“entering wedge”: VB to JBC, October 24, 1944, Bush-Conant file, NA.
“This is the first time . . .”: Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery, Memoirs, 202–3.
“freeze,” “Christy bomb”: Conant, 109 East Palace, 264. James P. Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 50.
Trinity, “Batter my heart . . . ,” macabre: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 571–72.
Jornado del Muerto, No Trespassing signs, zero point: Conant, 109 East Palace, 236–38. For a detailed description of Trinity test, see Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 53–59.
“hundred-ton test”: Ibid., 56.
“The war is not over . . .”: HC, May 8, 1945.
“new force,” “charged with the function . . .”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 616.
Interim Committee, “Now we can start . . .”: Ibid. HLS diary, May 2, 1945, HLS Papers, YU.
“doubted,” “growing restlessness”: MSL, 300.
“indiscriminate destruction . . . uninhabited area”: Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists, 335.
“essential,” “public bickering”: JB to HLS, May 1945, HLS Papers, YU.
“extravagance in the Manhattan Project . . . might become disastrous,” “nervous memorandum . . . be successful”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 615–16. HLS diary, March 15, 1945, HLS Papers, YU.
“Gentlemen, it is our responsibility . . .”: David McCullough, Truman, 390.
“to make certain . . .”: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, 389.
“phony”: TNW, 354.
defended their estimate: MSL, 301.
“like statesmen and not merely . . . peace of the world”: HLS diary, July 21, 1945.
“some striking but harmless . . . ,” “a nonmilitary demonstration . . . ,” “Various possibilities . . . ,” “might be a dud”: AQ, 238–39.
“We were keenly aware . . .”: Ibid.
“sufficiently spectacular . . . two-thirds of a mile”: Ibid. Monk, Robert Oppenheimer, 447.
“seemed the ideal weapon . . . at our disposal”: JBC to McGeorge Bundy, November 30, 1946, HLS Papers, YU.
“burn jobs”: Life, August 20, 1945.
“the number of people killed . . .”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 207–8.
“precision”: DAS, 66.
“shortening this war”: St. Clair McKelway, “A Reporter with the B-29’s,” NY, part III, June 23, 1945.
“far less terrible . . .”: POTA, 62–63.
“governing factor,” “most adversely affect”: DAS, 63.
“it had been the capital . . .”: McCullough, Truman, 436.
“We could not give the Japanese,” “most desirable target . . .”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 302.
without warning: DAS, 73.
“most important matter . . .”: MSL, 302.
“join up,” “4F”: Interview with Theodore Richards Conant.
“great danger . . .”: John Parks to JBC, March 30, 1945, CFP.
“My father would have none . . .”: Interview with Theodore Richards Conant.
“pleased to report . . . what I found”: JBC to GRC, July 13, 1945, CFP.
“This is an interesting trip . . .”: Ibid.
“How am I going to explain . . .”: NCBT, 290.
“chief villain,” “Everybody lectured me . . .”: Badash, Hirschfelder, and Broida, Reminiscences of Los Alamos, 59.
“A few pessimists”: JBC, “Notes on the ‘Trinity’ Test held at Alamogordo bombing range,” VB-JBC file, OSRD, NA (henceforth JBC, “Notes on Trinity”). Reprinted in its entirety in Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 758–61.
“reversal”: NCBT, 9291–93.
“a bit tense . . .”: JBC, “Notes on Trinity.”
“From 10:30 a.m . . .”: Ibid.
“ignite the atmosphere”: NCBT, 296–97.
“minus forty-five . . .”: JBC, “Notes on Trinity.”
“never imagined seconds . . .”: NCBT, 438.
“Then came a burst . . . actually occurred”: JBC, “Notes on Trinity.”
“an enormous pyrotechnic display . . . wave,” “Well, I guess there is something . . .”: Ibid.
“wrapped up in the future”: NCBT, 298.
“It was only a matter . . .”: JBC to McGeorge Bundy, November 30, 1946, HLS Papers, YU.
“knocked him off his feet”: Badash, Hirschfelder, and Broida, Reminiscences of Los Alamos, 60.
“disappeared . . . expected”: JBC, “Notes on Trinity.”
“off the scale,” “not serious”: Ibid.
“usual freakiness,” “content of gas shells . . .”: NCBT, 301.
“Oh, Dr. Conant . . .”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, 240.
“operation . . . pleased”: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, 406.
“My first impression . . .”: JBC, “Notes on Trinity.”
CHAPTER 17: A CHANGED WORLD
“The unleashed power . . .”: Nancy Peterson Hill, A Very Private Public Citizen, 169.
“loosed . . . on this earth”: NYT, August 7, 1945. McCullough, Truman, 455.
“correctness of the action . . .”: MSL, 302.
“marvel . . . without failure”: NYT, August 7, 1945.
“Air became flame . . .”: “The War Ends,” Life, August 20, 1945.
“Atom Age,” “greatest scientific gamble”: BDG, August 7, 1945.
“The Haunted Wood,” “not with exultation . . . minor planets”: WP, August 7, 1945.
“Yesterday we clinched victory . . .”: NYT, August 7, 1945.
“more surely than the rocket . . .”: Winston Churchill, “Potentialities of the New Weapon—Warning for the Future,” radio address, August 10, 1945.
“devastating strength”: JBC to Harvey Bundy, November 30, 1946, JBCPP.
“must be the prime objective . . .”: JBC and VB to the Interim Committee, July 18, 1945, as quoted in Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 236.
“Joey-come-lately,” “hopeless odds . . .”: NYT, August 9, 1945.
“crumbled and disintegrated . . .”: NYT, August 20, 1945.
“and the detailed arrangements . . .”: MSL, 303.
“additional bombs”: LRG’s directive to General Carl Spaatz, July 23, 1945, as quoted in NCBT, 308; McCullough, Truman, 457.
“taking no chances,” “napalm bombs”: NYT, August 9, 1945.
“mopping-up operation,” “finish off”: “The War Ends.”
“royal foul-up,” “clearing”: NCBT, 346–47.
“ultimate responsibility . . . fellow citizens”: Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945), vii.
“scientific men”: Ibid.
“GIs in Pacific . . .”: NYT, August 10, 1945.
“by enduring the unendurable . . . Declaration of Powers”: Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 115.
Halibut’s crew: Admiral I. J. Galantin, Take Her Deep! A Submarine Against Japan in World War II (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1987), 223–248.
“cracked up,” “A severe case . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 239.
“Coming just at this time . . .”: Ibid.
“mental condition of being shell-shocked”: General Leslie Groves, interview, “Voices of the Manhattan Project.”
“stark-raving mad”: Interview with Theodore Richards Conant.
“too dangerous to be loose . . .”: NYT, August 10, 1945.
“only optimists would have willingly . . .”: JBC, Secret History, 33.
“The world is changed . . .”: TNW, 416.
“For military courage . . .”: JBC, “From War to Peace,” HC, September 28, 1945. Harvard Alumni Bulletin, October 6, 1945, 81.
“could engender such conditions . . .”: Ibid. Also see JBC, “The Fight for Liberty in Peace and War.”
“fear, panic, and foolish . . .”: JBC, “From War to Peace.”
“push-button
wars,” “robot planes . . .”: “The Atom Bomb and Future War,” Life, August 20, 1945.
“There was no defense . . .”: JBC, speech to the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, HC, November 23, 1945.
“revolution in warfare . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 241.
“We are living in a very different . . .”: Keyes Dewitt Metcalf, My Harvard Library Years, 1937–1955 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 116–17.
“How many volumes . . . ,” “preserve the material . . .”: Ibid.
“This would include . . .”: Ibid.
“It could not be done . . . nothing more about it”: Ibid.
“mighty thunder”: Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 61.
“nervous wreck”: Monk, Robert Oppenheimer, 475.
“Now I am become Death . . .”: Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 63.
“revulsion”: Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists Movement in America, 1945–47 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965), 77.
“barbarism,” “mass murder,” “sheer terrorism”: “Opinion,” Time, August 20, 1945.
“war was now impossible”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 77.
“It is no good trying . . .”: Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family, 244.
“What if we hadn’t?”: Teller, Memoirs, 216.
“felt more or less deeply . . . anywhere, anytime”: Fermi, Atoms in the Family, 245.
“tragic use . . .”: Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1945.
“begin an elaborate study . . .”: TNW, 423.
“Scientist Drops A-bomb . . . ,” “clarify and consolidate”: Ibid. Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 88–89.
“This place is a bit . . . discussion”: VB to JBC, September 24 and October 1, 1945, VB-JBC file, OSRD, NA.
“center of affairs . . . letting them loose”: JBC to VB, October 4, 1945, VB-JBC file, OSRD, NA.
“poison of deception”: MSL, 298.
“What makes you think . . .”: Interview with GRC.
“years of frustration”: MSL, 299.
“hostility”: Ibid.
“to test out their good faith”: TNW, 412.
“I think your statement . . .”: JBC to VB, October 4, 1945.
“world government,” “world state . . .”: Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 34–35.
“talked atomic bomb . . .”: Hill, A Very Private Public Citizen, 162.
“could shortly have the bomb . . . the height of folly”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 247.
“under which cooperation . . .”: TNW, 426.
“The misuse of such energy . . .”: Ibid., 431.
“Men Who Made the Bomb . . .”: Byron S. Miller, “A Law Is Passed: The Atomic Energy Act of 1946,” University of Chicago Law Review 15, no. 4 (Summer 1948): 800.
“international security . . .”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 174.
“doesn’t bother me . . .”: JBC to VB, October 23, 1945, VB-JBC file, OSRD, NA.
“sweating at the very thought . . .”: “Hold That Monster,” Time, November 19, 1945.
“the greatest challenge . . .”: TNW, 428.
“wisest of motives . . . ,” “The same men who could command . . .”: Ibid., 435.
“the implied threat of the bomb . . .”: Ibid., 417.
“make Russia more manageable . . .”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 202.
“a secret armament race . . .”: TNW, 419.
“willing and cooperative partners . . .”: Ibid.
“break his silence . . .”: JBC to VB, October 23, 1945, VB-JBC file, NA.
“I am very much disturbed . . .”: VB to JBC, November 7, 1945, VB-JBC file, NA.
“We recognize that the application . . .”: TNW, 464–65.
“first steps”: JBC to Harry S. Truman, November 15, 1945, VB-JBC file, NA.
“cheerful liar”: JBC Moscow diary, December 10, 1945, JBCPP.
“his policy was . . . ,” “still crossed”: Ibid., December 24, 1945.
“college professors”: TNW, 473.
“the really crucial time . . .”: JBC, “National Defense in the Light of the Atomic Bomb,” December 3, 1945, JBCPP. JBC gave a similar talk, “Conant on the Bomb,” at the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce on November 20, 1945.
“by stages”: TNW, 476.
“a little cynical . . . ,” “headed for a large success . . .”: JBC Moscow diary, December 24, JBCPP.
“good cheer,” “dwellers of the Kremlin”: MSL, 486–87.
“most comforting news . . .”: BH, December 28, 1945, reprinted in MSL, 487.
“The outcome is excellent . . . down the right path”: VB to JBC, January 2, 1945, VB-JBC file, NA.
CHAPTER 18: ATOMIC CHAOS
“His success . . .”: “Harvard’s James Bryant Conant: Chemist of Ideas,” Time, September 23, 1946, 60.
“the atomic bomb is just too dreadful . . .”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 228. Public opinion poll: Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 22.
“In such a world . . .”: “The Presidency: A Policy Is Born,” Time, December 31, 1945.
“terrifying implications,” “nightmare of global war”: JBC, “National Defense in the Light of the Atomic Bomb.”
“right now . . . adverse conditions”: JBC testimony, Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, 79th Cong. 1st Sess., part 1, “Universal Military Service Hearings,” November 8–December 19, 1946.
“not out of despair . . . major threat of war”: JBC, “Conant and the Bomb,” November 20, 1945, Harvard Alumni Bulletin, December 8, 1945.
“too grand”: DAS, 159.
Atomic Development Authority: Ibid.
“dangerous activities . . . ,” “cops,” “A place to begin . . .”: TNW, 536, 540.
“stages,” “the most constructive analysis . . .”: DAS, 161.
“Great Fear,” “Elysian daydream”: TNW, 558.
“We clasped the new bible . . .”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 335.
“youngsters”: Tuttle, “James B. Conant,” 330.
“suspicions of many senators . . .”: MSL, 493.
“went boom . . .”: Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon, 161.
“That was the day . . .”: Monk, Robert Oppenheimer, 500.
“He wants to run the world . . .”: DAS, 162.
“tired of babying the Russians . . .”: Ibid., 176.
“atom spies”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 308.
“two hostile camps . . .”: Steel, Walter Lippmann, 427.
“From Stettin in the Baltic . . . un-united world”: Ibid., 428.
“fanatically,” “permanent peaceful coexistence”: Ibid., 433. Also Kennan, Memoirs, 292–95.
“rocking the boat”: MSL, 506.
“logical”: Ibid., 493.
“immediate and certain punishment”: DAS, 165.
“We are here . . . World Destruction”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 338.
“If I read the signs . . .”: TNW, 577.
“Literally the fate of the world . . .”: Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 56.
“stand pat,” “winning weapon,” “The bitter truth . . .”: DAS, 166–69.
“be in a position of . . .”: MSL, 494.
“appraisal of the relative strength . . . ,” “accumulated dissatisfactions”: Ibid., 494–95.
“hatchet men”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 303.
“For all I knew . . .”: Ibid., 497.
“extreme horror”: Ibid.
“more liberal thinking . . .”: MSL, 301; Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 15.
“certain degree of incompatibility . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 264.
“shattered faith”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, 340.
“just another weapon”: Delgado, Nuclear Dawn, 157.
“Nothing Atoll . . .”: Ibid., 154.
“turned his back . . .”: MSL, 499.
“scientific celebrity . . . world’s biggest job”: “Harvard’s James Bryant Conant: Chemist of Ideas,” 53, 60.
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“atomic harness”: MSL, 500.
“get-tough”: TNW, 601.
“very much disturbed . . . wear us down”: VB to JBC, October 21, 1946, VB-JBC file, NA.
“decidedly stiff . . .”: Ibid.
“cold war”: George Orwell, “You and the Atomic Bomb,” London Tribune, October 19, 1945.
“classified,” “the age of the Superblitz”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 273.
“in such an age . . .”: Ibid.
“a rickety bridge”: Ibid.
“Their faces were wholly burned . . . 600 beds”: John Hersey, Hiroshima (New York: Random House, 1946), 51–52, 24–26. Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 205.
“rich repertory of symptoms”: Hersey, Hiroshima, 110.
“injurious within . . .”: Susan Southard, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War (New York: Viking Penguin, 2015), 107.
hibakusha: Hersey, Hiroshima, 110.
“A-bomb sickness”: Ibid.
“terrible implications”: “To Our Readers,” NY, August 31, 1946.
“war criminals . . .”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 282–83.
“What bothered me . . .”: Ibid.
“paraded their sense of guilt . . . ,” “war is ethically . . .”: JBC to Muriel Popper, June 21, 1968, JBCPP. Amster, “Meritocracy Ascendant,” 150.
“morally indefensible . . . people of Japan”: Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 202.
“Christian realism,” “the triumph of experience . . .”: Paul Elie, “A Man for All Reasons,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2007.
“At the risk . . . Axis powers”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 284.
“does not make sufficiently clear . . . defeated tyranny”: Ibid., 285. For Niebuhr’s full reply, see James G. Hershberg, “A Footnote on Hiroshima and Atomic Morality: Conant, Niebuhr, and an ‘Emotional’ Clergyman, 1945–46,” December 2002 Newsletter, George Washington University.
“notoriously nondocile”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate Story (New York: Harper, 1948), 437.
“very useful . . .”: VB to JBC, July 18, 1946, JBCPP.
“never liked mixing . . . legal action”: Hershberg, Harvard to Hiroshima, 285–86.
“in all probability . . .”: Barton J. Bernstein, “Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Diplomatic History 17, iss. 1 (January 1993): 35–72. JBC’s efforts to shape popular opinion about the use of the bomb is also examined in James Hershberg, “James B. Conant, Nuclear Weapons, and the Cold War,” 117–80.
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