Section Two
An Unprecedented Alliance
An Unprecedented Alliance
President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the undertaking of researching, developing and producing an atomic bomb despite great uncertainties. His closest scientific advisors were Vannevar Bush, who directed the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and President of Harvard University Dr. James B. Conant, who served as director of the National Defense Research Committee. In June 1942, top government officials and FDR approved a plan to assign the Army Corps of Engineers the task of producing an atomic weapon before the end of the war. On August 13 the Chief of Engineers issued a general order establishing “a new engineer district, without territorial limits to be known as the Manhattan District… with headquarters at New York, New York, to supervise projects assigned to it by the Chief of Engineers.” Hard-charging Col. (quickly promoted to Brigadier General) Leslie R. Groves was put in charge of the Manhattan Engineer District or “MED” as the Manhattan Project was called on September 17.
Groves immediately began to recruit the leading industrial and construction firms. Union Carbide & Carbon, Tennessee Eastman, DuPont, Standard Oil, M.W. Kellogg, Chrysler, Monsanto, Stone & Webster, J.A. Jones and others were enlisted to design, build and operate the enormous first-of-a-kind production facilities.
Like many of the nation’s leading physicists, Richard Feynman joined the Manhattan Project out of fear that Hitler would develop an atomic bomb before the Allies could. At the University of Chicago, Arthur Holly Compton lured many American and foreign scientists who fled Nazi Europe to work at the “Metallurgical Laboratory” to conduct critical research for an atomic bomb. In an experiment there that confirmed the possibility of harnessing the energy of the atom, Enrico Fermi directed the world’s first controlled atomic reaction on December 2, 1942. Fermi’s success was critical to convincing skeptics such as Hans Bethe that the undertaking was feasible.
As the following selections reveal, the entire operation was riddled with uncertainties. James Conant conveys his dismay at the “rather fuzzy state of our thinking” regarding how to produce the key ingredients for the bomb. Yet as Feynman observes at Los Alamos, the scientists working to solve these problems were “very great men.” Seminars were organized to educate them about nuclear physics and to allow them to collaborate on problem-solving. However, Niels Bohr and other scientists were becoming increasingly concerned about the military’s dominant role in the project and the ultimate use and control of the weapon. These worries appear to be well founded as Churchill and Roosevelt agreed in an aide-mémoire to keep the atomic bomb a secret, rather than pursue international control, and to question Bohr’s trustworthiness.
The “rather fuzzy state of our thinking”
Dr. James B. Conant was one of the nation’s foremost scientists and president of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953. During the war, he served as the chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and played a critical role as a key scientific adviser overseeing the Manhattan Project. Conant felt great urgency to move quickly because of the threat of a Nazi atomic bomb but was frustrated by indecision and delays. The high-level S-1 committee to investigate development of an atomic bomb seemed overly cautious, and the newly created civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) under Dr. Vannevar Bush and the Army were slow to sort out responsibilities for the project. Despite the enormous costs involved, Conant endorsed pursuing four different methods of producing the atomic bomb’s core ingredients, just to make sure one worked.
From James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age
BY JAMES G. HERSHBERG
By 1942, Conant’s incentive for clamping down on any potential security lapse, whether by garrulous relatives or scientists lacking a “need to know,” had steeply risen due to his belief that only a Nazi A-bomb could alter the war’s outcome. Roosevelt, influenced by reports from Bush and Conant, shared that calculation. “I think the whole thing should be pushed not only in regard to development, but also with due regard to time,” FDR wrote Bush in March, authorizing the OSRD to hand over development work to the army “on condition that you yourself are certain that the War Department has made all adequate provision for absolute secrecy.” But the atomic project could not go to the War Department for construction until the OSRD determined which method should be used in the immense plants that would fabricate the few kilograms of highly radioactive mass making up the core of each new weapon. Conant still lacked a firm conception of the fastest route to success. Four contestants in the fissionable material “horse race”—the metaphor that quickly gained vogue—appeared worthy of serious consideration. Three (gaseous diffusion, electromagnetic separation, centrifuge) aimed to isolate quantities of U-235, and one to produce a new element, plutonium, known as element 94 after its predicted atomic number, that would be even more fissionable than the uranium isotope.
It was, effectively, up to Conant to place the government’s bet. Yet, no obvious favorite had emerged by the time he met with S-1 Section program chiefs on May 23, 1942. Intensive conferences yielded informal predictions—optimistic, it turned out—that six bombs might be ready by July 1944, and possibly as early as January 1, 1944. But since there was no consensus on the best method to meet that timetable, Conant faced two choices, neither especially palatable. He could call for an intensive “Napoleonic” program on all fronts, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Or he could place the project’s hopes on one method, which might or might not prove preferable to the others, and might result in no bomb at all if he chose wrong.
One factor complicating his decision, he admitted to Bush, was his awareness that unless he gave “a green light on everybody’s hopes and ambitions,” some “disheartened and discontented people” would “take the case to the court of public opinion, or at least the ‘top physicists’ of the country.” Such a public stink, of course, would be disastrous. But the main argument in favor of a crash, “all out” program remained fear of German competition. Since it now appeared to him that several of the alternate methods for devising a bomb were likely to work, “the probabilities of the Germans eventually getting such a weapon become very high.” As evidence to back this proposition Conant noted British intelligence information that the Germans had seized a ton of heavy water, needed for experiments leading to a self-sustaining chain reaction; reports as early as 1940 that German scientists were working on the problem; and, especially, “recent intercepted instructions to their agents in this country” showing interest in atomic weapons. Conant thus reasoned:
If they are hard at work, they cannot be far behind since they started in 1939 with the same initial facts as the British and ourselves. There are still plenty of competent scientists left in Germany. They may be ahead of us by as much as a year, but hardly more.
If the possession of the new weapon in sufficient quantities would be a determining factor in the war, then the question of who has it first is critical. Three months’ delay might be fatal. For example, the employment of a dozen bombs on England might be sufficient to enable an invasion to take place.
If, instead, the military judged that possession of “a dozen or two atomic bombs” would be “not in reality determining but only supplemental,” the need for haste and for “betting heavily” would be much less.
But Conant didn’t expect to get off the hook that easily and, not out of enthusiasm, but despair at the lack of consensus, he recommended continued work on all four processes. In his report to FDR, Bush “lifted verbatim” Conant’s views, having first carefully obtained the approval of [Vice President Henry] Wallace, [Henry] Stimson, and [General George C.] Marshall. On June 17, Roosevelt approved (“VB—OK—FDR”) this multiple approach, asking only one key question: “Do you have the money?” (Bush assured him that he did.) The project then entered one of its most frustrating periods, as a somewhat sluggish transfer of authority took place between the civilian OSRD and
the army’s Manhattan Engineering District. Conant yearned during the summer of 1942 for signs of a clear winning method so the army could begin the job of constructing the factories that would produce the core material.
Despite the shift to army control, he remained—due to S-1’s rigorously enforced policy of “compartmentalizing” information—the only scientist in a position to assess the atomic data flowing from various research centers and thus the project’s overall progress. Despite desperate pleas from his S-1 Executive Committee, and army incredulity over the resources that would be needed for across-the-board development, Conant stuck to his view that no production method should be abandoned unless it clearly became inferior to others.
As the date for making a final decision on construction neared, and the problems in coordination between OSRD and the army became more and more apparent, a new joint group was formed to oversee development of the entire project. On September 23, 1942, the Military Policy Committee—with Bush as chairman and a representative each from the army and navy (Conant was named Bush’s alternate and attended all meetings)—began to act as “a sort of board of directors” for the Manhattan District’s new commander: the gruff, husky, ambitious, bumptious Gen. Leslie R. Groves.
Traveling to different sites to consult with top scientists working on various methods, Conant and his S-1 Executive Committee in the fall of 1942 took stock of the situation. In late October, Conant told Bush that the centrifuge method had proved the “weakest horse” and could be dropped, although strangling the project proved long and bitter, since its supporters repeatedly attempted to raise it from the crypt. And Conant remained particularly dubious of Compton’s plutonium project at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. He still suspected the backers of this plan to produce plutonium—via a slow self-sustaining chain reaction in a uranium pile, or “boiler”—of being as interested in ascertaining the potential for nuclear power as they were in producing a bomb. He was also “boggled” by the complexities of planning a program around an element that had never been produced in visible quantities.
In November, Compton’s casual revelation that the prototype pile was being built under the stands of Stagg Field, the university’s football stadium, allegedly caused Conant’s face to turn white, but he thought it too late to stop the experiment for safety reasons. Then Conant received conflicting estimates of the amount of impurities that could be tolerated in element 94 (plutonium) without spoiling its usability as a weapon; this disturbing and “extremely embarrassing” report prompted him to order a review of the entire Chicago program. “Now is the time for faith,” implored the project’s leader, Arthur Compton, a devout Christian, in a special-delivery letter to Conant. But Conant did not think highly of such an appeal. “It isn’t faith we need now, Arthur,” he replied. “It’s works.” After seeing a pessimistic calculation from a British scientist, a “rather highly disturbed” Conant complained about the “present rather fuzzy state of our thinking” and forcefully reminded Compton of his duty to make honest estimates, even if they were discouraging. “I am sure you will agree with me,” he added, “that the record, which some day will be gone over with a fine tooth comb, is of importance, not because of its effect on any one of us, but because it will stand as to what American scientists can do under pressure. I should very much hate to have the record show that under the enthusiasm of the chase American scientists lost their critical acumen and failed to be realistic and hardboiled about the chance of success.”
“The stuff will… be more powerful than we… thought”
A letter from Dr. Vannevar Bush to FDR dated March 9, 1942, reports that work was “under way at full speed,” enlisting not only top British and American scientists but the resources of industry. He speculates that they may be engaged in “a race with the enemy” and includes an appendix with the companies and universities enlisted to contribute to the effort.
OFFICE FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
1530 P STREET NW.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Vannevar Bush
Director
March 9, 1942.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
On October 9, 1941, Mr. Wallace and I presented to you the status of research in this country and Great Britain on a possible powerful explosive.
In accordance with your instructions, I have since expedited this work in every way possible. I now attach a brief summary report of the status of the matter.
Considerations of general policy and of international relations have been limited for the present to a group consisting of Mr. Wallace, Secretary Stimson, General Marshall, Dr. Conant, and myself. Mr. Wallace has called a conference of this group, to which he invited also Mr. Harold D. Smith as the matter of funds was there considered.
The technical aspects are in the hands of a group of notable physicists, chemists, and engineers, as noted in the report. The corresponding British organization is also indicated. The work is under way at full speed.
Recent developments indicate, briefly, that the subject is more important than I believed when I last spoke to you about it. The stuff will apparently be more powerful than we then thought, the amount necessary appears to be less, the possibilities of actual production appear more certain. The way to full accomplishment is still exceedingly difficult, and the time schedule on this remains unchanged. We may be engaged in a race toward realization; but, if so, I have no indication of the status of the enemy program, and have taken no definite steps toward finding out.
The subject is rapidly approaching the pilot plant stage. I believe that, by next summer, the most promising methods can be selected, and production plants started. At that time I believe the whole matter should be turned over to the War Department.
You returned to me the previous reports, in order that I might hold them subject to your call. I shall be glad to guard this report also if you wish.
Respectfully yours,
V. Bush,
Director.
“You’ll never get a chain reaction going here”
On December 2, 1942, the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction took place in the squash courts under the football stands at the University of Chicago. This event confirmed predictions of nuclear fission and propelled the Manhattan Project forward. However, as Richard Rhodes relates, the politics of locating the work at Chicago instead of Columbia, Princeton, Berkeley, or elsewhere were as challenging as the physics.
From The Making of the Atomic Bomb
BY RICHARD RHODES
For the next six months, [Arthur] Compton estimated, the pile studies at Columbia, Princeton and Chicago would cost $590,000 for materials and $618,000 for salaries and support. “This figure seemed big to me,” he remembers modestly, “accustomed as I was to work on research that needed not more than a few thousand dollars per year.”
He had met with [George] Pegram and [Enrico] Fermi to prepare this part of his proposal and concluded that when metallic uranium became available the project should be concentrated at Columbia. Over Christmas and through the first weeks of January it fell to Herbert Anderson, the native son, to find a building in the New York City area large enough to house a full-scale chain-reacting pile. Not to be outdone in the matter of informal codes, the Columbia team had named that culmination “the egg-boiling experiment.” Anderson stumped the wintry boroughs and turned up seven likely locations for boiling uranium eggs. He proposed them to Szilard on January 21; they included a Polo Grounds structure, an aircraft hangar on Long Island that belonged to Curtiss-Wright and the hangar Goodyear used to house its blimps.
But as Compton reviewed the work of the several groups that had come under his authority, bringing their leaders together in Chicago three times during January, their disagreements and duplications made it obvious that all the developmental work on the chain
reaction and on plutonium chemistry should be combined at one location. Pegram offered Columbia. They considered Princeton and Berkeley and industrial laboratories in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Compton offered Chicago. No one wanted to move.
The third meeting of the new year, on Saturday, January 24, Compton conducted from his sickbed in one of the sparsely furnished spare bedrooms on the third floor of his large University Avenue house: he had the flu. Risking infection, Szilard attended, Ernest Lawrence, Luis Alvarez—Lawrence and Alvarez sitting together on the next bed—and several other men. “Each was arguing the merits of his own location,” Compton writes, “and every case was good. I presented the case for Chicago.” He had already won the support of his university’s administration. “We will turn the university inside out if necessary to help win this war,” its vice president had sworn. That was Compton’s first argument: he knew the management and had its support. Second, more scientists were available to staff the operation in the Midwest than on the coasts, where faculties and graduate schools had been “completely drained” for other war work. Third, Chicago was conveniently and centrally located for travel to other sites.
Which convinced no one. Szilard had forty tons of graphite on hand at Columbia and a going concern. The arguments continued. Compton, who was notoriously indecisive, suffered their brunt as long as he could bear it. “Finally, wearied to the point of exhaustion but needing to make a firm decision, I told them that Chicago would be [the project’s] location.”
Lawrence scoffed. “You’ll never get a chain reaction going here,” he baited his fellow laureate. “The whole tempo of the University of Chicago is too slow.”
“We’ll have the chain reaction going here by the end of the year,” Compton predicted.
The Manhattan Project Page 8