Manhattan Project Study Guide TABLE OF CONTENTS I. LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY-­‐GENERAL ..................................................................... 3 II. LETTER FROM THE ASSISTANT UNDER-­‐SECRETARY-­‐GENERAL ............................. 4 III. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 5 IV. BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT ...................................................................................... 6 A. FORMER ATOMIC BOMB INITIATIVES ................................................................................................... 6 B. ESTABLISHMENT ....................................................................................................................................... 7 C. PROPOSALS AND BOMB DESIGN CONCEPTS ......................................................................................... 8 D. MILITARY POLICY COMMITTEE .......................................................................................................... 10 E. MANHATTAN PROJECT ......................................................................................................................... 13 1. Duties of the Manhattan Project ................................................................................................ 13 2. Project Sites ......................................................................................................................................... 13 3. Secrecy ................................................................................................................................................... 16 V. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .............................................................................................. 17 A. WORLD WAR II ...................................................................................................................................... 17 VI. TIMELINE ............................................................................................................................... 18 VII. CRITICS OF THE MANHATTAN PROJECT ................................................................... 22 A. BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI ........................................................................................ 22 B. COSTS OF THE PROJECT ........................................................................................................................ 25 VIII. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 25 2 I.
Letter from the Secretary-­‐General Most distinguished participants, Firstly, I would like to welcome you all to the third edition of Koç University Model United Nations Conference (KUMUN). My name is Emre İlker Karataş and I have the honor and pleasure to serve you as the Secretary-­‐General of this edition of KUMUN. Under the umbrella of the Koç University MUN Club, KUMUN has been growing ever since its start. In its third edition, we are proud to say that KUMUN will be a one-­‐of-­‐
a-­‐kind boutique conference of crisis simulations. Bearing in mind the theme of “Bringing Order to Chaos”, we have chosen one of the most important historical events within the United States. The participants of the Manhattan Project will determine the faith of newly invented atomic bomb and carry out operations to keep it secret or to make it marketable. Due to the fast-­‐
paced-­‐crisis nature, the participants are expected to be highly interactive and the Crisis Team will work to integrate all participants to the proceedings. This committee is composed of two people, who are joining us from the scientific side of the world. I would like to personally thank the Under-­‐Secretary-­‐General Mr. Ekin Öner for not rejecting my offer to become a part of this team, as his contribution is invaluable. Also, I would like to offer my gratitude for Ms. Ceren Kocaoğullar, the Assistant Under-­‐Secretary-­‐General for Manhattan Project for taking on the burden when I need the most. Lastly, I would like to say that even though these committees are designed to be of high quality, keep in mind that they are also designed for you to enjoy the academic content. Therefore, I would like to finish my words with saying that you should enjoy while you are bringing order to the United States. Should you have any questions regarding the content, you can contact the Academic Team through [email protected] Sincerely, Emre İlker Karataş Secretary-­‐General of KUMUN 2016 3 II.
Letter from the Assistant Under-­‐Secretary-­‐General Dear Participants, My name is Ceren Kocaoğullar, currently a freshman at Koç University majoring in Computer Engineering. This is my first year in Koç and thus in KUMUN team. It is an honor for me to be a part of this conference as I have been dreaming to be be a member of KUMUN family. This is my first time assuming the role of Undersecretary General. I would like to thank to our honorable Secretary-­‐General Mr. Emre İlker Karataş for giving me this chance and guiding me through the process. Manhattan Project Committee will be experiencing the development and outcome of the historical project. You will be able to rewrite the history to decide on the procedural actions and ethical dilemmas of it. As a passionate engineer and physics lover, I really enjoyed preparing the guide and trying to understand the scientific and psychologic sides of our subject. Apart from this prepared document, it is highly recommended for delegates to do further readings in order to become more familiar with the issue. There were many other exciting and interesting facts that I could not include in the guide but are available in the further readings attached. If you have any issues or questions, or feel like you need more motivation in preparing for the subject, you can e-­‐mail me at [email protected]. I will anxiously await your arrival and hope you enjoy the conference when the time comes. Sincerely, Ceren Kocaoğullar Assistant Under-­‐Secretary-­‐General responsible for Manhattan Project 4 III.
Introduction The Manhattan Project, in shortest definition, is: the monumental and confidential effort of the United States during World War II to produce the world’s first nuclear weapon. During the wartime, world’s greatest physicists and mathematicians worked for the 20 billion dollar project and they succeeded in building the first uranium and plutonium bombs. The project lasted less than four years a, and encompassed construction of vast facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. These facilities were specifically used for gathering adequate quantities of the necessary isotopes to produce the fission chain reaction. This reaction releases the bomb’s destructive energy. 1 A test was undertaken in Alamogordo, New Mexico. After the successful results, the United States used a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. And on August 9, 1945 to the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Following the explosion of Hiroshima, there were over 80000 civilian casualties, that lost their lives either instantly, or right after the incident due to heavy burns and radiation injuries. In Nagasaki half of the city was destroyed and led the death count to reach 65000 civilians. 2 These new ‘‘atomic’’ bombs, also known as Little Boy and Fat Man, exploded with energies equivalent to over 10,000 tons of conventional explosive.3 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both devastated. A few days later, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to World War II. Despite its size and complexity, this effort was carried out with remarkable secrecy: around 150,000 people were employed in the project, most of whom labored in complete ignorance as to what they were producing. Indeed, it has been estimated that perhaps only a dozen individuals were familiar with the overall program. By August 1945, the cost of the Project had reached $1.9 billion out of a total cost to the United States for the entire war of about $300 billion. Two billion dollars for any 1
LERNER, BRENDA WILMOTH, and Elizabeth Knowles. "Manhattan Project." Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2004. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. 2
Ibid. 3
Reed, Bruce Cameron, Prof. "The History and Science of the Manhattan Project." Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics. Michigan, US, Alma. 3 Apr. 2016. Lecture. 5 one element of the war was a monumental amount; the Manhattan Project was an organizational, engineering, and intellectual undertaking that had no precedent. IV.
Background of the Project A. Former Atomic Bomb Initiatives Nuclear fission was first discovered accidentally in Nazi Germany on December 21st, 1938, nine months’ prior the beginning of the World War II.4 The German radio chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry, were bombarding a solution of uranium nitrate with neutrons, expecting to discover manmade elements heavier than uranium. But instead, Hahn and Strassmann found barium in their irritated solutions, an element about half as heavy as uranium, which was an unexpected discovery. When they had consulted their physicist colleagues, it became clear that they had discovered a new species of nuclear reaction, fission. The new reaction was fiercely exothermic, ten million times as much energy coming out as the neutrons carried in.5 The physicists find a new method to deal with the newly created reaction. Hungarian physicist Leo Slizard told his American patron Lewis Strauss on January 2939, that nuclear energy can be used as a new energy source and mentioned “atomic bombs”. Philip Morrison remembers that “when fission was discovered, within perhaps a week there was on the blackboard in Robert Oppenheimer’s office a drawing -­‐a very bad, an execrable drawing-­‐ of a bomb.” Atomic bomb found its first documented expression in the context of nuclear weapons in a secret report prepared early in 1940 to British government by two émigré physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls.6 The world was at war. The tool of nuclear energy, like all tools, has the potential to be used as weaponry. All the key players of the political realm of that time began a program to build atomic bombs: the Germans, the British, and the French before their surrender, the Soviets, the Americans, the Japanese. There were two critical 4
Conca, James. "Why Did We Make the Atomic Bomb?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 7 Dec. 2013. Web. 06 May 2016. 5
B Reed, The history and science of the Manhattan Project, in . 6
ibid. 6 assessments: the first, whether or not such weapons were invent-­‐able, whether nature would allow such an explosion to proceed; the second, the outcome of the war. Both assessments depended critically on how much scientists trusted their governments and how much governments trusted their scientists.7 In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt duly authorized a full-­‐scale Anglo-­‐American nuclear weapons program on October 9, 1941. In Germany, the trust was not there and the German program stalled. After 1942, Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hahn and Richard von Weizsacher turned their attention to building a nuclear reactor. The German scientists of the time, have not believed the Allies could do what they had not judged feasible.8 The French project was a dead-­‐end from the beginning. Whereas, the Soviets put their program on hold before the 1943 due to the German invasion, revived it in 1943 following the battle with Germans that led German forces out of Moscow. The Japanese believed that since it was a costly project, even the Americans would not undertake such an initiative. So, their nuclear program was constrained with only laboratory experiments about uranium separation. 9 B. Establishment In spite of the fact that other nations sponsored modest nuclear research programs, the United States was the only belligerent that could spare the human talent and industrial resources required to build an atomic bomb in time to use it during the war. The development of the atomic bomb was the most dramatic example of how the Roosevelt and Truman administrations devoted their scientific, engineering, and industrial assets to a project that they hoped would help win the war at the earliest 7
ibid. 8
Bird K and Sherwin M, The Triumph And Tragedy Of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Atlantic Books 2008) 9
ibid. 7 possible time. It proved to be literally an earthshaking application of the American strategy of depending on industry and technology to reduce combat losses.10 After October 1941, when Roosevelt authorized a major effort to explore the feasibility of an atomic bomb, it was an undertaking of monumental proportions. The initial impetus for the project came from the fear that Nazi Germany, home of many leading nuclear physicists, would build an atomic bomb. A letter from Albert Einstein first alerted Roosevelt to this danger. Scientists had greatly increased their understanding of nuclear physics during the 1930s, but many vital questions remained to be answered about whether the enormous energy in the nucleus of an atom could be released in an explosive of unprecedented magnitude. 11 Roosevelt was concerned that German scientists would find answers to those questions first. The American project was assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; it soon came to be called the Manhattan Project because a new ‘‘engineer district’’ created to build the bomb was originally headquartered in New York. Under the direction of General Leslie R. Groves, a demanding, blunt, impatient, and energetic officer with a well-­‐deserved reputation for getting things done, the Manhattan Project set out to address a bewildering variety of scientific and engineering uncertainties.12 C. Proposals and Bomb Design Concepts The scientific breakthrough for the Manhattan Project, and for the future of nuclear energy, occurred in December 1942 in a squash court beneath a grandstand at the football field of the University of Chicago. A team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi, a Nobel Prize– winning physicist who had fled his native Italy, produced the first self-­‐
sustaining nuclear chain reaction. This proved conclusively that an atomic bomb many times more powerful than conventional explosives was possible. Fermi and his colleagues had anticipated those results, but it was still a large step from the 10
Cowan G, Manhattan Project To The Santa Fe Institute (University of New Mexico Press 2010) 11
12
ibid. ibid. 8 experimental knowledge that a nuclear weapon could be built to the development of an actual bomb.13 To design a workable bomb, Groves needed scientific talent that could address outstanding issues, perform tests, and reach conclusions about how to transform theory into a weapon of war. He asked J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant and charismatic theoretical physicist from the University of California at Berkeley, to lead the scientific effort. Oppenheimer was in many ways the polar opposite of Groves—
philosophical, reflective, mystical, and eclectic in his wide-­‐ranging interests. But they worked together well, and Oppenheimer was instrumental in recruiting a cadre of top scientists to collaborate on building an atomic bomb.14 Once it was proven that a nuclear chain reaction would take place under the right conditions, the Manhattan Project centered upon two main tasks. One was the design of a bomb; the other was the production of fuel to make it work. To determine how to fabricate an atomic bomb, a group of gifted scientists enlisted and led by Oppenheimer assembled at the hastily built community of Los Alamos, New Mexico, an isolated site over 7,000 feet high on a mesa near Santa Fe. Meanwhile, another boomtown sprang up in Tennessee, then called the Clinton Engineer Works and later renamed Oak Ridge, to deal with the equally difficult challenge of making nuclear fuel. The problem was that uranium 235—the isotope that is usable for nuclear fuel—is extremely rare, constituting only about 0.7 percent of naturally occurring uranium. There were four approaches that scientists thought might be used to isolate sufficient quantities of uranium 235, but none was certain and easy. An alternative fuel for a bomb was plutonium, but scientists calculated that several pounds of plutonium would be needed for a bomb, and they could offer no guarantee that, even if such a large quantity could be produced, it would be suitable for creating an atomic explosion.15 13
Kelly C, The Manhattan Project (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers 2007) 14
15
ibid. ibid. 9 Groves was committed to moving ahead on atomic research and production as quickly as possible; the United States did not learn until the European war was almost ended that the Germans were lacking behind on the creation of an atomic bomb. Unrestrained by fiscal considerations and racing to beat the Nazis, he pushed ahead by constructing huge production facilities without first testing approaches for isolating uranium 235 in pilot plants. During 1943 and 1944, the Manhattan Project sponsored research on bomb designs at Los Alamos, attempts at isolating uranium 235 at Oak Ridge, construction of reactors at Hanford, and other vital activities at dozens of laboratories and industrial sites. It employed tens of thousands of people, few of whom had any idea what they were working on.16 After many false starts, unpleasant surprises, and modified plans, the Manhattan Project achieved substantial progress. Groves told President Roosevelt in December 1944 that one gun-­‐type bomb fuelled by uranium 235 would be ready by August 1, 1945, and that it could be used without a field-­‐test. The plutonium bomb would have to be tested, but Groves informed the president that the first implosion weapon would be completed by July 1945 and, if it worked, several more would be available over the following few months.17 D. Military Policy Committee May 1945 President Truman agreed to Stimson’s request that a special committee of high-­‐ level advisers be established to consider the implications of the new weapon, especially, in light of Stimson’s concerns, for the postwar era. Within a few days, Stimson formed the committee, which he called the ‘‘Interim Committee,’’ and received Truman’s approval of the membership. Stimson served as chairman, with his aide George L. Harrison as his alternate. The other members were William L. Clayton, assistant secretary of state; Ralph A. Bard, undersecretary of the navy; Karl T. Compton, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the top scientific administrator of the Manhattan Project; James B. Conant, president of Harvard 16
Kelly C, Remembering The Manhattan Project (World Scientific 2004) 17
ibid. 10 University and Bush’s right-­‐hand man; and James F. Byrnes, whom Truman had designated but not yet announced as his secretary of state. Byrnes, Truman’s personal representative on the committee. In addition, Marshall, Groves, Oppenheimer, and a few others attended at least some of the Interim Committee’s meetings by invitation.18 In five meetings between May 9 and June 1, 1945, The Interim Committee had pondered many of the key questions raised by the anticipated availability of the bomb. Rather than providing answers to those questions, the committee’s deliberations had demonstrated the assumptions, priorities, and inclinations of knowledgeable and thoughtful officials. Although the committee was not a policymaking body and its conclusions were in no way binding, its discussions were harbingers of the considerations that weighed heavily in future decisions about the use of the bomb: the commitment to ending the war with Japan as quickly as possible, the assumption that the bomb would be used when it became available, the willingness to attack civilian targets as a legitimate means of waging war, and the hope that the bomb would help advance American diplomatic objectives, especially in addressing the growing differences with the Soviet Union.19 The committee did not, deliberate over the issue of whether Japan should be attacked with the new weapon; they assumed that once the bomb was ready it would be used. In the limited time that the Interim Committee devoted to the impact of the bomb on the war against Japan, the members considered not whether it should be dropped but the most advantageous way to demonstrate its power and help force a Japanese surrender. The purpose was to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible, to impede the Japanese capacity for making war and to shock the Japanese people and government officials with the fearful power and terrifying visual effects of an atomic explosion. The committee realized that the recommended target area would include not only 18
Kishik D, The Manhattan Project 19
ibid. 11 factory workers but also their families who lived in nearby houses. A few days after the committee reached those conclusions, Stimson passed them along to Truman.20 The Interim Committee spent much more time on the issue that had led to its creation, the possible effects of the bomb on international politics in the postwar era. The focus of this discussion was the most important and most perplexing foreign policy problem that faced the United States—its relations with the Soviet Union. The wartime alliance between the United States and Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other had always been an uneasy coalition that was held together principally by their struggle against a common enemy, Nazi Germany. As the war in Europe ground to a close in the spring of 1945, tensions between the allies increased. One pivotal matter of dispute was the future of Poland. During the Yalta conference in February 1945, Soviet behavior in Poland turned out to be so incompatible with Roosevelt’s view of the understandings at Yalta that he strongly protested to Stalin. The committee discussed two ways to approach Soviet problem: to offer general information to Stalin about the American effort to build the bomb in hopes that it would foster cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, or to seek to maintain a lead over the Soviets and other nations in hopes that the bomb would give the United States greater leverage in achieving diplomatic objectives, at least for a time. Byrnes, the president’s personal representative, objected to providing even general information to Stalin and stated that the most feasible strategy is to accelerate the research initiatives and possible production phase to acquire the competitive edge in this arms race. Byrnes’s view “was generally agreed to by all present.”21 The committee’s concurrence with Byrnes reflected his influence and his status as the president’s spokesman rather than a solid consensus in favor of his arguments. Although Byrnes expressed sup-­‐ port for making ‘‘every effort to better our political relations with Russia,’’ he hoped that the atomic bomb would increase his clout in dealing with the Soviets. In a meeting with Leo Szilard, a Manhattan Project scientist 20
ibid. 21
Vander Hook S, The Manhattan Project (ABDO Pub 2011) 12 who urged him to share information with the Soviet Union in order to head off an arms race, he made his position more clear. Szilard was a brilliant physicist who had first recognized the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction that could lead to an atomic explosion. He had persuaded Einstein to write the letter to Roosevelt about the danger of Nazi Germany building a bomb first. He was also a persistent and eccentric gadfly who had been a huge annoyance to Groves throughout the war. He and Byrnes were far removed in background, personality and experience on public issues, and their ideas on how to deal with the bomb were equally distant. According to an article that Szilard published years later, Byrnes responded to his appeal by suggesting that the use of the atomic bomb would impress the Soviets with American power and make them “more manageable” in Eastern Europe.22 E. Manhattan Project 1. Duties of the Manhattan Project The mission of this project is briefly, bringing an end to World War II and making the United States as the only super power in the world. The duty of the project in order to achieve this objective was to design and produce weapons of mass destruction. The energy source to be used with these weapons was to be nuclear sources. Owning weapons with supermassive destruction capability would give the owner country an irresistible power that would be enough to end and win the war. As the rumors raised the suspicion that Nazi Germany was a candidate to have this power, United States rushed to own it before any other country hence the Manhattan Project was born. The desired goal was clearly stated: “The laboratory will be concerned with the development and final manufacture of an instrument of war.” The scientific director will be responsible for achieving that goal “at the earliest possible date” while maintaining secrecy “by the civilian personnel under his control as well as their families.”23 2. Project Sites 22
ibid. 23
Kiernan D, The Girls Of Atomic City (Simon & Schuster 2013) 13 The facilities to produce plutonium would ultimately be designed, constructed, and operated by DuPont. After the Military Policy Committee meeting of December 10, 1942, which determined that production piles should be removed from the current location “Clinton”, a site had to be procured for them. To allow for the possibility of up to six piles and laboratories and a village for housing workers the site would require an area of about 15 by 15 miles.24 A group of DuPont representatives spent two weeks scouring the western United States in search of possible sites, looking at eleven altogether. Two sites in each of California and Washington Figure 1 The Hanford Engineer Works Site
looked promising. However, the group was unanimously enthusiastic about the Hanford location. The Hanford site comprised 670 square miles—about half the area of the entire state of Rhode Island. From the point of view of human habitation, the location was distinctly unappealing. Acquisition was complicated by the presence of a number of 24
Piles were built at the 100-­‐B, D, and F sites from west to east along the Columbia river. The 200-­‐North site is not shown on this map; it was about 3 miles north of the 200-­‐East site. The original village of Hanford was on the west bank of the Columbia, due east of the 200 area. Source HAER. 14 interests: federal, state, or local governments, private individuals, railroads and irrigation districts owned some acres.25 After weeks of searching, both DuPont and the Manhattan District had concluded that the Hanford site was the only one in the country where the work could be done.26 The final link in the Manhattan Project's far-­‐flung network was the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The laboratory that designed and fabricated the first atomic bombs was codenamed as Project Y. Meanwhile, there was a growing concern about how the project was being managed. Oppenheimer, with his supporters, advocated a central facility where theoretical and experimental work could be conducted according to standard scientific protocols. This way, accuracy and speed progress would be more efficient. Oppenheimer suggested that the bomb laboratory operate secretly in an isolated area but allow free exchange of ideas among the scientists on the staff. Groves accepted Oppenheimer's Figure 2 Los Alamos Laboratories
suggestion and began seeking an appropriate location. 27 The search for a bomb laboratory site quickly narrowed to two places in northern New Mexico, Jemez Springs and the Los Alamos Boys Ranch School. In mid-­‐
November, Oppenheimer, Groves, Edwin M. McMillan, and Lieutenant Colonel W. H. 25
ibid. 26
B Reed, The history and science of the Manhattan Project, in . 27
ibid. 15 Dudley visited the two sites and chose Los Alamos. The facility was located a remote area that does not allow any outer invasion. It would have to be provided with better water and power facilities, but the laboratory community was not expected to be very large. By the end of 1942 the district engineer in Albuquerque had orders to begin construction, and the University of California had contracted to provide supplies and personnel.28 3. Secrecy The project was kept confidential, except the US, only Canada and Britain “officially” knew about it. The Soviets had also learned about the project to some extent by illegal methods. On the human side, from the beginning of the project, Groves insisted on absolute secrecy. He did so for two reasons. First, obviously, was to stem any scientific or technical leaks to the Axis powers (or to the Soviets, who were similarly excluded); second was to increase the absolute shock value whenever the weapon first saw combat use. Thus, Groves insisted on a policy of strict compartmentalization: that is, a person should know only enough to perform his or her specific assignment. A very limited number of people knew the actual purpose of the Manhattan Project. Even the workers on the fields had not had an information regarding what others were doing in the site.29 Since the level of secrecy was too high, including not giving information to their families, many scientists were uncomfortable with working in Los Alamos. Additionally, the initiative of compartmentalization in order to keep the secrecy, for some scientists were a procedure that delayed the final outcome. Thus, they insisted that the Manhattan Project create a spot where all issues could be discussed in a no-­‐
holds-­‐barred scientific atmosphere. Groves agreed to create a free brainstorming venue to exchange ideas at the end. 30 28
ibid. 29
Kiernan D, The Girls Of Atomic City (Simon & Schuster 2013) 30
J Walker, Prompt and utter destruction, in , Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina Press, 1997. 16 After October 1941, when Roosevelt authorized a major effort to explore the feasibility of an atomic bomb, it was an undertaking of monumental proportions. The initial impetus for the project came from the fear that Nazi Germany, home of many leading nuclear physicists, would build an atomic bomb. A letter from Albert Einstein first alerted Roosevelt to this danger.31 V.
Historical Background A. World War II On May 8, 1945, less than a month after Truman became president, Germany surrendered to the Allied forces and the war in Europe ended. This was cause for satisfaction and relief in the United States, but jubilation had to wait until Japan surrendered and the global conflict came to a close. Neither soldiers in field nor policymakers in Washington anticipated that forcing Japan to quit the war would be an easy task. For the first time, the United States would be able to focus its energies and power on the Pacific campaign—as long as it lasted, the war in Europe had received top priority. In the three and a half years after the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, the Pacific war had proven to be a dreadfully savage affair. Americans regarded Japanese with hatred of singular intensity, exceeding even their antipathy toward Germans.32 Despite the pressure of the war, consideration had to be given at the highest levels to issues that would come to the fore as soon as the existence of the bomb was revealed. The development and use of nuclear weapons would radically alter the balance of power in the world and could potentially precipitate a dangerous arms race was evident to many of the leading figures of the Manhattan Project. A number of possibilities were on the table: Should it be used against an enemy without warning, or should a demonstration be arranged first? After the war, would atomic energy come under civilian or military control? What could be publicly revealed of the work of the Project without violating security concerns? What legislation and 31
ibid. 32
Walker J, Prompt And Utter Destruction (University of North Carolina Press 1997) 17 Congressional oversight would need to be established? What should be the role of the government in supporting research and regulating private nuclear industries? To forestall an arms race, would some sort of international control be necessary, with knowledge being shared among different countries?33 Anticipating much of the future Cold War and current-­‐day concerns with nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the report stated that “Nuclear weapons might be produced in small hidden locations in countries not normally associated with a large scale armament industry ... A nation, or even a political group ... will be able to unleash a ‘blitzkrieg’ infinitely more terrifying than that of 1939–1940 ... The weight of the weapons of destruction required to deliver this blow will be infinitesimal compared to that used up in a present day heavy bombing raid, and they could easily be smuggled in by commercial aircraft or even deposited in advance by agents of the aggressor.” 34 VI.
Timeline35 1939 August 2: Albert Einstein signs the letter addressed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, advising him to fund research into the possibility of using nuclear fission as a weapon as Nazi Germany may also be conducting such research. September 3: Great Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany in response to its invasion of Poland, beginning World War II. October 11: The letter from Einstein is delivered to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt authorizes the creation of the Advisory Committee on Uranium. October 21: First meeting of the Uranium Committee, headed by Lyman Briggs of the National Bureau of Standards. $6,000 is budgeted for neutron experiments. 33
ibid. 34
ibid. 35
'Manhattan Timeline' (University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016) <https://www.uaf.edu/files/olli/Mantattan_Timeline.pdf> accessed 5 May 2016 18 1940 April 10: MAUD Committee established by Sir Henry Tizard to investigate feasibility of an atomic bomb. June 12: Roosevelt creates the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) under Vannevar Bush, which absorbs the Uranium Committee. September 6: Bush tells Briggs that NDRC will provide $40,000 for the uranium project. 1941 May 17: A report by Arthur Compton and the National Academy of Sciences is issued which finds favorable the prospects of developing nuclear power production for military use. July 15: The MAUD Committee issues final detailed technical report on design and costs to develop a bomb. Advance copy sent to Vannevar Bush who decides to wait for official version before taking any action. August: Mark Oliphant travels to USA to urge development of a bomb rather than power production. September 3: British Chiefs of Staff Committee approve nuclear weapons project. December 7: The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The United States and Great Britain issue a formal declaration of war against Japan the next day. December 11: United States declares war on Germany and Italy. December 18: First meeting of the OSRD sponsored S-­‐1 Uranium Committee, dedicated to developing nuclear weapons. 1942 January 19: Roosevelt formally authorizes the atomic bomb project. 19 July–September: Physicist Robert Oppenheimer convenes a summer conference at the University of California, Berkeley to discuss the design of a fission bomb. Edward Teller brings up the possibility of a hydrogen bomb as a major point of discussion. September 26: The Manhattan Project is given permission to use the highest wartime priority rating by the War Production Board. November 16: Groves and Oppenheimer visit Los Alamos, New Mexico and designate it as the location for Site Y. December 2: Chicago Pile-­‐1, the first nuclear reactor goes critical at the University of Chicago under the leadership and design of Enrico Fermi, achieving a self-­‐sustaining reaction just one month after construction was started. 1943 January 16: Groves approves development of the Hanford Site. February 18: Construction begins for Y-­‐12, a massive electromagnetic separation plant for enriching uranium at Oak Ridge. April 1: Los Alamos laboratory is established. April 20: The University of California becomes the formal business manager of the Los Alamos laboratory. July 10: First sample of plutonium arrives at Los Alamos. August 13: First drop test of gun-­‐type fission weapon at Dahlgren Proving Ground under the direction of Norman F. Ramsey. October 10: Construction begins for the first reactor at the Hanford Site. 1944 July 4: Oppenheimer reveals Segrè's final measurements to the Los Alamos staff, and the development of the gun-­‐type plutonium weapon "Thin Man" is abandoned. Designing a workable implosion design (Fat Man) becomes the top priority of the laboratory, and design of the uranium gun-­‐type weapon (Little Boy) continued. 20 July 20: The Los Alamos organizational structure is completely changed to reflect the new priority. 1945 February 2: First Hanford plutonium arrives at Los Alamos. May 7: Nazi Germany formally surrenders to Allied powers, marking the end of World War II in Europe; 100-­‐ton test explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico. May 28: The list of cities on which atomic bombs may be dropped: Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata. June 11: Metallurgical Laboratory scientists under James Franck issue the Franck Report arguing for a demonstration of the bomb before using it against civilian targets July 24: President Harry S. Truman discloses to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that the United States has atomic weapons. Stalin feigns little surprise; he already knows this through espionage. July 25: General Carl Spaatz is ordered to bomb one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata or Nagasaki as soon as weather permitted, some time after August 3. July 26: Potsdam Declaration is issued, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction". August 6: B-­‐29 Enola Gay drops Little Boy, a gun-­‐type uranium-­‐235 weapon, on the city of Hiroshima, the primary target. August 9: B-­‐29 Bockscar drops a Fat Man implosion-­‐type plutonium weapon on the city of Nagasaki, the secondary target, as the primary, Kokura, is obscured by cloud and smoke. August 14: Surrender of Japan to the Allied powers. 1946 21 February: News of the Russian spy ring in Canada exposed by defector Igor Gouzenko is made public, creating mild "atomic spy" hysteria, pushing American Congressional discussions about postwar atomic regulation in a more conservative direction. August 1: Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 into law, ending almost a year of uncertainty about the control of atomic research in the postwar United States. 1947 January 1: the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (known as the McMahon Act) takes effect, and the Manhattan Project is officially turned over to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. August 15: Manhattan District is abolished. VII.
Critics of the Manhattan Project A. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki At 2:45 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a B-­‐29 under the command of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, a 29-­‐year-­‐old veteran pilot, took off on its historic mission to Hiroshima. The plane carried a crew of twelve men and an atomic bomb fueled with uranium 235. Tibbets informed his crew after takeoff that the cargo they would deliver was an atomic bomb, but otherwise the flight was uneventful. The fleet of just three planes caused little alarm when it appeared over Hiroshima; no warning sirens sounded and citizens saw no reason to seek shelter.36 At about 8:15 a.m. (Hiroshima time) the bombardier released the bomb. It was festooned with messages that would never be read, some obscene, some wrathful; one offered “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis.” Forty-­‐
three seconds after leaving the plane, the bomb exploded, proving that the uranium 235, gun-­‐type design worked as Manhattan Project scientists had promised. Even at 30,000 feet and eleven miles from ground zero, the bombardier plane was hit by two 36
Zipp S, Manhattan Projects (Oxford University Press 2010) 22 strong shock waves that bounced it around in the air. When the plane circled back to take a look at the effects of the atomic bomb, even the battle-­‐hardened veterans aboard were stunned.37 On the ground the bomb produced a ghastly scene of ruin, desolation, and human suffering. After the bomb exploded in the air about 1,900 feet above Hiroshima, witnesses reported seeing a searing flash of light, feeling a sweeping rush of air, and hearing a deafening roar, which was intensified by the sound of collapsing buildings. It is impossible to measure precisely how many people were killed by the atomic bomb. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, which studied the effects of the atomic bombs shortly after the war, estimated the number of deaths from the blast at between 70,000 and 80,000; more recent surveys have cited a figure of about 130,000 by the beginning of November 1945, including deaths from acute exposure to radiation.38 39
Figure 3: Test Explosion of Atomic Bomb -­‐ Alamogordo, New Mexico 37
ibid. 38
ibid. 39
July 16, 1945. (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, courtesy Harry S. Truman Library) 23 Three days later, after enduring stormy weather and enemy flak, another bombardment plane was unable to drop its bomb on Kokura because of a heavy haze. With fuel running low, it headed for its secondary target, Nagasaki. Nagasaki was covered by clouds, but as the plane approached, the cloud cover opened slightly to give the bombardier a brief view of the city. Unable to find the planned target point, he used a stadium as a landmark to guide his aim.40 In August 1945, its population was about 270,000. Because of the hills that rise above Nagasaki, the effects of the bomb were less widespread than in Hiroshima, but they were more intense in areas close to ground zero. The bomb destroyed a hospital and medical school that lay within 3,000 feet of the explosion and seriously damaged the Mitsubishi electrical equipment, steel, and arms factories. Within a radius of a half-­‐mile or so, humans and animals died instantly, as in Hiroshima. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that more than 35,000 people lost their lives; more recent studies have raised the figure to between 60,000 and 70,000 by the beginning of November 1945. Ironically, it was not until the day after the second bomb was used that leaflets prepared after Hiroshima that warned Japanese citizens about further atomic attacks were dropped on Nagasaki.41 In any event, there was no doubt that the bomb created what one survivor called “the hell I had always read about.” Within a radius of a half-­‐mile or so, the force of the blast killed virtually everybody instantaneously. The survivors of the blast and the heat were often horribly debilitated. Blinded by the flash, burned and blistered by the heat, cut beyond recognition by flying glass, those who could move stumbled through the darkness caused by dust, smoke, and debris. It was common to see people whose skin was hanging off their bodies, a result of the thermal flash and the heat that together caused severe blistering and tearing of the skin. Charred corpses were everywhere, and no services were available to help the living put out fires, salve their wounds, or ease their agony. The survivors were often so weakened that they died from their injuries or from the later effects of radiation, which began to 40
Ham P, Hiroshima Nagasaki (Doubleday 2012) 41
ibid. 24 show up within a few days after the attack. Those who received very large doses of radiation died within a short time; others who received less exposure still ran the risk of cancer or other causes of premature death. The presence of the health hazards of radiation was one major difference between the effects of the aerial attacks on Japanese cities with conventional weapons and those of the atomic bomb.42 Stalin viewed Truman’s use of the bomb as a political act intended to deny him the gains he had been promised in Asia. He also regarded the bomb as a serious threat to the long-­‐term international position of the Soviet Union by distorting the balance of power. “Hiroshima has shaken the whole world,” he reportedly remarked. “The balance has been destroyed.”43 In Tokyo, Japanese leaders were slower to recognize, or to acknowledge, the new force with which they had to deal. They did not receive details about the destruction of Hiroshima for several hours because of the loss of communications in the devastated city. The awful truth came in a report early in the morning of August 7. Within a short time, Japanese officials also learned of Truman’s statement threatening a “rain of ruin” and announcing that Hiroshima had been attacked by an atomic bomb. 44 B. Costs of the Project Manhattan project employed more than 130.000 people and cost nearly 2 billion dollars equivalent to 23 billion dollars in 2007. The fact that the invasion was a dreadful prospect for American leaders and soldiers should not obscure the fact that the costs in lives and destruction would have been even greater for the Japanese. VIII.
Conclusion The Manhattan Project was conducted under a veil of secrecy with the main objective of creating the first ever atomic bomb. The project has taken place in the 42
ibid. 43
ibid. 44
ibid. 25 chaotic environment of World War II and the United States saw this project as an opportunity to build up their reputation of being the most innovative and powerful country of them all. However, this project could not be realized without the crucial partnership of Canada and the United Kingdom. This project was an immensely costly one, and conducted with over 130,000 employees which are professors, field officers and so on. The significance of this project grew as the war waged on through 1942. Some of the most important information about the project includes it secrecy, the codenames, the significant amount of various sites for testing and research across the United States, and the competitive edge that it gave the US during the time of World War II.45 One of the most crucial aspects of this project is to maintain the secrecy under any circumstances. Any intelligence regarding the creation of such a catastrophic bomb could damage the prestige, as well as credibility of the US, other than anything else. Since this project’s first and foremost aim is to make the allied powers the victors of this deadly war, the level of secrecy had reached unprecedented levels. One of the biggest secrets of the time was that there were tons of sites all across the United States of America that were dedicated to replicating a town and observing the type of destruction that the town would face due to the dropping of an atomic bomb. If the research and development of the A-­‐bomb would have been discovered, then history could potentially have ended up much different than it did.46 45
Reed B, The History And Science Of The Manhattan Project 46
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