Pandora's Keepers

by Brian Van DeMark

  3. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 120; see also Arthur H. Compton to Alice K. Smith, September 30, 1958, Series 3, Box 27, Arthur H. Compton Papers (hereafter cited as AHCP), Washington University Archives (hereafter cited as WUA), St. Louis, Mo.

  4. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 122; and Bohr Memorandum, May 8, 1945, summarizing his communications with Roosevelt, JROP, Box 34, MDLOC.

  5. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 260.

  6. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 200–201; and Leo Szilard, “Atomic Bombs and the Postwar Position of the United States in the World,” March 12, 1945, reprinted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, pp. 196–204.

  7. See Leo Szilard to Ernest Lawrence, April 3, 1945; and Ernest Lawrence to Leo Szilard, April 9, 1945, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  8. Quoted in Wyden, Day One, p. 141; and Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 182.

  9. Quoted in Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (revised, Free Press, 1994), p. 482.

  10. Quoted in John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon Books, 1986), pp. 39–40.

  11. Quoted in Steve Birdsall, Saga of the Superfortress (Doubleday, 1980), p. 195.

  12. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 145–147.

  13. Henry L. Stimson Diary, December 31, 1944, Sterling Library, Yale University.

  14. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 134, 190.

  15. Ibid., p. 150; and Harry S Truman, Memoirs, Vol. I: Year of Decisions (Double-day, 1955), p. 10.

  16. Henry L. Stimson, “Memo Discussed with the President,” April 25, 1945, Box 151, Folder 60, HBF, MEDR, NA.

  17. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “The Atomic Bomb as a Great Force for Peace,” New York Times Magazine, June 9, 1946, p. 60.

  18. Leo Szilard to J. Robert Oppenheimer, May 16, 1945, LSP, Box 14, Folder 27, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

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

  20. Ibid.

  21. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 32–33.

  22. Bodanis, E = mc2, p. 161.

  23. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 265.

  24. Quoted in Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 202.

  25. James Byrnes to President Roosevelt, March 3, 1945, Box 147, HBF, MEDR, NA.

  26. See Szilard, “Reminiscences,” pp. 122–128; Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 28–30; and James F Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (Harper and Brothers, 1958), pp. 284–285.

  27. Szilard, “Reminiscences,” p. 129.

  28. Arthur H. Compton, Statement to Interim Committee, May 28, 1945, BCF, ROSRD, MEDR, NA.

  29. Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 238.

  30. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 203–204; and Stimson Diary, May 31, 1945, SL,YU.

  31. Handwritten Notes “To the Four [Scientists],” May 31, 1945, HBF, MEDR, NA.

  32. Diary entry for May 31, 1945, Series 4, Box 1, AHCP, WUA.

  33. Quoted in Moore, Niels Bohr, p. 369.

  34. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 206–207.

  35. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 142.

  36. Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 238–239.

  37. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 247.

  38. Arthur H. Compton to Colonel Kenneth D. Nichols, June 4, 1945, MUC-AC-1306/7, MEDR, NA. See also Diary entry for June 3, 1945, Series 4, Box 1, AHCP, WUA.

  39. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 210.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Franck Report, June 11, 1945, reprinted as Appendix B in Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 560–572.

  42. See James Franck, “Washington Trip Memo,” April 21, 1945, James Franck Papers, Box 18, DSC, JRL, UC.

  43. Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 236.

  44. Ibid., p. 247.

  45. Ibid., pp. 239–240.

  46. See Leo Szilard to Arthur H. Compton, July 19, 1945, LSP, Box 6, Folder 29, MSCD, GL, UCSD; and Wyden, Day One, p. 171.

  47. Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 240–241.

  48. Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons, June 16, 1945, HBF, MEDR, NA.

  49. Oppenheimer, “Niels Bohr and His Times,” Part 3, p. 15, JROP, Box 247, MDLOC.

  50. Quoted in Moore, Niels Bohr, p. 370.

  51. HBF, MEDR, NA.

  52. Leo Szilard, “The Story of a Petition,” July 28, 1946, LSP, Box 40, Folder 15, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  53. HBF, MEDR, NA.

  54. “A Petition to the President of the United States,” July 17, 1945, JROP, Box 70, MDLOC.

  55. Quoted in Weart and Szilard, Leo Szilard, p. 167; and Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 262.

  56. Leo Szilard to Frank Oppenheimer, July 10, 1945, JROP, Box 70, MDLOC.

  57. Quoted in Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 206; and author’s interview with Edward Teller, Stanford, Calif., July 27, 1998.

  58. Edward Teller to Leo Szilard, July 2, 1945, LSP, Box 18, Folder 36, MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  59. Edward Teller to Gregg Herken, February 26, 1999, cited in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 365.

  60. Teller with Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 14.

  61. Teller, Better a Shield than a Sword, p. 60.

  62. Teller with Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 19.

  63. Author’s interview with Edward Teller, Stanford, Calif., July 27, 1998.

  64. Quotes are in Wyden, Day One, p. 150.

  65. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 171.

  66. See Farrington Daniels and Arthur H. Compton, “A Poll of Scientists at Chicago,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (hereafter cited as BAS), February 1948, p. 44.

  67. Arthur Compton to Kenneth Nichols, July 24, 1945, MUC-AC-1306/7, MEDR, NA.

  68. Quoted in Knebel and Bailey, “The Fight over the A-Bomb,” p. 20.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 194–196, 212.

  71. Jette, Inside Box 1663, p. 99.

  72. Quoted in Groueff, The Manhattan Project, p. 44.

  73. Quoted in Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era, 1943–1945 (Los Alamos National Laboratory Public Relations Office), p. 44.

  74. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 400, n. 13.

  75. Quoted in Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era, p. 46.

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

  77. Quoted in Bush, Pieces of the Action, p. 148; and Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 226.

  78. Quoted in Glenn T. Seaborg, Journals: Volumes 1–4, April 19, 1942–May 19, 1946 (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1992), vol. 4, p. 4.

  79. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 199.

  80. “E. O. Lawrence’s Thoughts,” July 16, 1945, Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942–1946 (hereafter cited as CTS, MED), Record Group 77, NA.

  81. Quoted in Sid Moody, “Proving Ground,” Albuquerque Journal Special Reprint, Julyl995, p. 3.

  82. Rabi, Science, p. 138.

  Chapter 7: Three Fires

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

  2. Quoted in Laurence, The Story of the Atomic Bomb, p. 17.

  3. Hans Bethe to Anne Longley, June 7, 1995, BPP; and Else, The Day After Trinity (KTEH-TV, 1980).

  4. “E. O. Lawrence’s Thoughts,” July 16, 1945, CTS, MED, Record Group 77, NA.

  5. Ernest O. Lawrence to George L. Harrison, July 18, 1945, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  6. Enrico Fermi, “My Observations During the Explosion at Trinity on July 16, 1945,”A-84–019,LANLA.

  7. Laura Fermi, “Bombs or Reactors,” BAS, June 1970, p. 27.

  8. Rabi, Science, p. 138; and Bernstein, “Physicist: Profile—II,” p. 58.

  9. Author’s interview with Raemer Schreiber, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 17, 1997.

  10. Quoted in Albuquerque Journal, July 12, 1970.

  11. Robert Oppenheimer to Thomas Farrell and William Parsons, July 23, 1
945, CTS, MED, NA.

  12. Michihiko Hachiya, M.D., Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6–September 30, 1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 1955), p.1.

  13. The following account of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is based on the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Summary Report (Pacific War) (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), and Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

  14. Bodanis, E=mc2, pp. 163–164.

  15. Hachiya, Hiroshima Diary, p. 31.

  16. Captain William C. Bryson, U.S. Navy, September 14, 1945, reprinted in BAS, December 1982, p. 35.

  17. August 6, 1945, Transcript, L. R. Groves Telephone Conversations, MEDR, NA.

  18. See Teller with Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 41.

  19. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 277.

  20. Leo Szilard to Gertrud Weiss, August 6, 1945, quoted in Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 735.

  21. Quoted in Leigh Fenly, “The Agony of the Bomb, and Ecstasy of Life with Leo Szilard,” San Diego Union, November 19, 1978, pp. Dl, D8.

  22. Arthur Compton to A. J. McCartney, March 18, 1946, Series 3, Box 5, AHCP, WUA; and Arthur Compton in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 7, 1945, p. 4D.

  23. Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 461; and Sam Cohen, The Truth About the Neutron Bomb (Morrow, 1983), pp. 21–22.

  24. Cited in Field Report, April 18, 1952, Robert Oppenheimer File, FBI, Washington, D.C.

  25. J. R. Oppenheimer to All Division Leaders, August 9, 1945, LANLA.

  26. Lanouette with Silard, Genius in the Shadows, p. 277.

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

  28. Quoted in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 139.

  29. Karl K. Darrow to Ernest O. Lawrence, August 9, 1945, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  30. Ernest O. Lawrence to Karl K. Darrow, August 17, 1945, in ibid.

  31. Ernest O. Lawrence to Citizens of Berkeley, August 22, 1945, in ibid.

  32. Quoted in Fermi, Atoms in the Family, p. 245.

  33. Rabi, Science, p. 70.

  34. Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (Houghton Mifflin, 1953), p. 639.

  35. Quoted in Alice Kimball Smith, “Los Alamos: Focus of an Age,” in Lewis, Wilson, and Rabinowitch, Alamogordo Plus Twenty-Five Years, p. 40.

  Chapter 8: An End, a Beginning

  1. I. I. Rabi, “The Physicist Returns from the War,” p. 107.

  2. Talk to FAS Members, Los Alamos, N.Mex., July 9, 1953, #14/22/976, Hans A. Bethe Papers (hereafter cited as HABP), Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University (hereafter cited as CAKL, CU).

  3. Philip Morrison, “The Laboratory Demobilizes,” BAS, November 1946, pp. 5–6.

  4. Quoted in Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 754.

  5. Time, November 5, 1945, p. 27.

  6. Robert Oppenheimer, “Physics in the Contemporary World,” BAS 4, no. 3 (March 1948): 66.

  7. Francis Sill Wickware, “Manhattan Project,” Life, August 20, 1945, p. 100.

  8. I. I. Rabi to the Research Board for National Security, April 3, 1945, OVP, Box33, MDLOC.

  9. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Atomic Weapons,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, January 1946, pp. 7–10.

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

  11. Telegram, Ernest Lawrence to J. R. Oppenheimer, August 16, 1945, Box 45, JROP, MDLOC.

  12. J. R. Oppenheimer, “For the [Scientific Advisory] Panel,” to Secretary of War Henry Stimson, August 17, 1945, Box 291, in ibid.

  13. Oppenheimer to Lawrence, August 30, 1945, EOLP, BL, UCB.

  14. Quoted in Time, October 29, 1945, p. 30.

  15. Arthur Compton to Henry A. Wallace, September 27, 1945, Box 73, JROP, MDLOC.

  16. Scientific Advisory Panel, “Proposal for Research and Development in the Field of Atomic Energy,” September 28, 1945, Accession #A-92–024, 1–18, LANLA.

  17. Bernstein, “Four Physicists and the Bomb,” pp. 243–244.

  18. Robert Oppenheimer to Herbert W. Smith, August 26, 1945, Box 294, JROP, MDLOC; to Haakon Chevalier, August 27, 1945, Supplemental Files, Jon Else, The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb (Voyager CD-ROM, 1999); and to Frederick Bernheim, August 27, 1945, reprinted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 297–298.

  19. Robert Oppenheimer to General Leslie Groves, May 7, 1945, MEDR, NA.

  20. George Harrison, Memorandum for the Files, September 25, 1945, HBF, MEDR, NA.

  21. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 251.

  22. Quoted in Hawkins, Toward Trinity.

  23. Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists, November 2, 1945, reprinted in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 315–325.

  24. Edith Warner to J. Robert Oppenheimer, November 25, 1945, reprinted in ibid., pp. 325–326.

  25. Niels Bohr, “A Challenge to Civilization,” Science, October 12, 1945, pp. 363–364.

  26. Niels Bohr to Robert Oppenheimer, November 9, 1945, JROP, MDLOC.

  27. Robert Oppenheimer to W. A. Higinbotham, March 1946, quoted in Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 350; and Oppenheimer, “Atomic Weapons,” p. 9.

  28. Enrico Fermi and Samuel K. Allison to Senator Warren G. Magnusson, September 13, 1945, EFP, DSC, JRL, UC.

  29. Arthur Compton to Leslie Groves, November 28, 1945, Series 2, Box 6, AHCP, WUA.

  30. Rigden, Rabi, pp. 196–197; quote is in Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 180–181.

  31. Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy, Department of State Publication No. 2498 (U.S. Government Printing Office, March 16, 1946), p. viii.

  32. Edward Teller and James Franck, Proposed Statement of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago on the Acheson Report, April 10, 1946, Box 9, James Franck Papers, DSC, JRL, UC.

  33. Arthur Compton, Statement with Regard to State Department’s Proposal for Development and Control of Atomic Energy, April 3, 1946; and Richard Baumhoff to Arthur Compton, April 2, 1946, Series 3, Box 4, AHCP, WUA.

  34. Hans A. Bethe to J. M. Burgers, May 16, 1946, Federation of American Scientists Papers (hereafter cited as FASP), Box 12, DSC, JRL, UC.

  35. Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 166–192.

  36. David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, pp. 69–70.

  37. Robert Oppenheimer to W. A. Higinbotham, May 20, 1947, FASP, DSC, JRL, UC; and Robert Oppenheimer to Niels Bohr, September 3, 1947, JROP, Box21,MDLOC.

  38. Leo Szilard, “The Physicist Invades Politics,” pp. 33–34.

  39. Quoted in Time, October 29, 1945, p. 30.

  40. Quoted in Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 241.

  41. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, p. 73.

  42. Quotes are in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), p. 248; and Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 180.

  43. Quoted in Bernstein, “Four Physicists and the Bomb,” p. 251.

  44. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 23.

  45. See Libby, The Uranium People, p. 247.

  46. Teller, “The State Department Report,” p. 13.

  47. Teller, “Comments on the ‘Draft of a World Constitution,” p. 204.

  48. Hans Bethe, BAS, December 1958, p. 428.

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

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

  51. Ibid.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Quoted in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 254.

  54. Segrè, Enrico Fermi, pp. 167, 169, 172.

  55. Ibid, pp. 170–171.

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

  57. Quoted in Segrè, Enrico Fermi, p. 176.

  58. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of
the Atomic Age (Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 102. Stockpile figures are in David Alan Rosenberg, “U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, 1945–1950,” BAS, May 1982, pp. 25–30.

  Chapter 9: The Superbomb Debate

  1. Teller with Brown, Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 33.

  2. Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, pp. 201–202.

  3. Edward Teller to Enrico Fermi, October 31, 1945, LANLA.

  4. Quoted in Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician, p. 151.

  5. Quoted in Moss, Men Who Play God, p. 68.

  6. Quoted in Coughlan, “Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession,” p. 61.

  7. See George Harrison and Harvey Bundy Files, Folder 76, MEDR, NA.

  8. Arthur Compton to Gordon Gray, April 21, 1954, AHCP, Series 3, Box 18, WUA.

  9. Robert Oppenheimer to James Conant, October 21, 1949, reprinted in U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 242–243; and transcript of interview with Warner Schilling, JROP, MDLOC.

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

  11. Herbert York, quoted in Lifton and Markusen, The Genocidal Mentality, p. 116.

  12. Quoted in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, pp. 204–205.

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

  14. Quoted in Teller with Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 281.

  15. See “National Defense and the Scientists: An Open Letter to Hans Bethe from Edward Teller,” HABP, Box 33, CAKL, CU; and Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 53.

  16. Author’s interview with Edward Teller, Stanford, Calif., July 27, 1998.

  17. Edward Teller to Maria Mayer (undated), Maria Mayer Papers (hereafter cited as MMP), MSCD, GL, UCSD.

  18. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 328.

  19. Quoted in Bernstein, Hans Bethe, pp. 92–93.

  20. U.S. Atomic energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 328.

  21. Ibid., p. 715.

  22. Hans Bethe interview with Charles Weiner, May 8, 1972, OHC, NBL, AIP.

  23. Hans Bethe to Victor Weisskopf, October 31, 1949, HABP, Box 9, CAKL, CU.

  24. Quotes are in Bernstein, Hans Bethe, pp. 93–94; U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 328; and Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, p. 281.

  25. Quoted in Hans Bethe interview with Charles Weiner, May 8, 1972, OHC, NBL, AIP.