But the only consensus once Teller left the room was against his plan. Rabi predicted that the effort would require a work force of 1,500, not 300. All but Libby expressed fears that Los Alamos would be “pirated” to staff the second laboratory. In a compromise that they suggested—but thought best not to put in writing—Oppenheimer and Rabi volunteered to go to Los Alamos in hopes of persuading Bradbury to organize a new group at the lab, possibly headed by Bethe, but including Teller.33
Exasperated, Murray complained afterward that the GAC was simply “trying to juggle personalities.” He had already decided to talk to Lawrence, Murray told Libby, about an altogether different approach.34
Ernest was in Washington to testify before the Joint Committee on behalf of the MTA. He was still hopeful of seeing a phalanx of Mark II accelerators rise on the banks of the Missouri—even though the prototype at Livermore was still beset by broken welds, persistent sparking, and vacuum leaks. (The cost of fixing the latter was becoming “fantastic,” engineers warned. Lawrence assigned everyone at the lab—physicists, engineers, and technicians—to plugging the leaks.)35 Although he told the Joint Committee that the Rad Lab “approached the accelerator project with increasing confidence and enthusiasm,” in fact, both patience and optimism were waning.36
Not only were Ernest’s grandiose plans being openly sniped at by his old-time foes, but the MTA had become the butt of unkind humor even among former friends. In “discussing the accelerator [Oppenheimer] did not hide his feelings under a bushel,” Joint Committee staffer Ken Mansfield reported from Princeton. Rabi observed, puckishly, that although enough money made it possible to do almost anything in science for a while, eventually the laws of physics prevailed.37
Told by Murray of the GAC’s opposition to a second lab, Lawrence thought “childish and silly” their objection that not enough qualified scientists could be found to staff another Los Alamos. Warming to the topic, Lawrence told Murray that he considered a second lab essential, but that it should start out on a small scale: “He, along with Dr. Teller and a few others, could form the nucleus for such an effort. It could gradually and eventually take over.”38
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On December 14, 1951, Neylan’s special Committee on Atomic Energy Projects gathered on the UCLA campus to review an “exceedingly urgent” request from the AEC, received just the day before. The commission was asking the university to approve three subcontracts, totaling $11 million, to “provide for special equipment and material necessary in connection with the primary purposes of Project 36.”39 No other information was forthcoming, nor was any requested. (“The chief function of our committee was to know nothing,” Neylan would later boast.)40
Assured by Underhill that the university was obligated to carry out the AEC’s bidding, the six men approved the request pro forma. With little discussion, and even less understanding, Sproul and the regents of the University of California had unanimously—and unknowingly—authorized construction of the world’s first hydrogen bomb.41
* * *
At the Rad Lab’s traditional party that New Year’s Eve, Lawrence asked the question that Murray had posed to him—“Do we need a second laboratory?”—of a young protégé. Thirty years old, Herbert York had been Lawrence’s graduate student when the war broke out. Sent to Oak Ridge, York returned to Berkeley after V-J day to finish his degree; later, he had supervised the lab’s diagnostic measurements of George in the Pacific.
At his mentor’s suggestion, York promptly set out on a monthlong, cross-country trip aimed at finding an answer to the question that Lawrence had posed. On one of his first stops—in Chicago, to see Teller—the young physicist discovered that sides on the question were already clearly drawn, and that Teller, not Lawrence, was the real “prime mover” behind the second lab. He was, York later admitted, “readily persuaded to Teller’s point of view.”42
On stationery from his Chicago hotel, York drafted a detailed, twenty-three-page outline of the kind of work that might be done at the new lab. His plan, complete with an organization chart and a list of prospective recruits, left no doubt that the future laboratory would be principally dedicated to building bombs: four different types of H-bombs were listed, including a radiation-implosion Alarm Clock and Teller’s classical Super. Ignoring Ernest’s parting admonition—“no big names and no big plans”—York also hoped to draw upon the cream of the nation’s scientific talent. He anticipated ground breaking as early as May.43
On February 2, 1952, Teller visited Berkeley at Lawrence’s invitation to discuss the second lab. The duo drove out to Livermore, where Ernest showed off the Mark I in its big corrugated steel building, visible in the flat valley for miles around, and spoke enthusiastically of Livermore as a home for the new laboratory. Later, over Mai Tais and dinner at Trader Vic’s, Lawrence asked if Teller would come to Livermore, should it be the site for the second lab. Edward insisted on one condition—that the work at the lab be specifically on thermonuclear weapons.
No promises were made, and few details were discussed.44 Lawrence’s final, avuncular advice was that Teller talk to Murray about how to lobby effectively for the second lab. A few days later, meeting at the AEC with Murray, the evangelical commissioner counseled patience.45
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By that winter, the GAC had considered—and rejected—the second lab no fewer than three times.46 Even the AEC’s Division of Military Application had come out against the idea, believing it would disrupt the H-bomb program already under way at Los Alamos.47 Anguished appeals from McMahon and Murray received the usual genial response from Dean but no action.48 Bradley, too, continued to reject the senator’s pleas to join the flagging crusade.49 Borden had begun toying with a plan to raise private funds for the project.50 He reported to McMahon that Teller was close to
