Notes for Chapter Fourteen

Notes for Chapter Fourteen

. Minutes, GAC #26, May 10, 1951, #79443, CIC/DOE.

2. Princeton meeting: Anders (ed.), 143-44; Hewlett and Duncan, 542, U.S. AEC, ITMOJRO, 84; H-bomb Chronology, 65, JCAE.

3. May 31, 1951, Dean diary, Dean papers.

4. Mike was meant to be a proof-of-principle test of radiation implosion, and not a deliverable bomb. Housed in a six-story building, weighing more than 80 tons, the cryogenically-cooled device was later described disdainfully by the Russians as a “thermonuclear installation.” Mike: Hansen (1988), 54-55; Rhodes (1995), 490-96.

5. Hewlett and Duncan, 542; ITMOJRO, 305; Rhodes (1995), 477.

6. DeHoffmann called back a few days later to say that Teller was rethinking his decision. Anders (ed.), 161.

7. Mansfield to file, “Los Alamos opinions of Dr. Edward Teller,” Aug. 29, 1951 #2330, JCAE.

8. Theoretical Megaton Group: Fitzpatrick, 313; Rhodes (1995), 482-87.

9. Smyth advised the Joint Committee that estimates of the device’s yield varied widely--from one to fifty megatons. Bradbury gave even odds that the Mike test would be an outright failure, the bomb a dud. Such uncertainty inspired a conservative approach. “H-bomb Status Report,” Sept. 28, 1951, #CDXVIII, and Walker to file, Nov. 13, 1951, #CDXXXI, JCAE; “Who Built the H-Bomb? Debate Revives,” April 24, 2001, New York Times.

0. Teller offered to stay if Bradbury would make him head of a separate thermonuclear division at the lab. Bradbury informed the AEC, however, that most scientists at Los Alamos would rather have Teller remain in Chicago than see the lab rearranged to his liking. “I am sorry that this matter seems to be slightly out of hand at the moment,” Bradbury wrote to the commission. Bradbury to McCormack, March 31, 1951, #71793, CIC/DOE.

1. “It was a painful decision for me to leave Los Alamos,” Teller later wrote Strauss. “One of the most powerful reasons why I did so was the conviction that I could not decently argue for a second laboratory while staying at Los Alamos.” Teller to Strauss, March 5, 1956, Teller folder, LLS/HHPL.

2. Walker to file, Oct. 3, 1951, #2398, JCAE; Hewlett and Duncan, 556. Just before George, Teller sent Dean his vision of an alternative to Los Alamos in a 13-page memo--”A New Site for Thermonuclear Developments.” Teller envisioned a lab with an initial staff of 50 scientists and a first-year equipment budget of $4-5 million. The preferred location was Boulder, Colorado, where the Bureau of Standards was about to open a new cryogenics facility. Teller offered his protégé, Freddy de Hoffmann, to run the new weapons lab. Some work could begin as early as December, Teller predicted, with “fairly routine operation” expected by the spring or summer of 1952. Dean was not the only skeptic. “Dr. Teller has very little comprehension of the scientific and engineering problems that lie between the germ of a brilliant idea and the achieving of a perfected weapon,” observed Fermi dryly.

Mansfield to file, Oct. 2, 1951, #2389, JCAE.

3. “Hal” to “Bill,” May 9, 1950, #1532, JCAE.

4. Hamilton to files, June 29, 1950, #1572, JCAE.

5. Borden to file, March 10, 1950, #1429, and Hamilton to file, June 29, 1950, #1572, and Borden to file, Nov. 28, 1950, #CCXLI, JCAE.

6. Pfau, 129.

7. For example, Strauss went to another candidate for the commission, Keith Glennan, before Glennan decided to take the job. Wrote Glennan: “Spent day with Lewis Strauss--most pleasant--gave me some background of early days of commission and just an inkling of his dissents and disagreements with other members.” Entry, Aug. 6, 1950, Glennan diary, Keith Glennan papers, AEC/NARA.

8. Bernstein (1990), 1414 fn; Anders (ed.), 117-18.

9. Oppenheimer to Dean, Oct. 13, 1951, #74703; minutes, GAC #27, Oct. 13, 1951, #74703, CIC/DOE.

20. Thomas Murray: Hewlett and Duncan, 466; Thomas Murray, Nuclear Power for War and Peace (Chicago, 1960), 15-17, and The Predicament of Our Age: The Impact of the Atom on the Relationship between Man and the World in which He Lives (New York, 1955). The author thanks James Murray for a copy of his brother’s privately published book of speeches, and former aide Jack Crawford for access to Thomas Murray’s personal papers.

2. Teller and Brown, 53.

22. “From the looks of the faces around me, one would think I had exploded such a device in the conference room,” Murray wrote in his diary. Diary of Thomas E. Murray (TEM diary), II, Part 1, 4, Thomas Murray papers, Rockville, Maryland.

23. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 7-8.

24. Murray to Dean, June 21, 1951, AEC/NARA; TEM diary, II, Part 2, 12.

25. Smyth et. al. to Dean, Aug. 15, 1951, #74410, and Dean to Snapp, Aug. 28, 1951, #74407, and “Status Report,” n.d., #74402, CIC/DOE; TEM diary, II, Part 2, 23-24.

26. That fall, McMahon shepherded through the Senate a non-binding resolution to “go all-out in atomic development and production.” “Biography,” McMahon papers, Georgetown University archives, Washington, DC; Dean to Lawrence, Sept. 19, 1951, carton 30, folder 32, EOL.

27. “The Deterrent Value of Atoms,” May 20, 1952, #2812, JCAE.

28. TEM diary, II, Part 1, 8.

29. Joe-2 was the first indigenous Soviet design and was similar to the Mark-IV implosion bomb exploded by the U.S. in the 1948 Sandstone tests. Joe-3 was the Russians’ first composite core--utilizing enriched uranium and plutonium--and had twice the yield of the Nagasaki bomb. “H-bomb Status Report,” Sept. 28, 1951, #CDXVIII, JCAE. Joe-2 and Joe-3: Rhodes (1995), 482 fn.; Holloway (1994), 219; “Preliminary Analysis...,” Nov. 27, 1951, series 26, USAF/NARA. “No evidence of high energy neutrons, indicative of a thermonuclear weapon, was observed,” the Air Force noted with relief.

30. “The president indicated he was aware of the slow rate of progress,” Murray wrote in his diary. McMahon to Dean, Oct. 5, 1951, #2392, JCAE; TEM diary, II, Part 2, 27; “Meeting with the President,” Oct. 5, 1951, Murray papers.

3. Anders (ed.), 176.

32. Minutes, GAC #28, Dec. 14, 1951, #73278, CIC/DOE; Teller and Brown, 59.

33. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 41-43. Oppenheimer’s summary of the meeting neglected even to mention the second lab discussion. Oppenheimer to Dean, Dec. 14, 1952, #74702, CIC/DOE.

34. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 43-44.

35. Minutes of meeting, June 30, 1951, folder 15, carton 33, EOL; transcript of interview with Cliff Bacigalupi, LLNL.

36. Walker to files, Nov. 19, 1951, #2472, JCAE.

37. Mansfield to files, June 15, 1951, #2141, JCAE.

38. Asked if he would be willing to personally lead the effort for six months to a year, Lawrence “offered no strenuous objection.” TEM diary, II, Part 2, 45.

39. Minutes, Dec. 14, 1951, folder 3, box 171, Neylan papers.

40. Neylan interview, May 6, 1960, box 2, Childs papers.

4. Once comparing its administration of a weapons laboratory to the practice of monastic orders that made a profit from the manufacture of liqueurs, Oppenheimer observed that “the University of California is a great liberal university that is the only place in the world, as far as I know, that manufactures, under contract with the United States government, atomic bombs.” Cited in Daniel Kevles, “Cold War and Hot Physics: Science, Security, and the American State, 1945-56,” Historical Studies in the Social Sciences, v. 20:2, 1990, 243.

42. Herbert York, “The Origins of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory,” 17, May 1975, unpub. mss., Herbert York papers, UCSD archives, La Jolla, Calif.; Herbert York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva (New York, 1987), 62-64.

43. York added research on fusion as a source of energy–-an area which many physicists, including Teller, regarded as promising–-to his list as a bait-and-switch recruiting tactic: “An obviously important field for investigation per se, but also valuable as a drawing card for some necessary personnel who might not be attracted purely by weapons research.” Untitled document, n.d., “Herb York: Personnel Notes on Establishing LLNL” folder, box 184, LLNL; Childs, 443.

44. Afterward, Fidler reassured a county official--who had tipped the local school board off to an impending population explosion--that no more than 400 scientists would be moving to the valley. Lawrence told Duane Sewell that the laboratory he envisioned would not be building bombs. Hewlett and Duncan, 582; interviews: Fidler (1992), Sewell (1993), and Teller (1993).

45. Teller to Lawrence, Feb. 7, 1952, folder 9, carton 17, EOL; Teller to Murray, Feb. 7, 1952, TEM papers.

46. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 52.

47. Minutes, AEC #639, Dec. 19, 1951, AEC/NARA.

48. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 47-53; H-bomb Chronology, 74, and “Status of Hydrogen Project,” Feb. 21, 1952, #CDLXIX, with attachments, JCAE.

49. H-bomb Chronology, 71-72, JCAE.

50. Walker to Borden, Feb. 21, 1952, #2665, JCAE.

5. Using an airplane he brought with an insurance settlement, Griggs helped Alvarez develop airborne radar during the war, and later led RAND’s study of radiological warfare. Ivan Getting and John Christie, “David Tressel Griggs, 1911-1974” (National Academy Press, 1994); author interview with Ivan Getting, March 13, 1997, La Jolla, Calif.

52. Griggs proposed overflying the Iron Curtain with an ultra-light spy plane powered by radioactive polonium. The idea advanced far in RAND and Air Force circles until it was pointed out that a crash would make a large area almost permanently uninhabitable, while one-third of the capacity of Savannah River would be required to make the plane’s fuel. Polonium airplane: Walker to file, May 28, 1952, #DXIII, and June 19, 1952, #2890, JCAE.

53. “Mr. X loses his job if the fact of the interview...becomes known,” Borden cautioned McMahon. Walker and Borden to McMahon, April 4, 1952, #CDXCIX, JCAE.

54. Griggs notes, n.d., file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA.

55. Teller and Brown, 59; Walkowicz to Ass’t Chief of Staff, August 3, 1951, series 10, file 334.5, USAF/NARA.

56. Lovett to McMahon, March 9, 1952, #CDLXII, JCAE.

57. Teller briefing: Mansfield to file, Feb. 12, 1953, #DXCIII, JCAE; Griggs notes, n.d., file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA; RAND R-237, “Implications of Large-Yield Nuclear Weapons,” July 10, 1952, 1952 file, box 3, Fred Kaplan donation, National Security Archives, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

58. RAND R-237, Kaplan donation, National Security Archives; Teller and Brown, 60-61.

59. “Memorandum for the Record,” March 11, 1952, folder 3, series 18; and Griggs’ notes, n.d., file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA.

60. Lovett’s memo was drafted by Griggs. Alexander et. al. to Lovett, March 27, 1952; and Foster to Acheson, March 28, 1952, Thermonuclear Weapons Program file, series 184, OSD/NARA.

6. Dean wrote in his diary: “Teller has end-runned it again. He is taking the occasion to go off on the second lab question again. These poor guys topside...don’t know what it is all about. I live with it every day and I think I do know.” Anders (ed.), 204.

62. Anders (ed.), 204.

63. Anders (ed.), 206-9.

64. Author interview with Ernie Plesset, May 14, 1988, Pleasanton, Calif.; Hewlett and Duncan, 582.

65. Anders (ed.), 210.

66. Griggs to Finletter, n.d. [March, 1952], file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA.

67. It was also unclear whether the Air Force had the legal authority to establish a nuclear weapons lab. Griggs had asked Pentagon lawyers to look into the matter. T.R. Hogness to Griggs, March 26, 1952, and “Summary,” n.d., file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA.

68. Griggs’ notes, March 20, 1952, file 360.11, series 10, USAF/NARA; Borden to Sheehy, Feb. 9, 1952, #2622, JCAE.

69. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 55-56; “Meeting with Dr. E.O. Lawrence,” March 4, 1952, TEM papers.

70. Although one Regent questioned whether what the labs did was “really a University activity,” even he conceded that the work was “a primary necessity of the country.” The proposed extension had been for four years; Lawrence, however, urged that it be for five. The projected annual budget for Los Alamos was $41 million; Contract 48, for the Rad Lab, provided for a yearly $17 million. Minutes of meeting, Jan. 24, 1952, folder 6, box 172, Neylan papers.

71. Libby had recently informed Ernest that the commission wished to wait another six months before making a decision on whether to fund the Mark II.

72. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 62.

73. TEM diary, II, Part 2, 64-65; Walker to file, April 17, 1952, #2753, JCAE.

74. Teller was “somewhat discouraged,” the staffer wrote, “because he stressed that he had been trying to keep out of people’s way, and that he was following the course of merely obeying orders and not taking the initiative in anything.” Walker to Borden, April 3, 1952, #2739, JCAE.

75. Walker and Borden to McMahon, April 4, 1952, #CDXCIX, JCAE.

76. Author interview with John “Chick” Hayward, March 6, 1996, Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

77. Minutes, GAC #30, April 30, 1952, #74700, CIC/DOE; TEM diary, II, Part 2, 69.

78. Murray’s battle with Dean had become increasingly personal. The commissioner accused the AEC chairman of employing underhanded tactics to dissuade him from pursuing his goal--by claiming that Bradbury would resign if the second lab came to pass. Summoned to Murray’s hotel room during a commission visit to Albuquerque, Bradbury denied making any such threat. Borden to files, March 12, 1952, #2688, JCAE; TEM diary, II, Part 2, 57.

79. U.S. AEC, ITMOJRO, 755.

80. TEM diary, II, Pt. 2, 72.

8. “The hint was pointedly dropped that Admiral Strauss would be a most useful man in this struggle,” the staffer wrote. Walker to Borden, April 7, 1952, #2738, JCAE.

82. Walker and Borden to McMahon, April 4, 1952, #CDXCIX, JCAE.

83. “Meeting with Dr. E.O. Lawrence, “ March 4, 1952, Murray papers.

84. DuBridge to Pitzer, March 18, 1952, box 168.3, DuBridge papers, Caltech; Borden to file, March 22, 1952, #2704, JCAE; San Francisco special agent-in-charge to Hoover, April 5, 1952, JRO/FBI.

85. Albuquerque special agent-in-charge to Hoover, May 27, 1952; and Branigan to Belmont, June 10, 1952, JRO/FBI.

86. Walker to file, Oct. 3, 1952, #3049, JCAE.

87. May 19, 1952, Dean diary, Dean papers.

88. Hoover sent this latest file to Truman’s new attorney general, Howard McGrath, possibly in the hope that McGrath might do what Tom Clark had refused: indict Oppenheimer for violation of the espionage laws. Hans Bethe’s interview was also included in the FBI dossier, but Bethe was a suspect rather than a witness; the previous month, Harry Gold, the Rosenbergs’ contact with the KGB, testified that the Soviets had once considered the Cornell physicist a potential recruit. Hoover to Souers, May 19, 1952, JRO/FBI.

89. McCabe to Hoover, June 12, 1952, JRO/FBI.

90. Walker to file, May 28, 1952, #DXIII, JCAE.

9. McMahon asked Truman to burn the letter after reading it, since he had “to live with” the atomic scientists. McMahon to Truman, May 21, 1952, J.K. Mansfield papers, Washington, D.C. The author thanks Ms. Jane Mansfield for access to her late husband’s papers.

92. McMahon was “fearful of the influence this might have on other scientists in the event there is an open rupture,” an aide informed Hoover. Nichols to Tolman, May 19, 1952, JRO/FBI.

93. David Teeple, the former Army CIC agent who worked for Hickenlooper, told the FBI early in 1952 that he feared Oppie might defect to Russia, taking atomic secrets with him. Bernstein (1990), 1417.

94. Jeffery Dorwart, Conflict of Duty: The U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Dilemma, 1919-1945 (Naval Institute Press, 1983), 3-6. Because of Strauss’ experience with wiretaps and bugs, he and Borden routinely used codenames in telephone conversations and correspondence. Borden’s nickname for Strauss was “Luigi.” Borden to file, Aug. 13, 1951, #3464, JCAE; Ken Mansfield, Oct. 22, 1997, personal communication.

95. Two years earlier, Conant had been a target of both Latimer and Pitzer, who headed a West Coast coalition blocking the Harvard chemist’s nomination to become president of the National Academy of Sciences. Hershberg (1993), 485-86.

96. May 9, 1952, Conant diary, box 11, James Conant papers, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.

97. Waters to Boyer, May 15, 1952, box 2, JRO/AEC. The following August, Dean wrote to Truman in an effort to quash an indictment of Oppenheimer: “Whatever the outcome of the Weinberg case, Dr. Oppenheimer’s good name will be greatly impaired and much of his value to the country will be destroyed.” Bernstein (1991), 1425. “Oppenheimer is going to have to be a witness in this, and we may well turn out to be the defendant in the public eye,” Dean wrote in his diary that fall. Nov. 24, 1952, Dean diary, Dean papers.

98. “Did Oppie answer “the ‘64 dollar question’ as to whether he was ever a Commie?,” Dean said he asked the AEC’s head of security. Since he was told the physicist’s 1941 personnel security questionnaire could not be found, the question remained unanswered. Marks to Oppenheimer, Dec. 2, 1952, “Weinberg Perjury Trial” folder, box 237, JRO; San Francisco FBI field report, Nov. 18, 1952, box 2, JRO/AEC.

99. Nichols to Tolson, May 29, 1952, JRO/FBI.

00. There is also some evidence of a tie-in between Oppenheimer’s leaving the GAC and the Weinberg indictment. Assistant Attorney General James McInerney--whom Dean had gotten to know during the Rosenberg trial--promised he would withhold a decision on whether to mention the Kenilworth Court incident until after he had talked to Brien McMahon and Paul Crouch. On May 29, 1952, McMahon told FBI agent Louis Nichols that he had “worked out a plan whereby Oppenheimer would take the initiative and decline to serve another term [on the GAC] by an exchange of letters and everybody will be happy.” June 13, 1952, Dean diary; and Dean to Oppenheimer, June 14, 1952, Dean papers. Murray, too, would later take credit for getting Oppenheimer off the GAC.

01. June 14, 1952, Conant diary, box 11, Conant papers.

02. R. Oppenheimer to F. Oppenheimer, July 12, 1952, “Weinberg Perjury Trial, 1953" folder, box 237, JRO.