by Sam Kean
As an old football coach, Pash knew how to rip someone a new asshole. “You’re looking at the Alsos mission!” he screamed. “No doubt you’re from OSS. Your job was to get Dr. Amaldi out of Rome several months ago. You failed. You didn’t even go after him.”
There was plenty more invective where that came from, and Pash eventually dismissed the man: “You have no business in Rome. If I run across you again, I’ll bring charges, and I can think of plenty. Now get out.”
Pash spent the rest of the night smoldering. He’d endured six months of excuses and lies, and now this. Who the hell did OSS think they were? He had half a mind to pursue the matter further, make an official complaint.
But with the arrival of morning, he had more important things to worry about than some OSS lunk. It was June 6, 1944. The invasion of France had begun. Which meant Alsos now had much bigger targets to track down, including Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie.
CHAPTER 41
Augers & Peppermint
You’ve probably never spent much time thinking about the science of D-Day, but both geology and nuclear physics played a surprising role in this most important invasion of the war.
As for geology, the Allies planned to invade France with several thousand heavy-duty vehicles, which meant they had to choose the landing site carefully: trucks and tanks don’t do much good if they’re sunk to their axles in muck. Accordingly, General Eisenhower’s office sponsored several geological raids on the European mainland to determine which beaches were best. The commandos on these raids would approach the coast at night in inflatable rafts or midget submarines, often swimming the last few miles to shore. Under cover of darkness they’d survey the beach and take soil samples for analysis back in the lab. They also plumbed the water depth at various points and mapped the speed and strength of currents. (Frustratingly, whenever a storm redistributed the mud and silt and sand, they’d have return another night to remap everything.) Then, after a full night’s work, they’d plunge into the surf again and swim several more miles back to the raft or sub.
Overall these troops did incredible work, combining the danger of undercover ops with the rigor of scientific research. But they did commit one memorable gaffe, leaving a soil auger behind one night where the Nazis seemed likely to find it. Because its presence on the beach could have betrayed where the invasion would take place, the Allies seriously debated rounding up every auger in the free world, loading them onto planes, and carpet-bombing the beaches of France, to throw the Nazis off. Sadly, the auger bombardment never took place, in part because of a wartime shortage of such tools.
In addition to gathering data firsthand, geologists studied reconnaissance photos. Just as nuclear physicists investigated the structure of atoms by pinging them with neutrons, geologists realized that bombs hurled down from airplanes could reveal a lot of information about the landscapes of Normandy. They were especially interested in the shapes of bomb craters. Strong, cohesive soils—which you could drive tanks on—produced U-shaped craters when bombed, with steep sides and large, solid chunks of material in the surrounding aureole. Weak or mucky soil, in contrast, produced V-shaped craters with mud splatters or modest chunks in the aureole. Similarly, the Nazi habit of stealing hay carts from French peasants and using them to haul heavy equipment around ended up biting the Germans in the derrière, since the depth of the ruts that resulted provided clues about the stability of the underlying earth.
Based on such work, geologists convinced Eisenhower and his staff to abandon their preferred D-Day invasion site and focus instead on Omaha Beach, several miles to the east, which offered better traction. Thanks to their efforts, the Allies successfully landed 8,851 heavy vehicles on the first day, and over 150,000 in the first seven weeks. In addition, at least one geologist landed with the troops on D-Day to offer on-the-ground (so to speak) expertise; small teams of geologists then helped lay down twenty crucial airstrips over the next two months. The soldiers who landed at Normandy deserve the lion’s share of credit for the invasion, of course, but the geologists who told them where to set their feet played a vital role.
As for the role of nuclear physics in D-Day, the issue was, once again, dirty bombs. Even though the Nazis hadn’t rung in the New Year with them, fear of dirty bombs continued to fester in the minds of American officials in the run-up to June 6. As noted, dirty bombs kill by spewing radioactive isotopes, and they’re well suited to resisting invasions. Even a few hours of exposure can kill a person, and because radioactivity is spookily invisible to all our senses, soldiers might not realize they were being exposed until too late. Furthermore, rumors about radioactivity would probably sow widespread panic within the ranks. (Nuclear bombs were top-secret in 1944, but the public knew plenty about the dangers of radioactivity in general, thanks to lurid newspaper stories of people’s jaws falling off and other horrible deaths after exposure to radium paint and uranium health tonics.) Finally, because radioactive atoms blend with the soil and can’t be scrubbed clean, poisoning a parcel of land with the right isotopes would prevent an invading force from occupying it for months, even years.
Given the rate at which reactors work, Manhattan Project scientists estimated that the Germans could contaminate four square miles per week. That might not sound like much—the Nazis obviously couldn’t barricade off all of northern France that way—but the Reich didn’t need to poison the entire landscape. They needed to poison only certain areas: ports, beaches, railyards, airports, highways. Or they could spike reservoirs and crops, making it impossible to find clean food or water. By concentrating on key infrastructure, in other words, the Nazis could neuter the entire D-Day operation with a few ounces of isotopes.
The Manhattan Project first warned Allied commanders about the dangers of radioactivity in April 1944. As usual, the British rolled their eyes at the American worry over this: on first hearing about dirty bombs, Churchill furrowed his brow and said, “This all seems very fruity.” Eisenhower, in contrast, was spooked, and soon initiated Operation Peppermint, history’s first attempt to grapple with radioactive warfare.
In the first phase of Peppermint, planes with Geiger counters swept the northern coast of France, looking for hotspots of radioactivity. (Some officials feared that the concrete bunkers there actually housed atomic reactors, in which case they might be leaking radioactive species into the air.) In addition, several foot soldiers received training with Geiger counters, which they planned to carry into battle on D-Day. These lunchbox-sized counters were housed in watertight cases with gray enamel finish, and they emitted a tone whenever they detected something. The initial plans for Peppermint called for eight Geiger-counter teams of four men each spread among the invading armies. The number actually deployed remains unknown, although some did reportedly join the forces at Omaha Beach.
Medical personnel also played a role in Peppermint, albeit unknowingly. A few days before June 6 they received orders to keep an eye out for clusters of certain symptoms, including fatigue, nausea, rashes, and low white-blood-cell counts, all signs of radioactivity poisoning. To avoid spreading fear among the troops, these medical teams never learned the reason for their vigilance. Their superiors made up a story instead about an outbreak of exotic germs that needed tracking.
The final arm of Peppermint involved dentistry, of all things. Given the unreliability of mobile Geiger counters back then—their batteries and vacuum tubes were especially spotty—troops on the ground needed something more trustworthy to detect contamination. Someone suggested dental film, which is quite sensitive to radioactivity. (Radioactivity was in fact first discovered with photographic film in 1896, since exposure to radioactivity will stain film with foggy patches and/or black spots.) So several units among the D-Day forces were handed rolls of film and told to stop every so often in the field to develop them. Again, these troops weren’t told why they were doing this; the cover story was that a few crates of expensive film had been ruined recently, and the higher-ups wanted to nail down the cause.
It must have seemed like sheer raving lunacy, amid the chaos of D-Day, to stop and develop blank dental film while Nazis were shooting at you. But the soldiers no doubt chalked it up to the Catch-22 –like madness of the army and did as they were bid. However crazy it seemed, their efforts removed a weighty fear from the minds of Allied leaders and allowed the D-Day operation to proceed smoothly.
CHAPTER 42
Remus
Moe Berg dang near went broke waiting to join the war. He’d finally landed the assignment he coveted—going undercover in Europe to ferret out atomic secrets—and OSS minced no words in declaring how important the work was. Like Shakespeare wrapping up a crucial scene, Berg’s briefing officer informed him, in a rhyming couplet, that the outcome of the entire conflict might rest on his shoulders: if the Germans get the bomb, the officer warned, “We can lose [the war] at midnight less one. Find out what they’re doing, and we’ve got it won.”
Unfortunately, Berg’s first assignment was in Rome, and with the American army stalled south of there, he couldn’t just waltz into the Eternal City and start poking around. OSS toyed with various schemes to deposit him on Italian soil, including via submarine, but the agency needed special paperwork for that and couldn’t get the right signatures. So Berg sat around the Mayflower Hotel in Washington for months, boning up on physics and racking up huge bills. For once a life of leisure frustrated him, and he took out his vexations in petty ways, picking fights with OSS staff and singling out colleagues, seemingly at random, as enemies. He’d then go to ridiculous lengths to avoid running into these devils, including hiding behind office furniture. Berg soon earned a reputation as a “brilliant but temperamental” diva.
Finally, in early May, Berg got orders to ship out. Because he’d be infiltrating Rome, OSS code-named him Remus, after one of the city’s mythical, wolf-suckling founders. For equipment, he was issued a pistol and a cyanide-filled rubber L-capsule. He also put in a request for a dozen pairs of nylon stockings, which were scarce in Europe and which he probably planned to use to wheedle information out of women—or seduce them.
Berg hardly proved a smooth operator, though. On the flight out of Washington he was the only man not in uniform, wearing a dark blue suit and gray fedora. He had $2,000 cash in one suitcoat pocket, the pistol in another. And the first time he leaned over on the plane, the gun slipped out and clanged onto the floor—a total rookie move. “They gave me this as I came onboard,” he muttered in apology. An officer more used to traveling with firearms suggested tucking it into his belt, but Berg’s soft belly pushed the gun out twice more during the flight.
Like Boris Pash, Berg took a circuitous route to Italy, hopping from London to Portugal to Casablanca to Algeria to Sicily to Naples. As soon as he landed, his cover was nearly blown, for exactly the reason Groves had feared. Actor Humphrey Bogart, baseball star Lefty Gomez, and former heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey were all visiting Italy to boost the morale of troops, and the last two happened to bump into Berg in Naples. Gomez knew Berg well, having accompanied him on the all-star tour of Japan in 1934, and he called out Moe’s name. Mortified, the catcher put a finger to his lips—shhh. He then turned and melted into the crowd on the street, leaving Gomez baffled.
Berg apparently thought it prudent to lie low for the next few weeks. In fact, he disappeared so thoroughly that even his bosses lost track of him. As a result, with Rome on the brink of collapse in early June, OSS was reduced to sending out cables to track down its own agent. “In the event that Berg has not taken action in Italy,” one read, “he should leave immediately.” London, Cairo, Algeria, Istanbul—they checked everywhere. Berg never responded.
He hadn’t shirked his duty, though. He first heard about the liberation of Rome while dining with an American general in Bari, a city on the heel of Italy. After Berg explained his situation and laid on a little charm, the general loaned the catcher a private plane and pilot, who whisked him back to a town near Naples. Because Berg couldn’t drive, he cadged a ride to Rome; friends called him “World War II’s most prolific hitchhiker.” He arrived four hours later and set out to find his top target there, nuclear scientist Edoardo Amaldi.
Back in Washington, Berg had made a risky decision not to take a commission in the army and wear a uniform. Civvies allowed him to blend in more easily as he moved around; it also helped him coax information from strangers, since people tend not to confide in soldiers. But the rules of warfare grant soldiers certain immunities that civilians lack; in particular, civilian spies can be shot without repercussions. Berg knew this, and decided to chance it.
But for some reason—perhaps it facilitated movement in a city under martial law; perhaps he thought it would give him extra authority; perhaps he was just taking another crazy risk—Berg donned a captain’s uniform before dropping by Amaldi’s home. He arrived there to find the physicist covered in grease, repairing his beloved bicycle, which he’d hidden from the Nazis during the occupation. The two men set to talking, and Berg discovered that the military had already contacted Amaldi; in fact, an officer had ordered him to stay in Rome. This irked Berg, who confided that he had orders from the president of the United States to take Amaldi away. Amaldi protested that he should at least inform the other officer, which Berg permitted. They traveled to the hotel where the officer was staying, and while Amaldi went upstairs, Berg took a load off in the lounge, mighty pleased with himself.
He expected Amaldi to return in a few minutes. Instead, a bantamweight officer came stomping down the stairs, absolutely fuming. Berg said coolly, “Colonel, looks like you and I are going to have to reach an understanding.” The colonel, in no mood to negotiate, barked “Attention!” Berg just blinked. “Attention!” the colonel repeated, and Berg—apparently only now remembering he was in uniform—jumped up and saluted. Boris Pash then got in Berg’s face: “What is this all about?”
Yes, the lazy “hunk” of a captain that Pash chewed out that night was none other than Moe Berg. “I am to deliver him to the Alsos mission,” Berg sputtered. “You’re looking at the Alsos mission!” Pash roared. At that moment Berg embodied every OSS frustration that Pash had endured over the past six months, and he gave full vent to his wrath. Given their mutual love of baseball, Coach Pash and the ex-catcher should have gotten along swimmingly. Instead, Pash ripped Berg six ways from Sunday, and he never tired of badmouthing the big lug afterward.
But if Pash thought he could intimidate Berg, he was wrong. However sheepish he felt, Berg dropped by Amaldi’s home again the next day when Pash was absent and smoothed things over, in part by treating the half-starved physicist to a meal in a fancy restaurant with fresh meat and gold-plated cutlery. Berg also brought sweets for Amaldi’s children, courtesy of Enrico Fermi. As a result of these kindnesses, Amaldi agreed to let Berg interview him about nuclear fission. Among other things, Berg learned that Amaldi, after being drafted into the Italian army, had served a tour in North Africa, then returned to his lab in Rome. But far from collaborating with the fascist government, as the Allies feared, Amaldi had abandoned all fission research. In September 1943 he’d even gone into hiding for five months, fearing for his life during the German occupation of Italy.
As for the state of fission research elsewhere, Amaldi admitted that he’d talked to several German scientists during the war. These included Heisenberg and Hahn, and he suspected that Heisenberg in particular was working on a bomb. But he hadn’t been in touch with them since 1942, and could offer no details. For the skittish nuclear scientists in America, this was the worst possible news: it reinforced their fears about German intentions without offering any hard facts to constrain their imaginations.
Besides Amaldi, Berg interviewed several other Italian physicists over the next few weeks. To be sure, Alsos had already located most of them, even questioned a few. But Berg’s interactions with the scientists were warmer, friendlier, and they highlight a key difference between him and Boris Pash. Pash was a heckuva soldier, resourceful and daring, but he worked
best in the chaos near the front lines. After securing targets in Rome, in fact, he scurried off to participate in the D-Day invasions and left Italy behind. Berg proved more patient, and while he certainly blundered sometimes—James Bond never would have dropped a gun in public—he also excelled at the real work of intelligence agents: winning people’s confidence and drawing out their secrets, skills the blustering Pash never learned. One Italian physicist, for instance, refused to talk at first, so Berg casually pulled a book of Petrarch’s sonnets off the man’s shelf and began reciting a few passages—in the original Italian, natch. Startled, the scientist asked Berg how he knew Petrarch. Berg had studied him at Princeton, it turned out, and they fell into a literary discussion. They were soon toasting the poet with wine, and almost before the scientist realized it, he was spilling everything he knew about atomic research.
And when charm didn’t work, Berg was not above subterfuge. One top scientific target in Rome—Gian-Carlo Wick, a broad-shouldered physicist who spoke in slow, measured phrases—was decidedly unimpressed with Berg upon meeting him. While brilliant, Berg had an encyclopedic mind. He horded facts and took little pleasure in things like art or music for their own sake; he could recite page after page of biographical details about Mozart, but the music itself didn’t move him. Wick in contrast was deeply cultured and deeply read, and he spoke Romance languages even more fluently than the catcher. He was a prototypical European intellectual, in other words, and he dismissed Berg as a shallow American.
Berg nevertheless got the last laugh. Despite his disdain, Wick granted Berg an interview, thinking that this poseur could do no harm. Wick had studied under Heisenberg in Leipzig a decade earlier (in addition to physics, they shared a passion for Ping-Pong), and he told Berg that they’d kept in touch during the war. Heisenberg had even sent Wick a postcard in January 1944 updating him on life in Germany.