Man of the Hour

by Jennet Conant

  His experience of the blitz in England had convinced Conant that the task of winning the war came first. The role of colleges must be to “forward the national goal of victory, not shelter youth essential to the country’s defense.” His hard line was an outgrowth not only of his ardent interventionism but also of his growing awareness of the danger to the nation posed by the possibility of an enemy atomic bomb. As he came to understand its destructive potential, he developed the fierce conviction that they could not leave the country so exposed. If a bomb could be built, they had to beat the Germans to it. They had to overwhelm the enemy’s advantage with innovation. They had no choice.

  Only days after Pearl Harbor, Conant was spelling out the “catastrophic possibilities of a German bomb” to Harvey Bundy, a mild-mannered Boston estate lawyer who was Stimson’s special assistant and chief liaison to the OSRD. Lying in bed with a bad cold, Conant, swaddled in a robe and pajamas, had roused himself for the meeting. Bundy was still shaken badly by the crippling blow the navy had received, as well as reports of the shocking damage and casualties that were circulating throughout Washington. He was deeply pessimistic and spent a considerable amount of time “spreading the gloom” about the long job ahead for Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

  And there was no doubt that it would be a long, grueling struggle. They had underrated the strength and ambition of the Japanese, and now faced the staggering task of building up enough of a navy to root them out of their own waters, while needing enough of an army to vanquish the Germans in Europe. The immediate reality was that they did not have a striking force ready—such defensive weapons that were available had been diverted to Britain—so they could expect a run of losses in the Pacific. The task was so monumental, and the outlook so bleak, Bundy admitted that he did not see “how the devil we [are] going to win the war.”

  Conant, a stalwart optimist, stated he was confident they would eventually defeat the Axis armies. As history amply demonstrated, military reversals could be overcome. “The Germans can never win this war,” he assured Bundy. The “one possibility” that gave him pause, he said, was that the Nazis were ahead in the development of the atomic bomb. As Stimson’s assistant, Bundy had been briefed on S-1, but until that moment he’d never given serious thought to the danger of Nazi scientists beating them to the punch. Even his most pessimistic appraisals of the air, land, and naval battles that lay ahead paled in comparison to this new nightmare. Instead of feeling better, Bundy recalled, he left Conant’s bedside that December afternoon literally sick with worry.

  Now that America had plunged into war, Conant felt it was crucial that the country shake off its defensive posture and “learn to think offensively.” Convinced that the Maginot Line mentality had been fatal to the French, and that the United States could not afford to hold back its firepower or aggressive fighting spirit, he was one of the first prominent leaders to declare that America’s goal must be the “unconditional surrender” of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Making use of the podium provided by the New England Society, he delivered what was surely the most bellicose speech in the organization’s genteel history. “To ensure the defeat of the Axis powers, there must be no limitation on our commitments.” Total victory required total commitment.

  Without revealing the atomic quest on which the country had embarked, Conant went on to explain that this war was in many ways “a race of scientific developments and devices.” These new weapons would not be limited to defense only and could play “a decisive part,” just as poison gas and tanks might have in the First World War if used in sufficient quantities at the outset. He insisted on the need for a complete victory, warning that any compromise settlement would be dangerous, given that they were dealing with “a state ruled by a dictator, covered by a gestapo, where new weapons can be devised, developed, and manufactured in utmost secrecy.”

  Looking ahead to when the fighting was over, Conant saw the need for ongoing vigilance. The United States would have to assume leadership in establishing an “armed alliance of free societies” to secure the postwar world. Unconditional surrender did not mean that the victors should impose a vindictive resolution, but until Germany and Japan had been transformed by “hard circumstances”—into smaller agricultural states or societies with no lust to conquer—there could be “no hope of eventual disarmament of other countries or of an enduring peace.”

  * * *

  Returning to Washington on December 18, Conant convened the first full meeting of the members of the reorganized S-1 Section. “The country had been at war nine days,” he recalled, “and the atmosphere was charged with excitement.” The members included Briggs and others from the old Uranium Section, as well as a half-dozen new faces. The scientists engaged on the bomb problem were to be grouped under three program chiefs—Compton, Lawrence, and Urey—all Nobel Prize winners. Conant reviewed the specific assignments: Urey would continue working on the diffusion and centrifuge methods of separating uranium isotopes; Lawrence was given the go-ahead to see if his electromagnetic separation method could be made practical on a large scale; Compton would begin work on the design of the bomb itself. “There will be no need to worry about money,” Conant told them. They were to spare no effort, no expense, in developing an atomic weapon at the earliest possible date.

  During the first few months of 1942, Conant was primarily occupied with assessing the order and importance of the different methods of obtaining several hundred pounds of fissionable material: either uranium-235 or plutonium. One disagreement cropped up immediately after Bush announced the decision to push the atomic project. After the December 6 meeting in Washington had adjourned, he, Bush, and Compton went for lunch at the Cosmos Club on Lafayette Square, and the subject of plutonium came up in conversation. Compton, who had intentionally omitted it from his final report—apparently for tactical reasons—now spoke up in favor of producing the new element as a substitute for uranium-235. He advocated moving ahead rapidly with the construction of a pile to start producing large amounts of plutonium. This would be achieved by a steady nuclear reaction with ordinary uranium, resulting in a small fraction of the U-235 being transmuted into Pu-239, at which stage it would be chemically extracted from the uranium.

  While Conant had come round to believing the atomic bomb was feasible, he could not hide his qualms about what the Chicago physicist was proposing. Compton was asking for money they badly needed for other things in order to produce plutonium, which had “not yet been seen except in microscopic amounts,” using a nuclear reactor that existed only in his imagination. In addition to the obvious fact that extracting plutonium from uranium had not yet been shown to be possible in the laboratory, Conant noted that the chemistry of the new element was “largely unknown.” What if the separation process was complicated by intense radiation? It could take years to make it operational.

  Compton did not conceal his irritation at having a wrench thrown in his plans. His testy recollection of the exchange was that “this was Conant, the expert chemist, speaking from experience.” His response to his esteemed colleague’s many objections was that further research would produce the necessary knowledge and that Glenn Seaborg was confident that “within six months from the time plutonium is formed [by chain reaction], he could have it available for use in a bomb.”

  “Glenn Seaborg is a very competent young chemist,” Conant scoffed, “but he isn’t that good.” He intended that to be the last word on the matter, but his usual authority was somewhat undermined when in the midst of the discussion, he took a large gulp from a glass of milk only to discover it was buttermilk—which he detested—and began angrily spluttering and swearing. While this short burst of profanity amused Bush, it offended the straitlaced Presbyterian Compton. In any event, Compton went on to argue the point with such gusto that by the time the coffee arrived, Bush was swayed by his “near certainty” about producing plutonium by a chain reaction. Compton maintained it was a win-win strategy: if for some reason it turned out tha
t plutonium was not ready to be used in a bomb, the construction of self-sustaining chain reaction would still be a “magnificent achievement.” It was indicative of the ad hoc way they were working, Compton would later observe, that as a result of a conversation that was “really an afterthought,” developing a nuclear reactor was added to the bomb project.

  Despite the occasional skirmishes and flashes of ego, it was remarkable how quickly everyone pulled together as a team. Differences of opinion were put aside for the common goal: defeating Hitler. Within weeks, Compton was overseeing a highly secret project at the University of Chicago, the aim of which was the construction of a chain-reacting pile to test the feasibility of producing plutonium. To speed their research, he decided the various groups of physicists should work together under one roof and organized the Metallurgical Laboratory, usually referred to as the Met Lab, yet another misleading name meant to delude enemy spies into believing it was just another boring metals research facility. Fermi, considered the best man in the field of nuclear physics, agreed at once to take time away from his experiments at Columbia to help initiate the Chicago reactor. Eugene Wigner from Princeton helped coordinate the research and experimental and theoretical aspects of the chain reaction. Szilard pitched in, helping to secure pure materials such as graphite and consulting on the whole enterprise. They began building small crude piles, stacking graphite bricks in columns and studying what happened to the neutrons, collecting data for a larger nuclear reactor.

  At the same time, Lawrence and his group continued to apply themselves to the electromagnetic separation method at Berkeley. In a stroke of brilliance, he disassembled his famous thirty-seven-inch cyclotron and modified the magnet to develop a new device, the calutron, which facilitated not only the separation of small amounts of material but also might work on large-scale production. By mid-February, as the operation of the calutron improved, they were able to prepare three samples of material enriched to 30 percent U-235 for the Met Lab. Urey, meanwhile, continued to have high hopes for the gaseous diffusion and centrifuge approaches being tested at Columbia. The design and construction of the bomb would be a major task, but it seemed pointless to move ahead with that part of the project until they were reasonably confident that the fissionable material could be produced in sufficient quantities. They could not be sure which was the best method. All they could do was follow every viable lead.

  Every two weeks, Conant convened the members of S-1 to take stock. The meetings were “exciting events,” Compton recalled. Enthusiasm and optimism reigned. In these early days of the atomic race, there was an enormous amount at stake: convincing evidence of the bomb’s feasibility within three to four years had to be found. Major decisions had to be made quickly, even though they might affect the entire course of the atomic program. In April Conant was confronted with just such a choice when the French scientist Hans von Halban came from England and presented results from his experiments indicating that a natural uranium pile could be made quickly if heavy water, deuterium, was used as a moderator. Harold Urey also strongly favored this approach. But based on the encouraging results from the Chicago pile, Conant decided they should concentrate on Fermi’s method of making a chain reaction by using a combination of natural uranium and graphite. Heavy water would be used only as an alternative, and, as a contingency measure, he ordered it put into production on a small scale.

  During this critical period, Compton considered the S-1 scientists fortunate to have Conant at the helm. If the wrong choice had been made then, or at any number of other junctures, the program could have been sidetracked and seriously delayed. “In guiding these discussions, drawing them to prompt and definite conclusions, and stating the conclusions in a concise form, Conant was superlative. No time was wasted.” He brought to the task not only his deep knowledge of science and wide acquaintance with many of the individual scientists but also “an unusual ability to avoid confusion and entanglement in minor complexities, and to cut through quickly and decisively to the fundamental issues involved.”

  By February, with growing optimism about the results of their tests, it became clear that Conant would soon have to make decisions about the construction of production plants—decisions that would involve very large amounts of money. There were still plenty of uncertainties and many hurdles that had to be surmounted, including the means to handle such large quantities of radioactive material. But all the evidence pointed to there being a workable road to a bomb. At the forefront of his mind at all times was the “recurring question” of how great an expenditure was justifiable in view of the other demands of the war effort. Bush knew he was placing “a heavy burden” on Conant, but for reasons of economy and efficiency, he was hoping the chemist would be able to pick one or perhaps two of the alternative methods of producing fissionable material.

  Unfortunately, as the deadline neared, there was still no way to judge which one was superior. Historian James Phinney Baxter described the enormity of the decision Conant faced: “When called on in May to produce a budget for the next eighteen months’ operations, Conant found five horses running neck and neck. There was little to choose between the centrifuge, diffusion, and electromagnetic methods of separating U-235 and the uranium-graphite pile and uranium-heavy-water pile methods of producing plutonium.”

  After considering the pros and cons, Conant recommended “betting heavily” across the board: “All five methods.” The president should authorize construction programs based on the assumption that they were backing five competing schemes in the race, right up to the final lap. “Anything less,” he reported to Bush, “will mean either the abandonment or slowing down of one of the . . . methods.” The decision was going to be difficult. “While all five methods now appear to be about equally promising, clearly the time to production [required] by the five routes will certainly not be the same but might vary by six months or a year because of unforeseen delays. Therefore, if one discards one or two or three of the methods now, one may be betting on the slower horse unconsciously.”

  Either way, this was not a wager they could afford to lose. Conant’s reasoning turned on his appraisal of the military risk involved if one side developed a dozen bombs before the other. If the Nazis dropped their entire haul on England, the new weapon would be the “determining” factor in the outcome of the war. While the Allies had only imperfect intelligence about the Germans’ activities, the most recent intercepted communications showed that they were interested in making a bomb. “They cannot be far behind, since they started in 1939 with the same initial facts as the British and ourselves,” he worried, “and they may be ahead of us by as much as a year.” He could not ignore the implications of his own analysis: speed was imperative. “Three months’ delay might be fatal.”

  At nine thirty on Saturday morning, May 23, Conant called an important meeting of his three program chiefs, as well as Briggs, and Eger V. Murphree, a chemical engineer with the Standard Oil Company, who was head of the Planning Board and overseeing all the engineering plans and the pilot-plant phase. After several hours of discussion, they agreed with Conant’s plan to start along five parallel tracks. The cost would be staggering: an estimated $80 million, with an annual operating cost of $34 million. The program, they believed, would yield a small supply of atomic bombs by July 1, 1944, give or take a few months.II Conant was not happy about the production schedule and pushed them to do better. “Why nearly two years’ delay?” he demanded, wanting to speed up construction.

  Murphree cut off the debate. “Dr. Conant,” he replied, “you can’t spend that much money any faster.”

  By five o’clock, the meeting was over. Conant gathered up his notes of the group’s recommendations, which he had been jotting down on a lined yellow tablet. He had the rest of the weekend to prepare himself before submitting his extraordinary report to Bush on Monday morning.

  It was not what Bush wanted to hear. But Conant had given him ample advance warning, so it came as no great surprise that the members o
f S-1 were unable to endorse a single approach. Bush agreed to sign off on summary of the costs and estimated time of the program and submitted it to Roosevelt’s Top Policy Group. With their approval, Bush then brought it to the president on June 17. The document, with another “VB—O.K.— FDR” scribbled at the bottom of the page, became invaluable, Conant recalled, “when necessary to prove to an incredulous high-ranking government official that what was contemplated was authorized by the president of the United States himself.”

  The time had come to let the army in on their deep, dark secret. The president’s order to go ahead with the Bush-Conant plan to manufacture atom bombs was transmitted to Lieutenant General Wilhelm D. Styer, who would be the army’s point man on S-1: “Take the necessary action.”

  * * *

  With the atomic quest entering a new phase, Conant realized he would have less time than ever for academic life. The decision to pursue all the methods meant that the program would need to expand greatly, requiring far more manpower and materials. It also meant even more of a personal sacrifice on his part. He would be stepping up an already strenuous schedule: working five days a week in Washington, commuting back to Cambridge when necessary, and making frequent inspection trips to NDRC installations scattered across the country. But he was hardly alone. After Pearl Harbor, anything one could do seemed “all too little.” The dire emergency impelled many of the scientists and technical men he knew to outdo themselves. “Like the need for speed,” he said later, “the emotional drive of war created a highly abnormal situation.”