The Age of Radiance (74 page)

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Authors: Craig Nelson

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“As long as Prof Meitner was”
: Meitner Collection.

“They are obliged to try”
;
“Ah, so you’re the little lady”; “was Germany’s anointed postwar scientific icon”
: Rife.

“nonsense from the first word”
;
“After the last 15 years which”; “perhaps one cannot be such”; “It is a difficult problem”
: Sime.

“That is indeed the misfortune”
: Office of Strategic Services: Correspondence; January 5–July 31, 1945; Moe Berg Papers, box 6; Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

“a bitter, disappointed woman”
: Hahn.

“Bohr at Los Alamos was marvelous”
: Rhodes, “I Am Become Death.”

“It is already evident that”
: Bird and Sherman.

“Atomic weapons have similar complementary”
: Baggott.

“The implication was that Roosevelt”
: Conant,
109 East Palace.

“The war taught us much”
: V. I. Lenin,
Polnoe sobrainie sochinenii,
vol. 26, 5th ed. (Moscow, 1958–65).

“worked harder than anyone else”
;
“It seemed to us that if”; “that it was necessary to promote”; “Where that influence came from”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“Many of us looked with deep”
: Conant,
109 East Palace.

7. The First Cry of a Newborn World

“We spent several days finding”
: Bird and Sherman.

“In May, one hundred tons”
: Kelly.

“Comparison with TNT”
:
Oppenheimer Papers,
H. A. Bethe folder.

“Oppenheimer was really terribly worried”
;
“All the senior scientists who”
: “Dan Hornig.”

“I started dreaming Kistiakowsky had”
;
“I was told that [Oppie] came”
: Calloway.

“on whether or not the bomb”
;
“Now we’re all sons of bitches”
: Conant,
109 East Palace
.

“I think I’m the first”
;
“The theoretical people had calculated”
: Calloway.

“At the instant of the explosion”
;
“At about thirty seconds, the general”; “After a few seconds the rising”; “The column looked rather like”
: “Trinity.”

“The enormity of the light”
;
“Well, there must be something”
: Conant,
109 East Palace
.

“The whole country was lighted by”
: “Primary Resources.”

“I could see that crack”
;
“Then an amazing thing”
: Calloway.

“We’ve done it”
: Bernstein.

“It was like being at the”
: Jones.

“When one first looked up”
: Bird and Sherman.

“Apparently no one had told”
: Kelly.

“A tremendous cloud of smoke”
: “Trinity.”

“Practically everybody at the Trinity”
: Kelly.

“The big boom came about”
: Alice Smith, “A Peril and a Hope,”
New York Times
, September 26, 1945.

“My grandmother shoved me”
;
“We saw this huge, huge light”; “I went out there”
: Calloway.

“About one hour after the explosion”
: Rhodes,
Atomic Bomb.

“Feynman got his bongo drums”
: Conant,
109 East Palace
.

“One man I remember, Bob Wilson”
: Feynman.

8. My God, What Have We Done?

“flabbergasted by the assumption”
: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson,
The New World, 1939/1946
(Washington: US Atomic Energy Commission, 1972).

“general demeanor and his desire”
: James Byrnes,
All in Our Lifetime
(New York: Harper, 1958).

“If we were to offer to”
;
“to push ahead as fast as”; “The most desirable target”
: Bird and Sherman.

“steps should be taken to sever”
: Baggott.

“I was one of those”
: Dwight D. Eisenhower,
The White House Years, Mandate for Change, 1953–1956
(New York: Doubleday, 1963).

“Even if the Japs are savages”
: Truman’s diary, Harry S. Truman Library,
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/fulltext.php?fulltextid=15
.

“You’ve got to kill people”
: Larrabee.

“I heard the huzzle-huzzle”
: George Martin, “Black Snow and Leaping Tigers,”
Harper’s,
February 1946.

“scorched, boiled, and baked to death”
: Larrabee.

“I was a little fearful that”
: Calloway.

“LeMay said if we’d lost”
: Morris.

“The people from Trinity had”
;
“As we came in from”; “The bomb blast hit us”
: Loader, Rafferty, and Rafferty.

“There is a moment of calm”
: Langewiesche.

“My God, what have we done?”
;
“We heard the strange noise”
: Hersey.

“I found that there was”
;
“A woman who looked like”
: Matsumoto.

“Hundreds upon hundreds of the”
;
“I found people who, when”
: Burchett.

“What regrets I have about”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“This is the greatest thing”
: Rhodes,
Atomic Bomb.

“The force from which the sun”
: “Henry L. Stimson prepared statement for the public regarding dropping the Atomic Bomb forwarded to President Truman”: July 31, 1945, Harry S. Truman Library,
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/fulltext.php?fulltextid=20
.

“A surprising number of the”
: Hersey.

“The people of Hiroshima, aroused”
: Ibid.

“As I peered through the dark”
: William L. Laurence, “Eyewitness Account of Atomic Bomb over Nagasaki FOR RELEASE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1945,” Bureau of Public Relations, US War Department.

“At night, the town, the”
: Dor-Ner.

“The day after Trinity”
: Orear.

“known sin”
;
“Sometimes, someone confesses a sin”
: Hargittai,
Martians
.

“Oppenheimer seemed to lose his”
: Conant,
109 East Palace.

“I have to explain about Oppie”
: Orear.

“You see now that the”
: Sayen.

“Had I known that the Germans”
: Staff, “Atom.”

“What would Harry Truman have”
;
“The firebombing of Tokyo was”
: Hargittai,
Martians
.

“completely unnecessary”
: Eisenhower.

“Japan would have surrendered”
: United States Strategic Bombing Survey.

“because of the vast sums”
: Mee.

“In March 1944, I experienced”
: Kelly.

9. How Do You Keep a Cold War Cold?

“And Fermi said, thoughtfully”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“It was a place where”
: Hargittai,
Judging.

“Just to show you what”
;
“At the yearly Christmas parties”; “One day my father brought”
: Orear.

“My general conclusion would be that”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“I neither can nor will”
: Teller and Brown.

“their appetites for weapons work”
: Rhodes,
Atomic Bomb.

“General Groves told me very briefly”
;
“The time needed [for another country]; “just like poison gases after”; “The years after Los Alamos”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“We should prefer defeat in war”
: Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy file.

“And God bless General Groves!”
: Lanouette with Silard.

“it is not too much to expect”
: Lewis Strauss, “Speech to the National Association of Science Writers,” September 16, 1954.

“Russia was traditionally the enemy”
: Hargittai,
Martians.

“was rather diffident in his approach”
;
“You don’t know Southerners”; “Stalin summoned [atomic bomb chief]”; “sparkling bluish black”; “I never forgave Truman”; “I soon realized . . . that he was”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“casually mentioned to Stalin that”
: Truman,
Memoirs.

“I was sure that [Stalin] had no”
: Mee.

“invite the nations of the world”
: Bush and Conant.

“If the Russians have the weapon”
;
“In that case, we have no choice”
: Bird and Sherman.

“Weisskopf vividly described to me”
: Bernstein.

“You have to recall that in 1948”
: Rhodes,
Arsenals of Folly.

“necessary to have within the arsenal”
: Memo to GAC, January 13, 1950,
nuclearfiles.org
.

“that we had to do it”
: Eben Ayers Papers, Truman Library.

“but the third time, nobody”
: Grimberg.

“that someone (designated by the code)”
;
“Then, in mid-September [1949]”; “that someone in the British embassy”; “sort of a British Columbo character”; “Were you not in touch”; “reason to believe that someone”; “most logical suspect for [another]”
: Lamphere and Shachtman.

“came out of World War II”
: Barnet.

“like children lost in the woods”
: Weiner.

“After about one minute”
;
“hot . . . something is happening”; “I’ll never be able to read”; “Julius had money”; “The day after my wife”; “I told . . . the FBI right”
: Greenglass FBI files,
http://vault.fbi.gov/search?SearchableText=greenglass
.

“make people realize that this”
;
“I believe your conduct”; “And what of our children”
: Rosenberg trial testimony,
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/Rosenberg/RosenbergTrial.pdf
.

“took all the left-wing stuff”
: Yourgrau.

“The June evening of the executions”
: Hiss.

“the attack will be swift”
;
“According to information coming”
: Gaddis,
George F. Kennan.

“I would cut them off”
;
“I would have dropped thirty”; “Our mission called for me”
: Cumings.

“Anybody who says twenty thousand”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“If you say why not bomb”
: Hargittai,
Martians.

“America had a powerful air”
;
“When America elected General Dwight”
: Nikita Khrushchev.

“The war of the future would”
: President’s Farewell Address to the American People, January 15, 1953, Truman Library.

10. A Totally Different Scheme, and It Will Change the Course of History

“every time he reported, we”
;
“Both Gamow and I showed”; “What Ulam did was not”; “that the President would not”; “You would swear that the”; “The United States is said to”; “deliberately precipitate war with the USSR”; “There was a look of hatred”
: Rhodes,
Dark Sun.

“The computers of [Polish mathematician]”
: Orear.

“What we are creating now”
: George Dyson.

“originally came with my friend”
;
“[Ulam’s] suggestion was far from original”; “Our first computer at the”; I went down into the”
: Teller.

“adding that perhaps it was”
;
“Engraved on my memory is”; “From then on, Teller pushed Stan”; “Teller accused the leadership”; “Lawrence believed Edward”; “Of course, we worried about”; “An absolutely insane task”; “When you see the burned birds”; “Even if you strike first”
: Grimberg.

“I was well placed to watch”
;
“Nobody will blame Teller”; “Before the end of the summer”; “Once Teller left Los Alamos”
: Bethe, “Comments.”

“I felt strongly that that”
: Bush and Conant.

“We called the place the Rock”
: Michael Harris.

“That’s so I don’t forget”
: Gaddis,
George F. Kennan.

“We threatened with missiles we”
: Sergei Khrushchev.

“On no one did there ever”
: Bird and Sherman.

“was a man of great talent”
: Hargittai,
Martians.

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