74. Alvarez planned a machine that would be almost half a mile long and achieve energies five times that of the great cyclotron. “Some accelerator!” Lawrence observed. Alvarez (1987), 156–57; Panofsky interview (1993); Lawrence to Alvarez, Apr. 9, 1945, folder 16, carton 1, EOL.
75. Entry, Sept. 20, 1945, Groves diary, Groves/NARA; Underhill to Sproul, Sept. 26, 1945, Underhill papers, LANL.
76. Underhill to Bradbury, Sept. 26, 1945, Underhill papers, LANL.
77. “Proposed Post-War Program of Dr. E.O. Lawrence,” Captain J. A. King to General Groves, Sept. 20, 1945, and Groves to Lawrence, Oct. 15, 1945, series 5, MED/NARA; “Gen. Groves’ talk,” Oct. 21, 1945, box 171, folder 1, Neylan papers; Oct. 1, 1945, Groves diary, Groves/NARA.
78. In 1944, Lawrence had projected an annual postwar budget of $85,000 for the Rad Lab. Heilbron, Seidel, and Wheaton (1981), 46–47.
79. Molly Lawrence interview (1992).
80. Oppenheimer was more embittered than they knew. Smith and Weiner (1980), 307.
81. Sept. 28, 1945, memos, Sproul papers.
82. Oct. 11, 1945, memos, Sproul papers.
83. Birge, vol. 5, xvii–9.
84. Oct. 16, 1945, memos, Sproul papers.
85. Smith and Weiner (1980), 310–11.
86. Birge, vol. 5, xxii–6.
87. Oct. 26, 1945, memos, Sproul papers.
88. Childs (1968), 375–76. Oppenheimer’s request “places the University of California in a very difficult position,” Birge wrote, since the physics department could not recruit a replacement for Oppie while he remained on leave. Birge to Sproul, Oct. 29, 1945, folder 42, box 16, Sproul papers.
89. Oppenheimer also met with Charles Kramer, an aide to Senator Harley Kilgore, the sponsor of one of many bills then before Congress for the domestic control of atomic energy. Unknown to Oppie, Kramer was an NKVD informant code-named Mole, who subsequently reported to the Soviet rezident that Oppenheimer believed technical information on the bomb should be shared “only when there is political cooperation among the countries.” Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 184–85.
90. Harrison, “Memorandum for the Files,” Sept. 25, 1945, no. 77, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.
91. Truman-Oppenheimer meeting: ITMOJRO, 35; Davis (1968), 258; Michelmore (1969), 121–22; David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, (1964), 118. The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950 (Harper and Row, 1964). It was this visit that inspired Truman’s later characterization of Oppenheimer as a “cry-baby scientist.” Herken (1980), 401 fn.
92. Groves’s diary indicates that the Scientific Panel met in Washington from Sept. 19 to Sept. 22, 1945.
93. Groves to Harrison, Aug. 29, 1945, series 1, pt. 2, file 3, MED/NARA.
94. “Proposals for Research and Development in the Field of Atomic Energy,” box 20, tabs 1 and 2, MED/NARA.
95. Asked in 1954 “at what time did your strong moral convictions develop with respect to the hydrogen bomb?” Oppenheimer answered: “When it became clear to me that we would tend to use any weapon we had.” ITMOJRO, 250.
96. Harrison to Karl Compton, Oct. 8, 1945, no. 69, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA.
97. Compton to Wallace, series 5, file 312.1, box 48, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA. Compton evidently drafted his letter after the panel’s meeting in Washington but was careful to confirm that he had the others’ assent. From New York, Lawrence wrote Compton on October 8: “It is a fine statement and, as you already know, I am in complete agreement.” “Memorandum to the panel,” n.d., folder 15, carton 29, EOL; Bernstein (1990), 1396. The author thanks Barton Bernstein for a copy of Lawrence’s letter to Compton.
98. In a footnote, Compton indicated that the paragraph containing the panel’s emphatic recommendation against the Super was particularly sensitive.
99. Wallace had irritated Acheson at the meeting by telling, at length, a story about his visit years earlier to a Mongolian animal disease laboratory. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (Norton, 1969), 124–25.
100. “Plea to Give Soviet Atom Secret Stirs Debate in Cabinet; Wallace Plan to Share Bomb Data as Peace Insurance,” New York Times, Sept. 22, 1945; Herken (1980), 31–32.
101. A month later, Wallace would launch his own ill-fated secret diplomatic initiative on the bomb—one that resembled Stimson’s plan—in a meeting with the new NKVD rezident in Washington, Anatoly Gorski. Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 284.
102. Wallace letter: Wallace to Truman, Sept. 24, 1945, Henry Wallace papers, University of Iowa, Iowa City; John Morton Blum, ed., The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace (Little, Brown, 1973), 485.
103. Patterson to Bush, Nov. 12, 1945, and Patterson to Oppenheimer, Dec. 4, 1945, no. 69, Harrison-Bundy file, MED/NARA. Compton’s letter would later figure into the AEC’s investigation of Oppenheimer. ITMOJRO, 70.
104. Hawkins (1983), 305; Blumberg and Owens (1976), 185; Bethe interview (1988).
105. Badash et al. (1985), 162; Bradbury to Stewart, Nov. 14, 1945, Underhill papers, LANL.
106. J. A. Derry to Groves, Dec. 14, 1945, series 5, file 600.12, MED/NARA.
107. Teller to Mulliken, Sept. 22, 1945, Teller file, LANL.
108. “Catalogue of Los Alamos University Courses and Student Enrollment,” Sept. 17, 1945, reprinted in Edith Truslow and Ralph Carlisle Smith, Project Y: The Los Alamos Story, vol. 2, Beyond Trinity (Tomash, 1983), 377.
109. Weinstein and Vassiliev (1999), 215–16.
110. Smith (1971), 115.
111. Ibid., 288; Teller to Mayer, n.d. (fall 1945), box 3, Mayer papers.
112. “I neither can nor will do so” was Oppenheimer’s response, according to Teller. Teller and Brown (1962), 23.
113. Smith and Weiner (1980), 320; “A Speech Given by J. R. Oppenheimer at a Meeting of the Association of Los Alamos Scientists,” Nov. 2, 1945, no. 125509, CIC/DOE.
114. “Notes on Talk Given by Comdr. N. E. Bradbury at Coordinating Council,” Oct. 1, 1945, CIC/DOE.
115. Teller and Brown (1962), 22.
116. Bradbury to Division and Group Leaders, Nov. 14, 1945, no. 120953, CIC/DOE; Hawkins (1983), 307; Teller and Brown (1962), 22–23. “I was very much tempted to take [Bethe’s job]. At last it would have meant some activity.” Teller to Mayer, n.d. (Aug.–Sept. 1945), box 3, Mayer papers.
117. Bradbury to Groves, Oct. 30, 1945, series 5, file 400.112, MED/NARA.
118. “Partly it is just sad to see the place disintegrating and partly I am sorry for all the things I could have done and did not do.” Teller to
