Man of the Hour

by Jennet Conant

  The whole tenor of the enterprise altered when the Anglophobe Groves took command in the fall of 1942. The American bomb program was militarized, and with the change in personalities and policies, many of the differences and disagreements between the atomic advisors for the two sides became magnified. A hard-driving administrator, Groves made speed an imperative. With a weapon now in sight, compartmentalization of information was enforced even more rigidly, and the attempts to integrate their experimental efforts became more problematic. When Sir John Anderson, chief administrator of the British atomic program and a member of Churchill’s War Cabinet, put forward a plan that August for a uranium gaseous diffusion plant of their own, Bush and Conant rejected it on the grounds that it was too late to add another horse to the already crowded field. They did not have the money or resources to spare. The British found themselves being edged out of the Manhattan Project, a bitter irony given the importance of the MAUD Report in bolstering American confidence that the weapon could be made in the first place.

  With America doing most of the work and putting up all of the capital, Bush and Conant became increasingly reluctant to share the fruits of their efforts. Too much was up for grabs—the line between research and development was already “nebulous,” and there was no common policy on patents, and no plan for the future control of nuclear energy, the supervision of production, or the supply of raw materials. At the same time that Conant was clamping down on security measures for US scientists working on S-1, he resisted the idea of sharing secret data with their English colleagues who were not “essentially responsible to anyone in this country.” Possessive of their atomic program, and of the enormous economic and strategic benefits it would yield, they advised Roosevelt to restrict the exchange of technical information except when it was absolutely necessary to advance the military effort. Needless to say, this provoked a good deal of resentment across the pond.

  Realizing England was being frozen out, Churchill tried to redress the balance. In late November he sent Wallace Akers, the head of the British uranium program, to Washington to move foward with the discussions on linking their national efforts, only to have Conant stonewall the negotiations. Akers, who took it as a point of national pride that the British be part of the nuclear program they had helped to initiate, insisted that the understanding between Churchill and FDR entitled Britain to unlimited access to the entire American effort. But he had nothing to substantiate his claim but a handful of vague oral and written statements. Conant, aware of how little Akers had to trade, refused to compromise on secrecy. He saw no reason to allow British scientists near the electromagnetic and plutonium processes, which were strictly American operations, and was emphatic that the bomb-design laboratory at Los Alamos should be off limits. His priority was getting a bomb as fast as possible. To the extent the British could help with that, he welcomed their participation, but he was not going to hand over information they might well exploit to great advantage after the war.

  By his third meeting with Akers, Conant’s initial unease about British demands for a merger of their atomic efforts had intensified. He suspected Akers of having a hidden agenda. A former research director of Imperial Chemical Industries, Akers had demonstrated an unseemly interest in the large-scale production facilities that would be most beneficial in rebuilding Britain’s industry. Was he interested in furthering their joint war effort or furthering his small island’s postwar prospects? Conant was so difficult and unaccommodating that Akers reported to London that he was “wasting his time” talking to the self-important bureaucrat, dismissing him as little more than a human “post-box” who hoarded policy decisions.

  Conant shared his concerns with Bush and then put his views on paper, laying out his argument in a carefully reasoned memorandum on the future of America’s nuclear cooperation with Britain. Coldly stated, the president had three choices: he could end the S-1 interchange; permit complete interchange, not only in research but also development and production; or pursue a middle course and allow a carefully restricted exchange. Conant, convinced that Akers was already eyeing the commercial potential of nuclear energy, favored the latter. But he took a characteristically hard line: if the British pressed them to extremes, he advocated cessation.

  Bush sent a report to the White House summarizing each country’s position, incorporating Conant’s analysis almost word for word, and attaching a letter from Akers listing his objections. It landed on the president’s desk in late December just as he was recovering from the staggering news of an Anglo-Russian agreement for the exchange of new weapons, negotiations he had not been privy to. Stimson, who was old enough to have seen every trick in the book, regarded the weapons pact as bad policy. It could endanger the secrecy of any future technical discoveries shared with the British. Furious that Churchill was playing politics with the war effort, Roosevelt approved the decision to reduce the flow of scientific secrets to Britain. Roosevelt may have just been looking for an excuse to turn off the spigot, but if so, he found it. Limited interchange became the order of the day.

  At the start of 1943, Conant began preparing a memorandum on the new policy of limited interchange, spelling out the strict rules and regulations. Before he had a chance to complete it, Akers learned of its content. Anderson was outraged by Conant’s terms and reported to Churchill that the memo had “come as a bombshell and is quite intolerable.” Now it was the British scientists who felt alarmed. Conant’s recommendations were clearly designed to give the United States a postwar monopoly on atomic energy. Not to be outdone, Akers refused Groves’s request that the British send a group of experts to the United States to help with the design and construction of a diffusion plant. He also held off on sending two of Britain’s top physicists, James Chadwick and Rudolf Peierls, for the final technical discussions about the bomb. The gambit backfired, however, when Conant and Groves decided they could get by without their assistance and told Akers Britain would have to abide by the new rules. Conant sent Akers another letter inviting Chadwick and Peierls, but by then, all cooperation had broken down. Britain had put pride before the prosecution of war. Interchange ground to a standstill.

  By the spring of 1943, distrust of each other’s motives, exacerbated by a series of disputes—including the scramble for Canadian uranium ore and heavy water—had made it impossible to ignore the growing competition for control of atomic power during and after the war. As tensions escalated, Churchill became seriously ill with pneumonia in Carthage, Tunisia, and spent ten days in his sickbed fixated on the problem. The deepening rift could have disastrous consequences on their conduct of the rest of the war. He wrote Harry Hopkins, the president’s troubleshooter, in late February that the restrictions Conant outlined were correct in principle but violated the spirit of Roosevelt’s concept of a coordinated effort. He repeatedly nagged and prodded Hopkins to get the original Hyde Park agreement restored. On April 1 he cabled Roosevelt’s top aide that it would be “a sombre decision” if the two countries had to do the work separately. Hopkins consulted Bush and Conant, but they defended their position. The matter dragged on until the end of the month, when Churchill decided to make another visit to Washington.

  On May 25, the last day of the Trident Conference, Roosevelt told Churchill what he longed to hear, promising a full scientific interchange and a share in the finished product of the Manhattan Project. The prime minister went home happy, thinking they had at last resolved the arguments between their advisors. For some reason, however, no one saw fit to inform Bush, who spent that afternoon conferring with Frederick Lindemann, now Lord Cherwell, who freely admitted that the main reason Britain wanted access to atomic information was in order to build its own nuclear weapon after the war. It was only when the president invited Bush to lunch at the White House on June 24, a month later, and learned of Cherwell’s “astounding” admission about Britain’s postwar military plans, that Roosevelt realized he may have overstepped the mark. He kept quiet about his promise to Churchill, perhaps regrettin
g his impulsiveness, and nodded vigorously at Bush’s suggestion that they should “sit tight” on British relations.

  On July 9 the prime minister again pressed for action. Hopkins reminded Roosevelt he had made a firm commitment to Churchill. After procrastinating for weeks, FDR finally wrote Bush on July 20 that he should “renew, in an inclusive manner, the full exchange of information with the British Government regarding tube alloys.”

  Meanwhile, Bush had gone to London on submarine business and found himself called on the carpet of 10 Downing Street, confronted by a fuming Churchill. (Neither of them was yet aware of Roosevelt’s new instructions.) The PM complained about Conant’s memorandum and spent fifteen minutes “bawling him out” on the whole interchange business: “it was unfair, it was unreasonable, it did not make sense, he did not like the arrangement.” When Churchill came to the end of his tirade, Bush told him that American atomic energy development fell under the auspices of the army, and he would have to take it up with Secretary Stimson, who happened to be in London. “Very well,” snapped Churchill, who had no intention of allowing the Americans off the hook. “We will have a full-dress discussion.”

  In the interim, FDR’s letter had arrived at Bush’s OSRD office at 1530 P Street in Washington, where Conant intercepted it. He immediately cabled Bush, but the message was garbled in the coding and decoding. Bush thought it said the president wanted him to “review”—instead of “renew”—the interchange. Since this was more or less what he was doing, he did not alter his course.

  The full-dress session, which followed a few days later with Stimson and Bundy in attendance, as well as Lord Cherwell and Sir John Anderson, turned out to be a healthy airing of grievances. When Churchill asserted he was “interested only in fighting this war” and was not trying to strengthen their postwar position, Bush countered with Conant’s charge that Akers was already exploring the commercial possibilities of atomic energy. Churchill said nothing but seemed nonplussed. He again insisted he did not “give a damn” about any postwar advantages. After a few more rounds, Churchill changed his tone. He paused, looked at the ceiling, and then said, “I will make you a proposition.” He proceeded to reel off a set of perfectly reasonable proposals to be signed by himself and Roosevelt governing the joint atomic enterprise.

  When Bush returned to Washington the weekend of July 30, he read Roosevelt’s letter ordering him, in effect, to accede to the British position. But in London, Churchill had practically conceded the American position. Convinced a full interchange along the lines of the original agreement would cause “all sorts of trouble” after the war, Bush decided not to follow FDR’s instructions to the letter.

  He informed Conant of the diplomatic snarl, and the two of them set to work trying to sort it out. They met with Sir John Anderson at the British embassy and spent the next four days turning the suggestions the prime minister had sprung on them into a formal nuclear agreement. Their expanded version began with a Churchillian preamble stressing the importance of Anglo-American cooperation in order to bring the bomb project “to fruition at the earliest possible moment,” and followed with pledges that neither would ever use the weapon against the other and would never communicate it to or use it against a third party except after mutual consent. It restored “full and effective collaboration,” but included Churchill’s disclaimer on postwar commercial advantages, as well as other concessions they had wrested from the British. It also provided for the creation of a combined policy committee to coordinate the work being done by each country and adjudicate conflicts.

  Conant declared himself satisfied with the new arrangements. Many misunderstandings had been cleared up, cooperation resumed, and they could once more focus on the war effort. Moreover, American interests had been protected, and the pesky Akers, whom he had taken exception to, was out. The British physicist Sir James Chadwick was made head of the British mission in Washington, and mutual respect and trust restored. If Conant was unduly harsh in his dealings with the British, the historian McGeorge Bundy (son of Harvey), an expert in foreign policy and former national security advisor to both presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, speculates it may have been because of his “heavy sense of responsibility for the secrecy of the program.”

  It may also have been because, more than the others, he foresaw the danger of allowing the bomb to be used as a diplomatic bargaining chip in the foreign policy disputes between the two nations. The rift indicated the problems that could easily erupt as a result of their failure to spell out clearly, or even to understand fully, their long-term aims. As it was, even though the British negotiators’ apprehensions about being supplanted drove them to make misguided demands, the breakdown in relations did not have much of an impact on the American effort. “But if Bush, Conant, and Groves had been less cool and confident than they were,” McGeorge Bundy concludes, “it might have had truly damaging results.”

  All in all, Conant did not think the eight-month interruption had seriously delayed the project. But he could breathe easier now that it was over. Feeling more lighthearted than he had in some time, he wrote Patty that he had had “a most interesting though strenuous week in Washington,” adding maddeningly, “when the war is over, remind me to tell you about it.”

  On Monday, August 9, draft versions of the new nuclear agreement were sent to the two heads of government. Ten days later, at a secret military conference in Quebec, Roosevelt and Churchill met at the Citadelle, overlooking the Old City, and signed the Articles of Agreement governing their secret collaboration on the atomic bomb. They made only one alteration to the section on interchange, naming the members of the new Combined Policy Committee: Bush, Conant, and Stimson were to serve for the United States; Field Marshall Sir John Dill and Colonel J. J. Llewellin, the United Kingdom; and Clarence D. Howe, Canada’s Minister of Munitions and Supply, represented his country. “The Quebec Agreement was an effort to resolve a basic conflict of interest, a conflict as intricate and divisive as any in the long annals of Anglo-American discord,” wrote Hewlett and Anderson in The New World. “Fortunately, the dispute took place behind the ironbound doors of wartime secrecy, and popular passions were not a factor.” Even so, the issue had menaced the alliance against the Axis powers, and an understanding was reached only after months of hard bargaining. Both Churchill and Roosevelt knew that “the stake of their diplomacy was a technological breakthrough so revolutionary that it transcended in importance even the bloody work of carrying the war to the heartland of the Nazi foe.”

  Churchill was magnanimous in reconciliation. He fully accepted the American strategy to launch a major invasion in northern France on May 1, 1944, after having repeatedly wavered on the cross-Channel attack. (The date for the invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord, was later changed to June 6.) As the Quadrant Conference wrapped up, there were still many differences between them on military and political issues, from Britain’s efforts to save its empire in the Far East to its postwar relations with Russia, but nonetheless an atmosphere of confidence prevailed. Victory in Europe now seemed within reach.

  * * *

  Conant cabled Patty that the party for the PM was on. He canceled his vacation plans and hurried back to Cambridge. At the last minute, Harvard sent out invitations—marked “Confidential”—stating that an honorary degree would be conferred at an “Academic Meeting” on September 6, but withheld the name of the recipient. No public announcement was permitted, for reasons of security. The censorship extended to the printing of the programs, which were run off by the Harvard University Press late at night. The submitted copy omitted the name of the honoree, which would be filled in later. The only clue as to the identity of the distinguished guest was that the program closed with “God Save the King!”

  On September 6 Churchill arrived in Cambridge on a private train from Washington, together with his wife, Clementine, and their youngest daughter, twenty-year-old Mary, who during their prolonged stay in the capital had become the darling of the America
n press. The party disembarked on a special sidetrack in Allston Yards, where the Conants, accompanied by the state governor, Leverett Saltonstall, greeted them and took them back to the modest yellow house that was their wartime residence. Although he was running a fever, Churchill had spent the overnight journey working on his speech, proudly telling them he had completed it at a quarter to three in the morning. After only a brief rest, he struggled into his Oxford scarlet, borrowed from Princeton for the occasion, and reluctantly abandoned an almost untouched cigar as they hastened him off to Sanders Theatre. At precisely noon, with the fanfare sounded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Conant, almost ascetic looking beside the jolly-built British leader, proceeded to the platform while a capacity crowd of 1,400 applauded wildly.

  With a slight bow to his audience, Churchill began his speech. “I am once again in academic groves—groves is, I believe, the right word,” he said, grinning at his own joke, a sly reference to the name of the American general who was Conant’s partner on the secret bomb project. Their names were not yet linked in the newspapers, so most people missed the pun but laughed politely at what they took to be an obscure English witticism. The next day’s New York Herald Tribune had the PM saying, “I am once again in academic robe—robe is, I believe, the right word.”

  Churchill went on to tell the story of how in the winter of 1941, when “the blitz was running hard,” he had conferred honorary degrees on Ambassador Winant and, in absentia, on Conant, who had rushed back to Washington to plead for the defense of Britain. The night before that academic ceremony, the bombing in Bristol had been heavy, with hundreds killed. But the university officials “pulled on their robes over uniforms begrimed and drenched,” Churchill recalled, and presented the diplomas with faultless decorum, and it left him with a very strong impression “of the superiority of man over the forces that can destroy him.”