Notes for Chapter Twelve - Brotherhood of the Bomb



Notes for Chapter Twelve

[?]. Manley diary, Manley papers, LANL; Lilienthal (1964), 584-85.

2. McMahon to Truman, Nov. 1, 1949, #LXXII, JCAE.

3. Lilienthal, (1964), 584.

4. GAC members had agreed not to talk to even cleared individuals about their recommendations for a week, in order to allow time for the report to be considered by the AEC, but word had already begun to leak out. Manley diary, Manley papers, LANL.

5. Arneson (1969), 29. “[N]either the maintenance of ignorance nor the reliance on perpetual good will seemed to me a tenable policy,” wrote Acheson in his memoirs. Acheson (1969), 346.

6. Teller to Mayer, n.d. [Nov. 1949], box 3, Mayer papers.

7. U.S. AEC, ITMJRO, 91.

8. Manley, “Recollections and Memories,” 5; and Manley diary, 13-14; and “A Fateful Decision,” 5, Manley papers, LANL. Los Alamos colleague Stan Ulam bet that Teller would not be quiet for long. “Edward--who agreed with me that he now should keep silent for several months (mirabile dictu)--urged me to see you as soon as possible,” Ulam wrote to von Neumann. Commenting on “the weird and unnatural things going on in Washington,” Ulam thought “Edward’s personality and, in my opinion, extremely inept political handling contributed...” Ulam to von Neumann, Nov. 15, 1949, box 2229, Von Neumann collection, AEC/NARA.

9. Pfau, 116.

[?]0. Serber interview (1992).

[?]1. Alvarez to Teller, Nov. 10, 1949, Teller folder, box 3, Alvarez papers, SBFRC.

[?]2. Lilienthal (1964), 591.

[?]3. Hewlett and Duncan, 386-87.

[?]4. Manley diary, 13, Manley papers, LANL.

[?]5. Hewlett and Duncan, 391.

[?]6. Bradbury to Oppenheimer, Oct. 27, 1949, and Oct. 31, 1949, Bradbury folder, box 22, JRO. Teller to Alvarez, Teller folder, box 3, Alvarez papers. Teller accused Manley of trying to prevent him from meeting with McMahon, in order to keep Congress from learning that there were scientists who disagreed with the GAC. “Recollections and Memories,” and Manley diary, 6-8, Manley papers, LANL archives; Teller and Brown, 44.

[?]7. Although Bethe explained that he had changed his mind after talking with two physicist friends--Victor Weisskopf and George Placzek--Teller blamed Oppenheimer. Unable to lure the Cornell physicist to Los Alamos even for basic research--”the G.A.C. professes to approve of those activities,” wrote Teller snidely–-Edward thought the choice for “honest scientists” was “either work on all possibilities or behave like Gandhi.” Rhodes (1995), 393; Bethe interview (1996).

[?]8. “November was as early as I heard a name mentioned, and then only informally and under seal,” Strauss told the Joint Committee. Minutes, March 10, 1950, #CXXXVIII, JCAE. Strauss knowledge of spying: Pfau, 114-115; Williams, 115-16.

[?]9. The Bureau became suspicious of Fuchs in August 1949, when it learned that a top-secret Manhattan Project document–-“Fluctuations and the Efficiency of a Diffusion Plant, Part III”–-was in possession of the Soviets. The document’s author was Fuchs. On October 21, 1949, Hoover formally informed the AEC that Fuchs was the subject of its investigation. Dean had been advised in September that the German-born physicist was a suspect. Minutes, March 10, 1950, #CXXXVIII, and Hoover to McMahon, April 21, 1950, #CXL, JCAE.

20. “Bureau Source 5" was probably the Venona decrypts. See Chapter Five. Robert Lamphere, Oct. 22, 1997, personal communication.

2[?]. Robert Bacher recalled that before he went to England in September, AEC security officials instructed him to ask John Cockcroft whether the British had any reservations about Klaus Fuchs. Transcript of Bacher interview, Caltech archives.

22. Groves to Strauss, Nov. 4, 1949, Strauss folder, Groves/NARA.

23. Strauss to Nichols, Dec. 3, 1949, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.

24. “Due to the acerbity of Louis Johnson’s nature,” Acheson decided to wait until December 22 to hold the committee’s first meeting, which dissolved almost immediately into rancor. Johnson brusquely declared that the military services were unanimous on proceeding with the Super as the “minimum” next step. Hewlett and Duncan, 398-99, 643 fn; Acheson, 348.

25. Teller to Mayer, n.d. [Dec. 1949-Jan. 1950], box 3, Mayer papers.

26. Los Alamos briefings: Hamilton to files, Nov. 8, 1949, #LXXVI, and Hamilton to files, Nov. 10, 1949, box 6; and Minutes, Jan. 9, 1950, #CXXV, JCAE.

27. Minutes, Jan. 9, 1950, #CXIII, JCAE.

28. McMahon to Truman, Nov. 21, 1949, in “Thermonuclear Weapons Program Chronlogy” (TWPC), n.d., 53-59, AEC/NARA.

29. Strauss, 220; Borden to file, Nov. 28, 1949, #LXXXI, JCAE.

30. Bradley to Truman, Jan. 13, 1950, 78-86, TWPC, AEC/NARA. Borden sent the chiefs a list of questions to be answered. The first question was, “Have you officially asked for the hydrogen bomb? When? Of whom?” “Questions for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Jan. 10, 1950, #CVIII, JCAE.

3[?]. Hewlett and Duncan, 394.

32. Minutes, Jan. 9, 1950, #CXXV, JCAE.

33. Pfau, 121.

34. “You can’t expect morals from immoral people?,” ventured Congressman Kilday. “This is the point, sir!,” responded Strauss. Minutes, Jan. 27, 1950, #CXVIII, JCAE.

35. Hewlett and Duncan, 405.

36. Oppenheimer defended the GAC report: “We thought the beginning of wisdom was to stop, look and listen about weapons of mass destruction, and this was the place to do it.” Minutes, Jan. 30, 1950, #1447, JCAE.

37. Teller and Brown, 46.

38. Acheson, 347. According to Gordon Arneson, Acheson also scolded Kennan for views on the Super that the secretary of state thought were dangerously unrealistic: “If that is your view of the matter, I suggest you put on a monk’s robe, put a tin cup in your hand, and go on the street corner and announce the end of the world is nigh.” Cited in Rhodes (1995), 405.

39. U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1949 (U.S. GPO, 1976), I, 573-76; transcript of Warner Schilling interview, box 65, JRO.

40. Lilienthal (1964), 582. Lilienthal had recently told Arneson that the AEC was in danger of becoming a mere contractor to the Department of Defense. Arneson (1969), 25.

4[?]. October 31 GAC meeting: Acheson, 348-49; Lilienthal (1964), 623-32.

42. Lilienthal (1964), 632. Earlier, on January 19, Souers had told Acheson that Truman thought the joint chiefs’ memo “made a lot of sense and he was inclined to think that was what we should do.” The president told an aide two days later that he had made his decision but did not divulge what it was. H-bomb decision: FRUS: 1950, I, 511; Herken (1981), 319-21.

43. Lilienthal (1964), 633.

44. Minutes, Jan. 31, 1950, #CXXVI.

45. Davis, 316.

46. Arneson interview (1979). Coincidentally, Souers and the NSC received a Pentagon briefing later that day on the results of a hypothetical Soviet nuclear strike upon the U.S.

47. Pfau, 123.

48. Minutes, March 10, 1950, #CXXXVIII, JCAE.

49. Pfau, 124. Wilson had agreed to allow British members of the Anglo-American Combined Development Trust to have an office in AEC headquarters, where they could roam unescorted. One--Donald Maclean--was later found to have been passing secrets to the Soviets.

50. Cited in Bernstein and Galison, p. 311; “Hydrogen Bomb Secret Feared Given Russians,” Feb. 3, 1950, Washington Post.

5[?]. Lilienthal (1964), 635.

52. Minutes, Feb. 4, 1950, #1371, and Minutes, Feb. 6, 1950, #1376, JCAE. Hoover later passed MI-5's interview with Fuchs along to the Joint Committee to prove his point. Minutes, March 10, 1950, #CXXXVIII, JCAE.

53. Wilson to McMahon, March 14, 1950, series 10, AEC/NARA.

54. Lilienthal to McMahon, Feb. 7, 1950, series 10, AEC/NARA.

55. The damage report was not completed until late April 1950. Boyer to Borden, Oct. 3, 1951, #2390, JCAE.

56. Minutes, Feb. 3, 1950, #CXXXI, and Lilienthal to McMahon, Feb. 7, 1950, #CXXII, JCAE.

57. Minutes, Feb. 27, 1950, FRUS: 1950, I, 173. In response to a Joint Committee inquiry as to when he thought the Russians might have an H-bomb, Oppenheimer wrote that it was his “conviction that what Fuchs may have told the Russians about thermonuclear weapons would prove substantially misleading. Indeed the same information proved misleading to us for a long time; and if we are not now sure that the general ideas which he may have communicated are unworkable, we are sure that they make no sense as a practical matter.” Oppenheimer to Borden, December 1, 1952, #7807, JCAE.

58. Cited in Bernstein (1990), 1408.

59. Borden to Chairman, Nov. 3, 1952, #DCXXXV, JCAE.

60. The Military Liaison Committee had recently come away from an inspection tour of Los Alamos–-where they had been briefed on the Super by the new head of the Theoretical Division, Carson Mark--persuaded that the lab was not working on the H-bomb full tilt. “I mean, it was pretty laconic,” Bradbury conceded of Mark’s presentation. “Carson didn’t put himself out in the best Air Force briefer style.” Transcript of Bradbury interview, Bancroft Library.

6[?]. Hewlett and Duncan, 411-12.

62. Minutes, Nov. 8, 1949, #LXXVI, JCAE.

63. Pike to LeBaron, March 2, 1950, series 1, MLC folder, and Pike to McMahon, March 2, series 4, Classified Reading File, AEC/NARA. MTA: Heilbron et. al. (1981), 64-65; Hewlett and Duncan, 425; Pitzer to Tammaro, Feb. 10, 1950, LBL.

64. Entries of Jan. 20, May 12, and Sept. 12, 1950, Memos, Sproul papers; Sproul to Bradbury, May 2, 1950, Contract 48 file, LBL.

65. Ironically, all of the thirteen bills that Tenney proposed to the California legislature, requiring the oath, died in committee.

66. Oath controversy: George Stewart, The Year of the Oath: The Fight for Academic Freedom at the University of California (DaCapo Press, NY, 1971); Sproul to Cooksey, Aug. 18, 1949, folder 14, carton 33, EOL. Neylan regularly received reports of closed meetings of the Academic Senate from the Rad Lab’s assistant personnel director, who passed transcripts to Neylan’s secretary at surreptitious meetings held on the corner of Dwight and Shattuck. Transcript of Ralph Chaney interview, Bancroft Library. As evidence of the need for the oath, Neylan alleged that Communists were trying to take over Berkeley’s Slavic Studies department. Documents in black binders, boxes 187-188, Neylan papers.

67. Fox decided to admit his Communist past after talking with Sproul--who reportedly assured him “that everything would be all right if he just told the truth.” David Fox, June 11, 1998, personal communication. Fox controversy: Stewart, 42-46; Birge, V, XIX, 20-21, 44-45.

68. “[Birge] tells me that the physics department is sharply divided between two factions, one of which is led by the Rad. group (Alvarez, Lawrence, et al), and the other by the more academic physicists (Segre, Brode, et al). The line of division has to do with the emphasis upon war work vs. theoretical or academic physics much more than on the attitude of the various dept. members toward the Regents’ loyalty regulations.” Jan. 2, 1950, Memos, Sproul papers.

69. In September 1950, Oppenheimer and others at the Institute signed a statement condemning the Regents’ stand on the oath. Oppenheimer et. al., “UC-Group for Academic Freedom” folder, box 25, JRO.

70. Wick had taken a loyalty oath while a professor in Mussolini’s Italy, after his mother was arrested for anti-fascist activity, and so refused to sign California’s oath. Wick firing: Segre, 235; Reynolds to Everson, Sept. 28, 1950, Loyalty Oath file, box 7, LBL.

71. Birge, V, XIX, 53; Reynolds to file, Aug. 1, 1950, Loyalty Oath file, box 7, LBL. Observed Segre of the oath’s effect upon Berkeley’s physics department: “For theory, it was a body blow; for experiment, something a bit less.” Segre, 235.

72. Teller’s letters to Mayer showed a range of conflicting feelings about whether to stay at Los Alamos, return to Chicago, or go to UCLA. Teller to Mayer, various letters, n.d. [Jan-Oct. 1950], box 3, Mayer papers.

73. Teller to Mayer, n.d. [late Nov. 1950], box 3, Mayer papers.

74. Lawrence to Teller, Dec. 1, 1950; Teller to Lawrence, Dec. 5, 1950, folder 9, carton 17, EOL.

75. “You know that I did not mind signing the Oath--by now I have signed it four different times.” Teller to McMillan, Nov. 16, 1950, Teller file, series 4, McMillan papers, SBFRC.

76. Dec. 29, 1952, Memos, Sproul papers.

77. Strauss had recently shown Defense Secretary Johnson four top-secret documents from the commission’s vault. All pertained to the hydrogen bomb and had been compromised by Fuchs, Strauss claimed. Ironically, one of the documents was apparently the 1946 Fuchs-Von Neumann patent. Strauss refused to show the documents to his fellow commissioners.

78. “Basis for Estimating Maximum Soviet Capabilities for Atomic Warfare,” Feb. 16, 1950, “NSC Atomic Energy--Russia folder,” box 201, President’s Secretary’s File, Harry Truman papers, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. Souers, too, worried that the Russians might have “gotten going on the hydrogen bomb even before the other.” McMahon and Borden asked the Air Force to reanalyze the debris from Joe-1 to see if the test had contained a thermonuclear component. Williams, 116; McMahon to Johnson, Oct. 22, 1949, #LXIX, JCAE.

79. Rhodes (1995), 420-21.

80. Teller and de Hoffmann to Bradbury, Dec. 5, 1949, AEC/NARA. Wrote Teller to Bradbury in December 1949: “It must be kept in mind that it is by no means certain that a super can be made at all.” Cited in Fitzpatrick, 261.

81. The bomb was clearly too big and heavy to be carried by existing bombers. Lee Bowen, “A History of the Air Force Atomic Energy Program, 1943-1953” (USAF history), vol. IV, 188; Rhodes (1995), 379. A subsequent Air Force memo envisioned an H-bomb 20 feet long, nine feet wide, and weighing between 35,000-80,000 pounds. Wood to Commanding General, July 12, 1951, #471.6, series 197, USAF/NARA.

82. Wilson to Schlatter, Oct. 20, 1949, entry 197, and Feb. 3, 1950, series 26, USAF/NARA; USAF history, vol. IV, 187, 206.

83. Smyth to McMahon, Jan. 25, 1950, #CXIV, JCAE; Fitzpatrick, 122. LeBaron admitted to Johnson that it was “becoming clearer that the program will cost us a sizeable number of fission atomic weapons.” LeBaron to Johnson, March 1, 1950, series 184, OSD/NARA. In May 1950, Bethe testified before the Joint Committee that the neutrons necessary to make a gram of tritium could make 100 grams of plutonium. Minutes, May 3, 1950, #CXLIV, JCAE.

84. Daddy Pocketbook: Appendix E, Sept. 12, 1952, #DLXIII, JCAE; Fitzpatrick, 261-62; Rhodes (1995), 414, 424.

85. Norman Macrae, John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More (Pantheon, 1992), 312-14; John A. Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics (Norton, 1998), 221-22.

86. Appendix E, Sept. 12, 1952, #DLXIII, JCAE.

87. Oppenheimer to Dean, #104150, CIC/DOE; Rhodes (1995), 424.

88. Von Neumann to Teller, May 18, 1950, LANL; Hewlett and Duncan, 439-40; Rhodes (1995), 423-24; Ulam, 212-16; Ulam to Manley, Aug. 10, 1988, Manley papers, LANL. “Together, the two pieces of work appeared to sound the death knell for the super: it would neither light nor burn.” Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997), 723.

89. Ulam, 217.

90. “The H-bomb Chronology,” 54; Wheeler, 200; Ulam, 217.

9[?]. Family Committee: Fitzpatrick, 222; Hewlett and Duncan, 536; Bradbury to Teller, March 3, 1950, #125511, CIC/DOE.

92. Rhodes (1995), 419.

93. George test: Fitzpatrick, 141-42; Rhodes (1995), 456-57.

94. “In view of the above uncertainties and worries,” Teller wrote Bradbury that summer, “I do not see in a clear way what course the work of the Family Committee should take.” Teller to Bradbury, July 28, 1950, #1452, CIC/DOE; Wheeler, 206-7.

95. De Hoffmann: Ulam, 211; Wheeler, 191; Fitzpatrick, 148-49.

96. Borden to file, March 2, 1950; Teller to Borden, March 8, 1950; Teller to Borden, March 15, 1950, series 2, Oppenheimer file, JCAE.

97. Teller, “Back to the Laboratories,” Scientific American, March 1950. Teller told Borden he was “shocked at the icyness [sic]” with which young physicists rejected his appeal. Fitzpatrick, 273.

98. “I can not in good conscience work on this weapon,” Bethe informed Bradbury. However, Bethe changed his mind following the Communist invasion of South Korea that June; like Fermi, he would spend summers at the lab. Bethe to Bradbury, Feb. 14, 1950, #125241, CIC/DOE.

99. Telegram, Teller to JRO, Feb. 17, 1950, box 71, JRO.

[?]00. Blumberg and Owens, 239. Teller reportedly rejected suggestions coming from scientists at the lab whom he considered pro-Oppenheimer, fearing sabotage. Borden to files, Feb. 9, 1951, #CCLXXXIII, JCAE; Blumberg and Owens, 257.

[?]01. Teller to Borden, April 13, 1950, #7201, JCAE.

[?]02. Bergman to Borden, May 7, 1950, #1531, JCAE.

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