Pandora's Keepers (8 page)

Fermi had spent his first months in America adjusting to his adopted country. He strove to master the plainsong of American
speech and the nuances of American culture—all with a sunny disposition and modest manner. He made a deal with his students:
if they corrected his English and taught him Americanisms, he would teach them physics. He and his wife, Laura, bought a house
in Leonia, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Columbia University. Working at night, they dug a hole in the basement,
where they buried his remaining Nobel Prize money as a precaution against the chance that it might be taken away from them
as enemy aliens in the event of a war.

On March seventeenth Fermi took the train to Washington and called on Admiral Stanford Hooper, technical assistant to the
chief of naval operations, at the Navy Department building on the Mall near the White House. “There’s a WOP outside,” said
a lieutenant loud enough for Fermi to hear, rudely foreshadowing the puzzled indifference of the admiral he was about to see.
Fermi affected nonchalance, but inside he was fuming. When Fermi was let in to see Hooper, he handed the admiral a letter
of introduction from Pegram that described the physicists’ discoveries and their implications:

Experiments in the physics laboratories at Columbia University reveal that conditions may be found under which the chemical
element uranium may be able to liberate its large excess of atomic energy, and that this might mean the possibility that uranium
might be used as an explosive that would liberate a million times as much energy per pound as any known explosive. My own
feeling is that the probabilities are against this, but my colleagues and I think that the bare possibility should not be
disregarded.
¹²

Hooper gathered a group of officers and navy civilian scientists. For the next hour Fermi outlined the military potential
of fission in his halting English with a thick Italian accent. His audience listened politely as they tried to follow along.
Few if any knew what a neutron was, and little came of the meeting. When it was over, Admiral Hooper merely asked to be kept
informed. No sooner had Fermi left than a navy scientist who had attended the briefing called another and asked him, “Who
is this Fermi? Is he a Fascist or what?”
¹³
Such was the outcome of the first contact between physicists and the government on the possibility of an atomic bomb.

Fermi rendezvoused with Szilard and Teller in Washington that weekend. The navy’s indifference to the dangers and opportunities
of fission frustrated and infuriated them. “If we brought a bomb to them all ready made on a silver platter,” said Fermi bitterly,
“there would still be a 50/50 chance that they would mess it up.”
¹⁴
They were apprehensive. They had inside knowledge of German science, and much respect for it, even though many of Germany’s
best physicists had been driven away. There was still enough scientific talent in Germany, they felt, to solve the problem
of a fission bomb. German physicists had read the scientific literature about fission and a chain reaction, as they had. Heisenberg
had mentioned his interest in uranium on a recent tour of American universities. While some, like Bohr, found the idea of
an atomic bomb scarcely credible because of the isotope-separation problem, Szilard, Teller, and Fermi had little doubt that
such a bomb could be made. And if such a bomb
could
be made, they reasoned, then one
would
be made. The prospect of such a weapon in Hitler’s hands meant nothing short of doom.

Their experience with the Navy Department led them to conclude that ideas presented at a low level of the governmental bureaucracy
were likely to go nowhere, but those inserted at the top stood a much better chance of producing results. The White House
was more likely to be open to new ideas than would unimaginative bureaucrats.
¹⁵
Roosevelt had to be warned, but how? What could
they
do? They were well known in physics circles, but nothing more than registered aliens in American society at large. As newcomers
to the United States, they lacked the political connections necessary to press their claims effectively in the corridors of
power.

Then Szilard thought of his teacher and friend Albert Einstein. A letter from a scientist of Einstein’s stature might make
the president sit up and take notice. Szilard contacted Einstein and explained the situation. An avowed pacifist, Einstein
agonized at the thought of setting in motion a program to build an atomic bomb, so antithetical to his instincts. Einstein
struggled with his conscience for some time before finally concluding that bitter necessity required the United States to
pursue a bomb—the Nazis must not get it first. Finally, in late July Einstein agreed to sound the alarm on Szilard’s behalf.
It was unusual for a scientist of Einstein’s stature to take such a step. “The one thing most scientists are really afraid
of is to make a fool of themselves,” Szilard said later, reflecting on Einstein’s decision. “Einstein was free from such a
fear and this above all is what made his position unique on this occasion.”
¹⁶

On August second Szilard set out for Einstein’s summer retreat on Long Island with a letter he had drafted for Einstein’s
signature. Szilard had never learned to drive, so he enlisted Teller, who was teaching physics at Columbia that summer, to
take him out there. It was already hot and humid when Teller picked up Szilard outside the King’s Crown Hotel early in the
morning and drove out to Long Island. “I entered history as Szilard’s chauffeur,” Teller later said.
¹⁷

Szilard and Teller knew Einstein’s general whereabouts, but not his specific address. Once they reached the north shore of
Long Island, they began asking directions to the home of the famous Professor Einstein, but no one could help. Finally they
asked a little girl with long braids who said she had never heard of Professor Einstein, but she knew where a nice old man
with long white hair lived.

Szilard and Teller reached Einstein’s cottage on Peconic Bay in the late afternoon. They found the great man with a massive
forehead and an aureole of white hair dressed in an old robe and slippers sitting in the living room, empty except for a few
garden chairs and a small table, pondering physics. A picture window looked out on to Long Island Sound, but the shutters
were half closed to keep out the heat. Looking like an old-fashioned Swiss watchmaker in a small town who collected butterflies
on Sundays, Einstein served his guests iced tea with heavily muscled arms and drank some himself while he reviewed the letter
Szilard had drafted for him. His large bulging chocolate eyes followed the text carefully. In it, the physicist who had risked
his life during World War I for his outspoken pacifist beliefs said that an atomic bomb might be possible and that the United
States should speed up experiments regarding a uranium chain reaction. Szilard and Teller watched silently as Einstein hunched
over the dining-room table and signed the letter:

Old Grove Road

Nassau Point

Peconic, Long Island

August 2, 1939

F. D. Roosevelt

President of the United States

White House

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the
element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation
which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe,
therefore, that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable—through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and
Szilard in America—that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast
amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this
could be achieved in the immediate future.

This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely
powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port,
might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well
prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.

The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former
Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is the Belgian Congo.

In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration
and the group of physicists working on chain reaction in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust
with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise
the following:

1. a) to approach Government departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for
   Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States;
   
2. b) to speed up the experimental work which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of university laboratories,
   by providing funds if such be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for
   this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the cooperation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
   

I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over.
That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary
of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium
is now being repeated.

Yours very truly,
Albert Einstein
¹⁸

After Szilard returned to New York, he began to think about how to get Einstein’s letter to the president. Through a friend,
Gustav Stolper, an economist and former member of the German Reichstag who was now a refugee living in New York, Szilard made
contact with Alexander Sachs—a Russian émigré, science buff, financier, and well-connected New Dealer with access to the White
House. Sachs was an ideal go-between. He understood the concept of fission and the seriousness of what Szilard told him. Sachs
agreed to get the letter to Roosevelt.

Events delayed Sachs’s meeting with the president. On August twenty-third Hitler and Stalin, ideological enemies but totalitarian
twins, signed a cynical “nonaggression” pact that stunned the world and prepared to carve up Poland between them. On September
first German tanks crashed into Poland, facing little more than horse cavalry as opposition. The years of threat and bluster
and tension were over. World War II had begun. A Polish refugee in America who heard the news on the radio captured the feelings
of a whole generation when he said, “I suddenly felt as if a curtain had fallen on my past life, cutting it off from my future.
There has been a different color and meaning to everything ever since.”
¹⁹

By early October, Szilard had almost given up on Sachs. To Einstein he wrote: “There is a distinct possibility that Sachs
will be of no use to us. If this is the case, we must put the matter in someone else’s hands. I have decided to accord Sachs
ten days’ grace.”
²⁰
On October eleventh Sachs finally got his appointment with the president, more than two months after Einstein had signed
Szilard’s letter and six weeks after the war had begun. Reminding FDR that Napoleon had missed the greatest technological
marvel of his day when he rejected Robert Fulton’s offer to build a fleet of steamships, Sachs tendered Einstein’s letter
and proceeded to explain the military potential of fission. Einstein had, of course, closed his appeal to the president with
a warning that Germany had stopped the sale of uranium from mines in Nazi-controlled Czechoslovakia, one of the world’s few
sources of the metal, a sure tip-off that Hitler was already at work on an atomic bomb. FDR quickly grasped the point. “Alex,”
he said, “what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up.” The president called in General Edwin “Pa” Watson,
his personal aide, and told him, “This requires action.”
²¹

At Roosevelt’s request, Watson directed the creation of an Advisory Committee on Uranium to explore the feasibility of an
American atomic bomb program and report its findings to the president. Lyman Briggs, the director of the National Bureau of
Standards, was appointed the committee’s chairman. Although Briggs was a physicist, his interests and experience were not
in nuclear physics. Moreover, he was conservative by nature, accustomed to operating—as most bureaucrats do—in a slow, cautious,
and methodical manner. For Briggs, fission’s possibilities had to be soberly measured against opportunities in other fields.
²²

The Uranium Committee met for the first time on October 21, 1939—ten long months after the discovery of fission in Germany.
Sachs saw to it that Szilard and Teller were invited to the meeting. Fermi was also invited, but he refused to attend; his
experience with Admiral Hooper and the navy made him unenthusiastic about another meeting with government bureaucrats. Fermi
did, however, authorize Teller to speak on his behalf.

Szilard opened the meeting by emphasizing the possibility of creating a chain reaction in a uranium-graphite “pile” (or nuclear
reactor). He explained to the committee that each time a uranium nucleus split apart, it released tremendous energy. But fission
would not occur if one had to keep firing neutrons from an external source at the uranium atoms to break them up. If, on the
other hand, the uranium atom released neutrons as it split, then these neutrons could go on and break up other nuclei. The
neutrons from these disintegrations would trigger more, producing a chain of fissions. But neutrons had a less than 1 percent
chance of fissioning a nucleus of natural uranium—thus no chance for a chain reaction. Neutrons needed to be slowed down.
Slow neutrons had a more than 50 percent chance of fissioning a uranium nucleus—thus producing a chain reaction. The best
way to slow neutrons was to use a “moderator,” which absorbed neutrons. The best moderator was graphite, whose carbon molecules
absorbed about 10 percent of neutrons.