, 1997.

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

  50. Bernstein, “Profiles: Physicist—II,” p. 53.

  51. Quoted in Rigden, Rabi, p. 217.

  52. Quoted by Hans Bethe in ibid., p. 149.

  53. Quoted in Peierls, Bird of Passage, p. 192.

  54. Quoted in J. Robert Oppenheimer to I. I. Rabi, February 26, 1943, JROP, MDLOC. Rabi had apparently suggested this to Oppenheimer in
a prior letter or conversation.

  55. Author’s interview with Hans Bethe, Ithaca, N.Y., June 6, 1997.

  56. The physicist was John Wheeler, then at Hanford, Washington. His brother Joe, an army private with a Ph.D. in history, was killed on October 25, 1944. Wheeler with Ford, Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam, pp. 18–19.

  57. Darol Froman interview with Arthur Lawrence Norberg, HSTP, BL, UCB.

  58. Blue Corn, quoted in Mason, Children of Los Alamos, p. 147.

  59. Quoted in Peggy Pond Church, The House at Otowi Bridge (University of New Mexico Press, 1960), pp. 65–66.

  60. Bohr handwritten notes, Document 10, Niels Bohr Archives Document Release, February 6, 2002, www.nba.nbi.dk/NBA/papers/docs/d10tra.htm.

  61. Quoted in James Glanz, “New Light on Physicist’s Role in Nazi Bomb,” NYT, February 7, 2002, pp. A1 and A8.

  62. Quoted in Rudolf Peierls to Mr. Masters, February 20, 1988, Addendum D.9, RPP, BL, UO.

  63. Moore, Niels Bohr, p. 324.

  64. Quoted in Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 186.

  65. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 195; and Niels Bohr to President Roosevelt, July 3, 1944, JROP, Box 34, MDLOC.

  66. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 94–95, 196.

  67. Quoted in Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 255.

  68. Author’s interview with Robert Christy, Pasadena, Calif., July 29, 1998.

  69. Richard Feynman interview with Charles Weiner, June 28, 1966, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  70. Felix Frankfurter to Lord Halifax, April 18, 1945, JROP, Box 34, MDLOC.

  71. Quoted in Moore, Niels Bohr, p. 343.

  72. See R. V. Jones, “Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1966, p. 88; and Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, p. 355.

  73. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 106–108.

  74. See Aage Bohr, “The War Years and the Prospects Raised by the Atomic Weapons,” in Rozental, Niels Bohr, pp. 206–207; and Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 109.

  75. Hyde Park Aide-Memoire, September 18, 1944, President’s Map Room Papers, Naval Aide’s File, Box 172, FDRL.

  Chapter 6: The Decision to Use the Bomb

  1. Leo Szilard to Vannevar Bush, January 14, 1944, LSP, Box 5, Folder 21, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  2. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 118–119. Compton himself addressed the political implications of atomic bombs for the first time in a memorandum to James Conant in August 1944. See Arthur H. Compton to James B. Conant, August 15, 1944, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.