Churchill's Bomb

by Graham Farmelo

  13Bohr (1964: 204).

  14Lindemann to WSC, 24 May 1944, PREM 3/139/11A, f. 764, NA; the text of the letter from Bohr to WSC is in Aaserud (2005: 96–8).

  15WSC to Lindemann, 20 September 1944, PREM 3/139, 8A, ff. 298–9, NA.

  16WSC to Lindemann, 27 May 1944, PREM 3/139/11A/761, NA. The word [later] in the quote replaces the original ‘after’, which appears to be a typographical error.

  17WSC to Ismay, 19 April 1945, PREM 3/139/11A, f. 817.

  18See, for example, Anderson to WSC, 25 May 1944, PREM 3/139/11A, NA.

  19CHBIO, Vol. 7, pp. 793–4.

  20CHBIO, Vol. 7, p. 808.

  21WSC to Anderson, 6 October 1943 CHAR 20/94B.

  22See the V1 and V2 timeline at http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/Timeline.html and Overy (2006: 293–5).

  23Leasor (ed.) (1959: 69).

  24Fort (2004: 294–5); BMFRS of Lindemann, November 1958, pp. 63–4.

  25Colonel J. D. Wyatt to Colonel Macrae, 30 May 1961, and A. L Bonsey to The Times, 24 April 1961, MCRA 2/21.

  26Lindemann to WSC, 25 February 1944, PREM 3/65, NA; Bernstein (1987: 46–7).

  27WSC to Ismay, 6 July 1944, PREM 3/89, NA.

  28Bernstein (1987: 46–7).

  29Cited in ‘Potentialities of Weapons of Bacteriological Warfare during the Next Ten Years’, 6 November 1945, DEFE 2/1252, NA.

  30Anderson to WSC, 1 June 1944, PREM 3/139/2, NA. Bernstein (1976: 223–4).

  31WSC to Anderson, 13 April 1944 and Anderson to WSC, 14 April 1944, PREM 3/139/2, NA; Gowing (1964: 298–301, 444–5).

  32Moran (1966: 179).

  33Lindemann to WSC, 25 July 1944, PREM 3/139/11A, ff. 744–5, NA.

  34Lindemann to WSC, 12 September 1944, PREM 3/139/8A, f. 309, NA.

  35Aide-mémoire signed by Roosevelt and WSC, 18 September 1944, PREM 3/139/8A, f. 310, NA.

  36WSC to Lindemann, 20 September 1944, PREM 3/139/8A, ff. 298–9, NA.

  37Lindemann’s ‘Notes on Conversation between President, Admiral Leahy, Bush and self’, 22 September 1944, RVJO B.396.

  38Lindemann to WSC, 23 September 1944, CAB 126/39, NA.

  39Lindemann to WSC, 17 November 1944, PREM 3/139/11A, f. 836, NA; Lindemann to Oppenheimer, 21 October 1944, OPPY, Box 26, Folder 6.

  Chadwick witnesses the first nuclear explosion

  1Gowing (1974a: 47).

  2Szasz (1984: 39–40); Brown (1997: 260–1).

  3Brown (1997: 254–7).

  4Brown (1997: 268).

  5Tube Alloys salaries, AB 1/267, NA.

  6Webster to Appleton, 24 February 1944, CHAD IV 3/7.

  7Chadwick to Akers, 24 June 1944, AB 1/615, NA.

  8A pithy overview of the technical challenges of the project is given in Hughes (2002: 68–83). See also Kevles (1995: 327–34).

  9Peierls (1985: 199–201).

  10Gowing (1964: 262).

  11Note from Manhattan authorities to General Gee, 6 August 1946, FRISCH A58A.

  12This account of the British mission draws on the interviews with Rudolf Peierls and several others in the late 1980s, available at LOSALAMOS. See also documents in FRISCH A60–62; Szasz (1992: 32–46).

  13MI5 security report on Peierls, 24 January 1951, KV 2/1661, NA; Peierls (1985: 197, 205).

  14Peierls to Tom Sharpe, 3 September 1993, PEIERLS D.58.

  15Szasz (1992: 27).

  16Clark (1992: 157).

  17Groves (1962: 166).

  18Some of Bohr’s technical work is available from LOSALAMOS, attached to the letter from Bohr to Oppenheimer, 19 June 1944; on Oppenheimer’s view of Bohr: Thorpe (2006: 257). Quote is from the New York Herald Tribune, 19 November 1962.

  19Jones (1998: 477).

  20Oppenheimer (1964b).

  21Brown (2012: 45–6, 295 n9).

  22Rotblat gives the date of the dinner at the Chadwicks as March 1944: Rotblat (1985: 19).

  23Brown (2012: 54–5).

  24A few months later, the Chadwicks moved to Q Street – interview with Chadwick’s daughters, 9 November 2012.

  25Chadwick to Appleton, 21 March 1945, AB 1/615, NA; Szasz (1992: 62).

  26Szasz (1992: 22, 25); Peierls (1985: 200–1).

  27Churchill to Anderson, 28 January 1945, CAB 126/30, NA.

  28Oliphant to Akers, 21 January 1945, CAB 126/30, NA.

  29Oliphant to Akers, 8 February 1945, CAB 126/59, NA.

  30Gowing (1964: 330); Oliphant to Akers, 21 January 1945, CAB 126/30, NA.

  31Chadwick to Anderson, and ‘Future TA Policy and Programme’, 23 March 1945, CAB 126/59, NA.

  32Chadwick to Akers, 31 May 1945, CHAD IV 11/1.

  33Oliphant to Hill, 25 June 1945, AVHL I 3/67.

  34Birkenhead (1961: 295).

  35Peierls to Kitty Oppenheimer, 18 January 1972: Lee (ed.) (2009: 741).

  36‘People’s Faces Show of Death News’, Washington Post, 13 April 1945, p. 1.

  37Szasz (1992: 29).

  38Copy of message from Robert Patterson, dated 4 May 1945, in FRISCH A59.

  39Bernstein (1975: 38); http://www.dannen.com/decision/franck.html.

  40Stimson diary, 14 May 1945, STIMSON.

  41Bernstein (1975: 36–7).

  42Kevles (1995: 336).

  43‘Memorandum by Sir Henry Dale’, 20 June 1963, CKFT 25/25.

  44This account draws from: Szasz (1984: 79–114); Lamont (1965: 203–56); Monk (2012: 437–9); the Trinity Test, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/trinity/projtrinity.html; Chadwick, J. ‘The Atomic Bomb’, Liverpool Daily Post, 4 March 1946 (CHAD IV 9/3); Peierls (1985: 200–2).

  45See the account by Frisch, reproduced in Gowing (1964: 441–2).

  46Lamont (1965: 238).

  47Groves’s memorandum for Stimson, 18 July 1945, reproduced in Feis (1960: 165–71), see p. 166. Chadwick donation to the Natural History Museum: CHAD I 24/2.

  48Hughes (2002: 97); McMahon (2003: 6).

  49Hastings (2007: 489); Schwartz (ed.) (1998: 562).

  Churchill says yes to dropping the Bomb

  1Moran (1966: 280).

  2Gowing (1964: 362–75). For one of Anderson’s briefings, see ‘Notes on TA for “TERMINAL”’, 29 June 1945, PREM 3/139/8A, NA.

  3Bohr journal 6.02, activities from October 1943 to April 1945, p. 19, NBA.

  4Truman (1955: 415).

  5Ferrell (1998: 3–4, 151). See also Truman to his daughter, 3 March 1948: Truman (ed.) (1981: 106–7).

  6Truman (1955: 10–11).

  7Smith (1946: 286).

  8McCullough (1992: 64–5).

  9Franklin (2008: 52–3).

  10Gromyko (1989: 99–100).

  11Jenkins (2001: 783–5).

  12Haslam (2011: 50–2).

  13Moran (1966: 347).

  14Harris (1984: 241–3).

  15Churchill College Archives Guide ‘Cosmos Out of Chaos’ (2009: 32–3).

  16Churchill to Truman, 12 May 1945, CHAR 20/218, f. 109. H. G. Wells coined the phrase in his 1904 novel The Food of the Gods, in Book III, near the beginning of Chapter Four: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wells/hg/food/chapter11.html.

  17See the papers in CAB 120/691, NA, in the period May to June 1945.

  18WSC to Sir Orme Sargent, 10 June 1945, CAB 123/147, NA. Of the scientists scheduled to travel to Moscow, there was certainly a case for preventing the eminent crystallographer J. D. Bernal from making the trip, as he was a follower of Stalin and therefore a security risk (e-mail from Andrew Brown, 13 December 2012).

  19WSC to Commons, 14 June 1945, HNSRD.

  20See CAB 123/147, NA, and the Prime Minister’s papers PREM 3/139/7, NA. Woolton to Blackett, 18 June 1945, CAB 123/147, NA. Hill (1962: 301–2). See also BLACKETT G.91.

  21Jenkins (2001: 792).

  22McCullough (1992: 415).

  23CHBIO, Vol. 8, p. 61.

  24Hastings (2007: 506–7).

  25Gilbert (2005: 356–7).

  26The message is decoded somewhat differently, but with the same essential meaning, in Feis (1960: 164). I am usin
g the phrase quoted in Harvey Bundy’s ‘Remembered Words’, Atlantic, March 1957, Vol. 199, No. 3, pp. 56–7, see p. 57, and am assuming that this is the message that Stimson showed Churchill on the next day. Churchill recalled that the message was ‘Babies satisfactorily born’ (CHBIO, Vol. 8, p. 62), but it is unlikely that the plural was used.

  27Bernstein (1975: 41).

  28For a rare mention of Tube Alloys to Attlee by WSC, see CHBIO, Vol. 7, p. 482; Harris (1995: 277–8).

  29McCullough (1992: 416–20).

  30Truman (1955: 343).

  31Rhodes James (1986: 307–8). For Truman’s reaction: McCullough (1992: 423).

  32On Stalin’s fondness for Chopin: FRUS, Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, p. 1530.

  33This purpose emerges from Stalin’s encrypted correspondence with the Soviet embassy in Tokyo: Haslam (2011: 60).

  34STIMSON: diary entry for 19 July 1945.

  35STIMSON: diary entry for 22 July 1945.

  36This quote is from Stimson’s assistant Harvey Bundy, who accompanied Stimson to the meeting: ‘Remembered Words’, Atlantic, March 1957, Vol. 199, No. 3, pp. 56–7, see p. 57.

  37‘Vision of the Future Through the Eyes of Science’, News of the World, 31 October 1937.

  38Moran (1966: 280); WSC to Lindemann, 27 May 1944, PREM 3/139/11A, ff. 761–2, NA.

  39Wells, H. G., ‘Churchill Must Go’, Tribune, 15 December 1944; WSC’s bouquet reached Wells on 10 May 1945: Toye (2008: 151).

  40Alanbrooke (2002: 709).

  41Truman (1955: 416). In his account, written years after the incident, he writes that Stalin showed no special interest: ‘All he said was that he was glad to hear it and hoped we would “make good use of it against the Japanese”.’ This is contradicted by the first-hand account of Stalin’s reaction given by Pavlov, written soon after the event – this is the account used in the text.

  42Pavlova V. N., ‘Avtobiograficheskie zametki’, V. N. Pavlova – Perevodchika I. V. Stalina’ Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya, No. 4, July–August 2000, p. 110.

  43Haslam (2011: 62); Holloway (1994: 117); Feis (1966: 101–2).

  44Churchill (1954: 579–80); Truman (1955: 416); Gellately (2013: 162–5).

  45Goodman (2007: 82–3); Kojevnikov (2004: 136–8).

  46Haslam (2011: 62).

  47Chikov, V. (1997). Dos’e KGB no. 13676, Nelegaly, Vol. 1, Operatsiya ‘Enormous’, Moscow, pp. 17–19.

  48Haslam (2001: 17).

  49Kojevnikov (2004: 140).

  50Lota (2010: 656–66), see especially p. 658.

  51Stalin made this remark on 27 July 1945: FRUS, Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, p. 1531.

  52Zhukov (1971: 674–5).

  53Haslam (2001: 61).

  54Gromyko (1989: 109).

  55CHBIO, Vol. 8, pp. 106–7.

  56Churchill’s colleague William Mabane described him as ‘bewildered, hurt and rather stunned’: entry in Harold Nicolson’s diary, 14 August 1945, NIC. Randolph Churchill’s quoted words are in Harold Nicolson’s diary, 5 September 1945, NIC.

  57Chiang Kai-shek, the President of China, also signed the declaration, in absentia. http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/o/Potsdam_Declaration.htm. FRUS, Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, pp. 1474–6.

  58Truman (1955: 421).

  59WSC gave his agreement on 1 July 1945: documents in CAB 126/46, NA; Lindemann to WSC, 28 January 1953; ‘Events leading up to the use of the atomic bomb, 1945’, PREM 11/565, NA.

  60CHBIO, Vol. 8, pp. 111–12.

  61Colville (1985: 577).

  62Lindemann to WSC, 26 July 1945, PREM 3/139/9, f. 640, NA.

  63Draft of WSC announcement on the Bomb, 29 July 1945, PREM 3/139/9, NA. The text of the final speech was published in, for example, the Manchester Guardian, 7 August 1945, p. 5.

  Blackett: nuclear heretic

  1Blackett (1948: 127).

  2BBC’s 9 p.m. bulletin on 6 August 1945: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/august1945.shtml (3:03 into sequence).

  3E-mail from Blackett’s daughter Giovanna, 5 December 2011.

  4Blackett returned to Manchester in the summer of 1945: Nye (2004: 85).

  5Chadwick, J., ‘Comments on Mrs Gowing’s 2nd Volume’, CHAD IV 14/11, p. 3.

  6Orwell, G., ‘London Letter’, autumn 1945, in Orwell and Angus (eds) (1970: 452).

  7 Diary entry by Harold Nicolson, 7 August 1945, NIC.

  8Shaw, G. B., ‘The Atom Bomb’, Sunday Express, 12 August 1945. It was reprinted in, for example, the Washington Post, 19 August 1945. On 21 August, The Times in London published a letter from Shaw on the subject.

  9Report on the press conference, 12 August 1945, CHAD IV 3/13.

  10Smyth (1976: 199).

  11Reprinted in ‘Statements Relating to the Atomic Bomb’, Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 1945, pp. 472–90.

  12Gowing (1974a: 58–9).

  13Chadwick, J., ‘Comments on Mrs Gowing’s 2nd Volume’, CHAD IV 14/11, p. 3.

  14Attlee ‘The Atomic Bomb’, 28 August 1945, CAB 130/3 (in the GEN 75/1 papers), NA.

  15Attlee to Truman, 25 September 1945, reprinted in Gowing (1974a: 78–81).

  16Blackett to Polanyi, 3 November 1941, BLACKETT, J65.

  17Oliphant to Chadwick, 1 October 1945, CHAD I 25/1.

  18Speech to Parliament by Captain Blackburn, 30 October 1945, HNSRD; ‘Man-to-Man Talks on the Atomic Bomb’, Manchester Guardian, 31 October 1945, p. 6.

  19Rickett to Anderson, 29 October 1945, CAB 126/304, NA.

  20Briefing for Chancellor of the Exchequer, 25 October 1945, CAB 126/304, NA.

  21‘All Topics Open for Discussion’, Manchester Guardian, 1 November 1945, p. 5.

  22See Attlee’s comments on Blackett, ‘Atomic energy: an immediate policy for Great Britain’, 6 November 1945, PREM 8/115, NA.

  23Gowing (1974a: 87–92).

  24Orwell, G., ‘You and the Atomic Bomb’, Tribune, 19 October 1945: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/abombs.html.

  25Blackett’s notes for his reply to Oliphant’s letter of 22 January 1946, BLACKETT D.192.

  26WSC to Commons, 7 November 1945, HNSRD.

  27Minutes of the GEN 163 Committee on 8 January 1947, CAB 130/16, NA.

  28Cathcart (1994: 88).

  29Interview with Sir Maurice Wilkes, 24 March 2009.

  30Chadwick, J., ‘Comments on Mrs Gowing’s 2nd Volume, CHAD IV 14/11, p. 11.

  31‘Atomic Science’, Manchester Guardian, 18 May 1946, p. 6.

  32McMahon (2003: 21–8).

  33Interview with R. Gordon Erneson, 21 June 1989, Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/arneson.htm; Hennessy (1996: 101).

  34Stimson to Maitland-Wilson, 3 July 1945, PREM 3/139/9, f. 660, NA.

  35Hennessy (1996: 102).

  36Szasz (1992: 48–9).

  37Gowing (1974a: 114).

  38Gowing (1974a: 90).

  39Blackett (1946).

  40Blackett to Peierls, 22 October 1946, PEIERLS C.22.

  41Quoted in Peierls to Oppenheimer, 26 August 1946, reproduced in Lee (2009: 65–6).

  42Barnes to Attlee, 14 November 1946, PREM 8/684, NA.

  43See, for example, Mott to Blackett, 11 November 1946, BLACKETT D.175.

  44Gowing (1974a: 115); interview with Sir Maurice Wilkes, 24 March 2009.

  45Hennessy (1993: 267–9).

  46Blackett (1948: Chapter X).

  47Blackett to Tizard, 16 September 1948, BLACKETT H.37.

  48Exchange between George Jeger and the Minister of Defence, 12 May 1948, HNSRD; Cathcart (1994: 88–9); Gowing (1974a: 212–13).

  49Gowing (1974a: 241–72).

  50‘Moscow Hotly Protests Treaty’, Los Angeles Times, 1 April 1949, p. 1.

  51Information about ‘Consequences’ in BLACKETT A.10a.

  52Kirby and Rosenhead (2011: 4, 24).

  53Orwell to Celia Kirwan, list compiled c. April 1949, FO 1110/189, NA.

  54Peierls to Blackett, 15 November 1948, PEIERLS C.23.

  55Thomson
, G. P. to Blackett, 16 October 1948, BLACKETT H.37; Thomson, G. P., ‘Russia and the Bomb’, Spectator, 22 October 1948, p. 532.

  56Rabi, I. I., ‘Playing Down the Bomb’, Atlantic Monthly, April 1949, pp. 21–4.

  57There appears to have been only one brief exchange of correspondence between Lindemann and Blackett: about uncontroversial funding matters, in May 1946, BLACKETT D.197.

  58Interview with Peierls, 12 August 1969, pp. 99–100 of transcript.

  59BMFRS on Blackett, November 1974, pp. 35–6.

  60Lindemann to WSC, 13 March 1949, LIND E13/1.

  Churchill the Cold Warrior

  1Laurence and Peters (eds) (1996: 188).

  2CHBIO, Vol. 8, pp. 119, 125.

  3Moran (1966: 316).

  4Moran (1966: 328).

  5Moran (1966: 289).

  6WSC to Commons, 21 August 1945, HNSRD.

  7Desmond Morton to Sir David Petrie, 20 March 1941, and Petrie to Morton, 22 March, KV 2/3217 1941, NA.

  8WSC to Anderson, 23 August 1945, CHUR 2/3.

  9Anderson to WSC, 31 August 1945, CHUR 2/3.

  10WSC to Anderson, 7 September 1945, CHUR 2/3.

  11Morris to WSC, 23 March 1946 – WSC crossed out Blackett’s nomination, CHUR 2/302.

  12Gowing (1974a: 32).

  13Attlee to WSC, September 1945 (undated), CHUR 2/3.

  14WSC’S Fulton speech, 5 March 1946: http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Fulton.html; Reynolds (2004: 41–6); Jenkins (2001: 811–13).

  15Gilbert (2005: 373).

  16McCullough (1992: 486–90); Harris (1995: 298).

  17Interview with Stalin in Pravda, 14 March 1946: translation in CHBIO, Vol. 8, p. 211.

  18‘Most important speech’ – quoted in Reynolds (2004: 42).

  19WSC speech at University of Zurich, 19 September 1946, http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/astonish.html; ‘An Ill-timed Speech?’, 20 September 1946, Manchester Guardian, p. 5.

  20WSC to Attlee, 10 October 1946, CHUR 2/4.

  21Moran (1966: 315).

  22Blackburn (1959: 104–5).

  23The lunch took place on 30 July 1946. CHBIO, Vol. 8, p. 249.

  24CHBIO, Vol. 8, pp. 253–4.

  25Smith (ed.) (1998b: 531–2). Wells’s note is undated, but was probably written c. May 1946.

  26Conversation took place on 8 August 1946: Moran (1966: 315).

  27Pickersgill and Forster (eds) (1970: 112–13).

  28WSC speech in Parliament, 23 January 1948, HNSRD.