Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer

by Ray Monk

  By now this was a view shared by many, probably most, of the scientists at Los Alamos, who, indeed, had formed an organisation – the Association of Los Alamos Scientistsfn60 – with the express purpose of campaigning for such a position. The origins of this organisation go back to the spring of 1945, when concerned scientists at Los Alamos got together for informal discussions of the political consequences of their work. This led, after the war, to a meeting of about sixty scientists on 20 August 1945, at which they elected a committee, charged with the task of drawing up a statement of aims and organising a more general meeting. By this time, those involved were unanimously agreed that, as one of their members put it, ‘the international control of atomic energy was the vital issue and should be the only issue with which the organization was concerned’. At a mass meeting on 30 August, attended by no fewer than 500 people, the structure of the organisation was decided and an executive committee, chaired by the young physicist William Higinbotham, was elected. Members of the committee included, among others, John Manley, Victor Weisskopf and Robert Wilson, the last of whom felt especially strongly about the issues raised, partly because he had tried – and failed – to generate public discussion about these issues before the bombing of Hiroshima, and partly because he had felt betrayed by the decision to use the bomb, without warning and without discussion among the scientists who had built it, on civilians.

  Within a week of this meeting the executive-committee members of ALAS had drafted a document urging upon the Truman administration a policy of international cooperation. ‘In the event of future wars,’ the document warned, the use of atomic bombs ‘would quickly and thoroughly annihilate the important cities in all countries involved.’ It must be assumed that ‘bombs will be developed which will be many times more effective’ than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and, moreover, that those bombs ‘will be available in large numbers’. Echoing the Scientific Advisory Panel report drafted by Oppenheimer soon after the Nagasaki bombing, the ALAS document emphasised that there was very little defence against such bombs, and that there was no ‘secret’ about how to build a bomb: ‘The development of the atomic bomb has involved no new fundamental principles or concepts; it consisted entirely in the application and extension of information which was known throughout the world before intensive work started.’ It was therefore ‘highly probable that with sufficient effort, other countries, who may, in fact, be well underway at this moment, could develop an atomic bomb within a few years’. What the scientists therefore presented as the only sane policy – the only policy that would avoid a disastrous arms race – was one of openness and collaboration with other countries in order to achieve the international control of atomic weapons that was a prerequisite for avoiding the horrors of future atomic war.

  On 9 September 1945, Oppenheimer sent a copy of the ALAS statement to George Harrison, telling him that it had been circulated to 300 scientists, just three of whom had refused to sign it. ‘You will probably recognize,’ he told Harrison, ‘that the views presented are in closest harmony to those I have discussed with the Interim Committee.’ A week went by without any response from the Truman administration, and on 18 September Oppenheimer flew to Washington to act as an emissary for the Los Alamos scientists. In a teletype message back to Los Alamos, he reported:

  Mr Harrison points out that since this document was presented to the President, who has regarded it as an expression of scientists’ views, it is not appropriate for anyone other than the President to release it for publication. It is my feeling, and the general feeling of all with whom I have talked, that public discussion of the issues involved is very much to be desired, but that it should follow rather than precede the President’s statement of national policy, which will be conveyed in his message to Congress.

  It is a measure of how trusted and revered Oppenheimer was among the scientists at Los Alamos that the executive committee of ALAS was able to convince its members to agree to the suppression of their document – at least until Truman announced his policy.

  The policy recommended by Truman was put before Congress on 3 October in the form of the May–Johnson Bill, named after its proposers: Representative Andrew May and Senator Edwin Johnson. To the dismay of many scientists – most notably, and most vocally, Leo Szilard and Harold Urey – the bill seemed to be founded upon the view that the United States had a ‘secret’ that it needed to protect, rather than the philosophy of openness recommended by ALAS. May and Johnson were seen, by both the army and its critics, as politicians friendly to the military – May was the chairman of the House of Representatives Military Affairs Committee and Johnson was a member of the corresponding Senate Military Affairs Committee – and their bill reflected the military concern for security. Scientists guilty of violating security, the bill proposed, should be, at the very least, fined $100,000 and, at worst, imprisoned for up to ten years.

  ‘If this bill passes,’ Szilard said at a meeting of the Atomic Scientists at Chicago (a group set up in parallel with, and with similar aims to, ALAS), ‘we have no choice but to get out of this work.’ It is true, as Groves emphasised publicly at the time and emphasises again in his autobiography, that the bill did not propose military control of atomic energy. What it proposed instead was the establishment of an Atomic Energy Commission, which would have authority over all aspects, both peaceful and military, of the US’s atomic energy programme. There would be nine commissioners, appointed by the President, who would be part-time and would appoint a general manager to conduct the day-to-day business. However, what worried scientists was not only the draconian measures proposed for maintaining secrecy (which, almost all scientists felt, was a lost cause – for the reasons given in the ALAS document), but also that military men would be allowed to serve as commissioners. The Atomic Energy Commission would not be, as most scientists felt it should be, an entirely civilian body.

  The May–Johnson Bill was passed quickly by the House, but when it reached the Senate it stalled over a territorial dispute between the Military Affairs Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee about who had jurisdiction over atomic-energy affairs. The consequent delay allowed opponents of the bill to marshal their forces. Led by Szilard, the scientists who had worked for the Manhattan Project – at Chicago, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos – began campaigning for the May–Johnson Bill to be scrapped and for the appointment of a joint congressional committee to reconsider atomic policy.

  To many people’s surprise, Oppenheimer not only did not join this campaign, but argued publicly against it, declaring his support for the bill and urging his colleagues to support it as well. On 7 October, Oppenheimer returned from Washington to Los Alamos with a copy of the bill, which he discussed with the ALAS executive committee, telling them that he, Lawrence, Compton and Fermi were all in favour of passing the bill, on the grounds that it was the best way of getting what they all wanted: international cooperation on controlling atomic bombs. Astonishingly, the result of that discussion was that the committee voted unanimously to support the bill, putting ALAS somewhat at odds with many of the other scientists involved in the Manhattan Project at Chicago and Oak Ridge.

  Why was Oppenheimer prepared to side with the military and use his influence among scientists to give the military what they wanted? Frank Oppenheimer, himself active in ALAS, has said that his brother ‘felt that he had to change things from within’. This may be so, but one cannot help thinking that Oppenheimer was spending more effort in ensuring that he stayed ‘within’ than he did attempting to effect any change. It is reminiscent of his willingness, when the Los Alamos laboratory was being established, to wear military uniform and attempt to persuade all the other scientists to follow suit. As on that occasion, Oppenheimer, in supporting the May–Johnson Bill, had underestimated the strength of the opposing feeling.

  On 11 October, Herbert Anderson, who after working at Los Alamos had moved back to Chicago at the end of the war, wrote to William Higinbotham expressing some of that feeling. ‘I mu
st confess,’ he told him, ‘my confidence in our leaders Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Compton and Fermi, all members of the Scientific Panel advising the Interim Committee and who enjoined us to have faith in them and not influence this legislation, is shaken.’ Anderson’s own view, shared by many at Chicago, was that the security measures proposed by the bill were ‘frightening’. ‘They place every scientist in jeopardy of a jail sentence or a large fine.’

  Making sure that the scientists opposing the May–Johnson Bill did not give up without a fight, Ed Condon, Leo Szilard and others travelled to Washington to meet sympathetic Congressmen the day after Anderson’s letter to Higinbotham. They found it surprisingly easy to gain a sympathetic hearing. ‘Mention to a Senator’s secretary at the door that you’re a “nuclear physicist” and you come from Los Alamos,’ Szilard’s assistant, Bernard Feld, said, ‘and you were ushered right in to see the Senator.’

  Meanwhile, Robert Wilson, who did not share either Oppenheimer’s view of the May–Johnson Bill or the ALAS executive committee’s faith in Oppenheimer, took it upon himself to rewrite the original ALAS document and issue it as a press release. ‘It was a declaration of independence from our leaders at Los Alamos,’ Wilson later said, adding that the lesson he had learned was that those leaders, however admirable they might be, were, if put in a position of power, ‘not necessarily to be relied upon’. The press release, which made the front page of the New York Times, again made it very clear that, in contrast to the May–Johnson Bill’s emphasis on the importance of tight security, the scientists who had created the atomic bomb did not believe the technology could be kept a secret for very long. ‘The scientific background necessary to develop an atomic bomb,’ the statement began, ‘is generally known throughout the world.’

  The technical design and industrial methods of production are at present the secret of this country, Great Britain and Canada. However, it is certain that other countries can achieve these ends by independent research. Before many years they also may be manufacturing bombs, bombs which may be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times more powerful than those which caused such devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  Wilson’s statement was published on 14 October. The next day, Robert Serber returned to Los Alamos from Japan. He thus arrived to find everybody discussing politics, and in particular the issue that he, with his first-hand experiences in Nagasaki and Hiroshima still fresh in his mind, regarded as of crucial importance: the necessity for international cooperation.

  As it happened, the following day was Oppenheimer’s last as director of Los Alamos and the occasion for a large ceremony at which he, on behalf of the laboratory, accepted from General Groves the Army-Navy Award for Excellence and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Secretary of War. To a crowd of several thousands, practically the entire population of Los Alamos, Oppenheimer delivered what Dorothy McKibbin has described as ‘one of the best speeches that has ever been done’. It was certainly a very skilful piece of work. Somehow it managed to address the controversy that had engulfed the atomic scientists in a way that avoided saying anything particularly controversial and also expressed what many people felt. ‘It is our hope,’ he began, ‘that in years to come we may look at this scroll, and all that it signifies, with pride.’

  Today that pride must be tempered with concern. If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of the warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima.

  ‘The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish,’ he went on. The war had ‘written these words’, and the atomic bomb ‘has spelled them out for all men to understand’.

  Immediately after the ceremony Oppenheimer went to Washington. He went with the earnest intention of doing whatever he could, wielding whatever political influence his new-found fame had given him, to ensure that the world, in the face of the threat of annihilation brought about by atomic bombs, united rather than perished. As he left for Washington, however, he knew that, despite the warm reception given to his speech at Los Alamos, he had been unable even to unite those scientists who agreed with him about the importance of international cooperation and control of atomic energy. Dealing with top-level politicians and military men who did not share this point of view was, he well knew, going to be the biggest challenge he had yet faced.

  * * *

  fn60 That the initials of this organisation spell out the word ‘alas’ was probably intentional, but I have seen no conclusive confirmation of this.

  PART IV

  1945–1967

  15

  The Insider Scientist

  THE DAY AFTER his resignation as director of the Los Alamos laboratory, Oppenheimer was in Washington to give evidence to Congress as it considered the May–Johnson Bill. ‘He’d better be careful,’ his secretary, Anne Wilson, said to her predecessor, Priscilla Greene. ‘He is going to get into terrible trouble.’ What prompted this sense that he was in danger, she later said, was her awareness of how many enemies Oppenheimer had made. ‘The woods,’ she remarked, ‘were always thick with people who had nasty things to say about Robert.’ It was, she observed, the downside of being so charismatic: ‘There were always people who were vying for his attention, and those who felt snubbed by him, or felt hurt because they thought Robert didn’t love them anymore.’

  In Washington, Oppenheimer spoke to a Senate subcommittee on science on 17 October 1945 and to the House Committee on Military Affairs the following day. To the senators, Oppenheimer emphasised that his testimony would be ‘somewhat academic’, corresponding ‘to my position as professor of physics rather than to my position as maker of bombs’. He spoke in general terms about the need scientists felt for freedom, making what he described as ‘a plea for not over-organizing the work of scientists, and for trusting, as we have in the past, their own judgment of what work is worth doing’. The implication was clear: even though it had turned out that the work of scientists had enormous political and military consequences, the planning of scientific research should not be placed in the hands of politicians or the military, but rather handed back to the scientists themselves. In context, this was a somewhat odd point to emphasise, given that he was in Washington to lend support to a bill widely disliked by scientists precisely because they saw it as handing control of their work over to the military.

  The tension between Oppenheimer’s plea for scientific freedom and his support for a bill that sought to enforce secrecy through the use of extremely harsh punishments was exploited by Howard J. Curtis from the Association of Oak Ridge Scientists, who was there to give evidence against the bill. ‘If the so-called secret of the atomic bomb is to be kept in this country,’ Curtis argued, ‘then American science as we have known it, will cease to exist.’ Science, as Oppenheimer himself had stressed, required freedom, and that was clearly incompatible with the bill’s proposals for trying to keep some scientific facts a secret. Oppenheimer tried to argue that, because technology and science were two different things, there was ‘no technical difficulty about keeping considerable parts of this secret’ without interfering with scientific research, but Curtis rejected this, since: ‘The two are so closely connected that it would be impossible to pick out any single fact and say “this is a scientific fact, devoid of industrial applications” and any attempt to do so seems ludicrous.’ The only solution to the problem of secrecy, Curtis concluded, was international control of atomic energy.

  Oppenheimer’s problem was that he agreed entirely with this point of view, but had somehow managed to position himself on the other side of the argument. The reason was that he did not much care what domestic policy was adopted, since he was certain the real issue was the international question; whatever domestic policy was adopted would be a stopgap measure, since it would have to be changed in the light of any international agreement that was reached. He backed the May–Johnson Bill, therefore, not because he believed it was a w
ise policy, but because he wanted to see some bill – any bill – passed so that the real questions, the international questions, could be discussed.

  Not that his advocacy of the May–Johnson bill was particularly full-blooded. Indeed, it seemed almost deliberately feeble. Upon being asked specifically what he thought of the bill, he replied airily: ‘The Johnson bill, I don’t know much about.’ So lukewarm was his support of the bill that the following day his remarks were reported by one newspaper as an ‘oblique attack’ on it. The apparent revelation (it is very hard to believe that he was telling the truth) that he did not actually know much about the bill was received by the scientists at Los Alamos, whom he had earnestly urged to support it, with understandable misgivings. It is reported that when he met some ALAS members after giving his testimony, he received what one of them described as ‘the coolest reception I have ever seen Oppie given by a group of scientists’. At the next meeting of the ALAS executive committee Victor Weisskopf recommended that in future ‘Oppie’s suggestions be studied more critically’.

  After his appearance at the Senate, Oppenheimer attended a dinner organised by Watson Davies of the Science Service news agency, with the aim of educating senators about atomic energy. Fermi, who also supported the May–Johnson Bill, had been invited, as had (representing the other side of the debate) Condon, Szilard and Urey. Among the senators present was Brien McMahon, the Democratic senator for Connecticut, who had become the champion in the Senate of those opposed to the May–Johnson Bill. Also present were two members of Truman’s government, James Newman and Henry A. Wallace, who were likewise sympathetic to the scientists opposing the bill. If Oppenheimer did not already realise it, the dinner must have made him aware that the May–Johnson Bill – disliked by scientists, opposed by influential senators and even rejected by members of Truman’s administration – had very little chance of becoming law. He was on the losing side.