American Prometheus (121 page)

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.