ABOUT THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MANHATTAN PROJECT...I MEAN, THAT STARTED PEOPLE THINKING ABOUT IT. BUT THEN WHEN THE PROJECT, LATE IN DECEMBER OF '41, WHEN IT REALLY GOT STARTED, WHAT WAS REALLY THE MAIN IMPETUS?

Well, well in '41, of course, the Army was not involved, except for General Styer, who was our liaison with the Office of Scientific Research and Development. At that time it was under the S-1 Committee, and they had funds to start research and development. And in '42, they had reached early in '42, they had reached the point where they felt they were about ready for construction. And in June of 1942, they worked out with the Army staff, General Styer in particular and General Marshall, to uh, bring in the Army for the purpose of constructing the plants that they thought were they thought they were ready for construction, and they felt the Corps of Engineers, well, in fact they, they wanted an officer in the Corps of Engineers to be in charge of construction. And in June 13th I believe it was, they sent a letter to the President of the United States, outlining the idea of going ahead with construction and setting up $85 million, which was supposed to be drawn from the President's Fund to build the pilot plants and start construction. So, that was the first where I got into it. And at that time I was building in charge of construction. I was in charge of construction of the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works and the Rome Air Depot. And the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works was a TNT plant. I was working for the Syracuse district as area engineer for the two plants. And Colonel Marshall, J. C. Marshall, had been called to Washington in about the third week in June, right about the 17th I believe it was, and uh, informed that he was to form a new district to take over the construction of whatever was necessary in the atomic energy program. Atomic weapon program. He called me on the 19th of June, and asked me to come to Syracuse on Sunday. When I arrived, about a hundred-mile drive, why, he was sitting at his desk, and he said, "Nick, I have a new technical project, highly secret. I'm to be the district engineer; I expect you to be the deputy district engineer, and I give you fifteen seconds to be, to volunteer or be drafted." So having been informed on similar occasions before, why, he outlined the program generally, why, I said, "OK, I volunteer." I then read all the reports that had been forwarded to the President. And that was my first information of anything about atomic bombs. And I thought at that time that I would uh, in fact, when I took on the job of being area engineer for the Rome Air Depot it was on the basis I'd spend only one year on that and then would be given a combat assignment. So I, when I first heard I had to go to Syracuse, I had some idea to where that might be it, but then he says technical project I knew it wasn't. So I was a little bit disappointed, but decided I'd find out what it was all about. And we were scheduled to go to Washington for the, on the 25th for an S-1 meeting. That was the OSRD Committee, and it consisted of Conant, the Chairman, he was president of Harvard, Arthur Compton, Ernest Lawrence, Harold Urey, uh, I forget the name of the Bureau of Standards. I'll think of it in a minute, and Eger Murphree with Standard Oil development. And after talking with these people and seeing how ardent they were about the prospects of creating something new uh, a terrifically powerful weapon, and having been in technical work most of my career and uh, why, I looked forward to the idea of, of spending time with them. Again, it was only on the basis I would spend one year, and then I would go to troops. See, every regular has that desire, because the only way you get promoted in war is to, is to be on a troop assignment. And I had looked forward to it, being a West Point graduate. But I was told that I'd been selected because I had uh, an unusual background of after West Point I had three more years of graduate work and a Masters degree from Cornell, had studied in Germany, Berlin, the Technische Hochschule, and also had a degree from the State University of Iowa at Iowa City for a PhD in hydraulics and engineering. And General Styer, who had been the contact with OSRD felt I would be of considerable value in dealing with the scientists, particularly initially. But he recognized that I'd been promised the year before to go to troop, so he made it again one year. And it didn't turn out quite that way. But when we met with the uh, scientists at S-1, of course the script said that they were ready for construction; we found their ideas of being ready for construction very nebulous. The only plant or the only project that looked at all ready was the electromagnetic plant, under the direction of Ernest Lawrence. And he probably was ahead of others because he was using a cyclotron as a basic unit for the electromagnetic plant, and if he could perfect one unit, it meant he was duplicating it a hundred times or more and you'd have a plant.

LET ME ASK...

But the others were far from being ready. And the plutonium project was very very indefinite about just where they were, when they'd be ready and how you'd go about it. And the gaseous diffusion plant was even farther behind. So uh, our first problem was uh recognition that uh, we had a lot of more, more research to do before you could even start design. And as we got into the work, oh, the other thing that was ready for construction was heavy water plant. As Eger Murphree, who wasn't an industrial engineer, scientist, uh, was in charge of that although Harold Urey was the sponsor. And they were ready to proceed with a plant up in Canada. So uh, our first problem we encountered was priority. As to the General in charge of procurement in the Pentagon, their first problem was to win the war an not worry about secret weapons that may or may not be of use in, in the current war. So the...best priority we could get out of the munitions board was an AA3. And uh, higher priorities were reserved for material for direct use in the war as it was proceeding at that time. So we uh, tried harder and harder to get a higher priority, and we also delayed uh, acquiring the Oak Ridge site because we were not certain how many plants would be built there and what would be built and when. We did proceed however with uh, photography to where we could move fast once we decided to move. But we were pressing Bush see, we were not in charge of the overall project at that time. Van Bush and Connant were. We were only to do what construction they specified. But uh, something had to be done about priorities, and the only answer we could find was to go back to the President again to clarify it.

COULD YOU PICK THAT UP AGAIN WHERE YOU SAID SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE ABOUT PRIORITIES?

Yes. Well something had to be done about priorities, and that meant going back to the President. Well Bush was unhappy about several other things in addition to priorities. He uh, did not like the fact that Marshall, Colonel Marshall, had put the headquarters in New York City, that's why it was called Manhattan District. And he did not like the fact that we couldn't get a higher priority out of the munitions board. And he was also worried that if we, once it got going we might try to take over the project. Uh, I don't know quite what gave him that idea, except maybe engineers always try to take over. But uh, so when we went to the President, he not only went with the idea of how to get a priority, a higher priority, but also how to reorganize the project. So that came about in September of uh, 1942. And uh, I was called uh, from— I was in New York at the time, although I was living in Washington, rotating between those two places and also traveling to the various uh, research sites. But General Styer called, he wanted either Marshall or me to be in Washington the next day. And I told him Marshall was out on the West Coast, so he said, "You be here." He said, "Bring Groves with you." Of course uh, Colonel Groves at that time was in charge of construction for the Corps of Engineers for all work. So we had had many contacts with him and I knew him very well. And I know I called Groves and told him that I was, Styer said that he should come along with me. And he says, "What for?" I said, "I don't know, I didn't ask him. He just told me to bring you." So at noon we met with Styer. And Groves, apparently, I didn't know at that time, had bumped into Somerville that morning, General Somerville who was uh Styer's boss in the Army Service Forces. And Groves had asked uh, Somerville if he could accept an assignment overseas that would get a promotion for him to Brigadier General. And Styer mentioned something about he, uh, had a new assignment, President just approved it, he'd learn more about it soon. Well that's what Styer wanted him for. So uh, Styer started off with Bush's four things that had to be done, and uh started to outline the new organization, and also told Groves that he had been selected. Of course, Groves was warned about it, I didn't know it. But anyway, Groves started to protest. And he protested in such a form that uh, Styer finally said, "Out, Nichols." And so I went out of the room, and uh, when I came back about ten minutes later, he came back to get me about— called me in about ten minutes later, he resumed where he was before. He said, "Now let's start over on how— what's taking place." So, I think it's worth explaining the organization, because it's the thing that made possible uh, getting the job done. OK. But the new organization was being proposed, and it finally was formulated, involved setting up a policy committee, which consisted of Admiral Pernell in the Navy, who was uh, assistant to uh, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral King; and Styer, who was Deputy to Somerville, so he controlled all of the service forces in the Army; and Bush and Conant. Bush and Conant uh had one vote supposedly, although votes didn't mean much in this committee. And they in turn reported to a overall policy committee, which was General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army; uh, uh, Mr. Stimson, Secretary of War; and Mr. Wallace, Vice President of the United States. Uh, Groves was not a member of the committee, but he was— that was more or less his Board of Directors. And he was in charge of the overall project, not just construction, but everything, including planning for the use of the bomb. And the district remained as it was, as the Manhattan Engineer District, but instead of reporting to the Chief of Engineers, it reported directly to General Groves. In other words, the Chiefs of Engineers are bypassed for the duration of the project, although to keep relations uh, for the future, whenever we made a report to Groves, which we made every two weeks in the beginning, and later every, every month, we always carried it to uh, General Robins or General...and showed it to them, and explained it to them what the progress was on this project. So they were kept informed and cooperated fully with us. But uh, did not issue any orders to us. So that meant Groves had direct access, by line of command, to where he could contact either Mr. Stimson, Secretary of War, or General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Marshall and Stimson and Bush all had direct access by the, their, the right of their position in overall, to the President. So there was no staff above Groves. Uh, he reported to these individuals directly.

WHEN GROVES WAS FIRST ASKED TO TAKE OVER THE PROJECT OR APPOINTED TO TAKE OVER THE PROJECT, WAS THIS SOMETHING HE RELISHED DOING?

Oh no, he was bitterly disappointed. I know, when we left uh, we went to see Bush, and then later again we went over to the Navy to see what they were doing, he was just uh, very disappointed and very unhappy about the whole thing. Of course he was asking me just where we were, because his contact before had solely been when we contacted him to get help for construction, or for priorities, that type of thing. So he did not know just what the score was in regard to the project at that time. And as he said, I outlined it to him and just how nebulous it was and how little we knew about it and how little research had been done, in other words as far as requirements for design was concerned, and he was very unhappy about it. And when we went to see Bush, Bush had not been informed that Groves had been selected. So he was very unhappy. And he protested to Stimson or to Bundy, in Stimson's office. But it was uh, it was later explained to him that uh, although Groves had characteristics which Bush was sure he, he wouldn't like, I think uh, it's very difficult to use all the adjectives that might be used to explain Groves' personality and characteristics. But the one that's most outstanding, as Bush put it, was that he was so abrasive. And others complained about that. He's supercritical, nothing ever satisfied him. I know in one case when we inspected Oak Ridge, Marshall complained to him. He said, "Didn't you see a single thing that you could compliment the man about?" He said, "No, I don't believe in it." That no matter how good a performance is, it can be better. He's a driver. And he certainly knew construction. Because he'd been in charge of all military construction in the United States...before the war started until that time. So he knew his business, hard to get along with but he was intelligent. And the main thing is that he was egotistical enough to where he assumed he was always right and he stood by his decision. In other words, he had the guts to go ahead. And I don't know of any other officer, or any civilian for that matter, that could have, accomplished the job in the time that we did it under Groves' direction. So uh, although there were times I hated his guts, why, I've always said that if I had to do my job over again as, Deputy District Engineer and District Engineer, and had the right to select a boss, I would select Groves to do it.

WAS THERE A LOT OF DIFFICULTY BETWEEN GROVES AND THE SCIENTISTS?

Well, there were difficulties at the lower levels. But generally the uh, Arthur Compton, who was head of the plutonium project as far as scientific work was concerned, Ernest Lawrence, Conant and Bush got along very well with Groves. And at uh, but the lower, levels,... blamed Groves for a lot of things, restrictions, whatnot to where— and they, in effect, after the war, led a revolt to make certain that Groves did not continue in it, as being in charge of it. But uh, and there were a lot of people who didn't like him. Now, others, others respected him, in other words, now, Compton uh, in particular recognized that a type of man like Groves is essential to get the job done. So did Ernest Lawrence. So uh, uh, many times he irritated me. But that was his manner. At the same time he uh, generally got along, Urey was the only one that really uh tangled with him on policy. Now, Oppenheimer won out uh, uh, in not carrying out compartmentalization that many scientists resented. But uh, people ask me whether I was for it, I perhaps recognized a little bit better than Groves did that to a scientist you need to know everything, and that's their, you might say, their bread and butter of life, to have full access to all information. However, I think in this case, compartmentalization was warranted. And in addition to helping to preserve secrecy, which I think we did a fairly good job on, it kept the scientists working on their own project. See, scientists love to go kibitz on another project and tell you how to do it and learn all about it. But we wanted their nose to the grindstone and on their own project.

YOU WERE GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT THE SITUATION IN LOS ALAMOS, HOW IT WAS NOT...

Well, I must as well start with, regarding Los Alamos I think it's better to start with Oppenheimer. Uh, when I first got into business in July of '42, I met Oppenheimer at Chicago. At that time he had been placed in charge of weapon development under Arthur Compton. In other words, as far as the S-1 Committee was concerned, Arthur Compton was in charge of weapon development, and he had selected Oppenheimer. Uh, when Groves...entered the picture.

WHY DON'T YOU STOP...

When Groves got into the picture in September, one of his first moves was to push faster on weapon development. See, many of the scientists thought that it would be a, take a hundred men at most and would take a very short time, relatively to develop the weapon. Groves didn't believe it. And see, before he came in, why, we were not responsible for the weapon, so we hadn't even considered it, although I had had talks with Oppenheimer, and learned from him what the weapon was about and what it would do and the worry they had that summer about would it ignite the atmosphere, that type of thing, and a little bit of a view at the possibility of a hydrogen bomb. But Groves pushed to start the weapon laboratory. And uh, after talking to various individuals decided Oppenheimer was the best man. We had a worry, of course, about his security record. But he was selected in the fall of '42, and we started uh, building the laboratory early in '43. Oppenheimer wasn't cleared, but he was designated chief and approved by the military policy committee. We couldn't get the army to uh, security to approve his record. He had a bad record any way you looked at it if you were worried about communists, and we were. Uh, he had a uh, wife who probably was a communist. She had supported the communist party for several years. His brother was a card-carrying communist. He had many many associates who were communists. So it was a questionable record. To solve the problem, why, Groves just took over security. In other words, since the Army wouldn't approve why, he took over security. And uh, but instead of going ahead immediately, he reviewed again with all the top scientists, was there any other man that could do the job. And I remember the session in July of 1943. It was a year after we got into it. Going over various candidates and uh, in every case, why, Oppenheimer was better. Gee whiz, we went, each scientist on the S-1 committee who insisted on talking about what the prospects were, who it should be. So we came out of the meeting with Groves telling General, Colonel Marshall that clear Oppenheimer. Marshall said he wanted it in writing. So it came in July, I think about the 17th. No, later than July, we got a letter from Groves stating, "In spite of his record, why, the man is indispensible, clear him for security purposes."

(DISCUSSION)

So that is how he was cleared the first time. Because we considered there was no other man who could do the job, he was indispensible. I know I saw him in San Francisco shortly after, and said, "Oppy, we finally cleared you." He said, "It must have been difficult, wasn't it?" I said, "It sure was." And I said, "But from now on, I hope you will avoid some of your contacts with some of your friends that are questionable. But we'll tail you day and night whenever you leave Los Alamos. We'll know about all of your activities." So we gave him fair warning, and uh... then later in August we first heard about the Chevalier incident, which I've always thought was a legitimate attempt by the Russians to penetrate uh, Los Alamos. At least it was the way Oppenheimer told it to us in August of 1943. But uh, it took a long time before we could find out who the contact was. And that was a Professor of French in the University of California by the name of Chevalier. However, uh, we decided that uh, we could watch the situation; we knew of other efforts to penetrate Berkeley. And uh, but we felt that uh, we could handle it. And we trusted Oppenheimer to uh, we didn't, in other words, we didn't question his loyalty, and we felt we would be, make certain that he had no further contacts and uh, with uh, this particular individual.

I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU SOMETHING. WE WON'T GET INTO IT ALL THAT IN GREAT DETAIL IN THIS PROGRAM, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO JUST ASK, WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH CONCERN AT THAT TIME WITH COMMUNISM AND THE SOVIET UNION? THE SOVIET UNION WAS SUPPOSEDLY OUR ALLY IN THIS.

Well, the Soviet Union was our ally to the extent we felt they could help lick Germany. In fact I think they did more toward licking Germany than we did. Uh, I don't think uh, many in the military really trusted Russia, as to what their objectives might be after the war. I know in my own case, and I think General Groves and I saw pretty much eye to eye on the threat of communism. We felt it was just another form of totalitarianism, and it was just as bad as the Nazis we were fighting, in other words totalitarianism, and that they would be a threat after the war. So I know our attitude was and also uh, the President, to where he was very rigid in what instructions he gave to Groves in regard to security and in regard to communism, Russia.

YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ROOSEVELT NOW?

Roosevelt, yeah. Talking about Roosevelt. So I think the general attitude in the military, starting from the President on down, was you had have an ally as uh, I think Churchill said that he would uh, in this case ally with even the devil if that's what it took to win the war. And that's what many people forget, that uh, we were at war in a war, which we had— we weren't certain of winning. So that uh, I know my own view was, after living in Germany and traveling all over Europe was that communism was a threat, to the world. So I did my damnedest to uh, and got great pleasure out of stealing a nitrogen plant when you wanted one from the docks of New York ready to go to Russia, not for wartime, but I was certain it was for peacetime use after the war. We also did our best to make certain no uranium went to Russia. So uh, they were an ally you might say because we needed them. And uh, Stalin I think felt the same way. But that, that was the attitude at the time.

WHAT ABOUT THE IDEA THAT CAME UP LATER OF TRYING TO INCLUDE THE SOVIETS IN SOME BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE WERE BUILDING A BOMB AND THAT WE WERE GOING TO USE IT.

Well of course, that, that was what the approach to Oppenheimer was about, why not give them information about what we were doing? And Oppenheimer said that he was, he was for the uh, the thing, but not by the back-door method. That was his story.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT A LITTLE.

Well that, uh, in other words, the approach to Oppenheimer in '43 was just that suggestion, that you should share the knowledge of Los Alamos with the Russians. They were an ally. But uh, Oppenheimer said he opposed it on the basis that that should be policy of the United or originate at the top, and not something that should originate by a deal that he might make or somebody might make uh, uh, at the lower level. Now, definitely, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want any sharing with the, the Russians about the atomic bomb. In fact, he didn't he was more of a compartmentalist than Groves was. He didn't even want the Navy to know about it, although they were working on it for power. So the idea of separating 235 for the, the power source for, for navy vessels. But he laid down the, the very rigid rules on uh, on how— who should know about uh, the project. And it was a policy established by Colonel Marshall, General Marshall rather, that the planners in the Army should not consider or even know about the prospects of a, of atomic weapons....if it was successful, why, it would be taken care of by the group in the Manhattan Project. In other words, Grove was directed to plan on the use of the weapon. Now of course, you had to bring in Hap Arnold, uh, Chief of the Army Air Corps at that time, to cooperate and uh, start training a unit. But the rest of the Army was not involved, and most of them did not know about it.

SO...

So compartmentalization...

COULD YOU START AGAIN...

I'd say most of the Army staff did not have any idea that an atomic weapon was being developed. And in fact, I couldn't even be seen with Groves around in the vicinity of Washington except in the office. And uh, he uh, tried to keep his, his job secret as to what he was doing. So that uh, compartmentalization didn't was just not for the scientists. Now, in Los Alamos, uh, two things that Groves wanted were put off because of opposition. One, we had discussed, it was Conant's idea to militarize Los Alamos, was to run the laboratory as a military laboratory and commission the scientists. I know on the famous train ride that we took from Chicago to New York in a roomette, where four of us were in a roomette discussing Los Alamos, why, Oppenheimer agreed to be commissioned. But when we tried to uh, move forward on it, why, Robby and uh, Bacher told us in very definite terms, I know we spent quite a time in a hotel room in the Biltmore Hotel, Bush, Conant, Groves, Marshall and I with Robby and, and uh, Bacher. They were very clear, the minute we ordered them to be commissioned, that would, we would have their resignation. So Groves put it off. He didn't say he wouldn't do it, but he never did any more about it. The other term was compartmentalization of Los Alamos. But the scientists objected to that, and Oppenheimer backed them. So the result was we ended up with a very strange organization at Los Alamos, to where Oppenheimer was in charge of everything, even security. The military commanding officer was only responsible for housekeeping, and he reported to Oppenheimer and to Groves. And because of this strange relationship, why uh, the District did not have the normal supervision of that project. We still had the responsibility to audit the University of California contract. But not issue any orders. And I only went out to Los Alamos twice during the war.

DID THAT MAKE THE MILITARY A BIT NERVOUS? THAT LOS ALAMOS WASN'T HIGHLY COMPARTMENTALIZED...?

No, uh, Groves then responded in a way that also irritated the scientists. He made the exchange of information between Los Alamos and any other part of the project uh, as close to zero as possible. Only Oppenheimer had the right to visit other parts of the project, and many couldn't go anywhere, in the same way visiting Los Alamos was restricted. So that his idea was, well, if you have to have it open at Los Alamos, you cut off contact with Los Alamos and the rest of the project. So he told me, I mean,...District Engineer, to try to make most of my meetings with Oppenheimer, which I had to meet because we, we had to meet because we had to be certain of what we were producing, was the right quality for a bomb, that type of thing. And to uh, figure out uh, requirements he might set in regard to what we could produce and their effect on production. But we generally met in other places. And, but Oppenheimer got full information about every single, every report went to Oppenheimer, so he was fully informed about all the rest of the project. And there are several other contacts. See, some of the scientists say that we endangered other parts of the project and we slowed down the project because we didn't have a full interchange of information. But I checked most of these stories, and we, we arranged for, whenever uh,...Ernest Lawrence had full access, uh, Compton, Conant, and Tolman, and uh, Groves and I had contact outside, I think Groves internally and I mainly outside. Whenever something came up we, we arranged then the proper people either visit Los Alamos or people in Los Alamos visited the project. For example, one time we thought the U-235 plant might be dangerous. Well, we used Teller to head a committee to check all the possibilities of uh, concentrations of U-235 in the 235 plant. So uh, most of the scientists didn't know that was going on, however. So that was always a source of controversy. But uh, knowing what the bottlenecks were, why, it had no effect whatsoever on the time the first bomb was delivered.

I'D LIKE TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT A LITTLE BIT AND ASK YOU TO TALK ABOUT THE COLLABORATION WITH THE BRITISH. WHAT WERE THE BENEFITS OF THE US AND U.K. COLLABORATING ON THE BOMB PROJECT?

Well, well uh, originally there was collaboration. See, the British strongly supported the idea we should go into atomic weapons. Now, the biggest single contribution of the British was Churchill's consistent support that the atomic bomb should be first priority in our war effort. Now, Franklin D. Roosevelt also believed that. But I think whenever people worked on Roosevelt, it helped to have uh, Churchill backing the idea we should have top priority. So I always said that was the biggest contribution the British made. Now, technically, after we resumed relations with, after the Quebec conference in uh, '43, I know I carried up the report to, from Groves to uh, uh, Stimson, for that, so I had a pleasant day in Quebec. But I had arrived too late and Church... Roosevelt had made his deal with uh, with Churchill without anybody advising him whatsoever. But uh, Groves was not too enthusiastic about cooperating with the British, because he was afraid it might delay the project. And the policy was set up that wherever we were both engaged in a particular part of the project, we would cooperate. For example, we had full uh, cooperation on the gaseous diffusion plant, A-25. We had full cooperation at Los Alamos. But for the plutonium project, because the British had not been working on that, why, that was restricted to, solely to helping Canada and the British and French team uh, build Chalk River, the laboratory at Chalk River.

TELL ME AGAIN WHY YOU HAPPENED TO GO UP TO QUEBEC...?

Groves was worried about, and so was Bush to a lesser extent, that Lord Chadwick was coming along with Churchill. That meant he was going to discuss atomic weapons. And Bush had not been invited, and nobody had been invited to uh go up there that knew anything about the project. So Groves and I sat up most of one night, writing a report, and uh then took over to Bush to OK. And I was to deliver it to uh, General Marshall, and he in turn deliver it to Stimson. I know General Marshall told me, "I think you're too late, they're already meeting on the subject on a boat ride this afternoon. And it turned out to be true. But continuing with uh what they contributed and the handicaps, uh, Sir James Chadwick, uh, was very helpful in uh regards to Los Alamos, and the people at Los Alamos...except Fuchs of course

I'M TRYING TO REMEMBER WHERE WE LEFT OFF.

We left off in regard to the British contribution and the problems with them, cooperation with the British and Quebec Conference, why I went to Quebec.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN A LITTLE WHAT YOU AND GENERAL GROVES HEARD THAT MIGHT BE GOING ON IN QUEBEC?

Well, we, we heard that uh, Lord Cherwell, his scientific adviser, was coming with Churchill. That's what alerted to there was possibly going to be an agreement made with Churchill and FDR. So I rushed up there with a report and delivered it to General Marshall for use to, for, to give to uh, Secretary Stimson, who in turn would deliver it to FDR. But I arrived too late. In other words, the agreement had already been made. And going to the helpful parts.

LET ME JUST ASK YOU A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THAT. WHAT WERE YOU AND GENERAL GROVES CONCERNED ABOUT, WHY WERE YOU...

We were, were concerned in part because there'd been discussion.

ONE SECOND, I THINK I WAS STILL TALKING. COULD YOU START BY SAYING GENERAL GROVES AND I WERE CONCERNED.

We were concerned because Cherwell was coming. And we were worried that uh the British would push for peacetime, uh, cooperation. And many in the military, including uh, uh, Conant and Bush, felt that we should not make any agreements in time of war concerning uh, the peacetime after war, in other words, for cooperation. See, the British were pushing for a continued teamwork after the war. And uh, or they'd been talking about that. And afraid that, we wanted to inform FDR just where we were so he wouldn't make too many concessions. In other words, at that time, I don't think we felt that their help was absolutely necessary. And continuing with where they helped and where they didn't. Uh, Sir James Chadwick was very helpful in uh, particularly in alerting us to the purity requirements for plutonium, and the men at Los Alamos like Penney and others were very helpful. On 235 the technical help was good, except that uh, when Urey finally was I guess frustrated and discouraged, and where he recommended discontinuing the project, we then reviewed it with the British, and they in effect said we couldn't succeed. So we had the difficult problem at that time of the chief scientists for U-235 uh, gaseous diffusion plant telling us that we, we wouldn't succeed. We found the British were in fact telling us the same thing. So that was not helpful. Now, Groves had the guts to continue in, in spite of it. And uh, if we had failed, why, that would make a wonderful Congressional investigation as to why we proceeded without support of our top scientists; the British also told us we couldn't have anything before '46 at the earliest. Why, it made a very difficult situation. Now, with Canada, I had...

COULD YOU START AGAIN?

With regard to Canada, prior to the Quebec Conference I had already established with...Howe, their Minister of Munitions and Supply, complete cooperation for uh, operating the heavy water plant building and operating the heavy water plant in Trail, Canada, and also for refining uranium at Fort Hope in Ontario. So we didn't need it in regard to Canada that uh, just an informal agreement to where...Howe and the fact, we made that later amusing because uh. Groves asked me is there any way to get in contact with CD. Howe, because he was to be the representative of Canada for the International Exchange. And I said I have a liaison man right in his office. But that's the type of things where you talk about control. It was very loose control as long as we were doing our job. In other words, everybody went ahead, and Groves informed when there was problems primarily. But uh...

I JUST WANT TO ASK...

One other thing on the agreement.

YEAH.

There was a Hyde-Park agreement made about, shortly thereafter between Churchill and Roosevelt. And no copy of that could be found after the war, until later it was found in filed in the wrong place in uh, Tube Alloys, which was a British code word for uranium project. And so I know right after the war Groves said it didn't, it must be a forgery when the, when the British sent a copy over. But that, uh, went into a little bit about peacetime and also the agreement not to use the bomb without consulting either one to use it without consulting the other.

OK. GOOD. AS THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BOMB WAS COMING ALONG, DID THE MILITARY PERCEIVE THE ATOMIC BOMB AS SOMETHING THAT WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM...

Well, if you, if you say the military, the only military involved was General Marshall, General Styer, Someville, Groves and myself. And uh, I don't think Eisenhower knew about it, MacArthur didn't know about it. And the staff didn't know about it. Because Marshall's directions to, to uh was that they were not to be informed and uh, even those that might know about it, a few did, they were not to consider use of it. And when it was available, why uh, he would take care of how, and he assigned that problem to Groves, to where selection of targets was made by a target committee under Groves, and the uh, air force unit was trained, assigned to Groves, and uh, Larry Norstad was a contact with Groves on uh, making certain that we had everything we needed for delivery of the weapon. In other words, the Air Force would be responsible for it. But uh,...wasn't informed until we, we had the order from Handy, General Handy after the Potsdam Conference. So when you ask the attitude of the military, why, you might say there was no attitude, because not many people were informed.

SO IT WAS SECRET FROM THE REST OF THE MILITARY.

Secret from the rest of the military. Now, both uh, particularly Stimson, thought that it would end the war. And that was our, you might say, our objective throughout, that every day was important. That we should do it as fast as we could. And that uh, uh, it would be used when we got it done. Now, I'm certain that uh, FDR would not have required a committee on the use. But seeing Truman replaced uh, uh, FDR, why he knew very little about it, essentially nothing. He wanted to— time when he was in the Senate, before he was Vice President, he'd asked to investigate Hanford, and Stimson called him up and told him that he couldn't uh, by orders of the President. So he knew essentially nothing about it when he came into office. And Groves and Stimson briefed him. Stimson then recommended setting up a, a uh Interim Committee they called it, to go into postwar problems and the decision whether or not use the bomb in World War II. And I always felt that Stimson probably was the best man you had in the United States to make the decision. Because, after all, he had been Secretary of State, he knew international uh, policy and diplomacy, he'd been Secretary of War; and he was kept informed throughout the project of his being on the chain of command to Stim to the President. He knew about the progress. And uh, I know he was particularly interested in achieving results early enough to where it would be used and would save an, in the end there, to save an invasion of Japan. And uh, in regard to selecting Japan, uh, we didn't consider Germany because the war was over with Germany. So Japan was still fighting, and we were still losing lives, they were losing lives, and uh, the day before the President approved the use of the bomb, he improved the invasion of Japan, scheduled for November 1. And then he approved uh, when, after Alamogo or before Alamagordo, he approved the use of the bomb if available. So we informed the British we planned to use it. And uh, he then went to Potsdam for the conference with Stalin and uh, Churchill. And the Interim Committee, see, had been studying this problem, and they had a technical committee, which was the chiefs of the various research groups, uh, Ernest Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Oppenheimer, and Fermi. And they had studied the possibility of a demonstration. See, because many of the scientists were arguing and signing petitions that we should have a demonstration and not use the weapon against Japan. And one of the questions posed to this technical committee was, can you come up with a demonstration that will be effective. And they met in Los Alamos on that specific question, came up with the answer that they could not find a method of demonstrating it that would be convincing enough that to where it would end the war. See, because you have to be so far away when you observe it, why, it doesn't seem to be so effective. And then uh, and many other reasons why you can't make a demonstration. Also, the military side opposed that on the basis that you wanted surprise for it to be most effective if we used it. In other words, the shock action. I know I felt that the, the shock would be the thing that might convince the Japanese that they had lost, they already had, they were licked. But that was not the temperament of the Japanese to quit when you're licked. In other words, you fight to the finish. That had been demonstrated throughout the Japanese war. And so everyone worried that a...that an invasion of uh, Japan would be a very bloody affair. So the military, the ones that knew about it, why, were all for using the bomb. I know— and some people said afterwards, well, like Eisenhower is supposed to have said that he was not for using the weapon, although when it came time in Korea, when he became President of the United States, he was not at all reluctant to pass the word to the Chinese communists and to Russia and that uh, when they were at... that they'd either have to come to terms or he would use it as he would use everything available. And Eisenhower rather felt that you could not defend the United States without the willingness to use atomic weapons. So he changed over the years. If he did in fact oppose it. But I've always noted, in regard to that, that there's reluctance on the part of anyone to say, I'm for using atomic weapons. Unless they have to. Like, I know, during the, uh, the uh petition period, when uh, we finally had votes at Chicago on who was for using it, various degrees of use and that type of thing. I know we had the numbers, but uh, I know Groves called me, Compton was at Oak Ridge at that time, he said, "Well, find out where Compton stands personally." Although he had joined with the Interim Committee scientific panel in saying for use. But with all the other. We certainly hadn't changed his mind. And I know Compton put it very clearly that uh, he hated to make a decision. In other words, no one wants that responsibility. But when forced to say yes or no, he then agreed with the idea to use it. But he said it sort of horrified his, his whole feeling about uh, use. But when he started to consider the lives that would be saved, the friends that he knew in the service, why, he felt it was the right thing to do. But uh, I can understand why people don't want to make the decision, unless they're faced with it. Same thing was true of MacArthur. I can't find anywhere in the Korean War that uh, he favored it.

DID YOU...

But let me finish that...

WE'LL TALK ABOUT THE KOREAN WAR.

OK, later, yeah.

DID YOU PERSONALLY... YOU DID NOT WITNESS THE TEST AT TRINITY, RIGHT?

No.

DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE HERE. YOU'D BEEN WORKING ON IT FOR TWO OR THREE YEARS?

Oh yes. I'd been out to Los Alamos uh, in April or May, and went all over the test plans with them. And Oppenheimer informed me of the status of everything. And uh, then later Groves was setting up the group to go out, and it started getting too big. We called it a fishing trip. And uh, I agreed I wouldn't go. Arthur Compton agreed he wouldn't go, because if uh, key people like myself and Compton disappeared to Los Alamos, why, people would recognize on the project, well, the time had approached for a test or something vital. So I know I took the day off and went to Atlanta, although I had arrangements with uh, uh, two of my men that were out there on radiation to call me and inform me what the results were by a code message we'd arranged. But uh, of course I, hindsight I regret I didn't see it. But uh, at the time I felt it was the thing to do not to go, and because if I'd gone, why, any number of people would, would uh, if they'd had any inkling, would also want to go, key people.

YOU HEARD THE RESULTS OF THE TEST?

Well, I got it first from my own people, and then Groves called me and wrote me a letter, which was always very interesting because it was one of these letters which said "Destroy after reading" although I have a copy in my file because I recovered that later from his file. But he didn't want anybody at uh, Oak Ridge and Clinton, Clinton Engineer Works to know it had been successful. So it was delivered by courier. And I was the only one that read it, and destroyed it. But I have a copy of it in my files because I thought it was a rather interesting document.

LET ME ASK YOU THIS, WHY DID GENERAL GROVES THINK IT WOULD TAKE THE RUSSIANS 20 YEARS...?

Well, the estimates varied on that. Scientists thought it would take about three to five; my own estimate was five.

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO START AGAIN AND SAY WHAT THAT ESTIMATE WAS, YOU KNOW, FOR THE RUSSIANS TO BUILD...

Well, uh, the, my. That was the estimate of the Russians to build the bomb after the war. And the scientists estimated it be about three to five years. Groves estimated 20. He thought the Russians would not have the industrial capacity. He felt they might have the scientific capacity, but not the industrial capacity to, uh, complete the job. I felt that uh, if they took advantage of all that uh, that they had uh, of our work, I mean, knowing it could be done, they'd get support. See, of course, in a project of this type, the biggest thing to assure success is continued support. Well, knowing it could be done, there's no question Stalin would support it. And so I added two years. We did it in three. So I figured the Russians, I'd give, I just came up roughly with five. I know General Farrell agreed with me. He didn't agree with Groves. And uh, so that's uh, but Groves just felt the industrial job had been so difficult that they would not have the capacity to do it in a short time.

HE DIDN'T THINK VERY MUCH OF THE RUSSIANS?

No. But I felt there were several shortcuts that they might take. They didn't. But uh, if they'd concentrate solely on plutonium, why, it's be a much easier way to uh, to accomplish uh a fast result.

In regard to the industrial effort, of course I've always felt that it never got the publicity that it should have after the war. The scientific effort was so spectacular and dramatic, that all the emphasis was put on Los Alamos. But the industrial effort was tremendous. Uh, we spent at Oak Ridge one billion dollars in three years. And at that time, that was the biggest single project in the history of the world. In addition to just construction, but I mean the complexity of it. But we had the best industrial contractors possible to get: DuPont on the plutonium project; Hanford and Tennessee Eastman for electromagnetic plants and a combination of Carbide and Carbon; Telex for design, that was broken up into several pieces. Put it all under contract. And in every one of these projects we had tremendous difficulties at times, where we thought that something would— like electromagnetic process, when we first turned on the magnets, why they shorted out. When they got the chemistry system working, why, nothing came out the spout. And uh, that was a tremendous number of problems to solve. And Los Alamos or, not Los Alamos, but Hanford, when we started the first pile, the first reactor, it worked for about 9 hours and then just died. And then you'd let it rest for awhile, it'd start coming back up again. And the scientists had made a mistake in measuring the cross-section of uh, uh, zenon. And of course, once we uh, found it, why, it made tests back at uh Chicago, why, it was easy to correct. Then we were faced with a problem that uh, plutonium could not work in the gun uh, uh, weapon. So Los Alamos had to practically double in size to take on the implosion method. Well that meant that if, if implosion didn't work, why, the whole Hanford project was wasted, in other words a three hundred and fifty million dollar project. That's chicken feed today, but in those days it was big money. So we were faced with the problem, do we continue with Hanford full blast? The answer was yes, except that we uh did cancel some plants. Because if implosion worked, we didn't need as much material. So that was the, the good news about the problem. So the whole, the whole timing on the plutonium weapon depended on uh, Los Alamos coming through with implosion. In the gase— in the electromagnetic plant, that was the first to turn out material. But we knew that the electromagnetic couldn't, couldn't possibly turn out enough to produce bombs. It had, it depended on uh, the, the A-25, the gaseous diffusion plant. As I stated before, that, uh, Harold Urey got discouraged, and we did not have a suitable barrier, which is a key item for separating 235 in the gaseous diffusion plant. We did not have a suitable barrier until December of '44 and January of '45. And everything depended, where we went ahead for a year without having a key item, but we continued construction. And that, that those, those problems have never really been brought out to the public, because they're not glamorous. But believe me, they uh worried us about whether or not we could succeed. Now, I was always optimistic, I probably was too much of an optimist, but felt we'd solve the problem and that uh, just uh, by concentration and just harder work and putting more people on it and using double approaches, we finally uh got the gaseous diffusion plant working, turned out to be the best way to separate U-235, and uh, finally came through to where the key then for a weapon was to get enough for a gun-type weapon; we didn't even test it. And the final material was shipped to Los Alamos I believe it was on the 24th of July and delivered on the, what was it, the 6th of August. But uh, that tremendous effort, see, is where all the money was spent. In other words, 90 percent of the so-called two billion dollars was spent on production plants but uh, and uh, and towns, say for Los, for Oak Ridge and Hanford. Whereas Los Alamos spent about a hundred million total. So the big effort was the industrial effort.

I WANTED TO ASK YOU ONE THING. ONCE GERMANY WAS DEFEATED, WAS THERE — AND ORIGINALLY GERMANY WAS THE REASON THAT THE UNITED STATES WAS TRYING TO DEVELOP THE ATOMIC BOMB ONCE GERMANY WAS DEFEATED, WAS THERE ANY LET DOWN, WAS THERE ANY LACK OF URGENCY?

There was not a let down because we were in control of the uh, push, in other words, the military. But there was definitely a change in the attitude of the scientists particularly at, at uh, Chicago. In other words, they, they had finished their work, so they had time to sink, whereas all the rest were still were, were still expanding, 23, the gaseous diffusion plant, the electromagnetic plant and Los Alamos were up to their necks in developing the, the implosion method. But on uh, plutonium, everything was in order, everything was going nicely, so our problem was how do we keep the scientists busy. Well, you couldn't keep them busy, so they started thinking about all kinds of things. And that's where you start having uh, conscience bothering people. And the petitions started. And they started to object to the use of the bomb. And of course, many of them were antagonistic to Germany. In other words, they were refugees from Europe. So they really had an ax to grind against Germany. They didn't have such an ax to grind against Japan. And I know... Tracy uh, I think that was his uh, ... was his name, Compton's secretary told me one day, he said, "You know in all these petitions, I find the people who do not have anybody in the Pacific theatre are signing them. But like myself, I have a man over there. And I want petitions that uh show we want to use it." So actually when the vote was taken of I forget how many of the scientists there, some 60 percent generally favored what we did, including Compton. But you did have a not a let down in the work, because it wasn't important at that point for Chicago. And we had no such opposition at uh, Hanford or at Oak Ridge. And at Los Alamos it was uh very little opposition.

WHAT ABOUT AFTER THE WAR WAS OVER, WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF THE MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTISTS ONCE THE WAR WAS OVER?

Well, once the war was over, we had a problem. Everybody wanted to go home. In other words, that's true of the man in uniform. So you cut the military 15 million I think to 3 million. Everyone at— key personnel at Los Alamos, they wanted to go back to university. And you can't blame them. So we had great difficulty staffing the scientific organizations. And uh, for Los Alamos, why Bradbury was finally selected to head it. But for, uh, the result was we did not make much progress for a considerable period of time at Los Alamos and, but we did try to keep all the plants running, because we felt that 235 and plutonium were the time-consuming elements in a bomb. You could put together a whatever version of a weapon in short order that you might have developed...time. But so really when you consider stockpiling for the future, the key items to keep going were production plants. Now, in Hanford we stopped uh, one plant because we ran into a problem called the Vignior effect of uh the graphite expanding, and we were worried for fear that we wouldn't have one reactor operating, and we needed one reaction for uh radiation to make the initiator for atomic weapons.

AFTER THE NAGASAKI WEAPON WAS USED, DID THE UNITED STATES HAVE ANY MORE ATOMIC BOMBS?

We would have been able to deliver one I think it was the 20th of August. I forget the exact date, but, because it varied a little bit from time to time. But roughly that, about the 20th of August, the third one. We would have had 15 before the end of the year. About 15. But that would involve a new design for 235 and making implosion weapons. Which we would have done during the war right away.

BUT AFTER THE WAR ENDED, WAS THERE ANY CONTINUATION OF BOMB PRODUCTION?

Uh, no, except for 235 and plutonium. Now, we did have the components, I don't know just how much to say on this, but roughly the figures generally given are we had 7 to 9 weapons available in '46. And uh, but we had, I used to brief General Eisenhower...Chief of Staff, and I would brief him on the number of weapons we could assemble. See, of course, you didn't assemble a weapon then until uh, you were ready to use it, you had your components. Uh, we used to brief him on the number of components we had that we could make weapons, and then also brief him on the number uh, the amount of plutonium 235 we had as to how many weapons that would make. And uh, the figure that's been released is that by '48 we had about 50, in summer of '48. And that was after the Sandstone tests.

ONCE THE WAR WAS OVER, THE BOMB HAD BEEN USED, IT BECAME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE THAT THERE WAS SUCH A WEAPON. HOW DID YOU AND GENERAL GROVES FEEL ABOUT HOW ATOMIC WEAPONS AND ATOMIC ENERGY SHOULD BE CONTROLLED?

Well we had uh, the plan submitted by Mr. Stimson, the Secretary of War; Groves had worked on it, I had contributed a little bit to it, provided for a mixed military-civilian I'll call it a commission or panel, I forget which name they gave to it. But it's part-time. In other words, they're people with full-time jobs, and they'd act similar to a Board of Directors. And then there was a position set up as General Manager, who would be the key executive officer for the project. And the scientists feared that was being written for General Groves, and uh they opposed that. And uh, the job written for me was Director of Military Application, see, to where you would continue with the same regime. I know at that time, I was offered by Max Taylor a professorship at West Point, and I know my wife and I debated for several months on which we would take. In other words whether I'd go up to West Point as a professor or whether I would remain uh, with the project. However, I didn't have to make the decision, because Mr. Lilienthal and I tangled very definitely on uh what we felt was priority in the whole atomic energy business, and he soon asked for see, I was the sole nominee of the Navy and the Army and the Air Force. See, they didn't put anybody else for Director of Military Application. But the, the original bill was defeated it was called the May-Johnson Bill by Senator McMahon primarily. See, the scientists uh, found he was a good leader for the opposition, and they backed the idea it should be civilian control and full-time. Now, I, I see nothing wrong with the idea of civilian control, although it'd be better if you had a mixed control and part-time, but mainly, it should never have had a full-time commission. Because to operate a manufacturing project the size of the atomic energy business, you need a Board of Directors at part-time and then a Chief Executive Officer, he can either be Chairman of the Board or President is the way they do it in business. And uh full-time Board of Director though is terrible. But uh, anyway, I had the job of turning over to Mr. Lilienthal and the Commission the uh project. And of course, I had to try to get what the military wanted. And so even although there was nothing I was trying for I wasn't for, but see, we felt that weapon design and weapon production should be military. And the uh, possibility to power, commercial power, should be what the Atomic Energy Commission, we felt the Atomic Energy Commission should continue to produce 235 and plutonium, but weapons should be military. We later backed off on the weapons, and primarily fought for a long time and finally got it, custody of weapons. But uh the President overruled uh the military on every aspect, and said to turn over every item whatsoever that was part of the Manhattan Project to the Commission. So uh, and also Lilienthal notified he wanted uh somebody besides me for... So I went up to West Point as a professor for a year. But uh, enjoyed that very much. Although I wasn't there out of the one year I stayed there, I was absent 200 days, consulting either at the UN or the uh, uh, control of atomic weapons or down in Washington consulting with Senator Hickenlooper in Joint Congressional Committee and the uh. Military Liaison Committee.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION? WE'RE ALMOST FINISHED HERE, BUT WHAT YOUR REACTION TO THE FACT THAT MANY OF THE SCIENTISTS WERE STARTING TO GET INVOLVED POLITICALLY NOW, WITH THE CONFEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS AND WHATEVER, AND IT SEEMED LIKE MANY OF THEM FELT THAT THEY HAD A SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY TO THE PUBLIC, HAVING WORKED...

I thought it was a normal reaction.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT A LITTLE MORE?

Well, uh, they, they felt, see, this, particularly the lower echelon started this. See, because they'd been left out of all the policy decisions. Now, Compton, Ernest Lawrence and others were in on the policy decisions whether or not to use the bomb and also all during the war on what should be done. In other words we never did anything really in regard to plutonium unless Compton agreed, like when DuPont had responsibility for designing and building the plant. For the design we insisted that Compton approve every... every plan. Now, that also antagonized the scientists because of uh, directing the work, why, they became uh, blueprint checkers. But uh, Compton was in accord with that. He recommended we go to DuPont. In fact, I made the first contact with Compton to bring DuPont into the picture. He recognized you needed industry. Now the scientists never felt they did. I know, even Fermi at one meeting, I know uh, Compton said, "well you have to sit in with uh, around the round table and just listen to the complaints about DuPont." And I know after hearing all the arguments that DuPont was too slow, too conservative, too safety conscious, why, Fermi uh, commented to me, he said, "We don't need DuPont at all." He says, "You and the Army just furnish me the bricks and the labor, and I'll tell them where to lay them. And I can, I can control the building of a reactor." Well he did on small ones, successfully.

YOU WERE STARTING TO TELL ME ABOUT IN THE LOWER ECHELONS OF THE SCIENTISTS...

Well they, as I say, they were not in the on policy matters. And they always felt that uh, see, particularly after the war it was a mistake to bomb uh Japan. And they felt that uh, you couldn't turn it over to military, you couldn't trust them. So and they wanted to get rid of Groves, no question about that. Uh, I think they were lukewarm as to whether or not I went. But uh, they wanted to get in on the act. And they found they had power, which uh thrilled many of them. And they did. In other words, they, they, they upset the whole plans of the Department, well it wasn't the Department of Defense then, but the Army and the Navy for the May-Johnson Bill uh, that would have kept a mixed control of military and civilian.

WHO WERE SOME OF THE MOST ACTIVE OF THOSE PEOPLE?

Oh, I forget the names of them, because I never paid too much attention to it. Most of them are lower echelon that I didn't even know. But I'd prefer, because I haven't looked that up as to who they were. But there's no question they had, they influenced, uh, they gained the support of MacMahon and uh, he organized and instead it came out a completely different act.

[BACKGROUND DISCUSSION]

In December of 1945, I was at Los Alamos when I received a call from Groves to bring in seven key scientists because there was a test being or— a test had been approved, which was sponsored by the Navy to test the effect of atomic weapons on naval vessels. And that kept the remnants of the organization we had at Los Alamos busy. Some say it detracted from the development of weapons, but actually it was good to have something specifically to do. And in addition, they had set up, they learned a lot on uh, instrumentation of tests to get data at Bikini. What they used was standard laboratory...of the implosion weapon for the two weapons that were dropped and were used in the underwater shot. I had nothing to do with the planning of it, because I was busy with all other things, keeping the plants going and organizing uh regional laboratories and other problems. But at the last moment. Groves said I should go. I said, "Why should I go? I have no part in the organization." And he said, "Well you can just represent me, and if the bomb doesn't go off, why, you take over." I didn't ask him how, I was then a Brigadier General, how a Brigadier General takes over from a three-star navy Vice Admiral on a, on his own flagship, but he, but I didn't worry because I knew it'd go off. But that was the first bomb I saw go off. And I was very disappointed with the airburst. First, we had to be 20 miles away to observe it, so it wasn't anywhere near as spectacular as movies I'd seen of Alamogordo. And uh, then when you looked down, you saw the target there, still sitting as bright as could be, the battleship painted red and the Air Force had missed [the center of the target].

AFTER THE WAR, WHEN THE SCIENTISTS STARTED TO LOBBY IN WASHINGTON AND WHEREVER, DID YOU FEEL THEY WERE JUSTIFIED IN DOING THAT? DID YOU FEEL THEY WERE GETTING IN THE WAY OF THE BUSINESS YOU FELT HAD TO BE DONE OR...

Well, I felt they were going after the wrong type of organization. But that's politics. In other words, they had the right to do it. As the uh, defense, defense people put up their bill and it was defeated, mainly due to the scientists. But they, they were, they were discontented, and they illustrated that. But that's the way...things happen in Washington. In other words you have a lot of strange things that cause why a particular act is passed. And uh, I didn't particularly like the act, although later I benefited from it, in the next chapter we get into. But I was not too surprised at... some of the scientists. See, and there were several in there that had uh, left the project earlier that became advisers to McMahon. In other words, disgruntled people see can sometimes be very effective, particularly on a political issue of this type. But uh, that's life in the USA., that's democracy.

WHY WERE THEY DISGRUNTLED?

Well, they just felt that they weren't in on the policy level enough. And all the things about compartmentalization and the fact that industrial people had too much control over, for example, take Chicago. Uh, we issued the order that uh, no scientists from Chicago would go to Hanford, unless DuPont requested his presence. The only one who could go uh, ...Arthur, was Arthur Compton. He could go anytime he wanted to. If he felt somebody else should go, he could go only if Groves or I had approved it. Well that type of thing, you know, rankles. But we did that at the request of DuPont. They said "We never like scientists around when we get to the point of operating a plant unless we need them." I know, I asked them, I said, "Well how do you take care of the scientists, then? It's their baby." He said, "Well, we in our organization, we keep the scientists busy until it's ready to turn over to the applied people in applied science and engineers, and then we get them on a new project to where they have a new interest." Now we had a problem with Chicago, that we could not give them new interests uh, because the policy committee in Washington, the military policy committee, felt they had no right to spend war funds on work that'd be for peacetime use, although we did to a certain extent; we started a fast breeder for example. But there was a minimum done, because the war was still going on, and we felt we uh, I was backing more work just to keep them contented and busy. But uh, the decision was made in Washington, no, you can only use a limited amount of work. So that meant we had a lot of people we had to keep in case we had trouble at Hanford to solve it, like we had to do on occasion. But uh, they didn't like it. So there were reasons why uh, uh, they, they should be disgruntled.

CAN YOU TELL ME THE STORY ABOUT BUTTERFLY WINGS? REMEMBER THE...

No, I don't remember.

YOU WENT TO CHICAGO AND TALKED TO SEVERAL OF THE SCIENTISTS, AND THEIR RESPONSE WAS, IF WE HAVE ALL THIS SECURITY, RESTRICTIONS PUT ON US, ALL WE'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO IS STUDY THE COLOR OF BUTTERFLIES.

Oh, they had a lot of complaints of that type. But uh, we-we— like, for example, we, we also had to stymie them on other things. See, when we, first time the project was really rounded out was December of 1942, when we had proposed what we were going to do and the President approved it. And before that was even approved, the scientists were already changing the type of reactor they wanted to build. And we did change it. And uh, DuPont finally went along with the change, because they proved it was better. So uh, we changed once. Well then uh, after we got the first reactor done, uh, well then, then they wanted to start designing a heavy water reactor. See, it'd be the second one. Well finally to keep them contented, we said go ahead with development. But then when it came time to build a second reactor, DuPont I know came to me first and uh,...involved everybody before a decision was made, because Chicago scientists wanted to have the second reactor a heavy water reactor. Well DuPont, this I know is the way they put the question to me, "Are you interested in developing the art? Or are you interested in getting plutonium for weapons? If you want plutonium for weapons, we keep the same design, and we build a number, all essentially identical reactors. Well here we'd encouraged them to design one to keep them busy, and then we suddenly had to give them the decision, well we're not going to use it. So there are a lot of reasons why they should be unhappy. But there were reasons why we made the decisions as we did. In other words, we were in a war project, and we wanted the weapon at the very earliest day we could have it. That does not necessarily jive with a scientist's idea of constant change and always improving. So you had the two in conflict. Now, as DuPont put it, you have to find some other use for your scientists when you get to the point when you want to turn it over to engineers and operators. The same way the operators want to get rid of the engineers when the plant' s ready to operate. Now, that's something the scientists never had any experience with.

GOOD. THAT WAS A GOOD STORY.

CITIES EVOLVED DURING WORLD WAR II, AND WHEN THE ATOMIC BOMBS WERE FINALLY USED, THE WHOLE IDEA OF BOMBING CITIES AT LEAST HAD BEEN WELL ESTABLISHED.

In regard to strategic bombing, the concept really developed in World War II. There was some strategic bombing, or not bombing, but artillery fire to obliterate village in World War II. The Nazis demonstrated what you could do to a town like Guernica in the Spanish war. But in World War II, you really got into the business for the first time of bombing cities with the idea of hitting civilians and industry and just destroying the will to fight in the civilians. To where the civilians had to suffer as well as the people in the front line. I don't know who started it for sure for the first, but definitely the bombing of London was in that category. If anybody remembers what London looked like, I didn't see it during the war, but I went over in '49 and saw the basements of the section of the city that had been eliminated by fire bombs and bombing. We then uh, retaliated or continued with strategic bombing uh, British in daylight, or rather, the British at night against Germany where they'd start fires and then bomb. That was a guide to US with the B-17, we were more precise, they tried to do it in daytime. But there's no question that uh, some of the bombing in, against Germany like Hamburgh and Leipzig was to destroy the city. And uh, in Japan, before the atomic bomb was used, in fact some Air Force people—

I'M GOING TO STOP YOU FOR A SECOND. DO YOU NEED A DRINK OF WATER? AND YOU WERE JUST STARTING TO TALK ABOUT JAPAN.

In Japan, of course, uh, we carried it to an extreme, primarily with fire bombing. Fire bombs. To where fires would be set in Tokyo that destroyed large portions of the city, it was very inflammable, and killed hundreds of thousands. And uh, other cities were to be targeted the same way. All the big difference between fire bombing, fire bomb attack and the atomic uh weapon, is it takes one plane to deliver an atomic weapon, to do what, say, six hundred planes would do with fire bombs. So that the concept was there at the time, uh, the decision was made to use the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And uh, I've always felt that the size of the weapon and the fact you used fewer planes to do it, did not make it a moral issue as compared to uh, fire bombing. And I think the initial reaction of the Japanese was the same. I know some of our people that went over for a survey talked to people in Japan, and they didn't raise the issue as anything about immoral. Most of them we, we wish we had it so we could have bombed you. The news, our media was the one that kept asking the question about uh, wasn't it horrible and uh, that we should use the atomic bomb. But the main thing, in my view, was that we ended it, and saved more lives than what we lost to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO SAY ONE PART OF THAT AGAIN A LITTLE MORE BRIEFLY, AND THAT IS, IF YOU COULD START OUT SAYING, WHEN THE DECISION WAS MADE TO DROP THE— TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMBS ON JAPAN, IT WASN'T SO— IT WASN'T SUCH A BIG STEP BECAUSE WE'D ALREADY BEEN FIRE BOMBING TOKYO AND...

OK. When the decision was made to use the atomic bomb against Japan, it was not a major increase in strategic bombing against cities. The precedent had already been set by fire bombing, to where it was policy then to fire bomb with the idea of destroying cities. And Tokyo is the best example of that. The big difference is that uh, to do a fire bombing attack it takes about 600 B-29s to do the equivalent damage of what one bomb carrier did at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

SO THE MAIN DIFFERENCE IS ECONOMIC?

The main, the main difference is really economics. In other words, the uh delivering one atomic bomb, I'm not talking about one, but I mean if you're considering the cost of atomic bombing as a large-scale measure, atomic bombing is far cheaper, in other words, the, the slogan was coined, I mean, during the period of expansion: More bang per buck. In other words, you could get more offense with uh using atomic weapons and few, fewer number of planes than you could by planning to do just conventional bombing. Now, does saving money make it immoral?

THE WAY IT LOOKED, AGAIN, WAS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USING IT, THE FIRST TIME, NOW, IN 1945, BETWEEN USING AN ATOMIC BOMB AND THE FIRE BOMBING RAIDS AT TOKYO?

The primary reason for using it was we thought the shock action would be greater, to where you suddenly have a city disappear, or practically. And that the shock action would realize we're using a weapon, and of course to Truman and the Potsdam Declaration. He threatened to continue this treatment. See, although he didn't mention atomic weapons. But the idea was that it would, it would continue. And that was one of the arguments for using a second one, see, as prom— as promptly as we could. Was to convince the Japanese that if they continued to resist, that more would follow.

SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID THAT THEY CAN UNDERSTAND WHY THE FIRST BOMB WAS DROPPED BUT THAT THE SECOND ONE SEEMED TO BE UNNECESSARY.

Uh, in regard to why uh, whether we needed the second one or not—

COULD YOU START AGAIN?

Uh, concerning the question of whether we needed a second bomb, that is the Nagasaki bomb, some individuals have claimed we didn't need it, we should have waited a longer period. But the Japanese had already reacted. And uh, d-delving into the records, you find even more than we thought to where uh the policy was still to continue after the first Hiroshima bomb.

WAS THE SECOND BOMB A SEPARATE DECISION FROM THE FIRST—

No, the decision was made...

COULD YOU START OVER AGAIN?

Yeah. The second bomb was not a second, a separate decision. At uh, Potsdam, the President approved two bombs. In fact, there's some thought that he might have approved three. But I know the orders went out to where we uh could use the first two weapons and uh, uh. General Handy signed the order because uh General Marshall was still abroad. And that was delivered to Spots and then turned to Admiral Nimitz, I guess and MacArthur. That we were going to do this. It was separate from all other war operations. The orders came out of Washington. And uh, then, for the third bomb, we were getting it ready, and it could have been delivered sometime about the 20th. And I know when Groves checked on that as it looked like peace negotiations might be started, he I know I have a copy of the letter written on it by I believe it's Marshall, "Do not use this weapon without specific written authority of the President of the United States. In other words, the third bomb was stopped. See, some thought we had authority for the third bomb. But that definitely stopped it, and Groves then held up the shipment once you heard peace negotiations were going. And uh, and then cancelled the idea of moving the materials to the island.

OK. LET ME JUST ASK FOR ONE QUICK RESTATEMENT OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID. THERE WAS A THIRD BOMB, WAS GETTING READY, BUT IT WAS STOPPED BECAUSE...

The third bomb, we had a schedule that uh, we moved it up four days because of uh, uh, urgency to try to get it ready, and we discovered we could get it ready four days earlier. And when Groves informed uh, General Marshall of that, why, he wrote on it, it's not to be used without the specific written authority of the President of the United States. So that stopped the movement of that bomb and the materials to Tinian. Did Bacher comment on that?

WE HADN'T TALKED ABOUT IT... HE SAID DO NOT USE IT WITHOUT THE AUTHORITY OF THE PRESIDENT BECAUSE?

N-nothing else. Just do not use it without the written authority of the President of the United States. See, because they felt that negotiations were going to proceed. See, some inkling of that came through then. So they didn't want to uh see, it looked like uh, Japan was about to yield. So they didn't want to be bombing during negotiations. And that was the surest way to stop it.

LET'S GET AN ESTABLISHING WIDE SHOT WITH NO TALK WHILE WE'RE...

I would, I would like to add one other general thought.

OK.

I would like to add one other general thought in regard to the decision making in, for the bomb. As far as I know and I think I know about everything that occurred at that time, I never heard of anyone in the chain of command that uh, that ever thought that we would use an atomic weapon without the specific authority of the President of the United States. That uh, everyone in the, in the Manhattan Project thought the thing was so important, I mean, the significance of the first use, that it would take the President to make the decision.

HM-MM.

So there's never been any question about the military taking over and uh using a weapon without a thorough consideration by the President as to whether or not we should do it.

I JUST WANT TO THROW OUT ONE MORE GENERAL QUESTION. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU'D LIKE TO SAY ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LAST FORTY YEARS SINCE THE NUCLEAR AGE BEGAN. ANYTHING THAT YOU, THAT HAS REALLY SURPRISED YOU?

You mean besides weapons? The biggest surprise to me in the last 30 years of my career is how environmentalists did not recognize that nuclear power was the cleanest form of generating electricity that we have. I always thought they'd leap aboard and be for it.

NO, ACTUALLY, I DID MEAN IN THE SPHERE OF WEAPONS. FOR EXAMPLE, ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS HAVE NOT BEEN USED MILITARILY SINCE 1945?

No, I'm not surprised that nuclear weapons have not been used since '45. I had always hoped and still hope that as long as we have nuclear weapons they will avoid war. No logical thinker is ever going to initiate a war with nuclear weapons. Unless he knows the other side is going to use them for sure. No, I don't believe you can say we'll not use them. Because if you do, why, then uh, you have in the situation in Europe to where Russia could sweep across Europe with conventional weapons and take everything they wanted. But as long as the threat is there, and a credible threat, why, I think it will prevent war. But I, unless a mistake is made, which is a real danger, or a misunderstanding of some kind about somebody about to strike, why I believe that uh, you have a better chance of uh, avoiding all war in fact, I regret that we've tolerated the little wars. I felt that way about Korea, and Ike illustrated that, President Eisenhower illustrated that a threat of use of atomic weapons can stop a war, conventional war.