development might be interpreted as the first step in unilateral renunciation of the use of all atomic weapons, a course which would inevitably be followed by major international realignments to the disadvantage of the United States. Thus, the peace of the world generally and, specifically, the security of the entire Western Hemisphere would be jeopardized.
Bypassing the Special Committee, the Secretary of Defense sent this memorandum directly to Truman.
And that was that. Truman told Souers on January 19 that the JCS memorandum “made a lot of sense and that he was inclined to think that was what we should do.” When the Special Committee came in on January 31 to recommend to him that the nation proceed with the Super, Lilienthal was prepared to argue at length that the policy was not wise. Truman cut short the discussion. “What the hell are we waiting for?” he remembered telling them. “Let's get on with it.” The President announced to the world the same day that he was directing “the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super- bomb.”
Certainly Truman learned from the months of debate within the government, but he may have learned only that a decision was urgent politically: that the military and a vocal, organized segment of Congress would fight him if he decided not to build the Super. Authoritative contemporary testimony affirms that his decision to build the hydrogen bomb was never in doubt in the first place, that the painful debates of autumn 1949 that left such a gulf of bitter division among American scientists were little more than a White House public-relations ploy. “The White House,” Sidney Souers confirmed in 1954 when the events were still fresh in memory, “felt it was necessary to show the country that the President used an orderly process in arriving at his decisions, not snap judgments, which he has been accused of.” Even so, Souers went on, “I am sure [the President's] mind was made up at the very beginning.”
Eben Ayers, Truman's assistant press secretary, confirms Souers's impression in his contemporary diary:
February 4 [1950]… The president said there actually was no decision to make on the H-bomb. He said this really was a question that was settled in making up the budget for the atomic energy commission last fall when $300 million was allotted. He said he had discussed that last September with David Lilienthal… Acheson… and Johnson. He went on to say that we had to do it — make the [H-]bomb — though no one wants to use it. But, he said, we have got to have it if only for bargaining purposes with the Russians.
Truman had consoled Lilienthal in similar terms back in early November, when the two men had discussed who to appoint to succeed Lilienthal as AEC chairman. “We don't want a military-minded civilian,” Lilienthal quotes Truman saying; “he must be someone who sees the necessary military setting, how it fits in, but he must be someone who doesn't regard that as our objective — and we're going to use this for peace and never use it for war — I've always said this, and you'll see. It'll be like poison gas (never used again).” Truman thus began what became a US presidential tradition of maintaining and enlarging a threatening nuclear arsenal he had no intention of using except for political leverage in international negotiations.
But that was not the worst result of the January 1950 decision. “I never forgave Truman,” Rabi would identify the greater danger. “… He simply did not understand what it was about… For him to have alerted the world that we were going to make a hydrogen bomb at a time when we didn't even know how to make one was one of the worst things he could have done.”
The frightened men, Edward Teller first among them, who had advised the Truman administration that they knew how to build a hydrogen bomb that would save the country from disaster had started the clock on a new, ultimate arms race. Now they would have to deliver.
PART THREE
Scorpions in a Bottle
We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.
21
Fresh Horrors
“On January 27, [1950],” writes Gordon Arneson, “Sir Derek Hoyar-Millar, the Counselor of the British Embassy who served as liaison with us on atomic energy matters, asked urgently to see the Undersecretary [of State], Robert Murphy. This was clearly no run-of-the-mill matter, for if it had been he would have come to see me, entering my office with his customary greeting: ‘Any fresh horrors today?’ This time he had his own to tell. Ashen of face, his usual casual aplomb quite collapsed, he told us Klaus Fuchs had that day admitted to espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union… ”
The cryptanalysis information that Robert Lamphere had passed to British intelligence in September 1949 had been acquired through burglary’ and was therefore legally tainted. Klaus Fuchs, MI5 had concluded, would have to be coaxed into confessing, which was why it had taken until late January to expose the wary physicist. The delicate assignment went to William Skardon, an MI5 officer who specialized in handling traitors, “sort of a British
Henry Arnold, the Harwell security officer to whom Fuchs had spoken about his father's move into the Soviet zone of Germany, introduced Skardon to Fuchs on December 21. Skardon brought up Fuchs's father and listened to the physicist's explanation of his family history for more than an hour before confronting him directly. “Were you not in touch with a Soviet official or a Soviet representative while you were in New York?” the MI5 officer asked. “And did you not pass on information to that person about your work?” Fuchs was startled. “I don't think so,” he answered ambiguously. Skardon told him there was “precise information which shows that you have been guilty of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.” Fuchs again demurred: “I don't think so.” Skardon pointed out the ambiguity of Fuchs's reply and Fuchs finally mustered a denial. “I don't understand. Perhaps you will tell me what the evidence is. I have not done any such thing.” The two men sparred for the rest of the day and through two more meetings in early January before Fuchs finally asked to see Skardon and confessed on January 24, 1950.
At least Lewis Strauss may have been aware of the Fuchs investigation during the late-1949 Super debate; the FBI had notified the AEC in early November. The General Advisory Committee learned of it after Sir Derek Hoyar-Millar offered Arneson his “fresh horror” on January 27. The Special Committee heard that Fuchs was about to be arrested during its final deliberations before reporting to Truman on January 31. The President himself did not learn of Fuchs's espionage until February 1, when J. Edgar Hoover telephoned the information to Sidney Souers. (Truman's response, writes David Lilienthal, was “tie on your hat!”) Strauss, who had just resigned from the AEC effective April 15 (Lilienthal was leaving at the same time), hurried to flatter the President that “the recent word from the FBI… only fortifies the wisdom of your decision. The individual in question had worked on the super-bomb at Los Alamos.” To Hoover, Strauss added (in Hoover's paraphrase): “It will make a good many men who are in the same profession as Fuchs very careful of what they say publicly.” Lilienthal on February 2, the day he heard, felt no
