American Prometheus (52 page)

Picking up on this cue, Stimson began discussing the prospects for “a policy of self-restraint.” He referred to the possibility that an international organization should be established to guarantee “complete scientific freedom.” Perhaps the bomb could be controlled in the postwar world by an “international control body” armed with the right of inspection. While the scientists in the room nodded their heads, a heretofore silent General Marshall suddenly cautioned against putting too much faith in the effectiveness of any inspection mechanism. Russia was obviously the “paramount concern.”

Marshall’s stature was such that not many men challenged his judgment. But Oppenheimer had an agenda—Bohr’s—and he now quietly and forcefully brought the revered general around to his point of view. Who knew, he admitted, what the Russians were doing in this field of atomic weapons? But he nevertheless “expressed the hope that the fraternity of interest among scientists would aid in the solution.” He pointed out that “Russia had always been friendly to science.” Perhaps, he suggested, we should open discussions with them in a tentative fashion, and explain what we had developed “without giving them any details of our productive effort.”

“We might say that a great national effort had been put into this project,” he said, “and express a hope for cooperation with them in this field.” Oppenheimer finished by saying that he “felt strongly that we should not prejudge the Russian attitude in this matter.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Oppenheimer’s statement now roused Marshall into a detailed defense of the Russians. Relations between Moscow and Washington had been marked, he said, by a long history of charges and countercharges. But “most of these allegations have proven unfounded.” On the question of the atomic bomb, Marshall said he was “certain that we need have no fear that the Russians, if they had knowledge of the project, would disclose this information to the Japanese.” Far from trying to keep the bomb secret from the Russians, Marshall “raised the question whether it might be desirable to invite two prominent Russian scientists to witness the test.”

Oppenheimer must have been pleased to hear such words coming from the country’s top military officer. And he must have been quickly disheartened to hear James Byrnes, Truman’s personal representative to the Interim Committee, protest vigorously that if such a thing happened, he feared Stalin would then ask to be brought into the atomic project. Between the lines of the dry and unemotional official record, a careful reader can discern a debate. Vannevar Bush pointed out that even the British “do not have any of our blueprints on plants,” and clearly, the Russians could be told a lot more about the project without giving them the engineering designs for the bomb. Indeed, Oppenheimer and all of the scientists in the room understood that such information could not remain secret for very long. Inevitably, the physics of the bomb was soon to be known to most physicists.

But Byrnes was already beginning to think of the bomb as an American diplomatic weapon. Running roughshod over Oppenheimer’s and Marshall’s arguments, the secretary of state–designate reinforced Lawrence by insisting that they had to “push ahead as fast as possible in [atomic] production and research to make certain that we stay ahead and at the same time make every effort to better our political relations with Russia.” The minutes record that Byrnes’ view was “generally agreed to by all present.” And yet Oppenheimer—and surely many others in the room—understood that they could not rush to “stay ahead” in atomic weapons without pushing the Russians into an arms race with the United States. This gaping contradiction was papered over by Arthur Compton, who stressed the importance of maintaining American superiority through “freedom of research” while also reaching a “cooperative understanding” with Russia. On this ambiguous conclusion, the committee adjourned at 1:15 p.m. for a one-hour lunch.

Over lunch, someone raised the question of the use of the bomb on Japan. No notes were taken, but when the formal meeting resumed, the discussion continued to focus on the effect of the impending bombing. Stimson, always alert to the political implications of any decision, altered the agenda to allow the discussion to carry on. Someone commented that one atomic bomb would have no more effect than some of the massive bomber strikes launched against Japanese cities that spring. Oppenheimer seemed to agree, but added that “the visual effect of an atomic bombing would be tremendous. It would be accompanied by a brilliant luminescence which would rise to a height of 10,000 to 20,000 feet. The neutron effect of the explosion would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile.”

“Various types of targets and the effects to be produced” were discussed, and then Secretary Stimson summarized what seemed to be a general agreement: “. . . that we could not give the Japanese any warning; that we could not concentrate on a civilian area; but that we should seek to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible.” Stimson said he agreed with James Conant’s suggestion “that the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.” Thus, with such delicate euphemisms, did the president of Harvard University select civilians as the target of the world’s first atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer voiced no disagreement with the choice of the defined target. Instead, he seems to have initiated a discussion of whether several such strikes could be mounted simultaneously. He thought multiple atomic bombing “would be feasible.” General Groves vetoed this idea, and then went on to complain that the program had been “plagued since its inception by the presence of certain scientists of doubtful discretion and uncertain loyalty.” Groves had in mind Leo Szilard, who he had just learned had attempted to see Truman in his effort to persuade the president not to use the bomb. After Groves’ comments, the minutes record that it was “agreed” that after the bomb was used, steps would be taken to sever these scientists from the program. Oppenheimer seems to have given his assent, if only silently, to this purge.

Last, someone—most likely, one of the scientists—asked what the scientists might tell their colleagues about the Interim Committee’s deliberations. It was agreed that the four scientists in attendance should “feel free to tell their people” that they had met with a committee chaired by the secretary of war and had been given “complete freedom to present their views on any phase of the subject.” On this note, the meeting was adjourned at 4:15 p.m.

Oppenheimer had played an ambiguous role in this critical discussion. He had vigorously advanced Bohr’s notion that the Russians should soon be briefed about the impending new weapon. He had even persuaded General Marshall, until Byrnes had effectively derailed the idea. On the other hand, he had evidently felt it prudent to remain silent as General Groves made clear his intention to dismiss dissident scientists like Szilard. Neither had Oppenheimer offered an alternative to, let alone criticism of, Conant’s euphemistic definition of the proposed “military” target—“a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.” Though he had clearly argued for some of Bohr’s ideas about openness, in the end he had won nothing and acquiesced to everything. The Soviets would not be adequately informed about the Manhattan Project, and the bomb would be used on a Japanese city without warning.

MEANWHILE, a group of scientists in Chicago, spurred on by Szilard, organized an informal committee on the social and political implications of the bomb. In early June 1945, several members of the committee produced a twelve-page document that came to be known as the Franck Report, after its chairman, the Nobelist James Franck. It concluded that a surprise atomic attack on Japan was inadvisable from any point of view: “It may be very difficult to persuade the world that a nation which was capable of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon as indiscriminate as the [German] rocket bomb and a million times more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire of having such weapons abolished by international agreement.” The signatories recommended a demonstration of the new weapon before representatives of the United Nations, perhaps in a desert site or on a barren island. Franck was dispatched with the Report to Washington, D.C., where he was informed, falsely, that Stimson was out of town. Truman never saw the Franck Report; it was seized by the Army and classified.

By contrast to the people in Chicago, the scientists in Los Alamos, working feverishly to test the plutonium implosion bomb model as soon as possible, had little time to think about how or whether their “gadget” should be used on Japan. But they also felt that they could rely on Oppenheimer. As the Met Lab biophysicist Eugene Rabinowitch, one of the seven signatories of the Franck Report, observed, the Los Alamos scientists shared a widespread “feeling that we can trust Oppenheimer to do the right thing.”

One day, Oppenheimer called Robert Wilson into his office and explained that he was a consultant to the Interim Committee that was advising Stimson on how the bomb should be used. He asked Wilson for his views. “He gave me some time to think about it. . . . And so I came back and said I felt that it should not be used, and that the Japanese should be alerted to it in some manner.” Wilson pointed out that in just a few weeks they would be conducting a test of the bomb. Why not invite the Japanese to send a delegation of observers to witness the test?

“Well,” Oppenheimer replied, “supposing it didn’t go off?”

“And I turned to him, coldly,” Wilson recalled, “and said, ‘Well, we could kill ’em all.’ ” Within seconds, Wilson—a pacifist—regretted having said “such a bloodthirsty thing.”

Wilson was flattered to have been asked, but disappointed that his views had not changed Oppie’s thinking. “He should have had no business talking to me about it in the first place,” Wilson said. “But he clearly wanted some advice from somebody and he liked me, and I was very fond of him.”

Oppenheimer also talked with Phil Morrison, his former student and, since his transfer from the Met Lab in Chicago, one of his closest friends in Los Alamos. Morrison remembers participating in a meeting of Groves’ Target Committee in the spring of 1945. Two such meetings took place in Oppenheimer’s office on May 10 and 11, and the official minutes record the participants’ agreement that the target for the bomb should be located “in a large urban area of more than three miles diameter.” They even discussed targeting the emperor’s palace in downtown Tokyo. Morrison, sitting in as a technical expert, remembers speaking up in favor of some kind of formal warning to the Japanese, if a demonstration seemed impractical: “I thought even leaflet warning would have been enough.” But when he suggested this, the notion of a warning was quickly dismissed by an unidentified Army officer. “If we give a warning they’ll follow us and shoot us down,” said the officer dismissively. “It’s very easy for you to say and it’s not easy for me to accept.” And Morrison got no support for his position from Oppenheimer.

“Essentially,” he recalled much later, “I was given rather a hard time. I was excluded from having any real comment. . . . I came away with the realization that we had little influence on what was going to happen.” Morrison’s recollection was confirmed by David Hawkins, who also was in the room. “Morrison represented the concerns of many of us,” Hawkins wrote. “He said that he proposed that a warning be sent to the Japanese . . . giving them a chance to evacuate. The officer sitting across from him—name not known, or remembered—spoke vehemently against the proposal, saying something like, ‘They’d send up everything they have against us, and I’d be in that plane.’ ”

IN MID-JUNE, Oppenheimer convened a meeting in Los Alamos of the Scientific Panel—himself, Lawrence, Arthur Compton and Enrico Fermi— to discuss their final recommendations to the Interim Committee. The four scientists had a freewheeling discussion about the Franck Report, which Compton summarized for them. Of special interest was its call for a non-lethal, but dramatic, demonstration of the power of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was ambivalent: “I set forth my anxieties and the arguments . . . against dropping [the bomb] . . . but I did not endorse them,” he later reported.

On June 16, 1945, Oppenheimer signed a short memorandum summarizing the Scientific Panel’s recommendations “on the immediate use of nuclear weapons.” Addressed to Secretary Stimson, it was a diffident document. The panel members recommended, first, that prior to the use of the bomb, Washington should inform Britain, Russia, France and China of the existence of atomic weapons and “welcome suggestions as to how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.” Secondly, the panel reported that there was no unanimity among their scientific colleagues on the initial use of these weapons. Some of the men who were building them proposed a demonstration of the “gadget” as an alternative. “Those who advocate a purely technical demonstration would wish to outlaw the use of atomic weapons, and have feared that if we use the weapons now our position in future negotiations will be prejudiced.” Although Oppenheimer surely sensed that most of his colleagues at Los Alamos and at Chicago’s Met Lab favored such a demonstration, he now weighed in on the side of those who “emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use. . . .”

Why? Oddly enough, his reasoning was essentially as Bohrian as that of the men who favored a demonstration. He had become convinced that the military use of the bomb in this war might eliminate all wars. Oppenheimer explained that some of his colleagues actually believed that the use of the bomb in this war might “improve the international prospects, in that they are more concerned with the prevention of war than with the elimination of this specific weapon. We find ourselves closer to these latter views; we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

Having offered such a clear, unambiguous endorsement of “military use,” the panel could come to no conclusion as to how to define “military use.” As Compton later informed Groves, “There was not sufficient agreement among the members of the panel to unite upon a statement as to how or under what conditions such use was to be made.” Oppenheimer ended his memo with a curious disclaimer: “[I]t is clear that we, as scientific men, have no proprietary rights . . . no claim to special competence in solving the political, social, and military problems which are presented by the advent of atomic power.” It was an odd conclusion—and one that Oppenheimer would soon abandon.