In his messages to Pervukhin, Kurchatov also reflected that the greatest contribution of Soviet spies was “enabling us to bypass many labor consuming stages of the problem’s development.” Indeed, Russia’s Manhattan Project had already learned through espionage something that it had taken Los Alamos more than a year to find out: that Teller’s favored hydride bomb probably would not work.60
In San Francisco, Kharon’s successor, Kasparov, had meanwhile been transferred to the embassy in Mexico City. His replacement was thirty-five-year-old Stepan Apresyan, code-named May (Maj). Apresyan had served for less than a year as NKVD rezident at the New York consulate, his first overseas posting, and was plainly a rising star in the Soviet intelligence service.61 Word that the inaugural session of the United Nations would take place in San Francisco that spring had given the Bay Area consulate suddenly increased importance.
However, May’s youth and inexperience, coupled with Kasparov’s rapid departure, made for a rocky transition.
On April 3, 1945, May cabled Moscow in a near panic, requesting Map’s surname as well as Uncle’s “distinguishing features since there is no photograph here and there may be a misunderstanding owing to the rather unfortunate password.”62 He had a meeting with Uncle just three days hence, Apresyan explained.*63
Two weeks later, however, Apresyan had found his bearings. On April 16, May cabled Moscow to say that he had turned over to Map the task that Kheifets had originally assigned to Eltenton: luring prospective recruits with honorary membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.64 Shortly thereafter, Uncle relayed word from the local head of the Communist Party that Apresyan had a new agent to run: Harry Dexter White, code-named Richard. White was in San Francisco as the Treasury Department’s representative at the UN conference; he would report sensitive discussions within the U.S. delegation to Moscow.65
Also at the United Nations conference was Haakon Chevalier, who found temporary employment as a translator for the French delegation. Although Pieper by that spring had a total of eight agents shadowing Chevalier—five stationed outside the house at Stinson Beach, with three more listening in on a telephone tap—except for a single suspicious incident, the FBI was unable to find any evidence that the former professor was still involved in espionage.66 Similarly, the bug that the bureau had implanted near Bransten’s dining room was picking up only dinnertime conversations and bickering between Map and Chevalier over the wisdom of the party line.67
On June 4, 1945, Bransten and May cohosted a reception at the Soviet consulate that was organized and sponsored by the American-Russian Institute. The occasion was advertised as an opportunity to introduce American scientists to their Soviet counterparts at the UN conference. As FBI agents noted, both Ernest Lawrence and Frank Oppenheimer attended the reception.68
Soviet espionage had been very much on Groves’s mind when he and Secretary of War Stimson briefed the new president, Harry Truman, on the atomic bomb a few weeks earlier. (In office less than two weeks, Truman probably found jarring Groves’s forecast for the future: “Atomic energy, if controlled by the major peace-loving nations, should insure the peace of the world for decades to come. If misused it can lead our civilization to annihilation.”)
“A great deal of emphasis was placed on foreign relations and the Russian situation,” Groves wrote in notes of the meeting.69 Shortly thereafter, in a similar briefing to Secretary of State–designate James Byrnes, Groves chose to focus upon the Soviet spy ring at the University of California.70
But Groves also made it plain that he did not intend to make the Russians’ job any easier. When Lawrence, at the end of May, asked the general’s permission to attend an upcoming celebration in Moscow of the 220th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Groves ordered him to decline. Reluctantly, Ernest sent his regrets.71
* * *
Since the atomic bomb now seemed almost certain to be ready in time to be used in the war, Washington directed that further consideration be given to the circumstances of its use, including how the weapon might be employed, and against what sort of targets—issues that had been deliberately held in abeyance, awaiting assurances that the bomb would work.
In early May 1945, Stimson created a seven-man committee to consider these questions as well as the bomb’s postwar role. The secretary of war put himself at the head of what he called the Interim Committee; Truman picked Byrnes as his personal representative. On May 9, the group held its first meeting, in Stimson’s office.72
At Conant’s urging, a Scientific Panel—consisting of Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Fermi, and Arthur Compton—was appointed to advise the committee on technical issues. Conant decided to introduce the panel to its subject with a memorandum that he and Bush had written the previous fall on the international implications of atomic energy.73
The Scientific Panel did not join the discussions until the committee’s fourth meeting, on the morning of May 31.74
Compton had just begun the meeting, summarizing the steps leading to the atomic bomb’s development, when Conant—mindful of what was lurking in the wings—interrupted to steer the discussion around to the Super. Under Conant’s prodding, Oppenheimer said that he now believed the superbomb would require a minimum of three more years to reach production. To the uninitiated, like Byrnes, the figures that Oppie cited—“an explosive force equal to 10,000,000–100,000,000 tons of TNT”—doubtless came as a stunning surprise.75
After a brief diversion onto the subject of postwar research—where Lawrence, predictably, made a pitch for “vigorously pursuing the necessary plant expansion” and “adequate government support,” while Oppenheimer advocated returning to a “leisurely and a more normal research situation”—the discussion turned to the Russians.76
Oppenheimer thought
