The Making of the Atomic Bomb

developments known to the world. He thought it might be wise for the United States to offer to the world free interchange of information with particular emphasis on the development of peace-time uses. The basic goal of all endeavors in the field should be the enlargement of human welfare. If we were to offer to exchange information before the bomb was actually used, our moral position would be greatly strengthened.

Where was Bohr's understanding that the bomb was a source of terror but for that very reason also a source of hope, a means of welding together nations by their common dread of a menacing nuclear standoff? The problem was not exchanging information to improve America's moral standing; the problem was leaders sitting down and negotiating a way beyond the mutual danger the new weapons would otherwise install. The opening up would emerge out of those negotiations, necessarily, to guarantee safety; it could not in the real world of secrecy and suspicion realistically precede them. In 1963, lecturing on Bohr, Oppenheimer understood well enough the fundamental weakness of his proposal:

Bush and Compton and Conant were clear that the only future they could envisage with hope was one in which the whole development would be internationally controlled. Stimson understood this; he understood that it meant a very great change in human life; and he understood that the central problem at that moment lay in our relations with Russia-But there were differences: Bohr was for action, for timely and responsible action. He realized that it had to be taken by those who had the power to commit and to act. He wanted to change the whole framework in which this problem would appear, early enough so that the problem would be altered by it. He believed in statesmen; he used the word over and over again; he was not very much for committees. The Interim Committee was a committee, and proved itself by appointing another committee, the scientific panel.

No one should presume to judge these men as they struggled with a future that even a mind as fundamental as Niels Bohr's could only barely imagine. But if Robert Oppenheimer ever had a chance to present Bohr's case to those who had the power to commit and to act he had it that morning. He did not speak the Dane's hard plain truths. He spoke instead as Aaron to Bohr's Moses. And Bohr, though he waited nearby in Washington, had not been invited to appear in the star chamber of that darkly paneled room.

Even Stimson thought Oppenheimer's proposals misguided. He asked immediately “what would be the position of democratic governments as against totalitarian regimes under such a program of international control coupled with scientific freedom” — as if opening up the world would leave either democratic or totalitarian nations unchanged, a confusion that Oppenheimer's confusion inspired. Which led to further confusion: “The Secretary said… it was his own feeling that the democratic countries had fared pretty well in this war. Dr. Bush endorsed this view vigorously.” Bush then unwittingly outlined a domestic model of what Bohr's larger open world might be: “He said that our tremendous advantage stemmed in large measure from our system of team work and free interchange of information.” And promptly lapsed back into Stimson's extended status quo: “He expressed some doubt, however, of our ability to remain ahead permanently if we were to turn over completely to the Russians the results of our research under free competition with no reciprocal exchange.”

Odder and odder, and Byrnes sitting among them trying to imagine a weapon equivalent to 100 million tons of TNT, trying to imagine what it would mean to possess such a weapon and listening to these highly educated men, men almost entirely of the Eastern establishment, of Harvard and MIT and Princeton and Yale, blithely proposing, it seemed, to give away the knowledge of how to make such a weapon.

Stimson left to attend a White House ceremony and they went on to speak of Russia, which Byrnes knew as an advancing brutality currently devouring Poland, and Oppenheimer again took the lead:

Dr. Oppenheimer pointed out that Russia had always been very friendly to science and suggested that we might open up this subject with them in a tentative fashion and in the most general terms without giving them any details of our productive effort. He thought we might say that a great national effort had been put into this project and express hope for cooperation with them in this field. He felt strongly that we should not prejudge the Russian attitude in this matter.

Oppenheimer found an ally then in George Marshall, who “discussed at some length the story of charges and counter-charges that have been typical of our relations with the Russians, pointing out that most of these allegations have proven unfounded.” Marshall thought Russia's reputation for being uncooperative “stemmed from the necessity of maintaining security.” He believed a way to begin was to forge “a combination among like-minded powers, thereby forcing Russia to fall in line by the very force of this coalition.” Such bulldozing had worked in the gunpowder days now almost past but it would not work in the days of the bomb; that power would be big enough, as Oppenheimer's estimates clarified, to make one nation alone a match for the world.

The surprise of the morning was perhaps Marshall's idea for an opening to Moscow: “He raised the question whether it might be desirable to invite two prominent Russian scientists to witness the [Trinity] test.” Groves must have winced; after the years of secrecy, after the thousands of numb man-hours of security work, that would be a renunciation worthy of Bohr himself.

Byrnes had heard enough. He had sat behind Franklin Roosevelt at Yalta making notes. In all but the formalities he outranked even Henry Stimson. He put his foot down and the seasoned committeemen moved smoothly into line:

Mr. Byrnes expressed a fear that if information were given to the Russians, even in general terms, Stalin would ask to be brought into the partnership. He felt this to be particularly likely in view of our commitments and pledges of cooperation with the British. In this connection Dr. Bush pointed out that even the British did not have any of our blue prints on plants. Mr. Byrnes expressed the view, which was generally agreed to by all present, that the most desirable program would be to push ahead as fast as possible in production and research to make certain that we stay ahead and at the same time make every effort to better our political relations with Russia.

When Stimson returned, Compton summed up the sense of the crucial discussion the Secretary of War had missed — “the need for maintaining ourselves in a position of superiority while at the same time working toward adequate political agreements.” Marshall left them for duty and the rest of the committee trooped off to lunch.

They sat at adjoining tables in a Pentagon dining room. They were a civilian committee; separate conversations converged on the same question, only briefly mentioned during the morning and not taken up: was there no way to let this cup pass from them? Must Little Boy be dropped on the Japanese in surprise? Could their stubborn enemy not be warned in advance or a demonstration arranged?

Stimson, at the focus of one conversation (Byrnes the center of the other), may have spoken then of his outrage at the mass murder of civilians and his complicity; Oppenheimer remembered such a statement at some time during the day and lunch was the only unstructured occasion:

[Stimson emphasized] the appalling lack of conscience and compassion that the war had brought about… the complacency, the indifference, and the silence with which we greeted the mass bombings in Europe and, above all, Japan. He was not exultant about the bombings of Hamburg, of Dresden, of Tokyo… Colonel Stimson felt that, as far as degradation went, we had had it; that it would take a new life and a new breath to heal the harm.

The only recorded response to Stimson's mea culpa is Oppenheimer's admiration for it, but there were a number of responses to the question of warning the Japanese or demonstrating the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer could not think of a suitably convincing demonstration:

You ask yourself would the Japanese government as then constituted and with divisions between the peace party and the war party, would it have been influenced by an enormous nuclear firecracker detonated at a great height doing little damage and your answer is as good as mine. I don't know.

Since the Secretary of State-designate had power to commit and to act, the significant responses to the question are Byrnes'. In a 1947 memoir he recalled several: