Scandal in the Secret City (7 page)

B
efore leaving work on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I went up to the Calutron to look it over while it was in operation and to plan my course of action for the next morning. As I walked around the circumference, observing the moving parts, I heard a belligerent voice that seemed to be directed at me.

‘Hey, what’re you doing up here, miss? You’re no Calutron girl.’

I turned around and faced a middle-aged, balding man with a bulbous nose and downturned mouth. I read his badge and said, ‘I’m authorized to be here, Mr DeVries.’ Then, I turned away from him and back to the Calutron.

‘Don’t turn your back on me, missy. Let me see the clearance code on your badge or I’ll call security.’

I really wanted to ignore him and his rude request but thought better of it. If he did call security it might cause a lengthy delay in my work.

He looked hard and long at my identification as if he were interpreting a coded message and said, ‘OK. OK. You have a right to be here but that doesn’t mean you have a right to monkey with the equipment. Hey, wait a minute – Elizabeth Clark? Aren’t you that girl scientist rooming with the Nance girl from over in Lynchburg?’

‘You know Ruth?’

‘Nah, never met her. But I know her sister Irene.’

‘How nice for you,’ I said. ‘Can I get back to work now?’

‘Don’t get all high hat with me, missy. You might be a scientist but you’re still a girl and I’m responsible for the functioning of the machinery.’

I stepped close enough to him to poke a finger in his chest. ‘If you don’t scram right away and let me do my work in peace, I will call security.’ I spun away from him and acted engrossed while I listened for noises of his departure. For a minute, all I heard was the sound of his breathing. Then, I heard his feet shuffling away as he mumbled, ‘You dames are all alike.’

I was out of bed before dawn on Thanksgiving morning, dressing as quietly as I could, trying not to disturb Ruth’s sleep. She’d gone to bed in a blue mood the night before. Poor thing had never been away from home on Thanksgiving and like most of the Calutron girls, a trip home wasn’t possible because of the time to travel and the gas needed for the journey. She’d be having dinner in the cafeteria with her sister.

I hadn’t found the contamination source yet but I had a number of analytes to process. If all went well, I could accomplish that over the weekend. This morning, I’d use my physics background more than my knowledge of chemistry to try to find something suspicious.

The quiet within the Calutron building was spooky. The huge machinery cast tall shadows in the dim lighting and the absence of employees made it feel like a ghost town. I needed to look inside so I disassembled a portion of the exterior housing of the massive machine. Every little clink of a tool against metal echoed throughout the building adding to the eeriness of the atmosphere. I compared what I found inside the machinery to the engineering specifications.

Nothing seemed amiss – every nook and cranny of the equipment appeared to be in compliance with the diagrams. Still, there was a problem, which possibly meant a flaw in the design itself. I pulled out a silver wire wound electromagnet, turning it around to view its construction from every angle. I was about to reinstall it when a question popped into my mind: would more space between the wire eliminate the shorting? I didn’t have much of an engineering background – certainly not enough to know how to test that theory. I had studied electricity in the context of chemistry and physics, though, and that knowledge indicated that the electricity would naturally arc and cause a short when the coiling was wound too tight.

Was that the solution to the problem? If so, could it be repaired on site? Or did the whole machine need to be rebuilt? And how much time would we lose? Enough to fall behind in the race with Germany to build a new bomb? Asking that question of anyone, even Charlie, could send me packing in a heartbeat. I strongly suspected that was the goal of this work. No one had told me that I was involved in the production of a bomb but the logic of deductive reasoning does not lie. There was no other possibility. Would this new bomb fall on Germany? Or would the Allies drop it on the escalating conflict in the Pacific? Would it end the war? Was any single weapon capable of stopping the conflict in its tracks?

I looked up at the clock on the wall and realized I was running out of time. I quickly took samples of pieces of ore, a couple of vials of oil for testing and swabbed the electromagnets, interior walls, anything that seemed to be a possible source of contamination. I secured all the samples in the lab and hurried out of the building. The war would have to wait for tomorrow. This afternoon, I’d feast at the Bishop home. My mouth watered, my stomach rejoiced as I hurried out of Y-12 to the dormitory to dress for dinner.

S
eated around the Bishop family Thanksgiving table, I wanted to share my theories with Dr Bishop, but I didn’t dare speak about any of the problems happening at Y-12. He knew all about the issues they faced but after learning I’d been in the facility that morning, he quickly changed the subject.

Working with the scientists and managers at Y-12, Ann knew from the stressful atmosphere and whispered consultations that something was wrong, but she had no idea of what it was. Mrs Bishop was totally in the dark – she knew next to nothing about her husband’s work. She was aware that he worked in a laboratory contributing to the war effort and brought home a pay check. Beyond that she didn’t seem to have the slightest interest in learning more. To me, it was incomprehensible that anyone could be that deficient in curiosity. Did marriage kill that quality in women?

There was no doubt, though, that Mrs Bishop could work miracles. How she managed to come up with all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in the midst of strict rationing, I could not imagine. I enjoyed every bite even though she interrogated me throughout the meal.

‘Whatever made you go off to college, Libby? Did some young man break your heart?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am, it just seemed to be a wise plan for my future to further my education.’

‘There are those who say a few years at college can make you a better mother but I’ve done just fine without it, haven’t I, Ann?’

Ann rolled her eyes and said, ‘Yes, Mom, you’ve been a good mother.’

‘But you’re such a cute little thing, Libby. It’s hard to believe that you’re a scientist like my husband, Marc.’

‘I’m not exactly a scientist like him, ma’am,’ I said with a smile. ‘He earned a doctorate; I only have a master’s degree.’

Dr Bishop said, ‘Don’t say “only”, Libby. It’s an amazing accomplishment for a woman, especially considering you also had a double major in physics and chemistry in your undergraduate studies. That’s not something I accomplished.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, feeling a bit self-conscious.

Turning to his wife he continued, ‘And Libby is the only woman scientist in all of Y-12, Mildred.’

‘That must be very lonely for you,’ Mrs Bishop said. ‘Then again, it does introduce you to a lot of potential husbands.’

‘I do work with a lot of single men,’ I agreed; it felt rude to argue with her while devouring the wonderful food she prepared.

‘You’ll have to introduce some of the nicer ones to Ann – she’s not had much luck picking out good ones so far.’

‘Mother!’ Ann moaned.

I assumed that she was objecting to a criticism in her dating history. Mrs Bishop, however, had a different interpretation. She said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t expect Libby to introduce you to anyone she had an interest in, Ann.’ She turned to me and said, ‘I certainly wouldn’t want Ann to steal away someone you were sweet on, Libby. So, is there someone special who’s caught your eye?’

‘No one in particular, Mrs Bishop, but credit me with some common sense. If there were, I wouldn’t introduce him to Ann. Your daughter is too pretty by far.’

‘Both of you girls are pretty enough to be picky. Don’t say “yes” to the first man who proposes. If you choose a fickle man, he’ll break your heart for the rest of your life.’ Turning to her husband, she added, ‘Isn’t that true, dear?’

‘Of course,’ he said without looking up from his plate.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Bishop, there are plenty of little fishies swimming in our sea,’ I said.

‘Oh, I just love that little fishes song, don’t you?’ Mrs Bishop said, then broke into song, ‘“And they swam and they swam right over the dam.” Let it be a reminder to you that your mother knows best and there are sharks out there just waiting for girls like you, Ann.’

I jumped at the opportunity to help Ann carry the dinner plates into the kitchen – a short reprieve from Mrs Bishop’s questioning was a relief. ‘I am so impressed with your mother for getting together everything for this wonderful meal,’ I said.

‘Don’t be. I think she would have left Oak Ridge if she couldn’t have pulled this off. It meant far more to her than it should. But why haven’t you said anything outrageous?’

‘Outrageous?’ What did Ann want from me? An explosion of Y-12 secrets at the dinner table?

‘You know, how you feel about marriage and babies and men. I was hoping you’d shock her speechless, making her choke on a mouthful of potatoes. And here you are acting polite.’

‘This is the best meal I’ve had in six months, Ann. I want your mother to ask me to return for another.’

Ann sighed. ‘I guess that means I’m going to have to wrangle more dinner invitations for you, get you to the point where it’s not a big treat. When it doesn’t mean so much you can then tell my mother some of the things you’ve told me; she’ll never be the same.’

‘But I like her just the way she is,’ I protested.

‘That’s only because she’s not your mother.’

As I worked in the lab the next three days, worried that all the testing would be futile – maybe I’d never find the source of the contamination. Then, on Sunday, I ran the oil that lubricated the Calutron. The lines on the graph made it clear – all of the impurities found were in that product. We needed a higher quality, purer lubricant – much higher, much purer – to solve the problem. That should be easy to fix.

Monday morning, I showed Charlie Morton the test results and told him about my theory regarding the wrapping of the electromagnets. He responded with head nods and non-committal verbal responses. I didn’t think he was making any attempt to process the information I provided before he changed the subject.

‘What did you say to Mr DeVries?’

‘DeVries, the engineer?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you certainly got him angry. He spoke to his department head, who came to me about his complaint. DeVries said you were uppity.’

‘Ah, applesauce! I simply defended my authorization to be in the Calutron area when he tried to stop me. I suppose he thought I should scurry off. But I stood my ground so that I could do my job.’

‘You shouldn’t jump on your high horse so quickly, Libby. A lot of men are unwilling to accept the existence of professional women or even working women – unless they’re nurses or teachers. Try batting your eyelids instead of being difficult. It’ll make it easier to get what you want.’

I was furious but I did not trust myself to respond. It was so frustrating when men like Charlie, who did respect women’s intelligence and ability, still thought we should bow and scrape to those males who regarded us as inferiors. Why couldn’t men like Charlie understand that professional women would never get universal acceptance and respect by playing those little schoolgirl games?

To make matters worse, his unresponsiveness must have meant that he found fault with my conclusions. If he thought they were credible, I doubted that he would have diverted our discussion. I pondered and reexamined my thinking but could not think of anything that didn’t fit the situation at hand. I even ran the analysis in the oil again but found no flaw in the original results.

In early December, without warning, the racetrack shut down completely. And, of course, no explanation was forthcoming. Suddenly, there were a lot of workers and no work. Managers scrambled to keep them busy with motion picture showings, games, lectures, classes. I attended a couple of lectures but spent most of my time gathering more samples from the Calutron, running tests on them and contemplating theoretical matters. Still I could find no flaws in my conclusions. I needed to ask Charlie to show me where and how I was wrong. Days passed, though, without an opportunity to corner him away from others.

On the morning of December 15, the buzz of voices in the building reached such an intense volume, I was pretty sure I could have heard it even if the noisy racetrack had been running. Charlie poked his head out of the door to our laboratory, ducked back and said, ‘I knew it. He’s here.’

‘Who’s here?’ I asked.

‘G.G.’

‘Who?’

‘General Leslie Groves. I knew he’d come about the racetrack problem.’

I peered around Charlie to look down the hall. It was easy to pick General Groves out of the crowd. Everyone milled around him. He cut an imposing figure in his star-bedecked khaki uniform. A bristly mustache over straight, grim lips, a prominent nose and firm chin like a general from central casting.

As the group approached the analytical chemistry lab, I backed up and returned to work at my station.

In a moment, General Groves’ frame filled the doorway. ‘Morton,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Charlie responded.

‘Which one is that brilliant young scientist with all those brilliant theories?’

That sounded a lot like sarcasm to my ears. I swallowed hard. Please don’t let it be my theories. But Charlie pointed back to me, making me want to disappear. ‘There she is, sir. Elizabeth Clark.’

‘A woman?’ Groves said. ‘Interesting. Miss Clark, would you please step out here. I don’t think we all can fit in your laboratory without damaging equipment.’

I followed orders, hating every moment of what was ahead. Today, I would lose my job. Public humiliation, then dismissal. Why couldn’t Charlie have let me go quietly? Why did he want to shame me, too?

‘Where did you go to school?’ the general asked.

‘Bryn Mawr, for my undergraduate work, and the University of Pennsylvania for my master’s degree, sir.’

‘Did you major in chemistry?’

‘Chemistry and physics, sir.’

‘And your postgraduate work?’

‘Analytic Chemistry, sir.’

‘That explains your ability a little better. Now, tell me: what are your theories about our production problem here.’

‘Sir, I wouldn’t dare to—’

‘Yes, you would because I told you to do so. Speak.’

‘Because of the impurities in the end product, I was concerned that it might be possible – at least theoretically – that the oil that cools the machinery was adding impurities during the processing.’

I looked back in the direction of the lab, hoping to find an escape hatch but instead saw that the doorway was filled with faces of the other scientists. I looked down the hall beyond the pack around the general and there I saw a tall, thin man with an intense, but otherwise ordinary face, nodding his head. Something about him looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. I could only hope he wasn’t too important, I was already praying that the earth would swallow me up whole where I stood.

‘Colonel Mickels,’ the general said turning to a man standing immediately behind him. ‘Can you tell us all what our experts found when they checked out Miss Clark’s theory?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Mickels said. ‘They found dirt particles, copper contaminants, rust and miscellaneous debris.’

Groves turned to Morton. ‘When did Miss Clark tell you about this theory, Morton?’

‘The Monday after Thanksgiving, sir.’

‘Oppie, when did the so-called experts figure this out?’

‘Three days ago, G.G.,’ the familiar-looking man said as he flashed a soft, barely perceptible smile in my direction.

Oppie? Was that Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant theoretical physicist, smiling at me? I’d read every paper of his I could find. Dazzled by the possibility that I was in the presence of Oppenheimer, I barely heard what the general was saying at first.

‘You were right, Miss Clark. If the experts had taken your work more seriously, we could have saved two lost weeks. Now, what was your other theory?’

Startled by his question, I pulled my focus back into the conversation. ‘I think it’s possible that the wires have been wound too tightly.’

‘Mickels, what exactly did I say to you when that question was asked yesterday?’

‘Sir, you said, “The damned bands are too close together. Who in blazes is responsible for that?”’

‘Now, where do you live, Miss Clark?’ Groves said.

Why does he care? I wondered. ‘In one of the dormitories, sir.’

‘Is your roommate a scientist?’

‘No, sir, she’s a Calutron girl.’

‘Does she ask you questions about your work?’

‘No, sir. Ruth Nance respects the boundaries of my required secrecy.’

‘What about the other girls on your floor, in the building, do they ask questions?’

‘All the time, sir.’

‘And what do you tell them?’

‘That I’m sorry but I cannot answer their questions.’

‘Does that make them angry?’

‘Sometimes, sir.’

Groves spun around and looked at the gaggle of suits and uniforms gathered around him. ‘Does that make sense to anyone here?’

No one said a word. ‘Fine. I want her in individual housing before Christmas.’

‘Sir,’ one of the community administrators, spoke up, ‘that is against policy. Single individuals do not get their own homes.’

‘Do you think I don’t have the authority to override policy?’

‘No, sir, but—’

‘You’ve got a whole mess of those little flattops going up. Put her in one of them immediately.’ Turning to me, he said, ‘Come with me, Miss Clark,’ as he headed up the stairs to the racetrack.

I fell in with the massive entourage. Feeling totally out of place, I loitered on the edge while Groves fired off questions and growled his dissatisfaction. Some people in the crowd glared at me. I tried to become as invisible as possible.

When Groves turned away from the equipment, he placed a hand on my shoulder. I hoped he couldn’t feel me trembling. ‘I want to thank you. And I want you to let me know personally if your housing situation is not remedied immediately.’ He took off down the stairs. I was excited but I was also confused.

Did he really mean it? Would I actually have my own home? I’d miss Ruth but a moment of privacy at the end of the day sounded like heaven. No feet pounding overhead. No more communal bathrooms. Somewhere that I could brush my teeth without waiting in line at the sink? Where I wouldn’t need to struggle to concentrate over the noise of babbling voices? Would they follow the general’s orders? Or would the civilian management company figure they could ignore a military command?