The Girls of Atomic City (54 page)

List of Project scientists from Groves, Rhodes, and Smyth. Difficulty of checking background on academic scientists and comments on Communism from Groves. Oppenheimer information from Groves and also
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).

Niels Bohr anecdote from
The Manhattan Project
, Kelly (previously cited). Information about David Greenglass, including code name, from memos dated September 21, 1944 and November 14, 1944, from VENONA program records of the US Army Signal Intelligence Service (now the National Security Agency) and from “The Atom Spy Case,” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and
The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case
, by Sam Roberts (New York: Random House, 2001).

9. The Unspoken: Sweethearts and Secrets

Jane’s stapler box message courtesy of author interviews and personal papers of Jane Puckett. Story regarding “ocean paint” from
Cooking Behind the Fence
(previously cited); urine story from author interviews; molasses story from “Citizens of Oak Ridge describe Life in the Secret City during World War II,” by Frank Munger,
Knoxville News Sentinel
, August 7, 2005,
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2005/aug/07/citizens-of-oak-ridge-describe-life-in-the-city/
, last accessed June 2012.

Information regarding Bill Pollock and the Pollock Wired Music System from “Bill Pollock . . . Music Man,” by June M. Boone, from
Voices
, and
61-11 & Olio
, by Charles R. Schmitt (Oak Ridge: C&D Desktop Publishing and Printing Company, 1995).

“Sleepy Time Gal”: music by Ange Lorenzo, Raymond B. Egan, words by Joseph R. Alden, Richard A. Whiting. Copyright EMI Music Publishing.

Vi and Stafford Warren story from Stafford Warren oral history and Viola Lockhart Warren papers (previously cited).

ACME Insurance Company information from author interviews. Story of clandestine coffee klatsch being busted from
Cooking Behind the Fence
(previously cited).

Dr. Clarke’s perspectives from “Report on Existing Psychiatric Facilities and Suggested Necessary Additions,” as cited in text (1944) from NARA Southeast, RG 326; “Psychiatric Problems at Oak Ridge,” by Eric Kent Clarke,
American Journal of Psychiatry,
Jan 1, 1946, vol. 102, p. 437–444.

Tubealloy: Combining Efforts in the New Year

Progress on Y-12 from Groves and Nichols.

Information regarding Truman not seeking nomination as vice presidential candidate from Senate Historical Office, US Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Henry Wallace was reportedly not a desirable vice presidential candidate in the eyes of a growing faction of the Democratic Party, who viewed him as having too many eccentricities and Russian connections, among them mystic and philosopher Nicholas Roerich, whom Wallace referred to in his letters as “guru.”

Idea to run the plants in tandem from Nichols, Groves, Jones, and DOE (all previously cited).

Mark Fox information from Nichols. Decision to build K-27, and Groves-Nichols New York City meeting from Nichols.

10. Curiosity and Silence

Information regarding psychiatric patient from author interviews, notably Rosemary Lane and Lois Mallet; also from “Psychiatric Problems at Oak Ridge,” Clarke (previously cited); “Psychiatry on a Shoestring,” by Eric Kent Clarke, ed. by Amy Wolfe, from
Voices
(previously cited); Oak Ridge Hospital memo from Carl A. Whitaker to Maj. Charles E. Rea, regarding conversion of apartment at 207 Tennessee Avenue and state of the patient, dated February 9, 1945; memo from Charles E. Rea to Col. Stafford L. Warren, chief, Medical Section, subject: “Care of Ensign Justin Hugh Allen,” regarding apartment conversion, nurse care, and ordering of shock therapy machine, dated February 8, 1945; all from Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration. Information regarding the “occasional homosexual gang” from “Psychiatric Problems at Oak Ridge,” Clarke (previously cited). Information regarding electroshock therapy from
Pushbutton Psychiatry: A Cultural History of Electroshock in America
, by Timothy W. Kneeland and Carol A. B. Warren (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2002); “A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries—Electroshock therapy introduced, 1938” (WGBH, 1998),
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dh38el.html
, last accessed June 2012; “Neuropsychiatry in World War II,” Office of Medical History, U. S. Army Medical Department,
http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/NeuropsychiatryinWWIIVolI/chapter10.htm
, last accessed June 2012.

K-25 start-up from Nichols, Groves, and Wilcox. Steam plant information from Robinson and Wilcox.

Tubealloy: The Project’s Crucial Spring

Status of Y-12, K-25, and S-50 production from Nichols, Groves, and Wilcox. Concept of cost and redundancy of plants and sites from Nichols. Cost of Y-12 from Wilcox. Electrocution shock at Y-12 story from author interview and from video interview of Agnes Houser (Y-12 National Security Complex, Oral History video).

Regarding courier travel and treatment: Stafford Warren oral history (previously cited). Courier health memo from Friedell: Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration. Memos regarding physiological hazards, tracer experiments, method of administration, from US Department of Energy, including “Physiological Hazards of Working with Plutonium”; “Memo to members of the advisory committee on human radiation experiments, Oct. 18, 1994”; also
Final Report Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
(New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

11. Innocence Lost

Information regarding Ebb Cade’s case from: ACHRE Report, Part II, Chapter 5: The Manhattan District Experiments. Department of Energy,
http://www.hss.doe.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap5;sf2.html
; Memorandum Report, Atomic Energy Commission, Jon D. Anderson, director, Division of Inspection, July 15, 1974; memorandum, “Shipping of Specimens,” from Hymer L. Friedell to commanding officer, Santa Fe Area, April 16, 1945, Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration;
Plutonium Files
(previously cited), “Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years: Oral History of Healthy Physicist Karl Z. Morgan, PhD.” Conducted January 7, 1995 (US Department of Energy, Office of Human Radiation Experiements, June 1995).

Morgan’s oral history regarding Cade is quite stunning. More here:

YUFFEE:
You knew that the injection was going to take place prior to it?

MORGAN:
No.

YUFFEE:
Do you know who performed the injections?

MORGAN:
No. Do you want me to tell you what I know about it?

CAPUTO:
Sure.

MORGAN:
Bob Stone—the associate director [for Health] under Compton—had his office next to mine at X-10. One morning, he came in all excited and upset. You will have to put this in context of the time and the location that we were in. We were in the South, and it’s no reflection on the African Americans, but they were called “[racial epithet].” I’m only telling you as I recall; my memory is far from perfect.

As I recall, he said, “Karl, you remember that [racial epithet] truck driver that had this accident sometime ago?” I said “Yes,” I knew about it. He said, “Well, he was rushed to the military hospital in Oak Ridge and he had multiple fractures. Almost all of his bones were broken, and we were surprised he was alive when he got to the hospital; we did not expect him to be alive the next morning. So this was an opportunity we’ve been waiting for. We gave him large doses by injection of plutonium -239.”

Of course, when you say “-239,” it has some [plutonium] -238 and -240 mixed in, but [it is] primarily -239. [For security reasons, the word “plutonium” was never used in 1943–44. Stone continued] “We were anticipating collecting not just the urine and feces but a number of tissues, such as the skeleton, the liver, and other organs of the body. But this morning, when the nurse went in his room, he was gone. We have no idea what happened, where he is, but we’ve lost the valuable data that we were expected to get.” I had not even heard of the experiment. I learned later that Stafford Warren and Hymer Friedell and the others apparently knew about the study, but my project was primarily with physics not with medical or biological studies. So this was the first I heard of the situation.

I heard nothing more about this till some years later. I happened to see a little notice in the Knoxville paper, the
News-Sentinel
, stating that this man, “a black man”—our society had evolved a little more at that time—had died someplace in eastern North Carolina, as I recall they must have given enough information that I could tie it in with the same fellow. Then I heard nothing about it till recently. Only recently, more recently in the past few weeks, I have heard the name of the fellow and more information about his family,
etc.

CAPUTO:
Who would have had the authority to provide the plutonium for the experiment?

MORGAN:
Who would have the authority? That’s a good question. In spite of our security, in some ways it was provided in a very ridiculous manner. I think I could have gotten all the plutonium that could be provided for anything I wanted to do, if it could be spared. Joe Hamilton got a dribbling amount to supplement his studies that he had done with plutonium -238, [which] he had gotten from the accelerator. I’m sure, confident, that if I’d put the request in, I could have gotten it. But, I suppose, all I would have had to do is walk in Martin Whittaker’s office and say, “Martin, we want to do this experiment. We need so many, two or three microcuries.” He would have provided it.

CAPUTO:
So Martin Whittaker decided, since there was such a little amount of plutonium [available at that time], what had priority—

MORGAN:
—In that period, it was very informal. We knew that we had to follow very stringent restrictions to prevent useful information from getting out. You have to keep in mind that during the first several months—this was in the early period [of the Manhattan Project]—health physicists, seniors [like me], were primarily physicists, and the doctors and surgeons were primarily doctors and surgeons, not people working with plutonium. So with all of us, we did the best we knew how, and I think we did a tremendously good job considering our background, and what we were trying to do, and what our major job was.

I don’t think it would be any problem in getting the plutonium. Probably—my guess would be that Hymer Friedell or Stafford [Warren] were brought intimately into the earlier stages of [this study]. I say that without any great knowledge, but only because I knew both parties quite well at the time and knew what their interests were and what one of their main goals was: to get information on the risks of plutonium [and uranium]. Was it as hazardous as radium or more hazardous, [was] the essential question.

Updated information on size and scope of Oak Ridge from Robinson,
City Behind a Fence.
Information regarding Spam and Edward R. Murrow at Christmas, 1944, from Hormel Foods Corporation. Flattop description and specs from Robinson,
City Behind a Fence
, and “Early Oak Ridge Housing” (ORHPA, no date given); American Museum of Science and Energy (Oak Ridge, TN) and “Original Flattop house on display at Oak Ridge museum,” by Amy McRary,
Knoxville News Sentinel
, March 22, 2009.

Information regarding
Sunday Punch
from author interviews, also “Sunday Punch finds a new home,”
Oak Ridger
, August 10, 2010; “Weekend warrior: B-25J bomber connected East Tennesseans,” by Fred Brown,
Knoxville News Sentinel
, March 21, 2010.

Tubealloy: Hope and the Haberdasher, April–May 1945

Secretary of war’s visit to Oak Ridge, including quotes, from Nichols and Groves. Groves learning of Roosevelt’s death, and subsequent briefings, from Groves. Henry Stimson letter to Harry S. Truman, April 24, 1945, and “moon and stars” references from the document collection at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, including Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, April 24, 1945; CF; Truman Papers, Truman Library. Information regarding Truman Committee from Nichols.

Russians march on Berlin from “The Battle for Berlin in World War Two,” by Tilman Remme, BBC, March 10, 2011. Information regarding Hitler’s death from “Official: KGB chief ordered Hitler’s remains destroyed,” by Maxim Tkachenko, CNN, December 11, 2009.

Interim Committee Notes and Reports of Informal and Formal meetings from May 9, May 14, and May 31: Notes of Meeting of the Interim Committee, 1945 (May 9, May 14, and May 31), Miscellaneous Historical Document Collection, Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Attendees to the first informal meeting of the Interim Committee were Secretary Henry Stimson (chairman), Hon. Ralph A. Bard, Dr. Vannevar Bush, Hon. James F. Byrnes, Hon. William L. Clayton, Dr. Karl T. Compton, Mr. George L. Harrison, and, by “invitation,” Mr. Harvey H. Bundy.