Einstein’s soulful brown eyes were rimmed with red. “My younger son and I don’t speak. He’s in an institution, did you know that? Eduard. I haven’t seen him in a dozen years.”
Leo, who had no children of his own, said softly, “I’m sorry.”
“I should ...” A tear found its way into one of the deep crevices on Einstein’s cheek and followed the crease down. “I should make amends.” His rounded, stooped shoulders moved slightly. “I was content to die with that unresolved, but somehow knowing that he might have his life cut short ...” The eyes turned to Leo now. “You should marry Trude. God knows I’m not prudish, but at least the world can end with as much peace and happiness in it as possible, no?”
“I don’t dispute your utilitarian leanings, old friend, but although the world is done for, perhaps mankind is not.”
“Eh?”
“As I said, I spoke at length with Oppenheimer. He is despondent—not over this, but over what has already happened. And he’s exhausted, half-wasted away: a toothpick with a hacking cough. He needs time to recover from the war effort. But he says Teller believes there may be some way to save at least a portion of humanity; Oppenheimer says Wigner shares Teller’s view. And, well, pie-in-the-sky utopian that I am, I guess I believe the same thing, too.”
“You, Wigner, and Teller?” said Einstein. He blew his nose, rubbed his eyes, and stared into space for a time, thinking. At last he lifted liver-spotted hands, palms facing each other. “Who am I to argue with three Martians?”
Leo smiled slightly.
“All right,” said Einstein. “There will be time enough for fatalism later.” He adjusted his sweater so it sat properly over his paunch. “Shall we see what a fourth Martian has to say? Johnny von Neumann is here in Princeton, and he’s working on something that just might prove useful.”
Chapter 22
Ich bin Feuer und Flamme dafür. [I am fire and flame for it.]
—Albert Einstein, on the Institute for Advanced Study
Szilard and Einstein headed out into the fall afternoon, the air chill and tart as a McIntosh fresh from the tree. Leo usually had a sprightly step, but he slowed in deference to his friend’s age. They left Einstein’s white clapboard house behind them as they made their way down tree-lined Mercer Street to the Institute for Advanced Study. Founded by a five-million-dollar donation by brother-and-sister retail millionaires Louis Bamberger and Carrie Fuld, the Institute boasted some of the world’s top minds in physics and mathematics, as well as a smattering of equal intellects devoted to humanistic studies.
Tonight was Halloween. Last year, in Chicago, Leo had seen jack-o’-lanterns carved with Hitler’s face or slanted eyes—the scariest faces then imaginable by Americans. Now, though, they were back to being goblin countenances and beneficent smiles ... or perhaps victorious grins.
“You’ll see that the grounds are vast,” said Einstein, still in German. “We now have over two hundred and forty hectares”—better than six hundred acres—“but the pride and joy is the Institute woods. Aspen, maple, beech, oak, birch: you name it, we’ve got it. There’s a lovely brook and, in spring, beautiful wildflowers. I know you like to walk, Leo. The trails are soothing, and warblers and other songbirds will keep you company.”
“It sounds enchanting.”
“It is. Of course, we’ll have snow soon enough; I don’t partake myself, but I’m told the cross-country skiing is first-rate. We have our own excellent library, growing every year, but Princeton”—he clearly meant the university, not the city—“is only a short distance away, and its library is wonderful.”
“Are there accommodations on site?”
“Yes. Quite luxurious, too. I prefer my house—this mile-long walk to the Institute does me good each day—but many of our members make their homes on campus. The director takes pride of place; he lives in Olden Manor, quite a charming house.”
“Who else is on faculty?”
A soupçon of French: “La crème de la crème.” Then back to German: “Kurt Gödel, Oswald Veblen, and Hermann Weyl have been here since the beginning, or nearly so. We also have Wolfgang Pauli—how could we exclude him?” Einstein chuckled. “Many more, as well. I tell you, Leo, the leading center for physics is no longer Göttingen or even Berkeley but right here.”
They had come to the main gate. The guard waved at Einstein, and the famous man treated him to a wide smile and a friendly nod.
“And there are no teaching duties?” asked Leo.
“None. No students, no endless departmental meetings. Just the very best minds and plenty of time to think.”
Szilard looked around, impressed, as they approached a sprawling three-story building of reddish-brown brick surmounted by a clock tower. “This is Fuld Hall,” said Einstein, “built for us in 1939.”
“Bespoke construction!” declared Leo. “I know you never saw Los Alamos—and I avoided it like death itself—but they were trying to make do with buildings originally used as a boys’ school, plus Quonset huts and other such affronts to taste and comfort that could be hastily erected, all in the middle of a desert. Nobody could think straight in a place like that! I said everybody who went there would go crazy. And they did!” He recalled what Fermi had told him after one of the Italian navigator’s visits to Los Alamos: “I think those people actually want to build a bomb!”
Einstein nodded sadly.
“But this place!” said Szilard. “In such a place, a man could work happily for years, for decades.”
“I have no idea how many years I have left,” Einstein replied, “but I intend to spend all of them here. Heaven, should such a thing turn out to exist, will doubtless be a step down.” They’d entered the marble lobby of Fuld Hall now. “And speaking of a step down, Johnny’s pet project has been relegated to the basement.” Einstein led the way below, holding onto the wooden banister for support.
As they entered a large but mostly empty room, lit only by bare bulbs mounted in the concrete ceiling, Szilard beheld his old friend for the first time since before the war; he was hunched over a desk. Von Neumann, six years Leo’s junior, was now forty-one, but Leo felt the years had been kinder to himself than to his compatriot. Johnny’s hairline had retreated to the crown of his head and his cheeks had begun the slow melt into jowls. “Jancsi!” Leo called out, using the Hungarian diminutive.
Von Neumann looked up. “Szilard!” He rose, closed the distance—footfalls echoing in the vast chamber—and pumped Leo’s hand. “What a pleasant surprise!” he continued in Hungarian, then he poked Leo in the belly. “I see the war still had rations of cake and pie for you!”
“The mind requires energy,” replied Leo, also in their native tongue.
“What brings you here?” von Neumann asked, switching to German so that Einstein could join in. “Did you finally blow up Chicago?”
“No, no, no. I came to seek Einstein’s counsel. And he said you were working on something interesting and useful.”
“Ja!” replied von Neumann. “I am thinking about something much more important than bombs. I am thinking about computers.”
“Ah, the old Jancsi!” said Szilard. “Always with an eye for the ladies.”
“Not the women,” said von Neumann. “The machines. And we intend to build the best one ever right here.”
“You know,” said Albert, switching for the moment to English, “I originally opposed this. So did the director, Frank Aydelotte—which was funny because, see, this thing will be able to add a lot.” Albert looked expectantly at Leo. “Nothing? Ah, well.”
Szilard, who only ever laughed out loud at Charlie Chaplin’s films, served up a weak smile, and Einstein went on in German: “This Institute is meant to be a refuge, a sanctuary for pure thought with no regard to practical applications—no more refrigerator patents for us, dear Leo! The Institute’s members do theoretical work only; no experiments. But Jo
hnny fought long to convince us we need his great electronic monstrosity to speed our figuring, and just this month he secured the funding. Me, I’m old now; haste hasn’t interested me for a long while.”
“There are things that a computer will be able to do that no human will ever manage with a slide rule,” said von Neumann. “One project we have in mind is perfect weather forecasting. And, after that, maybe even control of the weather.”
“Everybody talks about the weather,” said Leo, “but nobody ever does anything about it—until you, Jancsi.”
Von Neumann—who had been known as “Good-Time Johnny” for his love of boisterous parties back when he and Leo had been in Berlin in the 1920s—had worked here at the I.A.S. since 1933. He’d fled Hitler’s rising anti-Semitism after a symbolic conversion to Catholicism had failed to prove sufficient protection. In 1943, he had taken a leave to help Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, but most of his war-related work had been on ENIAC, the world’s first electronic computer, at the University of Pennsylvania. “We learned a lot from those early efforts,” said von Neumann. “But the computer that will soon fill this room will use a new—” he waved a hand vaguely, seeking a term “—architecture. It will be the model upon which all future computers will be based, I’m sure.”
“Oh?” said Leo.
Von Neumann nodded. “I designed the calculating elements used in ENIAC, and I know they are as archaic as dinosaurs compared to what we will build here.” He looked up as if envisioning it. “A whole new approach.”
“Well, new approaches are precisely what we’re going to need,” replied Szilard.
“For what?” asked von Neumann.
“Jancsi, excuse us. I need a word with Einstein.” Leo put an arm around the older man’s shoulders and propelled him out into the corridor. Szilard bounded up the staircase and headed out into the October sun again. He waited for Einstein to catch up, then made a gesture encompassing the vast grounds. “This is the place,” he said firmly.
“The place for what?” asked Albert.
“To headquarter the effort to save humanity, of course. Where better? Before they all disappear into teaching posts, let’s rally the very best of the great minds at Los Alamos and Chicago to come here. Albert, old friend, surely you have the sway, no?”
Einstein’s eyebrows rose, two clouds striving to join the others serenely moving across the sky. He nodded slowly. “They do have a history of listening to me, Johnny’s computer notwithstanding.”
“Excellent. We should speak to your director, this Add-a-Lot.” Leo stretched out the name, recalling Einstein’s pun; the fact that he’d employed it brought a smile to the old man’s face.
“Actually, Frank told me he’s thinking of retiring; he turns sixty-five next year. He hasn’t let the faculty know yet, but he’s planning to announce it next week.”
“Ah, then this wonderful place will need a new director,” declared Leo, with relish. “And I know just the man!”
Chapter 23
After seeing the pictures from Hiroshima, [Oppenheimer] appeared determined that Los Alamos, the unique and outstanding laboratory he had created, should vanish.
—Edward Teller
Edward Teller had spent less than six months at the University of Chicago working with Enrico Fermi before moving in March 1943 to Los Alamos. But, despite his short stay in the Windy City, he’d made a considerable impression, and the university wanted him back—especially now that his role in the Manhattan Project had become public.
Just this week, Norris Bradbury, who had replaced Oppie as director of Los Alamos, had offered Teller the title of head of the Theoretical Division, now that Hans Bethe had departed the mesa as well. That was too little, too late, felt Teller; the job should have been his two and a half years ago. Still, it gave him a strong bargaining position today, on his return visit to the University of Chicago. He was confident that he’d be offered a tenured professorship.
“Such a place you’ve never seen!” exclaimed his old friend Leo Szilard, in Hungarian, as they walked the Chicago campus. He was referring to the idyllic Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey.
“Jancsi has told me about it,” replied Teller, also in their mother tongue.
“Bah! Mere words. You must take the trip with me; see it for yourself. For the work ahead, we can’t remain here in Chicago.” He pointed to a cluster of buildings that housed the Faculty of Arts. “We can’t stay at any traditional university with a hundred irrelevant departments and endless bureaucracy.”
“Jancsi says they have historians at the Institute.”
“Well, yes, they do. And some others pursuing humanistic studies. Do you know what a paleographer is? I had to look it up! But it is mostly a place of physics, of math—and Jancsi is building the world’s best computing machine there to help in those areas.”
“And you see a role there for me?”
Szilard used Teller’s actual two-syllable Hungarian given name, not the Anglicized version. “Ede, my boy, of course, of course! I see you as the next director!”
The November wind blowing on them had teeth. “Me?” replied Teller, genuinely surprised.
“Who else? The incumbent is retiring. You were passed over to run the T-Section at Los Alamos during the war. Here’s your chance to head up something even more important: organizing the best minds in the world as we work to save the planet.”
Teller drew his eyebrows together. “I had planned to continue my work on the super, either here with Fermi or back at Los Alamos.”
“No, no, no,” declared Leo. “Only a fool fights in a burning house. It’s not just that this war is over; all war is over. What madness it would be to squabble over borders and resources that will boil away into nothingness in short order.”
“It would be important work,” Teller said slowly, tasting the notion.
Leo fell silent until a clutch of students, coming the other way, passed. As the young men receded behind them, Teller heard one say to his companion, “My God, that’s Edward Teller!” “It would be crucial work,” Leo continued, once they were again away from others’ ears. “The most crucial work anyone could do.”
“But why me? Surely, after his success at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer is the appropriate man.”
“Oppenheimer! He vetoed circulating my petition there—you told me so yourself. I hear he told Truman he has blood on his hands—and he does! But you, dear Ede, you didn’t work on those infernal bombs; you didn’t focus on the short term. You had a long-term goal, and long-term thinking is what we need most now.”
“There are those,” Teller said, “who objected—and continue to object—to any work on fusion bombs.” And then, suddenly, seeing what Szilard was getting at, his voice took on an edge: “And you would deflect me from that work, too!”
Leo smiled. “Oh, perhaps. I certainly don’t wish to make the same mistake twice. Had you not driven me to Einstein’s cottage, and had I not urged him there to sign the letter to Roosevelt, there would be no atomic bombs in the world today; I overestimated both the skill and resolve of the Germans and Soviets. And, yes, it’s likely true, I think, that if no one of your caliber spearheads an American effort to create the super, such a weapon will never come to be.”
Caliber. Spearhead. Teller frowned. Once the conversation turned to bombs, one’s language became dominated by metaphors of armaments; even Leo—more lamb than lion despite his name—had succumbed. But perhaps his old friend was right. Neither Germany nor Japan would be permitted such research anymore, and who among the Soviets could possibly equal the Americans in this? Kurchatov, perhaps. Kapitsa? A stretch indeed. Still: “But this is an administrative job.” His tone was the one researchers worldwide reserved for such positions.
“There’ll be precious little administration, Ede. As Einstein told me, the ideal administrator for the Institute is a very quiet man who will not disturb p
eople who are trying to think—and that means you would be free to do your own thinking. But, of course, the director must bring an additional ingredient to the goulash: a stature that will entice others to join our effort. I am realistic about my own reputation: I am a gadfly. Yes, yes, brilliant to those who know me, but few do. But you, Ede, will one day take a trip to Stockholm, mark my words: you, Brunauer, and Emmett, for your B-E-T formulation from before the war. A stunning accomplishment.”
The sidewalk they were on forked here. Leo chose the left branch, and Teller followed. He’d never told anyone except Mici of his Nobel hopes for that work but, yes, B-E-T was highly regarded, even if, as Teller often thought, it really should be known at T-B-E; it was perhaps more significant even than his involvement with the discovery of the Teller-Jahn Effect.
“But if you continue to labor on this fusion-bomb research of yours,” continued Szilard, “what’s its goal?”
“Peace, of course. A weapon too terrible to ever set off.”
“Exactly! But Oppenheimer’s goal was to use his bomb. What did he say when he ordered you not to circulate my petition? No, no, no: don’t answer; I read your letters to me. He told you to leave it in the hands of the policy makers, saying that scientists should stay out of such matters and trust the wiser heads in government to make sound decisions.”
Teller nodded, vividly recalling that conversation: Oppie, with his usual charm, had declared he didn’t think it was right for scientists to use whatever prestige they might have as a platform for political pronouncements. He spoke in luminous terms about the deep concern, thoroughness, and wisdom with which such questions were being handled in Washington. “Our fate,” he had said, “is in the hands of the best, the most conscientious men of our nation—and they have information that we do not possess.”
“Yes,” said Edward. “I’m sorry, Leo, but he was quite persuasive.”
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