by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
270 “That is why”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 91.
271 “require a terrific technical effort”: Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, p. 103; Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 253.
271 “On the other hand”: See February 2002 release of Bohr letters by the Niels Bohr Institute, doc. 10. See the website of the Niels Bohr Archive: www.nba.nbi.dk; see also Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, and Powers, “What Bohr Remembered,” New York Review of Books, 3/28/2002.
271 “Bohr had the impression”: JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,” New York Review of Books, 12/17/64. See also Powers, Heisenberg’s War, pp. 120–28; Cassidy, Uncertainty; Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, pp. 102–4.
272 One glance, however, persuaded: Robert Serber, Peace and War, p. 86. The sketch was probably Bohr’s and depicted what Heisenberg had shown him. It has since disappeared.
272 “My God,” Bethe said: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 253.
272 “be a quite useless”: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 254; JRO to Groves, 1/1/44, MED RG 77E 5, box 64, 337.
272 “it is easy”: JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,” New York Review of Books, 12/17/64.
272 “Bohr at Los Alamos” and subsequent quotes: JRO to Groves, 1/17/44, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers; JRO, “Three Lectures on Niels Bohr and His Times: Part III, The Atomic Nucleus,” Pegram Lecture, August 1963, box 247, JRO Papers; JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,” New York Review of Books, 12/17/64.
272 “this bomb may”: Victor Weisskopf, interview by Sherwin, 4/21/82.
272 “it is already evident”: Bohr, “Confidential comments on the project of exploiting the latest discoveries in atomic physics for industry and warfare,” 4/2/44, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.
273 Finally, Bohr concluded: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 93–96; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 92. See also Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–1945.
273 “[He] knew Bohr”: Weisskopf, interview by Sherwin, 4/21/82.
274 “My God, suppose”: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 255.
274 “the implication was”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 117. Years later, Oppenheimer told friends that he wanted someday to write a play to explore the notion of what would have happened if Roosevelt had lived into the postwar period.
274 “Complementarity”: Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum, pp. 85, 88.
274 “Bohr was not satisfied”: Bernstein, Cranks, Quarks, and the Cosmos, p. 44.
274 join them in their “scientific work”: Peter Kapitza to Bohr, 10/28/43, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.
275 “to propose to the rulers”: David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 456 (diary entry of 2/3/49).
275 To Bohr’s thinking: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 106.
275 “It seemed to me”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 134; Robert Wilson, interview by Owen Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 5 (Sherwin Collection); Wilson, “Niels Bohr and the Young Scientists,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985, p. 25.
275 “there was never”: JRO hearing, p. 173.
275 “How did he [Bohr]”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 107–10. Bohr met with Churchill in mid-May 1944 and with Roosevelt on 8/26/44. The meeting with Churchill was brief and disappointing: “We did not even speak the same language,” Bohr later said. By contrast, Bohr came away from his meeting with Roosevelt with the impression that the president was strongly sympathetic to his views.
275 “was at times a thorn”: Groves to JRO, 12/7/64, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers.
276 “from leakage regarding”: Bohr, “Confidential comments on the project of exploiting the latest discoveries in atomic physics for industry and warfare,” 4/2/44, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.
276 “were committed to building”: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 257.
Chapter Twenty-one: “The Impact of the Gadget on Civilization”
277 “He was present”: Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” Social Studies of Science, August 2000, p. 573.
277 Hans Bethe recalled: Bethe, “Oppenheimer: Where He Was There Was Always Life and Excitement,” Science, 3/3/67, p. 1082.
277 “It [the rubber tube]”: McAllister Hull, interview by Charles Thorpe, 1/16/98, in Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 250.
278 hope “that the production”: Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, pp. 176, 182; Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939– 1946, p. 168.
278 Indeed, any such attempt: Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, p. 509.
279 “One could have separated”: Hoddeson, et al., Critical Assembly, p. 242.
279 “We have investigated”: Ibid., pp. 241–43.
280 “became terribly impatient”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 219.
280 “Oppenheimer lit into me”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 116.
280 “Parsons was furious”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 326; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 118.
280 “The kind of authority”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 263–64.
281 “Who were the German”: Rigden, Rabi, pp. 154–55.
281 “The only way”: Studs Terkel, The Good War, p. 510.
281 In a decision critical: George B. Kistiakowsky, “Reminiscences of Wartime Los Alamos,” Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 54; Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, p. 510.
282 “He was a leader”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 264.
282 “On the Construction”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 34.
282 “He was the first person”: Sir Rudolf Peierls, interviews by Sherwin, 6/6/79, p. 12, and 3/5/79.
282 “he could stand up”: Peierls, interview by Sherwin, 6/6/79, pp. 6, 10.
282 “I was not happy”: Teller, Memoirs, pp. 85, 176–77.
282 Every morning Teller: Serber, The Los Alamos Primer, p. xxxi.
283 “God protect us”: Teller, Memoirs, p. 222.
283 “Edward essentially went”: JRO to Groves, 5/1/44, MED, record group 77, box 201, Rudolf Peierls folder; see also Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 86, and Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 105. In his memoir, Teller has a slightly different account of why he walked out of this meeting, claiming that Oppenheimer had rudely ordered him to talk about a problem related to the Super that Teller felt he wasn’t ready to talk about (see Teller, Memoirs, p. 193). See also Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 255.
283 “a disaster to any organization”; “somewhat wild”: Serber, The Los Alamos Primer, p. xxx. Peierls, interview by Sherwin, 6/6/79, p. 14.
283 “It could have”: Peierls, interview by Sherwin, 3/5/79, p. 1.
283 “Dear Rab”: JRO to Rabi, 12/19/44, box 59, Rabi, JRO Papers; Rigden, Rabi, p. 168.
284 “I hope it has not”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 273–74.
284 “Only one man paused”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 173; Dyson, From Eros to Gaia, p. 256.
284 “You realize of course”: Rotblat, interview by Sherwin, 10/16/89. Stunned, Rotblat related the dinner-table conversation to one person, a fellow physicist, Martin Deutsch.
284 “Until then I had thought”: Rotblat, interview by Sherwin, 10/16/89, p. 16; Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, p. 101.
285 “anti-government agitation”: Ted Morgan, Reds, p. 278.
285 “among the two or three”: Robert Chadwell Williams, Klaus Fuchs, p. 32.
286 “If he was a spy”: Ibid., p. 76.
286 Oppenheimer heard that Hall: Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, pp. 62, 119.
286 “it seemed to me”: Ibid., p. 90.
286 His sole purpose:
Ted Hall, interview by Sherwin; Joan Hall, “A Memoir of Ted Hall,” posted at www.historyhappens.net.
286 “It used to be”: Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, pp. 86–87. Rotblat later turned against Oppenheimer. “Gradually things came to my knowledge,” Rotblat said. “I felt, this is not the way a hero of mine should behave. Gradually he became an antihero. For example, the fact that he agreed that the bomb should be used on the cities. He could have said no. And at the time, he was powerful enough that his voice might have prevailed.” Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 171.
287 “quite long discussions”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 135–36; Wilson told the same story to Owen Gingrich (Robert Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 6, Sherwin Collection).
287 “All right. So what?”: Robert Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 6; see also Robert Wilson, “Niels Bohr and the Young Scientists,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985, p. 25, and Robert Wilson, “The Conscience of a Physicist,” in Richard Lewis and Jane Wilson, eds., Alamogordo Plus Twenty-five Years, pp. 67–76.
287 “I can remember”: Robert Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 6. Wilson told Jon Else that he thought thirty to fifty people attended the meeting (The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 37).
287 “whether the country”: Louis Rosen, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/85, p. 1.
288 Oppenheimer argued: Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 70.
288 “caused us to think”: Weisskopf, interview by Sherwin, 4/21/82, p. 5.
288 “the thought of quitting”: Weisskopf, The Joy of Insight, pp. 145–47. Robert Wilson also describes this meeting in similar terms in a 1958 review of Robert Jungk’s book, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. But on this, the first occasion in which he told this story, Wilson wrote that the meeting occurred in 1944, not 1945. (Robert Wilson, “Robert Jungk’s Lively but Debatable History of the Scientists Who Made the Atomic Bomb,” Scientific American, December 1958, p. 146.) See also Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 61. Another Harvard-trained physicist, Roy Glauber, remembered the meeting Wilson organized to discuss the impact of the gadget (see Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, p. 87).
288 “You know, you’re the director”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 135–36.
288 When Oppenheimer took: Robert Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 7.
289 They had to forge: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 37.
289 “I thought that”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 136–37.
289 “My feeling about”: Ibid., p. 138.
Chapter Twenty-two: “Now We’re All Sons-of-Bitches”
290 “Sunday morning found”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 287.
290 “We have been living”: Ibid., p. 288.
290 “Roosevelt was a great”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 116.
291 The resulting firestorm: Mark Selden, “The Logic of Mass Destruction,” in Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, pp. 55–57.
291 “I remember”: Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision to Drop the Bomb, p. 36. The authors interviewed Oppenheimer. Some Americans did criticize the firebombings. See Commonweal, 6/22/45 and 8/24/45.
291 “We have been too late”: Emilio Segrè, A Mind Always in Motion, p. 200.
291 “our ‘demonstration’ ” and subsequent quotes: William Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows, pp. 261–62; Leo Szilard to JRO, 5/16/45, Szilard folder, box 70, JRO Papers.
292 “General Groves tells me” and subsequent quotes: Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows, pp. 266–67.
293 “a Frankenstein which”: Minutes of the Interim Committee mtg., 5/31/45, in Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 299–301 (appendices); also pp. 202–210.
295 “We might say that a great”: Ibid.
296 “feel free to tell their people”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 295–304 (Appendix L, Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, 5/31/45); Giovannitti and Freed, The Decision to Drop the Bomb, pp. 102–5.
297 “It may be very difficult”: Alice K. Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 25; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 211. “The Political Implications of Atomic Weapons,” (Frank report), pp. 323–32 (Appendix S).
297 “feeling that we can trust”: Giovannitti and Freed, The Decision to Drop the Bomb, p. 115.
298 “He should have”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 142; The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 20.
298 “in a large urban area”: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 229–30; Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 344. Thorpe cites Major J. A. Derry and Dr. N. F. Ramsey, memo for General L. R. Groves, “Summary of Target Committee Meetings on 10 and 11 May 1945,” also cited in Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, pp. 529–30.
298 “I thought even leaflet” and subsequent quotes: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 84, 252; Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 382–83.
299 “I set forth”: Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 50; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 143.
299 “There was not sufficient:” Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, p. 189.
300 “We didn’t know beans”: JRO hearing, p. 34.
300 “unconditional surrender”: After meeting with President Truman, Grew recorded in his diary on 5/28/45: “The greatest obstacle to unconditional surrender by the Japanese is their belief that this would entail the destruction or permanent removal of the Emperor.” Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era, vol. 2, 1952, pp. 1428–34; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 225; Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pp. 48, 66, 479, 537, 712, 753.
300 “They wanted to keep”: Allen Dulles, foreword to Per Jacobsson’s pamphlet “The Per Jacobsson Mediation,” Balse Centre for Economic and Financial Research, ser. C, no. 4, circa 1967, on file in Allen Dulles Papers, box 22, John J. McCloy 1945 folder, Princeton University.
300 “It is my opinion”: William D. Leahy diary, 6/18/45, William D. Leahy Papers, LOC, reprinted in Bird and Lifschultz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, p. 515.
300 “question of whether”: Walter Mills, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 70; “Extracts from Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House 18 June 1945,” in Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 355–63 (Appendix W).
301 According to McCloy: James V. Forrestal diary, 3/8/47, President’s Secretary’s files, HSTL, reprinted in Bird and Lifschultz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, p. 537.
301 “The delivery of a warning”: John J. McCloy diary, 7/16–17/45, DY box 1, folder 18, John J. McCloy Papers, Amherst College.
301 “the Japanese were ready”: “Ike on Ike,” Newsweek, 11/11/63, p. 107. Some historians question Eisenhower’s account. See Robert S. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 531–32; Barton J. Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (1995).
301 “telegram from Jap Emperor”: Harry S. Truman, Off the Record, ed. Robert H. Ferrell, p. 53; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 235.
301 “it was ever present”: James F. Byrnes, interview by Fred Freed for NBC television, circa 1964, transcript found in Herbert Feis Papers, box 79, LOC. At Potsdam on 7/29/45, Ambassador Joseph E. Davies noted in his diary, “Byrnes was disgusted with Molotov’s stubbornness, and said ‘The New Mexico situation’ (Atomic Bomb) had given us great power, and that in the last analysis, it would control” (Joseph E. Davies diary, 7/29/45, Chron file, box 19, Davies Papers, LOC).
301 “Believe Japs will fold”: Truman, Off the Record, ed. Ferrell, pp. 53–54.
301 “President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes] agreed Japs”: Walter Brown diary, 8/3/45, Special Collections, Robert Muldrow Cooper Library, CU, reprinted in Bird and Lifschultz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, p. 546.
301 Isolated in Los Alamos: For further evidence on the debate over the bomb in Washington in the summer of 1945, see the documents reprinted in Bird and Lifschul
tz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, pp. 501–50. For a different perspective on the question of whether the Japanese were attempting to surrender see Richard Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Random House, 1999); Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (Harper Collins, 2000); and Barton J. Bernstein, “The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu,” Pacific Historical Review, November 1999.
302 “the United States shall”: Bird and Lifschultz, eds., Hiroshima’s Shadow, pp. 553–54, 558.
302 Teller claims in his memoirs: Teller to Szilard, 7/2/45, Teller folder, box 71, JRO Papers; Teller, Memoirs, pp. 205–7.
303 He was convinced: Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 53, 63.
303 “since an opportunity” and subsequent quotes: Szilard to JRO, 5/16/45 and 7/10/45; Edward Creutz to Szilard, 7/13/45, Szilard folder, box 70, JRO Papers.
303 “The enclosed note”: Szilard Papers 21/235; NND-730039, NA 201 E Creutz; Groves diary, 7/17/45, NA, courtesy of William Lanouette. Both Szilard and Lapp confirmed in interviews that Oppenheimer decided that the petition “could not be circulated” (Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 55).
303 “There was tension”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, p. 129.
303 “incompleteness of our knowledge”: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 395.
303 “the planning of the use”: Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, p. 511.
304 Here the army staked: Peer de Silva, unpublished manuscript, p. 12; Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 652.
304 “Batter my heart”: JRO to Groves, 10/20/62, box 36, JRO Papers; Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 144, no. 2, June 2000, pp. 161–64; Szasz, The Day the Sun Rose Twice, p. 41; Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 397.
304 “I believe we were under”: JRO hearing, p. 31.
304 By the end of June: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 399–400; Morrison, “Blackett’s Analysis of the Issues,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1949, p. 40.
305 To Robert’s delight: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 7.