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  Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi together at the University of Chicago, 1951. By this time, the superbomb had become Teller’s fixation. But he failed to convince his good friend Fermi to support a crash program to develop the thermonuclear weapon. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  As his lobbying for the superbomb and his testimony against Oppenheimer estranged him from many other physicists in the 1950s, Edward Teller increasingly sought the friendship and support of political conservatives and military officers (such as General Joseph Garvin, pictured here). (National Archives and Records Administration, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  TWILIGHT YEARS

  Enrico Fermi boating off the island of Elba, 1954. This photograph, taken during Fermi’s last visit to his homeland a few months before his death, shows the ravages that undiagnosed stomach cancer had begun to take on the previously vigorous Fermi. Physicists mourned his premature death later that year. (Amaldi Archives, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università “La Sapienza,” Rome, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  Ernest Lawrence sitting on a hill above the Berkeley campus and the dome of the sprawling Rad Lab, surveying the extraordinary empire he had built, 1958. The ulcerative colitis that had plagued this energetic and driven man finally killed him later that year. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection)

  Niels Bohr receiving the prestigious Atoms for Peace Award from President Eisenhower, with Arthur Compton (second from left) and Lewis Strauss (far left) looking on, 1957. Strauss had orchestrated the vendetta that brought down Bohr’s good friend Robert Oppenheimer three years earlier. Bohr and Compton both died in 1962. (Niels Bohr Archive, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  Leo Szilard with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a few years before his death from a heart attack in 1964. Until the end, Szilard remained what he had always been: a dreamer, a gadfly, and the moral conscience of his generation of physicists. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  A chastened and reflective Robert Oppenheimer after the revocation of his security clearance, late 1950s. His story was a personal tragedy—and the tragedy of his generation of physicists, who opened Pandora’s box and ushered nuclear weapons into the world. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection)

  I. I. Rahi at the fortieth anniversary commemoration of the founding of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1983. At the commemoration, Rabi spoke with conscious and courageous irony of “how well we meant.” He died in 1988. (Photograph by Sam Treiman, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection)

  Edward Teller in his eighties, in a photograph taken in his office at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, where he continued in interviews to voice the argument for nuclear weapons well into his nineties. (© Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)

  An insecure pessimist, Edward Teller found refuge from his anxieties at the piano, where he played sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven. (Photo by Fred Rothwarf, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

  Hans Bethe in his nineties, the grand old man of American physics until his death in the early twenty-first century and sharp critic of the nuclear arms race. Bethe and Teller became two lions contesting the legacy of their momentous creation. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Segrè Collection)

  Although Stimson sought to create an atmosphere in which everyone felt free to discuss any problem related to atomic energy, he opened the meeting by reminding Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi that he and Army Chief of Staff Marshall were the ones responsible for making recommendations on military matters to the president. Stimson was anxious, however, to impress upon them “that we were looking at this like statesmen and not like merely soldiers anxious to win the war at any cost.” 30 To corroborate his point, Stimson read from handwritten notes he had prepared for the meeting:

  Its size and character

  We don’t think it mere new weapon

  Revolutionary Discovery of Relation of man to universe

  Great History Landmark like

  Gravitation

  Copernican Theory

  But,

  Bids fair [to be] infinitely greater, in respect to its Effect

  —on the ordinary affairs of man’s life.

  May destroy or perfect International Civilization

  May [be] Frankenstein or means for World Peace 31

  Compton then gave a terrifying seminar on the future of nuclear weapons. He explained that the atomic bombs nearing completion were only the first step along the road of nuclear weapons technology. In the not too distant future, Compton soberly observed, loomed the awesome prospect of a “superbomb” perhaps a thousand times more destructive. Oppenheimer then explained how unimaginably destructive a superbomb would be: an atomic bomb was expected to have an explosive force of 2,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT; a superbomb might produce an explosive force of 10,000,000 to 100,000,000 tons of TNT. If an atomic bomb could effectively destroy a city, those present could only wonder in fright at what an explosive force of this magnitude would destroy.

  The implication to Lawrence was inescapable: the United States would be in mortal danger if and when another country acquired such a bomb. Lawrence urged staying ahead of the rest of the world by expanding the weapons lab at Los Alamos and stockpiling atomic bombs. Compton agreed. Oppenheimer did not, fearing an arms race as soon as the Soviet Union took up the challenge.

  The committee then took up the issue of international control. Byrnes asked how long it would take for the Soviet Union to catch up. 32 Groves estimated at least twenty years. The scientists disagreed, estimating Russia could build a bomb in four to six years. * Oppenheimer put the point vividly. “Our monopoly is like a cake of ice melting in the sun,” he said. 33 Drawing on his talks with Bohr at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer urged that Washington contact Moscow promptly about joining in a system of international control without giving them details of the progress achieved. Marshall agreed, saying it might be desirable to invite Russian scientists to witness the first atomic bomb test scheduled for July in New Mexico. Byrnes strenuously objected. He said Stalin would ask to be brought into the project—and that was unacceptable. Byrnes believed the bomb’s diplomatic utility would be diminished if Stalin was informed of the weapon prior to its use. He favored seeking international control while maintaining U.S. atomic superiority. Such a strong statement by a man of Byrnes’s influence and prestige was not to be dismissed lightly. No one challenged him—nor expressed die contradiction between these objectives. 34

  Everyone except Marshall then adjourned to a dining room across the hall for lunch. The conferees sat around four tables. Discussion centered on whether or not to use the bomb against Japan—the only time this crucial and fundamental question would ever be formally addressed. Given the bomb’s momentous implications, and in light of all the subsequent controversy about its use, it is striking how virtually no one in the inner circle of decision making seriously contemplated not dropping it. To a degree that later generations would find remarkable, the advent of the nuclear age was heralded by little formal deliberation. Events were in the saddle, and they rode men hard.

  The talk was brief, lasting ten minutes. Lawrence repeated a suggestion he had made that morning for a nonmilitary demonstration. A political naif, he thought the weapon would not actually be used. “The bomb will never be dropped on people,” he had assured the chairman of Berkeley’s physics department. “As soon as we get it, we’ll use it only to dictate terms of peace.” 35 Compton asked whether it was possible to give the Japanese an opportunity to witness the weapon’s tremendous power before it was dropped on them. Stimson invited comments. The reaction was negative: the weapon might be a dud; a failure would strengthen Japan’s morale; if the Japanese received a prior warning, they might take steps to block it; fanatical militarists would be unimpressed by a demonstration; the Japanese might move American prisoners of war into the test area.


  Oppenheimer then reported an estimate prepared at Los Alamos of the number of deaths that would be caused if an atomic bomb were exploded over a city. (The estimate—twenty thousand—was based on the erroneous assumption that a city’s inhabitants would seek shelter before the bomb went off.) A participant soberly noted that this number would be no greater than the number killed in the Tokyo fire raid—far less, in fact. The outcome, Compton later wrote, was that “no one could suggest a way in which [a demonstration] could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war.” 36

  Returning to Stimson’s office after lunch, the participants took up the bomb’s probable impact on Japan’s will to fight. Someone again observed that its destructive effect might not differ much from the B-29 fire raids incinerating Japan’s cities. Oppenheimer predicted that the visual effect of the bomb would be “tremendous” and for the first time mentioned radiation, but he did not mention the possibility of lingering illness.

  Stimson expressed the conclusion, on which there was general agreement, that the Japanese should not be given any warning. He said the bomb should not be dropped on a civilian area, but an attempt should be made to make a profound psychological impression on as many Japanese as possible. The preferred target would be a war plant closely surrounded by workers’ homes. None of those present, however, noted the contradiction in their logic: a bomb powerful enough to destroy an entire city would surely kill thousands—probably tens of thousands—of civilians if dropped anywhere near workers’ homes. Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi perhaps understood this contradiction best because they knew best how destructive the bomb would be, but at no time did they point it out. Perhaps it was because the four of them felt such views would find little sympathy at such a meeting. Perhaps it was because they themselves were too invested in the project. Or perhaps it was because they did not want to admit to themselves what the human costs of their creation’s use would be. * But the dilemma that policy makers and scientists preferred not to face was all too real. And it remained on Compton’s mind. “What shall I tell Szilard?” he asked Oppenheimer as the session broke up. Oppenheimer gave no answer. 37 Stimson informed Truman of the committee’s recommendation on June sixth. The decision to use the bomb was inherent in the decision made years before to build it. The momentum of that process was rapidly building toward an all but inevitable climax.

  Compton returned to Chicago knowing that he faced a growing gulf between the views of the Interim Committee and the Met Lab scientists under his direction. He reported to his restless constituents on the afternoon of June second, immediately after his arrival from Washington. Constrained by the secrecy rule that the Interim Committee had imposed on its science advisers, Compton did not disclose that a recommendation had been made to drop the bomb on Japan without warning. Instead, he told his audience that the Science Advisory Panel would meet again in mid-June in Los Alamos.

  Szilard sat in the audience glumly listening to Compton. His respect for policy makers had hit a new low after his meeting with Byrnes in Spartanburg. Szilard also lacked confidence in the Scientific Advisory Panel. He believed that Oppenheimer would not oppose dropping the bomb after laboring so long and hard to make it; that Fermi would state his views privately but would not speak up; and that Compton would not risk incurring the displeasure of the Washington Establishment. And he faced the renewed wrath of Groves, who had learned about his unauthorized trip to Spartanburg.

  Groves demanded an explanation from Szilard’s Met Lab boss—a military officer who had taken Szilard’s approach of going through outside channels might well find himself court-martialed or transferred to some snowy base in Greenland. The usually even-tempered Compton exploded in an answering letter to Groves. “I believe the reason for their action is that with regard to the Project their responsibility to the nation is prior to and broader than their responsibility to the Army, and they felt that a situation had developed in which they could not perform their duty to the nation working through me or through the Army.” Compton made it clear to Groves that he shared their uneasy feelings:

  The scientists who were responsible for initiating and developing this project have felt that its control has been taken from them, that they are uninformed with regard to plans for its use and its development, and that they have had little assurance that serious consideration of its broader implications is being given by those in a position to guide national policy. The scientists will be held responsible, both by the public and by their own consciences, for having faced the world with the existence of the new powers. The fact that the control has been taken out of their hands makes it necessary for them to plead the need for careful consideration and wise action to someone with authority to act. There is no other way in which they can meet their responsibility to society.

  After pointing out that time and again their efforts to get their concerns to those with authority to act had been bottled up in channels, Compton asked, “To whom then were the scientists to go in order to obtain an effective consideration of their views on the use and further development of the Project?” He pointedly added that the Jeffries Report, which he had passed to Groves, had not reached policy makers. The gentle Compton even permitted himself an attack on outgoing Secretary of State Edward Stettinius for failing to explain the atomic dilemma to the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco on April twenty-fifth. “His appreciation was so limited as possibly to serve as a hazard to the country’s welfare,” Compton charged. He placed the blame for this squarely on Groves, who had briefed Stettinius about the bomb before the UN conference. 38

  To meet both Groves’s demand that scientists adhere to the chain of command and the Met Lab scientists’ concern that policy makers consider their opinions about the use of the bomb, Compton organized a committee to study and report on the bomb’s implications. Compton promised to deliver their findings personally in Washington. 39 Chaired by Nobel laureate and Nazi refugee James Franck, the committee produced a perceptive study. Franck was a highly principled physicist who had openly criticized the Nazis—a rare and courageous gesture—before being driven out of Germany. In 1934 he went to Copenhagen to join his friend Bohr; later, he moved on to America—first to Johns Hopkins University and then to the University of Chicago, which became his home. Other physicists considered Franck a saint and a martyr. Mournful looking, retiring, and unpretentious, Franck fretted about the consequences of weapons work and had taken charge of the Met Lab’s chemistry section in 1942 only after securing a promise from Compton that he would be heard at a high level when the time came to decide how the bomb would be used.

  The Franck Report took as its fundamental premise the fact that “the manner in which this new weapon is introduced to the world will determine in large part the future course of events.” It warned that the bomb opened the way to “total mutual destruction” of all nations. It predicted the almost limitless destructive power of nuclear weapons and the elusive security that any attempt at monopoly would bring. 40 And it stressed the widening gap between technological progress and traditional conceptions of war:

  Nuclear bombs cannot possibly remain a “secret weapon” at the exclusive disposal of this country for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other countries. Unless an effective international control of nuclear explosives is instituted, a race for nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of nuclear weapons to the world….

  We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons.

  The Franck Report argued against using the bomb, even “
if one takes the pessimistic point of view and discounts the possibility of an effective international control over nuclear weapons at the present time.” In this case, the report concluded, “the advisability of an early use of nuclear bombs against Japan becomes even more doubtful—quite independently of any humanitarian considerations. If an international agreement is not concluded immediately after the first demonstration, this will mean a flying start toward an unlimited armaments race.” The report rested its argument against dropping the bomb on Japan on the ground that announcing its existence to the world in this way would make international control virtually impossible. The report urged instead a demonstration of the bomb over an uninhabited area before a group of international observers. “A demonstration of the new weapon might best be made before the eyes of representatives of all the United Nations on the desert or a barren island. This may sound fantastic, but in nuclear weapons we have something entirely new in order of magnitude of destructive power, and if we want to capitalize fully on the advantage their possession gives us, we must use new and imaginative methods.” The scientists hoped to shock the world into international cooperation. 41

  Compton kept his word by accompanying Franck to Washington to discuss a preliminary draft of the report with Vice President Wallace at a breakfast meeting arranged by Compton on April twenty-first. 42 They also tried to see Secretary of War Stimson at the Pentagon on June twelfth, but the secretary did not make himself available. Compton left the Franck Report for Stimson with a covering note that faulted it for failing to consider what Compton thought was the most important issue at hand. “While it calls attention to difficulties that might result from the use of the bomb,” wrote Compton, it “does not mention the probable net saving of many lives, * nor that if the bomb were not used in the present war the world would have no adequate warning as to what was to be expected if war should break out again.” 43