Authors: Brian Van DeMark
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.