The Berlin Project

by Gregory Benford

  Atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of this development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.

  In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.

  — Leo Szilard and 58 cosigners

  Karl knew from rumors that as the war continued, Szilard had become increasingly dismayed that scientists were losing control over their research to the military. He had clashed many times with Groves, who had ordered his secretaries not to let Szilard in to see him, ever.

  Urey whispered, “Good lord, Wigner signed!” A frown, twist of mouth. “I thought he was sensible. . . .”

  Szilard stood against the blackboard as though he was addressing a large audience. “I’ll say this: almost without exception, all the creative physicists have misgivings about the use of the bomb. I would not say the same about the chemists. The biologists felt very much as the physicists did.”

  “Use of the gadget is above our pay grade,” Karl said.

  “We must warn Roosevelt that the use of the bomb against cities will start an atomic-arms race with Russia.”

  “Not our job, Leo,” Urey said mildly.

  Szilard shook his head. “Suppose Germany had developed two bombs first. They dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo. Then, having run out of bombs, she loses the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have hanged them?”

  Urey flinched at this. “You think we’re immoral?”

  Szilard nodded. “We must use a moral calculus. Some think our possessing the bomb will render the Russians more manageable in Europe. I fail to see how sitting on a stockpile of bombs, which in the circumstances we could not possibly use, would have this effect. I think it even conceivable that it will have just the opposite effect.”

  Urey shook his head, clearly still getting used to the idea of himself as a war criminal. “Look, I agree about bombing civilians. It’s reprehensible. Everybody’s doing it now. But do you think the mere threat of this weapon will make Hitler stand down?”

  Szilard stood stiffly erect in his three-piece suit. “I think, just detonate one in view of them, to frighten into surrender.”

  “We’ve only got one,” Karl said. “Let’s hope it works right.”

  “Only one?”

  “Then another in three months.”

  “This bomb could kill a hundred thousand Berliners, say, perhaps more,” Szilard said.

  “Twice that number die every week, around the world,” Karl said, keeping his tone steady and even, his eyes intent.

  Szilard blinked, pursed his mouth. “Then you will not sign?”

  “No,” Karl and Urey said together.

  “Then I will not trouble you further. I hope you, and we, do not regret your opinion.” He sniffed, as if disbelieving their reception to his petition.

  When he was gone, Urey and Karl looked at each other. Both shrugged; both then gave a rueful chuckle. But Urey kept frowning.

  PART VI

  * * *

  SCIENTISTS ON TAP

  A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

  —Sir Winston Churchill

  1.

  April 3, 1944

  “See what you think of that.” Groves tossed a file across his desk. Karl snagged it before it slid off.

  The cover said Franck Report, TOP SECRET, with many chapters and subsections he had no time to read:

  I. Preamble

  II. Prospectives of a Postwar Armaments Race

  III. Prospectives of Agreement on a Ban

  A line from it caught his eye: “From this point of view a demonstration of the new weapon may best be made before the eyes of representatives of all United Nations, on the desert or a barren island.”

  IV. Methods of International Control

  V. Summary

  Karl read aloud, “To sum up, we urge that the use of nuclear bombs in this war be considered as a problem of long-range national policy rather than military expediency, and that this policy be directed primarily to the achievement of an agreement permitting an effective international control of the means of nuclear warfare.”

  Karl looked up, mouth tight. “Szilard is behind this.”

  “Sure.” Groves leaned back in his chair. “He’s on the committee that wrote that. This guy Franck is director of the Chemistry Division over in Jersey. Focused”—he read from a memo—“primarily on characterization of more than two hundred fifty radioactive isotopes that are created by the fission of uranium and the development of a process for chemical isolation of plutonium.’ Um. Has a Nobel, too.”

  Karl had wondered why Groves was so focused on Nobel Prizes. Did he think he might win one? For developing a weapon? Not the Peace Prize, at least—though bringing peace early seemed to Karl a quite rational goal. He doubted the Swedes would see it that way; they were sitting out this war, making a handsome profit by selling goods and weapons to both sides.

  “Szilard’s been circulating his petition,” Groves said. “I ignored it. This new report’s just part of the story. So I wrote to Frederick Lindemann—that’s Lord Cherwell—who’s Winston Churchill’s science adviser. Asked about Szilard. I found out he knew of Szilard’s ideas on nuclear chain reactions long before the discovery of fission. He was head of Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory, so he was Szilard’s employer from 1935 to 1938.”

  “So he’d back him up?” Karl asked to speed this along.

  “My intel people told me about a meeting Szilard requested with Lindemann when he visited Washington, DC, in 1943. I figured, if Szilard had mentioned secret information to Lindemann during this meeting, I could charge Szilard with violating the Espionage Act.

  “Here’s Lindemann’s reply, and his attached account of the meeting.”

  Another folder slid across to Karl.

  SECRET

  TOP SECRET

  PAYMASTER GENERAL

  GREAT GEORGE STREET,

  S.W.1

  CONVERSATION WITH DR. SZILARD, MAY 1943, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  When I spoke to Szilard in Washington in 1943, he was, so far as I can remember, mainly concerned with a topic which has inflamed so many scientists’ minds, namely what sort of arrangements could be made to prevent an arms race with all the disastrous consequences to which this would lead. I do not recall that he offered any solution, although when we had discussed the same matter in Oxford before the war he had advocated some agreement between scientists not to lend themselves to any application of nuclear chain reactions to lethal purposes.

  My impression is that his security was good to the point of brusqueness. He did, I believe, complain that compartmentalism was carried to undue lengths in America, but on the other hand, when I asked him about some point—I forget what—deriving from our work in Oxford, he replied that he was not at liberty to discuss it as he had passed into the employment of the American Government. We did not, so far as I can recollect, have any further conversation on technical processes, but he kept on harking back to his general anxiety about the future of the world.

  Cherwell

  Karl said, “I heard that Churchill said once, ‘Scientists should be on tap, not on top.’ ”

  Groves laughed. “Good one! Quite right, too. You agree?”

  “Pretty much. The politicians get paid to make the big calls, not us.”

  “They only think they make the big calls. In war, it’s us.” Grove
s pointed to himself.

  “What are you going to do about Szilard?”

  “I polled the Oak Ridge and ‘tube alloy’ scientists—had ’em fill out a little form, check boxes. Only fifteen percent wanted the bomb used ‘in the most effective military manner.’ That’s a quote—I said it to them that way. About forty-six percent voted for a military demonstration, to be followed by a new opportunity for surrender before full use of the weapon.”

  Karl blinked. “That’s more than I’d have guessed.”

  “Me too. They’re all pretty left-wing, I gather.”

  Karl shook his head. “I don’t see anything left- or right-wing about this. The point is, end the war. Avoid this landing in France everybody’s talking about.”

  “You think we could avoid the invasion?” Groves gave him a skeptical turn of mouth.

  “If we try, yes. Use the bomb first.”

  “What’s our U-235 production rate now?”

  “In a few more months, more spinners, we’ll be making enough for a new bomb every three or four months.”

  Groves slammed a fist onto his desk. “Damn good!”

  “What’ll you do about Szilard?” Karl repeated.

  “After this letter?” He grimaced. “Wish Lord Cherwell had given me some ammo to use against him! I’m gonna sit on Szilard’s petition, this damned report—and my poll—until we get into action. No reason to bother the president.”

  Karl got up to leave with a sigh of relief. Physics was easier than people.

  • • •

  Marthe said, smiling, “You are nearing success?”

  Karl nodded. This was as far as Marthe ever went in discussing his work. She knew it was top secret and had worked out from small clues more or less what was up. She never tried to coax more from him. Yet when he came home after a long day of endless detail, he needed to talk. “I think we will know soon.”

  “This . . . does not involve you then, anymore?”

  “You mean, can I get a professorship somewhere, after the war? Or even before that?”

  She waved a hand. “Would perhaps be easier . . .”

  The children were playing quietly together on the rug, and in the after-dinner calm Karl savored the idea of a life not concentrated on killing people. Just research, no real deadlines, orderly lectures, grad students to do the dull stuff . . .

  “This last part coming up may be the hardest,” he said obliquely.

  “Involving you? But then it is a military matter only, oui?”

  “It’s more like a scientific experiment. Nobody’s done this before. We want to learn as much from it as possible.”

  “But you are not military!”

  “I don’t think that’s a firm distinction anymore.” To erase the frown that deepened in her startled face, he leaned over and kissed her.

  • • •

  Harold Urey sat back and put his feet up on his desk, his favorite position for thinking. “Um. Not surprised to hear that Groves wants to block Szilard. He’s always disliked the man. They could barely stand to be in the same room together. Tried to have Szilard held as an enemy alien in 1942, suspecting him of leaking secrets.”

  “Really?” Karl kept having these surprises.

  Urey shrugged. “I dissuaded him. I suspect the Szilard petitions and dissent over the bomb’s use carry the taste of revenge on Groves.”

  “Is that why Szilard burrowed into the reactor work with Fermi, rather than working on bomb design?”

  Urey grinned. “Yep! Kept him out of my hair too.”

  “Groves said he felt that dissent alone meant nobody should pay attention to Szilard’s views—even though he started it all, with the Einstein letter.”

  Urey nodded. “Once you start a boulder rolling downhill, pointless to run out front, try to stop it.”

  • • •

  Karl felt tensions rising as they got closer to having a bomb. The saint of quantum mechanics was just down the hall, so he went to see Niels Bohr, whom he had not seen much in the constant travel and commotion of the project. Bohr’s office was right by the SUBSTITUTE ALLOYS MANUFACTURING sign in the basement, the dodge name used after the Uranium Committee one.

  Karl’s main purpose was to ask about the bomb design, to see if Bohr had any new insights. The critical mass of U-235 seemed to imply that the available output from Oak Ridge was barely enough. Bohr was interested, somewhat bemused at how his field had exploded into what he called “a King Kong of science projects.” When Karl asked about Heisenberg’s giving Bohr a sketch years before, apparently showing a crude reactor, Bohr just shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  Karl was amazed to find over Bohr’s desk a horseshoe nailed to the wall, with the open end up. When he asked about it, Bohr said, “Old European folktale. It is in the approved manner, to catch the good luck and not let it spill out.”

  Karl laughed. “Surely you don’t believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you?”

  Bohr chuckled. “I believe no such thing. Not at all. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.”

  Karl got right into it, detailing the varying estimates of the needed critical mass. “You think we’ll have good luck, going with the minimum mass?”

  “I would hedge a bit. Perhaps another five or ten kilograms.”

  “So you don’t think our calculations are that good?”

  “Perhaps. Truth and clarity are complementary. Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. Or calculate.”

  “We’ve only got the one shot.”

  A sunny smile. “If it is a fizzle, at least it will contaminate the target quite a bit.”

  Karl frowned. “You heard about that story in the magazine? Radioactive dust as a weapon.”

  “Yes, heard. It will not be as stunning, but will still disturb.”

  “I hope the Germans didn’t get the idea. The rocket guy, von Braun, he gets the magazine. If he told them, maybe the Germans will use their stock of uranium that way, even if they can’t get a bomb built.”

  “Yes, odd, isn’t it?” Bohr pursed his lips and glanced at the horseshoe. “In the land of ideas, you are always renting.”

  • • •

  Szilard, ever the intellectual bumblebee, had Einstein write another letter to FDR, urging a meeting with Szilard. No response. Karl guessed that Groves had put the kibosh on that, but said nothing. Szilard tried to talk to the State Department, which had better things to do. Further, he discounted with a wave of the hand the fears that the Germans were still ahead of the Allies on building a bomb.

  Discussing this with Urey, Karl said, “I hear the army thinks that Congress will inevitably inquire why a billion dollars were spent on a weapon that killed none of our enemies.” Urey nodded vigorously.

  All this boiled around the edges of the rush to get a bomb assembled.

  Before a critical meeting, Groves took Karl aside. “Look, I’ve started organizing a bigger effort at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer thinks a plutonium bomb may be more effective. Once we get a lot of reactors going, we can breed lots of plutonium.”

  Karl frowned. “How much plutonium does Los Alamos have now?”

  “Uh, none. But it’ll come.”

  “We’re nearly ready to drop ours. We can have another one in three to four months. Game’s over.”

  “I’m thinking longer term here. We can make maybe four bombs a year—that’s pretty slow.”

  Karl bit his lip. One or two might do it. He wanted to blurt out a laugh at Groves’s thinking but realized the man was under pressure from all quarters. “Let’s stay focused. Meeting’s starting.”

  The agenda was:

  A. Height of Detonation

  B. Report on Weather and Operations; following airplanes

  C. Gadget Jettisoning and Landing if needed

  D. Status of Targets

  E. Psychological Factors in Target Selection

  F. Use Against Military Objectives

&nb
sp; G. Radiological Effects

  H. Coordinated Air Operations

  I. Rehearsals

  J. Operating Requirements for Safety of Airplanes

  There was a thick sheaf of reports for everyone at the table. Karl was no longer the youngest guy in the room. Luis Alvarez from Berkeley was about Karl’s age and had a boyish manner common to physicists that stood out from the somber advisers. Alvarez reported on a flight he had built the detectors for, that flew over Germany. It looked for xenon 133, a waste signature of a nuclear reactor that could be seen clearly. But there was none. Groves frowned at this and moved on to the bomb problems.

  The tech guys and then Groves had spoken for some time when Karl raised his hand. “What’s the target?”

  “We’re charged with making a list. The president and Churchill and the Combined Chiefs will make the final choice together.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Berlin.”

  “That’s for a higher—”

  “Cut the head off the dragon.”

  Groves frowned. The lines in his face were deeper now, Karl saw under the harsh spotlight-style lights in their bleached white meeting room. “Look, we have to synchronize with the invasion of France. Hitting a tactical target might give us the biggest leverage.”

  “Kill Hitler and his gang, that’ll end this war.”

  “Karl, we have to go by procedure.”

  “There’s no precedent, so there can’t be some procedure.”

  “So we should consider targets first.” Groves smiled. “I like that.”

  Nods all around. Karl saw pure, delighted ambition spread on Groves’s joyful face. He was a brigadier general, but there were slots above, too. He could bring to the table the physicists’ expertise, estimates, probabilities, all about a superweapon that had never been used. He might get a bigger place at that table.

  2.

  Karl took refuge from the press of work with his family. He delighted in simply going for Sunday walks, when the city opened itself to the bright promise of spring. Flowers sprang forth with sweet aromas and bright flourishes of color. Birds sang salutes to the spring day and cooed songs to one another as the sun fell. His daughters danced in the park, their tinkling laughter bringing smiles from the faces of strangers passing. Marthe walked with him and the children arm in arm, as though their family was a military brigade. Perhaps, in a way, it was, as a defense against the war itself.