Genius in the Shadows

by William Lanouette

  While Szilard and Rabinowitch were arguing along the green expanse of the Midway, Compton found himself again mediating between his scientists and the army. After Groves’s assistant, Col. Kenneth D. Nichols, telephoned to ask about Szilard’s visit to Byrnes, Compton admitted, “I have never been able to control Szilard’s actions in matters such as this. . . .” Nevertheless, he wrote a thoughtful memorandum that stated eloquently the motives that would compel his colleagues to political action in the coming months.28

  “The scientists have a very strong feeling of responsibility to society regarding the use of the new powers they have released,” Compton wrote on June 4. “They first saw the possibility of making this new power available to human use . . .” and “have perhaps felt more keenly than others the enormous possibilities that would thus be opened for man’s welfare or destruction.” He continued:

  The scientists will be held responsible, both by the public and by their own consciences, for having faced the world with the existence of the new powers. The fact that the control has been taken out of their hands makes it necessary for them to plead the need for careful consideration and wise action to someone with authority to act. There is no other way in which they can meet their responsibility to society.

  Compton noted that two approaches by the scientists, through official channels, had both failed to reach policymakers: Zay Jeffries’s “Prospectus on Nucleonics” report and a November 1944 memo by Compton to Groves that summarized his colleagues’ concerns. And Compton echoed Szilard’s fear that US negotiators needed to know about the A-bomb as they drafted the new UN Charter. Groves had told several Met Lab scientists that he discussed the bomb with “members of the State Department,” but based on comments by Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius after a briefing on the new weapons, Compton thought “his appreciation of the problem was so limited as possibly to serve as a hazard to the country’s welfare.”29

  The Franck Committee report—with a recommendation that the A-bomb be demonstrated to Japan before use against its civilians—was finished in time for Compton to take it along as he boarded the train for Los Alamos on June 14, and when he arrived, he passed copies to Fermi, Lawrence, and Oppenheimer. But in a hasty session on Saturday, June 16, the four scientists concluded: “We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”30 With this “expert” advice by the Manhattan Project’s respected Scientific Panel, the Interim Committee confidently rejected the Franck Committee’s recommendations on June 21. Although he would not know it for several days, Szilard’s third attempt to stop the bomb had just been shattered.

  General Groves was angry with Szilard long before he read Compton’s memo about the Byrnes visit and became even more angry about Szilard’s other travels. “I understand that at frequently recurring intervals Dr. Szilard is absent from his assigned place of work at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago,” Groves wrote to Compton on June 29, “and further, that he travels extensively between Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.” He asked Compton for details on whether Szilard traveled on leave or on duty, what he was paid, whether the US government financed these trips, what business he transacted, and whether his travels were cleared in advance. Demanding a “complete report” on all Szilard’s activities for the project in the last six months, Groves also wanted to know “what positive contribution, if any, to the project he has made since 1 July 1943.” Groves warned in closing that “these inquiries must not of course be discussed with Dr. Szilard either directly or indirectly.”31

  Groves even wrote to Lord Cherwell, Winston Churchill’s science adviser and Szilard’s former mentor at Oxford, seeking details of his meeting with Szilard more than a year earlier. “Frankly, Dr. Szilard has not, in our opinion, evidenced wholehearted cooperation in the maintenance of security,” Groves said. “In order to prevent any unjustified action, I am examining all of the facts which can be collected on Dr. Szilard. . . .”32

  Groves would have been livid had he known what Szilard was actually doing then: bucking the army’s chain of command to reach the commander in chief. “I knew by this time that it would not be possible to dissuade the government from using the bomb against the cities of Japan,” Szilard wrote later. Having lost in the Interim Committee, “all that remained was for scientists to go unmistakably on record that they were against such an action.”33 Beginning on the first day of July, Szilard drafted and circulated a petition to the president, first around the Met Lab, then by colleagues who traveled to Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. “However small the chance might be that our petition may influence the course of events,” Szilard wrote on July 4 to an Oak Ridge colleague, “I personally feel that it would be a matter of importance if a large number of scientists who have worked in this field went clearly and unmistakably on record as to their opposition on moral grounds to the use of these bombs in the present phase of the war.”34

  At Los Alamos, Ed Creutz delivered several copies to Edward Teller. But Teller was then striving ambitiously to promote a “super”—a “fusion” hydrogen bomb, expected to be hundreds of times more powerful than the “fission” bombs then nearing completion—and used Szilard’s petition to gain political favor within the tight-knit and competitive Los Alamos community. Teller took the petition to Oppenheimer, knowing that he advocated immediate use of the bomb. Years later, Teller would write that he thought he could not circulate the petition without Oppenheimer’s permission. But he also admitted to having “considerable respect for his opinion,” and “I sincerely wanted to be on friendly terms with Oppie.”

  In Oppenheimer’s office, Teller handed over the petition, saying it had come from a scientist “near Pa Franck.” At once Oppenheimer criticized the Chicago scientists in general and Szilard by name. Scientists had no right to use their prestige to influence political decisions, Oppenheimer complained. In fact, while denying Szilard the right to influence policy, at the Interim Committee, Oppenheimer had advocated immediate bombing and had won the concurrence of his three reluctant colleagues by asserting his own status as lab director.35

  Relieved that a decision about the petition had been taken from him, Teller nonetheless felt he owed his friend Szilard an answer. But the letter he wrote, which may have been drafted even before meeting Oppenheimer, was convoluted and disingenuous.36 Teller complained that “no amount of protesting or fiddling with politics will save our souls” or clear their consciences for working on the bomb, although he knew that Szilard’s motives had been purely defensive against Germany. Teller suspected that the A-bomb’s “actual combat use might even be the best thing” to frighten the public about the weapon’s horrors. But Teller’s “main point,” he said, siding with Oppenheimer, was that “the accident that we worked out this dreadful thing should not give us the responsibility of having a voice in how it is to be used.”37 Teller wrote this knowing that all mail was censored and that Oppenheimer was sure to see it, so, independently, he asked for his permission to send the letter to Szilard.38

  Using physicist Ralph Lapp as a courier, Szilard sent eight sets of the petition to Los Alamos. “Of course, you will find only a few people on your project who are willing to sign such a petition,” he wrote to Oppenheimer’s brother Frank, to Teller, and to physicists Philip Morrison and Robert Wilson. “I am sure you will find many boys confused as to what kind of a thing a moral issue is.” Admitting the futility of his petition to stop the bombing of Japan, Szilard said that

  from a point of view of the standing of the scientists in the eyes of the general public one or two years from now it is a good thing that a minority of scientists should have gone on record in favor of giving greater weight to moral arguments and should have exercised their right given to them by the Constitution to petition the President. . . .”39

  When Groves learned about Szilard’s secret approach to the Los Alamos scientists and Teller’s reply, the general at once feared that Szilard would somehow t
ry to publicize the bomb. Suspecting the worst from Szilard, the lieutenant who reported on Szilard to Groves warned that army resistance to the petition might backfire: “Dr. Teller’s attitude is rather interesting and might furnish Szilard with a new approach, i.e., to attempt to get fellow scientist [sic] to stop work.”40

  Szilard, for his part, had no time to think about organizing a scientists’ boycott.41 Independently, Groves’s assistant, Colonel Nichols, asked Compton to check on the petition by confirming his colleagues’ attitudes, and Compton asked Met Lab director Farrington Daniels to poll the scientists. On July 13, Daniels reported to Compton that a majority (83 percent) favored a military demonstration in Japan or a demonstration in the United States with Japanese representatives present.42

  Szilard redrafted the petition during the second week in July but knew his time was running out when told that they were no longer permitted to telephone from the Met Lab to Los Alamos. “This could mean only one thing: Los Alamos must get ready to test the bomb, and the Army tried by this ingenious method to keep the news from the Chicago project.”43

  Another ingenious method to keep Szilard from public mischief came on July 15 when a Manhattan Project security officer arrived at the Met Lab with two copies of a secret document strapped to his body. With armed guards at the door, the captain sat Szilard and others in a university classroom to read galley proofs of chapters from a report by Henry DeWolf Smyth, chairman of the physics department at Princeton. To be released at the war’s end, Smyth’s “Atomic Energy for Military Purposes” described in a straightforward, nonscientific style the basic concepts in nuclear physics and how A-bombs were conceived, designed, and developed. The report credited Szilard and Fermi with devising the world’s first reactor; mentioned Szilard and others for restricting their publications; credited Szilard and Wigner with prompting Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt, with participating in the Uranium Committee, and with arranging government-sponsored research; and cited Szilard and Fermi for codirecting uranium research at Columbia University before the Federal Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) and then the Manhattan Project were created. Smyth’s report also revealed the project’s scale and immense costs.

  Asked to sign a receipt stating that he had read and approved the report, Szilard balked. The report gave away the important secret of “the general ideas and the knowledge of the methods that actually worked.” This posed a problem beyond the war’s end, Szilard feared, for once the bomb’s secret was released, other powers would have no incentive to heed US calls for international control. Refusing to agree with the report’s release, Szilard scratched out “approved” and signed that he had “read” it.44

  At 5:29.45 mountain war time on July 16, on a desert artillery range designated Trinity, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the world’s first nuclear explosive was tested successfully. A few hours later and unaware that the test had taken place, Szilard redrafted the petition, his last attempt to go on record against the weapon he had worked for years to create and for months to control. Szilard’s final petition gained 155 signatures at Chicago and Oak Ridge. It read:

  A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT

  OF THE UNITED STATES

  July 17, 1945

  Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan.

  We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power. Until recently we have had to fear that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows:

  The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender.

  If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender our nation might then, in certain circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic bombs. Such a step, however, ought not to be made at any time without seriously considering the moral responsibilities which are involved.

  The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.

  If after the war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States—singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power.

  The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.

  In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in the light of the consideration presented in this petition as well as all other moral responsibilities which are involved.45

  Oppenheimer had banned an earlier draft of Szilard’s petition at Los Alamos, but just as Teller had used it to curry favor with Oppenheimer, so Oppenheimer used this version to please Groves.46

  Franck persuaded several colleagues to sign Szilard’s petition on condition that it be sent to Truman by official channels only. Szilard at first mistrusted this approach, fearing that Groves or his allies would intervene, but he finally agreed and handed the petition to Compton on July 19. He asked Compton to place the petition in an envelope addressed to the president and to seal the envelope before it left his office, keeping the signers’ names secret. Compton agreed.47

  After checking with Groves, Compton sent the petition to Nichols, on July 24, noting that “since the matter presented in the petition is of immediate concern, the petitioners desire the transmission occur as promptly as possible.” Compton also reported on Daniels’s July 12 poll that the “strongly favored procedure” is to “give a military demonstration in Japan. . . .” This is Compton’s own preference, he said, “and is, as nearly as I can judge, the procedure that has found most favor in all informed groups where the subject has been discussed.”48

  Except, of course, at the highest levels of government, for the next day— in Potsdam with Truman, Stalin, and Churchill—Secretary of War Stimson approved the final orders to drop the A-bomb “after about 3 August. . . .”49

  When Nichols received Compton’s memo and Szilard’s petition on July 25, he
dispatched them to Groves by military police courier. Groves held the petition until August 1, when a telex from Tinian Island in the Pacific assured him that the A-bomb was ready for use.50

  Having tried to reach the president, then having gone on record against use of the A-bomb, Szilard could only await nervously the disaster he was certain would occur. But for mischievous distraction—and to annoy the FBI agents who stalked him—Szilard joined Albert Cahn aboard a Braniff flight to Kansas City, met Cahn’s parents, spent a night in the Phillips Hotel, and (according to an agent’s report) the next morning returned to Chicago aboard a Santa Fe express train. Back at the Quadrangle Club, Szilard faced a new problem: eviction. His personal habits had annoyed the housekeeping staff during his years there: He seldom drained the bathtub and didn’t always flush the toilet; that was “maid’s work,” he claimed, asserting his bourgeois European mentality in one of the few ways he could. The club’s management had complained, and Szilard had refused to change his habits. Now he was asked to leave.51

  President Truman’s Potsdam Declaration on July 26 offered Japan “an opportunity to end this war” by urging the government “to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. . . .” The alternative for Japan, Truman and his allies said, is “prompt and utter destruction.”52 When Japan rejected the declaration two days later, Szilard grew more anxious than ever that the A-bomb would soon be used. To friends in Chicago he seemed disheartened and gloomy, as he had on the eve of the first chain-reaction experiment.