There was little doubt by now where Lilienthal stood on the question of the superbomb. In his journal, the AEC chairman described Alvarez and Lawrence as “drooling with the prospect [of the Super] and ‘bloodthirsty.’”68 But Lilienthal also recognized that the issue required a formal, scientific airing. He and Oppenheimer had agreed to convene a special meeting of the General Advisory Committee shortly after hearing of Joe-1.69 Lilienthal hoped for a broader inquiry than just whether to proceed with a crash effort for the Super; one that might answer the philosophical query: “Is this all we have to offer?”
Lilienthal also knew that several of those on the commission already agreed with him. In the meeting with Alvarez and Lawrence, only Strauss had spoken out unreservedly for proceeding with the hydrogen bomb. A relatively new commissioner, attorney Gordon Dean—Brien McMahon’s former law partner—had seemed pensive and noncommittal. On the other hand, the man who had meanwhile replaced Bacher as the commission’s only physicist, Princeton’s Henry Smyth, was outraged at the Berkeley scientists’ attempt at “short circuiting” the AEC by appealing directly to Congress. “Apart from being an expert in his field and a brilliant scientist,” Smyth diplomatically reminded Borden in a note, Lawrence was “also something of a promoter; and that several times in the past he may have overstepped the line in pushing projects which add to his own ‘Empire.’”70
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Engaged at the moment in a frenetic cross-country drive to recruit scientists to work on the Super, Teller was encountering unexpected obstacles. Still hoping to persuade Bethe to join the effort, he had been in the Cornell physicist’s office when the telephone rang with a call from Oppenheimer. Arriving at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study the next day with Bethe in tow, Teller and Oppenheimer eyed each other like rival suitors, while the object of their attention sat silent between them.71 Teller’s indelible memory was of Oppenheimer quoting a phrase by Conant. The Super, Conant had said, would go forward “over my dead body.”72
For Teller, as troubling as Conant’s opposition or Bethe’s silence was the uncertain attitude of Enrico Fermi, whose visit to Italy had forced a postponement of the GAC meeting on the Super. Seeing Fermi shortly after his return from Europe, Edward was disappointed to find his former colleague uninterested in talking about superbombs.73 Unable to change Fermi’s mind in the short time remaining—Teller was due back at Los Alamos for the Joint Committee’s inspection tour—he telephoned Alvarez, who recorded the mixed results of the recruiting campaign in his diary: “[Teller] said he felt he could count on Bethe. Felt Oppie was lukewarm to our project, and Conant was definitely opposed.”74
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Because of Fermi’s European trip, the special meeting of the General Advisory Committee was postponed until late October. Seaborg would not be a participant; not wishing to ruin his own chances for a future Nobel prize, he had refused to turn down an invitation to the awards ceremony in Sweden at month’s end. Tipped off by Latimer to the mounting controversy over the Super, Seaborg drafted a letter for Oppenheimer to read to the committee. The missive’s tortured syntax reflected its author’s reluctance to offend either side in the coming debate.75
At Princeton, meanwhile, a steady stream of lobbyists and supplicants had begun arriving at Olden Manor. Upon the heels of Teller and Bethe came James McCormack, head of the AEC’s Division of Military Application, various members of the Military Liaison Committee, and Robert LeBaron, the recently appointed Pentagon official responsible for atomic affairs.76 (A vain and flamboyant figure, LeBaron claimed to trace his ancestry back to the Plymouth colony and boasted that he had studied atomic physics with Madame Curie at the Sorbonne. He had been recommended for the Pentagon post by Strauss.)77
But notably absent from the ranks of Oppie’s visitors was Lawrence, who had on several occasions been only a short train ride away. Nor was the reason any mystery. Asked years later about the cause of the falling-out between him and Ernest, Oppie answered: “My brother and … a rather puzzled horror about the H-bomb were the origin.”78
Instead, on October 27, Lawrence sent an emissary: Robert Serber.79 (“Ernest thought I would get a more sympathetic hearing from Oppenheimer than Luie would.”)80 Oppie’s shy friend and former student was a logical choice for a proxy, but a poor one. Taking Serber along on the train down to Washington for the meeting, Oppenheimer enumerated the arguments against the Super. Away from Lawrence and the hothouse atmosphere of the Rad Lab, Ernest’s would-be advocate joined the ranks of H-bomb skeptics.81
Back in Berkeley, Lawrence had meanwhile scouted out a promising location for a half-dozen “Chinese copies” of the Chalk River reactor: Suisun Bay, north of San Francisco, near the little town of Benicia. He told Alvarez that with AEC funding the reactors “could probably be constructed starting immediately.”82 Impulsively, he anointed Luie the future director of the as-yet-unbuilt “Benicia Laboratory.” (“I am therefore going on almost full time as director of a nonexistent laboratory on an unauthorized program,” wrote the almost-giddy Alvarez.)83 In anticipation of the move, Luie cleared out his desk at the Rad Lab and transferred his files to Lawrence’s office on Cyclotron Hill.
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On Friday afternoon, October 28, 1949, Oppenheimer convened the GAC’s seventeenth meeting in the wood-paneled conference room on the AEC building’s second floor, which looked out onto the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Detained in Cambridge on Harvard business, Conant had sent word that he would not arrive until that evening.84
First to speak was George
