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MANHATTAN:
THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, Officer in Gharge, Manhattan Project

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

Special Studies

MANHATTAN:

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

by
Vincent C. Jones

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON D.C., 1985

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Brig. Gen. Douglas Kinnaid, USA (Ret.), Chief of Military History

Chief Historian David F. Trask

Chief, Histories Division Col. James W. Dunn

Editor in Chief John W. Elsberg

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Jones, \'incent C, 1915-

Manhattan, the Army and the atomic bomb.

(United States Army in World War II) (Special
studies / Center of Military History, United States
Army)

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.
1. United States. Army. Corps of Engineers.
Manhattan District — History. 2. Atomic bomb —
United States — History. I. Title. II. Series.
III. Series: Special studies (Center of Military
History)

QC773.3.U5J65 1985 355.8'251 19'0973 84-12407

First Printing— CMH Pub 11-10

For salt- bv the Supcrintc-iulcm of Docunic-nts, l!.S. (.overniiK-nt Priming Offl
Washington, D.C. 20402

. . to Those Who Served

Foreword

The U.S. Army played a key role in the formation and administra-
tion of the Manhattan Project, the World War II organization which
produced the atomic bombs that not only contributed decisively to
ending the war with Japan but also opened the way to a new atomic
age. This volume describes how the wartime Army, already faced with
the enormous responsibility of mobilizing, training, and deploying vast
forces to fight a formidable enemy on far-flung fronts in Europe and
the Pacific, responded to the additional task of organizing and adminis-
tering what was to become the single largest technological project of its
kind undertaken up to that time.

To meet this challenge, the Army — drawing first upon the long-time
experience and considerable resources of its Corps of Engineers —
formed a new engineer organization, the Manhattan District, to take
over from the Office of Scientific Research and Development adminis-
tration of a program earlier established by American and refugee scien-
tists to exploit the military potentialities of atomic energy. Eventually,
however, the rapidly expanding project turned for support and services
to a much broader spectrum of the Army, including the War Depart-
ment, the Ordnance Department, the Signal, Medical, Military Police,
and Women's Army Corps, the Military Intelligence Division of the
War Department General Staff, and the Army Air Forces. These and
other Army elements worked together in close collaboration with
American industry and science to win what was believed to be a des-
perate race with Nazi Germany to be first in producing atomic weap-
ons. For both soldiers and civilians this history of the Army's earlier
experience in dealing successfully with the then novel problems of
atomic science seems likely to offer some instructive parallels for find-
ing appropriate answers to the problems faced in today's ever more
technologically complex world.

DOUGLAS KINNARD
Washington, D.C. Brigadier General, USA (Ret.)

1 March 1984 Chief of Military History

The Author

Vincent C. Jones, after graduating from Park College (Parkville,
Missouri) with a B.A. in history, earned an M.A. degree at the Universi-
ty of Nebraska with a thesis on German public opinion in World War I
and spent a year as a Sanders Fellow in History at George Washington
University. Moving to the University of Wisconsin, he began work on a
doctoral degree in modern European history just before the outbreak
of W^orld War II in Europe. During the war, he was a noncommis-
sioned officer in a heavy weapons company of the 81st Infantry Divi-
sion, participating in the Peleliu-Angaur and Leyte campaigns in the
Pacific Theater. He was in training in the Philippines in August 1945,
preparing for the impending invasion of Kyushu, when the Army Air
Forces dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following
the surrender of Japan, he served in the American occupation forces in
that country before returning to the University of Wisconsin as an
instructor in history.

Completing his doctorate at W'isconsin in 1952, Dr. Jones served a
year as a research associate in American history at the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin and as an assistant professor of history at the
Central State College of Connecticut. Since January 1955 he has been a
historian on the staff of the U.S. Army Center of Military History,
where he has been a major contributor to The Army Almanac and the
ROTC textbook American Military History. In addition to the present
volume. Dr. Jones is author of articles and reviews in professional
journals and of biographical sketches of military figures in a number of
encyclopedias.

Preface

During the nearly four decades since the atomic bombings of Hiro-
shima and Nagasaki in August 1945, much has been written about the
developments leading up to that climactic moment in world history.
Within days of that event, the War Department released its official ac-
count, the well-known semitechnical report by Professor Henry D.
Smyth of Princeton University. Soon popular histories also appeared,
and with the gradual opening of the archival records relating to the top
secret World War II program known as the Manhattan Project, scholars
began examining in detail the scientific, technological, strategic, and
diplomatic story of atomic energy and the atomic bomb (see Biblio-
graphical Note). Yet amid this outpouring of books, none has provided
an adequate and full account of the United States Army's participation
in the atomic program from 1939 to the end of 1946. It is the purpose
of this volume to tell that story.

Stated in its simplest terms, the achievement of an atomic bomb re-
sulted from the highly successful collaboration of American science and
industry carried out under the direction and guidance of the U.S.
Army. This triad — scientists, industrialists and engineers, and sol-
diers — was the product of a decision in early 1942 by America's war-
time leaders to give to the Army the task of administering the atomic
program. Convinced that the Allies were in a race with Germany to be
the first to develop an atomic weapon, they decided that only the Army
could provide the administration, liaison services, security, and military
planning essential to the success of a program requiring ready access
to scarce materials and manpower, maximum protection against espio-
nage and sabotage, and, ultimately, combat utilization of its end
product.

In telling how the Army met the challenge of its unique assignment,
eventually achieving results that would have the most profound impli-
cations for the future of mankind, I have taken a broadly chronological
approach but with topical treatment of detailed developments. The
focus of the narrative is from the vantage point of the Manhattan
Project organization, which functioned under the able direction of Maj.
Gen. Leslie R. Groves and such key scientific administrators as Vanne-
var Bush, James B. Conant, Arthur Compton, and J. Robert Oppen-
heimer in compliance with policies established at the highest levels
of the Washington wartime leadership, fhe volume begins with a

prologue, designed to provide the reader with a brief survey of the his-
tory of atomic energy and to explain in layman's terms certain technical
aspects of atomic science essential to an understanding of the major
problems occurring in the development of an atomic weapon. Early
chapters describe the beginning of the Army's atomic mission, includ-
ing the formation of the Manhattan District, the first steps in acquiring
the means to produce atomic weapons, and the appointment of Gener-
al Groves. Subsequent topical chapters trace the building and oper-
ation of the large-scale process plants for the production of fissionable
materials; the administration of a broad range of support activities,
such as security and community management; and the fabrication, test-
ing, and combat employment of atomic bombs. A concluding section
describes how the Army dealt with the difficult problems arising during
its unexpectedly prolonged postwar trusteeship of the project until De-
cember 1946, when the newly created civilian agency — the United
States Atomic Energy Commission — assumed responsibility for atomic
energy matters.

The Army did not program a volume on the Manhattan Project in
its multivolumed historical series, the U.S. Army in World War II, until
1959. Two developments in the late 1950's had made available the es-
sential records for research by Army historians: the instituting of a his-
torical program by the Atomic Energy Commission, with the objective
of preparing an unclassified account of its own origins; and the open-
ing of access to the Manhattan District records, the so-called General
Groves collection, then located in the Departmental Records Branch of
the Adjutant General's Office but subsequently retired to the National
Archives and Records System.

A great many individuals are deserving of mention for their assist-
ance and support in the preparation of this volume. For aiding me in
my task of researching the voluminous and widely scattered records
controlled by the Department of Energy, I wish to thank Mr. Roger
Anders, Dr. Richard G. Hewlett, and Mr. Thomas J. Pugliese in Ger-
mantown, Maryland; Mr. Floyd F. Beets, Jr., Mr. William J. Hatmaker,
Mr. Frank Hoffman, and Mr. James R. Langley in Oak Ridge, Tennes-
see; Mr. Ralph V. Button and Mr. Milton R. Cydell in Richland, Wash-
ington; Mr. King Derr, Mr. David A. Heimbach, Mrs. Lucille McAn-
drew, and Mr. Robert Y. Porton in Los Alamos, New Mexico;
Mrs. Eleanor Davisson in Berkeley, California; and Mr. E. Newman
Pettit in Lemont, Illinois. For facilitating my use of the Manhattan
Project records at the National Archives, I wish to thank Mr. Sherrod
East, Dr. Lee Johnson, Dr. Herman Kahn, Mr. Wilbert B. Mahoney, Mr.
Wilbur J. Nigh, Dr. Benjamin Zobrist, and, especially, Mr. Edward
Reese, who on countless occasions rendered expert assistance in using
the indispensable General Groves collection. And for making available
interviews and photographs which they assembled for use in their own
excellent account of the construction aspects of the Manhattan Project,

I wish to thank Miss Lenore Fine and Dr. Jesse F. Remington, formerly
of the Historical Division, Corp of Engineers.

Adding another dimension to my understanding of the atomic
project were my visits to several Manhattan research, production, and
community sites, arranged by Mr. Tom Cox and Mr. William McCluen
at Oak Ridge, Mr. R. M. Plum and Mr. James W. Travis at Richland,
Mr. Charles C. Campbell at Los Alamos, and Mr. P. M. Goodbread at
Berkeley.

Many others gave generously of their time in reading and critiquing
all or parts of the manuscript: Dr. James B. Conant, Col. William A.
Consodine, Lt. Col. John A. Derry, Mr. Julian D. Ellett, Mr. Joseph R.
Friedman, Dr. Crawford H. Greenewalt, Lt. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, Dr.
Walter G. Hermes, Col. John E. Jessup, Jr., Dr. Richard G. Hewlett,
Col. John Lansdale, Jr., Dr. Maurice Matloff, Col. Franklin T. Matthias,
Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols, Mrs. Jean O'Leary, Mr. Robert R.
Smith, Maj. Harry S. Traynor, and Col. Gerald R. Tyler. To each of
them, I extend a special note of thanks.

At each stage in the preparation of this volume, I also benefited
from the unique combination of talents available among my colleagues
in the Army's historical office. Fellow staff historians — Dr. Stanley F.
Falk, Dr. Maurice Matloff, and Dr. Earl F. Ziemke — helped expedite ini-
tial research into the atomic project records, serving with me as mem-
bers of a team under the direction of Dr. Stetson Conn, the chief histo-
rian; in addition. Dr. Falk conducted a number of interviews and wrote
the first draft of the Prologue, Chapters I-IV, and Chapter X. Miss
Carol Anderson, in the library, and Miss Hannah Zeidlik, in the records
branch, cheerfully and expertly dealt with my many requests and kept
me abreast of newly available records and publications on atomic
energy. Mr. Arthur S. Hardyman designed the graphically handsome
maps, some of them in color, and oversaw the layout of the photo-
graphs. His colleague, Mr. Roger D. Clinton, provided the clearly
drawn charts, which will help the reader understand the complex orga-
nization of the Manhattan Project, and assisted in the selection of pho-
tographs. The skillful typing of Mrs. Joyce Dean, Mrs. Margaret L
Fletcher, Mrs. Edna Salsbury, and Miss Lajuan R. Watson, the eagle-
eyed proofreading of Mrs. Rae T. Panella, and the meticulous indexing
of Mrs. Muriel Southwick contributed to the efficient preparation of my
technically difficult and heavily documented manuscript. Lt. Col. John
R. Pipkin shepherded the draft manuscript through clearance by several
government agencies in record time, considering the potential sensi-
tiveness of its subject matter. Finally, Miss Joanne M. Brignolo edited
the volume. She demonstrated a remarkable capacity for quickly grasp-
ing the intricacies of atomic science, enabling her to make read-
able my oftentimes obscure text and to give order and consistency to
its complex documentation. I am obliged to her for whatever literary
merit my book may have.

For her understanding and unremitting support during the many
years this volume was in preparation, I wish to thank my wife, Kay Cox
Jones, who, as an employee at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chi-
cago in the immediate post-World War II period, first brought my at-
tention to the history of the atomic bomb.

For the many others not here mentioned who, over the years this
volume has been in the making, have contributed in some way to its
ultimate completion, I express my gratitude. The author alone, of
course, takes responsibility for the facts presented and the conclusions
reached in this volume.

Washington, D.C. VINCENT C. JONES

1 March 1984

Contents

Page

PROLOGUE: A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939 3

I 'ranium and Fission 8

Efforts To Enlist Support of the U.S. Government 12

Part One: Beginnings of the Atomic Mission

Ctjapter

I. THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM,

1939-1942 19

Origins of the Army's Role 19

Decision To Develop Atomic Weapons 21

Establishment of the NDRC and OSRD 26

New Advances in Atomic Research, 1940-1941 28

Top Policy Group: Preparing for Army Take Over 30

Progress in Research and Development: The Xuclear Steeplechase 35

II. ESTABI T^HING THE MANHATTAN DISTRICT 40

Organizing the District 41

Army-OSRD Planning Meeting 25 June 1942 .-. 46

Progress in Research and Development 50

III. FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT 55

Securing an Architect-Engineer-Manager 55

Obtaining Funds 56

Securing a Priority Rating 57

Procuring Essential Materials 61

Site Selection 67

Reaching Decisions: The Meeting at Bohemian Grove 70

IV. GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND 73

Reorganization and the Selection of Groves 73

First Measures 78

Establishment of Los Alamos 82

Manhattan Project Organization and Operation 88

Chapter Page

Part Two: Producing Fissionable Materials

V. ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION 95

Plutonium Project 95

Reassessment of Processes To Produce a Bomb 101

Contract Xegotiations 105

Hanford Engineer Works 108

Plutonium Semiworks: Argonne vs. Tennessee Ill

Program Funding 1 15

VI. THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS 117

Electromagnetic Research and the Army, 1 942- 1943 118

Research and Development, 1943-1945: Radiation Laboratory 120

Design and Engineering, 1943-1945 126

Building the Electromagnetic Plant 130

Plant Operation 140

MI. THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS 149

Gaseous Diffusion Research and the A rmy, 1942-1943 149

Design and Engineering 150

Building the Gaseous Diffusion Plant 159

Plant Operation 165

\ III. THE LIQUID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS 172

Research and Development: The Role of the Xavy 172

Reassessment: Decision for Full-scale Development 174

Plant Design, Engineering, and Construction 178

Plant Operation 180

IX. THE PILE PROCESS 184

Research and Development: Metallurgical Laboratory 185

Organization for Plutonium Production 198

The Semiworks: Clinton Laboratories 204

The Hanford Production Plant 210

Part Three: Support Activities

X. ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION 227

Breakdown of Interchange 227

The Quebec Agreement 232

Implementing the Agreement 242

Xe-w Partnership Strains: Repatriation of French Scientists 248

Chapter Page

XI. SECURITY 253

Early Aspects 253

The District's Security System 254

Counterintelligence Activities 259

Safeguarding Military Information 268

XII. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS 280

Organization of the ALSOS Mission 280

ALSOS Operations in Italy 281

Manhattan 's Special Intelligence Activities, 1944 282

ALSOS Operations m Western Europe, 1944-1945 285

XIII. THE RAW MATERIALS PROGRAM 292

Geographic Search and Field Exploration 292

Ore Control Agency: Combined Development Trust 295

Ore Acquisition in Foreign Areas 299

XIV. THE FEED MATERIALS PROGRAM 307

Program Organization and Support Activities 307

Feed Materials Procurement 310

Feed Materials Production 314

Quality Control Program 317

XV. LAND ACQLHSITION 319

Clinton Engineer IVorks 319

Los Alamos 328

Hanford Engineer IVorks 331

Other Sites 342

XVI. MANPOWER PROCUREMENT 344

Personnel Organization 345

Scientific and Technical Personnel 348

Industrial Labor 350

Civilian and Military Personnel 355

XVII. MANPOWER CONSERVATION 363

Labor Turnover: The Problem and Its Cure 363

Special Problems With the Selective Service System 366

Labor Relations: Union Activities and Work Stoppages 369

XVIII. ELECTRIC POWER 377

Power Requirements and Sources 377

Implementation of the Power Program 386

Distribution: Clinton Engineer Works 388

Distribution: Hanford Engineer IVorks 39 1

Chapter Page

XIX. COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPOR lATION 394

Communications 394

Transportation 397

XX. HEALTH AND SAFETY 410

The Health Program 41 1

The Safety Program 426

XXI. THE ATOMIC COMMUNITIES IN TENNESSEE 432

Oak Ridge: The Operating Community 432

The Construction Camps 440

Community Management 443

XXII. THE ATOMIC COMMUNITIES IN WASHINGTON SI A IE... 450

Selecting Sites 450

Hanford: The Construction Camp 452

Richland: The Operating Community 456

Community Management 460

XXIII. THE ATOMIC COMMUNITIES IN NEW MEXICO 465

Los Alamos: The Operating Community 465

Trinity: The Base Camp 478

Part Four: The Bomb

XXIV. THE LOS ALAMOS WEAPON PROGRAM 485

Planning Phase 485

Laboratoiy Administration 491

Post Administration 496

XXV. WEAPON DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING 503

Building the Bomb 503

Project Trinity: The Test of the Bomb 511

XXVI. THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN 519

Preparations for an Atomic Bombing Mission 519

The Decision To i-se the Bomb 530

Dropping the. Bomb 534

The Surrender of Japan 541

Survey of the Bombing Effects 543

Chnfjtey Page

Part Five: Completing the Atomic Mission

XX\ II. THE ATOMIC AGE AND ITS PROBLEMS 553

The Atomic Story: Informing the Public 553

Atomic Energy: Planning for Postwar Control 562

XX\ III. IHE ARMY AND IHE A lOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM,

1945-1947 579

A Postwar Trusteeship 579

The Final Act: Transfer' to Civilian Control 596

EPILOGUE: AN ATOMIC LEGACY 602

APPENDIX— EINSTEIN'S LETTER 609

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 611

GUIDE TO ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS 627

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 631

INDEX 643

Tables

Xo.

1. Stone and Webster Engineering and Design Personnel 127

2. Land Acquisition at CEW, 1942-1944 321

3. Comparative Estimates of Atomic Bombing Casualties

in World War II 547

Charts

1. Organization of the Manhattan Project, April 1943 88

2. Organization of the Manhattan District, August 1943 90

3. Organization of the Manhattan District, January 1945 166

4. Feed Materials Network, January 1945 309

5. Estimated Officer Personnel Requirements for the

Manhattan District, January 1943 356

Maps

1. Projected Site for Atomic Production Plants, Tennessee, 1942 48

2. Manhattan Project, 1942-1946 63

3. Clinton Engineer Works, Tennessee, 1943-1945 131

4. Hanford Engineer Works, Washington, 1943-1945 213

No. Page

5. Los Alamos Site, New Mexico, 1943-1945 330

6. Trinity Test Site, 1945 479

7. The Atomic Bombing of Japan, August 1945 525

Illustrations

Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves Frontispiece

Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Vannevar Bush,

and James B. Conant 29

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson 32

Brig. Gen. Wilhelm D. Styer 41

Brig. Gen. James C. Marshall 42

Col. Kenneth D. Nichols 43

Silver-wound Magnet Coils for the Electromagnetic Process 68

Approach Road to the Los Alamos Ranch School for Boys 85

Manhattan Project Emblem 89

Mrs. Jean O'Leary and General Groves 90

Col. E. H. Marsden 113

Excavation at the Tennessee Site 135

Alpha I Racetrack, Electromagnetic Plant, CEW 137

Electromagnetic Plant Under Construction 140

CEW Training Facilities 143

Electromagnetic Plant in Full Operation 147

Gaseous Diffusion Plant Under Construction, CEW 162

K-25 Steel-frame Construction 163

Completed Plant Section 168

Completed Gaseous Diffusion Plant 170

Richard C. Tolman 177

Liquid Thermal Diffusion Plant, CEW 181

Billboard at the S-50 Plant Site 182

University of Chicago Physics Building 186

Argonne Laboratory Near Chicago 187

124th Field Artillery Armory in Chicago 188

New Chemistry Building, Metallurgical Laboratory, Chicago 189

Heavy Water Plant at the Wabash River Ordnance Works 192

Maj. Arthur V. Peterson 195

Clinton Laboratories Pilot Pile, CEW 207

Clinton Laboratories 211

300 Area, HEW 215

100 B Pile Area, HEW 216

Chemical Separation Plant Under Construction, HEW 219

Completed Chemical Separation Plants 220

Sir James Chadwick, General Groves, and Richard Tolman 244

Changing of the Guard, CEW 259

Security Sign at the Tennessee Site 269

Farm at the Tennessee Site 322

Typical Terrain of the Los Alamos Site 329

Military and Civilian Workers, CEW 355

Women's Army Corps Detachment, CEW 359

Enlisted Men at CEW During Off-Duty Hours 360

Large Troop Contingent at Los Alamos on Parade 361

Power Plant, HEW 379

K-25 Power Plant, CEW 384

Unimproved Santa Fe-Los Alamos Road 399

Improved Santa Fe-Los Alamos Road 400

Oak Ridge Bus Terminal 402

Gallaher Bridge Road at the Tennessee Site 405

Col. Stafford L. Warren 414

Hazardous Materials Storage Area, Los Alamos 421

Oak Ridge Hospital 423

Oak Ridge Shopping Mall and District Headquarters 437

Black Workers, CEW 438

Prefabricated Houses and Apartment Dwellings, CEW 440

Enlisted Men's Barracks, CEW 441

Gamble Valley Trailer Camp, CEW 442

Oak Ridge Elementary School 444

Main Post Office and Theater in Oak Ridge 445

CEW Reservation Entry Point 447

Chapel-on-the-Hill in Oak Ridge 448

Hanford Construction Camp, HEW 452

Camp Administrative and Residential Areas, HEW 453

Richland Village, HEW 456

Typical Building at the Los Alamos Ranch School 467

Family Apartment Units at Los Alamos 470

Military Mess Facility at Los Alamos 471

Los Alamos Ranch Trading Post 472

Street Scene in Los Alamos 473

Pupils at the Los Alamos Community School 474

Trinity Base Camp 480

J. Robert Oppenheimer 486

Lt. Col. Curtis A. Nelson 501

Technical Area at Los Alamos 505

Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Farrell and General Groves 512

Trinity Control Dugout and Observation Post 515

The Atomic Explosion at Trinity, 16July 1945 516

Little Boy 522

Fat Man. 523

Col. Elmer E. Kirkpatrick, Jr 527

General Groves Checking Location of Bombing Targets 531

Page

Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., and Ground Crew at Tinian 535

Enola Gay at Tinian 537

Mushroom Cloud Over Hiroshima 539

Physical Damage at Hiroshima 546

Atomic Bombing Casualties at Nagasaki 548

Survivors of the Nagasaki Bombing 549

General Groves Holding a Press Conference 557

Henry D. Smyth and Richard Tolman 559

Oppenheimer Congratulating the Troops 582

Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and General Groves 585

Transfer of Control to the Atomic Energy Commission 600

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: p. 89 from Typogra-
phy and Design Division, Government Printing Office; pp. 361, 474, and
582 from Col. Gerald T. Tyler; and p. 600 from Wide World Photos. All
other illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense and
the Department of Energy.

MANHATTAN:
THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

PROLOGUE

A History of Atomic Energy
to 1939

The concept of the atomic structure
of matter first emerged in the fifth
century B.C. with the Greek theory of
minute particles, or atoms, as the un-
changeable and indivisible units com-
prising all material things.^ This new
idea, however, lay dormant for nearly
two thousand years because Aris-
totle's view that all matter is continu-
ous and composed of four elements —
fire, earth, air, and water — prevailed
in the minds of men. Following the
Renaissance in Europe such philoso-
phers and scientists as Galileo, Des-
cartes, Bacon, Boyle, and Newton
supported the early concept, and in
the nineteenth century chemists
(somewhat later, physicists) trans-
formed this atomic theory into a ma-
terial reality.

One of the first and important
steps was the theory proposed by
English chemist John Dalton in 1803
that each element is composed of like

' A simple but excellent explanation of the atomic
concept, including a good historical summary, is
Selig Hechl, Explaining the Atom, 2d ed. (New York:
Viking Press, 1954). The already classic, semitechni-
cal history is H. D. Smyth, A General Account of the De-
velopment of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military
Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Goi'em-
ment, 1940-194'y (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1945), hereafter cited as Smyth
Report. See Bibliographical Note.

atoms, distinguishable from the atoms
forming other elements primarily by
differences in mass. He thus provided
a practical and specific standard for
nineteenth century scientists' descrip-
tions of ninety-two chemical elements
(substances that cannot be broken
down or transformed by chemical
means). By the end of the century, all
known elements had been arranged in
a table, with similar properties in re-
lated positions, in numerical order ac-
cording to atomic mass; it ranged
from element 1, hydrogen, which was
the lightest, to element 92, uranium,
the heaviest. This "periodic table"
not only enabled scientists to predict
the properties of undiscovered ele-
ments but also became the basis of
chemical and physical knowledge of
the elements.

Beginning in the last decade of the
nineteenth century, scientific discov-
eries by those European and Ameri-
can physicists who sought to explain
the phenomenon of radioactivity
opened the way for the modern de-
velopment of atomic energy. This
phenomenon is a property possessed
by some elements to spontaneously
emit radiation that ionizes gas and

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

makes it capable of conducting elec-
tricity. Investigating electrical dis-
charges in gases in 1895, German
physicist Wilhelm Roentgen observed
radiation emissions that penetrated
opaque objects and also produced flu-
orescence. Roentgen's discovery of
these radiations, which he called
X-rays, led French physicist Henri
Becquerel to test fluorescent salts of
uranium to see if they also would
produce penetrating rays. In 1896,
Becquerel demonstrated that uranium
emits penetrating radiations that
would ionize gas, proof that it was
radioactive.

In England, physicist J. J. Thomson
and a young student from New Zea-
land, Ernest Rutherford, used X-rays
to ionize gases, providing further evi-
dence that the penetrating rays were
charged particles much smaller than
atoms. In 1897, Thomson published
data proving the existence of these
particles, each having a mass of about
one two-thousandth of a hydrogen
atom. The following year he suggest-
ed that these particles, subsequently
designated electrons, formed one of
the basic building blocks comprising
all atoms.

Rutherford's succeeding investiga-
tions showed that the penetrating
streams of emitted particles are com-
posed of at least three different kinds
of rays — alpha, beta, and gamma.
Alpha ray particles are heavy, high-
speed, positively charged bodies, later
shown to be nuclei of helium atoms;
beta ray particles are electrons; and
gamma rays are similar in composi-
tion to X-rays. In 1911, Rutherford
proposed the theory of the nuclear
atom, with its mass and positive
charge at the center. The work of
Rutherford, Niels Bohr, a Danish

physicist, and others led to the con-
cept of the atom as a miniature solar
system, with a heavy positive nucleus
orbited by much lighter electrons.

Rutherford finally achieved, in
1919, what man had been attempting
unsuccessfully for centuries: the artifi-
cial transmutation of an element.
Since the discovery of natural radi-
ation, scientists had known that disin-
tegration of radioactive elements in
nature caused them to change sponta-
neously into other elements. Bom-
barding nonradioactive nitrogen with
high-energy alpha particles given off
by naturally radioactive radium, Ruth-
erford caused the nitrogen to disinte-
grate and change into what subse-
quently proved to be a form of
oxygen. His achievement, although
somewhat removed from the ancient
alchemist's dream of transmuting
base metals into gold, was far more
valuable and important. It was not
only the first artificially induced trans-
mutation; it was also the first con-
trolled artificial disintegration of an
atomic nucleus.

A further Rutherford achievement
was isolation and identification of yet
another basic building block of
atomic structure. In addition to
oxygen, nitrogen transmutation had
produced a high-energy particle with
characteristics similar to the positively
charged nucleus of the hydrogen
atom. Later study showed it was a hy-
drogen nucleus, and scientists gave it
the name proton. Such a positively
charged particle as a fundamental
unit in the structure of all atoms had
long been hypothesized; demonstra-
tion of its presence in nitrogen and
other elements confirmed its identity.

A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

Discovery of the proton pointed
toward the existence of a third parti-
cle. In 1932, James Chadwick, Ruther-
ford's co-worker at Cambridge Uni-
versity, discovered this third particle,
the neutron, an uncharged body ap-
proximately equal in weight to the
proton.

Now the atom was viewed as com-
posed of a positively charged nucleus,
containing protons and neutrons, or-
bited by negative electrons equal in
number to the protons. The number
of protons determined the atomic
number, or numerical position, of the
parent element in the periodic table.
Thus hydrogen, element I, has but a
single proton; helium, element 2, two
protons; and uranium, element 92,
ninety-two protons. For each proton
there is a balancing electron. The
mass, or atomic weight, of an element
is the sum of its protons and neu-
trons; the electrons, with negligible
weight, do not materially affect the
mass of the atom. The weight of each
element is stated in relation to that of
hydrogen, the lightest. Hydrogen,
with a single proton and no neutrons,
has an atomic weight of 1; helium,
with 2 protons and 2 neutrons of
equal weight, a mass of 4; and urani-
um, with 92 protons and 146 neu-
trons, a mass of 238. The chemical
symbols for these elements are writ-
ten iH\ zHe^ and 92U238.

Thus far, three characteristics of
elements had been identified: chemi-
cal uniqueness, atomic number, and
atomic weight. But scientists also dis-
covered that many elements exist in
more than one form, differing solely
in the number of neutrons that each
contains. For example, there are two
forms of helium, each with two pro-
tons and two electrons. Thev are

chemically identical but one form has
a single neutron, thus an atomic mass
of 3, and the other, more prevalent
form two neutrons, thus an atomic
mass of 4. These substances are
called isotopes (from the Greek words
ISO, meaning alike or same, and topos,
meaning place) because they occupy
the same place in the periodic table.
The chemical symbols for the helium
isotopes are written 2He^ and 2He\ or
simply He-3 and He-4; or they may
be spelled out, helium 3 and helium
4. Many other isotopes exist, either
naturally or through scientific trans-
mutations, and they are important in
the story of atomic energy.

James Chadwick's discovery of the
neutron was not the only significant
development in 1932. That same year
British scientist J. D. Cockcroft and
Irish scientist E. T. S. Walton, work-
ing together at Cambridge Universi-
ty's Cavendish Laboratory, used a
particle accelerator to bombard lithi-
um with a stream of protons, causing
the element to disintegrate. Unlike
Rutherford, who experimented with
alpha particles from natural sources,
Cockcroft and Walton, in effect, pro-
duced their own protons through arti-
ficial means.

This artificially induced nuclear dis-
integration, however, was only one
aspect of Cockcroft and Walton's ac-
complishment. As a hydrogen nucle-
us, or proton, struck a lithium nucle-
us, the latter body disintegrated into
two alpha particles of helium nuclei.
The hydrogen atom with a mass of I
united with a lithium nucleus having a
mass of 7, thereby making a total
mass of 8, and then this body imme-
diately divided into two helium
nuclei, each with a mass of 4. Thus,

MANHAIT^AN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

the two scientists were also the first
to bring about atomic fission — or, in
the popular phrase, to split the atom.^

Still another result of the Cock-
croft-Walton experiment, and at the
time considered most important, was
its confirmation of Einstein's theory
of relativity, proposed in 1905, that
matter and energy are merely differ-
ent forms of the same thing. The
atomic weights of the lithium, hydro-
gen, and helium nuclei expressed by
Cockcroft and Walton in their experi-
ment were only approximate. The
combined mass of a lithium nucleus
and a hydrogen nucleus is, in fact,
very slightly more than the combined
mass of two helium nuclei. Thus, the
formation of two helium nuclei had
resulted in a loss of mass. This lost
mass was converted into energy in an
amount that could be calculated by
the Einstein equivalence formula
E = mc^ (energy is equal to mass multi-
plied by the square of the velocity of
light) or derived from the speed of
the helium nuclei as they flew apart
from the lithium. Because the two cal-
culations provided answers in very
close agreement, they confirmed Ein-
stein's theoretical projection and
opened the prospect of using atomic
fission as a major new source of
energy.

In the experiments conducted so
far, however, the total energy re-
quired to bombard the atomic nucle-
us and produce fission was much
greater than the energy released. This
initially high input of energy enabled
the charged particle to approach and
penetrate the atom, overcoming the

^Sir John Cockcroft, "The Development and
Future of Nuclear Energy," Bulletin of the Atomic Sa-
entuts 6 (Nov 50): 326.

repulsion of their mutual electrical
charges. Furthermore, even when
high-speed particles were used, only
one in a million succeeded in hitting
its target. This inefficiency led Ruth-
erford to describe using nuclear fis-
sion as an energy source as practical
as "moonshine," ^ and so it indeed
appeared to many.

But Chadwick's discovery of the
neutron provided the solution. The
neutron, because it was an uncharged
particle, would not be repelled and
therefore could penetrate a nucleus
even at relatively slow speeds. Proof
was to come from Italy, where in
1934 Enrico Fermi and his co-workers
set about systematically bombarding
the atoms of all known elements with
neutrons. They soon demonstrated
that the nuclei of several dozen ele-
ments could be penetrated by neu-
trons and thereby broken down and
transmuted into nuclei of other ele-
ments. Their best results were ob-
tained when the bombarding neu-
trons were first slowed down by pass-
ing them through such moderators as
carbon or hydrogen.

The most important result of
Fermi's work was not fully under-
stood for another four years. Among
the substances he had bombarded
with slow neutrons was uranium,
which was naturally radioactive and
the heaviest of all known elements.
Theory and chemical analysis seemed
to indicate that the substance pro-
duced by uranium transmutation was
nothing hitherto known, but was in
fact a new and heavier element. Ura-
nium is element 92; this new element
appeared to be element 93, or possi-

Ibid.

A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

bly even element 94. Fermi, so it
seemed, had created transuranic ele-
ments not present in nature, and the
popular press hailed his achievement
as a major advance in science.^

Yet many scientists were skeptical,
and Fermi himself was uncertain. The
properties exhibited by the new sub-
stances were not those they had ex-
pected to find in transuranic ele-
ments. For the next four years, physi-
cists and chemists were hard at work
attempting to identify exactly what
Fermi had produced. Progress was
slow, exacerbated by the uncertainty
of the times; fearing the advancing
wave of political oppression, many
scientists in Germany, Austria, and
Italy fled to havens elsewhere in
Europe and in the United States. Nev-
ertheless, out of Nazi Germany, the
answer finally came. Just before
Christmas of 1938, the radiochemists
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann con-
cluded that one of the products of
Fermi's experiment was not a trans-
uranic element at all. It was, rather,
the element barium, with an atomic
weight approximately half that of
uranium.^

When Hahn informed his former
co-worker, Lise Meitner, of the con-

" Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family: My Life With
Ennco Fermi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1954), Ch. 6 and passim; Enrico Fermi, United States.
1939-1954, The Collected Papers of Enrico Fermi,
ed. Emilio Segre et al.. Vol. 2 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1965).

^See Charles Weiner, "A New Site for the Semi-
nar: The Refugees and American Physics in the
Thirties," in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and
America, 1930-1960, Perspectives in American Histo-
ry, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Charles Warren
Center for Studies in American History, Harvard
University, 1968), pp. 190-234; Norman Bentwich,
The Rescue and Achieiiement of Displaced Scholars and Sci-
entists, 1933-1952 (The Hague: Martinus NijhofF,
1953).

elusions that he and Strassmann had
reached, the Austrian physicist — who
had recently escaped from Germany
to Sweden — quickly comprehended
the significance of the findings. Work-
ing with her nephew, British (Austri-
an-born) physicist Otto Frisch, she
concluded that the bombardment of
uranium by slow neutrons produced
two elements of roughly half the
weight of uranium. In the splitting
process there was a tremendous re-
lease of energy, far more than neces-
sary to cause fission. Without delay
she passed this exciting information
on to Niels Bohr, who was about to
leave Denmark for an extended stay
at the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton University. Thus, even as
Hahn and Strassmann published the
results of their work in Europe, Bohr
carried news of their conclusions to
the United States.^

Further experiments confirmed the
discovery of atomic fission and raised
the possibility that a practical means
of obtaining atomic energy could at
last be realized. Splitting the uranium
atom released not only energy but
also two or three additional neutrons.
Perhaps, under the right conditions,
these neutrons might smash other
atoms, releasing more neutrons to
bombard more atoms while simulta-
neously generating a continuous
emission of energy. This process, or
chain reaction, would be self-sustain-
ing and would continue for as long as
uranium atoms were present to be
split.

^ Lise Meitner, "Looking Back," Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 20 (Nov 64): 2-7; S. Rozental, ed.,
Xieh Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by Friends and Col-
leagues (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.,
1967).

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

During 1939, scientists in America,
England, France, Germany, the Soviet
Union, Japan, and other countries
worked intensively to extend both the
theoretical and experimental knowl-
edge of atomic fission. By the end of
the year, nearly one hundred papers
on the subject had been published.^
In the United States, native Ameri-
cans and a group of European refu-
gees combined their energies and sci-
entific talents to investigate various
aspects of the complex problem, car-
rying on their work at such institu-
tions as Columbia, Johns Hopkins,
Princeton, the University of California
at Berkeley, and the Carnegie Institu-
tion in Washington, D.C.®

Uranium and Fission

Uranium is considered a rare ele-
ment, although it is a thousand times
more prevalent than gold. Uranium is
more widely dispersed and occurs in-
frequently in a relatively concentrated
form. Found always with radium, pri-
marily as uranium oxide, it occurs
mainly in pitchblende and in carnotite
ores. Before World War II the main
value of these ores lay in their radium

^ Summarized in Louis A. Turner, "Nuclear Phys-
ics," Rnnews of Modem Physics 12 (Jan 40): 1-29.

^ Among the many scientists at work in the
United States on fission research were Herbert L.
Anderson, John R. Dunning, Enrico Fermi, George
B. Pegram, Leo Szilard, and Walter Zinn at Colum-
bia, Edwin M. McMillan at the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley; Edward Teller at George Washington
University; and John A. Wheeler and Eugene
Wigner at Princeton. In France were Frederic Joliot-
Curie, Hans von Halban, and Lew Kowarski; in Eng-
land, George P. Thomson, James Chadwick, Ru-
dolph Peierls, and others; and in Germany, Otto
Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Werner Heisenberg.
The Soviet Union, too, had a number of able and
active physicists in fission research. See Arnold Kra-
mish. Atomic Energy in the Soviet I'nion (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1959). Chs. 1-3.

content, although uranium was also
used for coloring glassware and ce-
ramics, for tinting photographic film,
and for making certain steel alloys.
Uranium was rarely produced as a
metal; metallurgists had not yet meas-
ured its melting point accurately.

Substantial radium-uranium con-
centrations in the Shinkolobwe mine
in Katanga Province of the Belgian
Congo were owned by the Union
Miniere du Haut Katanga, a Belgian
firm that completely dominated the
world market. So rich were the Shin-
kolobwe concentrations that in 1937
the company, having stockpiled suffi-
cient ore to satisfy the anticipated
world demand for radium and urani-
um for the next thirty years, ceased
mining operations.

Important but less productive de-
posits were located in the Eldorado
mine at Great Bear Lake in northern
Canada, and ores of much lower
grade were found in the Colorado
Plateau region in the western United
States; however, Colorado Plateau
radium and uranium producers were
forced to close down because they
could not compete commercially with
those in the Congo and Canada. In
addition, other uranium deposits of
varying quality were located in
Czechoslovakia, Portugal, England,
Madagascar, and elsewhere.^

Natural uranium is composed of
three isotopes: U-238, about 99.28
percent; U-235, about 0.71 percent;

^ "The Distribution of Uranium in Nature," Bulle-
tin of the Atomic Scientists 1 (Feb 46): 6; Ms, Office of
the Historian, Armed Forces Special Weapons
Project, "Manhattan District History" (hereafter
cited as MDH), ed. Gavin Hadden, 8 bks., 36 vols.
(Dec 48), Bk. 7, Vol. 1, "Feed Materials and Special
Procurement," pp. 1.1-1.7, 2.1-2.2, 3.1-3.2. 4.1-
4.2, DASA,

A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

and U-234, just a trace. Experiment-
ing with the isotopic properties of
uranium, scientists eventually proved
that U-235 was fissionable by both
slow and fast neutrons, although
more controUably so by the former.

When U-235 fissions, it emits fast
neutrons, which are captured by the
U-238. The U-238 does not fission
but becomes radioactive and disinte-
grates. For a chain reaction to be self-
sustaining, at least one neutron emit-
ted by the U-235 has to penetrate
another U-235 atom. Because the fast
neutrons are most easily absorbed
bv the U-238, the 140-to-l ratio of
lT-238 to U-235 in natural uranium
makes it even more improbable that
the neutrons can escape the U-238
and be captured by U-235 atoms.
Many neutrons, moreover, escape al-
together from the uranium and others
are absorbed by impurities within it.
This is why uranium does not fission
in its natural state and why an emis-
sion of neutrons does not occur in
any ordinary lump of uranium.

Proper conditions for achieving a
chain reaction required that the
number of neutrons absorbed by im-
purities in uranium and the number
of neutrons lost through its surface or
captured by its U-238 isotope be kept
to a minimum. Neutron absorption
could be decreased by using a careful
chemical process to remove the impu-
rities, although the technique was dif-
ficult and posed major problems. Be-
cause the number of neutrons lost
from a piece of uranium depends on
the area of the surface and because
the number of neutrons captured de-
pends on its mass or volume, neutron
escape or capture could be reduced
by using a suitable shape and size.
The greater the amount of uranium.

the smaller would be its surface area
relative to volume and thus, propor-
tionately, the fewer neutrons that
could be lost through the surface or
captured by the U-238. During fis-
sion, production of at least one neu-
tron in excess of those lost or cap-
tured would cause the uranium to
reach its critical mass and possibly
trigger a chain reaction.

The dilemma researchers faced in
1939 was ascertaining the exact size
of this critical mass. The consensus
was that a tremendous amount of ura-
nium — far more than had ever been
produced and concentrated — would
be necessary. A practical solution to
the supposed enormity of the prob-
lem therefore was to reduce the size
of the critical mass by decreasing the
number of neutrons captured by the
U-238. The U-235 could be separat-
ed from the U-238, or the ratio of
U-235 to U-238 could be increased
artificially.

Theories about what should be
done, however, did not quite coincide
with what could be done at this stage
of the research. Because the two ura-
nium isotopes were chemically identi-
cal, their separation by chemical
means was impossible. And the about
1 -percent difference in mass between
U-235 and U-238 meant that separa-
tion by physical means would be most
difficult. Although producing a suffi-
cient amount of pure U-235 or
U-235-enriched natural uranium to
maintain a chain reaction in a critical
mass of practical proportions ap-
peared only barely possible, there
were those who continued to work on
the multistage problem of separating
what were considered, in Fermi's

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

words, "almost magically inseparable"
isotopes. ^°

All separation methods deemed
possible were based on the difference
in atomic weight. One process, the
electromagnetic method, employed a
mass spectrometer or spectrograph.
In this process a stream of charged
particles of a given element is project-
ed through a magnetic field, which
deflects them from their original path.
Because the atoms of a heavier iso-
tope will be more strongly affected by
the magnetic field than those of a
lighter isotope, the stream of particles
will be separated into two or more
streams, each containing a different
isotope, which can then be collected
in different receivers. Alfred O. Nier
of the University of Minnesota did the
initial work on this process. At this
time, the electromagnetic method
proved to be not only ridiculously
slow but also quantitatively insuffi-
cient. It would have taken twenty-
seven thousand years for each mass
spectrometer to produce a single
gram of U-235 or 27 million spec-
trometers a whole year to separate a
kilogram of the isotope.

Another process, the gaseous diffu-
sion method, was based on the princi-
ple that if two gases of different
atomic weights are passed through a
porous barrier, the lighter gas will
diffuse through more readily. First,
uranium would have to be trans-
formed from its naturally solid state
into a gas; then, because of the 140-
to-1 ratio of U-238 to U-235, the dif-
fusion process would have to be re-
peated in order to produce any ap-

preciable amount of U-235 or U-235-
enriched uranium. Scientists in Great
Britain performed most of the early
theoretical and experimental work on
this method. In the United States, it
was not until late 1940 that physicist
John R. Dunning and a small group
of collaborators at Columbia Univer-
sity began intensive research into the
technical problems of gaseous
diffusion. ^^

A third method was the centrifuge
process, in which uranium in a gase-
ous form is rotated rapidly in a cylin-
der. Because centrifugal force causes
the atoms of the heavier isotope to
amass along the outer walls and those
of the Hghter isotope to concentrate
around the axis of rotation, the de-
sired isotope can then be drawn off.
Jesse W. Beams at the University of
Virginia and others in the United
States seemed to offer the best initial
promise for separating uranium iso-
topes, but the magnitude of the engi-
neering problem was such that, as
with the other separation methods,
the centrifuge process offered no
quick or easy solution.

The avenues of research were not
solely Hmited to isotope separation
methods. At Columbia University,
Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard, a
refugee physicist from Hungary, ex-
perimented with the possibility of
achieving a chain reaction in urani-
um without separating its isotopes —
research that in the not too distant
future would culminate in the world's
first chain reaction. Basing their in-
vestigations on research that Fermi
had carried out five years earlier on

'° Enrico Fermi, "Physics at Columbia University:
The Genesis of the Nuclear Energy Program," Phys-
ics Today 8 (Nov 55): 14.

i» For Cunning's work see MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2,
"Research," pp. 3.1-3.2, DASA.

A HISIORY OF AlOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

ihc use of moderators to slow down
neutrons, they explored the likelihood
that a moderating substance might be
mixed with natural uranium in such a
way that the high-speed fission-pro-
duced neutrons could be sufficiently
slowed before meeting other uranium
atoms so as to escape capture
by U-238 and remain free to pene-
trate the U-235.

The two most promising modera-
tors were hydrogen and carbon.
Water might make a good moderator;
however, because hydrogen exists in
two natural isotopes (light hydrogen,
the more prevalent, with a mass of 1,
and heavy hydrogen, or deuterium
with a mass of 2), "heavy water," con-
taining deuterium, should make an
even better one. Scientists in France
and England had investigated the use
of heavy water, but it was extremely
costly to produce and was highly vola-
tile. Feeling that heavy hydrogen was
in some ways less efficient as a mod-
erator, Fermi and Szilard turned their
attention to carbon, which was readily
available in the form of graphite.
Proving its feasibility through theoret-
ical investigation and experimentation
would take time, energy, and money,
but the two scientists were confident
they could achieve a chain reaction. ^^

Because such a chain reaction could
provide a tremendous amount of
energy in a form that might be con-
verted into power, this uranium-
graphite system promised to have
ready military application for driving

'^ For the activities of Fermi and Szilard during
1939 see Enrico Fermi, "Physics at Columbia," pp.
12-16: Ms, Leo Szilard, "Documents Relating to
Period March 1939 to July 1940" (hereafter cited as
Szilard Documents), Incl to Ltr, Compton to
Groves, 13 Nov 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201
(Szilard), MDR.

large ships or aircraft but seemed im-
practical for use as a bomb. A bomb
would have to be so large that the
sudden release of energy in an un-
controlled nuclear explosion would
blow it apart before more than a
small amount of energy was freed;
that amount was not worth the great
effort necessary to detonate it.

Yet, if it were possible to separate
U-235 from the naturally more preva-
lent U-238 or to enrich natural urani-
um greatly in its U-235 isotope, then
a fast-neutron chain reaction might be
achieved and extremely powerful
bombs, far smaller than any explosive
uranium-graphite system, could prob-
ably be built. Controlled energy from
a fast-neutron chain reaction could, of
course, be used as a power source;
but, uncontrolled, it would provide a
far more powerful explosion than
ever before attained by man. Though
perhaps too heavy for a conventional
bomber, a U-235 bomb could be
brought by ship into an enemy port
and exploded with devastating effect.

In early 1939, however, the chances
of constructing a bomb of U-235 ap-
peared far less certain than those of
building a power-producing uranium-
graphite system. To use Fermi's
words, there seemed "little likelihood
of an atomic bomb, little proof that
we were not pursuing a chimera." ^^

Nevertheless, possible military ap-
plication of atomic energy was of in-
creasing interest to a group of for-
eign-born physicists now living and
working in the United States. These
men — including Enrico Fermi from
Italy; Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner,
and Edward Teller from Hungary;

'^ Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family, p. 164.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

and Victor Weisskopf from Austria —
knew that government-supported nu-
clear research was under way at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin,
and the likely military consequences
of a German breakthrough worried
them very much. As most of them had
only recently fled their homelands to
escape fascist tyranny, they had no
wish to see Nazi Germany acquire a
means of dominating the whole
world. Indeed, if any nations were to
exploit atomic energy for mihtary
purposes, they believed the democra-
cies would do well to be first.

These physicists therefore directed
their energies toward two ends: keep-
ing all advances in nuclear research a
secret to discourage an all-out
German effort, and obtaining support
from the American government for
further nuclear research. The group
almost achieved one of its goals in
early 1939, when leading physicists in
the United States and Great Britain
pledged not to publish the results of
their work in the field. However, in
France, Frederic Joliot-Curie refused,
and his determination to publish his
own research led to continued publi-
cation by scientists in other countries.
It was not until late 1940, after a
large number of articles had appeared
in scientific journals and the popular
press, that publication on atomic
energy generally ceased.

Efforts To Enlist Support of the
U. S. Government

The atomic scientists' first attempt
to gain support from the U.S. govern-
ment for their atomic energy research
came in March of 1939, even as
German troops were completing the
occupation of Czechoslovakia. Sched-

uled to give a lecture in Washington,
D.C., on the sixteenth, Enrico Fermi
arrived in the national capital with a
letter of introduction from Dean
George B. Pegram of Columbia to
Rear Adm. Stanford C. Hooper, di-
rector of the Technical Division,
Office of the Chief of Naval Oper-
ations. On the morning of the seven-
teenth, Fermi met with Admiral
Hooper and other individuals, includ-
ing Ross Gunn, a physicist and techi-
cal adviser of the Naval Research Lab-
oratory. Pegram, who was also a phys-
icist, had explained in his letter what
Fermi discussed in his lecture,
namely, the importance of atomic
energy and its possible uses for man-
kind, although both men were pru-
dent about making predictions.

Gunn and his associates at the
Naval Research Laboratory already
were aware of the potentialities of
atomic energy; however, they were
more interested in the prospects for
nuclear ship propulsion than in devel-
oping an atomic bomb. Now Fermi's
visit spurred them on to continue
their own investigations, but it did
not lead to any naval support for the
scientists working at the universi-
ties.^^ A second approach to Gunn,
made by Szilard in June, was no more
successful. While the Navy pursued its
own program of research on uranium
isotope separation, Gunn indicated to
Szilard in July that "it seems almost
impossible, in the light of the restric-

i* Ibid., pp. 162-65; Testimony of Gunn in U.S.
Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Atomic
Energy, Atomic Energy: Hearings on S. Res. 179, 79th
Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., 27 Nov 45-15 Feb 46
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1945-46), pp. 365-67. Gunn testified that Army of-
ficers were present at the 17 March conference, but
this does not appear to have been the case.

A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

tions which are imposed on Govern-
ment contracts for services, to carry
through any sort of agreement that
would be really helpful to you." ^^

By mid-July, then, Szilard, Teller,
and Wigner concluded that another
channel had to be found. The results
of ongoing nuclear research indicated
that a chain reaction could very prob-
ably be achieved in a uranium-graph-
ite system, "and that this possibility
had to be considered as an imminent
danger." ^^ There was, moreover,
ominous news from Europe of contin-
ued German interest and progress in
nuclear research. American scientists
returning from visits to Germany re-
ported a growing emphasis on the in-
vestigation of isotope separation, with
the apparent objective of achieving a
fast-neutron chain reaction in U-235,
the basis of an atomic bomb.^^ After
moving into Czechoslovakia, the Ger-
mans closed the door on the coun-
try's uranium ore exports. Convinced
that the need to keep other uranium
deposits from falling into German
hands required action at the highest
level, Szilard, Teller, and Wigner ap-
proached Einstein. At first, Szilard
thought to have Einstein approach
the Department of State and use his
acquaintance with the royal family in
Belgium as a means for stopping ura-
nium ore shipments to the Germans.
But, after further discussion, he de-
cided a direct approach to the White
House was necessary. Through a ref-
ugee journalist friend, Szilard secured
an introduction to Alexander Sachs, a

Wall Street economist and student of
international affairs who had long
been an informal adviser of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sachs was fa-
miliar with the subject of atomic
energy, having read avidly Hahn and
Strassmann's first report and having
followed subsequent publications on
atomic fission. Also, he had become
acutely aware of the possible military
applications of atomic energy during
Niels Bohr's visit to the Institute of
Advanced Study at Princeton. Indeed,
the growing tensions in Europe and
Germany's increasing threat to world
peace eventually led him to discuss
the Hahn-Strassmann report and its
possible effect on the international
situation in a brief session with
Roosevelt early in March.

Sachs agreed to help, and he and
Szilard concluded that a letter from
Einstein to Roosevelt would empha-
size the importance of their message.
The letter, primarily the work of Szi-
lard, was drafted in Sachs's office. Szi-
lard and Teller took it to Einstein,
who was vacationing on Long Island,
on 2 August. Sources disagree over
whether Einstein rewrote the Sachs-
Szilard draft or merely put his name
to it; but, in any event, Szilard re-
turned to Sachs with a signed letter
from Einstein to the President.^®

>^ Ltr, Gunn to Szilard, 10 Jul 39, Szilard Docu-
ments, MDR.

'« Szilard Documents, p. 7, MDR.

'^ Arthur Holly Compton, Atomic Qiiest: A Personal
S'arrative (New York; Oxford University Press,
1956). p. 118.

'^ Account of approach to President Roosevelt
through Sachs based on Interv, Stanley L. Falk with
Sachs, 18 Jul 60, CMH; Ms, Alexander Sachs, "Early
History [of] Atomic Project in Relation to President
Roosevelt, 1939-40" (hereafter cited as Sachs Histo-
ry), 8-9 Aug 45, pp. 1-6, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
201 (Sachs), MDR; Testimony of Sachs in Atomic
Energy Hearings on S. Res. 179. pp. 2-11 and 553-59;
Szilard Documents, p. 7, MDR; Otto Nathan and
Heinz Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace (New \'ork:
Simon and Schuster, 1960). pp. 291-97; Nat S,
Finnev, "How FDR. Planned To Use the A-Bomb,"

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

This letter, a milestone in the Ameri-
can atomic energy program, states
that "it is almost certain that this [a
chain reaction in a large mass of
uranium] could be achieved in the im-
mediate future" and that this phe-
nomenon could possibly lead to the
construction of a new type of an ex-
tremely powerful bomb.^^

To this letter, Szilard himself added
a careful memorandum. In it he ex-
plained in more detail the scope and
effects of research on atomic fission,
the unproved nature of its conclusion,
and the need for financial support for
further investigation. He pointed out
that atomic energy released through a
chain reaction achieved with slow
neutrons could be utilized for ship or
aircraft propulsion, and also raised
the possibility that a fast-neutron
chain reaction would result in a pow-
erful explosive. Szilard also reempha-
sized the need for acquiring large
stocks of uranium ore from the Bel-
gian Congo and suggested that an-
other attempt to arrange for the with-
holding of publications on the subject
of nuclear research might be neces-
sary. ^° Included with the letter and
memorandum were reprints of two ar-
ticles from the Physical Review that
provided documentation of the scien-
tific points raised by Einstein and
Szilard.

Look, 14 Mar 50. pp. 25-27; Geoffrey T. Hellman.
"A Reporter at Large: Contemporaneous Memoran-
da of Dr. Sachs," \eu' Yorker, 1 Dec 45, pp. 73-76;
Edward Shils, "Leo Szilard — A Memoir," Encounter
23 (Dec 64): 35-41; Eugene Rabmowitch, "1882-
1964" and "1898-1964" (obituaries on James
Franck and Leo Szilard, respectively). Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 20 (Oct 64): 16-20.

^* Ltr, Einstein to Roosevelt, 2 Aug 39, repro-
duced in the Appendix to this volume.

2° Memo, Szilard to Roosevelt, 15 Aug 39, Szilard
Documents, MDR.

Despite the agreed upon necessity
for haste, almost two months passed
before Sachs was able to bring Ein-
stein's letter and its inclosures to the
White House. "Mere delivery of
memoranda was insufficient," he
felt.^^ In the hectic days of August
and September 1939, with war in
Europe first an imminent danger and
then a frightening actuality, there
seemed little likelihood that Roosevelt
could spare Sachs more than a few
moments. Not until early October did
Sachs find a time he felt was suitable
to approach the President.

The story of Sachs's visit to the
White House has been told frequently
and with several variations. Suffice it
to say that Sachs met with Roosevelt
for over an hour on 1 1 October.
Reading aloud, Sachs prefaced Ein-
stein's letter and Szilard's memoran-
dum with a letter of his own in which
he summarized and amplified the
other material, emphasizing German
nuclear research, the danger of
German seizure of Belgian uranium,
and the "urgent" need to arrange for
American access to the uranium ore
of the Belgian Congo. He stressed the
necessity of enlarging and accelerat-
ing experimental work, which could
not be done on limited university
budgets, and seconded the suggestion
made in Einstein's letter for liaison
between the government and the
scientists. ^^

The President's initial reaction was
one of skeptical interest. He was
doubtful about the availability of
funds to support nuclear research and

^'Testimony of Sachs in Atomic Energy Hearings on
S. Res. 179, p. 556.

"Ltr, Sachs to Roosevelt. 11 Oct 39, Exhibit 3,
Sachs Historv, MDR.

A HISTORY OF ATOMIC ENERGY TO 1939

felt, moreover, that there were other
aspects of national defense with a
higher claim for attention. Neverthe-
less, he invited Sachs to breakfast the
next morning and, at this second
meeting, was convinced of the neces-
sity for action.

President Roosevelt's 12 October

decision to explore the potentialities
of atomic energy eventually led to
complete governmental direction of
nuclear research in the United States.
And, in the early years of its develop-
ment, no single government agency
was to play a more important role
than the United States Army.

PART ONE
BEGINNINGS OF THE ATOMIC MISSION

Chapter I

The Army and the Atomic Energy
Program, 1939-1942

At eight o'clock on the evening of
17 June 1942, Col. James C. Marshall
received a teletype message from
Washington, D.C., to report to Maj.
Gen. Eugene Reybold, chief of the
Corps of Engineers, "for temporary
duty,"^ thus interrupting his present
assignment as commanding officer of
the Syracuse (New York) District. Ar-
riving at General Reybold's office the
next day, Marshall received further
instructions to report to Brig. Gen.
Wilhelm D. Styer, chief of staff to the
commanding general of the War De-
partment's Services of Supply, a
major division newly created to over-
see Army logistics. Late in the after-
noon. Colonel Marshall learned from
General Styer the precise nature of
his new assignment: General Reybold
had chosen him to form a new engi-
neer district "for construction of a
new manufacturing plant." ^ The lo-

' Col James C. Marshall, Chronology of District X
(hereafter cited as Marshall Diary), 17 Jun 42-31
Oct 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Misc
Recs Sec, behind Fldr 5, MDR. On Marshall's earlier
career see George W. Cullum, Biogiaplucal Register of
the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy. 9
vols. (1-3, 3d rev. ed. and enl., Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin and Co., 1891; 4-9, aegis of Association of
Graduates, U.S. Military Academy, 1901-50),
6B:1978, 7:1298,8:366,9:258.

2 Marshall Diary, 18 Jun 42, MDR.

cation had not been selected but,
Styer explained, the plant would be
part of a project already in progress
to develop atomic energy for military
purposes. Thus the Army became di-
rectly involved in a project in which it
had been playing a minor and some-
what intermittent role since the fall of
1939.

Oyigins of the Army 's Role

The Army's expanded role in the
American atomic energy program in
mid- 1942 grew out of developments
that had occurred as a result of the
outbreak of World War II and the
subsequent involvement of the United
States in that conflict. On the morn-
ing of 12 October 1939, persuaded by
Alexander Sachs's urgent arguments.
President Roosevelt agreed to investi-
gate the desirability of providing
some preliminary support for inde-
pendent and private research.
Roosevelt's military aide, Maj. Gen.
Edwin M. Watson, immediately re-
quested that the Army and the Navy
send officers to the White House to
talk to an "inventor" about a new ex-
plosive. At two o'clock that same
afternoon, the Armv sent Lt. Col.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Keith F. Adamson, chief of the Am-
munition Division, Ordnance Depart-
ment, and his chief civiHan assistant,
Arthur Adelman; the Navy sent
Comdr. Gilbert C. Hoover, also an
ordnance specialist. In General Wat-
son's office, Sachs repeated much of
his earlier presentation to the Presi-
dent. After some discussion, the
group broke up with the understand-
ing that Watson would advise them
what specific action the President
desired.^

The Army's Chemical Warfare
Service (CWS) also received Sachs's
material on atomic energy. Lt. Col.
Haig Shekerjian, the CWS executive
officer, and another chemical warfare
officer may have been present at the
meeting in the White House, or they
may have been briefed later in the
afternoon. General Watson's objective
was to test Sachs's information
against the knowledge and experience
of the technical services most likely to
be concerned with development of
nuclear research and bombs. Ironical-
ly, the technical service that eventual-
ly had the most to do with develop-
ment of the atomic bomb, the Corps
of Engineers, was not consulted.'*

The first reaction of the Army
representatives to the military poten-
tialities of atomic energy was not gen-
erally enthusiastic. Colonel Adamson
displayed a cool skepticism, although

3 Intervs, Stanley L. Falk with Adamson, 22 Apr
60, and with Sachs, 18 Jul 60; Ltr, Adamson to Maj
Gen Levin H. Campbell, Jr. (Chief of Ord), 26 Jun
44; Memo, Arthur Adelman, sub: Fission Explosives
(hereafter cited as Adelman Fission Memo), 30 Jun
44, p. 4. All in CMH.

■* Adamson and Sachs Intervs, 22 Apr 60 and
18 Jul 60; Interv, Falk with Shekerjian, 27 Oct 59;
Ltr, Adamson to Campbell, 26 Jun 44; Adelman Fis-
sion Memo, pp. 4-5; Ltr, Shekerjian to Falk, 1 1 Sep
59. All in CMH.

he later warmed to the subject. He
apparently questioned whether nucle-
ar research had advanced far enough
for the government to support it with
any reasonable hope of success.
Moreover, with an eye to Sachs's Wall
Street background, he was suspicious
of the financier's motives in urging
purchase of Belgian Congo uranium.^

A similar response came from the
Chemical Warfare Service. Despite
Colonel Shekerjian's favorable reac-
tion, Maj. Maurice E. Barker, chief of
the CWS Technical Division, ex-
pressed a decidedly negative view.
After studying Einstein's letter and
Szilard's memorandum. Major Barker
concluded that there was "no basis"
for believing that the bombardment
of uranium by neutrons would
produce an explosion. While conced-
ing that the proposed nuclear
research "would be extremely inter-
esting, and might have considerable
scientific value," he thought that "the
chance of anything of military value
being developed ... so slight that it
would not justify the expenditure of
funds available for research for that
purpose." ^

The Army's initial skepticism may
be attributed to a number of factors.
For all of Alexander Sachs's enthusi-
asm, even the group of American and
foreign-born physicists still regarded
the potentialities of atomic energy as
only a "reasonable possibility," ^ as

5 Adamson and Sachs Intervs, 22 Apr 60 and
18 Jul 60, CMH; Ltr. Adamson to Campbell, 26 Jun
44, CMH; IVashmgton Post. 26 Mar 46.

^ Quotation from Memo for File, Barker, sub:
Uranium Activated bv Neutrons as an Explosive and
Source of Power (Proj A 10), 13 Oct 49, Incl G to
Adelman Fission Memo. Shekerjian Interv, 27 Oct
59. Ltr, Shekerjian to Falk, 1 1 Sep 59. All in CMH.

'' Louis A. Turner, "Nuclear Phvsics," Rei'iews of
Modem Physics 12 (Jan 40): 21.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

the tentative tone of Einstein's letter
and Szilard's memorandum readily
showed. Unlike the Navy, in 1939 the
Army had no central research organi-
zation that might have seized upon
the abstract possibilities of atomic
energy. Consequently, budget-minded
Army officers, who had served
through a period of extremely re-
stricted military expenditures in the
1930's, were not likely to lose their
restraint over new and possibly far-
fetched ideas. They had witnessed
drastic cuts in funds, especially for
Army research and development,
which was allotted only 1.1 percent of
military expenditures in fiscal year
1939. Army policy called for immedi-
ate development of critical items
rather than eventual production of
better weapons and equipment
through prolonged research. Ord-
nance and chemical officers were, of
course, particularly aware of this situ-
ation. Thus, it was hardly surprising
that Sachs's proposals failed to trans-
late their scientific conservatism into
military enthusiasm.® Not until civil-
ian research and development had
buttressed the theoretical predictions
of the physicists with undisputable
scientific evidence and the nation was
involved in war would the Army
assume a principal role in developing
the military potentialities of atomic
energy.

® Mark S. Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and
Preparatwm (Washington, D.C.: Government Print-
ing Office, 1950), pp. 31-32 and 42-44; Constance
McLaughlin Green, Harr\ C. Thomson, and Peter
C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitiom
for War (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1955), pp. 204-08; Leo Brophy and George
J. B. Fisher, The Chemical Warfare Sennce: Organizing
for War (Washington, DC.: Government Printing
Offiice, 1959). pp. 37-38. All in the series U.S. Armv
m World War IL

Decision To Develop Atomic Weapons

Through the President's Advisory
Committee on Uranium, established
on 12 October 1939, the Army had
an opportunity to express its general-
ly negative reaction to the military
potentialities of atomic energy. This
small group, charged with making
recommedations on the ideas and ma-
terials submitted by Sachs, was com-
prised of Colonel Adamson, Com-
mander Hoover, and, as chairman,
Lyman J. Briggs. Briggs was director
of the National Bureau of Standards,
which was one of the principal gov-
ernment agencies of the pre-World
War II period concerned with re-
search in the physical sciences.^

The first meeting of the Uranium
Committee, as it came to be called,
took place on the morning of 21 Oc-
tober at the Bureau of Standards. The
committee had invited Alexander
Sachs and, at his suggestion, also Leo
Szilard, Edward Teller, Eugene
Wigner, and Albert Einstein to attend
its session. Einstein was unable to be
present but two other physicists, Fred
L. Mohler of the Bureau of Standards
and Richard B. Roberts of the Carne-
gie Institution, attended to provide
the committee with technical guid-
ance. Szilard, Teller, and Wigner out-
lined the steps they believed neces-
sary to attain a chain reaction in the
uranium-graphite system proposed by
Fermi and Szilard. During their pre-

9 Smyth Report, p. 32; Ltr, Sachs to Wigner, 17
Oct 39; Exhibit 4, Sachs History, MDR; Ltr, Roose-
velt to Einstein, 19 Oct 39, President's Secy's Files,
Sachs Fldr, FDR; Sachs Interv, 18 Jul 60, CMH;
Rexmond C. Cochrane, Measures for Progress: A Histo-
ry of the Xational Bureau of Standards (Washington,
D.C.: National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, 1966), p. 362.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

sentadon, the three scientists request-
ed $6,000 to purchase the graphite
and emphasized the need for secrecy
about ail activities relating to nuclear
research.

In the discussion that followed,
three schools of thought became ap-
parent. Colonel Adamson and Com-
mander Hoover, generally skeptical,
stated their belief that several years of
further research would be needed
even to determine whether the mili-
tary possibilities of atomic energy
were sufficient to justify government
support. In contrast, Sachs, Briggs,
and Teller were almost enthusiastic
about the chances of success. Main-
taining a more conservative approach,
Szilard and Wigner portrayed the
great possibilities of their work but
also stressed the as yet tentative
nature of their conclusions. ^°

In spite of the cautious attitude of
Adamson and Hoover, the Uranium
Committee's report to the White
House on 1 November gave the scien-
tists in effect what they wanted. While
conceding that the harnessing of
atomic energy for power or bombs
was still only a theoretical possibility,
the committee nevertheless recom-
mended that "in view of the funda-
mental importance" and "potential
military value" of nuclear research,
"adequate support for a thorough in-
vestigation of the subject should be
provided." This support should in-
clude funds for immediate purchase
of 4 metric tons of pure graphite and,

if the results of initial experiments
warranted continuing the program,
additional funds to obtain 50 tons of
uranium oxide. ^^

The Uranium Committee submitted
its report and recommendations to
President Roosevelt through General
Watson. Apparently viewing the
report as preliminary, Watson asked
Chairman Briggs for a special recom-
mendation before he advised the
President. Until then, no executive
action could be expected.

Consequently, the members of the
Uranium Committee kept in touch
with the nuclear research program at
Columbia University, awaiting word
of progress from the scientists. In the
interim, the Naval Research Laborato-
ry continued its interest in university
research that pertained to its own in-
vestigations into isotopic separation.
At this stage, however, neither the
Navy nor the Uranium Committee
made any effort to coordinate or link
the various nuclear research programs
in progress. Such attempts as were
made came from the scientific com-
munity and from Sachs rather than
from any governmental agency. ^^

Then, in January 1940, Briggs took
the first concrete step to obtain gov-
ernment funds for the university sci-
entists. From the Navy, up to now
more interested in nuclear research
than the Army, Briggs obtained a

*° Sachs History, pp. 6-7, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 201 (Sachs), MDR; Adamson and Sachs In-
tervs. 22 Apr 60 and 18 Jul 60, CMH; Washiriglon
Post, 26 Mar 46; Memo, Szilard, sub: Mtg of 21 Oct
39 m Washington, D.C., 26 Oct 39, Inci H to Adel-
man Fission Memo, CMH; Szilard Documents, p. 7,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Szilard), MDR.

^'Quoted words from Memo, Briggs, Adamson,
and Hoover to President, sub: Possible Use of Ura-
nium for Submarine Power and High Destructive
Bombs, 1 Nov 39, Exhibit 5, Sachs History, MDR
(also in Adelman Fission Memo, following p. 5,
CMH). Testimony of Sachs in Atomic Energy Heanngs
on S. Res. 179. p. 560.

'2 Sachs History, pp. 10-11, MDR; Ltr, Adamson
to Campbell, 26 Jun 44, CMH; Adamson Interv,
22 Apr 60, CMH; Testimony of Gunn in Atomic
Energy Heanngs on S. Res 179, p. 367.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

promise of $3,000. On 15 January, he
called on Maj. Gen. Charles M.
Wesson, the chief of Army Ordnance,
and asked him to match this sum.
Briggs outlined the potentialities of
atomic fission. "It appears," reads the
account of the conversation in Gener-
al Wesson's office diary, "that this de-
velopment has possibilities from an
explosive viewpoint." These "possi-
bilities" and Briggs's reference to the
fact that the President was "interested
in this project" were enough to make
the Ordnance chief agree to advance
$3,000 out of Picatinny Arsenal funds
for the development of explosives. ^^

The Army and Navy funds went to
the Bureau of Standards, which allot-
ted them to Columbia University in
mid-February. Fermi and his col-
leagues used the money to purchase
graphite in quantities that, at the
time, seemed huge. They needed a
sufficient amount of the highly puri-
fied carbon substance to determine its
capture cross section, that is, its ca-
pacity to absorb neutrons. With this
information they could then ascertain
the practicability of achieving a slow-
neutron chain reaction in a uranium-
graphite system. ^^

Meanwhile, Alexander Sachs and
the scientists exerted increasing pres-
sure on the President and the Army
and Navy. Einstein wrote to Sachs on
7 March, summarizing the situation
and suggesting that the information
concerning new evidence of German
interest in atomic energy be passed

'^Min, Wesson Confs: Jan-Jun 40, 15 Jan 40, Ord
Historical Files, Hist Br, OCO.

'''Memo, Briggs to Watson, sub: Your Memo of
Feb 8ih, 20 Feb 40, Exhibit 6b, Sachs History,
MDR; Min. Wesson Confs, 15 Jan 40, OCO; Enrico
Fermi, "Phvsics at Columbia," Physics Today 8 (Nov
55): 15.

on to President Roosevelt. This Sachs
did, including also Einstein's recom-
mendations that steps be taken to halt
publication of articles on atomic sub-
jects and that a "general policy . . .
[be] adopted by the Administration
with respect to uranium." But Ein-
stein's views brought no immediate
response from the White House. In
fact, after discussion with Colonel Ad-
amson and Commander Hoover in
late March, General Watson accepted
Adamson's suggestion that no further
action be taken until an official report
on the research at Columbia was
available. ^^

The official report was not ready,
however, when the Uranium Commit-
tee held its second meeting on 27
April 1940. The meeting took place
as a result of several factors, includ-
ing Sachs's continued urgings for
greater support, the reports of prom-
ising progress in the nuclear experi-
ments at Columbia and elsewhere,
and an ominous turn of events in the
war of Europe. Since the first meeting
in October 1939, the atomic scientists
had proven definitely that fission oc-
curred only in the U-235 isotope and,
in experiments with the centrifuge
system of isotopic separation at the
University of Virginia, had been suc-
cessful in enriching a gram of urani-
um to 10 percent U-235. In Europe,
the Germans had successfully invaded
Norway in early April and, as a result,
secured control of the Norsk Hydro
plant, the only large facility in the
world producing heavy water. Thus

>^ Sachs History, pp. 11-12; Etrs. Einstein to
Sachs (source of quotation), 7 Mar 40, Exhibit 7a,
Sachs to President, 15 Mar 40, Exhibit 7b, Watson
to Sachs. 27 Mar 40, Exhibit 7c, ibid.; Szilard Docu-
ments, pp. 8-9. MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

they had obtained a ready source of
the substance they were suspected of
using as a moderator to achieve a
slow-neutron chain reaction.

Chairman Briggs, Colonel Adam-
son, and Commander Hoover now lis-
tened more sympathetically to the ar-
guments presented by Alexander
Sachs, Enrico Fermi, George Pegram,
Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and
Rear Adm. Harold G. Bowen, director
of the Naval Research Laboratory.
While the committee still did not
make any formal recommendations, it
reached general agreement that nu-
clear research should be vigorously
pursued, even if this required large
sums of money, and that steps should
be taken, as Szilard strongly urged, to
halt further publications on atomic
matters. ^^

Developments in May 1940 in the
laboratory and on the war front
brought further justification for pro-
viding additional funds for nuclear re-
search. Promising results at Columbia
led scientists there to propose a plan
to study methods of uranium isotope
separation, hopefully with Navy sup-
port, and to establish a large-scale ex-
perimental program that would dem-
onstrate beyond any doubt that a
chain reaction could be maintained in
a uranium-graphite system. The Ger-
mans' successful invasion of Belgium
and Holland in mid-May and new re-
ports on their interest in uranium re-

'* Smyth Report, p. 33, errs in giving the date
of the Uranium Committee's second meeting as
28 April. Sachs History, pp. 12-20, MDR; Szilard
Documents, pp. 9-10, MDR; Testimony of Gunn in
Atomic Energy Hearings on S. Res. 179, pp. 367 and
370; Ltr, Pegram to Bowen, 7 Apr 40, Incl I to
Adelman Fission Memo, CMH; William L. Laurence,
Men and Atoms: The Discovery, the i'ses. and the Future of
Atomic Energy (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1959), pp. 73-74.

search underlined Sachs's efforts to
secure action on control of Belgian
uranium and to obtain financial and
administrative support for atomic re-
search in the United States. ^'^

New funds came from a variety of
sources. On 23 May, the Carnegie In-
stitution of Washington allotted
$30,000 for research on uranium by
members of its own staff. A short
time later. Colonel Adamson fur-
nished $20,000 from Army Ordnance
funds to combine with a substantially
larger contribution from the Navy and
some money from the Bureau of
Standards, making a total of more
than $100,000. This amount was
more than sufficient to underwrite
contracts at Columbia and the Univer-
sity of Virginia and to increase sup-
port of the work at the Naval Re-
search Laboratory.^®

German occupation of Belgium
gave urgency to the question of how
the United States could control and
acquire the rich uranium ore in the
Congo. Seeking a solution, Alexander
Sachs met with President Roosevelt at
the end of May and, a few days later,
also with Uranium Committee Chair-
man Briggs, Professor Harold C.
Urey, a chemist on the staff at Colum-
bia University, and Admiral Bowen of
the Naval Research Laboratory. At

''' Sachs History, pp. 20-25, MDR; Szilard Docu-
ments, p. 10, MDR; Ltr, Pegram to Briggs, 6 May
40, Incl K to Adelman Fission Memo, CMH; Lau-
rence, Men and Atoms, p. 41.

'^ James Phinnev Baxter 3rd, Scientists Against
Time, Science in World War II (Boston: Little,
Brown and Co., 1946), p. 423; Adelman Fission
Memo, p. 6 and Incls A-E, CMH; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol.
4, "Auxiliary Activities," pp. 12.2-12.3, DASA; Ad-
amson Interv, 22 Apr 60, CMH; Ltr, Adamson to
Campbell, 26 Jun 44, CMH; Testimony of Gunn in
Atomic Energy Hearings on S. Res. 179, pp. 367-71;
Smyth Report, p. 33; Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 29.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

Briggs's suggestion, Sachs began
looking into the possibility of getting
uranium directly from the Congo.

For some time Sachs had been
aware that Edgar Sengier was in New
York. Managing director of Union
Miniere du Haut Katanga, the Belgian
firm that controlled the Shinkolobwe
mine in Katanga Province of the
Congo, Sengier had come to New
York from Brussels in the fall of
1939, aware of the rising importance
of uranium from conversations with
French and British scientists. He had
ordered shipped to America all
radium held by his firm in Belgium —
some 120 grams worth nearly $2 mil-
lion. At the same time, he had direct-
ed that uranium ores stocked by
Union Miniere at Oolen, Belgium,
also be shipped to the United States,
but little or none was sent before the
German invasion made it impossible.

Sachs and Urey went to see Sengier
in New York in early June 1940. Sen-
gier gave them considerable informa-
tion on the status of Congo uranium
but would not agree to Sachs's pro-
posal that Union Miniere ship ore to
the United States, even with the stipu-
lation that U.S. officials would not re-
export the ore without special
permission. ^^

Failure to achieve an agreement
with Sengier left the uranium re-
search program dependent upon Ca-

'» Sachs History, pp. 25-26, MDR; Ltrs, Sachs to
Watson, 23 May 40, Exhibit 11a, and Briggs to
Sachs, 5 Jun 40, Exhibit 18, ibid.; Eeslie R. Groves,
\ow It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), pp. 33-34;
Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 96; Smyth Report, p. 33;
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The
\eu' World. 1939-1946. A History of the United
States Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. 1 (Universi-
ty Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1962), p. 26.

nadian sources. Fortunately, by the
end of 1940, small amounts of Cana-
dian uranium were available as a
result of arrangements based on earli-
er conversations between Dean
George B. Pegram of Columbia Uni-
versity and a representative of Eldora-
do Gold Mines, Ltd., owner of the
Canadian deposits. 2°

Funds contributed in the summer
of 1940 began a two-year period of
rapid growth in the program to ex-
ploit atomic energy for military pur-
poses. During this time, American
governmental leaders left develop-
ment of the new energy source to ci-
vilian organizations, in spite of its ob-
vious application to military objec-
tives and its close relationship to the
expanding conflict in Europe and
Asia. Army participation ceased
almost completely, and the Navy con-
tinued only a relatively small isotope
separation project. Under civilian
guidance, the work on atomic energy
became a major component in the
federal government's greatly broad-
ened program to apply the achieve-
ments of American science to the re-
quirements of modern warfare. Thus,
by early 1942, when the Army
renewed its participation in the devel-
opment of atomic energy, the pro-
gram had evolved into a large
research and development enterprise,
with civilian scientists carrying on

2° Memo, Szilard to Briggs, sub: Possibility of
Large-scale Experiment in Immediate Future, 26
Oct 39, Incl to Szilard Documents, MDR; Supreme
Court of the State of New York, Eldorado Mining and
Refining (formerly Eldorado Gold Mines) vs. Bons
Pregel et al.. Statement to Pregel, 18 Oct 46, Investi-
gation Files, Gen Corresp (Boris Pregel), MDR;
MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, "Feed Materials and Special
Procurement," pp. 3.1-3.3, DASA.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

program activities at a number of
sites across the country.

Establishment of the NDRC and OSRD

The organizational framework of
the American atomic energy program
first began to take shape in the
summer of 1940. In June, a number
of the scientific leaders took the initi-
ative in providing a more effective ad-
ministrative organization. At Leo Szi-
lard's suggestion and with the backing
and approval of Admiral Bowen and
Lyman Briggs, Harold Urey organized
a committee of scientists to advise
Briggs on atomic energy and to study
the question of security. This group,
the Advisory Committtee on Nuclear
Research, met for the first time on
the thirteenth under Urey's chairman-
ship. One of its first actions was to
formulate, with support of American
scientific journals, a policy on secrecy
that eventually halted publication of
scientific papers on atomic energy in
the United States. Thus, a beginning
was made in solving what was to
become another major and persistent
problem — how to maintain a level of
secrecy hitherto never attempted in
so large and diverse a project. ^^

Even as the Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Research was meeting, events
were taking place that would increase
effective leadership and direction for
the entire American scientific war
effort, including the atomic energy
program. Since the invasion of Bel-
gium, Sachs had been urging
Roosevelt to establish a "Scientific
Council of National Defense" to ad-
minister "the testing and execution of

technical projects of utility for nation-
al defense." Another strong advocate
for such a council was Vannevar
Bush, president of the Carnegie Insti-
tution of Washington since 1939. ^^
For some time he had discussed his
ideas with several of the nation's fore-
most scientists and had gained their
support for the project. In addition,
the country's military leaders, includ-
ing both Army Chief of Staff General
George C. Marshall and Chief of
Naval Operations Admiral Harold R.
Stark, strongly favored the proposal.
Consequently on 15 June 1940, the
President established the National De-
fense Research Committee (NDRC),
with Bush as chairman, to direct, co-
ordinate, and carry out a national
program of military research and de-
velopment. Membership was drawn
from the National Academy of Sci-
ences, with Brig. Gen. George V.
Strong, chief of the War Plans Divi-
sion, representing the Army and Rear
Adm. Harold G. Bowen, director of
the Naval Research Laboratory, repre-
senting the Navy.

With establishment of the NDRC,
the President made provision for con-
tinuation of the atomic energy pro-
gram. He asked Vannevar Bush to
reconstitute the original Uranium
Committee as a subcommittee of the
NDRC. The new Committee on Ura-
nium, reporting to Bush and with
Briggs continuing as its chairman, in-
cluded six other scientists but lacked
the service representation that the

21 Szilard Documents, pp. 10-11, MDR; Ltr, Urey
to Sz.laid. 7 Jun 40, Incl to ibid.

22 Sachs History, p. 24, MDR; Ltr, Sachs to
Watson (source of quotation), 15 May 40, Exhibit
15a, ibid. Bush enjoyed a distinguished career in ap-
plied mathematics and electrical engineering at MIT
in the two decades following WW I and achieved a
reputation as a scientific administrator of great skill.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

original committee had. Briggs was
authorized "to maintain close and
direct contact with those officers of
the Army and Navy most directly in-
terested," but only Ross Gunn of the
Naval Research Laboratory continued
to serve on the new committee. ^^

On 1 July, Briggs reviewed for
Bush the earlier activities of the Com-
mittee on Uranium. At the same time,
he requested the $140,000 that he
and Urey's Advisory Committee had
agreed was necessary for purchasing
uranium metal and pure graphite and
for making further measurements of
the fundamental nuclear constants. At
its first formal meeting the next day,
the NDRC considered Briggs's re-
quest, but its members found them-
selves in a dilemma. The basic NDRC
mission was research and develop-
ment of weapons and equipment with
direct application to the war. NDRC
scientists still regarded the chances of
an atomic weapon as "very remote,"
in Bush's words, and even the possi-
bility of nuclear power for battleships
or submarine propulsion seemed a
distant eventuality at best. Given the
need for funds and trained scientists
in other areas, there was grave doubt
as to the wisdom of allocating money
and energy to "what might eventually
appear to have been wild research."
Yet, there was a danger that German
nuclear research might prove success-
ful. Committee members concluded,
therefore, that prudence demanded
acquisition of knowledge of the fun-
damental physics of atomic energy.
Accordingly, the NDRC approved

Briggs's request in principle and
asked him for further definite propos-
als for "a careful, but not elaborate or
expensive program." ^'*

Promise of NDRC funds opened
the way for the future rapid expan-
sion on atomic research in the United
States. But until these new funds
became available, the atomic program
had to continue to draw upon money
supplied earlier by the Army and the
Navy. Even the $40,000 for the first
NDRC contract for atomic research,
an agreement signed with Columbia
University in early November, came
out of the remaining Army-Navy
funds.

Beginning with the NDRC's allot-
ment on 25 October of the $140,000
requested by Briggs on 1 July, there
followed a series of contracts and
transfer agreements arranging for nu-
clear research by various institutions.
By the spring of 1941, the NDRC had
committed nearly $500,000 for work
at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, the
University of Minnesota, the Standard
Oil Development Company, Iowa
State College, Cornell, the University
of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, the Car-
negie Institution of Washington, the
University of California (Berkeley),
the University of Virginia, the Bureau
of Standards, and the Department of
Agriculture. While the NDRC's ex-
penditure for atomic energy was small
compared with amounts allotted to

"Quoted words from Ltr, Roosevelt to Briggs,
15 Jun 40, Exhibit 19, Sachs History, MDR. Baxter,
Snenlists Against Time. pp. 12-16; Ltr, Roosevelt to
Bush, 15 Jun 40, HLH; Watson, Chief of Staff, pp.
49-59; Smyth Report, p. 34.

^^ Quoted words from National Defense Research
Committee Report for First Year of Operation, 27
Jun 40-28 Jun 41 (hereafter cited as NDRC Rpt,
1940-41) pp. 34-35, Incl to Ltr, Bush to President,
16 July 41, FDR. Szilard Documents, pp. 10-11,
MDR; Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for
War. Science in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown
and Co., 1948), pp. 120-21 and 230; Baxter, Scien-
tists Against Time, pp. 423-24.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

other wartime scientific research, it
represented a significant financial
boost for the American program. As
Alexander Sachs observed a few years
later, the program had become "in-
vested with the importance, the re-
sources and the secrecy available to
the Government of the United States
. . . for the translation of the idea
into a reality. . . ." ^^

While the NDRC was able to focus
the energy and capabilities of civilian
scientists on many aspects of military
technology, it left certain gaps in the
program to mobilize American sci-
ence for war. Hence, at the end of
June 1941, President Roosevelt estab-
lished the Office of Scientific Re-
search and Development (OSRD),
with the NDRC as one of its subordi-
nate agencies. Bush became OSRD
director and James B. Conant, presi-
dent of Harvard University, succeed-
ed Bush as NDRC chairman. In this
reorganization the Committee on
Uranium under Briggs remained
within the NDRC, but it was some-
what enlarged and was renamed the
Section on Uranium. Again it includ-
ed no Army or Navy representatives,
and even Ross Gunn of the Naval Re-
search Laboratory was no longer a
member. ^^

New Advances in Atomic Research,
1940-1941

In mid-July 1941, enthusiastic over
reports that atomic scientists in Amer-
ica and Great Britain were making

^^ Quoted words from Sachs History, p. 27, MDR.
Smyth Report, pp. 34-35; Stewart, Organizing Scientific
Research for War, pp. 121 and 123; Baxter, Scientists
Against Time, p. 424; Testimony of Gunn in Atomic
Energy Hearings on S. Res. 179, pp. 367 and 371.

^^ Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War. pp.
34-40 and 121; Smyth Report, p. 35.

significant progress in atomic re-
search, Vannevar Bush reported to
the President that "new knowledge"
made "it probable that the produc-
tion of a super-explosive may not be
as remote a matter as previously ap-
peared." ^^ At Columbia, supported
by investigations at Princeton and the
Universities of Chicago and California
(Berkeley), researchers produced suf-
ficient favorable data on the capture
cross sections for the neutrons of
U-235 and U-238 and on the ab-
sorption qualities of graphite to justi-
fy construction in July 1941 of the
first lattice pile — a large graphite cube
in which containers of uranium oxide
were distributed at equal intervals.
The research results also convinced
many more scientists that a chain re-
action in a uranium-graphite system
eventually would be achieved.

At Berkeley, physicists working with
Ernest O. Lawrence on the bombard-
ment of uranium with neutrons
discovered that the capture of fast
neutrons by U-238 transmuted that
isotope first into element 93 and then
into element 94, which they named
neptunium and plutonium, respective-
ly. After further investigation of these
transuranium elements, neither of
which was then known to exist in
nature, Lawrence's group concluded
that plutonium had the same fission
characteristics as U-235; it could be
split by neutrons and would, in turn,
release more neutrons. U-238, hither-
to regarded as worthless for energy
purposes, was in fact a prime source.

2 7 NDRC Rpt. 1940-41, p. 35, Incl to Ltr. Bush
to President, 16 Jul 41, FDR. Except as indicated,
following section on progress of atomic research in
the United States during 1940-41 based on Smyth
Report, pp. 26, 36, 38-41, 47-49.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC

ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

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Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Vannevar Bush, and James B.
CoNANT (left to right), four of the Manhattan Project 5 scientific leaders (1940 photograph)

Furthermore, as there was reason to
believe that chemical separation of
plutonium from uranium might prove
more practicable than isotopic separa-
tion of U-235 from U-238, chances
that an atomic bomb based on a fast-
neutron chain reaction could be built
were tremendously increased.

American atomic scientists learned
of encouraging British developments
on isotopic separation by gaseous dif-
fusion and on heavy water as a mod-
erator in a slow-neutron chain reac-
tion system through a scientific infor-
mation exchange program, begun in
the fall of 1940. With the support of
the War and Navy Departments,

NDRC members conferred informally
with British scientific representatives,
both in the United States and in Eng-
land, achieving a limited exchange of
data about the progress of nuclear re-
search in each country. ^^

28 See Ch. X for discussion of a formal program
of information interchange with Great Britain on
nuclear matters. Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic
Energy, 1939-1945 (London: Macmillan and Co., St.
Martin's Press, 1946), pp. 115-26; J. G. Crowther
and R. Whiddington, Science at War (London: His
Majesty's Stationery Office, 1947), pp. 143-46; H.
Duncan Hall and C. C. Wrigley, Studies of Ch'erseas
Supply. History of the Second World War (London:
His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956). pp. 358-85
and 405-13; Sir George Thomson, "Anglo-U.S. Co-
operation on Atomic Energy," American Snenttst 41
(Jan 53): 78.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

In the summer of 1941, a special
reviewing committee of the National
Academy of Sciences supported
Bush's optimism. The committee, es-
tablished at Briggs's suggestion that
an impartial evaluation of the atomic
program was needed, first met in May
under the chairmanship of Arthur H.
Compton, head of the physics depart-
ment and dean of the Division of
Physical Sciences at the University of
Chicago. The committee's initial
report was buttressed by supporting
remarks from Briggs, and on 18 July
the NDRC approved contracts and
transfers amounting to nearly
$400,000 for chain reaction, nuclear
power, and isotope separation re-
search. While the NDRC remained
cautious in its estimate of whether
atomic energy could be harnessed in
time to affect the outcome of the war,
it recognized that continued progress
in nuclear research would eventually
require establishment of a long-range
program so vast and expensive that in
wartime only the Army or Navy could
carry it out.^^

The pressure of an all-out attack on
the problem of atomic energy grew
rapidly. At the University of Califor-
nia, Lawrence was more and more
convinced of the feasibility of using
plutonium to make an atomic bomb
and he communicated his enthusiasm
to both Compton and Conant. Comp-
ton was especially interested and he,
in turn, talked with other nuclear re-
searchers. From Urey and physicist
John Dunning, who also was on the staff
at Columbia, he learned of progress on

isotope separation, and from Fermi
he received encouraging news of the
results of experiments with the lattice
pile. Most of the scientists now in-
volved felt that the atomic energy
program should be pushed, and in
mid-October, at Conant's suggestion,
Compton reconvened his reviewing
committee, now somewhat enlarged,
to prepare another report. ^°

On 3 October, Bush received the
first official copy of a British review of
atomic energy that had been complet-
ed in mid-July, but he was not yet at
liberty to disclose its contents to the
NDRC. The British scientists had op-
timistically concluded that a uranium
bomb could be built with an explosive
power of 1,800 tons of TNT. They in-
dicated a rough idea of its critical
mass and possible methods of assem-
bly and fusing. They thought the gas-
eous diffusion method offered the
best answer to the problem of separat-
ing a sufficient amount of U-235 and
the uranium-heavy water system gave
promise as a means for producing
power and plutonium.^ ^

Top Policy Group: Preparing for
Army Take Over

Increasing conviction that atomic
bombs were feasible prompted Bush
to take immediate steps to obtain the
high-level policy decisions he had
foreseen would be necessary to assure
aggressive pursuit of the uranium
program. On 9 October 1941, almost

^^ Baxter, Scientists Against Time. pp. 424-26;
Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 45-49; Smyth Report, pp.
35 and 49; Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for
War, p. 121; Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp.
36-43.

30 Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 6-9 and 53-56;
Smyth Report, p. 36; Hewlett and Anderson, New
World, pp. 45-49.

3» Smyth Report, p. 36; Crowther and Whidding-
ton, Science at War, pp. 144-45; Thomson, "Anglo-
U.S. Cooperation," pp. 78-79; Cowing, Bnlain and
Atomic Energy, pp. 83-86 and 116-17.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

two years to the day on which Alexan-
der Sachs first informed the President
about atomic energy, Bush had a long
conversation with Roosevelt and Vice
President Henry A. Wallace. In late
July, Bush and Wallace had discussed
the progress of the American pro-
gram; now, supported with more con-
crete evidence of possible success at
hand, they were considering what the
President could do to further develop
the program. The OSRD director out-
lined the current status of research in
both the United States and Great
Britain, pointing up the general opti-
mism of the scientists in both coun-
tries but, at the same time, emphasiz-
ing that their predictions could not be
guaranteed. He indicated, too, that
much work would be required before
success could be anticipated.

President Roosevelt agreed that the
atomic energy program must be pro-
vided with a better organization and
more funds and that arrangements
should be made for a complete inter-
change of information with the Brit-
ish. He directed formation of what
was informally designated the Top
Policy Group, to be headed by him-
self — although he never actually par-
ticipated in its proceedings — and to
consist of Vice President Henry A.
Wallace, Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson, Army Chief of Staff General
George C. Marshall, Vannevar Bush,
and James B. Conant.^^ Thus the
President took the first step in imple-
menting a maximum effort to develop
an atomic bomb as soon as possible.
He also decided that the Army, and
not the Navy, would be given the pri-

mary responsibility for attaining this
goal.

The NDRC had concluded that no
private institution or relevant govern-
ment agency had the means or per-
sonnel to carry out the extraordinarily
large tasks of plant construction and
administering development of a nu-
clear weapon. The choice, then, was
the Army or the Navy. When
Roosevelt appointed Secretary Stim-
son and General Marshall to the Top
Policy Group that had no naval rep-
resentation, he decided in effect that
the Army was to manage the job.
Why had the President selected the
Army when the Navy had exhibited
much greater interest in nuclear re-
search? Indications are that Bush and
his associates had decided that the
Army was the more appropriate
choice for the project. The end prod-
uct was to be a bomb, presumably de-
livered by an Army bomber. Also the
Army, judged on the basis of its past
experience and its organization, ap-
peared better fitted to undertake the
vast construction program. ^^

The President also had agreed to
establish an effective exchange of in-
formation with the British. On 1 1 Oc-
tober he communicated with Prime
Minister Winston S. Churchill, sug-
gesting that they correspond or talk
about atomic developments, inaugu-

^^ Baxter, Scientists Against Time, p. 427; Smyth
Report, p. 37; Ltr, Bush to President, 9 Mar 42, HB
Files, Fldr 58, MDR.

^^ Col. James C. Marshall, who would head the
new Army engineer district that would administer
the atomic bomb program, reported that Bush, in
the fall of 1942, told him and other Army officers
that the Navy "had been left out of the present
project at the explicit direction of the President."
See Marshall Diary, 21 Sep 42, MDR. The Navy,
nevertheless, would continue to support research al-
readv under way on liquid thermal diffusion. See
Ch. VIII.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Secretary of War Henry L.Stimson

rating a period of regular interchange
between the two countries.^'*

The President's efforts to strength-
en the American atomic energy pro-
gram were reinforced a few weeks
later by Compton's National Academy
reviewing committee. On 6 Novem-
ber, the committee issued another re-
port that, while not as optimistic as the
earlier British study, nevertheless con-
stituted a strong endorsement of an
expanded atomic bomb program. Be-
cause Compton's group had prepared
its report without access to the British
conclusions — Bush up to now had

^^Ltr. Roosevelt to Churchill. 11 Oct 41, FDR;
Churchill's reply quoted in Msg, Prime Minister to
Harry L. Hopkins, 27 Feb 43, HLH; Crovvlher and
Whiddington, Science o I l\'ar\ p. 146; Smyth Report, p.
37. For detailed discussion of efforts to establish ef-
fective interchange in late 1941 see Ch. X.

been bound not to disclose them — its
findings consisted of both a further
verification of the British views and an
independent recommendation.

The committee report stated that
"within a few years . . . military supe-
riority" might be determined by
U-235 bombs and that building these
bombs seemed "as sure as any un-
tried prediction based upon theory
and experiment can be." The amount
of U-235 needed for each bomb
would be between 2 and 100 kilo-
grams, producing an explosive energy
per kilogram of U-235 equal to that
of about 300 tons of TNT and a de-
structive effect equivalent to about 30
tons of TNT. Atomic bombs could
thus be of "decisive importance" in
defeating Germany and, based on an
estimate that military and industrial
targets in Germany could be devastat-
ed with 500,000 tons of TNT bombs,
from 1 to 10 tons of U-235 would be
needed to do the same job. This
much U-235 could be obtained, con-
tinued the report, by one or more
methods of isotope separation, of
which the gaseous diffusion and cen-
trifuge methods appeared to be fur-
thest along in development. In ac-
cordance with instructions from Bush,
the committee did not discuss pluto-
nium and it purposely played down
the expense of producing U-235
bombs to avoid arousing government
fears of excessive costs. "If all possi-
ble effort is spent on the program,"
the report concluded, "fission
bombs" might "be available in signifi-
cant quantity within three or four
years." ^^

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

This prediction came at a time
when only infinitesimal amounts of
plutonium had been produced and
when no appreciable quantity of
U-235 had been separated from
U-238, no large amounts of uranium
metal or moderators produced, and,
as yet, no chain reaction achieved.
Nevertheless, the committee report,
as had its British counterpart, reflect-
ed the substantial progress that had
been made in research. Although
some scientists were still no more
convinced that atomic weapons were
imminently possible than they had
been a year earlier, the threat of
American involvement in war now
seemed far stronger, with the result
that large expenditures of money and
effort were no longer seen as ex-
travagances but rather as necessary
precautions.

Bush's first action after receiving
Compton's committee report was to
show it to Secretary of War Stimson.
Whether the 6 November meeting
was Stimson's first word of his ap-
pointment to the Top Policy Group is
not clear, but there is no doubt about
his reaction to the awesome possibili-
ties of an atomic bomb. "A most ter-
rible thing," he called it, sensing the
grave responsibility falling upon those
who would unleash the power of such

^^Bolh quotations from Rpt, Academy Committee
on Uranium, sub: Rpt to President of the Natl Acad-
emy of Sciences, 6 Nov 41, OSRD. Portions of the
report are reproduced in the following sources:
Smyth Report, pp. 49-52; Smyth Ms (containing
some material not included in final version). Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Smyth Rpt), MDR;
Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 56-59; Baxter, Scientists
Against Time. pp. 426-28.

a devastating weapon.^®

During the next few weeks, Bush
apparently reviewed the entire Ameri-
can atomic energy program and, in
compliance with the President's in-
structions, devised a plan for an ad-
ministrative reorganization designed
to expedite efforts "in every possible
way." ^' Finally, on 27 November,
Bush forwarded the report of Comp-
tion's reviewing committee to Roose-
velt and, presumably, his own rec-
ommendations for the new organi-
zation. The NDRC endorsed these
recommendations on the twenty-
eighth. Then on 6 December 1941,
the day before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor, Conant — speaking for
Bush — announced the details of the
new organization to those persons
who would now join together in a
maximum effort to develop an atomic
bomb.

Under the new organization, the
atomic energy program was divorced
from the NDRC and placed under the
immediate supervision of Bush as the
OSRD director. Bush reported direct-
ly to the President, at the same time
keeping Vice President Wallace and
Secretary Stimson fully informed. The
scientific group under Bush was now
called the OSRD S-1 Section, drop-
ping the word uranium for security
reasons. Its function was to recom-
mend and coordinate action on nucle-
ar research, ensure that authorized as-
signments were carried out, and,
within six months, prepare a final

^® Diary of Henry L. Stimson (hereafter cited as
Stimson Diary), 6 Nov 41, HLS; Henry L. Stimson,
"The Decision To Use the Bomb," Harper's 194
(Feb 47): 98-99; Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 59.

"Ltr, Bush to President, 9 Mar 42, MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

report on the feasibility of building
atomic bombs.

Conant, acting as Bush's represent-
ative, had oversight of the whole pro-
gram. Briggs stayed on as chairman
of the S-1 Section, with Dean Pegram
of Columbia as vice chairman and a
number of outstanding scientists serv-
ing as consultants. In addition, three
program chiefs, each a Nobel Prize
winner, were in charge of three dis-
tinct programs in physics. Arthur H.
Compton of the University of Chicago
headed the program of basic physics
studies and measurements of nuclear
properties pertinent to the chain reac-
tion. His program also included ex-
ploring the problem of plutonium
production by means of the con-
trolled fissioning of uranium. Ernest
O. Lawrence of the University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley, had responsibility
for producing the first small samples
of fissionable elements, isotope sepa-
ration by the electromagnetic method,
and experimental work on the prop-
erties of plutonium. Finally, Harold
C. Urey of Columbia University had
charge of isotope separation by the
diffusion and centrifuge methods, as
well as research on heavy water
production.

To supervise engineering procure-
ment and production plant construc-
tion — activities that Bush and his as-
sociates knew must shortly be turned
over to the Army — the OSRD director
set up a planning board, headed by
Eger V. Murphree, vice president of
the Standard Oil Development Com-
pany, an affiliate of Standard Oil
Company (New Jersey). The OSRD
would enter into and finance all con-
tracts negotiated in support of the re-
organized atomic energy program.
The board would make recommenda-

tions to Bush concerning those con-
tracts for engineering, for develop-
ment of the diffusion and centrifuge
processes, and for the heavy water
program. Briggs and Conant, with the
interested program chiefs, would rec-
ommend all other contracts. When
the Army took over administration of
much of the atomic energy program,
many OSRD contracts had to be
renegotiated.^^

America's entry into World War II
hastened the move for the Army to
take over the primary direction and
control of the bomb development
project. Concrete steps to bring about
this change came up for discussion at
a meeting of the Top Policy Group
called by Vice President Wallace on
16 December. In attendance were
Secretary Stimson, Bush, Wallace,
and, in addition, Harold D. Smith, di-
rector of the Budget Bureau. Conant
and General Marshall were unable to
attend. According to Secretary Stim-
son, that meeting was significant. The
group discussed, he recorded, "some
of the new inventions, many of them
diabolical, that are coming out of the
Scientific Research Commission"
[NDRC] and "decided to go ahead
with certain experiments." Bush him-
self noted the group's strong opinion
"that OSRD should press as fast as
possible on the construction of pilot
plants." ^^ He estimated this aspect of

^*Ibid. and Incl; Smyth Report, pp. 53-55; Baxter,
Snentuts Against Time. p. 428; Compton, Atomic Qimt,
pp. 62-63 and 68-78; Stewart, Organizing Scientific
Research for War, pp. 121-22; Hewlett and Anderson,
Xeu' World, pp. 40-51; Charles Sterling Popple,
Standard Oil Company (Xew Jersey) in World War II
(New York: Standard Oil Co., 1952), p. 295.

^^ Stimson Diary, 16 Dec 41, HLS; Bush quoted in
Smyth Report, p. 55.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

the work would cost $4 to $5 million
and stated that the Army should take
over when full-scale construction
began, presumably when the pilot
plants were ready. He recommended
that a suitably trained Army officer
should familiarize himself with the
general nature of the program.

The Top Policy Group then ap-
proved Bush's reorganization of the
atomic energy program and his plans
and recommendations for action.
They also agreed that the internation-
al aspects were clearly a presidential
responsibility, with Bush's function
limited to liaison solely on technical
matters. *°

Progress in Research and Development:
The Xuclear Steeplechase

Two days later, on 18 December,
the new OSRD S-1 Section held its
first meeting, a session "pervaded by
an atmosphere of enthusiasm and ur-
gency." *^ Conant explained again
the decision to proceed with the de-
velopment of the bomb and stressed
the necessity of a maximum effort.
His words were seconded by Urey
and Pegram, recently returned from
England, who described British
progress on the gaseous diffusion
method of isotope separation and in
experiments with heavy water. They
also emphasized that Britain greatly
feared Germany might produce
atomic bombs before the Allies. Prob-
ably the most enthusiastic presenta-
tion was Lawrence's description of his
success in testing the electromagnetic
method as a possible process for sep-

arating uranium isotopes. As a
member of Compton's reviewing
committee the previous summer, Law-
rence had become convinced of the
great potentialities of this method in
spite of the widely prevailing belief
among scientists that the so-called
space charge limitation — mutual re-
pulsion of ions, making sharp focus of
a beam of particles impossible — made
it impractical for large-scale separa-
tion. Lawrence asserted that experi-
ments at his Berkeley-based Radiation
Laboratory with the mass spectro-
graph proved that the technical diffi-
culties that tended to reduce the effi-
ciency of the electromagnetic process
could be overcome. ^2

A 184-inch cyclotron magnet,
nearly five times wider than the 37-
inch magnet used for previous experi-
ments, had been under construction
at the University of California, Berke-
ley, funded by the Rockefeller Foun-
dation. Work had stopped because of
the war, but now an extra appropria-
tion from the foundation permitted
Lawrence to complete the project by
the end of May 1942, providing a
means, as Lawrence wrote later, that
"made it seem possible that we might
be able to get somewhere ... in time
to be of value in this war." '*^

With the Radiation Laboratory re-
searchers concentrating increasingly
on electromagnetic separation, most

*° Smvth Report, p 55; Ltr, Bush to President,
9 Mar 42, MDR; Hewleii and Anderson, Xew IVorld.
pp. 51-52.

*' Smvth Report, p. 55.

*^ Rpt, W. M Brobeck and W. B. Reynolds, sub:
On Future Development of Electromagnetic System
of Tube Alloys Isotope .Separation, 15 Jan 45, OCG
Files, Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Fldr 10, MDR;
Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 76-77; Hewlett and An-
derson, \eu> Worlri, pp. 56-57.

■•^ I.tr, Lawrence to Warren Weaver (Natural Sci-
ences Div Dir, Rockefeller Foundation), 20 Aug 45,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (W), MDR; Smvth
Report, pp. 46, 49, 55, 136-40; Compton. Atomic
Quest, pp. 73-74.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

of the work on plutonium was left to
Compton's University of Chicago
group that was investigating the feasi-
bility of achieving a chain reaction. In
January 1941, Compton decided to
move the scientists working under his
supervision at Columbia and Prince-
ton to the University of Chicago. By
early February, he concentrated the
various research and development ac-
tivities under what was called, for se-
curity reasons, the Metallurgical Lab-
oratory. Compton's group devoted
itself henceforth to three main tasks:
achievement of a chain reaction; study
of the chemistry of plutonium, includ-
ing development of a means for sepa-
rating it from uranium; and the
design of plutonium-producing piles.
Because these tasks depended upon
an adequate supply of uranium and
graphite, representatives of the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory also actively sup-
ported the S-1 Section's planning
board in the procurement program,
contributing much to its success.**

At the same time, research on the
gaseous diffusion process and on the
production of heavy water went for-
ward under Harold Urey's direction
at Columbia, and investigations on
the centrifuge method of separation
progressed under the general supervi-
sion of Eger Murphree at the Univer-
sity of Virginia, where physicist Jesse
W. Beams directed the program, and
at the Standard Oil Development
Company in New Jersey, where re-
search begun earlier at Columbia was
continued.

Work was also proceeding on still
another separation method, liquid
thermal diffusion, based on the tend-

ency of one of two isotopes in a fluid
to concentrate near the hotter of two
opposing surfaces. Philip H. Abelson
had started research on this process
at the Carnegie Institution but later
moved to facilities at the Naval Re-
search Laboratory. While develop-
ment of the thermal diffusion process
was not a part of the OSRD program,
it would prove highly useful to the
atomic project at a later date.*^

Thus the OSRD was at work simul-
taneously on five methods of pro-
ducing fissionable materials — three
isotope separation processes (electro-
magnetic, gaseous diffusion, and
centrifuge) for producing U-235 and
two pile processes (uranium-graphite
and uranium-heavy water) for manu-
facturing plutonium — projects Conant
referred to as five "horses" in a
race.*^ Choosing a favorite and pre-
dicting an outcome, however, were
almost impossible because any one of
the horses might encounter insur-
mountable obstacles. Although con-
centrating all resources on the most
promising horse would have been
more efficient and economic, playing
this odd just might have enabled Ger-
many to be the first to build an
atomic bomb.

In support of this nuclear steeple-
chase, the OSRD, by early February
1942, had entered into ten contracts
with twelve institutions totaling more
than $1 million, figures that roughly
doubled in the next month. On the

*'' Smyth Report, pp. 56 and 63-65; Compton,
Atomic Quest, pp. 80-98.

*^ Smvth Report, pp. 47 and 56; Testimony of
Gunn in Atomic Energy Heanngs on S. Res. 1 79, pp.
367-68.

*^ In his account of the development of aUernate
methods for producing fissionable materials in early
1942, Compton counted only four "horses" in the
race, perceiving the two pile processes as a single
method. See Atomic Quest, pp. 77-78.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

twentieth, Conant recommended that
all five methods "be pushed vigorous-
ly" until 1 July, by which time he
hoped many of the contracts could be
dropped or revised in accordance
with whatever progress had been
made. Indeed, Conant continued, if
by then the electromagnetic method
of separation demonstrated a clear ca-
pability "of producing grams per
day," work on other methods of pro-
ducing fissionable materials might be
dropped or at least continued at a
slower pace. Furthermore, even if all
five horses had to be kept running "at
full speed down the course" until the
beginning of 1943, the OSRD re-
search program might still be com-
pleted for between $10 and $17
million.*^

The "intense scientific research and
engineering planning now underway"
was the subject of a guardedly opti-
mistic progress report that Bush sub-
mitted to the President on 9 March.
"The possibility of actual production
appears more certain," he wrote, but
"the way to full accomplishment is
still exceedingly difficult." A full-scale
effort might achieve completion of
the project in 1944, or possibly six
months sooner, and success for either
the Allies or the enemy could "be de-
termining in the war effort." Bush
pointed out that the work was "rapid-
ly approaching the pilot plant stage,"
with selection of the best methods of
production not too far off. The
summer of 1942, he believed, would
"find the matter ready to turn over to
Army control, for actual production

plant construction." A further reason
for transferring "the whole matter . . .
to the War Department," Bush
added, was the necessity for institut-
ing tight security measures once
actual production began.*®

With the Army's entrance into the
atomic energy program only a few
months off, it was time to assign a
suitable officer to follow nuclear de-
velopments. For this mission. General
Marshall personally chose Brig. Gen.
Wilhelm D. Styer, chief of staff of the
Services of Supply (SOS). A graduate
of the U.S. Military Academy, with an
additional degree in civil engineering
from Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology and two decades of experience
as a Corps of Engineers officer super-
vising various kinds of construction
projects, Styer was well qualified to
lay the groundwork for Army partici-
pation in the atomic energy program.
He immediately began an intensive
study of the project, in close coordi-
nation with Bush and the S-1 Section.
Despite the demands of his SOS
duties, from this point until his depar-
ture for an overseas assignment late
in the war. General Styer would play
an important part in the Army's effort
to produce an atomic bomb.*^

■'■' Conant's words as quoted in Baxter, Scientists
Against Time. p. 433; Smyth Report, p. 56; Rpt to
President, sub: Status of Tube Alloys Development,
9 Mar 42, Incl to Ltr, Bush to President, same date,
MDR.

■»« Ltr, Bush to President, 9 Mar 42, MDR.

■»« 1st Ind, Stver to Chief of Mil Hist, 15 Aug 61,
to Ltr, Chief of Mil Hist to Styer, 17 Jul 61, CMH;
Memo, Bush and Conant to Wallace, Stimson, and
Marshall, sub: Atomic Fission Bombs, 13 Jun 42,
Incl to Ltr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, HB Files,
Fldr 6, MDR (cf. Ltr. Bush to President, 9 Mar 42,
and Incl, MDR). On Styer, see John D. Millett, The
Organization and Role of the Ar7ny Serince Forces. U.S.
Armv in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1954). pp. 5, 32. 369. and
passim; Cullum, Biographical Register. 6B:1806,
7:1121-22.8:306,9:207.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Meanwhile, the five horses were in
the running, four of them neck and
neck, with a fifth one now bidding to
join the race. This was the alternate
method of producing plutonium by
using heavy water instead of graphite
as the moderator in a chain reaction
pile, a process strongly championed
by Urey. As work approached the
pilot plant stage, the need to concen-
trate on one or more of these horses
was becoming increasingly apparent.
To conserve time, design and con-
struction of actual production plants
should begin even before the pilot
plants were finished. However,
Conant believed there was "a desper-
ate need for speed" to build the
bombs before the Germans could and
he only solution was to go ahead on
all five.50

On 23 May, S-1 Section Chairman
Lyman Briggs met with Compton,
Lawrence, LIrey, and Murphree to
make final recommendations on the
program. In a report submitted to
Bush two days later, the group con-
cluded that practical atomic bombs of
either U-235 or plutonium, with an
energy release equal to that of several
thousand tons of TNT, were definite-
ly feasible. Underestimating the
amount of fissionable material later
found necessary for each bomb, as
well as the time required for develop-
ment and construction, they believed
the bombs would be available in small
quantities by about July 1944. They
recommended funding of all five
methods, although, for reasons ad-
vanced primarily by Compton, they
gave the uranium-graphite pile a defi-
nite priority over the heavy water pile.
They also proposed a pilot diffusion

plant and preparation of complete en-
gineering designs for a full-scale dif-
fusion installation. They advised con-
structing a centrifuge plant by Janu-
ary 1944, an electromagnetic plant by
late 1943, a plutonium-producing
atomic power installation by early
1944, and, as an auxiliary to the
latter, heavy water plants by May
1943.

Bush, Conant, and General Styer
approved these recommendations
and, on 13 June, Bush and Conant
submitted them to the Top Policy
Group with detailed plans to expand
the atomic energy program. They un-
derlined the danger of German suc-
cess in building an atomic bomb and
endorsed the proposal to continue
work on all major methods of produc-
tion. At the same time, they warned
that such a course would interfere
with other military research and
called for careful judgment, when fur-
ther study made it possible, to
achieve a better balance.^ ^

Importantly, Bush and Conant rec-
ommended that construction of the
separation plants and development of
the power project be turned over to
the Army, specifically "to be in [the]
charge of a qualified officer designat-
ed by the Chief of Engineers and re-
porting to him. . . ." They also sug-
gested that this officer be assisted on
a full-time basis by leading civilian
scientists and engineers, "preferably
in the status of officers." ^^ Funds for

Quoted in Baxter, Scienlists Agonist Time. p. 434.

^1 Ibid., pp. 434-35; Memo, Bush and Conant to
Wallace, Stimson, and Marshall, 13 Jun 42, Incl to
Ltr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, MDR; Smvth
Report, pp. 56-57; Compton, Atomic Qimt. pp. 98-
103.

^2 Memo, Bush and Conant to Wallace, Stimson,
and Marshall. 13 Jun 42, Incl to Ltr, Bush to Presi-
dent, 1 7 Jun 42, MDR.

THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, 1939-1942

this work — $54 million in fiscal year
1943 — should be made available to
the Engineers chief who, to avoid
delay, should be authorized to spend
or overobligate any money under his
control with the understanding that
he would be reimbursed later. After
consulting with the S-1 Section's
planning board, the Engineers chief
should also begin immediately to let
contracts for the detailed design of all
plants.

Under the Bush-Conant proposals,
the OSRD would continue to direct
and control research and develop-
ment, with $31 million directly
available for this purpose and an ad-
ditional $5 million held in reserve for
contingencies in the next fiscal year.
There would be frequent meetings
between representatives of the OSRD
and the Corps of Engineers in order
to coordinate and report on research,
development, and construction. Re-
search and development on the actual
military uses of atomic energy would
be under the Joint Committee on
New Weapons and Equipment of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition.
Bush and Conant suggested that sites
be selected, priorities established, and
close security regulations imposed on
the entire project.

With the approval of Vice President
Wallace, Secretary Stimson, and Gen-
eral Marshall, Bush forwarded the
proposed program to the President
on 17 June 1942. "If you also ap-

prove," he wrote, "we will proceed
along these lines immediately." The
President's initials — "OK FDR" —
were affixed that day, signaling the
decision to go ahead. ^^

The United States was now firmly
and fully committed to an all-out
effort to build an atomic bomb. From
initial skepticism and only casual in-
terest, the attitude of the government
had changed gradually to one of
active support. The ultimate decision
to build the bomb was a presidential
one and, as such, had been made at
the meeting with Wallace and Bush
on 9 October 1941. But laying the
groundwork for that far-reaching de-
cision were the intermediate steps
taken by Bush and his scientific asso-
ciates in early December 1941, rein-
forced by Stimson and Wallace later
that month, and confirmed by mem-
bers of the S-1 Section and the Top
Policy Group in the spring of 1942.
As for the Army, the President's deci-
sion on 17 June brought it back into
the atomic bomb program, this time
to participate on a far broader scale.
Within hours of that decision, the
Army designated Col. James C. Mar-
shall, who had nearly twenty-five
years as a regular in the Corps of
Engineers, to begin the task of orga-
nizing and carrying out its vast new
assignment as administrator of all
construction work for that program.

>3 Ltr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, MDR.

CHAPTER II

Establishing the Manhattan District

Undeterred bv the unusual nature
of the atomic energy program, the
Army Corps of Engineers in June
1942 prepared to carry out its new
wartime construction assignment.
After his initial conference with Brig.
Gen. Wilhelm D. Styer late in the
afternoon of the eighteenth, Col.
James C. Marshall experienced a cer-
tain restlessness as he tried to com-
prehend the scope of the new task at
hand. The next day, he received some
of the answers to his many questions
when Styer took him to the Office of
Scientific Research and Development
to call on V'annevar Bush, fhe OSRD
director gave the two officers several
documents, among them a copy of
the program for continued develop-
ment of atomic energy that President
Roosevelt had approved on the seven-
teenth. From these papers Marshall
learned that the Army was now
charged with "all large-scale as-
pects," ^ as Bush put it, of the atomic
energy program, with the OSRD re-
taining responsibility for scientific re-
search and pilot plant experimenta-
tion. The Army's mission included
building both pilot and full-scale
plants for producing fissionable mate-
rials to be used in the manufacture of

atomic bombs, letting contracts for
these plants and others to be under
OSRD direction, and extensive site
selection, acquisition, and develop-
ment — all to be carried out in close
coordination with the OSRD.

That afternoon, again in General
Styer's office. Colonel Marshall re-
ceived formal orders on the Army's
phase of the atomic energv project.
On the covering letter of the ap-
proved program, Styer wrote the fol-
lowing endorsement to Marshall:
"This is referred to you for informa-
tion and appropriate action in accord-
ance with our discussion of this sub-
ject with Dr. Bush this morning." ^
This simple statement constituted the
basic directive to the C>orps of Engi-
neers for its work on development of
the atomic bomb. Styer also empha-
sized that the orders had come direct-
ly from the War Deparment's Services
of Supply (SOS) and that Colonel
Marshall would furnish all details of
the new project to the Engineers
chief, Maj. Gen. Eugene Reybold.

hi the weeks that followed the hur-
ried orientation of the past two days,
Colonel Marshall became more famil-
iar with the current status of the pro-

' Memo. Bush K) (onaiii. sub:
All<)%s| I'lf^m, 19 |un 42. HB Fik-s,

luhcallov 11
Fl(ir (i. MDR

2 Isi lud, StNC-l

Bush lo SIMM, sa

Marshall. 19 |un 42, lo I.ir,
date, HB Flics, FIdi (., MDR.

ESIABLISHING IHE MANHAIIAN DISTRICT

Brig. Gen. W ilhelm D. St\er

{1941 photograph)

gram and what the Army's role was to
be in the months ahead. He was to
have broad authority to use engineer
facilities, choose personnel, and take
whatever steps were necessary to
carry out his assignment. Marshall
soon realized, however, that he was
going to need all the assistance he
could muster in order to have any
hope of success in achieving his
mission.^

Organizing the District

1 he Engineers chief normally over-
saw construction projects through an
engineer district, the basic unit of the

engineer field organization for super-
vising construction work. The district
engineer customarily was responsible
to a division engineer, who headed
one of the eleven geographical divi-
sions in the United States (which, in
1942, constituted regional administra-
tive headquarters of the Engineer De-
partment of the Corps). Because of
the special character, scope, and im-
portance of Colonel Marshall's mis-
sion, however, the new district to
oversee atomic energy construction
would be directly subordinate to the
Engineers chief and, unrestricted by
geographical limitations, its field of
operations would extend into other
districts and divisions. Furthermore,
although designated a district engi-
neer, Marshall was to have all the au-
thority, responsibility, and independ-
ence regularly granted to a division
engineer. Indeed, in many respects,
he was to have far more.^

While Marshall's responsibility was
to the Engineers chief, in practice he
worked with Reybold's assistant. Brig.
Gen. Thomas M. Robins, who was in
charge of construction, and particu-
larly with his deputy. Col. Leslie R.
Groves. During the summer of 1942,
Robins and Groves reviewed Mar-
shall's plans and furnished him with
the support and assistance necessary
to get the project started. Appropri-
ate agencies of the chief's staff also
cooperated fully with Marshall, who
was able to make good use of other
engineer facilities and War Depart-
ment assistance. On all important de-

3 Marshall Diarv, 19 jun 42, OCCi Files. Gen Cor-
resp, Ciroves Files, Misc Recs Sec, behind Fldi 5,
MDR,

"AR 100-20, l« Sep 42; Paul W. Ihonipson,
What You Should Know About the Army Engineers (New
York. W. W. Norton and Co., 1942), pp. 194-96.
Subsection based primarily on Marshall I)iar\, MDR,
and Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 11-18.

jftmKKi^^

^^ ^>^

Brig. Gen. James C. Marshall

( 19-f6 photograph)

cisions, Marshall consulted with Gen-
erals Reybold and Styer; the latter, in
addition to his many duties as SOS
chief of staff, kept well abreast of cur-
rent nuclear developments. To en-
force strict secrecy, Army Chief of
Staff General George C. Marshall
originally had forbidden Styer to
reveal to the SOS commander, Lt.
Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, anything
about the atomic energy program. In
June, however, with the entrance of
the Army into an active role in the
project. General Marshall directed
Styer to brief Somervell and to enlist
his support.^

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND IHE AI OMIC: BOMB

In late June, Colonel Marshall
opened a liaison office in Washing-
ton, D.C., in the New War Depart-
ment Building at 21st Street and Vir-
ginia Avenue, NW. At the same time,
he set up temporary district head-
quarters at 270 Broadway in New-
York, where he had ready access not
only to the colocated administrative
facilities of the Engineer Depart-
ment's North Atlantic Division but
also to the Manhattan office of the
Stone and Webster Engineering Cor-
poration, soon to become a major
contractor for the atomic project. To
staff the district. Colonel Marshall re-
ceived authorization from the Engi-
neers chief to draw on officers and ci-
vilians who had served under him in
the Syracuse District, among them Lt.
Col. Kenneth D. Nichols, whom he
appointed assistant district engineer.
The Syracuse District recently had
completed the major part of its war-
time construction program and, as the
volume of work decreased during the
summer, Marshall was able to draw
more and more personnel from his
former command. Soon over a dozen
men had transferred to the new dis-
trict. Several who were civilians at the
time subsequently received reserve
commissions and went on active duty.
To provide still more officers. Gener-
al Robins directed other districts to
give Marshall a priority on any sur-
plus personnel they might have.®

^ Styer's recollection is that he was not aiithoii/ed
to bring in Somervell until September, but contem-
porary evidence indicates Somervell was participat-
ing in late June. 1st Ind, Stver to Chief of Mil Hist,
\r> Aug (il, to I.tr. Chief of Mil Hist to Stver, 17 Jul

61, CMH (cf. Marshall Diary, 26 Jun and 10 Jul 42,
MDR). On the I-Lngineers organization in earlv 1942
see Blanche D. C-oll, Jean E. Keith, and Herbert H.
Rosenthal, Thf Corps oj Engineers: Troops and Equip-
ment. r.S. Arniv in World War II (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1958), pp. 1,S2-:U).

^ Details on the engagement of Stone and Web-
ster as a major contractor for the atomic project are

ESIABLISHINC; IHK MANHA 1 IAN DIS IRId

Col. Kenneth D. Nichols { 1945 photograph}

Engineer districts normally took
their names from the city where they
were located, bnt Colonel Marshall's
new district lacked a permanent head-
quarters. Some convenient designa-
tion was needed, however, that would
conceal the real nature of the project.
On 26 June, Generals Somervell,
Styer, and Reybold agreed on the
elaborate cover name of Laboratory
for the Development of Substitute
Materials, or DSM. Within the next

discussed laid on m this chapter. Interv, Slanlc\ L.
Palk and Author with Clharles \'anden Bulck (former
S\racusc District civihan emplo\ee before serving as
Chief. Admin I)iv, MD) and his assistant Capt VV. R.
McCaulev. 22 Jun 60. CMH; MDH. Bk. 1. \'ol. 1.
■•(ieneral." p. 3.13. DASA. See also I.tr, Marshall to
Robins. Hi Nov 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp.
231.2, MDR, in which Marshall's procurement prior-
it \ was extended to supplies and equipment as well
as personnel, and the word surplus was dropped.

two weeks Marshall's plans and orga-
nization for a new district were ap-
proved and he submitted to Colonel
Groves the draft of a general order
establishing a DSM District. To
Groves, the term DSM seemed likely
to arouse attention and curiosity. Ac-
cordingly, the two officers reached
agreement that the name Manhattan,
where Marshall had established his
temporary headquarters, would be a
better name. On 13 August, General
Reybold issued a general order (effec-
tive on the sixteenth) officially estab-
lishing "a new engineer district, with-
out territorial limits, to be known as
the Manhattan District, . . . with
headquarters at New York, N.V., to
supervise projects assigned to it by

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

the Chief of Engineers." ^ The term
DSM continued in use as an official
code name for the entire project, but
the word Manhattan — symbolically
representing the Army's contribution
in the development of the atomic
bomb — gradually superseded it.^

Meanwhile, Vannevar Bush carried
out the necessary changes in the
OSRD organization. Under the provi-
sions of the newly approved program,
the OSRD retained responsibility for
pilot plants for the centrifuge, diffu-
sion, and electromagnetic separation
processes, as well as for further re-
search and development on the latter
method, for the heavy water project,
and for additional miscellaneous re-
search. Acting upon a suggestion of
James B. Conant, based upon his
review of past operating procedures
of the uranium project. Bush abol-
ished the S-1 Section and its planning
board and, in their place, established
the S-1 Executive Committee. Mem-
bership of the new committee includ-
ed most of the individuals who had
previously served in the S-1 Section:
Conant, as chairman; Lyman J.
Briggs; Ernest O. Lawrence; Arthur
H. Compton; Harold C. Urey; and
Eger V. Murphree, with the addition
of Irvin Stewart, the OSRD executive
secretary. H. T. Wensel, formerly of
the planning board, became technical
aide. Only Dean George B. Pegram of
Columbia dropped out.

Bush charged the new S-1 Execu-
tive Committee with recommending
contracts and supervising contract op-
erations and enjoined its members to

begin work immediately, in close co-
ordination with the Army Corps of
Engineers. Bush particularly cau-
tioned them on the importance of
maintaining the "greatest secrecy" on
all phases of the project, and stated
that "we will continue ... to adhere
to the principle that confidential in-
formation will be made available to an
individual only insofar as it is neces-
sary for his proper functioning in
connection with his assigned
duties." ^

An additional, though temporary,
responsibility of the S-1 Executive
Committee was overseeing experi-
mentation on the military applications
of atomic energy. As outlined in the
atomic energy program approved by
the President, the Joint Committee on
New Weapons and Equipment of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff had primary re-
sponsibility for this administrative
mission. Vannevar Bush also headed
this committee. Serving with him
were Brig. Gen. Raymond G. Moses,
chief of the Supply Division (G-4) of
the Army General Staff, and Rear
Adm. Willis A. Lee, Jr., who held a
similar position as Assistant Chief of
Staff (Readiness), U.S. Fleet. With
these officers Bush raised the ques-
tion of establishing a subcommittee to
consider military uses of atomic
energy — formed, not hastily, but with
"great care." Pending organization of
this new group. Bush directed the S-1
Executive Committee to continue its
work on military applications. ^°

'WD, (K.K, GO 33, 13 Aug 42. While the legal
designation of the new district was Manhattan Dis-
trict, it was often referred to as the Manhattan Engi-
neer District.

*Smvth Ri-port. p. 59.

^Qiioted words from Memo, Bush to Conant,
19 Jun 42, MDR. See also Stewart, Organizing Scien-
lific Research fm War. p. 122; Smyth Report, p. 59.

'"Ltr, Bush to Stver, 19 Jun 42, and Memo, Bush
to Conant, 19 Jun 42. MDR; Min, 6th Mtg of JNW,
16 Jun 42, 334, JCS: Ms, Vernon E. Davis, "Organi-

ESTABLISHING IHE MANHA ITAN DISTRICT

The relationship between the Man-
hattan District and the OSRD S-1
Committee during the summer of
1942 can best be described as a coop-
erative one. While each agency had its
assigned functions within the overall
atomic energy program, they coordi-
nated either formally or informally on
all major decisions. But they did not
act together as a joint directorate, for
each organization was free to proceed
as it wished to carry out decisions, or
other activities, strictly within its own
area of competence.

Periodic meetings of the S-1 Com-
mittee with Colonel Marshall and one
or more other officers of the Manhat-
tan District provided the formal link
between the two organizations. Rep-
resentatives of the principal engineer-
ing or industrial firms connected with
the project also attended frequently.
During this period, the S-1 Commit-
tee met at least once a month, usually
in executive session in the morning —
while Marshall was conferring with his
military superiors — and then opened
the meeting to the Manhattan repre-
sentatives. These joint meetings en-
couraged a free exchange of views,
provided scientific briefings for Mar-
shall and his colleagues, enabled the
scientists to seek Army assistance
where necessary, and generally en-
hanced coordination.^^

zalional I^evelopmciit: Development of the JCS
Committee Structure,"' The History of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in World War II, Vol. 2 (Washington,
DC: Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff,
1972), pp. 308-12, NARS.

"In addition to material from the Marshall Diary,
MDR, detailed sunmiaries of the S-1 Committee
meetings are included in the DSM Chronology,
OROO. The latter is a rough first-draft summary of
events relating to the Manhattan District, covering
most developments in some detail through .April
1943 and for the single month of July 1944, leaving
a gap from May 1943 through June 1944. The chro-

Army-OSRD links were further
strengthened by cooperation between
Manhattan officers and civilian scien-
tists working together on specific
projects. In the beginning these ties
were kept inconspicuous, especially to
conceal the Army's interest. In their
visits to university or industrial lab-
oratories. Army officers usually wore
civilian clothing, and every effort was
made to hide the relationship be-
tween the Corps of Engineers and
OSRD-directed projects. This effort
was sometimes frustrated when a few
scientists, unaccustomed to working
under rigid security conditions, talked
more freely than they should have
about the Army's interest in their
work. And despite Bush's warnings,
even the S-1 Committee was careless
on occasion. In mid-August, for ex-
ample, Colonel Marshall had to point
out that highly classified material
should not be sent to him through
the regular mail. In general, however,
the good relationship between the
Manhattan District and the S-1 Com-
mittee helped to keep such occur-
rences to a minimum.

Details of the Army-OSRD meet-
ings reached the Top Policy Group
through twin channels: scientific and
military. Conant reported to Bush
and Colonel Marshall to his superiors
in General Reybold's office, or some-
times directly to General Styer. The
latter then passed on information
about the atomic project to Generals
Somervell and Marshall. Secretary of
War Henry L. Stimson appears to

nology, apparently prepared in late 1944 bv Maj.
Harrv S. Iravnor, a Manhattan staff officer, is based
not onlv on sources cited in this volume but also on
certain other materials not available to the present
author.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

have received only limited data on de-
velopments during the summer of
1942; Vannevar Bush submitted only
one formal report to Harvey Bundy,
the Secretary's special assistant for
scientific affairs. To what extent Vice
President Henry A. Wallace received
information on atomic developments
is unclear; the Top Policy Group did
not meet during this period and there
is no other indication that reports
were sent to Wallace. Even the Presi-
dent's information and activities were
evidently limited to the question of
nuclear collaboration with Great Brit-
ain, and he seems to have discussed
that only with Bush. In effect, then,
the S-1 Executive Committee and
Manhattan District were free to act on
any mutually approved decision.
Their scientific or military superiors
could always exercise the right of
veto, but in the summer of 1942 they
apparently did not do so. Only later,
when major changes were to be made
in the atomic energy program, would
they once more actively enter the
picture. ^^

Army-OSRD Planning Meeting,
23 June 1942

On the occasion of the first meet-
ing of the S-1 Executive Committee,
convened at the Carnegie Institution
in Washington, D.C., on 25 June
1942, General Styer, Colonels Mar-
shall and Nichols, Vannevar Bush,
and the regular members of the com-
mittee reached several important de-
cisions regarding site selection, con-

tracting with engineering firms, and
obtaining government priorities for
needed materials and equipment. ^^

War Department policy normally
required location of new munitions
plants out of range of enemy carrier-
based planes, in a great inland zone
between the Appalachian and Rocky
Mountains and approximately 200
miles from the nation's borders with
Canada and Mexico.^* General Styer
stated that the main atomic energy in-
stallations should be placed within
this zone and that, to ensure secrecy,
all manufacturing plants should be
built at a single site. The group gen-
erally agreed with Styer on plant con-
centration, which would enable rapid
and economical construction and fa-
cilitate control over the work. To sup-
port the extensive facilities, a continu-
ous supply of approximately 150,000
kilowatts of electricity would be
needed by the end of 1943 and hun-
dreds of thousands of gallons of
water per minute. There would have
to be a climate suitable for construc-
tion in winter, a ready supply of
labor, an accessibility to transporta-
tion, a relative immunity from enemy
attack, and a terrain cut up by ridges
that would limit the effects of any ac-
cidental explosion.

Some steps for finding a satisfac-
tory site already had been taken. An
OSRD-directed study group in early
April had picked out an area near
Knoxville, close to the region under
intensive development by the Tennes-

'^ Smyth Report, pp. 58-60; Stimson Diary for
summer of 1942, HI.S; Memo, Bush to Bundy, 29
Aug 42. HB Files, Fldr 58, Mi:)R; 1st Ind, Styer to
Chiel of Mil Hist, 15 Aug 61, to l.tr, Chief of Mil
Hist to Slver, 17 Jul 61, CMH.

"Subsection based primarily on Marshall Diary,
25 Jun 42, MDR, and DSM Chronology, 25 Jun 42,
Sec. 2(e), OROO.

14 Lenore Fme and Jesse A. Remington, The Corps
of Engineers: Conslruclwn m the United States, L'.S. Army
in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Governmenl
Printmg OflKe, 1972), pp. 134-35.

ESTABLISHING THE MANHATTAN DISTRICT

see Valley Authority, as suitable for
the full-scale centrifuge and diffusion
separation plants. (See Map 1.) About
the same time, members of Arthur
Compton's team at the Metallurgical
Laboratory in Chicago had been seek-
ing a site for the full-scale plutonium
production plant. They seriously
weighed the possibilities of two loca-
tions near Chicago, but finally con-
cluded that the Tennessee Valley was
also the best area for their purposes.
In mid-June, Bush expressed his liking
for the Tennessee site to General
Styer, and Colonel Marshall, in one of
his first moves as district engineer,
also discussed its merits with Colonel
Groves. Groves made a quick survey of
the electric power situation and indi-
cated his approval of the Knoxville
area. Thus, Army representatives rec-
ommended the Tennessee Valley loca-
tion for all the large-scale production
plants. ^^

All scientific leaders at the 25 June
planning meeting accepted this rec-
ommendation save Lawrence, who
maintained that the electromagnetic
separation plant ought to be located
closer to his research operations in
California. Bowing to his objections,
the conferees agreed to postpone a
decision on location of the electro-
magnetic plant, pending further
progress in basic research on this
process. Even though research for the
centrifuge and diffusion methods was
still at a stage where firm planning
for production installations was im-
practical, the group decided that the

plants for these processes as well as
for the plutonium process would be
located on a 200-square-mile site in
the Tennessee Valley. The Army, the
planning group agreed, should begin
steps at once to select and acquire
this site.

The planners also considered sites
for two other operations. The first
was a pilot plutonium plant required
by the Metallurgical Laboratory. This
plant needed to be within commuting
distance of the laboratory; but, for
reasons of safety and security, it could
not be built in heavily populated Chi-
cago. Consequently, Compton and his
colleagues selected an isolated area
known as the Argonne Forest, a part
of the Cook County Forest Preserve
about 20 miles southwest of the city.
This selection was tentatively ap-
proved on 25 June and the next day
Compton and Colonel Nichols
reached final agreement on the gen-
eral plan for the Argonne site.^^

In 1941, the OSRD had sponsored
laboratory tests at Princeton Univer-
sity, under the direction of British
chemist Hugh S. Taylor, to develop a
technique for large-scale production
of heavy water by a hydrogen-water
exchange process. Taylor had found
that this process operated most effi-
ciently when using the electrolytic
method to produce hydrogen. The
Consolidated Mining and Smelting
Company, a Canadian firm, operated
an ammonia plant at Trail on the Co-
lumbia River, situated a few miles

15MDH. Bk. 1, Vol. 12, "Clinton Engineer
Works," pp. 2.1-2.6 and Apps. A140-A142, DASA;
Compton, Atomic Qitesl. pp. 154-55; Ltr, Bush to
Stver, 15 Jun 42, Admin Files, Cen Corresp, 600.3,
MDR; Marshall Diary, 19 Jun 42, MDR; Croves, Xoiv
It Can Be Told. pp. 13-14.

'^ Ms, Arthur C-ompton, "Mr. Fermi, the .Argonne
Laboratory and the University of Chicago," 28 Jul
44, p. 1, Admin Files, Gen Conesp, 080 (Argonne-
Univ of Chicago), MDR; Maishall Diarv, 26 Jul 42,
MDR; Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 110-11; MDH,
Bk. 1, Vol. 12, p. 2.5, DASA.

MAP 1

ESTABLISHING THE MANHATTAN DISTRICT

north of the Canadian-U.S. border,
that was the largest producer of hy-
drogen by the electrolytic method in
North America. In an effort to tap
this resource for heavy water, Taylor
met with company officials to discuss
the possibility of Consolidated Mining
allowing its plant to be altered so that
heavy water could be extracted from
the hydrogen supply without using up
any appreciable quantities of the hy-
drogen. The reaction was favorable.
The OSRD therefore made the final
arrangements and, in May of 1942,
engaged the Boston construction firm
of E. B. Badger and Sons to proceed
with the engineering and design work
on plant alterations. During the 25
June meeting, Army-OSRD represent-
atives approved the plan for Trail
and, on the twenty-sixth, shifted re-
sponsibility for construction to the
Army but left the financing and direc-
tion of research with the OSRD.^^

A few days before the meeting.
Colonel Marshall had talked with
Groves about his urgent need for
competent engineering advice in or-
ganizing the atomic project and
Groves had recommended Stone and
Webster. The well-known Boston firm
already was involved in an OSRD
project on the diffusion method and
was currently maintaining a good
record on several contracts for the
Corps of Engineers. Marshall pro-
posed to the Army-OSRD group that
it engage Stone and Webster as archi-
tect-engineer-manager for the atomic

project, to monitor site development
and major construction.^®

The Army-OSRD conferees ap-
proved Marshall's proposal and
agreed that Stone and Webster would
be primarily concerned with site de-
velopment and housing construction
in Tennessee and with engineering
and building the centrifuge and elec-
tromagnetic plants. In addition, the
firm would build the Argonne pilot
plant and, eventually, the full-scale
plutonium production plant. The
group also decided to engage the
M. W. Kellogg Company of New
Jersey. This firm had extensive expe-
rience in the design and construction
of petroleum refineries and chemical
installations and was already assisting
the scientific team at Columbia on
diffusion research under an OSRD
contract. Kellogg would take respon-
sibility for the diffusion plant and
Badger and Sons would continue on
the job at Trail. ^^

The Army-OSRD group decided
that a substantial number of OSRD
research contracts already in oper-
ation should be extended at the dis-
cretion of the S-1 Executive Commit-
tee. To continue these contracts
beyond the end of the fiscal year —
less than a week away — the atomic
program urgently needed $15 million.
Marshall promised to obtain the
money immediately from engineer
funds. This sum represented slightly
less than half of the $31 million in-
cluded for the OSRD in the program

'^ Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World, pp. 66-67;
MDH, Bk. 3, "The P-9 Project," Sees. 1-2, passim.
DASA; Marshall Diarv, 26Jun 42, MDR; DSM Chro-
nology, 25 Jun 42, .Sec. 2(e). OROO.

18 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 12-13; Marshall
Diarv, 25, 27, and 29 June 42, MDR.

19 DSM Chronology, 25 Jun 42. Sec. 2(a). OROO;
Stephane GrouefT, Manhattan Project: The Untold Story
of the Making of the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little.
Brown and Co., 1967), pp. 22-23.

MANHAITAN: THE ARMY AND IHE AIOMIC BOMB

approved by President Roosevelt on
17 June. Yet it sufficed, for the Army
gradually took over most OSRD func-
tions in the field of atomic energy
and the $15 million proved to be
more than enough to finance all fur-
ther OSRD expenditures for the
atomic program. ^^

The final subject at the Army-
OSRD meeting was the urgent need
to obtain government priorities suffi-
ciently high to ensure a ready supply
of critical materials and equipment.
Some required items were in ex-
tremely short supply and the OSRD
was having little success obtaining
them. What was needed, OSRD rep-
resentatives told Colonel Marshall,
was some means of coordinating their
requirements and gaining the neces-
sary priorities to satisfy them. They
requested that the Army designate a
priorities officer to meet with them
and to establish an office in Washing-
ton, D.C. Marshall agreed and indi-
cated that, as a first step, he would
eliminate obvious competition by co-
ordinating Army and OSRD procure-
ment on the atomic project.

The decisions of the Army and
OSRD representatives had served to
inaugurate officially a new phase in
the atomic energy program, a period
of Army-OSRD cooperation that
would last until late spring of 1943.

Progress in Research and Development

For Colonel Marshall and his Man-
hattan District associates, the summer
of 1942 was a period of organization
and planning to lay groundwork
for developing an unprecedented

2° Marshall Diary, 29-30 Jun 42, MDR; Stewart,
Organizing Scientific Research /or War, p. 123.

weapon. The scope of the problem
was broad. To the normal administra-
tive headaches of setting up a very
large construction and manufacturing
project were added the problems of
expediting and coordinating research,
experimentation, industrial applica-
tion, and design of a weapon based
on materials that in all probability
would not be available for testing
until the weapon itself had been built.
Of all the problems to be dealt with —
the execution of engineering, con-
struction, and operating contracts; the
selection and acquisition of sites; the
obtaining of large sums of money and
of adequate priorities; the procure-
ment of materials; the maintenance of
security — the first and most basic to
the success of the whole project was
that of continued progress in scien-
tific development. On this rested the
outcome of the entire atomic enter-
prise. And, in mid- 1942, Marshall
found that nearly all problems he
faced were connected in one way or
another with the vital task of research
and experimentation.

The program adopted on 17 June
called for backing all five methods of
producing fissionable materials — until
one or more proved most certain of
success. Thus, each process was sub-
ject to intensive research efforts that
summer. Objectives for the centrifuge
process were a pilot plant and, by
January 1944, a full-scale plant pro-
ducing 100 grams of U-235-enriched
uranium per day. A low-yield pilot
plant and a 1-kilogram-per-day pro-
duction plant were planned for the
diffusion process and a 5-gram-per-
day pilot plant and, by late 1943, a
100-gram-per-day production plant
for the electromagnetic process. The

ESI ABLISHING 1 HE MANHA I I AN DISTRICT

plutonium project needed a 100-
gram-per-day production plant, as
well as heavy water plants producing
0.5 tons per month by May 1943.^^
The diffusion and centrifuge meth-
ods, which had seemed most promis-
ing the previous autumn, now ap-
peared less certain than the others.
And of the pile and electromagnetic
processes, the latter appeared to offer
the best immediate hope.

Although the feasibility of the gase-
ous diffusion method had been dem-
onstrated, two major problems stood
in the way of achieving large-scale
separation of uranium isotopes. First
was development of a material that
would be sufficiently porous to permit
passage of uranium hexafluoride
through thousands of stages, as well
as be resistant to the exceptional cor-
rosiveness of this gas and suitable for
fabrication by mass production meth-
ods. The second was to design and
manufacture corrosion-resistant me-
chanical equipment — a variety of
pumps, valves, seals, and instru-
ments — to move the gas through
miles of pipe, maintaining required
vacuum conditions, temperatures, and
pressures.

These problems were being studied
mainly at Columbia University under
John Dunning and Harold Urey, but
also by the M. W. Kellogg Company,
whose chief concern was major pro-
duction of diffusion equipment and,
eventually, construction of a full-scale
plant. At a meeting of the OSRD S-1
Executive Committee on 30 July
1942, Urey reported his hope that the
diffusion method would be producing
enough enriched uranium by the fall

of 1944 to begin using that material
in an atomic weapon. ^^

Work on the centrifuge process was
going equally slow. Under the general
direction of Eger Murphree, theoreti-
cal and experimental research contin-
ued at Columbia University and the
University of Virginia, respectively;
design and development at the Wes-
tinghouse Research Laboratories, a
subsidiary of the Westinghouse Elec-
tric and Manufacturing Company; and
engineering studies at the Standard
Oil Development Company. Feasibili-
ty of the method had long been dem-
onstrated, but major technical and
mechanical difficulties prevented
rapid progress. Nevertheless, a pilot
plant had been designed at Standard
Oil and actual production of parts
and models for the pilot plant was
under way at Westinghouse. Like the
diffusion process, the centrifuge proc-
ess would require many hundreds of
stages to achieve large-scale separa-
tion. Also by Murphree's estimate, the
centrifuge method could not produce
a sufficient amount of enriched urani-
um for use in atomic weapons before
autumn of 1944. ^^

Of all the programs in progress
that summer, perhaps the most exten-
sive was the pile process for manufac-
turing plutonium under the leader-
ship of Arthur Compton at the
University of Chicago. The objectives
of the Chicago program were to
prove experimentally that a chain re-

2> I.tr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, and Ind, HB
Files, Fldr 6, MDR.

22 Smvth Report, pp. 125-35; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3,
"Design!" pp. 2.1-2.2. DASA; DSM Chronology,
30 Jul 42, Sec. 2(e), OROO; Compton, Atomic Quest,
p. 152.

23 MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4, "Auxiliary Activities," pp.
14.1-14.24, DASA; DSM Chronology, 30 Jul and
26 Aug 42, each Sec. 2(e), OROO; Marshall Diary,
24-26 and 28 Aug 42, MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

action was actually possible, then to
devise a means to produce plutonium
on a large scale and extract it chemi-
cally from uranium, to work out the
necessary data for bringing about an
explosive chain reaction with either
plutonium or U-235, and, finally, to
design the atomic bomb itself. Investi-
gations into all of these problems
were being conducted simultaneously
by large research staffs at the Univer-
sity of Chicago and other institu-
tions.^'* One particularly important
group at the University of California
(Berkeley) had been organized in
June by J. Robert Oppenheimer, then
widely regarded as "the leader of the-
oretical aspects of atomistics and
similar subjects of physics." ^^ Under
Oppenheimer's direction a number of
the nation's ablest theoretical physi-
cists undertook a study that, in Op-
penheimer's words, "for the first time
really came to grips with the physical
problems of atomic bombs, atomic
explosions to initiate thermonuclear
reactions." By the latter he meant the
possibility of a hydrogen bomb, a
matter that he raised with Compton
and Bush that summer and that was
to lie heavy on his mind for many
years to come.^^

The University of Chicago's Metal-
lurgical Laboratory staff also devoted
most of its energies to theoretical

** Account of work carried out at Chicago based
on Compton's book Atomic Quest, pp. 80-98; Smyth
Report, pp. 63-74; Testimony of Oppenheimer in
Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert
Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Secu-
rity Board (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1954), pp. 11-12 and 27-28.

^* Testimony of Bush in Oppenheimer Hearing, p.
563.

^® Quotation from Ltr, Oppenheimer to Nichols,
4 Mar 54, Oppenheimer Heanng, p. 11. See also
Memo, Bush to Bundv, 29 Aug 42, HB Files, Fldr
58, MDR.

studies. Lack of basic materials — ura-
nium, plutonium, highly purified
graphite, and heavy water — made any
extensive experimentation program
impossible. Nevertheless, at the
30 July meeting of the S-1 Commit-
tee, Compton estimated that plutoni-
um would be ready for use in an
atomic weapon by fall of 1944.^' The
process that appeared to offer the
best hope for producing fissionable
materials was the electromagnetic
method under study at Princeton and
at the University of California (Berke-
ley), where Lawrence's work with the
giant 184-inch magnet attracted the
most attention. As with other ap-
proaches, this method had been faced
with major technical difficulties, but
as the months passed Lawrence en-
thusiastically reported success in
meeting and overcoming these prob-
lems. Most important, he had actual-
ly achieved the separation of small
amounts of U-235, even though only
in milligram quantities. ^^

A visit in late July to Berkeley by
Colonel Marshall and Stone and
Webster representatives convinced
them that, in Marshall's words, "Law-
rence's method is ahead of the
other[s] . . . and should be exploited
to the fullest without delay." The
colonel was anxious that work on "a
sizeable pilot plant," as well as a full-
scale production plant, begin as soon
as possible. ^^ The S-1 Committee ap-

" Smyth Report, p. 67; DSM Chronology, 30 Jul
42, Sec. 2(e) OROO.

^* Discussion of electromagnetic process based on
Marshall Diary, 9, 20, 30-31 Jul and 5, 17-19, 22
Aug 42, MDR; Smyth Report, pp. 136-41 and 143-
45; DSM Chronology, 9 and 30 Jul 42, each Sec.
2(e), OROO.

"Marshall Diary, 20 Jul 42, MDR.

ESTABLISHING I HE MANHAITAN DISTRICT

proved Colonel Marshall's recommen-
dation on 30 July and decided that
the Army, rather than the OSRD,
would be responsible for building the
pilot plant on land rented from the
University of California. Lawrence es-
timated that material from the elec-
tromagnetic process would be ready
to go into an atomic weapon by the
spring of 1944.

In mid-August, Colonel Nichols vis-
ited Berkeley and gave his tentative
approval to plans for the pilot plant.
With him was Maj. Thomas T. Cren-
shaw, whose job it was to set up the
new California Area Engineers Office
of the Manhattan District, to support
and assist Lawrence, and to represent
Colonel Marshall during construction
and operation of the pilot plant. Nich-
ols felt that Lawrence was "making
great progress and that the whole
project should be pushed into full-
scale production as fast as possible,"
an opinion with which Lawrence
agreed wholeheartedly. Indeed, be-
cause Lawrence's only question con-
cerned the actual efficiency of the
separation units, he felt that construc-
tion of the full-scale production plant
should be started concurrently with
that of the pilot installation. ^°

At the 26 August meeting of the
S-1 Committee, both August C.
Klein, Stone and Webster's chief me-
chanical engineer, and Colonel Mar-
shall supported Lawrence's proposal,
and there was general agreement,
based upon Lawrence's optimistic
report, that the electromagnetic
method would probably be first to

^"Qiiotation from Marshall Diarv. 17-18 Aug 42,
MDR. See also Memo, Crenshaw to Hist Engr, sub:
Weeklv Progress Rpt, 22 Aug 42, Admin Piles, Cien
Corresp, 001 (Mtgs), MDR.

yield material in substantial amounts.
The plutonium process, though pro-
gressing satisfactorily, was still
months awa\ from even the pilot
plant stage and the other methods
lagged even further behind. Had a
decision been made at this time to
back a single horse in the nuclear
race and to scratch the others, Law-
rence very likely would have been the
one rider left on the course.

Yet no one was certain that the
electromagnetic method would prove
to be the best process in the long
run. In fact, the group conjectured
that the ultimate full-scale plant
would probably have several times the
capacity of the contemplated electro-
magnetic production plant and was
likely to be comprised of a combina-
tion of methods, with one process
producing enriched uranium and the
electromagnetic method providing the
final stage of separation. They
thought a decision to proceed with an
electromagnetic production plant was
unrealistic and might be interpreted
as a final decision in favor of the elec-
tromagnetic process, causing the de-
velopment of the other methods to be
slowed down — or even eliminated.

At last the conferees at the 26 Au-
gust meeting agreed to continue work
as rapidly as possible on the four
pilot plants and on the production of
heavy water at Trail. A start on a full-
scale plutonium production plant
would be delayed, pending the out-
come of experiments at the Argonne
pilot plant. Design and construction
of an electromagnetic production
plant would be postponed until mid-
September, when the S-1 Committee
was to visit the Berkeley project and
make further recommendations. Van-

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

nevar Bush approved these conclu-
sions and passed them on to Secreta-
ry Stimson with the warning that the
time would soon be at hand for a
major decision on the extent of the

effort the United States should make
on the atomic energy program. ^^

31 Marshall Diary, 26 Aug 42, MDR; DSM Chro-
nology, 26 Aug 42, Sec. 2(e), OROO; Memo, Bush
to Bundy, 29 Aug 42, HB Files, Fldr 58, MDR.

CHAPTER III

First Steps for Weapon
Development

In those incredibly busy two
months following the planning meet-
ing of 25 June 1942, the military lead-
ers — working closely with project sci-
entists and technicians — energetically
set about not only to organize the
operational requirements for the
Army's administration of the project
but also to carry out the specific steps
for development of an atomic
weapon. On the twenty-sixth Maj.
Gen. Eugene Reybold, chief of the
Corps of Engineers, held a briefing
with Brig. Gen. Thomas M. Robins,
the assistant chief; Col. Leslie R.
Groves, the deputy assistant; Col.
James C. Marshall, the new district
engineer; and Lt. Col. Kenneth D.
Nichols, the deputy district engineer.
During the session Reybold reviewed
some of the immediate problems of
the atomic project, placing special
emphasis on two that required
prompt action: selection and acquisi-
tion of a site for atomic production
facilities in the 1 ennessee Valley, and
securing a contract with the Stone
and Webster Engineering Corpora-
tion to serve as architect-engineer-
manager (AEM).

Securing an Architect-Engineer-Manager

Consistent with Army policy that
the industrial operator of a proposed
installation should have a strong voice
in selection of the specific site, the
district engineer gave his first atten-
tion to securing a working agreement
with Stone and Webster, which was
slated to have the chief responsibility
for the Tennessee plants.^ Following
Colonel Marshall's orders. Colonel
Nichols went to New York on Satur-
day, 27 June, to visit Stone and Web-
ster President John R. Lotz. Nichols
outlined the role projected for the
firm and Lotz responded enthusiasti-
cally. The following Monday, Lotz
and other company officials met with
Robins, Groves, Marshall, and Nichols
in Washington, D.C. Lotz assured
them the AEM job would not serious-
ly interfere with the firm's work on
other important Corps of Engineers
contracts and that the firm could
meet the strict security requirements
of the atomic project. The group then
drew up a letter of intent, which Lotz

» Marshall Diary, 26 Jun 42, OCC; Files, Gen Cor-
resp. Groves Files, Misc Recs Sec, behind Fldr 5,
MDR; Fine and Remington, Corps of Enginens: Con-
struction, p. 135.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

and Marshall signed, authorizing
Stone and Webster to begin work im-
mediately on preliminary investiga-
tions and surveys, procurement of
supplies, and initiation of design. The
following afternoon, Vannevar Bush,
director of the Office of Scientific Re-
search and Development (OSRD),
gave the Stone and Webster repre-
sentatives a thorough explanation of
the technical processes involved in
the atomic project. This completed
the preliminary discussions.

Stone and Webster now became the
Army's agent for managing the
atomic energy project, charged with
overseeing and subcontracting all re-
search and development, procure-
ment, engineering, and construction
that fell within the Army's sphere of
responsibility. Company officials es-
tablished a separate engineering
group to operate with the utmost se-
crecy under the direct control of the
firm's senior engineers. Project lead-
ers had hoped that a single company
could perform all AEM tasks; howev-
er, by the time Stone and Webster
signed the formal contract (backdated
to 29 June) several months later, the
Army had to seek the assistance of
other major firms to share with Stone
and Webster the vast and complex
job.2

Obtaining Funds

The Stone and Webster agreement
required immediate funds. The ap-
proved program had allotted $85 mil-

lion — $54 million for the Army Corps
of Engineers and $31 million for the
OSRD — but had not indicated the
source of this money. ^ An effort in
early June to obtain this sum from the
President's Emergency Fund was un-
successful. Marshall's pressing finan-
cial obligations totaled $38 million:
$10 million to cover the letter of
intent issued to Stone and Webster,
$15 million to repay the sum ad-
vanced to the OSRD, $6 million for
site acquisition, $2 million for the
projected Argonne pilot plant, and $5
million for the purchase of materials.
He also required "practically unlimit-
ed authority," as he put it, to spend
it.4

By 16 July, Marshall was able to ar-
range for an allotment from the
Office of the Chief of Engineers, spe-
cifically from the Engineer Service-
Army category of available funds. The
$15 million for the OSRD had already
been provided, $5 million was fur-
nished immediately, and the remain-
der became available a few weeks
later at the time of the formal alloca-
tion of the total sum. Marshall also
received assurances from the War De-
partment's budget officer that all re-
strictions on the use of these funds
that could legally be removed had
been set aside. These included regu-
lations on establishing title to proper-
ty, the placing of government con-
tracts, employment in the United
States and abroad, rentals and im-

2 Marshall Diary, 27, 29-30 Jun and 1 Jul-23 Oct
42, MDR; Completion Rpt, Stone and Webster, sub:
Clinton Engr Works, Contract W'-7401-eng-13,
1946, pp. 6 and 143, OROO; Stone and Webster, A
Report to the People: Stone and Webster Engineering Corpo-
ration in World War II (| Boston]: Stone and Webster,
1946), pp. 9-13; Smyth Report, p. 28.

3 Ltr. Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, and Incl, HB
Files, Fldr 6, MDR.

•* Marshall Diary, 10 Jul 42, MDR. Section on
funds based on entries in ibid, for 29-30 Jun, 9-11
and 16 Jul 42; Memo, Marshall to Groves, sub: Al-
lotment of Additional Funds to MD, 29 Sep 42,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 110 (Appropriations),
MDR; Groves, Sow It Can Be Told. pp. 15-16.

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

provements of property, and several
other controls. Colonel Marshall ap-
peared to be well on the way to at-
taining the fiscal means and inde-
pendence that the atomic project
required.

Securing a Priority Rating

Even as fiscal problems eased, the
atomic project encountered serious
difficulties on the matter of priorities.
In the summer of 1942, competition
for critical materials was strong and
unremitting as America prepared to
halt the worldwide Axis offensive.
With these conditions prevailing.
Colonel Marshall soon realized that
access to the scarce supplies and
equipment needed for atomic re-
search, construction, and production
might be blocked unless he could
secure a high-priority rating for the
project.

In the wartime economy, the estab-
lishment of priorities for military and
civilian demands was the responsibil-
ity of the War Production Board
(WPB), succinctly characterized by
one World War II historian as "the
supreme industrial mobilization con-
trol agency." ^ The Army and Navy
Munitions Board (ANMB) adminis-
tered the priority system for military
and related agencies, theoretically
subject to WPB approval, but in 1942
the War Department's Services of
Supply (SOS) gradually began to take
over the ANMB's responsibilities re-

^ R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobili-
zation, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959), p. 517.
Discussion of DSM priority problems based primari-
Iv on Marshall Diary, 25 Jun-16 Sep 42, MDR; DSM
Chronology, Jun-Sep 42, Sec. 18, OROO; Memo,
Bush to Bundy, 29 Aug 42, HB Files, Fldr 58. MDR;
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 16 and 22-23.

lating to the Army. The SOS, particu-
larly through its staff divisions for re-
quirements and resources that formed
the ANMB's Army Section, controlled
and coordinated all War Department
procurement activities. SOS officers,
moreover, served on WPB commit-
tees. For example. Brig. Gen. Lucius
D. Clay, the SOS deputy chief of staff
for requirements and resources, had
an important voice in the establish-
ment of policy and would play a key
role in the matter of assigning prior-
ities to the atomic project.

Major programs received ratings of
AA-1 through AA-4, in decreasing
order of precedence, whereas lesser
projects received ratings in a more
extensive category, the highest desig-
nation of which was A-l-a. A special
top rating of AAA, reserved for emer-
gencies, could not be assigned to an
entire program but was limited to
expediting delivery of small quanti-
ties of critical items. Although the
program approved by President
Roosevelt did not mention a specific
priority designation for the new
project, it did imply that the program
should be given a relatively high
rating, which was to be balanced
against the needs of other critical
projects.^ When Colonels Marshall
and Nichols met with General Clay on
30 June, they requested only an AA
rating — without, apparently, asking
for a specific classification within that
category. Marshall assured Clay that
the project "would issue such lower
ratings as were possible whenever we
did not need the A." "^ General Clay,

^ Ltr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42, and Incl,
MDR.

7 Marshall Diarv, 30 Jun 42, MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

who had known Marshall since their
days as West Point classmates, told
Marshall and Nichols that all DSM re-
quests would be given prompt atten-
tion and the highest preference in
processing, and that he personally
would take immediate steps to obtain
an AA rating for the project and
would be available at any time for any
specific request.

Despite Clay's assurances, nearly
two weeks passed with no priority
rating forthcoming. Finally, on 13
July, following some persistent prod-
ding by Colonel Nichols, the ANMB
approved a rating of AA-3 for the
atomic project.® This rating, with
which Clay concurred, came as a
grave disappointment. It was based,
however, on an ANMB directive that
limited AA-1 and AA-2 ratings to the
most essential and urgently needed
weapons and equipment — airplanes,
ships, guns, and tanks scheduled for
production in 1942. Even AA-3 rat-
ings were reserved for those items of
military equipment and construction
that constituted an essential part of
the 1942 program or were required in
1942 for the 1943 program. Under
the circumstances, a rating of AA-3
was the highest the atomic project
could have received. Indeed, given
the as yet unproved nature of the
project, the cautious estimates of how
long it might take to produce atomic
weapons, and the absence of a specif-
ic presidential directive assigning it a
high priority, the wonder is that the

^Written confirmation came ten days later. 1st
Ind, Col Joseph L. Phillips (Priorities Br chief. Re-
sources Div, SOS) to Chief of Engrs, 23 Jul 42, to
Ltr, Nichols to Priorities Div, ANMB, Attn: Col Phil-
lips, sub: Preference Rating [for] DSM Proj, 23 Jul
42, in MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 9, "Priorities Program,"
App. A3, DASA.

atomic program fared as well as it
did. Because the ANMB was limiting
AA-1 and AA-2 ratings. Clay told the
protesting Nichols that an AA-3
should be adequate for the atomic
project. If difficulties did arise, he
promised the project could obtain an
AAA priority to pry loose certain
critical items. With this assurance,
the atomic project leaders had to be
satisfied.

The anticipated problems were not
long in appearing. Badger and Sons
soon reported that the heavy water
reconversion work on the Trail plant
was coming into competition with its
commitments in the synthetic rubber
program. Both projects had an AA-3
rating, with the rubber program
having first choice on materials and
skilled workmen because of its earlier
start. By mid-August 1942, Badger of-
ficials estimated the Trail plant would
probably not go into operation until
August 1943, although an AA-1
rating might better this date by at
least two or three months. This, how-
ever, would cause a delay in the
rubber program and, as S-1 Commit-
tee Chairman James B. Conant point-
ed out to Colonel Nichols, it would
be bad politics to push for a higher
priority at Trail at the expense of
such a critical project as synthetic
rubber. As a matter of fact. General
Clay had already indicated his opposi-
tion to such a move. Thus, for the
moment, the best policy seemed to be
to go ahead at Trail under the AA-3
rating.

Procurement was generally an S-1
Executive Committee responsibility,
and only when the OSRD was unable
to secure the necessary priorities did
it turn to the Army for help. During

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

July, difficulties in obtaining small but
essential quantities of scarce materials
held back progress on important ex-
perimental work. Two much-needed
nickel shipments totaling less than 85
pounds, for example, were threatened
with a delay of several months and
were only cleared for delivery after
two weeks of effort by OSRD mem-
bers, General Clay, and Maj. Gen.
Wilhelm D. Styer, the SOS chief of
staff. 9

On 30 July, the S-1 Committee
raised this problem with Colonels
Marshall and Nichols, and the group
decided to urge OSRD Director Van-
nevar Bush to ask WPB Chairman
Donald Nelson for a blanket AA-1
priority for all atomic project orders
below a value of $1,500 or $2,000, to
eliminate bottlenecks without interfer-
ing unduly with other wartime pro-
grams. The next day Marshall, accom-
panied by Nichols, went again to see
General Clay, making one last at-
tempt to secure the desired rating
before going over his head. Clay re-
peated that the atomic project was en-
titled to no higher rating than AA-3,
except in very few specific instances,
and said he would oppose any effort
to secure a blanket AA-1 rating. That
afternoon, Marshall, Nichols, Conant,
and others met with Bush, emerging
with an agreement that the OSRD di-
rector would confer with the WPB
chairman. Receptive to Bush's pro-
posal. Nelson promised to discuss the
matter further with Army Chief of
Staff General George C. Marshall, but
whether or not he actually did is un-
clear. In the end, the matter was re-

^ Correspondence relating to this incident, begin-
ning with Ltr, Styer to Dr. H. T. Wensel (Natl Bur
of Standards), 26 Jun 42, filed in AG 313.3 (22 Aug

47).

ferred back to the ANMB, which still
refused to grant a higher rating but
worked out a procedure that eliminat-
ed the bottleneck on small orders.

Meanwhile, the priorities situation
worsened. Securing materials became
progressively more difficult. Steel, for
example, would soon be virtually un-
obtainable with less than an AA-2
rating. Without access to this basic
material, the atomic project would
come to a standstill. Marshall was al-
ready receiving reports of delays in
plant construction and, in mid-
August, the ANMB questioned con-
tinued assignment of even an AA-3
priority to the Trail project. Prompt
action by General Clay ended that
threat, however.

On 26 August, Marshall, Nichols,
and Stone and Webster representa-
tives met with the S-1 Executive
Committee, and again priorities were
a major topic. Most small orders were
now being handled without undue
delay, but there was serious general
concern about the large-scale pro-
curement soon to be required for the
production plants. A limited number
of firms had the organization and ex-
perience needed to build and operate
the major facilities, and they were all
heavily engaged on other AA-3 pro-
grams for which orders had been
placed before atomic project orders.
The only way to push ahead of other
programs was to get a higher priority.
With an AA-1 priority, the electro-
magnetic separation pilot plant would
probably be ready by April instead of
August 1943 and earlier completion
dates for other plants would also be
assured. The effect of achieving this
end, however, would be that of delay-
ing the progress of other vital

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

projects. Clearly a decision was
needed, perhaps from the President
himself, on the relative importance of
the atomic project and other war pro-
grams. Either atomic energy should
be pushed with a higher priority, or it
should remain an experimental
project for postwar application, with a
lower priority.

As a result of these conclusions, on
29 August Colonel Nichols again
called on General Clay. With concur-
rence from General Styer, Nichols
now outlined the status of the atomic
energy program and presented the
unanimous opinion of its Army and
OSRD leaders that a higher priority
was necessary. If Clay would indicate
exactly what procedure must be taken
to secure an AA-1 priority from the
ANMB and WPB, Bush would obtain
a letter signed by the President and
addressed to whomever Clay thought
necessary. Clay suggested that a letter
go from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
the ANMB and that it simply state
that the atomic project should be
granted a higher priority. But he him-
self opposed this course. He did not
believe that the presidential approval
of 17 June ever implied the granting
of an overall AA-1 rating and he was
convinced that the project was less
important than "tanks and other mu-
nitions of war." Clay would support
the AA-3 priority, but nothing higher.
In Nichols's presence, he telephoned
Brig. Gen. Theron D. Weaver — direc-
tor of the SOS Resources Division
and, thus, the ANMB's senior Army
representative — and directed that the
AA-3 rating assigned to the atomic
project should not be questioned. ^°

On the same day, Vannevar Bush
wrote to Harvey Bundy, Stimson's
special assistant who served as the
Secretary's personal agent in scientific
affairs. Bush knew that his memoran-
dum would come to Stimson's atten-
tion. He summarized the current
status of the atomic energy project
and its plans and hopes for the future
in relation to the problem of prior-
ities. He emphasized that if the
ANMB persisted in its view that Man-
hattan did not need a higher priority
rating, the entire atomic bomb pro-
gram would be delayed. The time had
come, he continued, for weighing the
relative importance of the atomic pro-
gram against other wartime programs
with which it might interfere and, on
that basis, deciding the best way to
expedite its development. "From my
own point of view," he concluded,
"faced as I am with the unanimous
opinion of a group of men that I con-
sider to be among the greatest scien-
tists in the world, joined by highly
competent engineers, I am prepared
to recommend that nothing should
stand in the way of putting this whole
affair through to conclusion, on a rea-
sonable scale, but at the maximum
speed possible, even if it does cause
moderate interference with other war
efforts." ^^

Bundy showed Bush's memoran-
dum to the Secretary a few days later.

'"Marshall Diary, 29 Aug 42. MDR. Quoted
phrase in Nichols's recollection, recorded in the
diary, of what Clay told him.

»i Memo, Bush to Bundy, 29 Aug 42, MDR. On
Harvey Bundy's position in Stimson's office see
Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active
Sennce m Peace and War (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1947), pp. 343-44. Harvey Bundy, a
Boston lawyer, served as Assistant Secretary of State
under Stimson, from 1929 to 1933.

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

but there is no indication that Stim-
son took any immediate action. ^^
Meanwhile, Stone and Webster repre-
sentatives reported that steel compa-
nies had reacted negatively to their
attempts to place orders and the
ANMB warned Manhattan officers
that the rating was scarcely sufficient
to secure the steel needed for the
projected electromagnetic pilot plant.

Stone and Webster experienced a
similar response to its effiDrts to
obtain copper required for the Trail
project. Capt. Allan C. Johnson, as-
signed in August to head the project's
liaison office in Washington, D.C.,
found that WPB and ANMB officials
viewed the AA-3 rating as indicating
that the atomic bomb program was,
as he phrased it, "an unimportant
miscellaneous type."^^ On 12 Sep-
tember, Marshall asked the ANMB for
an AAA rating for the Trail copper.
Three days later, backed by Colonel
Groves, the district engineer went to
see General Weaver of the ANMB
and the following day the board as-
signed the rating, but only with the
understanding that the metal would
be drawn from the normal quota of
the Corps of Engineers. Unfortunate-
ly this delayed other engineer
projects, but Marshall had no alterna-
tive. His action opened the way for
the work at Trail to proceed on
schedule.

Despite the victory on copper pro-
curement for Trail, there was univer-
sal agreement among those con-
cerned with the atomic energy pro-
gram that improvement in the whole
priorities picture was an absolute ne-

cessity if the entire project was not to
founder. Groves felt that DSM leaders
would be able to justify a higher pri-
ority rating only after sites were defi-
nitely selected, plans were firmly
adopted, and actual construction was
under way. He urged Marshall to
move ahead on these matters with all
possible speed. As chairman of the
S-1 Executive Committee, Conant
had concluded that nuclear develop-
ments had become more important
than the highly rated synthetic rubber
program and now believed that they
should be given preference. Bush,
too, saw the immediate need and
called for assignment of a higher pri-
ority. The problem in mid-September
1942, as Groves later recalled it, was
"quite simple." If atomic energy "was
really the most urgent project, it
should have the top priority." ^* The
solution to this problem was not far
off, but it would not come before the
atomic project itself had undergone
major organizational changes.

Procuring Essential Materials

Certain materials essential to the
program had never been in sufficient
demand for industrial or commercial
use to have been produced in quanti-
ties. At the time the Army entered the
atomic project, three such materials
were urgently required: processed
uranium feed material (chemical com-
pounds and metal), highly purified
graphite, and heavy water. The Man-
hattan District had to develop its own
sources of supply for these essential
materials.

12 Stimson Diary, 1 Sep 42, HLS.

13 Marshall Diary, 2 Sep 42, MDR

^* Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 22.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Uranium

In early 1942, the OSRD S-1 Sec-
tion's planning board had located suf-
ficient raw uranium ore in North
America to satisfy the anticipated re-
quirements of the project for many
months to come. But the means for
converting this uranium into the vari-
ous kinds of feed materials needed
for the different methods of produc-
ing fissionable materials were almost
wholly lacking. While the OSRD had
taken some steps to secure these ma-
terials, the major task of procurement
remained to be carried out by the
Army.

The most immediate demand was
for processed uranium in the form of
metal for the Metallurgical Laborato-
ry. Raw uranium ore is customarily
refined either as uranium oxide, com-
monly termed black oxide, or as ura-
nium salts. The oxide or the salts can
be converted into metal by additional
processing; however, at the beginning
of 1942, this was still complicated and
expensive and only a limited quantity
was available in the United States —
several grams of good quality pro-
duced experimentally by the Wes-
tinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company and a few pounds in the
form of pyrophoric powder manufac-
tured by Metal Hydrides, Inc., of Bev-
erly, Massachusetts. Both Westing-
house and Metal Hydrides had ob-
tained the black oxide from the Cana-
dian Radium and Uranium Corpora-
tion of New York.

Canadian Radium's source was the
mine owned by Eldorado Gold Mines,
Ltd., at Great Bear Lake in Northwest
Canada (Map 2). Eldorado processed
the ore in its refinery at Port Hope,
Ontario, and then marketed it in the

United States through Canadian
Radium. The mine itself had been
closed and allowed to fill with water
in the summer of 1940, because suffi-
cient ore had been stockpiled to satis-
fy anticipated demand for five years.
The uranium for early atomic re-
search in the United States had come
from these stockpiles. When the
OSRD placed a sizable order in 1941,
it obtained additional equipment and
supplies for getting the mine back
into operation and, meanwhile, Cana-
dian Radium continued to supply
amounts of black oxide refined from
the stockpiled ores.^^

As deliveries increased during the
spring of 1942, project scientists in-
tensified their efforts to develop
better methods of purifying the mate-
rial and transforming it into metal.
Experiments at the National Bureau
of Standards demonstrated that an
ether process, long known, could
remove all impurities by a single ex-
traction method, greatly simplifying
the conversion of black oxide into
uranium dioxide, or brown oxide, the
starting point for uranium metal pro-
duction. Arthur Compton arranged
with Edward Mallinckrodt, an old
friend who owned the Mallinckrodt
Chemical Works in St. Louis, to de-
velop large-scale production of brown
oxide, using the ether process. To
ensure an adequate supply of urani-
um oxide, Colonel Nichols directed
Stone and Webster to buy 350 tons
from Canadian Radium to cover the
project's needs for the year ahead. ^^

*^ Smyth Report, pp. 65-66; Hewlett and Ander-
son, Vw iVorld. p. 65; MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, "Feed
Materials and Special Procurement," p. 3.1, DASA.

>« MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, App. F2, DASA; Marshall
Diary, 7 Jul 42; MDR; DSM Chronology, 7 Jul 42,

Continued

MAP 2

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Thanks to these measures, by the fall
of 1942 Mallinckrodt's production of
brown oxide from Eldorado's ore had
increased sufficiently to supply the
project's requirements. Mallinckrodt
and other chemical firms converted
the brown oxide into uranium tetra-
fluoride, or green salt, the feed mate-
rial employed in most uranium metal-
making processes. Westinghouse had
abandoned a photochemical method
in favor of a faster process using
green salt and soon was producing at
a satisfactory rate. At first Metal Hy-
drides was less successful, failing to
provide a metal of sufficient purity
with pyrophoric powder.

Intensive research during the
summer at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Iowa State College, and
the Bureau of Standards had devel-
oped new and improved metal-
making techniques. Most important
was a steel-bomb process for reduc-
ing green salt to metal, employing
highly purified calcium — and later
magnesium — as a reduction agent. By
early 1943, using this method, Iowa
State had developed a manufacturing
program and Metal Hydrides had sig-
nificantly increased its output. New
Army contracts with the Electro Met-
allurgical Company of Niagara Falls,
New York, a subsidiary of Union Car-
bide and Carbon Corporation, and
with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and
Company further increased produc-
tion, and the acute metal shortage
was largely relieved by 1944.^"^

Sec. 20, OROO; Memo, [RuhofT] to Groves, sub:
Summary of Ore Contracts, 15 Feb 44, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 161 (African Metals), MDR; Compton,
Atomic Qimt. pp. 93-95.

i^MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 10.1-10.9, DASA;
Hewlett and Anderson, Neu^ World, pp. 87-88 and
293-94; Memo, Nichols to Groves, 21 Dec 44,

In September 1942, Colonel Mar-
shall placed Capt. John R. Ruhoff in
charge of all uranium metal produc-
tion. Ruhoff had been a chemical en-
gineer at Mallinckrodt, assisting in the
uranium oxide program, and when he
was inducted into the Army that
summer, Manhattan officials had ar-
ranged his assignment to the District
as its area engineer in St. Louis, with
headquarters at the Mallinckrodt firm.
Then in October, Marshall formed a
Materials Section in the District office
to administer the whole feed materi-
als program. He selected Lt. Col.
Thomas T. Crenshaw of the Califor-
nia Area Engineers Office to head the
section and had Ruhoff transferred to
New York to serve as Crenshaw's
assistant.^®

Meanwhile, project leaders knew
the reopened Eldorado mine would
probably not be able to produce and
ship ore for at least another year and
that stockpiles at the Port Hope refin-
ery were insufficient for the 350 tons
of oxide ordered for the project in
July. They urgently needed a source
that could provide high-grade urani-
um on short notice. Such a source, in
fact, had long been close at hand.
Late in 1940, when German seizure of
much of Africa appeared likely, Edgar
Sengier — head of Union Miniere with
whom Alexander Sachs of Wall Street
and Harold Urey of Columbia had
earlier conferred — had ordered ship-
ment of approximately 1,200 tons of
high-grade ore from the Shinkolobwe
stockpile in the Congo via Portuguese
West Africa to New York. Storing the

Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1, MDR; DSM Chro-
nology. 4 Sep 42, Sec. 20, OROO.

18MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 1.16-1.17, DASA;
Compton, Atomic Qufst, pp. 95-96.

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

ore in a warehouse in Port Richmond
on Staten Island, Sengier apparently
made no effort to call it to the atten-
tion of American government officials
until after the United States entered
the war. Attending a meeting in
Washington, D.C., in March 1942, he
mentioned his Staten Island cache to
Thomas K. Finletter and Herbert
Feis, State Department officials con-
cerned with international economic
affairs, but neither state nor defense
officials indicated any immediate in-
terest in the ore — why is not entirely
clear. Nevertheless, it was soon
common knowledge in trade circles
that Sengier was interested in selling
the ore.^^

It was early September 1942, how-
ever, before word of the Congo ore
reached Manhattan District officials.
The Standard Oil Development Com-
pany, working on the centrifuge proc-
ess, had opened negotiations with
Sengier for procurement of the ura-
nium oxide it needed. Through
Standard Oil, Metallurgical Laborato-
ry staff members learned of the
Staten Island ore and sought to pur-
chase additional quantities. Through
his Union Miniere outlet in New
York, the African Metals Corporation,
Sengier had submitted a request to
the State Department for a license to
ship ore from Port Richmond to El-
dorado's refinery in Ontario, for
processing into black oxide. On 7
September, Colonel Nichols received
a query from Finletter concerning the
request from African Metals — his first
inkling of the existence of the Congo
ore. Nichols acted promptly; he met

with Finletter and Feis at the State
Department on 12 September and
then dispatched Captain Ruhoff to
consult with Stone and Webster in
Boston and Sengier in New York,
while he himself hurried to California
for the meeting of the OSRD S-1 Ex-
ecutive Committee on the thirteenth
and fourteenth. The committee rec-
ommended that all Sengier's ore be
acquired. 2° Thus, at just the time
when an acute shortage of uranium
threatened to seriously delay the
atomic project, the store of rich
Congo ore became available to pro-
vide most of its wartime
requirements.

Graphite, Heavy Water, and Silver

Either highly purified graphite or
heavy water to use as a moderator in
the atomic pile was essential for the
plutonium program and the other
work under way at the Metallurgical
Laboratory. Ample graphite was al-
ready being produced commercially
in the United States; the question was
one of "purity and priority." The
main quality required in the graphite
was low-neutron absorption, which
was directly dependent on its purity.
Unfortunately, the standard product
had too many impurities, particularly
boron. Scientists at the National
Bureau of Standards traced the boron
in commercial graphite to the coke
used for its production. By substitut-
ing petroleum for coke and altering
certain manufacturing techniques,
both National Carbon Company and
Speer Carbon Company were soon

•9 Groves, Sow It Can fif Told. pp. 33-35; Hewlett
and Anderson, Xnf World, pp. 85-86; Lewis L,
Strauss, Mm and Den.sions (Garden Citv. N.\ '.: I^ou-
bleday and Co., 1962), pp. 181-82.

2° Groves, A'oir // Can Be Told. p. 36; Marshall
Diar^. 7 and 12-13 Sep 42, MDR; DSM Chronology,
13 Sep 42, Sees. 2(e) and 20, OROO.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

producing highly purified graphite
that absorbed 20 percent fewer neu-
trons and satisfied the stringent re-
quirements of the Metallurgical Labo-
ratory. With the WPB's cooperation
in arranging the necessary priorities,
the OSRD was able to place large
orders with these firms, essentially
solving the atomic energy program's
graphite problem. ^^

Heavy water was another matter.
Scientific leaders knew that heavy
water could not be available in large
quantities for many months or even
years. Researchers at the Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory had directed their pri-
mary interest toward developing a
uranium-graphite pile, viewing heavy
water as an alternate solution should
the problems with graphite prove
insuperable. Meanwhile, the OSRD
moved ahead with its plans for a
heavy water plant at Trail (see Map 2),
but priority difficulties delayed con-
struction and the plant did not begin
operating until June 1943. ^^

A store of approximately 400
pounds — almost all the heavy water in
the world outside of that being pro-
duced by the German-controlled
Norsk Hydro plant in southern
Norway — was in the hands of British
scientists. This heavy water had an in-
teresting history. Nuclear research in
France by Frederic Joliot-Curie and
his collaborators, Hans von Halban
and Lew Kowarski, had concentrated
on using heavy water as a moderator
to achieve a slow-neutron reaction. In

'^ Smyth Report, pp. 65-68 (quotation from p.
68); Compton, Alomir Qimt, pp. 97-98; MDH, Bk. 1,
Vol. 4, "Auxiliary Activities," pp. 12.7-12.9, DASA.

22 Smyth Report, p. 65; Compton, Atomic Quest, pp.
79 and 98-99; Marshall Diary, MDR, and DSM
Chronology, OROO, for the summer of 1942,
passim; MDH, Bk. 3, "The P-9 Project," pp. 4.1-4.7
and 5.4, DASA.

March 1940, just before the German
attack on Norway, Joliot-Curie had se-
cured about 160 to 165 liters (169 to
174 quarts) of heavy water from
Norsk Hydro. Shortly before the fall
of Paris in mid-June, he sent von
Halban and Kowarski with most of
this precious store to England, where,
after a hazardous trip, the two men
joined the growing team of British
and refugee scientists doing atomic
research. Work with this stock of
heavy water had contributed to the
optimistic British reports on a urani-
um-heavy water system. When the
group relocated to Canada at the end
of 1942, the heavy water went
along. 2^

The need for large quantities of
silver had not been anticipated. At
the Army-OSRD meeting on 9 July,
Ernest Lawrence of the University of
California, Berkeley, pointed out that
he needed several thousand tons of
copper for magnet coils. Because
copper was high on the list of critical
materials and might be impossible to
obtain, he thought that silver, a good
electrical conductor and not on the
critical materials list, would do as
well. Accordingly, Colonel Nichols

23 H. D. Smyth, "British Information Service
Statement, 'Britain and and the Atomic Bomb,'
August 12, 1945," in Atomic Energy for Military Pur-
poses, 8th ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1948), p. 276; Cowing, Britain and Atomic
Energy, pp. 49-51; Crowther and Whiddington, Sci-
ence at War, pp. 144-45 and 148; Sir George Thom-
son, "Anglo-U.S. Cooperation on Atomic Energy,"
American Scientist, 41 (Jan 53): 77-78 and 80; Glas-
stone. Sourcebook on Atomic Energy, 3d ed. (Princeton,
N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1967), n. on p. 513. The
figure given for the amount of heavy water that the
French secured from Norsk Hydro varies somewhat
in the different accounts. Most state that there were
about 160 to 165 liters, an amount that would have
weighed about 176 to 182 kilograms (388 to 410
pounds).

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

visited Under Secretary of the Treas-
ury Daniel W. Bell to find out if silver
would be available. Although Nichols
did not provide specific details of the
DSM project, Bell appeared receptive.
"How much silver do you want?" he
asked. "About fifteen thousand tons,"
answered Nichols. Visibly startled,
Bell exclaimed: "Young man, ... I
would have you know that when we
talk of silver we speak in terms of
ounces." ^'*

Ounces or tons, that the DSM
project would get what it wanted was
soon clear. With relatively good
speed, considering the need for secre-
cy and the number of clearances re-
quired, the Department of the Treas-
ury, the ANMB, and the WPB ap-
proved the necessary arrangements.
On 29 August, in a letter to Secretary
of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau,
drafted jointly by Manhattan and
Treasury representatives, Secretary of
War Stimson requested the transfer
of 175 million fine troy ounces (about
6,000 tons of silver) "to the War De-
partment to be used as a substitute
for copper" for an "important
project" that was "highly secret." "At
this time," read Stimson's letter, "the
interests of the Government do not
permit my disclosing the nature of
the use." ^^

**As related by Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 157.
Subsection based on Marshall Diary, 9 Jul-29 Aug
42, MDR; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 4, "Silver Program,"
DASA; Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 107-09.
Groves gives the impression that Marshall himself
visited Under Secretary Bell, but Marshall s 3 Aug
42 entry in his diary indicates that he sent Nichols
to confer with Bell on the question of securing
silver for the Manhattan Project.

^*Ltr, Stimson to Secy Treas, 29 Aug 42, in
MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 4, App. B-1, DASA.

The endorsement of the Treasury
Department on a second letter that
day constituted an agreement be-
tween the two agencies for the trans-
fer. It provided that the silver would
remain in the United States; would be
returned to the Treasury in five years,
or sooner if required; would be uti-
lized in government-owned plants es-
sential to the war effort; and would
be protected against loss. Subsequent
agreements in 1943 and 1944 would
raise the quantity involved to roughly
14,700 tons, worth about $304 mil-
lion. ^^ Under constant heavy guard,
the bars of silver were transferred —
after being melted, cast in cylindrical
billets, rolled into strips, and finally
fabricated into magnet coils. Because
the electromagnetic process seemed
the most promising in the summer of
1942, this turn of events was indeed

encouragmg.

Site Selection

Project leaders in the summer of
1942 were well aware that acquisition
of suitable sites was as important to
the success of the atomic program as
obtaining adequate priorities. At the
Army-OSRD meeting of 25 June, they
had confirmed an earlier decision to
build a heavy water plant at the Trail
site and approved location of the pro-
posed plutonium pilot plant in the
Argonne Forest near Chicago. The
Army delayed actual acquisition of a
specific area in the Argonne Forest
preserve pending receipt of further

^^The Atomic Energy Commission did not return
the last of the 14,700 tons of silver to the U.S.
Treasury until May 1970, a quarter of a century
later. See news item in Washington Post, 29 May 70.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Silver-wound Magnet Coils for the Electromac.np.tk: Process

information from the Metallurgical
Laboratory concerning the size of site
needed for the plutonium pilot plant.
In early July, Colonel Nichols ob-
tained clarification of the specific Ar-
gonne requirements in discussions
held in Chicago with Stone and Web-
ster officials and Compton and his
staff, opening the way for lease in
August of 1,000 acres from Cook
County. At the same time, the Univer-
sity of Chicago agreed to provide an
additional acre on the campus for
future construction of additional labo-
ratory space. To administer the site
acquisitions and oversee construction
activities, Colonel Marshall estab-
lished the Chicago Area Engineers

Office in August and assigned Capt.
James F. Grafton as area engineer. ^^

For the main production plants,
Colonels Marshall and Nichols and
representatives of Stone and Webster
and the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) began a survey of possible
sites in the Knoxville area on I July.^®

"Marshall Diarv, 6-7, 10, 13, 17 Jul and 13 Aug
42, MDR; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, "Research," Pt. 1,
pp. 2.5-2.7 and 7.2, DASA.

^* Paragraphs on Tennessee site based on Mar-
shall Diarv, 1-3, 9, 10, 14. 15. 23, 29, 31 Jul and 3,
17-19, 26-27 Aug and 2-5, 10 Sep 42, MDR; MDH,
Bk. 1, Vol. 10. "Land Acquisition CEW." pp. 2.3-
2.4 and 2.20-2.21, and Vol. 12, "Clinton Engineer
Works," pp. 2.2-2.4, DASA; DSM Chronology, 9,
30 Jul and 26 Aug 42, each Sec. 2(e), OROO;
Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p. 15; Memo, Crenshaw
to Dist Engr, sub: Weekly Progress Rpt, 22 Aug 42,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 001 (Mtgs), MDR.

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

{See Map 1.) Requisite conditions for
the site were a nearby source of a
large amount of continuous electric
power, enough for a fair-sized city;
availability of a very large quantity of
water for cooling and processing as
well as construction and operating re-
quirements; and proximity to a main
line railroad and good access roads,
to ensure delivery of heavy construc-
tion materials and supplies. Topogra-
phy, too, was important. An area
bounded by natural barriers, such as
rivers and hills, would be securer and
individual plant sites separated by
ridges far safer in case of an explo-
sion, although the slopes of these
ridges should be gentle enough for
easy construction. The substratum
should provide adequate foundation,
yet not be so full of rocks as to make
excavation unnecessarily difficult and
time-consuming. Finally, there should
be adequate and suitable space for a
town with facilities for housing and
serving thousands of workmen and
technicians and their families.

The survey and subsequent investi-
gations filled nearly three days,
during which Colonel Marshall and
his colleagues examined several possi-
ble sites. None seemed at first glance
exactly right, but one, at least, had
possibilities. TVA officials seemed
certain that the 150,000-kilowatt
power requirement of the plants
could be met if Marshall could hasten
the delivery of some badly needed
heavy-generating equipment. As
project priorities were indefinite at
this time, Marshall agreed to look
into the matter; however, he empha-
sized that because an entirely suitable
site had not been found, he would
have to consider an area near Spo-
kane, Washington, where the Bonne-

ville Power Administration might
more easily meet his requirements.

Site problems were a key issue at
the next Army-OSRD meeting on
9 July. John R. Lotz, head of Stone
and Webster, reported that his firm
had surveyed the Spokane area and
concluded that it lacked sufficient
transmission lines to supply the re-
quired power. The group reaffirmed
in principle its earlier decision for a
site in Tennessee. Also, Marshall and
the Stone and Webster engineers
agreed that half of the 200 square
miles previously believed necessary
would be adequate, and even a site of
this size would not be required were
it not for the plutonium plant. The
danger of highly radioactive fission
products escaping, or even of a nucle-
ar explosion, dictated building this
plant 2 to 4 miles from any other in-
stallation and an equal distance in
from the boundaries of the site.

The 9 July Army-OSRD meeting
ended without a decision on a specific
Tennessee site or any indication of
when one might be made. Nor was
there, for that matter, any clear fore-
cast of scientific developments that
might help determine the choice.
Only a tentative and, as soon became
clear, excessively optimistic construc-
tion schedule emerged. As Colonel
Groves pointed out to Colonel Mar-
shall that afternoon, a general air of
vagueness seemed to pervade the
whole atomic project, with the start-
ing dates for development of many of
its phases still too indefinite. He
urged Marshall first to insist upon the
prompt and complete programming
of all contemplated steps and then to
see that this schedule was adhered to
as far as possible. An obvious neces-

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

sity was a swift decision on the major
production site.

Shortly thereafter, Marshall and
Stone and Webster officials agreed to
try to obtain a site in Tennessee by
10 August so that construction on the
project administration building and
some housing facilities could begin,
even if plant construction could not.
Stone and Webster drew up a formal
site report on the most promising
area, about 12 miles west of Knox-
ville, and prepared maps indicating
the exact tracts of land to be ac-
quired. To avoid having a public
highway run through the site, an ob-
vious security hazard, the firm also
studied the possibility of relocating
Tennessee 61, which then crossed the
northern portion of the area. The
Ohio River Division of the Engineer
Department then prepared an ap-
praisal of the cost of acquiring the ap-
proximate 83,000 acres in the area,
comprised of land in the Roane,
Loudon, Knox, and Anderson Coun-
ties of Tennessee. On 30 July, at the
next Army-OSRD meeting, Colonel
Marshall reviewed the steps taken
toward acquisition of the site and the
entire group agreed that the Tennes-
see Valley seemed the best location,
although some of the scientists felt
that a site farther east in the Great
Smoky Mountains, where the climate
was not as warm, might prove more
desirable in the future for a proposed
permanent central laboratory.

Hardly had the way been cleared
for immediate acquisition of the Ten-
nessee site when Colonel Marshall,
with the approval of General Robins,
decided to postpone carrying it out.
He knew that the site and making the
necessary pre-construction changes
and improvements, not including re-

location of Tennessee 61, would cost
an estimated $4.25 million and
require resettlement of some 400
families living in the area. Marshall
reasoned there could be no harm in
delaying acquisition until more defi-
nite information on the plutonium
process was available. At worst, a
postponement would cause only a few
weeks delay, for the Engineers' Real
Estate Branch was sure that the land
could be acquired to the point of
right of entry within ten days of his
order to proceed. Meanwhile, he
would try to get the TVA the needed
priorities and, when scientific devel-
opments warranted, order acquisition
of the site.

Although Ernest Lawrence indicat-
ed he was now willing to have the
full-scale electromagnetic separation
plant built in Tennessee, locating the
plants in the Shasta Dam area of Cali-
fornia was seriously studied and the
proposal was not completely aban-
doned until early September. Never-
theless, Colonel Marshall felt he was
"about ready to recommend purchase
of at least part of the Tennessee site"
by 26 August, the next S-1 Executive
Committee meeting. When the com-
mittee, however, delayed a decision
on production facilities, acquisition of
the site was postponed, despite the
urgings of Robins and Groves to the
contrary. ^^

Reaching Decisions: The Meeting at
Bohemian Grove

About 10-12 miles northwest of
San Francisco, across the Golden
Gate and amidst the giant redwood

=>« Marshall Diary, 26 Aug 42, MDR.

FIRST STEPS FOR WEAPON DEVELOPMENT

trees of the Muir Woods National
Monument, there is a beautiful area
known as the Bohemian Grove. In
this impressive setting, not too far
from Lawrence's laboratory at the
University of California, Berkeley, the
S-1 Executive Committee met on 13
and 14 September 1942 to consider
at length and in detail the major
problems of the DSM project. ^°
Present along with the committee at
this fifth Army-OSRD meeting were
Colonel Nichols and the California
area engineer, Maj. Thomas T. Cren-
shaw — both in civilian clothes to mask
from casual observers the Army's in-
terest in the work at Berkeley — as well
as J. Robert Oppenheimer and two
other scientific consultants.

The first major decision was to ac-
quire the Tennessee site immediately.
But on which plants could construc-
tion begin? The gaseous diffusion and
centrifuge separation methods still
appeared feasible and promising, but
neither had produced any appreciable
amounts of U-235 and both would re-
quire hundreds or thousands of pro-
cess stages for large-scale separation.
The plutonium process had yet to see
a self-sustaining chain reaction, much
less production and separation of plu-
tonium. Thus far, only the electro-
magnetic method had achieved signif-
icant production. Because one elec-
tromagnetic unit could separate 10
miUigrams of U-235 per day, it was
not inconceivable that fifty thousand
units could separate a pound, and, in
the same period, a billion units could
separate a ton. To design and build

'"Section on Bohemian Grove meeting based on
Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 150-54 and photograph
facing p. 140; Marshall Diary, 13 Sep 42, MDR;
DSM Chronology, 13-14 Sep 42, Sec. 2(e), OROO;
Smyth Report, pp. 140-41.

these units would be difficult and ex-
pensive, and the full-scale plant
would require considerably more re-
search and engineering development
as well as the training of large num-
bers of skilled operators. But the
process appeared sufficiently feasible
to justify starting work on a produc-
tion plant. After a visit to Lawrence's
laboratory, where the Executive Com-
mittee viewed experimental separa-
tion units in actual operation, the
group agreed to proceed with the
construction of a large-scale electro-
magnetic plant.

This 100-gram-per-day (the output
specified in the 17 June program)
electromagnetic installation would be
erected in Tennessee at an estimated
cost of $30 million. Design and pro-
curement for the plant were to begin
immediately, subject to cancellation at
any time before New Year's Day of
1943 if further developments so war-
ranted. On that date, the group
hoped, design would be frozen and
construction could begin. At the same
time, a small electromagnetic pilot
plant was projected for Tennessee;
however, at a later date, this plan was
dropped.

The experimental plutonium plant
planned for the Argonne Forest site
was now switched to Tennessee. This
change was necessitated by growing
evidence that operations at this
plant — including chemical studies on
extracting the plutonium, training of
operators, and testing of equipment
and processes — would be on a scale
too large for the Argonne site. Stone
and Webster would arrange a subcon-
tract with a chemical company to
develop and operate the chemical en-
gineering equipment needed for plu-

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

tonium separation. Now the experi-
mental pile from the Metallurgical
Laboratory could be relocated from
the heart of south Chicago to the
safer Argonne location. In further
support of the plutonium project,
construction of the heavy water plant
at Trail would be pushed as rapidly as
necessary to complete this work by
I May 1943.

The meetings on 13 and 14 Sep-
tember brought an end to much of
the indecision that the course of
events had imposed on the atomic
energy program during the summer

of 1942. The decisions reached at the
Bohemian Grove, in the words of one
participant, "were destined to shape
the entire future development of the

project.

Indeed, even as these de-

cisions were taking form, changes
were under way that would have a
profound effect on the organization
and direction of the atomic bomb
program. The early period of Army
participation, marked by a slow and
deliberate entrance into the project,
was coming to an end.

^'Compton, Atomic Qiml, p. 150.

CHAPTER IV

General Groves Takes Command

As the son of an Army chaplain,
Leslie R. Groves spent many of his
boyhood years on different military
posts in the western United States.
During these formative years, young
Groves often listened to the old Indian
fighters who frequented the posts
recount many a stirring tale of how
the West was won. Their tales fired
the boy's imagination, yet he lament-
ed that those days were past and that
there were no more frontiers left for
him to conquer. He could not know,
of course, that the opportunity to re-
alize his youthful dreams to lead in
the exploration and conquest of a
new frontier — his to be a scientific
and technical one whose develop-
ments would have a decisive impact
on the future and fate of all man-
kind — would come as the result of the
administrative reorganization of the
American atomic energy program in
the summer and fall of 1942 and his
selection as a 46-year-old career Army
officer to be officer in charge of the
project.^

Reorganization and the Selection
of Groves

On 17 June 1942, President
Roosevelt had approved the propos-

Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 415.

als, made by Vannevar Bush and
James B. Conant to the Top Policy
Group, that the Army assume overall
direction of the atomic program and
that the Joint Committee on New
Weapons and Equipment (JNW) es-
tablish a special subcommittee to con-
sider the military application of
atomic energy. Bush, however, who
served as JNW chairman, did not see
any need for immediate appointment
of the subcommittee and thus waited
until 10 September to propose to
Secretary of War Stimson that a small
group of officers be assigned the task
of considering possible strategic and
tactical uses of atomic energy. When
Stimson informed Army Chief of Staff
General George C. Marshall of Bush's
request, the general indicated that he
felt it was premature and expressed
grave concern about the increasing
problem of security as more and
more people became aware of the ex-
istence of the atomic energy program.
Despite Marshall's reservations, it
soon became evident that a special
committee was needed not only to
consider the ultimate uses of atomic
energy but also to determine general
policies and supervise the growing
project. The sequence of events in
September 1942 that led to formation

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

of a policymaking committee and to
strengthening the mihtary leadership
of the project seems to have been
about as follows. ^

Early that month — almost certainly
before learning the results of the Bo-
hemian Grove meeting and possibly
even before Bush made his recom-
mendations to Stimson — General
Styer discussed the status of the
atomic energy program with his com-
mander, Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somer-
vell, Services of Supply (SOS) com-
manding general, and then with
General Marshall. In outlining devel-
opments in the program, he empha-
sized that the Army's responsibilities
were now becoming increasingly
large. Then on the sixteenth, or pos-
sibly a day or so earlier. Bush, Styer,
and Somervell met to discuss the top-
level organization of the atomic
project. Under Secretary of War
Robert P. Patterson also may have
been present, or perhaps Somervell
saw him separately. At any rate, two
decisions were reached: A policy com-

^ Description of events through 22 Sep 42 recon-
structed from Memo, Bush and Conant to Wallace,
Stimson, and Marshall, sub: Atomic Fission Bombs,
13 Jun 42, Incl to Ltr, Bush to President, 17 Jun 42;
Ltr, Bush to Styer, 19 Jun 42. Both m HB Files, Fldr
6, MDR. Stimson Diary, 10 Sep 42, HLS. Memo,
Bundy to Stimson, 10 Sep 42, HB Files, Fldr 5,
MDR. 1st Ind, Styer to Chief of Mil Hist, 15 Aug
61, to Ltr, Chief of Mil Hist to Styer, 17 Jun 61,
CMH. Groves, AW // Can Be Told. pp. 3-5 and 21-
23. Marshall Diary, 16-21 Sep 42, OCG Files, Gen
Corresp, Groves Files, Misc Recs Sec, behind Fldr 5,
MDR. Memo (penciled note), VB [Bush] to Bundy,
in envelope marked 9/17, HB Files, Fldr 7, MDR.
Diary of Lt Gen Leslie R. Groves (hereafter cited as
Groves Dairy), 17-22 Sep 42, LRG. The diary was
an office record maintained by Groves's secretaries
to list visits, telephone calls, etc. It covers the
period from 1 Jan 42 to 7 Nov 45. Entries of later
years are more complete than for the early period of
the Manhattan Project. No entry was written by
Groves, nor was each one necessarily seen by him.
It appears to be accurate, although incomplete.

mittee would be formed to oversee
the program, and an Army officer
would be chosen to carry out the
policies established by this committee.

Anxious to counteract General So-
mervell's tendency to favor giving the
Army dominant control of the
project, thus relegating the scientists
to a lesser role. Bush proposed that
the committee should be organized
first. Styer and Somervell, however,
wanted to choose an officer immedi-
ately. The obvious choice was Styer
himself, but the job was a full-time
one and Somervell was unwilling to
lose his chief of staff. Styer then,
without hesitation, proposed Colonel
Groves, a recommendation readily ap-
proved by Generals Somervell and
Marshall.

In addition to his impressive gener-
al qualifications,^ another factor made

^ Leslie R. Groves entered the U.S. Military Acad-
emy in 1916 following three years as a student at
the LJniversity of Washington (1913-14) and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1914-16).
His class at West Point did not graduate until No-
vember 1918, too late for him to see active duty in
World War I. Assigned to the Corps of Engineers,
for more than a decade after the war he held a vari-
ety of engineer positions in the United States,
Hawaii, and Nicaragua. During the 1930's, he at-
tended the Command and General Staff School at
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Army War Col-
lege in Washington, D.C., and also served in the
Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE), on the Mis-
souri River Division staff, and on the War Depart-
ment General Staff. Beginning in 1940, he held im-
portant administrative posts in the rapidly expand-
ing military construction program, moving quickly
from the rank of captain to full colonel. As chief of
the Operations Branch, Office of the Quartermaster
General (OQ_MG), he acted as special assistant to
the quartermaster general for Army construction.
When the Construction Division was transferred
from OQMG to OCE at the end of 1941, he became
deputy chief of the division under Brig. Gen.
Thomas M. Robins. Having an excellent background
of experience on a variety of major construction
projects, the best known being the huge Pentagon

Continued

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

Groves the logical choice to head the
atomic project: As deputy chief of the
Engineers' Construction Division, he
had spent considerable time advising
District Engineer Marshall in his
quest for power resources and in his
selection of sites for the Manhattan
District facilities. Furthermore, with
military construction in the United
States past its wartime peak, Groves
was seriously considering taking an-
other assignment, probably overseas.

On the morning of 17 September,
Groves had to testify on a military
housing bill before the House Military
Affairs Committee. When he left the
hearing room, he encountered Gener-
al Somervell and learned of his new
assignment. Groves later recalled that
his first reaction was one of great dis-
appointment at the prospect of miss-
ing overseas duty. Somervell, un-
doubtedly sensing Groves's lack of
enthusiasm for his new job, expressed
the opinion that a successful conclu-
sion to the atomic energy program
could well have a decisive impact on
winning the war.'*

Shortly after leaving Capitol Hill,
Groves, accompanied by Colonel
Nichols (Colonel Marshall was on the
West Coast), reported to General
Styer for orders. Styer explained the

building, Groves earned the reputation among his
professional colleagues as an able, aggressive, and
industrious ofTicer who repeatedly demonstrated su-
perior engineering, administrative, and organiza-
tional abilities. See 1st Ind, Styer to Chief of Mil
Hist, 15 Aug 61, to Ltr, Chief of Mil Hist to Styer,
17 Jul 61, CMH; WD Press Release, Oct 46, CMH;
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 465; Fine and Rem-
ington, Corps of Engineers: Construction, pp. 158-59
and 254-55. A detailed listing of Groves's military
assignments may be found in Cullum, Biographical
Register, 6B:2010, 7:1338, 8:382, 9:271.

■• Groves, Sow It Can Be Told, pp. 3-4; Fine and
Remington, Corps of Engineers: Construction, pp. 586-
603.

new high-level organization of the
project and Groves's role in it.
Groves was to be relieved of his posi-
tion in the Construction Division. He
was, however, to continue to exercise
control over construction of the
nearly completed Pentagon. In this
way he would avoid arousing public
curiosity at his sudden absence from
this project, which was viewed with
great interest by Congress. After the
Pentagon job was finished in a few
months. Groves was to devote himself
entirely to the atomic energy
program.

The directive for Groves's new as-
signment — Styer had consulted with
him on its wording — ordered the En-
gineers chief, General Reybold, to re-
lieve him "for special duty in connec-
tion with the DSM project." ^ The di-
rective emphasized, however, that
Groves was to operate closely with
the Construction Division and other
elements of the Corps of Engineers.
He was to have full responsibility for
administering the entire project and
to make immediate arrangements for
priorities, for formation of a commit-
tee to formulate military policy gov-
erning use of the project's product
output, and for procurement of the
Tennessee site as the location for its
major activities. He was also instruct-
ed to make plans for the organization,
construction, operation, and security
of the project and, after they had
been approved, to undertake the
measures necessary to carry them out.

^ Memo, Somervell to Chief of Engrs, sub: Re-
lease of Groves for Special Assignment, 17 Sep 42,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab B,
MDR. Directive to Groves reprinted in his book Now
It Can Be Told, App. I. pp. 417-18.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Styer also informed Groves that
General Marshall had directed that he
be promoted to the grade of brigadier
general. As the list of new promo-
tions would be out in a few days.
Groves suggested (and Styer agreed)
that he should not take over the
project officially until he had received
his star. "I thought that there might
be some problems in dealing with the
many academic scientists involved in
the project," he wrote later, "and I
felt that my position would be strong-
er if they thought of me as a general
instead of a promoted colonel." The
new military chief of the atomic
project, however, seems not to have
considered that for several months
Colonel Marshall and other officers
had been dealing successfully with
project scientists in spite of their rela-
tively low military rank.^

Following the conference with
Styer, Groves delivered the directive
covering his new assignment to Gen-
eral Reybold and also stopped in the
office of his erstwhile chief. General
Robins, to brief him on its contents.
He then sat down with Colonel Nich-
ols to learn from the deputy district
engineer more about the actual status
of the project. He was not very
pleased with what he learned. "In

* Groves received the grade of brigadier general
on 23 Sep 42 and, subsequently, the grade of major
general on 9 Mar 44, a rank he continued to hold
for the rest of the time he served as commander of
the Manhattan Project. He moved up to the rank of
lieutenant general, effective 24 Jan 48, but shortiv
thereafter (29 Feb 48) retired from active dutv on
his own application. .At the time of his retirement.
Congress enacted a special measure giving him the
honorary rank of lieulcnanl general, effective 16 Jul
43, in recognition of his services in directing the
atomic bomb project. .See C.ullum, Bwgtophiral Regis-
ter. 9:27 1 . Quotation is from Groves, Xow It Can Be
Told. p. 5

fact," he recalled subsequently, "I
was horrified. It seemed as if the
whole endeavor was founded on pos-
sibilities rather than probabilities." "^

On the afternoon of the same day
(17 September), Groves and Nichols
called on Bush. Unfortunately, no one
had yet officially informed the OSRD
director of Groves's assignment to the
project. Furthermore, Bush was dis-
turbed that this action was additional
evidence that Somervell was intent on
having the Army take over control of
the atomic energy program to the
complete exclusion of the scientists.
Consequently, he was most reluctant
to answer Groves's questions and the
whole conversation was somewhat
one-sided, relatively brief, and, in
Groves's words, "far from satisfactory
for both of us." ®

As soon as Groves departed, Bush
hurried over to see Styer. He repeat-
ed his views that the proposed policy
committee should choose its own
agent; he "doubted whether he
[Groves] had sufficient tact for such a
job." Bush recollected later that Styer
disagreed with him on the first point
and, while acknowledging that Groves

was "blunt etc [he] thought his

other qualities would overbalance."
Styer went on to explain that Groves's
assignment already had been approved
by General Marshall. Returning to his
office. Bush wrote to Harvey Bundy,
Stimson's assistant for scientific mat-
ters: "I fear we are in the soup." ®

^ Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p. 19.

*Ibid., p. 20. See also Hewlett and Anderson, \eu<
World p. 81.

'Paragraph on Bush's reaction to Groves's assign-
ment based on Memo. Bush to Bundv, in envelope
marked 9/17, MDR

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

For the next few days, Groves was
busy preparing for his new assign-
ment, including conferences with
Colonel Marshall and Generals Styer
and Robins. Robins made a point that
the Engineer Department of the
Corps of Engineers would have no
further responsibility for the program
and that the Manhattan District would
henceforth report to Groves rather
than to the Engineers chief.

On 21 September, Colonels Groves
and Marshall called on Bush. This
time the OSRD director was cordial
and open. He explained his earlier re-
luctance to talk freely, then briefed
Groves thoroughly on the scientific
and historical background of the
project and cautioned him on the
need for tightening security measures.
Thus, from what Groves himself later
termed an "inauspicious beginning,"
relations between the two leaders of
the atomic project soon grew into a
firm and fruitful friendship, with each
expressing the greatest respect for
the other's capabilities.^*^

On the afternoon of 23 September,
a few hours after Groves had been
sworn in as a brigadier general and
had taken official charge of the
atomic project, he went to a meeting

'"Qiioted phrase from Groves, \oit< It Can be Told.
p. 21. Bush acknowledges in his memoirs that Styer
"was right when he insisted that Groves was the
man for the job" [see \'annevar Bush, Pieces of the
Action (New York: W'illliam Morrow, 1970), p. 61].
Groves implies in his account (pp. 21-22) that his
second meeting with Bush occurred on 19 Septem-
ber, whereas the Marshall Diary, 21 Sep 42, MDR,
indicates that the meeting actually took place on the
twentN-fiist. Groves saw Styer again on the twenty-
second, but he fails to mention this meeting in his
book. Curiously enough, however, the two pages de-
scribing the events of that date are missing from
both copies of the Marshall Diary, and although the
Groves Diary, 22 Sep 42, LRG, records the fact that
the meeting took place, no other details are given.

convened by Secretary Stimson at the
War Department. Present also were
Bush, Conant, Bundy and Generals
Marshall, Somervell, and Styer. The
group agreed to establish a small
Military Policy Committee, responsi-
ble to the Top Policy Group, to for-
mulate project policies on research
and development, construction and
production, and strategic and tactical
matters. Bush was chosen chairman,
with Conant as his alternate; the
other members were General Styer
and Rear Adm. William R. Purnell,
who had replaced Rear Adm. Willis
A. Lee, Jr., on the JNW Committee.
General Groves was to sit with the
committee and to act as its executive
officer in carrying out its policies.
The new committee was directed to
report periodically to the Top Policy
Group. The OSRD S-1 Executive
Committee was to continue to advise
on scientific aspects of the program,
with most of the research activities
under OSRD direction. ^^

As soon as the Military Policy Com-
mittee had received written approval
from the Top Policy Group and the
JNW Committee, it assumed virtually
complete control of all aspects of the
atomic energy program, acting
through General Groves as, to use
Stimson's phrase, "the executive head
of the development of the
enterprise." ^^

''Rpt, Bundv, sub: S-1 Mtg at Secv War's Ofiice,
23 Sep 42; Memo A, signed bv all lOp Policy Group
(except President) and JNW members, 23 Sep 42,
Ltr, Bush to Patterson, 13 Oct 45. All in HB Files,
Fldr 6, MDR. DSM Chronologv, 26 Sep 42, Sec.
2(e), OROO. Smvth Report, pp. 59-60.

'2 Stimson Diarv, 23 Sep 42, HI.S.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

First Measures

Acquiring the Tennesssee Site

Making a hurried departure from
the 23 September meeting at the War
Department, Groves went directly to
Union Station and caught an over-
night train for Knoxville, Tennes-
see.^^ {See Map 1.) The next morning
he met Colonel Marshall, who had
been rechecking the proposed site for
the project. Groves and Marshall
spent the day going over the site as
carefully and thoroughly as was prac-
ticable on existing roads. "It was evi-
dent that it was an even better choice
than . . . [he] had anticipated." ^^
Well satisfied that the site would meet
all requirements, and knowing that
preliminary steps for acquisition were
under way. Groves telephoned Col.
John J. O'Brien of the Engineers'
Real Estate Branch to proceed at
once with formal acquisition.

The roughly rectangular site, about
16 miles long and 7 miles wide, cov-
ered substantial portions of both
Roane and Anderson Counties. It was
located approximately midway be-
tween the two county seats, Kingston
and Clinton, and about 12 miles west
of Knoxville, the nearest citv. Bound-

•^ Subsection based on Marshall Diarv, 29-31 Jul
and 19, 23, 24, 26 Sep 42, MDR; Ur, Robins (Act
Chief of Engrs) to CG SOS, sub: Acquisition in Fee
of Approx 56,200 Acres of Land for Demolition
Range Near Kingston, Tenn., and Inds, 29 Sep 42,
Incl to Memo, O'Brien to Lt Col Whitney Ashbridge
(CE Mil Constr Br), sub: Land Acquisition in Con-
nection With MD, 17 Apr 43, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 601 (Santa Fe), MDR; Groves, Sow It Can
Be Told, pp. 24-26; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 10, "Land Ac-
quisition CEW, " p. 2.21 and App. Fl, and Vol. 12,
"Clinton Engineer Works," pp. 2.6-2.8, DASA;
George O. Robinson, Jr., The Oak Ridge Story (Kings-
port, Tenn.: Southern Publishers, 1950), p. 27.

'*Groves, \ow It Can Be Told, p. 25.

ed on three sides by the meandering
Clinch River and on the northwest by
Black Oak Ridge, the terrain of the
site was typical of the region.
Wooded ridges, running more or less
parallel to its long axis, rose generally
about 200 feet above narrow valleys.
Of the approximately one thousand
families, most resided on farms or in
one of several small hamlets.

On 29 September, Under Secretary
of War Patterson authorized the Engi-
neers to acquire the some 56,000
acres at an estimated cost of $3.5 mil-
lion. Subsequent additions brought
the total to about 59,000 acres. On
7 October, a court-approved condem-
nation for the whole area went into
effect, and within a month the first
residents began to leave. Construc-
tion began almost immediately. Ulti-
mate acquisition of the entire site
would not be completed without
many problems, but now, at least, the
first essential step toward building the
great plants for producing fissionable
materials had been taken. ^^

For security reasons earliest public
references to the site indicated it was
an artillery and bombing practice
area, and for several weeks it was
known as the Kingston Demolition
Range. The official designation, how-
ever, and the name that was released
to the public in late January 1943,
was the Clinton Engineer Works.
Project leaders chose the name of the
town located a few miles northeast of
the site as being least likely to draw
attention to the atomic energy activi-
ties at the site. The Clinton Engineer
Works continued to be the Tennessee

Land acquisition problems are dealt with in Ch.

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

area's official designation as long as it
remained under Army control. In
mid- 1943, when permanent housing
for the site's growing population was
erected along Black Oak Ridge, the
townsite became known as Oak
Ridge, and this name was used as the
post office address. ^^

Procuring Uranium

Whether the Manhattan Project had
sufficient uranium ore to fulfill its
mission. Groves felt, was of para-
mount importance. ^^ Immediately
after his 17 September departure
from the Corps and before he official-
ly assumed his new position as Man-
hattan commander, he took steps to
ascertain the availability of uranium
to the project. Informed by Colonel
Nichols of the contracts already made

^^ KnoxvUle Joimial. 31 Jan 43; Groves, \ou> It Can
Be Told, pp. 25-26. Groves notes that not until es-
tablishment of the AEG in 1947 did the name Oak
Ridge become the official designation of the Tennes-
see project.

'''Subsection based on Memo for File, Merritt,
sub: Foreign Sources of Material Which Should Be
Further Investigated, 23 Feb 43; Memo, Merritt to
Nichols, sub: Resume of Production of Uranium
Products for MD in Golorado Plateau Area, 26 Jan
45. Both in Admin Files, Gen Gorresp, 410.2 (I'ra-
nium), MDR. Rpt, Military Policy Committee to Top
Policy Group, sub: Present Status and Future Prgm
(hereafter cited as MPC Rpt), 15 Dec 42, Incl to Ftr,
Bush (for MPC) to President, 16 Dec 42, OCG Files,
Gen Gorresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Fab B (original of
covering letter, with Roosevelt's approval, filed
herein), MDR. Marshall Diary, 14 Sep-15 Oct 42,
MDR. Ltr, Bush to Styer, 11 Sep 42, OSRD. Memo,
[RuhofT] to Groves, sub: Summary of Ore Contracts,
15 Feb 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp. 161 (African
Metals), MDR. Contract W'-7405-eng-4 (signed by
Nichols and Sengier), 19 Oct 42, OROO. Kenneth
D. Nichols, Comments on Draft Hist "Manhattan:
The Army and the Atomic Bomb," Incl to Ltr, Nich-
ols to Chief of Mil Hist, 25 Mar 74, CMH. MDH,
Bk. 7, Vol. 1. "Feed Materials and Special Procure-
ment," passim, DASA. Smyth Report, p. 66. Comp-
ton. Atomic Qiiest. pp. 96-97. Groves, Sow It Can Be
Told. pp. 33-37.

with Edgar Sengier of Union Miniere
and of the Bohemian Grove decision
to acquire the company's reserve of
ore on Staten Island, Groves directed
Nichols to press the negotiations with
the mining executive.

During the previous week Colonel
Nichols, Capt. John R. Ruhoff, assist-
ant chief of the District's Materials
Section, and officials of the Standard
Oil Development Company and the
Stone and Webster Engineering Cor-
poration had agreed that Ruhoff
should arrange for a test of the Staten
Island ore to determine the percent-
age of recoverable UaOs (uranium
oxide) and, on the fifteenth, Ruhoff
had secured Sengier's release of 100
tons for shipment to Eldorado Gold
Mines' Port Hope refinery. In the
meantime, Nichols had obtained the
necessary export licenses through the
State Department.

In follow-up negotiations with Sen-
gier on 18, 23 and 25 September,
Nichols arranged for procurement of
the Staten Island ore. The time re-
quired to work out the necessary
arrangements with both Eldorado
Gold Mines and its marketing agent,
the Canadian Radium and Uranium
Corporation, delayed signing of the
contract until 19 October. It called
for purchase by the United States of
the uranium content of 100 tons of
ore, with Union Miniere's African
Metals retaining ownership of the
radium in the ore. Also, the United
States was to have an option to pur-
chase the remaining 1,100 tons of
uranium ore on Staten Island, assayed
at 65 percent uranium oxide, as well
as about twice that amount of ap-
proximately 20 percent ore in storage
in the Belgian Congo. Except for that

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

ore shipped immediately to Port
Hope for processing (the first 100
tons reached there in November), all
Staten Island ore was to be trans-
ferred to Seneca Ordnance Depot at
Romulus, New York, for safekeeping.
Subsequent contracts covered pur-
chase of additional Congo uranium
on terms similar to those set forth in
the 19 October agreement.

Working in close consultation with
Maj. Gen. Charles P. Gross, the
Army's Transportation chief, Manhat-
tan officials arranged for shipping the
ore from Africa by the safest and
swiftest means available. Based upon
Sengier's recommendations, fast
motor ships traveling out of convoy
were employed to traverse the subma-
rine-infested South Atlantic. Because
the ore arrived at the port of New
York considerably faster than it could
be refined, it was assayed and stored
in a warehouse at Middlesex, New
Jersey, especially leased by the Army
for that purpose.^®

In a move to further expedite the
uranium progam and, at the same
time, to relieve overburdened Stone
and Webster of part of its extensive
assignment, the Manhattan District as-
sumed responsibility for procurement
and preliminary refining of the ore.
Capt. Phillip L. Merritt, a trained ge-
ologist who was already on the staff,
was assigned to monitor these activi-
ties. Working under the general guid-
ance of Colonel Nichols, Merritt gave
special attention to the project's

worldwide search for possible addi-
tional sources of uranium.

Toward the end of 1942, the Eldo-
rado mine in Canada resumed oper-
ations. Meanwhile, the District made
arrangements for uranium extraction
from tailings of Colorado Plateau car-
notite ores mined originally for their
radium and vanadium content. In Jan-
uary 1943, the War Production Board
(WBP) issued orders (subsequently
amended in August) that future sale
or purchase of uranium compounds
was limited to the atomic program,
except for essential military and in-
dustrial applications. Even before the
board acted, Manhattan's Military
Policy Committee had reported opti-
mistically to the President that the
project had "either in hand or on the
way, sufficient uranium for the entire
program up to and including military
use. ^^

Obtaining Prionty Ratings

In June 1942, President Roosevelt
had endorsed a recommendation by
the Top Policy Group that the atomic
energy program should be assigned
the highest priorities to facilitate pro-
curement of the tools and materials
required to produce an atomic
bomb. 2° Yet, by September, as

^* During the war only two shipments of ore, to-
tahng 200 tons, failed to reach the United States-
one aboard a vessel torpedoed in late 1942 and the
other on a ship that sank as a result of a marine ac-
cident in earlv 1943. See MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, p. 2.5,
D.AS.A.

19 MFC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR.

20 Except where indicated, discussion of priorities
based on MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 9, "Priorities Program,"
D.\SA, with many of the basic documents relating to
the priorities problem reproduced in •A.pp. A. Ibid.,
p. 2.5 and App. Bl, DASA; Ltr, Weaver (Resources
Div Dir, SOS) to Groves, sub: Special Priorities Au-
thoritv for Dist Engr, 26 Sep 42, copy in ibid., App.
A5, DAS.^; Memo, Marshall to All Area Engrs, sub:
Requests for Out-of-line Ratings, 16 Oct 42, copy in
ibid., App. A 12, DASA: Marshall Diarv, 17, 19, 26
Sep and 1 Oct 42, MDR; Memo, Johnson to Groves,
sub: Current Events, 30 Sep 42, Admin Files, Gen

Coniinued

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

Groves assumed overall administra-
tive leadership of the project, it was
evident that the AA-3 base rating
Colonel Marshall had secured in July
was not going to be adequate to
ensure the uninterrupted develop-
ment of the atomic program. Conse-
quently, following consultation with
General Styer, Groves moved imme-
diately to obtain for the project the
priority rating he believed was essen-
tial for its successful continuation.

Both generals had decided to seek
broad authority for the District to
issue an AAA priority whenever there
was a need to break a bottleneck.
When Groves called on WPB Chair-
man Donald Nelson on 19 Septem-
ber, he had with him the draft of a
brief letter — addressed to himself and
to be signed by Nelson — in which he
had incorporated the idea of assign-
ing the desired AAA authority to the
project. As Groves later recalled. Nel-
son's first reaction was negative; how-
ever, when the general threatened to
take the matter to the President, the
chairman changed his mind. Whether
or not other pressure already had
been brought to bear on Nelson is
not known, but he did agree to sign
the letter as Groves had written it.

I am in full accord [it read] with the
prompt delegation of power by the Army

Corresp, 319 1. MDR; DSM Chronology. 26 Sep 42,
Sec. 2(e), OROO; Groves, Xoiv It Can Be Told. pp.
22-23; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR; Groves. S-1 Ex
Committee Mtg (hereafter cited as MPC Min — actual
summaries of actions required and decisions
reached at MPC meetings), 5 Feb 43, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 23, Tab A, MDR;
Memo, Weaver to C^hief of Engrs, sub: Priority
Rating for MD, 22 Mar 43, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 322.011 (LC), MDR; Memo, Denton, ASF, to
Chief of Engrs, Attn: Groves, sub: MD, 1 Jul 44,
.■\dmin Files, Gen C-orresp, 400.1301 (Priority),
MDR.

and Navy Munitions Board [ANMB]
through you to the District Engineer,
Manhattan District, to assign an AAA
rating, or whatever lesser rating will be
sufficient, to those items the delivery of
which, in his opinion, cannot otherwise
be secured in time for the successful
prosecution of the work under his
charge.^ ^

On 26 September, the ANMB
issued the District a blank check to
assign the AAA priority. But General
Weaver, senior Army representative
on the ANMB, warned Groves that
use of this AAA authority must not
interfere unnecessarily with other
high-priority programs and that, with
each use of the rating, a written
report must be submitted within a 24-
hour period. That same day, at his
first meeting with the S-1 Executive
Committee, Groves explained to the
group that the AAA priority would
not be used for the entire project, but
only when progress would be unduly
delayed by employment of any lower
rating. And to ensure retention of
AAA authority, an AA-3 or lesser pri-
ority would be utilized whenever pos-
sible. Before adjourning, the confer-
ees agreed that the OSRD would con-
tinue to deal with its own priority
problems as far as possible, with the
Army lending assistance when neces-
sary, and that the Washington Liaison
Office of the Manhattan District
would handle the general administra-
tion and coordination of priorities for
all future procurement for the atomic
project.

Now that the District had AAA au-
thority as a backup to overcome pro-
curement obstacles, both Groves and

2'Etr, Nelson to Groves, 19 Sep 42, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab B, MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Styer believed that development of
the atomic program could continue
with the AA-3 base rating. By 1943,
however, the project's unfolding re-
quirements revealed that for even
routine procurement the AA-3 rating
was inadequate and the AAA rating
unnecessarily high. To remedy this
situation, Groves wrote to General
Weaver in early February and re-
quested that the District's priority
"authority given in [the] letter of Sep-
tember 26, 1942 be amplified to in-
clude use of AA-1 and AA-2 rat-
ings." ^^ Although the Nelson letter
had referred to the use of lesser rat-
ings than AAA whenever these would
suffice, the fact that the Joint Chiefs
of Staff had forbidden use of AA-1 or
AA-2 for construction projects had
ruled out their earlier use by the Dis-
trict. Weaver officially responded on
22 March, upgrading the rating of
AA-3 to AA-2X — a new priority cre-
ated to provide supplies and services
for urgent foreign and domestic in-
dustrial programs.

Groves, however, still was not satis-
fied and, in the months that followed,
continued to press ANMB officials to
assign the maximum AA-1 base
rating. Time passed, but the general
persisted in order to achieve his ob-
jective. Finally, on 1 July 1944, the
District received AA-1 authority.

Following District policy, the Wash-
ington Liaison Office was to use the
lowest rating that would bring about
the required delivery of materials. But
to counter the threat from other
urgent wartime programs during the
District's massive procurement and

"Ltr, Groves to Weaver, sub: Out-of-line Ratings,
7 Feb 43, copy in MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 9, App. 7,
DASA.

construction phase between 1943 and
early 1945, the officer assigned emer-
gency priorities at the AAA level for
more than $77 million worth of
orders. At times, the Manhattan
Project was using more AAA ratings
than the combined total for all other
Army and non-Army programs. Yet,
through the exercise of discretion,
Groves and his staff were able to
avoid not only strong criticism of
their actions but also attempts to
revoke the District's AAA authority.
Groves's success in obtaining the suc-
cessive advances in the priority status
of the Manhattan Project ensured
that, despite occasional problems and
annoyances, procurement needs for
the atomic program were met.

Establishment of Los Alamos

In the late summer of 1942,
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Univer-
sity of California physicist who was di-
recting the theoretical aspects of de-
signing and building an atomic bomb,
became convinced a change was
needed. Studies under his direction
had been going on in various institu-
tions that were equipped for fast-neu-
tron studies. Now Oppenheimer and
his associates felt that further
progress could be best achieved by
concentrating everything in one cen-
tral laboratory devoted exclusively to
this work. Taking this step would not
only eliminate waste and duplication,
but it would also permit a freer ex-
change of ideas and provide for the
centralized direction of all work, in-
cluding studies of chemical, engineer-
ing, metallurgical, and ordnance

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

problems that so far had received
little or no attention. ^^

Groves first met Oppenheimer in
early October while on his initial trip
to familiarize himself with the atomic
programs at the Universities of Chi-
cago and California (Berkeley). The
general heard a report from Oppen-
heimer on the eighth and the two
men hit it off at once. Groves was in-
terested in Oppenheimer's proposed
central laboratory and, a week later
when the two met again with Marshall
and Nichols on a Chicago-New York
train, Groves asked Oppenheimer to
come to Washington, D.C., to explore
the idea. There, they talked with
Arthur Compton and Vannevar Bush,
and on 19 October Groves approved
the decision to establish a separate
bomb laboratory. Pleased with what
had been accomplished and confident
that Groves's support in this step
would "bear good fruit in the future,"
Oppenheimer left immediately for
Boston to brief Conant at Harvard,
where the latter held the post of uni-
versity president.^*

Oppenheimer and Compton had
spoken of placing the laboratory at
the Tennessee site, or possibly in
Chicago, but neither they nor General
Groves were satisfied with these
choices. For this most secret part of
the secret Manhattan Project isolation
and inaccessibility were most essen-
tial, and neither the Clinton Engineer

^'Testimony of Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer Hear-
ing, pp. 12 and 28; Smyth Report, p. 74.

^"Quotation from Ltr, Oppenheimer to Groves,
19 Oct 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 322 (Los
Alamos), MDR. See also Testimony of Oppen-
heimer in Oppenheimer Hearing, p. 28; Nichols, Gom-
ments on Draft Hist "Manhattan," Incl to Ltr, Nich-
ols to Chief of Mil Hist, 25 Mar 74, CMH; Marshall
Diary, 15-16 Oct 42, MDR; Groves Diary, Oct 42,
LRG; Groves, \ow It Can Be Told, p. 61.

Works nor Chicago offered these. In
addition to the obvious requirements
of a climate that would permit year-
round construction, safety from
enemy attack, ready transportation,
and access to power, fuel and water,
there were several other important
considerations. The site would have
to provide an adequate testing
ground; it should be in a sparsely
populated area, for reasons of safety
as well as security; the land should be
relatively easy to acquire; and it
should already have sufficient build-
ings to house most of what was antici-
pated would be a comparatively small
staff. 2 5

Groves briefly considered two other
sites. One near Los Angeles, he re-
jected on security grounds; the other,
near the California-Nevada border, on
the east side of the Sierra Nevada in
the vicinity of Reno, he found unsatis-
factory because it was too inaccessible
and heavy snows would interfere with
winter operations. He agreed with
Oppenheimer that the region around
Albuquerque, New Mexico, seemed to
offer the most attractive possibilities.
Oppenheimer owned a ranch in this
vicinity, and his general knowledge of
the countryside contributed consider-
ably to making an accurate appraisal
of the area. Air and rail service to Al-
buquerque were excellent; the climate
was moderate throughout the year;

2^ Paragraphs on selection of bomb laboratory
site based on Groves, Sow It Can be Told, pp. 63-67;
MDH. Bk. 8, Vol. 1, "General," Sec. 2, DASA; Rpt,
U.S. Engrs Office, Albuquerque Dist. sub: Proposed
Site for Mil Proj at Los Alamos Ranch School,
Otowi, N.Mex., 23 Nov 42, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 600.03, MDR; Groves Diary, Nov 42, LRG;
Testimony of Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer Hearing.
pp. 12 and 28; Inlerv, Author with Edwin M. McMil-
lan (Rad Lab, Univ of Calif at Berkelev), 8 Jul 64.
CMH.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

and the area was not only isolated but
also sufficiently far inland from the
West Coast to be beyond any serious
danger from the by now remote pos-
sibility of Japanese interference.

At the end of October, Maj. John
H. Dudley, one of Colonel Marshall's
assistants who was familiar with the
general area, made some preliminary
surveys. He recommended a site at
Jemez Springs, about 50 miles north
of Albuquerque. {See Map 2.) Engi-
neers from the Albuquerque District
surveyed the site and, on 16 Novem-
ber, Groves met Oppenheimer and
several others for a personal inspec-
tion of the area. They soon conclud-
ed, however, that the Jemez Springs
site would not do; the land would be
difficult to acquire and the nature of
the terrain would prevent later expan-
sion of the installation.^®

Stiil hoping to find a suitable loca-
tion in this general area, Groves and
the others drove east and slightly
north toward the tiny settlement of
Los Alamos. This community, atop a
high, level tableland, actually consist-
ed of little more than the Los Alamos
Ranch School for Boys. Otherwise the
area was virtually uninhabited, with
the nearest town located some 16
miles away. The school buildings and
the complete isolation of the site were

^** Account of inspection of sites in Los Alamos
area based primarily on Groves, S'ow It Can Be Told,
pp. 65-67, and Testimony of Oppenheimer in Op-
penheimer Heanng, p. 28. Another member of the in-
spection party was Edwin M. McMillan, a physicist
on the faculty at the University of California, Berke-
ley, and a long-time associate of Oppenheimer. As
McMillan recalled, he, Oppenheimer, and Dudley
had gone on horseback to the Jemez Springs area
earlier in the day and then had been joined by
Groves in the afternoon. McMillan had been a guest
at Oppenheimer's ranch on «.;;rlier occasions and
was therefore generally familiar with the Los
Alamos area. See McMillan Interv, 8 Jul 64, CMH.

arguments in its favor. There ap-
peared to be sufficient water, if the
supply were carefully used, and all
other characteristics seemed satisfac-
tory. The only question was how will-
ing the owners of the school would
be to give it up to the Army. If they
seriously opposed government acqui-
sition, the resultant publicity would
run counter to the secrecy desired by
the project leaders.

While Groves and Oppenheimer
headed back to Washington, D.C.,
Dudley and engineers of the Albu-
querque District began a formal
survey of a proposed site at Los
Alamos. The desired area consisted of
about 54,000 acres in Sandoval
County, somewhat more than 20
miles airline distance northwest of
Santa Fe, of which all but about 8,000
acres was in national forest land al-
ready owned by the United States
government. Grazing lands and the
Los Alamos Ranch School comprised
the rest of the area. Because the
school was having some difficulty get-
ting instructors during the war and
was in serious financial trouble, the
owners were willing to sell. As for the
grazing lands, there appeared to be
no problem in acquiring them.

Even before the reports of this
survey came in. General Groves had
called a meeting in Washington to
confer about the site with Oppen-
heimer, as well as with two of his sci-
entific colleagues from California,
Ernest Lawrence and Edwin McMil-
lan, and with Arthur Compton. Then,
on 23 November, with the reports in
hand, Oppenheimer, Lawrence, and
McMillan again inspected the area
with Major Dudley and made recom-
mendations on possible locations for

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

#. ^

-A

Approach Road to the Los Alamos Ranch School for Boys

laboratories and housing. "Lawrence
was pleased by the site," Oppen-
heimer reported to Groves, "and so,
again, were we." ^"^

And so, again, was Groves. Two
days later he approved the Los
Alamos site and began steps to ac-
quire the land. Right of entry to the
heart of the site had already been ob-
tained from the school director and,
although the actual legal acquisition
would take several months, Groves
was able to authorize the Albuquer-
que District to proceed with construc-
tion on 30 November. The whole
business was carried out, to use Op-
penheimer's words, "with unbeliev-
able dispatch." ^®

^^ Llr, Oppenheimcr to Groves, 23 Nov 42,
Admin Files, Cien Corresp, 600.1 (Santa Fe), MDR.

^* Memos, Groves to Albuquerque Dist Engr, sub:
Proj Gonstr at Los Alamos, N.Mex., 30 Nov 42, and
Groves to SWD Div Engr, sub: Gonstr in Vic of Al-
buquerque, N.Mex., 30 Nov 42, Admin Files, Gen

As with the Clinton Engineer
Works, the Los Alamos site in the be-
ginning also was referred to, for secu-
rity reasons, as a demolition range — a
somewhat ironic reference for a labo-
ratory where an atomic bomb would
be built. The site also had several
names, the most common being Site
Y, Project Y, Zia Project, Santa Fe, or
simply, Los Alamos, its official title
and the name by which it would be
most widely known in the future. ^^

Corresp, 600.1 (Santa Fe), MDR; Ltr, Robins (Act
Chief of Engrs) to CG SOS, sub: Acquisition of
Land for Demolition Range at Los Alamos, N.Mex.,
25 Nov 42, Incl to Memo, O'Brien to Ashbridge,
sub: Land Acquisition in Connection with MD, 17
Apr 43. MDR: MDH, Bk. 8, Vol. 1, Sees. 2-3,
passim, DASA. Quoted words from Testimony of
Oppenheimer in Oppenhemer Hearing, p. 28. For de-
tailed account of land acquisition at Los Alamos see
Ch. XV.

2^ Memo, Groves to CG SOS, sub: Activation and
Administration of Los Alamos, 27 Feb 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.2 (Los Alamos), MDR.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Once the choice of Los Alamos had
been made, events moved swiftly.
"The last months of 1942 and early
1943," recalled Oppenheimer later,
"had hardly hours enough to get Los
Alamos established." ^° Vigorously
supported by Groves, Compton,
Conant, and others, Oppenheimer
launched an extensive recruitment
program. He traveled all over the
country, urging scientists of recog-
nized ability to join the new laborato-
ry. Restricted to revealing only what
was absolutely necessary about the
project, Oppenheimer faced no easy
task trying to arouse the interest of
scientists, technicians, and mechanics
in the program, in indicating its sense
of urgency, and in persuading them
to sign up for work at a military post
in the middle of the New Mexico
desert, where they and their families
might have to remain isolated for the
duration of the war. Nevertheless, he
was highly successful in these efforts.
Recruits from Princeton, Chicago,
California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
other universities joined the program,
the first contingent arriving at Los
Alamos with Oppenheimer in March
1943, long before construction at the
site was completed.

With the university scientists came
their equipment: a cyclotron from
Harvard, two more particle accelera-
tors from Wisconsin, another from Il-
linois. Locating and securing this es-
sential equipment was difficult
enough; shipping it to New Mexico
was an additional problem. "Every-
body," Oppenheimer later recalled,
"arrived with truckloads of junk and

equipment." Under a contract with
the University of Cahfornia, erection
of the first cyclotron began at Los
Alamos in mid-April, and the first ex-
periment was performed early in July.
Already, Oppenheimer continued,
"we were finding out things that
nobody knew before." ^^

Los Alamos was officially activated
as a military establishment on 1 April
1943, with Oppenheimer as its scien-
tific chief and Col. John M. Harman
as its military head. It was unique
among Manhattan Project installa-
tions in that it was established as a
separate organization, directly re-
sponsible to General Groves. It came
under the district engineer only for
routine administrative matters. As its
civilian director, Oppenheimer had
broad authority and administrative re-
sponsibility. In charge of all scientific
work as well as "the maintenance of
secrecy by the civilian personnel
under his control," ^^ he was respon-
sible only to Groves and Conant. This
arrangement relieved Compton and
the Metallurgical Laboratory of the
responsibility for bomb design and
construction and left them free to
concentrate on plutonium production.
The relations between Oppenheimer
and Colonel Harman were based on
close cooperation, rather than con-
trol. Harman, who also reported to
Groves, had little or nothing to do
with scientific matters. His primary
responsibility was to oversee Los

^° Testimony of Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer
Hearing, p. 12. This and following paragraph based
on ibid., pp. 12-13 and 28-29; Smyth Report, p. 151;
Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 130.

*' Quoted words from Testimony of Oppenheimer
in Oppenheimer Hearing, p. 29. See also Memo, Op-
penheimer to Groves, 7 Nov 42, and Styer corre-
spondence with Univs of 111 and Wis, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 400.12 (Equipment), MDR.

*^Ltr, Conant and Groves to Oppenheimer, 25
Feb 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Los
Alamos), MDR.

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

Alamos as a military reservation, in-
cluding those housekeeping and
guard functions necessary to support
Oppenheimer's program. ^^

The other major element in the ad-
ministration of Los Alamos was the
prime contractor, the University of
California. Under a War Department
contract, its role was largely to
provide business management and
technical procurement. For reasons of
security, the university had no repre-
sentative at Los Alamos with authority
comparable to that of Oppenhcmier
or Colonel Harman.

Project leaders wanted to make the
work and the living conditions at Los
Alamos as attractive as possible; how-
ever, for reasons of security and
safety. General Groves wished to
maintain as much control as he could
over the scientists. One idea he fa-
vored was to put key civilians in uni-
form as army officers. This plan
seemed attractive to Oppenheimer
but aroused strong opposition from
many of the other scientists. The Mili-
tary Policy Committee finally agreed
to drop the idea for the period of ini-
tial experimental studies, but insisted
that the scientific and engineering
staff be composed entirely of commis-
sioned officers when final experi-
ments and the construction of the
bomb began. Yet, when this time ar-

" Except where noted, this and following para-
graphs based on ibid.; Memo, Groves to CG SOS,
sub: Activation and Administration of Los Alamos,
25 Feb 43, MDR; Testimony of Oppenheimer and
Groves in Oppenheimer Hearing, pp. 28 and 171-72;
Compton, Atomic Qitest. pp. 129-30; Memo, Marshall
to Groves, sub: Major MD Contracts, 27 Apr 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161, MDR (also see
WD-Univ of Calif Contract W-7405-eng-36,
20 Apr 43, LASL); MDH. Bk, 8, Vol. 2, "Techni-
cal," pp. 1. 5-1.6, III.6, App. 7, DASA; MPC Min, 5
Feb 43, MDR. See Ch. XXIII for further discussion
of the administrative organization at Los Alamos.

rived. Project Y had grown so large
that the plan was dropped as being
impractical and unnecessary.

The most important personnel
problem at Los Alamos was choice of
a scientific director, and Oppen-
heimer's appointment was no simple
matter. While he had been the leader
of the group studying the theoretical
aspects of constructing atomic bombs,
the Los Alamos program was to be a
practical operation, and carrying it
out would require considerable ad-
ministrative and organizational abili-
ties. The chiefs of the three other
major Manhattan laboratories —
Compton, Lawrence, and Urey — were
all Nobel Prize winners. Oppenheimer
was not, and there was some feeling
among the scientists that this might
disqualify him as head of the Los
Alamos Laboratory. General Groves,
while impressed with Oppenheimer's
great intellectual capacity, also was
not entirely certain. Bush and Conant
shared his hesitation; Lawrence,
Compton, and Urey all indicated
some reservations.

Nevertheless, a tentative decision in
favor of Oppenheimer appears to
have been made quite early, because
neither Lawrence nor Compton — the
only other candidates — could be
spared from his own vital project. Op-
penheimer's appointment as "Scien-
tific Director of the special laboratory
in New Mexico" was formalized on 25
February in a letter to him from
Groves and Conant; ^'' it did not.

^'' Quotation from Ltr, Conant and Groves to Op-
penheimer, 25 Feb 43, MDR. See also Groves, Sow
It Can Be Told. pp. 60-64; Compton, Atomic Qitest. p.
129; Testimony of Bush in Oppenheimer Hearing, pp.
560-61; Ltr, Conant to Groves, 21 Dec 42, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (Postwar Policy Committee-

Coniinued

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

however, become final until mid-July
because of security clearance prob-
lems. As was well-known to most of
the project leaders, Oppenheimer had
an extended history of supporting
Communist-front organizations and
causes and of association with Com-
munists and fellow-travelers. Only
through direct action by Groves was
Oppenheimer, who was already at
work in Los Alamos, finally cleared. ^^

Manhattan Project Organization
and Operation

With the establishment of Los
Alamos on 1 April 1943, the basic
structure of the Army's organization
for administering the atomic bomb
program was essentially completed. In
the months that followed, detailed
and sometimes substantial changes
were made in that organization.^® For
example, in mid-August, the Manhat-
tan District moved from its temporary
location in New York to permanent
quarters at Oak Ridge, and Colonel

Chicago), MDR; Leslie R. Groves, Comments on
Draft Ms "Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the
Manhattan Project," LRG; Interv, British writer
Hailey with Groves, 13 Dec 57, LRG.

*^See Ch. XI for full story of the security investi-
gation and clearance of Oppenheimer.

^^ Subsection based on Org Charts, U.S. Engrs
Office, MD, 27 Jan, 1 and 30 Apr 43, OROO; Org
Charts, U.S. Engrs Office, MD, 15 Aug and 1 Nov
43, 15 Feb, 1 Jun, 28 Aug, and 10 Nov 44, and
26 Jan 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 020 (MED-
Org), MDR; Gen Corresp, Dist Engr to MD Subor-
dinates. Sep 42-late 43, OROO [e.g., see Memo, Lt
Col Thomas T. Crenshaw (Mat Sec chief) to Dist
Engr, sub: Org Chart, 13 Nov 42, and Memo, Lt
Col Robert C. Blair (Ex Off, Engr and Opns, MD)
to Dist Engr, sub: Proposed Org for Maint and Opn
of Gen Facilities, 22 Jan 43]; Interv, Fine and Rem-
ington (Hist Div, OCE) with Marshall, 19 Apr 68,
CMH; Interv, Stanley L. Falk and Author with
Charles Vanden Bulck and Capt W. R. McCaulev,
22 Jun 60, CMH; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 1. "General,"
pp. 3.13-3.21, DASA; Groves, \ow It Can Be Told.
pp. 2 and 27-32.

Nichols, the deputy district engineer,
replaced Colonel Marshall as district
engineer when the Corps of Engi-
neers reassigned Marshall to a post
where he might receive his long over-
due promotion to the rank of briga-
dier general.^' But these subsequent
changes in key personnel and in the
location of certain elements would
not significantly affect the basic struc-
ture of the Manhattan Project, the term
that by mid- 1943 most accurately de-
scribed the Army's overall administra-
tive organization for the atomic bomb
program.

The administrative elements that
comprised the Manhattan Project

'' Marshall's new assignment was as commanding
officer. Engineer Replacement and Training Center,
Camp Sutton, N.C., with the rank of brigadier gen-
eral. He remained in this assignment only until No-
vember 1943, when he went overseas to the South-
west Pacific Area to serve in a variety of positions in
Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines (Decem-
ber 1943 to February 1945). Marshall had first sug-
gested to Groves that he be relieved as district engi-
neer of the Manhattan District at the end of 1942,
after realizing that Groves was not going to function
simply as a liaison officer in Washington, DC, but
intended to take a very direct and active role in the
detailed administration of the District. Marshall later
recalled he thought having two senior and experi-
enced engineer officers exercising the command
function was unnecessary duplication. Furthermore,
Marshall, who was senior to Groves in permanent
Regular Army rank, realized his own chances of pro-
motion to general officer rank were remote as long
as he remained in a subordinate position under
Groves. Groves, however, responded negatively to
Marshall's request, stating he felt that he must have
an officer of Marshall's experience and capabilities
in the key district engineer position. Thus, Marshall
resigned himself to serve as district engineer for the
duration of the project; however, in August 1943,
Groves unexpectedly informed him that his request
for relief had been approved. For further details on
Marshall's relief and reassignment see Marshall
Interv, 19 Apr 68, CMH; Marshall Diary, 19 Sep 42,
MDR; and Groves, Sow It Can Be Told. p. 29. In his
account of Marshall's reassignment. Groves errs in
stating that Marshall was relieved for an immediate
"key assignment overseas," overlooking Marshall's
intervening assignment to command Camp Sutton.

Chart 1 — Organization of the Manhattan Project, April 1943

CHIEF OF STAFF

SECRETARY OF WAR

OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

OFFICER IN CHARGE, MANHATTAN PROJECT

DISTRICT ENGINEER, MANHATTAN DISTRICT
DEPUTY DISTRICT ENGINEER

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

CONTRACTORS

TECHNICAL STAFF

m:^

NIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

PROJECT DIRECTOR

'■9 UINT CHIEF

MORGANTOWN

COLUMBIA (LIAISON)

SPECIAL MATERIALS

X-10 UNIT CHIEF

HANFORD
ENGINEER WORKS

CHICAGO (LIAISON)

CLINTON
ENGINEER WORKS
X-IOSEMIWORKS

PROJECT DIRECTOR

Y-12 UNIT CHIEF

CLINTON
ENGINEER VI/ORKS, Y-12

SPECIAL ACCOUNTS _

CLINTON AREA

DEPUTY DISTRICT ENGINEER

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

ADMINISTRATIVE
DIVISION

CALIFORNIA (LIAISON) ^-

ALL SPECIAL
MATERIAL AREAS

K-25 UNIT CHIEF

NEW YORK AREA

MILWAUKEE AREA

COLUMBIA (LIAISON)

INTELLIGENCE

PROTECTIVE SECURITY

LABOR RELATIONS

CLASSIFIED FILES

MILITARY PERSONNEL

AUDITS ACCOUNTING

OFFICE ADMINISTRATION

PRIORITIES & MATERIALS -

WASHINGTON LIAISON —

Sources: MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 12. App. C21. DASA; Org Charts, U.S. Engrs OfTice. MD, 27 Jan and 1 Apr 43, OROO.

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

Manhattan Project Emblem

{unofficial circa 1946)

were divided into two major catego-
ries: those that functioned as integral
elements of the Manhattan District
and those that operated outside the
structure of the District, mostly in the
area of high-level policymaking or in
the executive direction of the atomic
project (Chart 1 ). The central element
in the high-level administrative hierar-
chy of the Manhattan Project was
General Groves's personal headquar-
ters. The headquarters organization
consisted of only a very small group:
Groves; Mrs. Jean O'Leary, his secre-
tary who served as his administrative
assistant in lieu of an executive offi-
cer; and several clerical employees.^®
Shortly after becoming Manhattan
commander, and knowing from expe-
rience that any effort on his part to
expedite important project activities
would require access or negotiations
with government agencies and offi-
cials. Groves decided to locate his
personal headquarters in rooms adja-
cent to those already occupied by the
Manhattan District's Washington Liai-

^* Through most of the war, the headquarters or-
ganization remained small. Then in 1945, in antici-
pation of employment of atomic bombs against
Japan, Groves enlarged it to include a public infor-
mation group.

son Office in the New War Depart-
ment Building on Virginia Avenue, a
few blocks from the White House.
Considered at first to be temporary,
time proved that location especially
well suited to the project's need, and
Groves's office remained there for the
duration of the Army's administration
of the atomic bomb program.

When Groves replaced Marshall as
the Army's project director, the Engi-
neers chief pointedly removed himself
from any further administrative re-
sponsibility for the program. Although
the Corps of Engineers continued to
assist the project, the latter functioned
as a basically independent organiza-
tion, with the Manhattan commander
having responsibility to the Army
Chief of Staff and Secretary of War
and through them to the President.

Committees continued to play an
important role in guiding, advising,
and instructing the Army administra-
tors of the project and, to some
extent, limiting their authority. Begin-
ning in late 1942, the group most in-
volved in providing guidance for the
day-to-day administration was the
MiHtary PoHcy Committee, which de-
rived its authority for policymaking
from the Top Policy Group. Although
the group never formally convened, it
continued, as during the OSRD
period, to review and ratify all major
policies and decisions relating to de-
velopment and employment of atomic
energy for military purposes in World
War II. The OSRD S-1 Executive
Committee also continued to function
as an advisory group until the transfer
of most atomic activities from the

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Mrs. Jean O'Leary Reviewing Project Reports With General Groves

OSRD to the Army was completed in
mid-1943.39

Responsibility for execution of the
plans, policies, and decisions made by
the various advisory groups of the
Manhattan Project devolved first
upon General Groves and through

^^ Subsequently, three other advisory groups con-
tributed significantly to administration of the
project. These were the Combined Policy Commit-
tee (CPC), formed in late 1943, which was con-
cerned with collaboration and exchanges of infor-
mation on atomic matters with the British and Cana-
dian governments; the Combined Development
Trust (CDT), established in June 1944, which was
involved in the international aspects of procure-
ment, supply, and control of uranium and thorium
ores; and the Interim Committee (IC), organized in
May 1945 by the Secretary of War with approval of
the President to advise on postwar control of atomic
energy at home and abroad, on release of informa-
tion to the public, and on employment of the bomb
against Japan. See Ch. X for a detailed discussion
on the establishment and work of the CPC, Ch. XIII
on the CDT, and Ch. XXVI on the IC.

him upon the Manhattan District.
Groves, as officer in charge of the
atomic bomb program for the Army,
exercised command authority over
the District, but he was not its chief
executive officer. That position was
held by the district engineer, who re-
ported to Groves.

The district engineer presided over
an organization that was, as it
emerged in mid- 1943, similar in many
respects to the engineer districts that
had been formed by the Corps of En-
gineers in the past to carry out special
assignments (Chart 2). Its administra-
tive elements were grouped into two
major categories: operating units,
which were involved primarily in the
day-to-day monitoring of contractor
operations; and staff units, which
were engaged in overseeing and pro-

OPERATING UNITS

Chart 2 — Organization of the Manhattan District. August 1943

district engineer
special assistant
executive officer

MEDICAL SECTION

LEGAL SECTION

MADISON SQUARE AREA

SPECIAL PRODUCTS

NEW YORK AREA

TECHNICAL DIVISION

CALIFORNIA AREA

CONSTRUCTION

DIVISION
(Y.12, K-?5, X-10)

COLORADO AREA

BEVERLY AREA

CHICAGO AREA

COLORADO AREA

LEGAL SECTION

ROCHESTER AREA

JRRAY HILL AREA

LMINGTON AREA

ST. LOUIS AREA

EM DETACHMENT

TONAWANDA AREA

WILMINGTON AREA

IOWA AREA

WILMINGTON AREA

BOSTON AREA

SPECIAL ACCOUNTS

WAC DETACHMENT

-i

Some. Org Chan. I'.S. Kngrs Olficc. MI), 1.5 Aug 43. Adniiu Files. Gen Corrcsp. 020 (MED-Org). MDR.

GENERAL GROVES TAKES COMMAND

viding services. In both types of units,
military personnel headed virtually all
administrative elements down to the
section level, although many of the
District employees filling positions
that required special knowledge or
training were civil service workers.
The chiefs of each of these units re-
ported directly to the district engi-
neer, who functioned with the assist-
ance of a small headquarters group
comprised of an executive officer, two
administrative assistants, and legal
and medical advisers.

Operating units, each headed by a
unit chief or an area engineer, were
formed to monitor each of the major
contractor-operated activities. The
number and precise character of these
operating units varied considerably
due to the quantity and type of con-
tract operations under District super-
vision. Thus, in the early period of
the District's operation the units con-
formed to the emphasis on construc-
tion activities, whereas later they re-
flected the shift to plant-operating ac-
tivities. By the time of the District
headquarters move in August 1943
from New York City to Oak Ridge,
five major operating units — Madison
Square Area, Hanford Engineer
Works, Clinton Engineer Works, New
York Area, and Special Products — had
been established.

The elements concerned with over-
seeing project operations and services
were divided among seven major staff
components: the Y-12 (electromag-
netic), K-25 (gaseous diffusion), X-10
(plutonium), and P-9 (heavy water)
unit chiefs; and the Technical, Service
and Control, and Administrative Divi-
sions. The four unit chiefs were re-
sponsible for the overall supervision
of the construction and operations

phases of the production processes.
The Technical Division had responsi-
bility for the major contractor-operat-
ed research and development pro-
grams at Columbia and the Universi-
ties of California (Berkeley), Chicago,
and Rochester; *° the Service and
Control Division, for control func-
tions, intelligence and security mat-
ters, labor relations, safety, and mili-
tary personnel; and the Administra-
tive Division, for procurement and
contracts, fiscal matters, civilian per-
sonnel, priorities and materials, corre-
spondence and the library, classified
files and mail and records, and the
District's Washington Liaison Office.
Additionally, the latter division pro-
vided the Los Alamos Laboratory with
specified routine services.

With the rounding out of the
Army's organization for administra-
tion of the American atomic energy
program in mid- 1943, General
Groves and his District staff were in a
much firmer position to convert the
OSRD-inherited research and devel-
opment organization into an industri-
al complex for producing fissionable
materials for atomic weapons. During
the months that followed, the Army
had to make further internal reorgani-
zations to meet the new requirements
resulting from the shift from plant
construction to plant-operating activi-
ties and the addition of new facili-
ties.'*^ But with Groves at the helm,

^^ In early 1943, Groves selected Professor Staf-
ford L. Warren of the University of Rochester to
direct a medical research program on the effects of
radiation. See Ch. XX.

''While from mid-1943 until the end of World
War II the basic pattern of the Manhattan District's
administrative organization remained relatively
fixed, the district engineer in 1944 established new

C.onlinued

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

carrying out the Military Policy Com- seemingly insurmountable obstacles,
mittee's decisions and overcoming the atomic project moved ahead.

operating units for specific functions — for example,
to administer divisions charged with supervising op-
eration of community and site facilities in Tennes-
see, to supervise construction and operation of the
third major production plant (thermal diffusion),
and to expedite production in all of the project's
major plants. He also abolished the staff unit's Serv-
ice and Control and Technical Divisions, placing
part of their functions in the Administrative Division
(for example, labor relations) and shifting the rest
into special staff elements that reported directlv to

him. Thus, by late 1944, the special staff included
control, research control, safety, and historical
record sections, medical and naval detachment ele-
ments, a public relations and special services office,
a legal adviser, a district inspector, and a special as-
signments officer (cover designation for officer re-
sponsible for liaison with Canadian atomic program
officials). Not on the special staff but functioning as
units in the District headquarters were intelligence
and security, patents, fire protection, and liaison
elements in Washington, D.C.

PART TWO
PRODUCING FISSIONABLE MATERIALS

CHAPTER V

Organizing for Production

In June 1942, the Army took its
first step to form a production organi-
zation for the manufacture of fis-
sionable materials with negotiation of
an AEM (architect-engineer-manager)
agreement with the Stone and Web-
ster Engineering Corporation of
Boston; however, as the complexity of
the AEM job became evident in the
following months, attempts were
made to involve a number of other
leading American industrial and con-
struction firms. The Army's task of
getting the skilled manpower and
technical know-how required to
produce fissionable materials in quan-
tities sufficient to fabricate atomic
weapons was not easy. It was compli-
cated greatly by the absolute necessity
for speed, which meant that contracts
had to be let before the customary
preliminary plans and technical data
were available. This lack of specific
information — blueprints, specifica-

tions, and similar data — was an added
handicap because many of the scien-
tific and technical processes involved
were virtually unknown in industrial
circles. Also, because many industrial
organizations already had committed
most of their resources to war pro-
duction, the managers and engineers
of these organizations were reluctant
to take on additional responsibilities

for a project of such unusual and un-
certain character. The Army therefore
was faced with the problem of some-
how convincing them that the success
of the program was so crucial to the
outcome of the war they simply could
not refuse to participate.

Plutonium Project

The question of who should have
responsibility for carrying through the
plutonium program to the production
stage had been a matter of contro-
versy for some time at the Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory.^ Some of the scien-
tists had proposed that they them-
selves direct the design, development
and engineering, and construction of
the plutonium plant. Metallurgical
Laboratory Director Arthur Compton,
who early in his career had worked as
an employee and consultant for large
electrical companies, knew that this
proposal ran counter to the proce-
dure customarily followed in Ameri-
can industry, namely, the assigning of
research, development, and produc-
tion to separate departments — a prac-

* Paragraphs on the Metallurgical Laboratory
based on Compton, Atomic Qiiesl. pp. 108-10;
Groves, \ou> It Can Be Told. pp. 44-46; DSM Chro-
nology, 25 Jun 42, Sec. 2(e), OROO; Hewlett and
Anderson, Xeiv World, p. 184.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

tice that experience had shown gener-
ally brought the most efficient results.
He suggested that time would be
saved by securing an experienced in-
dustrial firm already accustomed to
carrying out large-scale projects, leav-
ing the research to the Metallurgical
Laboratory staff.

The staff's reaction, he recalled
later, "was a near rebellion." ^ The
younger scientists pointed out that
they had demonstrated their ability to
supervise development of processes
to the stage of large-scale production
by the success they had so recently
achieved in increasing the output of
pure uranium metal and graphite.
After having contributed so much to
its initiation and development, they
wanted to see the plutonium program
through to final fulfillment. And sol-
idly backing them were those labora-
tory scientists who had been born and
educated in Europe. Most of them
were inclined to suspect the motives
of large industrial firms. Also, most
had a more extensive knowledge of
engineering techniques than their
American counterparts learned as a
regular part of their scientific
training.

By early summer of 1942, progress
in research required that a decision
soon be reached. Compton assembled
some seventy-five members of his re-
search and administrative staff to
agree on a plan of organization. It
soon became apparent they were not
going to reach a consensus, so Comp-
ton announced he would proceed
without their approval. At the OSRD
S-1 Executive Committee meeting of
25 June, Compton supported the de-
cision to assign AEM responsibility

Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 109.

for the plutonium as well as the other
processes to Stone and Webster.

Although the S-1 Committee had
suggested that the University of Chi-
cago might operate the pilot facility
to be built in the Argonne Forest area
southwest of the city, no action had
yet been taken. In mid-August,
Compton urged Colonel Marshall that
an operator should be selected
promptly as construction of this unit
was about to begin. He also pointed
out that the operator of the Argonne
chemical facility probably would have
responsibility for the separation works
of the main plutonium plant; there-
fore, the operator's engineering and
design personnel should have an op-
portunity to observe construction of
the plant at Argonne.

As possible operators, Compton
recommended that Marshall approach
E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company,
Standard Oil Development Company,
or Union Carbide and Carbon Corpo-
ration. For reasons of security, Mar-
shall wanted to hold to a minimum
the number of firms to be brought in
to build and operate project facilities.
He proposed that for the time being
Stone and Webster add operation of
the Argonne separation plant to its
other responsibilities. Both Compton
and the engineering firm promptly ac-
cepted this arrangement — the latter,
however, with a proviso that it be per-
mitted to secure technical assistance
from other organizations.

At the Bohemian Grove meeting in
early September, the S-1 Committee
recommended that Stone and Web-
ster get the technical assistance it re-
quired. General Groves, newly ap-
pointed as Manhattan commander,
and Stone and Webster agreed on

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

26 September that Du Pont should
be approached and the S-1 Commit-
tee accepted their decision. Two
weeks later, Du Pont assented to
design and procure not only the
chemical separation equipment but
also part of the pile equipment for
the plutonium pilot plant. At first Du
Pont had resisted taking on any re-
sponsibility for the piles, pleading
lack of experience and strain on its fa-
cilities as a result of its other govern-
ment projects. But Groves and Comp-
ton finally persuaded the company
that this was the logical solution to a
difficult problem.^

Because Du Pont's contract covered
only design and procurement of
equipment and because Stone and
Webster would operate only the Ar-
gonne separation installation, the
most important plutonium production
problem — securing an operator for
the other pilot facilities and the pro-
duction plant — remained to be solved.
Both Groves and Compton were
moving rapidly toward the view that
the size and complexity of this task
required the selection of a company
other than Stone and Webster. The
Manhattan chief paid his first visit to
the Metallurgical Laboratory in early
October 1942. Reviewing the plutoni-
um program with Compton and his
senior staff. Groves quickly concluded
that to bring this process into produc-
tion was going to be a far greater
project than anyone had anticipated.
After further consultation. Groves

=» Marshall Diary, 14, 18, 26 Sep and 2, 9 Oct 42,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp. (iroves Files, Misc Recs
Sec, behind Fldr 5, MDR; DSM Chronolog\, 14-15
Aug 42. Sec. 16, 13 Sep 42, Sec. 2(e), and 26 Sep
42, Sec. 15(b). OROO: Ms, Leslie R. Groves, "Now
It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan
Project" (hereafter cited as (iroves Ms), pp. 95-96,

c;mh

and Compton decided that Stone and
Webster should be relieved of all re-
sponsibility for the plutonium project,
a decision concurred in by both Van-
nevar Bush and James B. Conant.*

As General Groves learned more
about the plutonium process, he also
came to the conclusion that it would
be preferable to turn the entire
project of design, engineering, con-
struction, and operation over to a
single firm. If the proper organization
were chosen, the gain in efficiency of
operation would ease his own task of
coordination. One Du Pont policy, in
particular, impressed Groves. Unlike
most American industrial firms, the
company had a long-established prac-
tice of building its own plants. Hence,
Du Pont had the resources and expe-
rience necessary to carry out all as-
pects of the plutonium production
plant, an advantage from the stand-
point of both security and speed of
getting into production.

When Groves proposed to Comp-
ton, Bush, Conant, and other leaders
that Du Pont be asked to assume sole
responsibility for the plutonium pro-
duction project, replacing Stone and
Webster, he received a generally fa-
vorable response. But the Manhattan
chief was fully aware that several key
members of the Metallurgical Labora-
tory, with whom Du Pont engineers
would have to work quite closely, re-
mained unreconciled to any course
that would take plutonium production
out of their hands. Furthermore,

■* .Account of negotiations with Du Pont drawn
primarily from Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 46-
52; Memo, sub: Prelim Negotiations . . . Between
I'nited States of America and Du Pont . . . , Incl to
Ltr, R. E. DeRight (Du Pont) to Groves. 30 Oct 43,
OCG Files. Gen Corresp. MP Files, Fldr 2F, MDR;
DSM Chronology, 10 Nov 42, Sec. 23(b), OROO.

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

some members of this dissatisfied
group would be especially upset over
the selection of Du Pont, which in
many ways seemed to them to epito-
mize big industry.

Groves, nevertheless, decided to
take immediate steps to negotiate an
agreement with Du Pont. On 30 Oc-
tober, he invited Willis Harrington,
senior vice president of the firm, to
meet with him and Conant, who him-
self once had served as a consultant
to Du Pont. Harrington came the next
day, accompanied by chemist Charles
Stine, also a vice president of Du
Pont and a friend of Conant. Groves
and Conant gave the two Du Pont ex-
ecutives data on the pile program and
general information about the other
processes and the military objectives
of the project, emphasizing the ur-
gency of the program and frankly ad-
mitting there were serious questions
as to its feasibility.

Harrington and Stine were appalled
at the idea that their company should
assume major responsibility for this
phase of the atomic program. As they
perceived it, the technical require-
ments were formidable, the operating
conditions unorthodox, and the scien-
tific field one in which Du Pont had
no special experience and compe-
tence. Faced, however, with Groves's
insistence that Du Pont was the only
industrial organization in America
with the capacity to build the plutoni-
um plant, they reluctantly indicated
the company might be able to do the
job. But a final decision could only be
made by Du Pont President Walter S.
Carpenter, Jr., and other members of
the firm's executive committee follow-
ing an investigation by company
chemists and engineers. Consequent-
ly, a day or two later. Groves granted

the company permission to send a
team of experts to the Metallurgical
Laboratory to see the work in
progress.

On 10 November, General Groves,
Colonel Nichols, the deputy district
engineer, Arthur Compton, and
Norman Hilberry, who was associate
director of the Metallurgical Labora-
tory, went to Wilmington, Delaware,
to plead further for Du Pont's assist-
ance. Groves emphasized to Carpen-
ter that the project was of utmost im-
portance to the war effort, adding
that President Roosevelt, Secretary of
War Stimson, and Chief of Staff Mar-
shall also shared this opinion. Fur-
thermore, he continued, there was
reason to believe the Axis states
might soon be producing fissionable
materials in quantities sufficient to
manufacture atomic weapons. The
only known defense against such
weapons was "fear of their counter-
employment." ^ If the United States
could develop such weapons before
the enemy, it could materially shorten
the war and potentially reduce Ameri-
can casualties by the tens of
thousands.

Following his conference with Car-
penter, Groves went to a meeting of
the Du Pont executive committee.
There, he was joined by Nichols,
Compton, and Hilberry. With Car-
penter presiding at the meeting.
Groves repeated what he had said
earlier to the Du Pont president.
Some committee members expressed
reservations, many of them traceable
to the report of the team of company
chemists and engineers who had just
returned from a visit to the Metallur-

^ Groves, Now It Can Be Told. p. 49.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

gical Laboratory. The team had re-
ported that the laboratory scientists
had neither demonstrated a self-sus-
taining chain reaction nor furnished
adequate information concerning the
basic problem of controlling and re-
moving the tremendous amount of
heat that would be generated in a pile
operation. And though they were at
work on three different pile designs,
none — at least when judged in terms
of practical engineering — seemed
likely to provide a prototype for a
large-scale production pile. Progress
on the plutonium separation process
did not appear much more encourag-
ing. The scientists had yet to demon-
strate a method that would separate
more than microscopic amounts of
plutonium from radioactive fission
products. On the basis of its observa-
tions, the Du Pont team estimated
that only minute amounts of plutoni-
um could be produced in 1943, not
much more in 1944, and only
enough, possibly, in 1945 to fulfill the
planned rate of production for
weapon purposes.

The pessimistic tone of the Du
Pont executive committee's evaluation
was not surprising; they concluded,
nevertheless, that the pile method was
probably feasible. To be certain of
this, however, they felt Du Pont must
have control over all aspects of the
project. Furthermore, the government
should guarantee the company
against loss from the obviously great
hazards inherent in the process. Car-
penter informed General Groves on
12 November that Du Pont would
take the job, and the Manhattan com-
mander immediately directed Colonel
Nichols to draft the terms of a
contract.

With Du Pont's participation appar-
ently assured, the Military Policy
Committee cautiously endorsed going
ahead with plans to build a plutonium
plant capable of producing 1.0 kilo-
gram of fissionable material per day.
It also directed that Du Pont take
over from Stone and Webster at Chi-
cago, relieving the Boston firm of vir-
tually all of its AEM responsibilities
for plutonium project activities.^

Hardly had that question been set-
tled when important new data cast se-
rious doubt on the explosive charac-
teristics of plutonium. Wallace A.
Akers, technical chief of the British
Directorate of Tube Alloys (corre-
sponding to the S-1 Executive Com-
mittee), was in Washington, D.C., on
14 November to discuss information
exchange with Conant. During a
luncheon conversation, Akers re-
vealed that British atomic scientists
had discovered that plutonium had
premature fissioning tendencies that
might make it unsuitable for use in a
weapon. Greatly disturbed, Conant
checked with Ernest Lawrence and
Arthur Compton. When they told him
that both Oppenheimer and Glenn
Seaborg, a chemist who had done ex-
tensive research on plutonium at the
University of California, Berkeley, ex-
pressed some concern about the pos-
sibility of obtaining material of suffi-
cient purity to ensure the fissioning
qualities in a weapon, Conant got in
touch with General Groves. The Man-
hattan chief responded immediately
by setting up an investigating team
composed of Lawrence, Compton,

« MPC Min, 12 Nov 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp,
MP Files, Fidr 23, Tab A, MDR.

100

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

and Oppenheimer, as well as physicist
Edwin McMillan."^

On 18 November the four scientists
reported back to Groves in optimistic
terms.® Basing their recommenda-
tions on the conclusion that despite
"many difFicult but solvable problems
it should be possible to produce a sat-
isfactory bomb . . . from 49 [plutoni-
um] probably during 1945," they
urged maximum speed in building a
plutonium production plant. The sci-
entists supported their recommenda-
tions with Oppenheimer's estimate of
the degree of plutonium purity re-
quired for a bomb.

Instead of convincing Conant and
Du Pont of the feasibility of plutoni-
um, Oppenheimer's data had the op-
posite effect. By chance, the Harvard
University president had just received
figures on plutonium purity require-
ments from British scientist Sir James
Chadwick, and when he compared
these with Oppenheimer's, he was
shocked to find that the latter's esti-
mates allowed for a degree of impuri-
ty ten times as great. This discrepancy
was so large that Conant momentarily
suspected American scientists had
erred seriously in their calculations.
Not until he received additional data
and written assurances from Compton
and Lawrence was his confidence in
the feasibility of plutonium fully
restored.^

^ DSM Chronology, 14 Nov 42. Sec. 2(a), and 19
Nov 42, Sec. 23, OROO; Hewlett and Anderson,
Xeu' World, pp. 109-10. See Ch. X for details on
problems with information interchange between the
British and American atomic programs.

* Team's report in Memo (for File), Lawrence,
Compton, Oppenheimer, and McMillan, 18 Nov 42,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 401.1-410.2 (Materials),
MDR.

^ Hewlett and Anderson, Xeu> World, pp. 109-10;
Llr, Lawrence to Conant, 23 Nov 42, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 201 (Conant), MDR; Ltr, Compton to

As for Du Font's engineers, Oppen-
heimer's estimate appeared so exact-
ing that it would be unattainable in
any reasonable period of time. In
Groves's office on 18 November,
Charles Stine and Crawford H.
Greenewalt, a chemical engineer serv-
ing as chemical director of Du Font's
Grasselli Chemicals Department, com-
plained with some feeling that the
Manhattan commander was asking the
firm to undertake the most difficult
and unpromising of the processes for
producing fissionable materials and
suggested the company might be
better qualified to carry out one of
the other processes. Greenewalt's lack
of enthusiasm at this juncture can be
traced to his pessimistic interpretation
of some information he had received
a short time before, leading him to
conclude that there was only about a
60-percent chance that a sustained
chain reaction would be achieved. ^°

Compton, who was also present,
was shocked by Stine's assertion that
the odds were 100 to 1 against
achieving plutonium production in
time to be of any value to the war
effort. For the Metallurgical Laborato-
ry chief this marked the beginning of
a gradual disillusionment with Du
Font. By the end of December he
would be seriously suggesting that
some other firm be brought in to
build the production plants. Compton
later recalled that he "probably took
Stine's words much more seriously
than they were intended." Neverthe-

Conant, 8 Dec 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1,
MDR.

10 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told p. 52; Ltr. Law-
rence to Conant, 23 Nov 42, MDR; Compton, Atomic
Quest, pp. 132-34. Du Pont purchased the Grasselli
Chemical Company of Cleveland in 1928 and incor-
porated it as a separate department in the firm.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

101

less, under those immediate circum-
stances, he felt that he could not
"have drawn such a conclusion with-
out considering the task a waste effort
as far as the present war was con-
cerned." Therefore, Compton deter-
mined immediately to try to change
"their [Du Font's] point of view to
one of optimism." ^^

Reassessment of Processes To
Produce a Bomb

At the meeting on 10 November,
the Du Pont executive committee sug-
gested that a reappraisal of all aspects
of the project would help the compa-
ny in determining the precise role it
should play in the atomic energy pro-
gram. Seeing the logic of this sugges-
tion. Groves and Conant thought the
time was appropriate for a reassess-
ment because project emphasis was
shifting from research and develop-
ment in scientific principles to practi-
cal application on an industrial scale.
Furthermore, the Military Policy
Committee shortly was going to have
to prepare a progress report to the
President on the project. ^^

Leu'is Reviewing Committee

Groves acted promptly to imple-
ment reassessment of the project. On
18 November, following close con-
sultation with Conant, he appointed
a five-man reviewing committee,
headed by Warren K. Lewis, a highly
respected professor of chemical engi-

" Quotations from Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 134.
See also ibid., pp. 132-33, and Groves, Now It Can
Be Told. pp. 55-57.

12 MPC Min, 12 Nov 42, MDR; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec
42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab
B, MDR.

neering at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). Groves made cer-
tain that Du Font was well represent-
ed on the committee, appointing
Crawford H. Greenewalt, who had
been a student under Lewis at MIT
and was an expert on research; Tom
C. Gary, manager of the Design Divi-
sion in the Engineering Department
and a specialist in construction; and
Roger Williams, chemical director of
the Ammonia Department, who was
an expert on plant operations. The
fifth member, Eger V. Murphree of
Standard Oil Development Company
and former head of the OSRD S-1
Section's planning board, became ill at
the last minute and was unable to par-
ticipate in the committee's activities. ^^
The committee's mission was to re-
view the entire project from a manu-
facturing standpoint. To accomplish
this, committee members would visit
Harold Urey's project at Columbia
University, investigate Arthur Comp-
ton's research on the pile process at
the Metallurgical Laboratory, and as-
sess Ernest Lawrence's work on the
electromagnetic process at the Radi-
ation Laboratory. They would not
evaluate the centrifuge method. The
consensus was that this process was
unlikely to produce U-235 in suffi-
cient quantities to be of use during
the war. The Military Policy and S-1
Executive Committees agreed that all
work, including that on a pilot plant,
should be reduced to the minimum
necessary to establish the feasibility of
the method. Although some support
for the centrifuge process still per-

'^DSM Chronolog>', 19 Nov 42, Sec. 23, OROO;
Groves Diary, 18, 19, 21 Nov 42, LRG; Groves, Xow
It Can Be Told, p. 52; Compton, Atomic Quest, pp.
134-35.

102

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

sisled, in lime it would be dropped as a
major method for producing fission-
able material for the bomb.

After conferring briefly with Groves
and Conant in Washington, D.C., on
21 November, the Lewis reviewing
committee began its toiir in New
York. There, committee members met
with leaders of the gaseous diffusion
project and inspected the experimen-
tal equipment in the laboratories at
Columbia University, as well as con-
ferred with respresentatives of the
M. W. Kellogg Company which had
been assigned work on the diffusion
process. Leaving New York by train,
the committee reached Chicago on
the twenty-sixth. Thanksgiving Day.^'*

Compton had first heard about the
committee's impending visit on the
nineteenth. Sensing that the occasion
would afford him the chance to con-
vince Du Pont and the leaders of the
Manhattan Project that plutonium
could be produced in quantity, and
also that the rest of the atomic pro-
gram was feasible and of great impor-
tance for the war, he and his scientific
staff immediately had directed all pos-
sible resources into a twofold effort:
completing as soon as possible the
chain reaction experiment under way
since October, and preparing a report
to demonstrate conclusively the feasi-
bility of the plutonium project. ^^

Unfortunately the experiment was
still in progress when the committee
arrived, but a hundred-page feasibility
report was ready for study. This care-
fully organized and documented
report presented a most optimistic es-
timate of the situation. Plutonium

could be produced in one or more of
several types of chain-reacting piles,
of which a uranium-graphite system
cooled with helium, preferably, or
with ordinary pure water seemed to
offer the most practical solution.
Also, chemical extraction of plutoni-
um in a sufficiently pure state to be
used successfully in a bomb was feasi-
ble. Moreover, this bomb would prob-
ably be more effective than previous
estimate had indicated. Provided the
plutonium project received adequate
support, the goal to produce suffi-
cient fissionable material in 1944 and
to attain the production stage in 1945
should be possible. Report in hand,
the committee left for Berkeley
Thanksgiving evening. ^^

Achievement of the Chain Reaction

The Lewis reviewing commitee re-
turned from the West Coast via Chi-
cago on 2 December. Stopping over
between trains, they consulted further
with the Metallurgical Laboratory
staff. "Lm sorry," Compton ex-
plained, "but Enrico Fermi has an im-
portant experiment in hand in the
laboratory and has asked to be
excused." ^^

The "important experiment" was,
of course, the continuing attempt to
achieve a controlled chain reaction in
the experimental pile then under con-
struction at the Metallurgical Labora-
tory. In October, after laboratory sci-
entists had accumulated a sufficient
amount of uranium metal and graph-

'^MPC Min. 12 Nov 42. MDR; DSM Chronology,
14 Nov 42, Sec. 2(0, and 19 Nov 42, Sec. 23,
OROO.

^^Compion, Atomic Qiust, p. 135.

"^Ibid., pp. 135-36; Rpt, Compton, sub: Feasibili-
ty of "49" Proj, 26 Nov 42, OSRD; Smyth Report,
Ch. 6, especially pp. 64-65 and 74-76. Smyth based
this chapter largely on the feasibility report.

"Compton, Atomic Qiiest, p. 140.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

103

ite of requisite purity, two alternating
teams began piling graphite blocks in-
termixed with lumps of uranium in a
carefully devised pattern atop a
timber framework on the floor of a
squash court under the West Stands
of Stagg Field, the University of Chi-
cago football stadium. When news of
this ongoing experiment reached
Groves and Conant during the 14 No-
vember S-1 meeting, both men ex-
pressed great alarm; however, but-
tressed with evidence from several
tests carried out while the pile was
under construction and supported by
the senior scientists on his staff,
Compton assured Groves and Conant
that the experiment posed no great
hazard to the heavily populated area
adjacent to the university. Although
Groves decided not to interfere, he
nevertheless alerted the area engineer
at the Metallurgical Laboratory to
inform him immediately of any signs
or developments that indicated the
Chicago scientists were underestimat-
ing the element of danger. ^^

Based on the results of earlier ex-
periments, the scientists constructing
the pile knew that when it reached a
certain size it would become critical,
thus initiating what was hoped would
be a self-sustaining chain reaction. To
prevent the possibility of premature
fission and also to be able to control
the reaction once it began, the scien-
tists inserted several neutron-absorb-
ing cadmium strips as control rods.
Removal of these control rods would
release the flow of neutrons in the
lumps of uranium and permit the
chain reaction to begin; their reinser-
tion would halt the process. Various
measuring instruments also were at-

'» Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 53-54.

tached to or placed in the pile, and
the whole setup was watched over by
Fermi and his colleagues with all the
care and nervous intensity that so
unique and critical an experiment
inspired.

Late in the afternoon of 1 Decem-
ber, Fermi's crew placed the last lump
of uranium and layer of graphite
blocks on the pile, by now a massive
structure, essentially square in shape
and solid-appearing from the floor up
to about two-thirds of its height, and
from that point to its top near the
high ceiling, a series of setbacks.

On the morning of 2 December,
the entire experimental group assem-
bled for the crucial test. Most of
those present were on the balcony of
the court, either as observers or oper-
ators of the instrument control cabi-
net located there. Norman Bilberry,
equipped with an axe, was prepared
to sever a rope tied to the balcony
rail, which would drop into place an
emergency safety rod suspended over
the pile. A young scientist from the
laboratory staff, George Weil, re-
mained on the floor of the court to
handle the final control rod. On a
platform above the pile, three men
stood ready to flood it with a cadmi-
um salt solution, which would absorb
sufficient neutrons to halt a runaway
reaction if the pile's other control
mechanisms should fail. A hundred
feet away, behind two concrete walls,
another group monitored the test by
means of instruments and an inter-
communication system. Should any-
thing go wrong on the squash court,
incapacitating the group there, the
"remote control" men could throw a
switch to activate electrically operated

104

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

safety rods and halt the chain
reaction.

In midmorning, Fermi sent word to
Compton that the test was about to
begin and the Metallurgical Laborato-
ry chief, accompanied by Crawford
Greenewalt, whom he had selected as
the representative of the Lewis re-
viewing committee, hastened from
nearby Eckhart Hall to the stadium.
As they arrived, Fermi was testing the
pile systematically. As Weil slowly
withdrew the final control rod, Fermi
carefully checked the recording in-
struments. With each foot the rod was
pulled out, the pile came closer to
criticality, and the instruments meas-
uring the neutron activity clicked
faster. By about 11:30 a.m. the grow-
ing tension among the scientists in
the squash court had become obvi-
ous. "I'm hungry," said Fermi, sud-
denly breaking the spell. "Let's go to
lunch."

Shortly after 2:00 p.m. the tests
were resumed. Faster and faster
clicked the neutron counters as the
control rod was slowly withdrawn. At
about 3:25, Weil moved the rod an-
other foot. Fermi made a rapid com-
putation with his slide rule and, turn-
ing to Compton, exclaimed: "This is
going to do it." As the neutron count
ran faster, it was obvious Fermi was
right. The rate of rise of the count
was now constant. "The reaction is
self-sustaining," announced Fermi,
meaning that the slow fissioning of
uranium atoms in the pile would con-
tinue to produce enough neutrons to
keep the process going.

After nearly half an hour of oper-
ation, when the radiation around the
pile began to rise to dangerous levels,
Fermi ordered the control rods rein-
serted. The world's first self-sustain-

ing nuclear reaction had been initiat-
ed, allowed to run, and then stopped.
Man had accomplished the controlled
release of atomic energy. ^^

Lewis Reviewing Committee Report

While practical demonstration of a
chain reaction did much to relieve the
hesitancy of Du Pont, the company's
management was perhaps even more
encouraged by the report of the
Lewis reviewing committee, submitted
on 4 December. On the premise that
"production must be substantially 25
kilos of '25' [U-235] or 15 kilos of
'49' [plutonium] per month," the
committee felt that the diffusion pro-
cess had the best chance of producing
enough fissionable material of the de-
sired quality and, equally important,
that it would probably be the first to
attain full-scale production. They
agreed that the electromagnetic pro-
cess was probably the most immedi-
ately feasible of all methods under
consideration, but it seemed least
likely to produce U-235 in the quanti-
ty that would be needed. Despite
problems, the pile process now had a
much better chance of success and
might even provide "the possibility of
earliest achievement of the desired
result." Accordingly, the committee
recommended construction of a diffu-

'' Quotations from WD Press Release, "Back-
ground Material for L'se in Connection With Ob-
servance of the Fourth Anniversary, December
Second, of the Scientific Event of Outstanding Sig-
nificance in the United States Program of Develop-
ment of Atomic Energv," 1 Dec 46, pp. 10-11,
CMH. See also Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 136-43;
Smyth Report, pp. 70 and 177-81; Enrico Fermi,
"The First Pile," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 18
(Dec 62): 19-24. Many of the other published works
cited in this volume also contain lengthy descrip-
tions of this event.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

105

sion plant, of a pile pilot plant and
several full-scale production piles,
and of facilities for producing heavy
water. It urged continued develop-
mental work on the electromagnetic
process, including building a pilot
plant to produce small quantities of
U-235 for use in experiments. Finally,
the committee recommended that
companies with appropriate experi-
ence be given the responsibility nec-
essary for operating all these projects.
There no longer seemed any doubt
concerning the feasibility of produc-
ing sufficient quantities of fissionable
material. ^°

When the Military Policy Commit-
tee met on 10 December in General
Groves's office, it had before it the
report of the Lewis reviewing commit-
tee. The effect of this report and the
events that had taken place in Chicago
a week earlier were evident. At its
meeting on 12 November, the Mili-
tary Policy Committee had agreed to
proceed with the construction and op-
eration of a small electromagnetic
separation plant; a pilot diffusion
plant and, if practicable, a small pro-
duction plant; and a plutonium
plant. ^^ Now a month later, the com-
mittee's decisions were far more opti-
mistic. The pile method for produc-
ing plutonium, it decided, would "be
carried forward full blast." Design for
the pilot diffusion plant was well ad-
vanced and construction of test units
was already under way at Columbia
University. But rather than await com-

pletion of the pilot plant, the commit-
tee decided that work on the design
and construction of a full-scale pro-
duction plant should begin at once.
The electromagnetic plant would be
comprised of only 500 tanks "in
order to get the earliest possible pro-
duction of material, even though it
may be in small quantities." ^^ Thus,
the Military Policy Committee had
opened the way to rapid development
of those processes that seemed most
likely to provide large-scale produc-
tion of fissionable materials.

Contract Negotiations

In rapid sequence during the next
few weeks. Groves and the Manhattan
staff oversaw negotiation of construc-
tion and operation contracts. The
first of these was a letter contract for
Du Pont on 21 December (effective as
of 1 December 1942), pending com-
pletion of negotiations for a formal
contract. It provided that the com-
pany secure designs, procure equip-
ment, and erect facilities for a large-
scale plutonium production plant,
which it would also operate. Although
the agreement of I December super-
seded the letter contract of 3 Octo-
ber, which had provided that Du Pont
design and procure equipment for
plutonium pilot installations, it did
not specify that the firm would build
a pilot plant. New location problems
had made temporary postponement
of settling this aspect expedient. ^^

^° Conclusions of Reviewing Committee, 4 Dec 42,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (Special Reviewing
Committee), MDR. These conclusions, but without
the statistical analysis portion, are also in the MPC
Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR. See also Compton, Atomic
Quest, p. 145.

2> MPC Min, 12 Nov 42, MDR; Groves Diarv,
10 Dec 42, LRG.

" MPC Mm, 10 Dec 42, MDR; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec
42, MDR.

23 Ltr Contract W-7412-eng-l, 1 Dec 42 (accept-
ed 21 Dec 42), Tab B; Ltr, E. B. Yancey (Gen Mgr,
Explosives Dept, Du Pont) to Lt Col J. M. Harman,
21 Dec 42, Incl to Memo, Maj A. Tammaro to Maj

Continued

106

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Du Pont did not want to manufac-
ture plutonium after the war and
made ckar it was agreeing to do so
now only because of the expressed
desire of the Army. Accordingly, in
the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, Du
Pont waived all profits and accepted
the assignment on the basis of reim-
bursement for the company's ex-
penses on the project, plus a fixed fee
of $1.00. However, arrangements
were made to protect the firm from
financial losses that might arise, be-
cause the hazards concomitant to the
new process were not yet fully known
or understood and conceivably could
result in catastrophic losses for the
company. Du Pont requested that the
contract be submitted to the comp-
troller general of the United States
for approval, particularly the sections
covering reimbursement and indemni-
fication, which the company feared
might otherwise be upset by a future
ruling. General Groves agreed and, as
further assurance to Du Pont, Vanne-
var Bush also forwarded a letter to
President Roosevelt, explaining the
basis upon which the government was
assuming responsibility for the unique
hazards involved in the project. ^^

The Army had to negotiate with a
number of companies for design, con-
struction, and operation of the gase-

Claude C. Pierce, Jr. (Washington Liaison OfTice),
sub: Du Pont Contract W-7412-eng-l, 5 Dec 44,
Tab G. Both in OCG Files, Gen Corresp, Groves
Files, Fldr 19, MDR. Copies of formal contract,
completed on 8 Nov 43, on file in OROO. See also
amendments and amplifications to this contract,
same file, and Du Pont, Stockholders Bulletin, 13 Aug
45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161 (Du Pont),
MDR.

2* Groves, \ow It Can Be Told. pp. 46-59; Memo,
sub: Prelim Negotiations . . . , Incl to Ltr, De-
Right to Groves, 30 Oct 43, MDR; DSM Chronolo-
gy, 10 Nov 42, Sec. 23(b), OROO; Compton, Atomic
Quest, pp. 131-34.

ous diffusion plant. Because the M. W.
Kellogg Company had been work-
ing for nearly a year on research and
design for a pilot plant, the Military
Policy Committee decided at its
10 December meeting that this firm
should also design and engineer the
production plant. Hence, on the
twelfth. General Groves requested
Kellogg to act as architect-engineer
for the diffusion project and, two days
later, the company signed the neces-
sary letter contract. To simplify oper-
ations and for reasons of security,
Kellogg created a wholly-owned sub-
sidiary, the Kellex Corporation, ^^ for
the project. After consulting with
Kellex representatives, the Manhattan
commander asked Union Carbide and
Carbon Corporation to operate the
plant. By late January, the Carbide
and Carbon Chemicals Corporation —
a subsidiary of Union Carbide — had
signed a Manhattan letter contract
and its engineers had begun working
closely with Kellex on difficult design
problems.

While earlier plans had called for
Stone and Webster to build the diffu-
sion plant, it soon became clear this
job would overburden the engineer-
ing firm's already heavily taxed re-
sources. Some consideration also was
given to having Kellex construct the
plant, but Groves decided that organi-
zation would have its hands full with
the design and engineering problems.
Groves remembered that he had been
favorably impressed by the manage-
ment, skill, and integrity of the J. A.
Jones Construction Company of
Charlotte, North Carolina, which had

25 The name Kellex was derived from "Kell" for
Kellogg and "X" for secret.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

107

built several large camps for the
Army. The company accepted a letter
contract covering this assignment on
18 May 1943.26

Arrangements already had been
made for Stone and Webster to build
the electromagnetic plant; however,
because project leaders had decided
that the task of operating the plant
would be beyond the firm's practical
capabilities, Groves offered the job to
the Tennessee Eastman Corporation,
a subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak
Company, which had considerable ex-
perience in chemical processes. On
5 January 1943, Tennessee Eastman
informed Groves that it would accept
the job and the next day signed a
letter of intent, pending negotiation
of a formal contract. Within a few
days key personnel of the company
went to the Radiation Laboratory at
Berkeley to familiarize themselves
with Lawrence's experimental electro-
magnetic separation units. ^^

26MPC Min, 10 Dec 42 and 21 Jan 43. MDR;
DSM Chronology, 12 Dec 42, Sec. 4, 28 Dec 42,
Sec, 15(b), 30 Dec 42, Sec. 16, 14 Jan 43, Sec. 2(f).
OROO; Groves, \ow It Cati Be Told. pp. 111-12;
MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3, "Design," Sec. 3, Vol. 4, "Con-
struction," Sec. 3. and Vol. 5, "Operation," pp. 2.1-
2.4, DASA. Copies of formal CPFF contracts execut-
ed with M. W. Kellogg Co. on 1 1 Apr 44 (Contract
W-7405-eng-23, efTective 14 Dec 42), with Carbide
and Carbon Chemicals Corp. on 23 Nov 43 (Con-
tract W-7405-eng-26, efTective 18 Jan 43), and with
J. A.Jones Construction Co. on 2 Mar 44 (Contract
W-7421-eng-ll, effective 18 May 43) on file in
OROO. See also l.ist. sub: Signed Prime and Sub-
contracts Over $100,000, Incl to Memo, 1.1 Col K.
H. Marsden (Ex Off, MD) to Groves, 31 Aug 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161, MDR.

" Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 96-97; DSM
Chronology, 28 Dec 42, Sec. 2(e), OROO; MDH,
Bk 5, Vol. 6, "Operation," Sec. 2, DASA. Groves
Diarv, 30-31 Dec 42 and 5 Jan 43, l.RG. Copv of
formal CPFF contract executed with Tennessee
Kastman Corp. on 7 Jun 43 (Contract W-7401-eng-
23, effective 6 Jan 43) on file in OROO.

Upon examining the plans for vari-
ous types of piles at the Metallurgical
Laboratory in early November 1942,
Du Pont engineers had rated the pile
with a heavy water moderator second
only to the helium-cooled graphite
pile. It now appeared to be the logical
choice "as a second line of defense"
in case the graphite pile should fail.
Accordingly, Du Pont recommended
that the Manhattan commander take
immediate steps to increase the
monthly production of heavy water to
approximately 3 tons per month: 0.5
tons to be produced by the electrolyt-
ic process at the Trail plant already
under construction, and 2.5 tons by
the distillation process at new plants
to be built by Du Pont as adjuncts to
ammonia-producing facilities already
under construction by the company at
government-owned ordnance plants.
(At the request of the S-1 Committee,
Du Pont earlier had investigated and
ascertained the practicability of em-
ploying the distillation process to
produce heavy water.) ^^

Both the Military Policy and S-1
Committees endorsed Du Pont's rec-
ommendations. Under the terms of a
letter contract of 16 November, Du
Pont agreed "to select a process and
provide facilities for the production of
heavy water in order to make avail-
able a supply of this material at the
earliest possible date." ^^ Groves au-
thorized the company to expand fa-
cilities under construction at Morgan-
town Ordnance W'orks, near Morgan-

's DSM Chronologv, 10 Nov 42. Sec. 23(i), and
14 Nov 42. Sec. 2(0(k-m), OROO; MDH, Bk. 3,
"The P-9 Project," p. 2.4, DASA.

29 Copv of I.tr Contract W-74 12-eng-4, 16 Nov
42, on file in OROO. See also MPC Min, 12 Nov
42. MDR.

108

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

town, West Virginia; the Wabash
River Ordnance Works, adjacent to
Newport, Indiana; and the Alabama
Ordnance Works, near Sylacauga,
Alabama. {See Map 2.) Du Pont would
build and operate the facilities,
making as extensive use as possible of
existing steam plants and other instal-
lations. Because Du Pont already had
contracts with the Army's Ordnance
Department for construction and op-
eration of munitions-making facilities
at each of these ordnance plants, it
was agreed the additional work could
be covered by supplements to these
contracts, thus eliminating the need
for the Manhattan chief to negotiate
new agreements. Nevertheless, for
reasons of security, each heavy water
plant was to be built and operated
almost entirely under the immediate
supervision of the local area engineer
and general supervision of the Man-
hattan District. The Ordnance De-
partment, in Colonel Marshall's
words, was "not to be involved in the
design or knowledge of use of the
product." ^°

Hanford Engineer Works

Until November 1942, project lead-
ers had assumed that the main pluto-
nium production plant would be

30Di.st Engr, Monlhlv Rpt on DSM Proj, 21 Jan
43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 28, Tab
A, MDR, DSM Chronolog>, 29 Dec 42, Sec. 4,
OROO; Memo, Brig Gen R. F. Handy (Asst, OCO)
to Maj G. W. Boush (Ord Ammo Prod Office), sub;
New Goustr at Alabama Ord Works . . . , 13 Jan 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161 (Du Ponl), MDR;
Memos, Handy to Alabama, Morgantown, and
Wabash River Ord Works CO's, sub: New Constr at
Alabama [and other] Ord Works, 1 Jan 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp. 600.1 (Constr), MDR; MDH, Bk.
3, Sees. 2-3. DA.SA; Groves Ms, pp. 214-15, CMH.

located at the Tennessee site.^^ How-
ever, Du Pont was greatly concerned
about the hazards of manufacturing
plutonium on a large scale. An atomic
explosion might devastate an area
surrounding a plant and send a lethal
cloud of radioactive dust and gases
over a much larger zone. Such an ex-
plosion less than 20 miles from Knox-
ville could be a catastrophic disaster.
Groves himself already had qualms
about placing a hazardous operation
adjacent to electromagnetic and gase-
ous diffusion plants and near other
important war production facilities in
the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) region. Even if the physical ef-
fects were limited, an explosion
would compromise the security of the
whole project. If the plant were to be
built at the Tennessee site, more land
than originally contemplated would
have to be acquired, a time-consum-
ing process. Furthermore, there was a
strong possibility that a power and
labor shortage in the TVA area might

*' Section based on Groves, Sow It Can Be Told,
pp. 69-77: DSM Chronology, Nov 42-Jan 43,
passim, OROO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 3, "Design," Sec.
2, and Vol. 4, "Land Acquisition," Sees. 1-2, DASA.
Diary of Col Franklin T. Matthias (hereafter cited as
Matthias Diary), prior to 1 Feb 43, OROO; Rpt, Du
Pont, sub: Special Investigation of Plant Site Loca-
tion, 2 Jan 43, Incl to Ltr, E. G. Ackart (Engr Dept
chief, E)u Pont) to Groves, sub: Pio 9536. 5 Jan 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.03, MDR; Rpt, OCE,
sub: Basic Data on Hanford Engr Works, 19 May
43, same files, 601 (Hanford), MDR; Ltr, Robins
(Act Chief of Engrs) to CG SOS, sub: Acquisition of
Land for Cable Proj, Pasco. Wash., 8 Feb 43, Incl to
Memo, O'Brien to I.t Col Whitney Ashbridge (CE
Mil Constr Br), sub: Land Acquisition in Connection
With MD, 17 Apr 43, same files, 601 (Santa Fe),
MDR; Smyth Report, p. 81; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42,
MDR; Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 166; Ltr, Groves to
Herbert S. Marks (Power Div, WPB), 7 Feb 43, and
related correspondence. Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
675, MDR.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

109

interfere with construction and oper-
ation of the plutonium plant.

All of these factors entered into the
decision of the Military Policy Com-
mittee on 10 December that "a new
plant site [for plutonium production]
will have to be selected in an isolated
area, but near power and water." ^^
Groves sent Colonel Nichols and Lt.
Col. Franklin T. Matthias to Wilming-
ton on the fourteenth to discuss
choice of a new site with Du Pont of-
ficials and with Compton and other
representatives of the Chicago
project. Matthias, an experienced civil
engineer in civilian life, had been
working with Groves on various prob-
lems, including the atomic energy
program, and, while he had not yet
been officially assigned to the Man-
hattan District, he was Groves's tenta-
tive choice for the key position of
area engineer on the plutonium
project. The Wilmington conference
concentrated on developing guide-
lines, with the main emphasis on
safety limitations, for the new site.
When Matthias returned, Groves di-
rected him to make an inquiry con-
cerning sites where sufficient electrici-
ty would be available.

Matthias consulted first with those
Corps of Engineers officials whom
Groves had indicated would know a
great deal about the wartime power
situation. As a result, when he sat
down with Groves and two Du Pont
officials on 16 December to draw up
more specific plans, he had consider-
able information about potential sites.
The precise criteria that emerged
from this discussion indicated that the
site selected would have to be rela-
tively large, isolated from centers of

32MPC Min, 10 Dec 42. MDR.

population, easily acquired, and with
access to a large amount of water and
power. Based on the estimated space
needed for six atomic piles and three
separation plants, an area 12 by 16
miles would be necessary for the pro-
duction facilities alone. This amount
of space would allow for contingen-
cies well beyond the then anticipated
requirements. It would permit a dis-
tance of 1 mile between each of the
piles and 4 miles between each of the
separation plants. Laboratories would
have to be at least 8 miles away from
these separation plants, and the work-
ers' village and nearest railroad or
highway at least 10 miles away. About
100,000 kilowatts of continuous
power would be required, as well as
25,000 gallons of water (preferably
soft) per minute for use in cooling
the piles. A relatively mild climate,
level terrain, a ready supply of sand
and gravel, and ground and subsur-
face conditions favorable for heavy
construction were also desirable for
speed and economy in building the
various facilities. And finally, along
with other considerations, an area of
comparatively low land values would
reduce costs and facilitate acquisition.
As Groves, Matthias, and the two
Du Pont representatives visualized it,
the site would contain at least 700
square miles, with no main highway
or railroad traversing it. This central
area would consist of a restricted
zone, 24 by 28 miles in size, in the
center of which would be a 12- by 16-
mile plant area. If possible, the site
should be centered in a sparsely pop-
ulated area, 44 by 48 miles in size,
with no towns of more than one thou-
sand inhabitants. The outer 10 miles
of this last-named area would consti-

110

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

tute a buffer zone from which all resi-
dents would be removed, although it
would not necessarily have to be pur-
chased by the government.

Groves favored the Pacific North-
west, convenient to the growing
power resources of the great Bonne-
ville Power Administration (BPA) on
the Columbia River. {See Map 2.) In
this he was supported by Brig. Gen.
Thomas M. Robins, the assistant chief
of the Corps of Engineers, and Carl
H. Giroux, the Corps' chief power
expert, who also suggested possible
sites in the southwest as alternate
choices.

Matthias and the Du Pont repre-
sentatives investigated possible site
locations from the California-Arizona
border near Hoover Dam to the great
Grand Coulee Dam in northeast cen-
tral Washington. They checked a
score of potential locations and stud-
ied maps and detailed reports pre-
pared by the Los Angeles, Sacramen-
to, and Seattle district engineers.
Four sites appeared promising: two in
Washington — one near Grand Coulee
Dam and the other in the vicinity of
Hanford, a community in the south
central part of the state; a third on
the Pit River, near the almost com-
pleted Shasta Dam in northern Cali-
fornia; and the last on the California-
Arizona border in the Needles-Blythe
area, easily accessible to power from
Hoover Dam. Because Matthias and
his colleagues strongly favored the
Hanford location. General Groves
directed Col. John J. O'Brien, head of
the Engineers' Real Estate Branch, to
begin a preliminary appraisal of the
site. Meanwhile, Groves also made a
personal inspection of the area on
16 January 1943 and gave it his
approval.

Before asking for War Department
authorization for acquisition of the
Hanford site. Groves sought and re-
ceived the BPA's assurance that it
could provide adequate power when
needed. The site selection team had
found that the BPA's only recently
completed trunk transmission line
running between Grand Coulee and
Bonneville Dams traversed the west-
ern portion of the projected Hanford
site, with a major substation located
at Midway, just outside the site area.
This meant that a connection into the
BPA system could be made quickly,
guaranteeing an initial power supply
for plant operations as soon as
needed.

The Hanford Engineer Works, as
the plutonium production site was
designated officially, comprised about
670 square miles (slightly smaller
than contemplated) in an isolated part
of the south central Washington
region near the confluence of the Co-
lumbia and Yakima Rivers. It lay pri-
marily in Benton County, but also in-
cluded parts of Yakima, Grant,
Adams, and Franklin Counties. Very
sparsely settled, the site included only
three tiny communities: Hanford,
White Bluffs, and Richland. A few
miles to the southeast was the larger
town of Pasco, an important rail
center. Yakima, some 20 miles to the
west, was a small city serving as a
trade center for a surrounding rich
agricultural area.

The major population centers of
Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and Spo-
kane were all more than 100 miles
distant. The Columbia River provided
ample cold water of unusually high
purity for cooling; the terrain and cli-
mate were close to ideal. Bounded

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

111

generally on the south by the Yakima
River, on the east and north by the
Columbia, and on the west and south-
west by a steep 3,500-foot ridge line,
the site was, for the most part, flat or
slightly rolling, with only the 1,000-
foot-high Gable Mountain rising to
the north from the otherwise unbro-
ken terrain. Excellent rail transporta-
tion lines ran nearby and a fairly ex-
tensive, existing road system could be
extended without much difficulty over
the level terrain.

The shape of the site was irregular,
but roughly circular, extending on a
north-south line about 37 miles at its
widest point and with a maximum
east-west breadth of about 26 miles.
The tentative plan called for purchase
of a little less than half of the land
and for lease of the remainder. The
outer 10-mile security buffer zone was
no longer considered necessary, but
two smaller areas totaling some 60
square miles, adjacent to an impor-
tant sector of the site, were to be
leased for security purposes. The esti-
mated cost of acquiring the entire site
was slightly over $5 million.

With Under Secretary of War Pat-
terson's approval on 9 February, ac-
quisition began immediately. By late
spring much had been acquired, but
gaining control of the entire site
would be a long process. Had Gen-
eral Groves been able to foresee the
troubles that lay ahead, he might well
have selected another site.^^

Plutonium Semiworks: Argonne
vs. Tennessee

The decision to shift the site of the
main plutonium production plant
from Tennessee to the Pacific North-
west threw open to question once
again the location of the semiworks
for the pile process.^'* In December
1942, after learning that the main
production facilities probably would
not be built at the Tennessee site,
Arthur Compton and his Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory staff favored going
back to the original plan of centering
plutonium experimentation, testing,
and pilot plant production of fission-
able material at the conveniently situ-
ated Argonne Forest site.^^ {See Map 2.)
But Du Pont, having full respon-
sibility for the plutonium program,
strongly opposed this alternative. Du
Pont engineers placed considerable
emphasis on the hazards involved in
setting up operations near a large

^^ See Ch. XV for a detailed account of land
quisition at the Hanford site.

^^ A semiworks is a developmental plant in which
the equipment and the amounts of materials used
are larger than those employed in regular laboratory
research. In the context of this discussion, the term
semiworks refers to the intermediate stage for trans-
forming research data into a large-scale production
process. See MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 1, "General Fea-
tures," App. A3, and Vol. 2, "Research," Pt. 2, pp.
2.1-2.3, DASA.

^^ Subsection based on Compton, Atomic Quest,
pp. 150-52 and 170-72; Groves, Now It Can Be Told,
pp. 68-69; DSM Chronology, 13-14 Sep 42, each
Sec. 2(a), OROO; ibid., 6, 8-9 Jan 43, each Sec. 3.
OROO; ibid., 16 Jan 43, Sec. 5, OROO; Min. Tech
Council, 10 and 28 Dec 42 (Rpt CS-371), ANL;
Hewlett and Anderson, Aw World, pp. 190-91;
Supp. No. 1,4 Jan 43. to Ltr Contract W-7412-
eng-1, 1 Dec 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, Groves
Files, Fldr 19, Tab B, MDR; Completion Rpt, Du
Pont, sub: Clinton Engr Works, TNX Area, Contract
W-7412-eng-23, 1 Apr 44, p. 2, OROO; Ltr, Wil-
liams to Yancey, 12 Jan 43, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 337 (Univ of Chicago), MDR; Groves Diary, 9-
11 and 16 Jan 43, LRG; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 2,
pp. 3.1-3.2, DASA.

112

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

metropolitan area; they did not think
there would be enough room at the
Argonne site; and they also saw cer-
tain disadvantages in having the
semiworks readily accessible.

Du Pont also objected to the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory staff assuming it
could dictate plans and policies on
matters that the company held to be
its own prerogatives. Compton had
already detailed physicist Martin D.
Whitaker, who had worked with Fermi
on the first pile, and other staff mem-
bers to supervise development of re-
search facilities that would operate in
connection with the semiworks. Du
Pont, however, had a long-established
policy that a research staff must not
be permitted to exert too much con-
trol over the design and construction
phases of a project. When this hap-
pened, the company had found, the
staff had a tendency to keep making
changes that seriously interfered with
construction progress. In the world of
industry, Du Pont felt, the research
laboratory was the servant of manage-
ment, not its master.

General Groves realized that if the
differences between the Metallurgical
Laboratory scientists and the Du Pont
industrial engineers could not soon
be resolved, there was serious ques-
tion as to whether they would ever
function efficiently as a team. From
the Army's point of view, achievement
of a harmonious working agreement
on the design, construction, and loca-
tion of the semiworks was crucial, not
only for present operations but also
for future plans regarding the main
production plant. Now that Du Pont
had made significant progress on its
design and procurement of essential
equipment for the works, both Groves
and Du Pont officials felt that no fur-

ther delays could be tolerated. Fur-
thermore, the efforts of Crawford
Greenewalt, Du Pont's liaison repre-
sentative, to establish an agreement
with the Chicago scientists had not
been too successful. Consequently, on
4 January 1943, Du Pont accepted the
Army's alternative solution that the
company design and construct the
buildings to house the pilot pile and
chemical separation facilities.

The Army-Du Pont agreement,
however, still left the question of the
location of the semiworks unsettled,
and this issue was the main item on
the agenda of a conference held in
Wilmington on 6 January. Hoping to
get a prompt decision. General
Groves sent two of his ablest officers
from District headquarters — Colonel
Nichols and Lt. Col. E. H. Marsden —
to assist the area engineer at Wilming-
ton, Maj. William L. Sapper, in pre-
senting the Army's views to the repre-
sentatives of Du Pont and the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory. The Manhattan
chief's strategy succeeded; the meet-
ing closed with a tentative agreement
that the semiworks be erected at the
Tennessee site.

The tentative agreement almost,
but not quite, settled the issue. Under
a previous agreement governing rela-
tions between Du Pont and the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory, all important de-
cisions had to receive final approval
from both Compton and Greenewalt.
Greenewalt's assent was a foregone
conclusion, but Groves knew that
Compton was not likely to give in
without at least an effort to salvage
something for the Argonne site. In
anticipation of this, he sent Colonel
Nichols to Chicago.

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

■.Mtm

113

Col. E. H. Marsden ( 1946 photograph). Marsden became executive officer of the
Manhattan District in July 1943.

Conferring with Compton and his
assistant, Norman Hilberry, Colonel
Nichols stressed the greater safety of
the Tennessee site. Nichols's argu-
ment, however, failed to alter Comp-
ton's conviction that the Argonne site
was adequately safe and eminently
suitable. Furthermore, he contended,
to shift to Tennessee now would be a
severe blow to the morale of his labo-
ratory staff. The Metallurgical Labo-
ratory did not have enough scientists
and technicians to staff another major
research center in addition to those at
Chicago and Argonne. If the decision
was going to be to erect the
semiworks in Tennessee, Compton
concluded, then the Argonne Labora-
tory should be authorized to build for
its own use a pile of sufficient size to

produce the supply of plutonium it
needed for experimental purposes.

Nichols suggested to Groves that a
meeting between Compton and Roger
Williams, head of Du Font's TNX Di-
vision (the company's special organi-
zation for carrying out its atomic
energy program commitments), might
pave the way to an agreement. Sens-
ing that the time had arrived for deci-
sive action on his part. Groves imme-
diately arranged to meet with Wil-
liams, Compton, Hilberry, and Fermi
on 11 January in Chicago. Colonel
Marshall also came from District
headquarters in New York to assist in
pressing for a decision.

The meeting opened with Williams
reiterating Du Font's opposition to
Argonne. Then the group considered

114

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

alternative sites. Williams warned that
a site other than Tennessee or Ar-
gonne would result in a further seri-
ous delay. Location at Hanford, for
example, would require too much
time, would very likely interfere with
construction of the production facili-
ties, and would place the installation
too far away from Wilmington and
Chicago. Finally, with Compton still
reluctant, the group agreed that the
semiworks should be built in
Tennessee.

The question of who would operate
the semiworks also came up for dis-
cussion at the Chicago meeting.
Taking advantage of Williams's pres-
ence, both Groves and Compton pro-
posed that Du Pont operate as well as
build the semiworks. But Williams,
pleading lack of authority, avoided
making a commitment.

The next opportunity for discussing
the semiworks problem came at a
conference on pile project policies,
held in Wilmington on 16 January.
General Groves was away on an in-
spection trip at the Hanford site, but
Colonel Nichols and Maj. Arthur V.
Peterson, the Chicago area engineer,
were on hand. Compton, accompa-
nied by Hilberry and Whitaker, came
determined to persuade Du Pont that,
as builder and operator of the main
production plant, it logically should
also perform both these functions for
the semiworks. But Williams, acting
again as spokesman for a strong Du
Pont delegation, had ready some ef-
fective counterarguments. In perfect-
ing any new technical process, he
pointed out, Du Pont always left op-
eration of the experimental plant
stage to the research staff. Further-
more, WiUiams continued, Du Pont
felt especially unqualified to operate

the semiworks because it involved
major processes entirely outside the
field of chemistry, the company's
normal area of specialization. Wil-
liams thus proposed that the Universi-
ty of Chicago operate the semiworks
and Du Pont furnish the university
with engineers, accountants, and simi-
lar personnel.

Compton obviously was profoundly
shocked by Williams's proposal. Nei-
ther in terms of its fundamental pur-
pose nor of its proper function, he
said, could a university operate an es-
sentially industrial enterprise at a lo-
cation some 500 miles from its
campus. The Du Pont representatives
countered with the observation that
the university would be performing at
least one appropriate function: edu-
cating company personnel in the spe-
cial art of making plutonium. Comp-
ton knew that the Army would prefer
not having Du Pont take on operation
of the semiworks because it believed
the firm's resources would be taxed
to the limit in building and operating
the plutonium production plant and
in carrying out its other war con-
tracts. He agreed to consult with
Conant in Washington, D.C., and
with the administration of the Univer-
sity of Chicago.

There can be little doubt that
Compton still held serious reserva-
tions on the task of operating the
semiworks. He was even more dubi-
ous that the University of Chicago ad-
ministration could be persuaded to
agree to the task. Conant gave him no
encouragement; the Harvard presi-
dent took a dim view of a university
running an industrial plant. Hence,
perhaps no one was more relieved
than Compton when the University of

ORGANIZING FOR PRODUCTION

115

Chicago agreed to accept a contract
for operation of the plutonium
semiworks. An exchange of letters be-
tween Groves and University of Chi-
cago President Robert Maynard
Hutchins in March 1943 provided the
necessary formal agreement for nego-
tiation of a War Department contract.
Hutchins, who happened to be absent
from the campus at the time the
actual decision was made, remarked
to Compton the next time he saw him
on the street: "I see, Arthur, that
while I was gone you doubled the size
of my university." ^^

For General Groves, successful res-
olution of the plutonium semiworks
problem was a major administrative
achievement. As the program devel-
oped, this accompHshment set the
standard for future cooperation be-
tween Du Pont and Compton's pluto-
nium research and development ac-
tivities — a key factor in working out
the far more complex problems of
building and operating the great plu-
tonium production works at Hanford.

Program Funding

As the size and complexity of the
atomic energy program increased, the

^® Quoted in Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 172-74.
See also Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, 21
Jan 43, MDR. In his report the district engineer al-
ready refers to the University of Chicago as the "op-
erator" of the plutonium semiworks, more than six
weeks before the university had formally agreed to
take this responsibility. Other items pertinent to
negotiation of the semiworks operation contract are
Ltr, Conant to Compton, 4 Mar 43, OSRD; Ltrs,
Groves to Hutchins, 10 Mar 43, and Hutchins to
Groves, 16 Mar 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161,
MDR; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 2.3, and Ft. 2,
pp. 3.1-3.2, DASA; WD-Univ of Chicago Contract
W-7405-eng-39, 1 May 43, OROO, with pertinent
extracts found in Cert of Audit MDE 179-46, E. I.
du Pont de Nemours and Co., 30 Jun 46, Fiscal and
Audit Files, Cert of Audit (Sup), MDR.

Army had to face the problem of ad-
ditional funding. The decision to de-
velop four processes was obviously
going to cost a great deal more than
could be covered by the original fi-
nancial commitment. A few days after
Groves took command of the Manhat-
tan Project in September 1942, Colo-
nel Marshall discussed with him the
necessity for speed in appropriating
the remainder of the $85 million ear-
lier approved for the program. Only
$38 million had actually been allocat-
ed during the summer, and the rest
would soon be needed. Groves, how-
ever, did not take any immediate
action. In early November, Marshall
again raised this question but now re-
ported that future needs would total
around $400 milHon. Agreeing with
this estimate. Groves earmarked the
remainder of the $85 million for the
Manhattan Project and laid the
groundwork for a drastic increase in
its funding.

On 15 December, the Military
Policy Committee forwarded the $400
million estimate to the President, rec-
ommending that the necessary addi-
tional funds be made available early
in 1943. Also, the committee urged
that General Reybold, the Engineers
chief, be authorized to enter into con-
tractual obligations beyond the funds
then under his control, should obsta-
cles arise to prevent an early appro-
priation of additional money.

Roosevelt approved the commit-
tee's recommendations, and prepara-
tions were begun to secure the funds
confidentially within regular Army ap-
propriations. By April 1943, the need
for General Reybold to exercise his
authority to spend additional money
was clear. Some $50 million would be

116

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

required by the end of June and an
additional $286 million within an-
other six months. In late May, Gener-
al Somervell, the Army Service Forces
commander, ^"^ authorized Reybold to
make available to the Manhattan
Project $300 million from engineer
funds; however, by this time, an addi-
tional $400 million was needed to
carry the project through to the end
of 1944. This sum, too, was soon
made available under disguised pur-
poses in the Military Appropriations
Act of 1944. At least for the immedi-
ate future, it appeared fiscal require-
ments had been met. When the prob-
lem rose again in the following year,
new means would have to be devised
to solve it.^®

By spring of 1943, approximately
six months after General Groves's as-
signment to the Manhattan Project,
major advances in the atomic pro-
gram provided more promise than at
any time in the past of success in

^^ Initially called the Services of Supply (SOS),
the name was changed to Army Service Forces
(ASF) by WD GO 14, 12 Mar 43.

^^ Correspondence (Sep 42-May 43) on this sub-
ject filed in Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 110 (Appro-
priations), MDR. See also MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42,
MDR; ibid, 12 Aug 43, Incl to Memo, Groves (for
MPC) to Chief of Staff, same date, OCG Files, Gen
Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab E, MDR; MPC Min,
5 May 43, MDR; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 5, "Fiscal Proce-
dures," App. B2, DASA.

building an atomic bomb. These in-
cluded achievement of a self-sustain-
ing chain reaction in the pile method;
assurance of an adequate supply of
uranium ore; selection of plant sites
and work on their acquisition; letting
of contracts for construction and
plant operation; and appropriation of
requisite funding through 1944. Work
on the design of a bomb was pro-
gressing, bolstered by satisfactory
progress in the research and develop-
ment of methods to isolate a suffi-
cient quantity of U-235 and of the ap-
parent feasibility of obtaining and
using plutonium as a fissionable ex-
plosive. Project officials now believed
there was a good chance that the pro-
duction of bombs on a one-per-
month basis would begin in the first
half of 1945. By mid-1943, the Man-
hattan District had taken over admin-
istration of most of the OSRD re-
search contracts and was preparing to
assume responsibility for the rest in
short order. ^^ Now that the period of
joint Army-OSRD administration of
the program was coming to an end,
all work on the development of the
atomic bomb would continue under
the direction of the Army.

39 Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, 23 Apr-
24 May 43, MDR.

CHAPTER VI

The Electromagnetic Process

Considered from the viewpoint of
basic mihtary objectives, the single
most important problem of the Man-
hattan Project was how to produce
fissionable materials in the quantity
and of the quality required to make
an atomic bomb. By the end of 1942,
because project leaders were reason-
ably certain that a considerably great-
er amount of fissionable materials
than had been previously estimated
would be needed, the Military Policy
Committee decided to proceed with
full-scale development of three pro-
duction methods: for plutonium, the
pile process; for U-235, the gaseous
diffusion and electromagnetic proc-
esses. Of the three, project leaders
agreed that the electromagnetic
method most likely would be the first
to produce an appreciable quantity of
fissionable material, although not
nearly enough for an atomic weapon.

There remained, however, some
major reservations concerning the
feasibility of the electromagnetic
method as a large-scale production
process. In its recommendation that
the Army initiate construction of a
1 00-grams-per-day electromagnetic
plant, the S-1 Executive Committee
indicated that all contractual arrange-
ments should be drawn up so that
they could be readily canceled should

"subsequent developments warrant
... a change of plans." ^ Similarly,
following its fact-finding tour of the
project's research laboratories, the
Lewis reviewing committee reported:
"We do not see that the electromag-
netic method presents a practical so-
lution to the military problem at its
present capacity. . . ." ^ An electro-
magnetic plant capable of producing
1 kilogram of fissionable material per
day would require at least twenty-two
thousand separation tanks, whereas
the same output could be achieved by
a diffusion plant of only forty-six hun-
dred stages or three 250,000-kilowatt
plutonium piles. These figures im-
plied that an electromagnetic plant
would take longer to build, use up far
more scarce materials and manpower,
require more electrical power to op-
erate, and cost a much greater sum
than either a gaseous diffusion or plu-
tonium plant with equivalent produc-
tion capabilities.^

In spite of the drawbacks of the
electromagnetic method as a large-

» DSM Chronology, 13 Sep 42, Sec. 2(e), GROG.

2 Rpt of Lewis Reviewing Committee, in MPC
Rpt, 15 Dec 42. OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files,
Fldr 25, Tab B, MDR.

^ Conclusions of Reviewing Committee, 4 Dec 42,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (Special Reviewing
Committee), MDR.

118

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

scale industrial process, each of the
three committees concluded that the
method presented advantages which
outweighed its obvious defects. Based
on a proven laboratory tool, the mass
spectrograph, the electromagnetic
method was the most certain of the
processes to produce at least some
fissionable material, albeit not very ef-
ficiently. Also, a mass production
level could be more rapidly attained
because an electromagnetic plant
could be built in relatively small, self-
sufficient sections, each of which
could begin producing material as
soon as it was completed. Neither the
gaseous diffusion nor pile methods
had this advantage. Finally, too, Gen-
eral Groves and S-1 Chairman James
B. Conant, as well as several of the
other project leaders, perceived the
leadership of Ernest Lawrence as
giving a distinct advantage to the
electromagnetic process. The Univer-
sity of California scientist repeatedly
had demonstrated an ability to find
quick, practical solutions to even the
most difficult technical problems that
had arisen in development of the
process.*

Electromagnetic Research and the Army,
1942-1943

Only weeks after Colonel Marshall's
assignment as district engineer, the
Army began to take over administra-
tion of engineering, construction,
procurement, and related aspects of
the electromagnetic program, leaving
to the Office of Scientific Research
and Development (OSRD) continued

supervision of research and develop-
ment activities and fiscal and budget-
ary matters. In August, Marshall
opened the California Area Engineers
Office at Berkeley and assigned Maj.
Thomas T. Crenshaw as area engi-
neer and Capt. Harold. A. Fidler as
his assistant. Crenshaw soon estab-
lished himself in the university's
Donner Laboratory, adjacent to Law-
rence's office.^

During the fall and winter of 1942-
43, Major Crenshaw's office became
increasingly involved in procurement
of materials and equipment for the
research and development program
and with providing liaison between
the Berkeley program and other ele-
ments of the atomic project. In this
period, an important phase of the
staff's liaison function was arranging
visits to the Radiation Laboratory for
the various individuals and groups in-
volved in trying to decide what the
role of the electromagnetic process
should be.^

*MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, "Research." pp. 1.6-1.8,
DASA; Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 96; Smyth
Report, pp. 145-46; Stone and Webster, A Report to
the People, p. 18.

5 MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, pp. 2.1-2.2, DASA; Memo,
Crenshaw to Dist Engr, sub: Weekly Progress Rpt,
22 Aug 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 001 (Mtgs),
MDR; Interv, Author with Fidler, 6 Jul 64, CMH.

^Subsection based on DSM Chronology, 13-14
Sep 42, Sec. 2(e), 11 Nov 42, Sec. 2(d), 14 Nov 42,
Sec. 2, OROO; Hewlett and Anderson, New World,
pp. 96, 112, 141-47, 157-58; Rpt, Capt Arthur V.
Peterson, sub: Visit to Berkeley Proj, 17 Oct 42,
Admm Files, Gen Corresp, 680.2 (Berkeley), MDR;
Groves Diary, 1-9 Nov 42, LRG; Rpt, sub: R & D at
Univ of Calif Rad Lab, 24 Apr 45 (prepared as Bk.
5, Vol. 2, of MDH), Figs. 6 and 7, SFOO; MDH, Bk.
5, Vol. 2, pp. 1.4, 3.9-3.10, 4.1-4.3, and Vol. 3,
"Design," pp. 2.6-2.10, 3.5-3.6, App. C6, DASA;
MPC Min, 10 Dec 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP
Files, Fldr 23, Tab A, MDR; Memo, Lawrence to
Fidler, 8 Mar 43, LRL. For a detailed discussion of
the electromagnetic process, see the appropriate
volumes in Division 1, Electromagnetic Separation
Project, of the National Nuclear Energy Series (see
Bibliographical Note).

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

119

These visitors came to learn first-
hand more about Lawrence's method
and how it was progressing. After
clearances by Crenshaw's staff and
the laboratory's security officials,
Lawrence and his technical staff
showed them the impressive physical
facilities and equipment. They toured
the conventional laboratories on the
university grounds and then the great
domed cyclotron building with its ad-
jacent shops and facilities located in
the hilly area east of the main
campus. There they observed the in-
tensive investigations under way into
the physics and chemistry of separat-
ing U-235 from ordinary uranium by
the electromagnetic method. Law-
rence had committed the largest part
of his staff and resources to the phys-
ics or physical aspects of the separa-
tion process, centering this research
in two buildings, one housing a 37-
inch magnet and the other a 184-inch
magnet. The availability of these cy-
clotron magnets, which were excep-
tional in size and strength, was the
single most important factor in
making possible research into the fea-
sibility of the electromagnetic method
as a production process. Research
into the chemical aspects of the sepa-
ration process under Lawrence's di-
rection was a much smaller program,
with laboratory investigations in
progress at both the Berkeley and
Davis campuses of the University of
California.'^

'' Not all research into the chemistry of the elec-
tromagnetic process was located at the University of
California, Berkeley. The OSRD also had contracted
with Brown, Purdue, and Johns Hopkins to investi-
gate some aspects. Subsequently, too, the electro-
magnetic production plant operator, the Tennessee
Eastman Corporation, carried on chemical research
for the process in Eastman Kodak laboratories in
Rochester, N.Y., and near the plant site in Oak

Lawrence and his scientist col-
leagues repeatedly emphasized to visi-
tors that their ultimate success or fail-
ure depended on development of the
calutron — a name derived from the
words California, university, and cyclo-
tron, ff they could redesign the calu-
tron, a novel hybridization of two
well-known laboratory tools — the
mass spectrograph and the cyclotron
magnet — so that it would operate not
only intermittently, as in the labor-
atory, but also on an around-the-
clock, day-after-day, month-after-
month basis without breakdown, then
they would have the means for pro-
ducing a significant amount of en-
riched uranium for an atomic weapon.

Lawrence had made some design
modifications in the first calutron, in-
stalled in the 37-inch magnet, follow-
ing successful experiments in Febru-
ary 1942. He found, however, that he
was unable to test the validity of these
changes until he had access to a more
powerful magnetic field. This became
available in the spring with comple-
tion of the 184-inch magnet. The re-
designed calutron became the proto-
type for the first production units at
the Tennessee plant. Mounted on a
metal door, this calutron could be
taken out of its vacuum tank as a
single unit, which greatly facilitated
recovery of any of the valuable urani-
um feed material adhering to compo-
nents and also expedited reloading
and maintenance.

At the same time, Lawrence's group
had also developed the essential
supporting components — magnet,

vacuum pumps, cooling systems, and

Ridge, Tenn. See MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2. pp. 1.1-1.2,
3.1,4.1, DASA.

120

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

electrical power and control equip-
ment. While these components were
more conventional in design and
function, they still had to be adapted
to conform to the requirements of the
electromagnetic process. The design
engineers, for example, decided that
the most efficient layout for the mag-
nets and tanks was in an oval-shaped
pattern, thus creating the racetrack
configuration that characterized each
major element of the production
plant. A special system of pumps
achieved and maintained the required
vacuum equivalent of one one-hun-
dred-millionth of normal atmospheric
pressure in hundreds of calutron
tanks.

Involving less space, fewer person-
nel, and mainly conventional proce-
dures, the chemical aspects of the
electromagnetic process must have
appeared far less important; neverthe-
less, both the first and final stages of
the process were essentially chemical
operations and required new tech-
niques and chemical substances about
which relatively little was known. For
the first stage the chemists had to de-
velop a method of large-scale produc-
tion of uranium tetrachloride, the
most promising feed material for the
calutrons. For the last stage they had
to devise an efficient method to ex-
tract the enriched uranium produced
by the calutrons and prepare it for
use by the Los Alamos Laboratory
scientists in developing an atomic
bomb. By early 1943, the chemists
had made substantial progress on
both the feed material and extraction
techniques.

Virtually all who visited the Radi-
ation Laboratory at Berkeley came
away impressed with the feasibility of
the electromagnetic research program

and with the eminently empirical
approach of Lawrence and his staff.
This approach, characterized by a
frequently demonstrated talent for
finding practical solutions to every
problem, inspired project leaders with
further confidence in Lawrence's
process as they prepared to transform
the research data and devices into an
industrial production plant at the
Tennessee site.

Research and Development, 1943-1945:
Radiation Laboratory

As the electromagnetic program
shifted from basic research to the
problems of designing, building, and
operating a major production plant,
the Army brought the project more
directly under its administrative juris-
diction. Replacing OSRD contracts
with War Department contracts was
an important step in attaining this
goal.

The University of California accept-
ed a letter contract from the district
engineer, effective 1 April 1943,
pending the working out of details of
a formal War Department contract.
Then on the sixteenth, representa-
tives of the Manhattan District,
OSRD, and the university's Board of
Regents reached final agreement on
terms of a new prime contract cover-
ing most aspects of the atomic re-
search program in progress at the Ra-
diation Laboratory. The new contract
went into effect on 1 May, bringing to
an end the OSRD's formal connection
with the California project. Hence-
forth, until the Army terminated con-
trol of the atomic energy program at
the end of 1946, this new agreement,

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

121

renewed annually, provided the con-
tractual basis for continuing the re-
search and development activities req-
uisite to construction and operation
of the electromagnetic plant in Ten-
nessee. In recognition of the overrid-
ing requirements of security, the re-
gents assented to leaving all details of
managing the program as they related
to the university to their secretary,
Robert M. Underbill, and to Law-
rence. Some subsequent modifica-
tions in the prime contract relating to
health and chemistry activities did not
result in major changes in the Radi-
ation Laboratory program, nor in the
Army's relationship to it.^

In general, fiscal arrangements re-
mained the same as they had been
under the OSRD contract, with one
significant exception. The War De-
partment contract provided that an
amount equal to 25 percent of the
total funds allotted for salaries and
wages could be used by the university
to defray its overhead expenses in op-

* Ltr Contract W-7405-eng-48, Marshall to Univ
of Calif, Attn: R. M. Underbill, 1 Apr 43, copy in
MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, App. C3, also see pp. 2.1-2.3,
DASA; Historical Summary of Contract W-7405-
eng-48, May 43-Aug 47, comp. by Russell H. Ball,
Jan 48, witb significant correspondence on subcon-
stracts W-7405-eng 48A (health) and W-7405-eng
48B (chemistry) under Tab 6, pp. 35-49 and 50-60,
SFOO; NDRC and OSRD Contracts with Univ of
Calif, Jun 41-Sep 42, SFOO; Rpt, sub: R & D at
Univ of Calif Rad Lab, 24 Apr 45, pp. 19-28, SFOO;
Fidler Interv, 6 Jul 64, CMH. The Radiation Labo-
ratory health reseach program, directed by J. D.
Hamilton, functioned as a part of the project-wide
health program of the Manhattan District, which was
centered at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago.
A chemistry program, directed by W. M. Latimer,
had grown out of the participation of the University
of California's chemistry department in the early
phases of atomic research at Berkeley. When the
OSRD contracts for these programs came up for re-
newal in June 1943, the Army continued them as
separate projects operating under the prime
contract.

erating the Radiation Laboratory; the
OSRD contract had provided 30 per-
cent for this purpose. Partly in reac-
tion to this reduction in overhead al-
lotment, in November 1943 business
representatives of the University of
California, University of Chicago, and
Columbia University requested the
Manhattan District to include a provi-
sion in prime contracts guaranteeing
the universities, in view of their non-
profit status, against a profit or loss
in administering atomic research pro-
grams. Following several months of
negotiation with the universities, the
District agreed in May 1944 that the
government would compensate them
if their overhead costs should exceed
their 25 percent allowance and, con-
versely, they would return to the gov-
ernment any surplus that might result
from this allowance.

At the same time, the District
added a provision in the prime con-
tracts with California, Chicago, and
Columbia for a so-called welfare fund.
Thus, in the case of California, the
government established a fund of
$500,000, which was to continue in
existence for a period of ten years
after termination of its contract with
the War Department. Any claims
made by Radiation Laboratory em-
ployees or their relatives during that
time because of death or disability re-
sulting from a specified list of unusual
hazards in atomic research activities —
for example, radioactivity, high vol-
tages, and movement of objects by
magnetic forces — would be paid from
this fund. The government provided
the money for the fund and the uni-
versity administered it with assistance
of a private insurance company. The
welfare fund took the place of the

122

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

OSRD's private indemnification insur-
ance, which the District had contin-
ued only until such time as a gov-
ernment-financed system could be
established.^

The Army's first major administra-
tive task after the formal contract
became effective was to supervise
preparation of the program's fiscal
year (FY) 1944 budget. As of mid-1943,
cost of the program had reached about
$500,000 a month, and was following
an upward trend. District and univer-
sity officials agreed upon a request for
$7.5 million (an average of $625,000
per month) for FY 1944. By November,
however. Regents Secretary Underbill
was warning Captain Fidler, who had
replaced Major Crenshaw as area engi-
neer, that even this increased sum was
not likely to be enough to meet mush-
rooming costs. Underbill estimated
that the university would need an addi-
tional $1.5 to $2 million in the remain-
ing months of FY 1944. Consequently,
the District approved a supplementary
appropriation, bringing total cost to
$9.5 million.

The Army's negotiations with the
University of California for the FY
1944 budget set the pattern for sub-
sequent years. Even after the electro-
magnetic production plant began op-
erations in the spring of 1944, the
electromagnetic research program
continued to require a large staff to
solve production problems and make
improvements in plant operations.
Thus, for the FY 1945 budget, the
Army scheduled $8.5 million, al-

though only $6.5 million was actually
expended. By the time the war ended
in August 1945, total outlay for the
electromagnetic research program
had reached about $20 million — some
$3.7 million under OSRD con-
tracts before 1 May 1943 and the
remainder under the War Department
contract. ^°

Increases in cost reflected the very
rapid expansion of the Radiation Lab-
oratory, both in terms of personnel
and physical facilities. In May 1943,
when the Army assumed full responsi-
bility for the research program, the
laboratory was occupying a number of
buildings in two different locations on
the Berkeley campus. Starting out
modestly in 1941 in the prewar Radi-
ation Laboratory building, atomic re-
search activities gradually had spread
into four adjacent structures, includ-
ing the new Donner Laboratory, and,
by mid- 1942, to the new 184-inch-
cyclotron building in Berkeley Hills.
Soon the circular-shaped cyclotron
building, standing on the slope of a
hill some 900 feet above the campus
proper, was ringed with smaller addi-
tional structures housing a machine
shop, chemistry laboratories, ware-
houses, and other facilities essential
to operating and testing calutrons
and other equipment prototypes de-
signed for the production plant in

9 Rpt, sub: R & D at Univ of Calif Rad Lab, 24
Apr 45, pp. 24-27, SFOO; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, p.
2.3, DASA; Ltr, Underbill lo Nichols, 13 Mar 44,
Tab 6, Historical Summary of Contract W-7405-
eng-48, SFOO; Ltr and Incl, Nicbols to Lawrence,
15 Apr 44, Tab 9, ibid.

10 Rpt, Underbill, sub: Hist of Contract W-7405-
eng-48, [probably 1948], Tab 1; Ltr, Underbill to
Fidler. 10 Nov 43, Tab 5b; Ltr, Fidler to Underbill,
16 Feb 44, Tab 5e; Memo, Fidler to Dist Engr, sub:
Contract W-7405-eng-48, 18 Feb 44, Tab 5d;
Memo, Priestly to O. Lundberg, sub: Budgets for
1944-45 for Projs 48, 48A and 48B, 29 Jun 44, Tab
7; Ltr, Nichols to Univ of Calif Regents, Attn: Un-
derbill. 20 Mar 45, Tab 8a. All in Historical Summa-
ry of Contract W-7405-eng-48, SFOO. See also
Ltr, Lawrence to Nichols, 24 Mar 44, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 001 (Mtgs), MDR.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

123

Tennessee. Part of the chemistry pro-
gram, too, had overflowed facihties
on the Berkeley campus and been
moved to the University of Califor-
nia's School of Agriculture at Davis.

For each new structure or renova-
ton, Lawrence and his staff laid out
preliminary plans and estimates,
which went to the area engineer's
office for approval and checking. De-
tailed supervision of construction was
left to Radiation Laboratory business
manager Kenneth Priestly. To expe-
dite the work and minimize security
problems. Priestly let contracts to the
local firms that the university had em-
ployed extensively in the past. For the
same reasons, most contracts were of
the fixed-fee or lump-sum type. By
mid- 1945, Priestly had allocated for
various types of construction more
than $300,000 from funds allotted
under the University of California's
War Department contract. ^^

By far, the largest expenditures
were for salaries and wages of the re-
search staff and for the laboratory
equipment and materials they needed.
Annual payroll costs were running at
a level of nearly $3 million in May
1943, when the Army assumed full
control of the Manhattan Project, and
had reached a high point of about
$3.7 million a year later. Equipment
and other expenses, although some-
what less than personnel, attained a

*^ Constr Completion Rpt, Univ of Calif Rad Lab,
sub: Contract W-7405-eng-48, 1 May 43-1 Aug 46,
comp. by Calif Area Engrs Office, 1 Sep 46, SFOO
(with maps of the two campus areas where major
laboratory facilities were located and with selected
photographs of important buildings); Rpt, W. B.
Reynolds (Rad Lab Man Engr), sub: Notes on 184-
inch Cyclotron, 16Jun 45, SPOO; "Domed Building
Fitted to Research Needs," Engineering News-Record, 9
Apr 42, pp. 64-66; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2. pp. 2.7-2.8,
DASA.

maximum of nearly $300,000 a month
in November 1943. ^^

Starting in 1941 with personnel of
the University of California's Radi-
ation Laboratory, which Lawrence
had been building up since the
1930's, the staff at Berkeley grew rap-
idly. By May 1943, as primary empha-
sis began to shift from basic research
to engineering and developmental
problems and training of operational
personnel for the Tennessee plant, it
numbered almost nine hundred scien-
tists, technicians, engineers, mechan-
ics, clerks, skilled workers, and others.
By mid- 1944, there were nearly
twelve hundred on the Radiation Lab-
oratory payroll, and total employment
remained well above one thousand
until the end of the war.^^

The basic organization of the Radi-
ation Laboratory had taken shape
under Lawrence's guidance in the
years immediately preceding the out-
break of World War II and con-
formed, more or less, to the conven-
tional pattern for peacetime academic
research programs, with a major divi-
sion into research and administrative
staffs. While Lawrence, as director,
theoretically exercised equal control
over both divisions, he devoted his
energies to the research staff, delegat-
ing to the OSRD and then the Army
the administration of nonscientific ac-
tivities. Major responsibilities for
these activities devolved upon Cap-
tain Fidler, the area engineer. Fidler
worked closely with Regents Secretary
Underbill, and also with Priestly who.

12 Chart, Proj 48 Expenses Estimated by Months
to Nearest $5,000, in MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, App. Bl 1,
DASA.

13 Chart, Lab Personnel by Months (UCRL), in
MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, App. B2, DASA.

124

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

as the laboratory's business manager,
supervised administration of finances
and personnel. ^^

In providing personnel, security,
and other administrative services for
the research staff, the area engineer
dealt with teams of scientists and
technicians organized along function-
al lines under three broad areas of in-
vestigation. The physics division, by
far the largest, worked on the experi-
mental calutrons, vacuum problems,
mechanical and electrical design, reas-
sembly of equipment, and fundamen-
tal physical research. The chemistry
division, much smaller, investigated
problems of preparing feed material
for the calutrons and recovery and
purification of their output of U-235
and ordinary uranium. The biological
group constituted a subsidiary ele-
ment of the Manhattan District's med-
ical research program that had its
headquarters at the Metallurgical Lab-
oratory in Chicago. The area engi-
neer provided its director with admin-
istrative support in coordinating the
activities of his group with Lawrence's
program, based upon primary guid-
ance from the Chicago medical scien-
tists. The Army was helpful, too, in
assisting the laboratory in recruitment
and maintenance of a staff of several

** Paragraphs on the Radiation Laboratory based
on Rpt, Peterson, sub: Visit to Berkeley Proj, 17 Oct
42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 680.2 (Berkeley),
MDR; Directory of Personnel, MD and Univ of Calif
Personnel of R & D Group, 20 May 43, SFOO; Rpt,
sub: R & D at Univ of Calif Rad Lab, 24 Apr 45, pp.
30-46, SFOO; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, pp. 5.2-5.4, and
Vol. 3, pp. 5.1-5.3 and App. B5 (Org Chart, Univ of
Calif Lab Proj), DASA; Interv, Author with Reyn-
olds, 6 Jul 64, CMH; Visitors Permits [Rad Lab],
Oct 43 through 1946, Visitors Info File, SFOO;
Fidler Interv, 6 Jul 64, CMH; Min, Coordination
Committee Mtgs, Oct 42-Mar 44, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 337 (Mtgs and Confs-Univ of Calif), MDR;
Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 150.

hundred technicians and skilled work-
men, who supported the work of the
scientists and engineers.

Adding to the complexity of admin-
istering the Radiation Laboratory
were the periodic influxes of scien-
tific, engineering, and other technical
delegations not only from the major
American contractors but also those
from abroad. Such firms as the Stone
and Webster Engineering Corpora-
tion, Westinghouse Electric and Man-
ufacturing Company, and especially
the Tennessee Eastman Corporation
sent their personnel to Berkeley to
assist in plant development, or for
orientation and training in the elec-
tromagnetic process. And in Novem-
ber 1943, Australian physicist Marcus
L. E. Oliphant, who had played a sig-
nificant role in the development of
radar, and thirty of the British scien-
tists who had come to the United
States to aid in the atomic project
were assigned to the laboratory —
some until the end of the war — to
work on various aspects of electro-
magnetic research.

The arrival and processing of each
of these groups presented special
problems to the area engineer in se-
curity and safety, to the laboratory
business manager in personnel and fi-
nance, and to the laboratory director
in program and staff coordination.
These problems were further multi-
plied and magnified by their high
turnover rate, the result of the
project's need for scientific expertise
at other facilities. As early as 1943,
the Army had begun to send many of
the contractors' specialists to the
Clinton Works to assist Tennessee
Eastman in preparing to operate the
electromagnetic plant. The area engi-

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

125

ncer's staff facilitated their transfer,
eventually permanently reassigning a
sizable number. Again, in September
1944, the staff oversaw the move of
one-third of the British scientists to
the Tennessee site.

For the most part, the area engi-
neer's staff was not directly involved
in the many meetings of committee
and group leaders who planned
research, assessed the results of ex-
perimental work, and advised on reas-
signment of technical and scientific
personnel. But the area engineer and
other Manhattan representatives did
participate in one key group, the Co-
ordination Committee. Business and
scientific leaders of the laboratory
and representatives of the major con-
tracting firms attended the weekly
meetings of this committee, which
Lawrence had established to ensure
coordination of effort between his
program and the many outside orga-
nizations collaborating on design and
construction of the electromagnetic
production plant. After each session
Captain Fidler, who had extensive
training and experience in both engi-
neering and science, prepared a writ-
ten report of the entire proceedings
to keep General Groves, and other
District personnel, up to date on the
progress of research and development
activities at Berkeley. Whenever
Groves visited the laboratory, usually
once a month during the crucial
period from October 1942 to Novem-
ber 1943, Lawrence convened the
weekly committee meeting to coincide
with the commander's itinerary. Feel-
ing that the meetings provided an ex-
cellent means of communication with
the key members of the laboratory
staff, Groves took an active role in the

free-for-all discussions of electromag-
netic problems.

The area engineer's staff also car-
ried on a number of other activities,
most of them of a routine character.
It took part in the negotiation and in-
terpretation of contracts and the
review of fiscal plans and policies; as-
sisted in those aspects of personnel
administration involving military
problems, especially the obtaining of
deferments for key scientific and tech-
nical employees; expedited procure-
ment of equipment and materials,
particularly those in scarce supply;
and supervised the more ordinary as-
pects of security. For example, to
avoid any possibility of revealing the
connection of the University of Cali-
fornia with the Army and the atomic
project, Groves always conducted his
inspections of the laboratory in civil-
ian clothes. When he arrived at the
San Francisco airport, Fidler met
Groves clandestinely and whisked him
off to his own house so that the gen-
eral could change from military into
civilian attire before going to the
university.

Even the remarkably smooth course
of the collaboration between the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley, and
the Manhattan District — a testimony
to the success of Captain Fidler's liai-
son efforts, Groves's strenuous en-
deavors to keep himself fully in-
formed, and Lawrence's exceptional
administrative capabilities — on occa-
sion was punctuated with a few prob-
lems, primarily because the university
administration had to accept Manhat-
tan's substantial requirements largely
on faith for reasons of security. In
mid-January 1943, sensing a disrup-
tion to normal university activities.

126

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

William J. Norton, the university busi-
ness manager, complained to Groves
in no uncertain terms: "To date I
have not seen the scratch of a pen —
one written word setting forth the
suggestions or directives of the gov-
ernment representatives in regard to
the conduct of the Radiation Labora-
tories on the Berkeley campus. . . ."
Noting that he was aware that in the
past half year several Army officers,
including Groves, had visited the
campus, Norton continued that "in-
variably, after one of these visits, . . .
[my] office is deluged with requests
by numerous persons for more office
space, laboratory space, entire build-
ings, shops, more guards, more of
this and that — all in the name of the
General or the colonel, or the captain
who has just visited the various
plants. But for some reason I am
never in on the discussions at the
start." Norton then assured Groves
that he wished to have the project run
smoothly, an objective that could be
much more easily achieved, he said, if
the general would only let him know
the importance of the project and
who on the campus officially repre-
sented the Manhattan District. ^^

Groves wrote to University of CaH-
fornia President Robert G. Sproul,
carefully explaining the reasons for
the secrecy of the project and for the
complicated and sometimes confusing
relationships that existed between the
Army, the university, and the con-
tracting firms. He then outlined brief-
ly the anticipated requirements for
further space in university buildings.
"Captain Fidler has been instructed,"
he stated, "to keep you [President

Sproul] fully informed ... at all
times" concerning the physical needs
of the project. ^^ Groves also had re-
quested that the War Department ex-
plain to Sproul the importance of the
work in progress at the Radiation
Laboratory. "[Its] energetic prosecu-
tion . . . ," Secretary of War Stimson
wrote, "is a vital military necessity,
for it is one of the foundation stones
of an extremely important, probably
the most important, development
project in our war activities." ^'

Not all basic research for the elec-
tromagnetic process was done under
the University of California contract.
In June 1943, District representatives
arranged with Tennessee Eastman to
carry out research on certain aspects
of process chemistry, using laboratory
facilities (leased from Eastman Kodak)
in Rochester, New York, and at the
plant site in Tennessee. Cost of these
research contracts, as well as those
for process improvement in 1944 with
Johns Hopkins and Purdue Universi-
ties, were small by comparison with
the expenditures at the University of
California, totaling considerably less
than $2 million. ^«

Design and Engineering, 1943-1945

At its 25 June 1942 meeting, the
S-1 Executive Committee decided
that Stone and Webster would have
primary responsibility for basic design
and engineering of both buildings

'5 Ltr, Norton to Groves, 14 Jan 43, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 161 (Univ of Calif). MDR.

'«Ltr, Groves to Sproul, 27 Jan 43, Tab 2, Histor-
ical Summary of Contract W-7405-eng-48, SFOO.

*'Ltrs, Stimson to Sproul, 27 Jan 43, and Groves
to Fidler, 8 Feb 43, Tab 2, Historical Summary of
Contract W-7405-eng-48, SFOO.

'«MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, pp. 1.1, 2.5-2.10, Apps.
B4, B6-B9, B12-B15, DASA; Hewlett and Ander-
son, New World, p. 158.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

Table 1 — Stone and Webster Engineering and Design Personnel

127

Date

At Boston

At Berkeley

In the
Field"

Total

1 January 1943

1 July 1943

1 January 1944

1 July 1944

1 January 1945

1 July 1945

' Clinton and elsewhere.

Source: MDH. Bk. 5. Vol. 3, "Design," p. 3.52

239
738
743
685
463
338

277
770
789
772
520
381

and equipment at the Tennessee
site.^^ For security, the company
formed a separate design organiza-
tion, which by mid- 1944 had nearly
750 employees occupying thirteen
floors in four buildings in Boston
and, in addition, a subordinate unit at
the Berkeley campus and a liaison
office at the Tennessee site {Table 1).
To monitor the Stone and Webster
design group, the district engineer es-
tablished in August 1942 the Boston
Area Engineers Office and assigned
Maj. Benjamin K. Hough, Jr., to head
a relatively small staff. From the be-
ginning, one of Major Hough's most
important responsibilities was to
ensure that the Stone and Webster
design group functioned under maxi-
mum security conditions. The special
group thus worked separately from
other company employees, and over-
all knowledge of the electromagnetic
project was limited to a few key offi-
cials and to August C. Klein, the com-
pany's chief mechanical engineer and

newly appointed project engineer for
the electromagnetic plant. The area
engineer's staff also assisted the com-
pany in developing special security
control measures in distribution of
thousands of drawings to General
Electric, Westinghouse, and other
firms providing equipment and mate-
rials. The designs reflected the em-
phasis on security and speed in every
phase of development. Wherever fea-
sible. Stone and Webster designers
planned to use standard items of
equipment and customary methods of
construction, primarily to save time.
There was, however, a limit to the
extent that standardization would be
possible because of the special char-
acter of the processes; the need for
exceptionally close tolerances and
performance capabilities; and, as
proven by experience, inevitable
changes in equipment design.^®

'^In addition to the main production facilities.
Stone and Webster also designed most of the elec-
tromagnetic plant auxiliary, service, and support fa-
cilities — including experimental racetracks to tram

plant operators, shops, steam plants, a foundry,
warehouses, cafeterias, and community utilities.

20 Cert of Audit MDE 177-46, Boston Area,
26 Apr 46, Fiscal and Audit Files, Cert of Audit
Registers. MDR; Org Charts. I'.S. Engrs Office,
MD, 15 Aug 43, 28 Aug and 10 Nov 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 020 (MED-Org), MDR; List of

Continued

128

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

By the turn of the year, Lawrence
and his staff at the Radiation Labora-
tory had made significant progress
not only in their electromagnetic re-
search but also in the areas of prelim-
inary design and engineering of plant
facilities, the results of which they for-
warded to Stone and Webster. But
before design of the plant could pro-
ceed very far, company engineers
needed answers to two important
questions: How rich in U-235 must
the final product be and would a
single-stage electromagnetic plant
achieve that degree of enrichment?
On 4 January 1943, Oppenheimer
furnished Lawrence with a tentative
answer. The goal, he wrote Lawrence,
must be near-perfect separation, that
is, production of practically pure U-
235 as the final product. Any lesser
enrichment, Oppenheimer believed,
would require such a large amount of
the very heavy uranium that its weight
would make it unacceptable for a
weapon. 2^ The degree of enrichment
possible with a single-stage plant was
not definitely known, but it would not
be enough to meet such stringent
standards. A second-stage facility
might take uranium processed in the
original 500-tank plant and bring it to
the required higher degree of
enrichment.

Key Personnel, MD Area OfFices (ca. Nov 44),
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 231.001 (LC), MDR;
MDH. Bk. 5, Vol. 3, pp. 3.51-3.52, DASA; Tables
(Employment by MD on Design, Research and
Constr as of 31 May, 31 Jul, and 31 Oct 43) in Rpt,
sub: MD Proj Data as of 1 Jun 43 (most items as of
1 Jun 43, but tables appear to have been added at
later date). Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs
and Prgms), MDR; Completion Rpt, Stone and
Webster, sub: Clinton Engr Works, Contract W-
7401-eng-13, 1946, p. 143, OROO.

2* I.tr, Oppenheimer to Lawrence, 4 Jan 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Lawrence), MDR.

At the Coordination Committee
meeting in early February, Lawrence
expressed the view that design of the
second-stage might reasonably be de-
layed for another two months, pend-
ing receipt of data on the degree of
enrichment attained in the experi-
mental XA calutrons nearing comple-
tion at Berkeley. If this data indicated
eventual achievement of 70- to 80-
percent enrichment, no second stage
would be necessary. Groves dis-
agreed. There always had been the
possibility that the electromagnetic
process would be coordinated with
some other isotopic separation proc-
ess (he probably had in mind the gas-
eous diffusion plant), and he believed
the second-stage facility would be
necessary either as a supplement to
the first stage of the electromagnetic
plant or as part of a plant for enhanc-
ing the slightly enriched product from
another plant.

As Groves departed from Berkeley
on 14 February, he urged that prompt
decision should be reached on the
Beta process, as it now came to be
called to distinguish it from the first
stage, or Alpha process. The Radi-
ation Laboratory staff had convinced
him that the Beta tanks could prob-
ably be designed to make maximum
use of Alpha-type equipment, but he
needed further assurance from Stone
and Webster that a second stage
would not delay completion of the
first stage.

General Groves and Colonel Mar-
shall conferred with Stone and Web-
ster on 17 March. Marshall took the
initiative in securing a firm agreement
that the first five Alpha racetracks at
the Clinton Engineer Works (CEW)
would be identical in design and

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

129

equipment, to guarantee their com-
pletion at the earliest possible date.
When the company assured Groves
that Beta construction would not
delay the Alpha units, he gave his ap-
proval for the second stage. ^^

By late spring, design development
for both stages was in full swing. The
Berkeley, CHnton, and Boston design
staffs worked under constant pressure
from Groves and other project lead-
ers to produce thousands of blue-
prints for five Alpha and two Beta
racetracks. The emphasis on speed
took its toll. Frequently, General
Electric, Westinghouse, and the other
firms manufacturing components for
the racetracks had to incorporate es-
sential design changes after equip-
ment was fabricated and installed,
and inevitably some equipment fail-
ures occurred. Everyone connected
with the electromagnetic project soon
realized design, redesign, and process
improvement would continue long
after the first major units of the plant
began production operations. ^^

^^ Min, Coordination Committee Mtgs, 3 and 13
Feb 43, MDR; Excerpt from Memo, M. P. O'Brien
(Rad Lab Ex Engr) to Fidler, 14 Feb 46, quoted in
par. Id of Memo, Fidler to Groves, sub: Initiation of
Work on Y-12 Beta Process, 22 Oct 46, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1, MDR; Hewlett and An-
derson, New World, pp. 151-52.

2^ This and following paragraphs on electromag-
netic design based on MDH, Bk. 5, Vols. 2-3,
DASA; Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 149-
67; Ltr, Lawrence to Groves, 14 Jun 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 440.17 (Mfg-Prod-Fab), MDR;
Lawrence to Groves, 3 Aug 43, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 095 (TEC LC), MDR; Memo, Maj Wilbur
E. Kelley (Y-12 Opns Div chief, CEW) to Lt Col E.
H. Marsden (Ex Off, MD), sub: Summary of Y-12
Proj as of 9 Aug 43, same date. Admin F'iles, Gen
Corresp, Misc File, MDR; Min, Coordination Com-
mittee Mtgs, 2, 9, 30 Sep and 17 Nov 43, MDR;
MPC Min, 13 Aug 43, MDR; Rpt, sub: R & D at
Univ at Calif Rad Lab, 24 Apr 45, pp. 17 and 23,
SFOO; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Sep

By summer, with most blueprints
for Alpha I completed and procure-
ment contracts for plant equipment
arranged. Groves approved design
changes in the fifth Alpha I racetrack.
In September, he authorized con-
struction of Alpha II, comprised of
four additional racetracks incorporat-
ing the improved design (a step rec-
ommended earlier by the Military
Policy Committee). He also approved
two more Beta racetracks, to process
the additional output from Alpha II.

Thanks to experience gained on the
Alpha racetracks, design of the Beta
racetracks posed fewer problems.
Beta chemical equipment, however,
was quite a different story, because of
the small quantities of material under-
going processing and the fantastically
high value of U-235. To prevent even
a minimum loss of output, the design-
ers made the equipment as small as
possible and used corrosion-resistant
materials and special devices to recov-
er the last traces of U-235.

With the start of plant construction,
continuing design activities assumed a
secondary role. Lawrence and his col-
leagues continued to propose innova-
tions and design alterations in the
racetracks, but General Groves con-
sistently followed a policy of approv-
ing only changes that clearly would
speed up progress. Hence, Radiation
Laboratory scientists, in 1944 and
1945, were relegated largely to the
role of consultants to Stone and Web-
ster, Tennessee Eastman, and the
other contractors, assisting them to
improve design and operation of the
existing plant facilities.

and Nov 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files,
Fldr 28, Tab A, MDR.

130

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Building the Electromagnetic Plant

Actual construction began in Febru-
ary 1943 on a tract of 825 acres locat-
ed in Bear Creek Valley, some dis-
tance southwest of the rapidly grow-
ing community of Oak Ridge (Map 3).
Project engineers had selected this
location because they hoped the
wooded ridges paralleling the valley
would limit possible lethal effects of a
major explosion or similar accident.
There was more than ample room be-
tween ridges to permit adequate spac-
ing of the numerous plant facilities
that, at the height of plant operations,
would include nine main process
buildings and some two hundred aux-
iliary structures, comprising nearly 80
acres of floor space. ^'^

Construction Procurement

Stone and Webster had primary re-
sponsibility for procuring the materi-
als, equipment, and field construction
force needed for building the produc-
tion plant; however, the Army had di-
rected that the firm consult regularly
with the Radiation Laboratory and
with the major manufacturing con-
tractors in carrying out materials and
equipment procurement. ^^ Both
Stone and Webster and Manhattan of-
ficials had agreed that, because of the
special nature of much of the equip-
ment required for the electromagnetic
process, only the leading manufactur-
ing firms in the electrical equipment
field were likely to have the resources
and capabiHties necessary to supply it.

Consequently, in early 1943 Stone
and Webster, with considerable assist-
ance from District officials, negotiated
subcontracts with General Electric,
Westinghouse, Allis-Chalmers, and
several smaller firms to design and
manufacture such items as regulators,
rectifiers, calutron tanks, diffusion
pumps, magnet coils, and vacuum
valves that would meet the project's
high standards for workmanship and
performance and, at the same time,
comply with its stringent procurement
deadlines. 2^

As Stone and Webster negotiated
contracts, it also developed an elabo-
rate purchasing organization at its
Boston office. This organization
worked closely with the Boston Area
Engineers Office and, through a pro-
curement unit established at the Ten-
nessee site, with the CEW Construc-
tion Division. In addition to the 150
persons employed in Boston and
Tennessee, Stone and Webster main-
tained another 250 representatives in
the field at contractor plants and in
major industrial areas. These field
workers checked equipment for con-
formity to specifications, expedited
deliveries, and assisted in locating
scarce materials for subcontractors.
Stone and Webster's procurement or-
ganization also worked closely with
the Washington Liaison Office, espe-
cially in obtaining critical materials,

^* A detailed discussion of most aspects of elec-
tromagnetic plant construction may be found in
MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5, "Construction," DASA.

^* A detailed discussion of the procurement of
manpower for the electromagnetic project appears
in Ch. XVI.

26 Subsection based on MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 2, pp.
3.3, 3.9, 4.6, Vol. 3, pp. 4.1 and 4.3-4.24, and Vol.
5, pp. 6.1-6.2, DASA; Completion Rpt, Stone and
Webster, sub: CEW, Contract W-7401-eng-13,
1946, pp. 19, 21-23, 146-48, OROO; Org Charts,
U.S. Engrs Office, MD, 15 Aug and 1 Nov 43, MDR;
Fine and Remington, Corps of Engineers: Construction,
p. 678; Min, Coordination Committee Mtgs, 23 Dec
42 and 23 Jan, 6 and 13 Feb, 29 Apr, 21 Oct 43,
MDR.

MAP 3

132

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

on which it achieved an excellent
record of placing most orders within
a few days of construction authoriza-
tion. Maj. Wilbur E. Kelley, a young
engineer from Indiana who was re-
sponsible for overseeing electromag-
netic activities for the Manhattan Dis-
trict, and Lt. Col. Warren George,
head of the CEW Construction Divi-
sion, also kept a watchful eye on pro-
curement. (5^^ Chart 2. )

The sheer quantity and variety of
materials and equipment that rolled
in by the trainload over a recently
built spur track to the construction
site taxed the monitoring capabilities
of the CEW Construction Division.
Starting in the spring of 1943, the
builders of the plant moved into the
site more than 2,157 carloads of elec-
trical equipment; 1,219 of heavy
equipment; 5,389 of lumber; 1,407 of
pipe and fittings; 1,188 of steel; 257
of valves of all sizes; and 1 1 of weld-
ing electrodes. The Construction Di-
vision was responsible for seeing that
all of this material was brought to the
site as nearly on schedule as possible.
If items arrived early, the division had
to help find storage space — not
always an easy task because of limited
warehousing facilities.

Because parts and machinery could
not be fabricated on schedules that
dovetailed precisely with construction
progress, much had to be accepted as
the manufacturers were able to turn it
out. Those items that arrived ahead
of schedule had to be closely guard-
ed; protected from dirt, corrosion,
and other kinds of damage; and care-
fully inventoried so that they would
be immediately available as needed.
Chemical equipment posed problems
because of special manufacturing and
handling requirements, and the

equipment often arrived late or just
barely on time.

Schedules had to be adapted to
last-minute changes in design and to
many uncertainties. Discouragingly
few items were commercially avail-
able. Tanks, magnets, vacuum pumps,
cubicles, and most of the chemical
equipment, for example, were either
completely new in design or so much
larger or so much greater in capacity
that nothing of the kind previously
had been manufactured. Many less
obvious items also carried perform-
ance specifications that far exceeded
anything ever attempted on a com-
mercial scale. For instance, the calu-
trons required electrical cable that
could carry a high-voltage load con-
tinuously. The only commercial prod-
uct that came near meeting this speci-
fication was the heaviest X-ray cable,
and it was designed to operate inter-
mittently. Even when the commercial
equipment could be used, suppliers
often had to add to their productive
capacity or build entire new plants to
furnish the items required in the
enormous quantities they were
needed. Thus, in the first equipping
of the racetracks some eighty-five
thousand vacuum tubes were re-
quired. In the case of one type of
tube, procurement officials ordered in
advance the entire national output for
1943 as well as that from a plant still
under construction. In the early
months of plant operation, when
tubes burned out faster than predict-
ed, some feared the racetracks might
prove inoperable simply through in-
ability to maintain the tube supply.

New methods had to be developed
for machining and shaping the graph-
ite in those parts of the calutron sub-

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

133

ject to intense heat. No standard ma-
terial would endure the high poten-
tials, mechanical strain, and tempera-
ture changes to which bushings in the
high-voltage elements in the sources
were continuously subjected. After
months of investigation, Stone and
Webster found an insulator made of
zirconium oxide, a new and still very
expensive substance. Similarly, use of
large quantities of liquid nitrogen to
condense moisture created a demand
for a substance hitherto not produced
on a commercial scale anywhere in
the country.

Nowhere were Manhattan District
personnel more spectacularly in-
volved in procurement than in the
project's need for vast amounts of
silver. ^^ Because copper was in great
demand for all kinds of wartime uses
and because silver could serve as a
substitute in electrical equipment.
Colonel Marshall in the summer of
1942 had detailed Nichols to negotiate
an agreement with the Treasury for
withdrawal of silver from the United
States Bullion Depository in West
Point, New York.

District officials arranged to have
the silver processed through the De-
fense Plant Corporation, which was
conducting a silver program of its
own in connection with other war in-
dustries. The silver, in 1,000-ounce
bars, was moved by guarded truck to

^■' Paragraphs on silver procurement based on
MDH. Bk. 5. Vol. 4, "Silver Program," DASA. For
details on Nichols's role in the silver negotiations,
see Ch. III. Groves presents a good, brief account in
his own book Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 107-09. Dis-
trict officials had to account for and protect nearlv
one-third billion dollars of silver ultimately with-
drawn from the Treasury for the use in the electro-
magnetic plant.

Carteret, New Jersey, where it was
cast into billets, and then to Bayway,
New Jersey, where it was extruded
into strips %'s of an inch thick, 3
inches wide, and 40 to 50 feet long.
From Bayway, under the protection of
Manhattan District guards, the coiled
strips were moved by rail freight to
the Allis-Chalmers plant in Milwau-
kee. There, some 258 carloads of
silver were fabricated into coils and
bus bars, then sealed into welded cas-
ings, and finally shipped on open, un-
guarded flatcars, by various routes
and on irregular schedules, to the
Clinton Works.

A central control section in the
New York Area Engineers Office ad-
ministered the silver program, but as
a double check the District retained
the services of a firm of auditors and
a metallurgical concern. Some precau-
tions taken to avoid unnecessary loss
included weighing the silver each
time it entered or left one of the
plants, storing the pieces in stacks
that would permit minimum handling
during each eight-hour accountability
check, and painstakingly collecting
the scrap — even the minute amounts
that might accumulate on a worker's
clothing or shoe soles. ^®

2* When the time came to return the silver to the
Treasurv after the war was over, Manhattan District
workmen disassembled and cleaned part by part the
machines where it had been used, dismantled the
furnaces in which it had been melted, and even took
up the burned wooden floors to recover every trace
possible. As a result, in the final accounting, less
than one thirty-six-thousandth of 1 percent of the
more than 14.700 tons borrowed by the District for
the atomic project was missing, most of which was
an unavoidable melt loss. See MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 4,
pp. 4.1-4.5, DASA; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p.
109; Hewlett and Anderson, .V^i World, p. 153.

134

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Playit Construction

As work crews began excavating
building sites and laying foundations
early in the summer of 1943, Stone
and Webster foremen knew plant con-
struction must move ahead with maxi-
mum speed during the prime summer
building season, to meet the extreme-
ly short deadlines projected by the
Army. Reluctantly, Stone and Web-
ster officials agreed to have the first
Alpha racetrack building ready to turn
over to Tennessee Eastman, the plant
operator, by November and the re-
maining Alpha units at approximately
monthly intervals thereafter. Project
leaders were convinced that only ad-
herence to this rigorous schedule
would produce sufficient fissionable
materials to fulfill the requirements
for design and fabrication of an
atomic weapon in time to affect the
outcome of the war.

Stone and Webster had little diffi-
culty in maintaining force-draft con-
struction schedules for the plant
buildings, mainly designed along the
lines of structures in common use by
industry. The only unexpected delay
was the discovery of unfavorable sub-
soil conditions; excavation crews thus
had to do some extra blasting and
mucking and laying of 6-foot-thick
concrete mats to ensure firm founda-
tions for the enormously heavy elec-
tromagnetic machines. Through use
of more thorough soil-sampling tech-
niques, Stone and Webster was able
to minimize the time lost in providing
adequate footings for the later race-
track buildings.

Internal construction of the plant,
however, was characterized by uncon-
ventional methods and unorthodox
problems that seemed certain to

cause delays and setbacks in working
schedules. Project leaders had antici-
pated some problems. They knew, for
example, that installing equipment
while the building shells were under
construction was likely to lead to
complications because riggers, pipe
fitters, and mechanics were not ordi-
narily accustomed to working elbow
to elbow with concrete pourers, form
builders, and other building construc-
tion workers. Also, security measures
and the need to maintain extreme
cleanliness in certain areas would re-
quire guards and a pass system to
limit access to some parts of the
buildings. And they well understood
that assembling the complex racetrack
and other production units involved
demanding and time-consuming
measures. ^^

Consequently, Manhattan District
officials were pleasantly surprised
when Colonel Nichols, who had re-
placed Marshall as district engineer,
reported to General Groves in
September that the electromagnetic
construction was about 34 percent
completed, including the turnover to
Tennessee Eastman of the first oper-
ational facilities. These were the two
tanks and three magnet coils of the
XAX development plant with auxiliary
supporting units to be used for train-
ing production plant workers. At the
same time. Colonel Nichols noted
that construction on the crucial main
Alpha equipment was no more than a
few weeks behind the ambitious
schedules set up by Groves earlier in
the year. Stone and Webster engi-
neers had reported to him that they

29MDH, Bk. 5. Vol. 5, pp. 3.1 and 3.9-3.10,
DASA.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

135

Excavation of Typical Rocky Substratum at the Tennessee Site

expected the first Alpha racetrack to
be operational by 1 December 1943.
The only disquieting note in Nichols's
optimistic September estimate was
mention of discovery of some "bugs"
when the XAX tanks underwent their
initial test operation. ^°

Partly on the basis of this impres-
sive progress, General Groves author-
ized start of work on four of the im-
proved Alpha Il-type racetracks and
two additional Beta units in Septem-
ber. Stone and Webster organized a
whole new field force and the district
engineer reorganized the CEW Con-
struction Division, enlarging its per-
sonnel and establishing separate con-

30 Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, Sep 43,
MDR, MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5, p. 3.16 and .App. Dll
(Chart. Employees on Stone and Webster's Payroll).
DASA; Memo, Kellev to Marsden, sub: Summary of
V-12 Proj as of 9 Aug 43, same date, MDR.

struction divisions to monitor the
three major building projects in
progress at the Tennessee site: the
electromagnetic, gaseous diffusion,
and plutonium semiworks facilities.
Colonel George continued as head of
the newly formed Electromagnetic
Construction Division, but with addi-
tional officers assigned to branches to
monitor Stone and Webster's nine
construction subunits and a special
expediting section. Thus, as Stone
and Webster's engineers prepared to
carry out a test run of the nearly com-
pleted Alpha I unit, District officials
were confident that the electromag-
netic project was well on the way to
successful completion. Had they taken
more careful note of the "bugs" that
persisted in the XAX calutron test op-
erations, they might have been better

136

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

prepared for setbacks the project was
to suffer in the months ahead. ^^

The first of the unanticipated prob-
lems with the newly completed Alpha
I racetrack was reported to Colonel
Nichols in early November. A few
days after they had started test runs,
plant engineers discovered that the
14-ton calutron tanks, which stood
back to back between the coils, had
moved apart as much as 3 inches,
causing a tremendous strain on the
piping used to maintain a vacuum in
the tanks. After investigation they de-
termined that the powerful magnetic
field set up in the racetrack had cre-
ated such a force between the tanks
that they "walked" away from each
other when they were jarred, as
during installation or removal of a
door. Following a few days study of
the phenomenon. Stone and Webster
reported that the adverse effects of
the magnetic field could be overcome
by installing heavy steel tie straps to
hold the tanks firmly in place. ^^

No such simple solution was possi-
ble, however, for the second major
problem that the November test oper-
ations revealed. The symptoms were
intermittent electrical shorts with
wide fluctuations in magnetic field
strength as successive magnet coils
were energized. Colonel Nichols re-
ported the problem to General
Groves in early December, by which
time the complete failure of several
coils seemed to threaten the whole
future of the process. Plant engineers
indicated that dirt in the oil coolant

inside the coils was probably the
major cause of the malfunction and
the only sure cure was to drain the oil
and dry out the coils. Very much
upset by the ominous developments,
the Manhattan commander directed
Nichols to take all measures neces-
sary, pending his own arrival at the
site to discuss such other steps as
might be required, including "a reor-
ganization of personnel in charge of
the Y-12 [electromagnetic] construc-
tion work so that similar occurrences
[would] be avoided in the future." ^^

Groves arrived at the Clinton
Works on 14 December for a hurried
two-day inspection visit. On hand al-
ready were project engineer August
Klein from Stone and Webster and a
team of experts from Allis-Chalmers,
where the unsatisfactory coils had
been manufactured. Their further
checking. Groves learned, had re-
vealed that the trouble stemmed not
only from mill scale and rust in the
cooling oil but also from moisture in
the cloth and fiberboard insulation,
and too close winding of wire. Groves
set in motion a thorough reorganiza-
tion of the Clinton electromagnetic
administrative team and reemphasized
his earlier directive to Lawrence that
he concentrate Radiation Laboratory
resources on finding a solution for
the defects in the racetrack
equipment.^'*

3>Org Charts, U.S. Engrs Office, MD, 15 Aug
and 1 Nov 43, MDR; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5, pp. 6.1-
6.4 and Apps. D7 and DIO, DASA.

^^Min, Coordination Committee Mtg, 11 Nov 43,
MDR; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, Nov-
Dec 43, MDR.

"Msgs. Nichols to Groves and reply. 6 Dec 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp. 412.41 (Motors), MDR.

^''Msg, Nichols to Groves (at Hanford), 6 Dec 43;
Msg, Lt Col Thomas T. Crenshaw (Ex Off, CEW) to
Groves, [probably 7 or 8 Dec 43]; Memo, Peterson
to Groves, 9 Dec 43. All in Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 412.41 (Motors), MDR. MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5,
pp. 3.10-3.11, DASA. Groves Diary, 14-15 Dec 43,
LRG.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

137

Alpha I Racetrack, Electromagnetic Plant, CEW

A new administrative hierarchy re-
sulted from the reorganization of the
eletromagnetic team, which took
effect in January 1944. Lt. Col. John
S. Hodgson, who had considerable
experience as a civilian contractor, re-
placed Colonel George as chief of the
Electromagnetic Construction Divi-
sion; Maj. William A. Bonnett moved
up from a position as a liaison officer
with Stone and Webster field units to
be Hodgson's assistant; and Maj.
Walter J. Williams, who had had as-
signments on a number of ordnance
plant construction projects, took over
responsibility for completion of the
original electromagnetic plant. Only
Maj. Mark C. Fox, who had served as
area engineer on other Corps of En-
gineers projects, continued in his re-
cently assigned task of overseeing

construction of extensions to the
original electromagnetic plant. At the
same time. Stone and Webster
brought in Frank R. Creedon from
the synthetic rubber progam to be
general manager of all the company's
operations at the Clinton Works.
Creedon had had an earlier associa-
tion with General Groves, having
worked as a civilian employee of the
Army's Construction Division on ord-
nance projects before 1942.

The first big task facing the new
team was how to solve the technical
defects in the Alpha I electrical equip-
ment. Project technicians decided the
only sure remedy was to return the
malfunctioning magnet coils to Allis-
Chalmers' Milwaukee plant for clean-
ing and rewinding, as well as to have
equipment crews disassemble and

138

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

clean all oil lines in the racetrack
building. It took about three months
to complete these corrective meas-
ures, and thus the first Alpha I race-
track was not hilly operative again
until early March 1944.^^

With the distressing days of techni-
cal problems in the past, by spring
the somber mood of Manhattan and
Stone and Webster officials concern-
ing the electromagnetic method had
dissipated, and they were enjoying a
revived sense of optimism. One argu-
ment in favor of the process had been
that the production plant could be
built in segments which would
become operational as soon as they
were completed, making possible the
early detection of defects and the ad-
dition of indicated improvements.
And now, because the trying experi-
ences of Stone and Webster engi-
neers with the first Alpha I racetrack
had enhanced their understanding of
the problems and the reasons for
them, they were able to make changes
in equipment handling and installa-
tion techniques for subsequent race-
tracks. On the second Alpha I race-
track, for example, the engineers in-
troduced much more rigid standards
of cleanliness, including such meas-
ures as drying out pipe lines by circu-
lating preheated oil through them
and adding filters for each coil.^^

»^Org Chart, U.S. Engrs OfTice, MD, 15 Feb 44,
MDR; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5, pp. 3.10-3.11 and 6.1,
DASA; Fine and Remington, Corps of Engineers: Con-
struction, pp. 684-86; Groves, \ow It Can be Told, p.
102 and 427; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj,
Mar 44, MDR.

'«MDH. Bk. 5, Vol. 5, pp. 3.11, DASA; Memo, E.
W. SeckendorfT (Y-12 Process Engr) to T. R.
Thornburg (Gen Supt, V'-12, Stone and Webster),
sub: Detailed Method ot Cleaning and Altering Pipe
at Racetrack B-Bldg 9201-1, CEW, Area V-12, 30
Dec 43, Incl to Memo, Crenshaw to Groves, 1 Jan

Initial failure of Alpha I also reaf-
firmed a cardinal principle of General
Groves's administrative policy for the
atomic project. For months, the Man-
hattan commander had been empha-
sizing that the major resources and
personnel at the atomic research lab-
oratories should be concentrated on
the single objective of securing pro-
duction of militarily significant
amounts of fissionable materials in
time to be of use during the war. On
more than one occasion during his
visits to the Radiation Laboratory in
the fall of 1943, Groves had reminded
Lawrence's scientific staff that the
Army was not interested in advancing
pure science. Their mission, he
stated, once the research and devel-
opment for the production plant was
completed, was to support in what-
ever way was necessary the design,
construction, and operation of that
plant. The natural tendency of the
Radiation Laboratory scientists was to
resist limiting themselves solely to so-
called debugging activities for the
Tennessee plant, but the crisis caused
by Alpha I's failure forced Lawrence
to push new research entirely into the
background and, in December, to
completely redefine laboratory prior-
ities in terms of two objectives: in-
creasing the output and efficiency of
the electromagnetic plant; and devel-
oping new ideas, methods, and engi-
neering designs for expanding that
plant. ^"^

44. Admm Files, Gen Corresp, 337 (Kellex LC),
MDR.

^^ Min, Coordination Committee Mtg, 17 Nov 43,
MDR; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, Nov-
Dec 43 and Feb 44, MDR; Ltr, Lawrence to Nichols,
22 Mar 44. MDR.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

139

The Army's prompt administrative
measures to counter the adverse con-
sequences of Alpha I's failure proved
to be highly effective. The engineers
were successful in making the second
Alpha I operational by the end of Jan-
uary 1944, the first Beta and the first
and third Alpha I in March, and the
fourth Alpha I in April. Impressed
with the rapid progress being
achieved, Colonel Nichols reported to
Groves that he was now convinced
that the prediction given to President
Roosevelt in December 1942 — com-
pletion of an atomic weapon by early
1945 — would be realized if persisting
manpower shortages could be
overcome.^®

Meanwhile, Stone and Webster had
been moving ahead with construction
of other major elements of the elec-
tromagnetic plant. Construction time
for building the extension units — the
Alpha II racetracks — was far less in
comparison to that required for
Alpha I. The Stone and Webster
crews' rapid progress was in part due
to certain design modifications, such
as using cement asbestos brick for the
outer siding of buildings and making
the racetrack shape rectangular rather
than oval. Also, the experience gained
on Alpha I expedited installation of
equipment in Alpha II. The first race-
track in the extension plant began op-
erating in July 1944 and all four were
ready for operation by 1 October. ^^

At the same time. Stone and Web-
ster and its subcontractors construct-
ed the Beta units, where the Alpha-

^^ Disi Kngr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan and
Mar 44, MDR, Rpt, Nichols, sub: Info for Groves, 8
Apr 44, OCX; Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 28,
Tab A, MDR.

39MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5, pp. 3.17-3.20, 3.22, 5.2,
DASA.

processed material would be further
enriched, and built the facilities for
chemical preparation and recovery for
both Alpha and Beta plants. In spite
of several changes in plans, resulting
in considerable expansion of the Beta
and chemical facilities, the Electro-
magnetic Construction Division kept
the work on or even ahead of sched-
ule, avoiding delays in processing ma-
terial from the Alpha plants. From
original plans in 1943 for only a
single Beta unit to process Alpha I
output, the number grew to four: one
for Alpha II; another to handle addi-
tional output from Alphas I and II
that resulted from using partially en-
riched feed material from the gaseous
diffusion plant; and still another in
1945 so that there would be enough
Beta facilities to process enriched ma-
terial coming directly from the diffu-
sion plants. Similarly, each expansion
of the Alpha and Beta units required
an increase in the number of chemical
and other processing facilities, giving
the division additional work in expe-
diting procurement, monitoring revi-
sion in contracts, and inspecting com-
pleted construction. This continuing
high-level of construction activity oc-
casioned Colonel Hodgson to reorga-
nize his division in late 1944 and to
establish five separate branches
(structures, electrical, expediting,
process piping, and mechanical). Not
until early 1945, when the Military
Policy Committee decided that the in-
dicated successful operation of the
gaseous diffusion and plutonium
plants would make further large-scale
expansion of electromagnetic produc-

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Electromagnetic Plant Under Construction

tion facilities unnecessary, did the di-
vision's workload ease significantly. ^°

Plant Operation

Terms of the June 1943 contract
for operation of the electromagnetic

*°Ibid.. pp. 3.13-3.15, 3.20-3.23, App. D6 (Tab-
ulation of Bldg Statistics), DASA; Dist Engr, Month-
ly Rpts on DSM Proj, Oct 43 and Aug and Nov 44,
MDR; MPC Min, 10 May 44 and 25 Feb 45, MDR;
Completion Rpts, Stone and Webster, sub: CEW,
Contract W-7401-eng-13, 1946, pp. 49-50, and
Contract W-14-108-eng-60, 1946, pp. 6-8, OROO;
Rpt, W. M. Brobeck and W B. Reynolds, sub: On
Future Development of Electromagnetic System of
Tube Alloys Isotope Separation, 15 Jan 45, OCG
Files, Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Fldr 10, MDR.

plant provided that Tennessee East-
man operate it on a cost-plus-fixed-
fee basis, serve as a consultant on
plant design, obtain and train operat-
ing personnel, and carry on research
to improve the process and its prod-
uct. For performing these services,
the government agreed to pay the
firm a basic operating fee of $22,500
each month plus $7,500 for each
racetrack up to seven and $4,000 for
each one over that number.*^

"» WD Contract W-7401-eng-23, 7 Jun 43, with
supps., OROO; MDH, Bk, 5, Vol. 6. "Operation,"
pp. 2.2-2.5 and 3.1-3.5, DASA.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

141

Preparations

In early 1943, when Tennessee
Eastman initiated preliminary oper-
ational activities at the Tennessee site
and at the Berkeley and Rochester re-
search facilities, the district engineer
formed a CEW Division in the New
York office and assigned Major Kelley
as division chief to supervise electro-
magnetic operations. Kelley's division
not only monitored the contractor's
activities relating to administration,
chemical processes, electrical process-
es and plants, and special accounts
but also established liaison with its
Berkeley and Boston administrative
units that coordinated with the Radi-
ation Laboratory and Stone and Web-
ster. Tennessee Eastman's Boston
staff, however, moved to the Tennes-
see site in August, in keeping with the
firm's frequently expressed desire to
center its plant operations activities
there. *2

During construction Major Kelley
and his operating unit staff were busy
assisting Tennessee Eastman in re-
cruiting and training personnel to op-
erate the Alpha, Beta, and chemical
process equipment. Early estimates of
the number of employees needed
were far too low and requirements
were repeatedly revised upward. Al-
though recruiting was carried on in
all sections of the country through re-

*^ Subsection based on Org Chart, U.S. Engrs
Office, MD, 1 Nov 43, MDR, MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 5,
Sec. 3, and Vol. 6, pp. 3.3-3.5 and 8.1-8.3, DASA;
Min, Coordination Committee Mtgs, 23 Jan, 6 Mar,
and 24 Jun 43, MDR; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on
DSM Proj, Sep 43 and Mar 44, MDR; Min, Special
Progress Mtg, 5 Aug 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
337 (Mtgs and Confs-Univ of Calif), MDR; Hewlett
and Anderson, S'eu< World, p. 162; Rpt, F. T.
Howard, sub: The DSM Proj, Synthetic Catalyst Diy,
22 Apr 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr
28, Tab A, MDR.

gional offices of the United States
Employment Service, the best results
were attained in Knoxville and vicini-
ty. For the many jobs requiring tech-
nical knowledge and background, the
electromagnetic project had to resort
to procurement through military
channels. Many of the scientifically
trained personnel in the Manhattan
District's Special Engineer Detach-
ment (SED) at the Clinton Works
were assigned to work in the plant,
reaching a total of 450 SED enlisted
personnel by August 1945. The Dis-
trict also assisted in the temporary as-
signment of technically trained Navy
officers to the plant in 1944, their
number reaching a maximum of 143
in July of that year.*^

Tennessee Eastman made a major
effort to develop a training program
for the thousands of operators who
would be required when the plant was
ready for full-scale operation. Work-
ing closely with Radiation Laboratory
scientists, the firm's Berkeley staff laid
the groundwork for systematic train-
ing of workers and supervisory per-
sonnel. While many practiced with
the Alpha experimental equipment at
Berkeley, others went to the Univer-
sity of California's Davis campus to
learn chemical processing techniques.
Radiation Laboratory scientists and
Manhattan District representatives
carefully reviewed all training materi-
al, the latter group giving special
attention to the security problem.
Tennessee Eastman technicians delib-
erately compiled the training material
to give the would-be operator only
the information needed to perform

*^ For a more detailed account of manpower re-
cruitment, and the SED's formation and organiza-
tion, see Ch. XVI.

142

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

the job, without reveaHng the true
character or purpose of the end prod-
uct. Experimentation demonstrated
that trainees with prehminary orienta-
tion in the nature of the electromag-
netic process made the most rapid
progress. Meanwhile, by September
1943, intensive recruiting efforts by
the company had resulted in the
hiring of some eighteen hundred op-
erator trainees, most of them from
the Knoxville area.

Some preliminary instruction took
place in facilities of the University of
Tennessee, because the large-scale
training program at the plant site did
not start until early fall. By that time
hundreds of trainees were on hand to
begin training on two experimental
XAX electromagnetic production
tanks that had started operating in
the development plant. Tennessee
Eastman moved all but a few of its
personnel from Berkeley to the Ten-
nessee site to participate in training
the twenty-five hundred operators
deemed necessary for the five Alpha I
racetracks. With the addition of the
Alpha II and Beta buildings, the train-
ee program expanded to provide sev-
eral times that many operators. By
early 1944, Tennessee Eastman's pay-
roll had increased to ten thousand
and by mid- 1945 it would rise to
more than twenty-five thousand.

The typical operator trainee was a
woman, recently graduated from a
nearby Tennessee high school, with
no scientific training whatsoever.
Using one of the XAX electromagnet-
ic tanks in the development plant, the
instructional staff taught her how to
operate complex control panels in the
calutron cubicles adjacent to the race-
tracks. They gave her only informa-
tion essential to her task as an opera-

tor and, for security reasons, actually
mislead her as to the real purpose
and character of the product. The
training program was surprisingly
successful, supplying operators on
schedule for each Alpha and Beta
racetrack as it went into operation.

Production Activities

Starting up in late 1943, the elec-
tromagnetic chemical units eventually
were producing thousands of pounds
of the charge material necessary for
the production operation of the race-
tracks. The first really effective pro-
duction of the U-235-enriched final
product came in late January, when
the second Alpha I racetrack began
operating. In the five-month period
following, as the remaining three
Alpha I and the first two Beta tracks
became fully operational, production
steadily increased. And by mid- 1944,
the Army could view the electromag-
netic start-up operations as, in the
main, successful.'*'*

Manhattan District officials, howev-
er, were unprepared for the almost
continuous problems that arose as the
electromagnetic plant moved into the
sustained production phase of its op-
eration. One mechanical or equip-
ment failure after another plagued
plant operations; short circuits and
shortages, breakdowns and breakages
cropped up on all sides. In spite of
the best efforts of Tennessee Eastman
and District procurement officials, the
spare parts situation skirted the edge
of chaos for months. Lack of experi-
ence, of standardization, and of a suf-

""MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 6, pp. 4.2 and 4.4-4.5,
DASA; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan-
Jun 44, passim, MDR.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

143

CEW Training Facilities (background ), where electromagnetic plant employees received
preliminary instruction. District headquarters buildings are in the foreground.

ficicnt number of suppliers all con-
tributed to the severe parts procure-
ment difficulties. Nevertheless, the
District's electromagnetic staff and
Tennessee Eastman — working in close
coordination — managed sufficiently to
overcome the adverse effects of these
many problems so that in March 1944
plant workers shipped the first of sev-
eral hundred grams of Alpha product,
containing 13 to 15 percent U-235, to
Los Alamos. Three months later the
first shipment of the much more
highly enriched Beta product reached
the New Mexico laboratory.*^

But Manhattan and Tennessee
Eastman officials were well aware that
this output of sample quantities rep-
resented only the first steps in bring-

*s MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 6, pp. 4.2 and 4.4-4.5,
DASA; Memo, J. C. White (Gen Mgr, Tenn East) to
Groves, 28 Jun 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 095
(TEC), MDR.

ing the electromagnetic plant up to a
maximum rate of production, a com-
plicated undertaking with pitfalls at
every turn.*^ They readily perceived
that part of the difficulty was inherent
in the basic nature of the process that
used large complex machines and sig-
nificant quantities of electric power
and raw materials to isolate an infin-
itesmally small amount of final prod-
uct. The basic feed material, orange-
colored uranium oxide shipped in
from refineries operating under direc-
tion of Manhattan's Madison Square
Area Engineers Office, moved
through a series of very complex
steps. A chemical preparation process
converted it into a gaseous form, ura-
nium tetrachloride, which plant work-

*® Paragraphs on electromagnetic plant oper-
ations based primarily on MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 6, Sec.
4, DASA.

144

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

ers then fed into the Alpha racetracks.
Here part of the feed material sepa-
rated, while the rest adhered to vari-
ous parts of the interior of the calu-
tron, where it had to be recovered for
recycle. The separated portion went
to the Beta chemical preparation
stage and then into the Beta race-
tracks for further separation. That
separated portion emerged as U-235
final product and, after concentration,
workers shipped it to the Los Alamos
Laboratory. The rest had to be re-
covered, recycled through the Beta
racetracks, and concentrated for
shipment.

Only 1 in 5,825 parts of charge ma-
terial fed into the Alpha racetracks
emerged as final product; 90 percent
of the charge material was left in the
feed bottles or scattered around the
tanks. Of the 10 percent that passed
into the ion beams, only a very small
quantity entered the receivers. The
amount reaching the receivers was
limited by the capacity of the calu-
trons. It could not be increased
except through use of enriched
charge material, or by construction of
more racetracks. Furthermore, the
amount actually recovered from the
receivers, because of its minute quan-
tity and the essentially violent nature
of the process, could not be made to
reach 100 percent even by the most
practicable methods.

Because of the high intrinsic value
of the final product, recovery had to
be as complete and thorough as pos-
sible, yet with no undue holdup time
in the chemical apparatus to slow
down the process. The Beta chemistry
facilities included a salvage depart-
ment which used batteries of extrac-
tors, reactors, filters, centrifuges,
evaporators, and driers so that the

very last traces of enriched uranium
might be recovered. Justification for
these intensive efforts was demon-
strated when worn-out carbon receiv-
er parts from the calutrons were
burned. They yielded enough en-
riched uranium to raise the January
1945 production a full 10 percent.*"^
Even under the best of conditions,
a small amount of U-235-enriched
product always remained in solutions,
or bound in solids, or adhered to
costly and scarce equipment parts;
however, it was economically unfeasi-
ble for this material to be recovered.
A certain percentage also remained in
that part of the uranium feed matter
which passed through the ion beam
but did not enter the receivers. It was
imperative that this material — consti-
tuting nine-tenths of the uranium fed
into the Alpha calutrons and seven-
eighths of that going into the Beta
racetracks — be prevented from con-
taminating the enriched uranium and
be recovered and stored for possible
future reprocessing. To keep losses at
a minimum and to prevent theft, Ten-
nessee Eastman instituted a strict ma-
terial accounting system. Stock room
employees inventoried the Alpha
stocks every four weeks, the Beta
every two weeks. In spite of this care-
ful check, surprisingly large amounts
of material (17.4 percent of Alpha
product by September 1945 and 5.4
percent of Beta product by December
1946) were lost unavoidably in the
various kinds of wastes created by the
separation process itself.*®

*'' Memo, Kelley to Groves, sub: Present Status of
Beta Chemistry Opns, 8 Sep 44, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 600.1 (Constr CEW), MDR; Hewlett and
Anderson, Xew World, pp. 295-96.

^^ Data concerning losses of feed materials and
recovery problems is derived from MDH, Bk. 5, Vol.

Continued

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

145

The most crucial phase of the re-
covery operation took place in Beta
chemistry. Alpha workers moved the
final Alpha product, stored in receiver
pockets on the removable doors of
the Alpha calutrons, to the Beta
chemistry buildings. After dismantling
the pockets. Beta workers first
scraped, bleached, and burned the
graphite parts and then leached and
electrostripped the metal parts. Final-
ly, chemists processed the resulting
solutions and solids to extract all en-
riched uranium. They then purified
this enriched uranium and converted
it into Beta feed material.

The Beta preparatory chemical
process proved to be one of the most
persistently troublesome operations
in the electromagnetic plant. The
process was slow, requiring, even
under optimum conditions, about
three weeks. More worrisome, howev-
er, only about 60 percent of the en-
riched uranium brought from Alpha
was showing up as an end product of
the Beta chemical process, causing a
serious shortage of feed material for
the Beta racetracks. In July 1944,
Groves himself went to the Clinton
Works to discuss the problem with
plant and District officials. As a result,
Tennessee Eastman temporarily shut
down all Beta production in August
so that company engineers and out-
side consultants could thoroughly
analyze the process and equipment.
Their investigations revealed that the
trouble lay in the overly complex
piping and equipment and in the
tendency of certain materials in this
equipment to absorb too much
uranium.

6, pp. 4.16-4.17 and App. C (with illustrations),
DAS A.

District and Tennessee Eastman of-
ficials immediately instituted changes
in equipment, techniques, and organi-
zation to overcome these weaknesses
in Beta chemistry. Project engineers
set about removing, cleaning, and re-
designing piping; replaced glass-lined
tubes with pyrex; put in more parts
made of graphite from which ab-
sorbed uranium could be recovered
by burning; and made other changes
to speed up the process. For varying
periods during the fall of 1944, ex-
perts like Frank H. Spedding, the
metallurgist who headed Manhattan's
research program at Iowa State Col-
lege, and John P. Baxter, one of the
British scientists assisting in the bomb
development program, came to the
Clinton Works to study Beta chemis-
try with an eye to improving tech-
niques employed in the process. And,
in December, District officials negoti-
ated contracts with Johns Hopkins
and Purdue Universities to study
methods for increasing recovery and
reducing holdup time in the Beta
process. Tennessee Eastman, now
more fully aware of the chemical diffi-
culties of isotopic separation, com-
pletely reorganized its Clinton chem-
istry division and greatly increased
the number of personnel.

In spite of the difficulties with Beta
chemistry operations, in January 1945
the district engineer reported to the
Manhattan commander that there had
been a dramatic increase in Beta pro-
duction during the second half of
1944, with output being about 60
percent greater at the close of De-
cember. This increase was attributa-
ble primarily to the much higher pro-
ductive capacity of Alpha II calutrons,
and the fact that all Alpha II's were

146

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

fully operational by November. Con-
sequently, Beta output in November
was more than ten times the July rate,
increasing even more in December to
twice the November rate. The Alpha
II's, however, were far from trouble-
free. The major problem experienced
had to do with the insulators burning
out at a high rate, but the engineers
quickly corrected this defect by rec-
ommending that zircon be substituted
for the less durable material in the
bushings. ^^

Not all of the production problems
of the electromagnetic project were
mechanical or technical in nature.
When the spare parts crisis occurred
in June 1944, Groves looked into
project management by Tennessee
Eastman and District officials. Follow-
ing a visit to the plant, he wrote to
Conant that he had observed a
number of ways in which he thought
production might be increased. Su-
pervisors ought to make more fre-
quent inspections, especially in instal-
lation and servicing of calutrons.
More should be done to build up and
maintain employee morale. Lack of
sufficient organization charts and the
presence of "too many people" in the
operating rooms gave Groves the im-
pression that the plant managers were
not making the most efficient use of
personnel. Also, he wondered if Fred-
erick R. Conklin, the Tennessee East-
man works manager, and Major
Kelley, chief of the District's Electro-
magnetic Operations Division, were

*^ Memos for File, Kelley, sub: Notes on 3 and 14
Jul Confs, 4 and 15 Jul 44, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 337 (LC), MDR; Memo, Kelley to Groves, sub:
Present Status of Beta Chemistry Opns, 8 Sep 44,
MDR; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jul
44-Jan 45, passim, MDR; Hewlett and Anderson,
Xeu' World, pp. 295-96; MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 6, pp. 4.9-
4.10 and 5.3, DASA.

"too similar in disposition," noting
that neither Conklin nor Kelley was a
"hard driving, optimistic executive.
Instead of setting an impossible goal
and then breaking their hearts to
almost achieve it, they set a nice,
comfortable goal making plenty of al-
lowances for difficulties and then feel
very proud of themselves for having
been proven right in their pessimistic
outlook." ^°

General Groves took no immediate
steps to institute major changes in
management. He could not overlook
the fact that Major Kelley got along
extremely well with the key executives
of Tennessee Eastman and also was
held in very high regard by Lawrence
and the staff of the Radiation Labora-
tory. It was not until September, with
the spare parts problem partially re-
lieved and the Beta chemistry bottle-
neck on the way to solution, that the
Manhattan commander directed the
district engineer to replace Kelley.
Colonel Nichols selected Lt. Col.
John R. Ruhoff, a chemical engineer
by profession, because of his familiar-
ity with electromagnetic problems; he
had been assistant chief of the Dis-
trict's Materials Section and, since
1943, chief of the Madison Square
Area Engineers Office where he was
responsible for overseeing the provi-
sion of feed materials for the electro-
magnetic process. In early 1945,
Ruhoff assumed responsibility for
overseeing all electromagnetic activi-
ties at the Clinton Works and contin-
ued in that post until the end of the
war. Major Kelley did not leave the

^° Ltr, Groves to Conant, 5 Jun 44, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 400.17 (Mfg-Prod-Fab), MDR; Ltr,
White to Groves, 28 Jun 44, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 095 (TEC LC), MDR.

THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROCESS

147

Electromagnetic Plant in Full Operation

Manhattan Project, but replaced
Ruhoff as head of the Madison
Square Office. ^^

Although there was a gradual, but
not spectacular, improvement in elec-
tromagnetic production, intermittent
expressions of dissatisfaction with the
way the plant was operating contin-
ued. For example, British scientists
working at the Radiation Laboratory
came away from a visit to the plant
highly critical of certain design fea-
tures of process equipment and of the
alleged gross inefficiency of the serv-
ice crews. Marcus Oliphant, head of
the British group, also found serious
fault with personnel and organization.

He wrote to Sir James Chadwick in
November 1944, expressing concern
at the "poor quality of the higher
grade personnel in TEC [Tennessee
Eastman Corporation] . . . [and] the
clumsiness of the army organization,
which neither controls nor checks the
operation except in a very desultory
and inefficient manner." ^^

Partially as a reaction to this con-
tinuing criticism, but chiefly as a re-
flection of frayed nerves under the
long strain, Tennessee Eastman ex-
ecutives complained bitterly in April
1945 to Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell,

^' Llr, Lawrence to Nichols, 12 Jul 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 020 (MED-Org), MDR; MDH,
Bk. 5, Vol. 6, p. 8.1, DASA.

"Ltr, Oliphant to Chadwick, 2 Nov 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Chadwick, J), MDR;
Baxter, Notes on Alpha and Beta Output, 6 Nov 44,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 {V-12), MDR.
See also Interv, Author with Dr. Elkin Burckhardt
(physicist, V-12), CMH.

148

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

who had been serving as Groves's
deputy since February, that the firm
was not getting the recognition it de-
served for what it had accompHshed
at the CHnton Works. Operation of
the electromagnetic plant should be
viewed for what it actually was, a
huge pilot plant, not a normal indus-
trial operation. While, undoubtedly,
there were deficiencies that the firm
could correct, there were also handi-
caps which it could not possibly over-
come. The plant had been designed
with few interchangeable parts; the
damage to equipment had been
greater than projected; and the pro-
gram had been constantly changing,
as in the case of the recent shifts to
thermal and gaseous diffusion feed
materials. In the light of all these
mitigating factors, they were especial-
ly disturbed by the implication of
General Groves's remark to the oper-
ating supervisors that "they should
work until they fell into their graves
just as the war was over." ^^

The criticisms and complaints
began to lose some of their sting by
late spring of 1945 as rapidly increas-
ing production provided concrete evi-
dence that the plant was going to be
a success. In January, all the race-

tracks had demonstrated their ability
to perform at predicted capacity, even
though delays in servicing, chemistry,
and procurement of parts still im-
posed a drag on full production. In
February, the first slightly enriched
(1.4 percent) uranium feed had come
from the new thermal diffusion plant,
and in March the first enhanced
(5 percent and up) material from
the gaseous diffusion plant. In April,
the gaseous plant began turning out
uranium sufficiently enriched to go
directly into the Beta racetracks,
gradually increasing product enrich-
ment until it reached 23 percent on
5 August: the day before the first
bomb was dropped on Japan.

Because of the higher enrichment
of the Beta feed material, the Alpha
stage was no longer necessary. In
early September 1945, with the occu-
pation of Japan going forward suc-
cessfully, plant officials ordered the
Alpha racetracks shut down. They
had produced more than 88 kilo-
grams of final product with average
enrichment of 84.5 percent. Beta con-
tinued in operation until the end of
the year, producing an additional 953
kilograms of final product with an en-
richment of about 95 percent. ^"^

"Memo, Farrell to Groves, sub: Apr 18th Conf at
Clinton, 19 Apr 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 337
(CEW), MDR,

5''MDH, Bk. 5, Vol. 6, pp. 4.13-4.14 and Top
Secret App., DASA.

CHAPTER VII

The Gaseous Diffusion Process

By late 1942, atomic project leaders
had authorized development of four
technically and theoretically different
processes — the electromagnetic, gase-
ous and liquid thermal diffusion, and
gas centrifuge — as potential methods
for producing sufficient U-235 of a
quality to be militarily useful in
World War II. Work on these proc-
esses had been in progress for about
two years, long enough to make appar-
ent the relative advantages and disad-
vantages of each.

Because no single method appeared
capable by itself of producing the
badly needed U-235, Manhattan lead-
ers conceived the possibility of em-
ploying two or more of the processes
in combination. They readily en-
dorsed the electromagnetic as one of
the methods; unlike the other three, it
could begin producing adequately en-
riched U-235 from an only partially
completed plant. Selection of the
other process for full-scale develop-
ment in tandem with the electromag-
netic came in early December. The
Lewis reviewing committee gave the
gaseous diffusion process a solid en-
dorsement, recommending construc-
tion of a 4,600-stage plant capable of
producing 90 percent U-235 in sub-
stantial quantities. Meeting on the
tenth, the Military Policy Committee

then approved this recommendation,
basing its decision upon the conclu-
sion that even though project scien-
tists had yet to satisfactorily design
the key components for a gaseous dif-
fusion plant, the process was, never-
theless, more likely to produce a suffi-
cient quantity of fissionable material
suitable for an atomic weapon than
either the liquid thermal diffusion or
centrifuge processes.^

Gaseous Diffusion Research and the
Army, 1942-1943

Research and development on the
diffusion process, which had started
in 1940, centered at Columbia Uni-

1 The Military Policy Committee approved contin-
ued but limited support for research and develop-
ment of the liquid thermal diffusion and centrifuge
processes. The detailed arguments for and against
full-scale development of these processes may be
found in Memo, Richard C. Tolman (Groves's scien-
tific adviser) to Groves, sub: Visit to Centrifugal
Plant at Bayway, N.J., 20 Dec 43, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 201 (Tolman), MDR; Draft Rpt, Lt Col
John R. Ruhoft", sub: Summary on Atomic Energy,
17 Jun 46. Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12
(Atomic), MDR; MPC Min, 12 Nov and 10 Dec 42,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 23, Tab A,
MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3, "Design," pp. 3.1-3.2,
DASA; Conclusions of Reviewing Committee, 4 Dec

42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (Special Review-
ing Committee), MDR; Ltr, Urey to Conant, 4 Sep

43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Urey), MDR.
See also Chs. VI and VIII.

150

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

versity under the direction of two
members of the faculty, Harold C.
Urey, an eminent physical chemist
and Nobel Prize winner (1934), and
John R. Dunning, a young physicist.
Supported since 1941 by funds from
the Navy and an OSRD contract, dif-
fusion research by December 1942
had made substantial progress toward
development of a large-scale expan-
sion of the process. On the basis of a
theory provided by Karl P. Cohen, a
young mathematician on the Colum-
bia staff, the Columbia research
group had built Pilot Plant No. 1, a
small twelve-stage apparatus, in the
university's Pupin Hall. And oper-
ation of this unit in the fall of 1942
had furnished valuable data on the
major elements of a diffusion plant,
most significantly, the material for the
barrier component that filtered the
process gas in each separating stage. ^
When the Army began taking over
direction of the atomic bomb project
in the summer of 1942, the Columbia
diffusion research program continued
to operate under OSRD contracts.
Beginning in the fall, the Manhattan
District gradually extended its control
over administration of the program,
culminating with Columbia's accept-
ance of a War Department contract
on 1 May 1943. Shortly thereafter
university and District representatives
reorganized the diffusion research
program, redesignating it as the SAM
(for Special Alloyed Materials) Lab-
oratories and appointing Urey as di-
rector. (See Map 2.) Maj. Benjamin K.
Hough, Jr., who had come to Colum-
bia in the spring as area engineer for

the program, reorganized his office to
conform to the SAM organization and
moved with most of the rapidly ex-
panding research activities from
campus laboratories to more spacious
facilities in the university's Nash
Building, a few blocks north of the
campus.^

Design and Engineering

The Military Policy Committee,
after deciding to give priority to full-
scale development of the gaseous dif-
fusion process, selected the M. W.
Kellogg Company to design and engi-
neer the production plant, designated
K-25 for security reasons. The choice
was a logical one, for the firm was al-
ready extensively involved in diffusion
research under OSRD contracts, in-
cluding design of a ten-stage pilot
plant for barrier development. On 14
December 1942, Kellogg accepted a
letter contract from the Manhattan
District, with some unusual provisions
that reflected the unique character of
the project. The Army required no
guarantees from the firm that it could
successfully design, build and put into
operation a gaseous diffusion produc-
tion plant. For reasons of security, the
company agreed to set up a separate
corporate entity, the Kellex Corpora-
tion, to function as a self-sustaining
and autonomous organization for car-
rying out the project. Because of the
great uncertainty regarding the pre-

2 Smyth Report, pp. 125-26 and 132-33; Hewlett
and Anderson, New World, pp. 97-101; MDH, Bk. 2,
Vol. 2, "Research," pp. 4.11-4.12, 4.14-4.15, 7.2-
7.3, DASA.

3 Cert of Audit MDE 103-46, Columbia Area,
27 Feb 46, Fiscal and Audit Files, Cert of Audit
Registers, MDR; MDH, Bk. 2. Vol. 2, pp. 2.1-2.2,
11.1-11.3, App. B (Org Chart, Columbia Area,
4 Aug 43), DASA; Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 111.
Groves remembered the code name SAM as stand-
ing for Substitute Alloy Materials rather than Spe-
cial Alloyed Materials.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

151

cise scope and cost of the project, the
District and Kellogg also agreed to
defer fixing any financial terms until
later execution of a formal fixed-fee
contract. (This was not actually ac-
complished until April 1944, when
Kellogg accepted payment of about
$2.5 million for its work.) *

Kellogg provided the Kellex Corpo-
ration with its own research, engi-
neering, expediting, accounting, and
service divisions. It designated one of
its own vice presidents, Percival C.
Keith, a Texas-born chemical engi-
neer and graduate of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, to be execu-
tive in charge at Kellex. Keith, who
had already gained considerable fa-
miliarity with the atomic bomb
project through his service on the
OSRD S-1 Section's planning board,
not only drew upon managerial and
technical employees of Kellogg but
also borrowed personnel from other
firms in order to staff Kellex. Kellex
employees — some thirty-seven hun-
dred at the height of the firm's activi-
ties in 1944 — worked in the New York
area at Kellex's headquarters in the
downtown Manhattan Woolworth
Building, at Columbia University's
laboratory facilities in the Nash Build-
ing, and at Kellogg's Jersey City
plant; and in Tennessee at the Clin-
ton Engineer Works. ^

* Ltr Contract W-7405-eng-23, 14 Dec 42, and
Formal Contract W-7405-eng-23, 1 1 Apr 43, both
in Contract Files, OROO; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2, pp.
3.4-3.6 and App. A, DASA; Memo, Nichols to Car-
roll L. Wilson (Ex Asst to Bush), sub: Background
on P. C. Keith, 10 Jan 47, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 201 (Keith), MDR; Ltr, Keith to WD. Attn:
Groves, 25 Jan 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 167,
MDR.

*Memo, Nichols to Wilson, sub: Background on
P. C. Keith, 10 Jan 47, MDR; Groves, Xow It Can Be
Told, pp. 112 and 428; Ltr, M. W. Kellogg to
Groves, 9 May 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,

To oversee the work of Kellex, as
well as to handle the administrative
details relating to the large number of
Special Engineer Detachment person-
nel assigned to the firm (nearly one
hundred by mid- 1944), the district
engineer in January 1943 established
the New York Area Engineers Office
in the conveniently located Wool-
worth Building and assigned Lt. Col.
James C. Stowers not only as the new
area engineer but also as the unit
chief for the entire K-25 project. At
the start Stowers supervised a military
and civilian staff of less than twenty;
it remained small, never numbering
more than seventy. While monitoring
performance on the Kellogg contract,
this New York staff also coordinated
the unusually complex developmental
diffusion research of numerous con-
tractors — including Princeton Univer-
sity working on barrier corrosion;
Ohio State University on chemical
compounds as feed materials and proc-
ess gas; and Union Carbide's Carbide
and Carbon Chemicals Corporation,
Linde Air Products Company, and
Bakelite Corporation, Western Elec-
tee's Bell Telephone Laboratories,
and Interchemical Corporation, all on
suitable barrier fabrication.^

231.21 (Kellex), MDR; Ltr, Keith to WD, 25 Jan 44,
MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3, pp. 18.5-18.7 and Apps.
C14-C15 (Org Charts), DASA.

^Ltr, R. B. Van Houten (Asst Proj Mgr, Kellex) to
John H. Arnold (Kellex R&D Dir), sub: SED Per-
sonnel Assigned to Nash Bldg (with attached ros-
ters), 28 Jun 44, Army Personnel Files, Box 73A (1-
A), Kellex, OROO; Cert of Audit MDE 202-46, New
York Area, 1 Nov 45, MDR; Memo, Groves to Dist
Engr, sub: List of Personnel, 27 Sep 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Gen), MDR; Org Chart,
Kellex Corp., 8 Apr 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
231.21 (Kellex), MDR; Org Charts, U.S. Engrs
Office, MD, 15 Aug and 1 Nov 43, 10 Nov 44,
26 Jan 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 020 (MED-

Conlinued

152

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Theoretical and Practical Problems

The complexities and difficulties in
gaseous diffusion plant design arose
from the nature of the process itself,
which required a stable compound of
uranium that would exist as a fluid at
ordinary temperatures, and also from
the almost total lack of any adequate
data on what would happen when the
process was transformed from a labo-
ratory phenomenon into a mass pro-
duction operation.' In 1941, Karl P.
Cohen had worked out the fundamen-
tal theory of the gaseous diffusion
process by applying the well-estab-
lished Graham's Law to the only
known gaseous compound of urani-
um, the highly corrosive uranium
hexafluoride. Briefly stated, Graham's
Law holds that if a mixture of two

Org), MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2, pp. 2.2-2.5, Vol. 3,
pp. 18.2-18.5 and Apps. C7-C13 (Org Charts), and
Vol. 4, "Construction," App. C16 (Org Chart),
DASA; Ltr, Keith to Nichols, 6 Aug 43. Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, Misc File (unmarked fldr), MDR; Ltr,
Tolman to Groves, sub: Visit to Bell Tel Labs To
Discuss Work on Barrier Problem, 9 Oct 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Rpts), MDR.

^Subsection based on MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2 (espe-
cially pp. 2.4 and 8.5-8.6) and Vol. 3, and Bk. 7,
Vol. 1, 'Teed Materials and Special Procurement,"
pp. 9.6-9.9, DASA; Hewlett and Anderson, \eu<
World, pp. 125-131; Gowing, Bntain and Atomic
Energy, pp. 57-58 and 218-25; Completion Rpt, M.
W. Kellogg Co. and Kellex Corp., sub: K-25 Plant.
Contract W'-7405-eng-23, 31 Oct 45, pp. 5 (re-
vised)-6, OROO; Interv, Author with Cohen, 8 Jul
82, CMH; Karl Cohen, The Theoiy of Isotope Separation
as Applied to the Large-scale Production of U-235, ed.
George M. Murphy, in Division IH, Special Separations
Project. National Nuclear Energy Series, Vol. 3 (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1951), pp. 5-29;
Memo, Dunning to George T. Felbeck (K-25 Proj
Mgr, Kellex), Albert L. Baker (Kellex Chief Engr),
and Keith, sub: Importance of Low Humidity at K-
25 Plant Site, 17 Apr 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
601 (CEW), MDR; Safety Committee. Bull SM-2,
Safety Committee Regulations for Handling C-126
(Fluorine), Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 729.31,
MDR. On the question of cooler design, see Calen-
dar of Events, Internal vs. External Coolers, 6 Mav
44, Admin Files. Gen Corresp. 001, MDR.

gases of unequal densities is placed in
a porous container surrounded by an
evacuated space, the lighter gas will
tend to escape at a more rapid rate
than the heavier. If the process can be
controlled, separation can be carried
forward by stages until an almost
pure concentration of the hghter
component is achieved. How much
more of the lighter than the heavier
component passes through a single
stage depends upon the density of the
gases and the difference in their mo-
lecular weights. In the case of urani-
um hexafluoride, the difference is
very small indeed, the lighter U-235
constituting only 0.85 percent.
Hence, the highest enrichment of the
lighter isotope in a single stage is
1.0043 times that of the heavier.

In practice, the degree of single-
stage separation actually attainable is
affected by the size, number, and dis-
tribution of the apertures, or pores,
in the barrier through which the proc-
ess gas passes and the variations in
the pressure of the gas itself. After in-
vestigating whether these limiting fac-
tors could be overcome sufficiently to
make possible construction of an effi-
cient plant in terms of time and
output, Cohen proposed building a
plant of forty-six hundred stages to
produce 90 percent U-235. This
plant would operate as a single cas-
cade, with each stage feeding en-
riched material to the next higher
stage and depleted material to the
stage below. Operating at a relatively
high pressure, the plant would have a
low holdup of material in the barrier,
thus reducing the equilibrium time —
that is, the time required to complete
the process.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

153

The single cascade design contrast-
ed with the diffusion plant design on
which British atomic scientists had
been working since 1940. Their pro-
posed plant would employ a cascade-
of-cascades arrangement with low
pressure and high holdup. Such a
plant had certain advantages over the
American design; its lower-operating
pressure and temperature made the
solution to the barrier problem easier
and reduced the corrosive effect of
the process gas. The British scientists
also claimed their cascade-of-cascades
plant would have greater operating
stability and present fewer mainte-
nance problems, but American engi-
neers rejected the design because its
high holdup would increase the equi-
librium time substantially.

With the results of Cohen's studies
and the British experiments at hand,
SAM scientists and Kellex engineers
worked as a team to design the basic
gaseous diffusion production unit.
This unit, designated the stage, had
three main elements: a converter,
control valve, and centrifugal pumps.
The converter consisted of a barrier,
its most central feature, and a cooler.
The highly porous metallic barrier,
initially comprised of flat plates but in
final design made up of annular bun-
dles of small tubes arranged and sup-
ported in much the same fashion as
the conventional shell-and-tube heat
exchanger long employed in steam-
powered engines, filtered the process
gas to separate uranium isotopes; the
cooler, a circular bundle of finned
copper tubes in the head of the con-
verter, removed the process-generat-
ed heat and controlled the stage tem-
perature. The system's control valve,
an adaptation of the conventional
butterfly valve, maintained the re-

quired stage pressure, and its centrif-
ugal pumps, consisting of a booster
and blower, transported and fed the
process gas from one stage to
another.

The Columbia-Kellex designers
considered combining the stage's con-
verter, control valve, and pumps in a
completely sealed unit. This design
offered certain advantages, especially
with respect to maintaining a vacuum
and preventing leaks. The unit, how-
ever, would be bulky and its compo-
nents difficult to service. And, more
importantly, its fabrication would re-
quire more time than separate fabri-
cation of its component parts. To
overcome these disadvantages, the
designers modified their original dif-
fusion stage concept. Final equipment
designs called for the control valve
and the pumps and its motors to be
outside the converter. Although Car-
bide and Carbon engineers had sug-
gested that the cooler be removed
from the converter and manufactured
as a separate unit, the Columbia-
Kellex team rejected this proposal,
feeling that such a change would slow
down delivery of the converters.

This modified stage design, never-
theless, forced the Columbia-Kellex
designers to contend with another
mechanical problem — how to prevent
leakage. After extensive testing they
proposed that both pumps and
motors be encased in a vacuum-tight
enclosure containing inert gas, there-
by eliminating the primary obstacle in
centrifugal pump design: the need for
seals. The Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing Company built several
models of this design, which Colum-
bia scientists later successfully em-
ployed in laboratory tests. But before

154

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Columbia could develop a production
model, researchers at the Elliott Com-
pany in Pennsylvania had invented a
radically different type of seal for cen-
trifugal pumps. When tested at Co-
lumbia in early 1943, the designers
determined that this new type of seal
met all the requirements for the K-25
plant.

Some of the most difficult design
problems arose from the necessity of
using the highly corrosive uranium
hexafluoride as the process gas. Be-
cause earlier efforts by the OSRD to
find a substitute for uranium hexa-
fluoride had failed, the Army expand-
ed research by SAM, Princeton, and Du
Pont scientists in an effort to devise
ways to cope with the corrosive char-
acter of the gas. These investigations
established that the adverse effects of
corrosion could be inhibited through
pre-installation conditioning of the
process equipment and contributed to
the design of treatment methods.

The Barrier Problem

The heart of the gaseous diffusion
system was the barrier, the compo-
nent that proved most difficult to
design and fabricate.® Two objectives

» Subsection based on MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2, pp.
4.1-4.30 and 4.32-4.33, DASA; DSM Chronology,
16 Jun 44, Sec. 10, OROO; MPC Min, 13 Aug 43,
MDR; Ltr, Tolman to Groves, sub: Visit to Bell Tel
Labs To Discuss Work on Barrier Problem, 9 Oct
43, MDR; Ltr, Edward Mack, Jr. (SAM Labs), to
Urey, 31 Mar 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1
(Kellex and Others), MDR; Ltrs, Urey to Groves,
10 May 43, and Urey to Hough, 10 Nov 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Urey), MDR; Ltrs, Keith to
Groves, 23 Oct 43, and W. A. Akers (British group)
to Stowers, 26 Jun 44, and Min, Follow-up Review
Conf (K-25), 5 Jan 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
001, MDR; Memo, Stowers to Groves, 7 Jan 44,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 095 (Kellex), MDR;
Hewlett and Anderson, \ew World, p. 139; Memo,
Tolman to Grove, sub: Status of Work on Pilot

guided barrier research and develop-
ment at Columbia University, as well
as at Kellex: find a material that
would efficiently separate U-235 and
U-238 in a hexafluoride compound,
and develop mass production meth-
ods for making the material into bar-
riers. Ongoing tests soon revealed
that this material had to have certain
essential characteristics, namely, be
highly porous; resistant to the reac-
tive nature of uranium hexafluoride;
capable of withstanding the stresses
of fabrication, installation, and utili-
zation; and suitable for mass
production.

Columbia research had experiment-
ed with a great variety of metals and
alloys over a two-year period (1941-
42), testing many of them in Pilot
Plant No. 1, but with repeated disap-
pointment. Finally, in December
1942, the experiments of researchers
Edward Norris and Edward Adler
with a form of corrosion-resistant
nickel revealed the material's highly
promising characteristics for satisfying
the exacting and rigorous barrier re-
quirements. To manufacture the
Norris-Adler barrier material in a
continuous process, as well as to test
other equipment under conditions ap-
proaching those anticipated in a
large-scale diffusion plant, the re-
search team at Columbia in January
1943 started building Pilot Plant
No. 2, a six-stage cascade unit, in the

Plants, Barriers, etc., in N.Y., 13 Mar 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Tolman), MDR; Memo,
Nichols to Groves, sub; Requirement for Nickel
Powder, 2 Mar 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
600.12 (Research), MDR. In response to the atomic
program's need for large quantities of powdered
nickel. International Nickel Company built addition-
al manufacturing facilities in West Virginia, New
Jersey, and New York.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

155

Nash Building. In early summer, this
pilot plant began producing the
Norris-Adler barrier material. Initial
tests, however, revealed distressing
structural weaknesses and production
deficiencies; the nickel material's brit-
tleness made fabrication into tubes
difficult and the complex character of
the manufacturing techniques created
problems in achieving uniform quality
of production.

Manhattan leaders, nevertheless,
continued to be confident that the
barrier problem would be solved sat-
isfactorily. They intensified barrier re-
search and testing efforts of the Co-
lumbia team, as well as those of the
Kellex-Bell-Bakelite barrier research
group experimenting with a powdered
nickel barrier. The progress and re-
sults of these ongoing barrier-develop-
ment experiments were reviewed and
discussed in August, when the Military
Policy Committee convened on the
thirteenth. With cautious optimism,
the committee concluded that a suita-
ble — if not ideal — barrier would soon
be designed and fabricated, an im-
proved version of either the Norris-
Adler or Kellex barrier. But ensuing
results from months of testing dashed
the Columbia scientists' hopeful ex-
pectations of producing good-quality
barrier material; their Norris-Adler
prototype, though much improved,
was still too brittle and lacking in uni-
form quality. The Kellex-Bell-Bakelite
team's experiments, however, particu-
larly those with a material that com-
bined some of the best features of the
Norris-Adler and the powdered nickel
barriers, demonstrated that its new
barrier achieved good separation char-
acteristics and presented fewer fabrica-
tion problems.

In early November, Groves endeav-
ored to reach a workable solution as
to the direction barrier development
should proceed. After listening to ar-
guments from Urey and the Columbia
scientists in support of the latest bar-
rier they had devised and to Keith
and the Kellex group concerning the
advantages of their improved pow-
dered nickel barrier, Groves decided
that the most feasible policy was to
continue work on both types, the
Kellex barrier providing insurance
against the possible failure of the Co-
lumbia barrier. Predictably, this com-
promise was unpopular with both
sides. Urey, in particular, who from
the start had resented the diversion of
effort from his own project to the
Kellex group to accelerate barrier de-
velopment, saw it as further indica-
tion of Groves's intention to exclude
Columbia from all useful work on the
atomic project, and he reminded the
Manhattan commander that he had al-
ready transferred both the pile ex-
periments and the heavy water re-
search from Morningside Heights to
Chicago.

Contributing to Urey's harsh judg-
ment of the intent of Groves's action
was his awareness of the discourage-
ment felt by many of those working
on the barrier problem. In fact, by
the end of 1943, morale had plum-
meted to a very low point. Not the
least of the factors causing this pre-
vailing pessimism was adverse criti-
cism of the Columbia-Kellex plant
design by some members of the Brit-
ish delegation of scientists assigned to
the atomic project. The British ex-
pressed decided preference for the
cascade-of-cascades design of their
own plant, arguing that the single cas-

156

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

cade design of the American plant
would not eliminate the "surges" —
sudden, sharp variations in gas pres-
sure — that might well make the Ten-
nessee plant inoperable. While also
stating a preference for Kellex's im-
proved powdered nickel barrier over
Columbia's, the British considered
even the Kellex barrier to be far from
perfected. Finally, too, the visiting sci-
entists indicated great skepticism that
Kellex would have the production
plant in operation by the projected
date, 1 July 1945. Groves sharply dis-
agreed with the British on this last
point, holding that, if Kellex was rea-
sonably certain the plant would be
operating by that date, it probably
would be in production even sooner.

Keith and his Kellex colleagues par-
ticularly resented the visit of the Brit-
ish scientists. In January 1944, the
Kellex chief asserted that the British
had set progress back a month be-
cause of time spent answering ques-
tions and assisting them in making
studies, many duplicating studies
made by his own engineers months
earlier. At the same time, he com-
plained to the New York area engi-
neer that Groves appeared to be
avoiding a decision on the barrier
question and also seemed to be trying
to push back the plant completion
date. Colonel Stowers wrote hurriedly
to General Groves, expressing anxiety
at the alarming decline of enthusiasm
he noted in the normally ebullient
and confident Kellex chief.

But much of the gloom prevailing
at Kellex and Columbia was dispelled
by developments in the early months
of 1944. On 16 January, Groves met
with representatives of Kellex, Car-
bide and Carbon, SAM Laboratories,
and the Houdaille-Hershey Corpora-

tion to discuss progress on the bar-
rier. The group convened at Decatur,
Illinois, where Houdaille-Hershey was
building a new plant for the manufac-
ture of barriers of the Norris-Adler
type. At the conclusion of the meet-
ing Groves announced that the Deca-
tur plant would be converted immedi-
ately so that it could produce Kellex's
improved powdered nickel barrier,
because it was considerably easier to
fabricate and manufacture than the
Norris-Adler. Fortunately, a lot of
precious production time was not lost
during the conversion process. Most
of the equipment and many of the
procedures for producing the Norris-
Adler barrier were readily adapted for
producing the Kellex type.

An important factor in Groves's de-
cision to go ahead with mass produc-
tion of the Kellex barrier was his
knowledge of the International Nickel
Company's successful production of a
high-quality powdered nickel, thus
providing a ready source of the type
of nickel out of which the Kellex bar-
rier could be best fabricated. In what
proved to be a most fortuitous move,
the Manhattan commander had di-
rected Colonel Nichols in the spring
of 1943 to have the company build fa-
cilities for the manufacture of barrier
material. And because of this early
start, company technicians by early
1944 had developed a process for
producing powdered nickel of a type
and quality especially suitable for fab-
ricating the Kellex barrier. In fact, by
April, the firm had accumulated in its
storage facility some 80 tons, more
than enough for immediate shipment
to the diffusion pilot plants in New
York.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

157

Meanwhile, barrier developments at
Columbia also provided more reason
for optimism. Pilot Plant No. 2 had
begun turning out sizable amounts of
a good-quality Norris-Adler barrier.
Thus, before receipt of the District's
orders in April to convert No. 2 to
manufacture Kellex's improved pow-
dered nickel barrier, Columbia scien-
tists had the satisfaction of being the
first to achieve quantity production of
their material.

Pilot plant testing and production
of barrier materials continued apace
into the summer of 1944. While pro-
viding the first opportunity to ascer-
tain the separation qualities of the
Kellex barrier under conditions simu-
lating large-scale plant operations,
these pilot plant tests demonstrated
the need for more improvements.
But, at this juncture, with the con-
tinuing lack of barrier components
threatening to hold up further
progress in design and construction
of the main diffusion plant at the
Clinton site, Manhattan Project lead-
ers knew the time for experimentation
was at an end. They now felt the ur-
gency of directing all of their efforts
to expediting Houdaille-Hershey's
mass production of the less than ideal
Kellex barrier in sufficient quantity to
equip each of the thousands of stages
of the Tennessee plant.

Plant Design

In the early stages of planning, ev-
eryone had assumed that the objec-
tive was to design and build a gaseous
diffusion plant capable of producing
a 90-percent-enriched product. But
data that became available to the
design teams from ongoing research
and pilot plant studies indicated that

considerable time in design and engi-
neering would be saved if the cascade
equipment were limited to that pro-
ducing a product of lower enrich-
ment. Theoretically, a cascade con-
structed with tubular barriers would
be efficient up to the point of a 36.6-
percent concentration; for higher
product enrichment, quite differently
designed barriers would be necessary.
Furthermore, the plant designers
soon discovered that, because of the
greater capacities required, the cen-
trifugal pumps under development
for the lower stages could not be
used above the 36.6-percent level. In
other respects, too — for instance, in-
creased likelihood of critical product
accumulation — the design of the
upper stages presented special
problems.

General Groves, as early as Febru-
ary 1943, cited an alternative solution
that would save much time and
seemed certain to work: Why not take
the output from the lower stages of
the gaseous diffusion plant and feed
them into the Beta phase of the elec-
tromagnetic plant? By mid-year, elec-
tromagnetic plant construction was
going so well that this solution
seemed all the more feasible. Groves
therefore asked Kellex to submit esti-
mated completion dates for 5-, 15-,
36.6-, and 90-percent plants. On the
basis of these estimates, he then in-
structed Keith and the Kellex design
teams to draw up plans for a 36.6-
percent plant. Meanwhile, research on
the upper stages continued on a re-
duced scale.

As a consequence, by late 1943,
project design was making substantial
progress in most directions. The
knottier aspects of pump design and

158

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

procurement appeared to be solved;
soon, the Allis-Chalmers Manufactur-
ing Company and several smaller
firms would be able to satisy all of the
District's requests for pumps in what-
ever quantities needed. Also, the
pump seal problem appeared to be
well on the way to solution.^

Although lack of a really suitable
barrier had prevented development of
adequate equipment for testing the
diffusion operation on something ap-
proaching production plant scale, it
had not held up completion of Kellex
designs for the overall plant. These
designs projected as the main gaseous
diffusion production unit a cascade of
2,892 stages, connected in a single
series. Ideally, Kellex engineers might
have incorporated into the plant
design a requirement for a converter
and pumps of slightly smaller size at
each successive stage in the cascade.
Because this, however, would have re-
sulted in extremely complicated and
costly manufacturing and installation
problems, they compromised. They
provided for five different-sized
pumps and four different-sized con-
verters, thus dividing the whole cas-
cade into nine variably pressurized
sections. The sections normally would
function as a single cascade, although
each could be operated individually.
Within each section the smallest oper-
able unit was the cell, containing 6
stages enclosed in a sheet metal cubi-
cle that would be supplied with dry

^Min, Coordination Committee Mtg, 13 Feb 43,
and Ltrs, S. B. Smith (Kellex) to Stowers, 7 Sep 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 337 (Univ of CaliO and
(Kellex), respectively, MDR; Ltr, Oppenheimer to
Nichols, 1 Jul 43, and Memo, Arnold and Dunning
to Keith, sub: The Diffusion Plant, 28 Apr 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and
Prgms: K-25), MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 2, pp. 5.1-
5.28, and Vol. 3, pp. 7.1-7.3 and 8.12-8.14, DASA.

air and kept heated to a uniform
temperature. ^°

Design of the cascade unquestion-
ably constituted the single most im-
portant and difficult feature of the
gaseous diffusion production plant.
But for the Kellex engineers it was
only a small part of the job. Working
in cooperation with numerous equip-
ment and supply contractors, they
also had to prepare blueprints and
specifications for a vast array of sup-
port and control facilities. Cascade
operation, for example, required
purge cascades, process gas recovery,
surge and waste, and product removal
systems, as well as a large number of
instruments for maintaining a con-
stant check on all conditions through-
out the plant. Plant instrumentation
had to be extremely reliable, for even
slight variations in such factors as
pressure or temperature could
produce adverse effects.

To house the main cascade and its
auxiliary facilities, Kellex engineers
designed a huge structure of fifty-four
contiguous units, or buildings, ar-
ranged in a gigantic U-shaped pat-
tern more than half a mile long on
each side and a quarter of a mile
wide. They laid out the interior of
these buildings on four different
levels: a basement housing lubricating
and cooling equipment, ventilating
fans and ducts, and transformers and
electrical switchgear; a cell floor con-
taining the steel-encased cells lined
up in two parallel rows extending the
length of a building; a pipe gallery
carrying the main process lines and
numerous auxiliary lines; and an op-

'OMDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3, Sees. 8 and 9, DASA; Com-
pletion Rpt, Kellex Corp., sub: K-25 Plant, 31 Oct
45, pp. 5(revised)-8, OROO.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

159

crating floor, the location of most of
the control devices and meters for
cascade operation. At the operating
floor level they placed a central con-
trol room at the base of the U , with
instruments to keep track of the
whole process and remote controls
for all motorized valves.

After completion of the cascade
design for the plant at the Clinton
Engineer Works (CEW), most of the
research and development teams at
Columbia and Kellex, and elsewhere,
turned their primary energies to engi-
neering and testing equipment and
support facilities. With Groves's per-
mission, however, a few SAM and
Kellex researchers and engineers con-
tinued work on developing diffusion
equipment that could achieve a
higher product enrichment. In sup-
port of this investigation, in late
summer of 1944 Kellex placed a 10-
stage pilot plant in operation. By mid-
January 1945, Kellex was ready to
begin engineering and procurement
for an extension to the upper stages
of the K-25 plant that would bring
the level of its product to an enrich-
ment of approximately 85 percent.
Groves authorized Kellex to proceed,
but canceled the extension when data
showed a greater product output
could be achieved by increasing the
amount of uranium of a lower per-
centage of enrichment for feeding
into the electromagnetic plant. To
achieve this goal. Groves directed
Kellex to design and engineer a 540-
stage side-feed unit (later designated
K-27) in which the waste output from
the main K-25 cascade could be com-
bined with natural uranium to
produce a slightly enriched product.
By feeding the K-27 output into the
higher stages of K-25, plant designers

estimated the total production of
U-235 could be increased by 35 to
60 percent. Kellex hoped to get the
K-27 extension into operation early in
1946.11

Building the Gaseous Diffusion Plant

The Tennessee site for the gaseous
diffusion plant consisted of a tract of
5,000 acres in the northwest corner of
the CEW reservation, approximately
15 miles southwest of the town of
Oak Ridge. 12 {See Map 3.) Enclosed

i^Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Mar-
Apr 45 to Mar 46, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP
Files, Fldr 28, Tab A, MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 3,
Sec. 14, DASA; Completion Rpt, M. W. Kellogg Co.
and Kellex Corp., sub: K-27 Extension, 31 Jan 46,
p. 3 (revised), OROO.

^2 Subsection based on Completion Rpt, Kellex
Corp., sub: K-25 Plant, 31 Oct 45, pp. 4, 8-10, 14-
28, 30-31, 33 (revised), and maps following p. 40,
OROO; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 4, pp. 2.6-2.7, 3.3-3.9.
3.46-3.51, 3.73-3.75, 5.1-5.4, 7.1, and Apps. CI
(Chart, Actual K-25 Constr Progress), C7 (Chart,
Process Area Constr Progress), C16 (Org Chart),
C25 (Chart, Daily K-25 Constr Forces), and Vol. 5,
"Operation," pp. 6.3-6.4, DASA; Memo, Dunning
to Felbeck, Baker, and Keith, sub: Importance of
Low Humidity at K-25 Plant Site, 17 Apr 43, MDR;
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 12 and 116-17;
Completion Rpt, Kellex Corp., sub: K-27 Extension,
31 Jan 46, p. 21 (p. 2 of attached cost statement),
OROO; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj,
1 Jul-9 Aug and Sep 43, Apr, Jun, Aug and Oct 44,
and Mar and Sep 45, MDR; Org Charts, U.S. Engrs
Office, MD, 15 Aug and 1 Nov 43, and 15 Feb 44,
MDR; Maj William T. St. Clair (MD officer who
monitored K-25 plant construction). Daily Diary,
9 Nov 43-13 Sep 45, passim, Kellex Records, Box
748, OROO; Draft Article, Maj Gen Leslie R. Groves,
"Development of the Atomic Bomb," Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 000.74 (Mil Engr), MDR; Ltrs, Keith
to Stowers, 6 Oct 44, Stowers to Dist Engr, sub:
Change of Estimate Opn Date of Case I, 10 Oct 44,
and Groves to Dist Engr, 1 Nov 44, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and Prgms: K-25),
MDR; Ltr, Tolman to Groves, sub: Status of Case V,
1 Feb 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp. 319.1 (Rpts).
MDR.

160

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

on the north, south, and east by thick-
ly wooded ridges and on the west by
the Clinch River, the site had few
roads, no railroads (although a main
line was located a few miles to the
north), and only one substantial struc-
ture (a country schoolhouse). Project
engineers would have preferred a dif-
ferent location, especially one with
lower average humidity; however, be-
cause the land at Clinton had been
available for immediate purchase in
early 1943, Manhattan leaders did not
perceive the engineers' concern as
critical as their own desire to get
plant construction under way. Fur-
thermore, they felt that the site satis-
fied other major requirements. It had
a readily available water supply and a
relatively level area of about 1,000
acres for the plant facilities, and its
location was distant from the other
production plants and the densely
populated areas.

Under terms of the prime contract
with M. W. Kellogg, Kellex was to not
only design and engineer the K-25
plant but also supervise its construc-
tion, using its own large field forces
plus numerous contractors and sub-
contractors. The prime construction
contractor was the J. A. Jones Con-
struction Company of Charlotte,
North Carolina, whose reputation on
other Army projects had impressed
Groves. Typical of the more than
sixty subcontractors were the D. W.
Winkleman Company for grading and
drainage of the site, the Bethlehem
Steel Corporation for steel work, and
the Interstate Roofing Company for
installation of heating and ventilating
systems.

Wherever possible, Kellex delegat-
ed to Jones and the other contractors
specific procurement of equipment

and supplies needed in construction.
Similarly, it contracted out thousands
of orders for process and auxiliary
equipment. Major equipment manu-
facturers were AUis-Chalmers for cen-
trifugal pumps and motors of all
kinds; the Chrysler Corporation for
converters; and Houdaille-Hershey,
Linde Air Products, and Bakelite for
barrier material. Some of these
firms — for example, Allis-Chalmers,
Chrysler, and Houdaille-Hershey —
had to build entirely new plants or
undertake extensive conversion of ex-
isting facilities.

Through its rapidly expanding
Manhattan District organization, the
Army monitored and reviewed the
many hundreds of agreements negoti-
ated by Kellex, Jones, and other firms
in late 1943. During the first few
months of relatively limited oper-
ations at the building site, District En-
gineer Nichols exercised control over
the project through the New York
Area Engineers Office, whose staff
maintained constant contact with the
Kellex and Columbia University
groups, and through the CEW Con-
struction Division. But rapid expan-
sion of construction and procurement
activities eventually compelled Colo-
nel Nichols to reorganize his Tennes-
see headquarters staff, establishing
construction and operations divisions
for each major production project. In
his capacity as the K-25 unit chief,
and in keeping with normal Corps of
Engineers practice, Colonel Stowers
organized the new K-25 Construction
Division to parallel the organizational
structure set up by the principal con-
struction contractors — Unit I for the
power plant. Unit II for the condi-
tioning facilities, and Unit III for the

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

161

the process plant — and assigned Maj.
William P. Cornelius as division
chief. 13

Actual construction started on the
day after Memorial Day 1943, when a
survey party began laying out the
power plant site at an area adjacent to
the east bank of the Clinch River.
Two months later grading began in
the area for the conditioning facili-
ties — a large structure to house the
treatment apparatus for coating proc-
ess equipment with fluorine gas, thus
providing protection against the ex-
tremely corrosive action of the urani-
um hexafluoride process gas, and a
number of smaller buildings for the
generation and storage of fluorine,
production of gaseous nitrogen, and
neutralization. To ensure these facili-
ties would be ready in time so that
K-25 workers could treat the process
equipment before installation in the
main production plant, Kellex and
District authorities decided to engage
a second major construction contrac-
tor — the firm of Ford, Bacon, and
Davis — to build them.

Ground preparation on the main
plant site did not start until 20 Octo-
ber 1943. Although relatively level by
comparison with the surrounding ter-
rain, the site was broken into ridges
and valleys that required cuts up to
50 feet and fills averaging 25 feet.
The great weight of the buildings that
would house the cascade and its com-
plicated, interconnected equipment
made exceptionally stable foundations
necessary. Ordinarily, such founda-

tions would have been carried down
to bedrock, a procedure that would
have required thousands of concrete
columns of different lengths. But, to
save time, Kellex used the then novel
method of compacted fill. Foundation
workers put down earth in 6-inch
layers, constantly checking in a field
laboratory for proper moisture con-
tent and soil mixture. Then they com-
pacted the fill with sheepsfoot rollers
to a density slightly greater than that
of undisturbed soil.^"* Next they
poured the foundation footings di-
rectly on top of the undisturbed earth
in the cut sections and on the com-
pacted fill in the filled-in sections. In
spite of the abnormally rainv weather
in the fall of 1943, the K-25 workers'
use of innovative construction tech-
niques enabled them to complete
laying down the foundations far more
quickly than would have been possi-
ble with more traditional methods.

Kellex engineers also employed
other time-saving methods, consistent
with their basic goal of completing
the production plant as rapidly as
possible. Thus, wherever feasible,
they overlapped activities normally
carried out separately. The day grad-
ing began, J. A. Jones crews also
poured concrete for the first building.
And, as soon as the foundations had
hardened, crews moved in heavy
gooseneck cranes (the foundations
had been deliberately designed to
carry their weight) and began lifting
the structural steel frames of build-
ings into place.

*^The conditioning area was comprised of facili-
ties for preparing process equipment for installation
in the process buildings. See Ch. XVIII for a fuller
description of the design and construction of the
K-25 power plant.

*■* Used to compact clay soil, a sheepsfoot roller is
a towed roller with a large number of 4-inch-long
steel bars welded radially to the surface of the roller
drum. See Diclwnary of Civil Engineering, s.v. "sheeps-
foot roller."

162

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Gaseous Diffusion Plant Under Construction at CEW

Another objective of Kellex's
speedup techniques was to get some
sections of the huge plant into oper-
ation as soon as possible. The firm's
initial construction schedule, adopted
in August 1943, provided for, first,
completing one cell for testing;
second, finishing one building as a
so-called 54-stage pilot plant; and
third, completing enough of the plant
to produce an enriched product con-
taining 0.9 percent U-235. The
schedule designated this first produc-
tion section. Case I. Three additional
cases, with outputs of 5-, 15-, and 36-
percent product enrichment, ^^ would

be finished as of 1 June, 15 July, and
23 August 1945, respectively. As con-
struction progressed, Kellex engi-
neers revised the original schedule to
conform to changing conditions.
Thus, the schedule of August 1944
called for completion in 1945 of Case
I (0.9 percent) on 1 January, Case II
(5 percent) on 10 June, Case III (15
percent) on 1 August, Case IV (23
percent) on 13 September, and a new
Case V (36 percent) as soon as possi-
ble thereafter.

To ensure adherence to this highly
complex and, in many respects unor-
thodox construction schedule, Kellex

'^ In their projections of estimated output the
Kellex design engineers reduced the original 36.6-
percent level of product enrichment to 36 percent.

See Completion Rpt, Kellex Corp., sub: K-25 Plant,
p. 3, OROO.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

163

K-25 Steel-frame Construction

adopted a variety of rigid control
measures. Typical were the two com-
plete and identical charts the firm
maintained, one in its New York
office and the other at the construc-
tion site, on which it recorded the
current manufacturing and delivery
status of the hundreds of thousands
of items required for building the
plant.

There were times, however, when
labor shortages, especially in the
skilled categories, were acute. The
contractors endeavored to overcome
some of the shortages by on-the-job
training and simplifying construction
tasks wherever possible. Fortunately,
too, because each stage of the plant

was comprised of similar basic com-
ponents, construction crews gained
skill and speed from the repetitive-
ness of their work. With the Army's
support, J. A. Jones and Ford, Bacon,
and Davis also sought to improve
living conditions and undertook other
ameliorative steps for their workers,
which reduced labor turnover and
limited work stoppages to about 0.1
percent of total man-hours. ^^

One unusual feature of the con-
struction work on the K-25 plant was
the exceptionally stringent emphasis

16 See Chs. X\'I and XVII for a more detailed dis-
cussion of manpower problems. See Ch. XXI for a
description of efforts to improve living conditions
for K-25 construction employees.

164

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

on cleanliness. Because even minute
amounts of foreign matter would have
highly deleterious effects on process
operations, construction workers had
to cleanse all pipes, valves, pumps,
converters, and other items of equip-
ment thoroughly before installation.
Workmen in a special unit performed
this vast operation in the large condi-
tioning building, using equipment for
solvent degreasing, alkaline cleaning,
acid pickling, scratch brushing, sur-
face passivation, and a variety of
other procedures. When they fin-
ished, they sealed all openings to in-
terior surfaces and kept them sealed
until installation teams put the equip-
ment into place.

To make certain no dust or other
foreign matter polluted the system
during installation, J. A. Jones insti-
tuted a rigid schedule of surgical
cleanliness in installation areas. Iso-
lating these areas with temporary par-
titions, the workers installed pressure
ventilation, using filtered air. Then
they cleaned the areas thoroughly,
and inspectors carefully checked all
personnel and material that entered
them. Maintenance crews with mops
and vacuum cleaners continued to
remove any foreign substances that
seeped in. When trucks had to enter,
workers hosed them down at the
entrances.

Workers wore special clothes and
lintless gloves. Because certain work
on equipment to be used in plant in-
stallations could not be done in the
dirt-free areas, such as welding pipes
and other small jobs, J. A. Jones in-
stalled special inflatable canvas bal-
loons and the work was done inside
them. The cleanliness control meas-
ures required many additional guards,
inspectors, and supervisors, but they

did not appreciably slow down the
work. In fact, in some ways the good
housekeeping actually facilitated the
progress of construction.

Even more painstaking was the in-
stallation of more than 100 miles of
pipe without flanged joints, and with
welds that had to meet tightness spec-
ifications more severe than any ever
encountered before in commercial
construction. Pipe-fitting crews devel-
oped fourteen special welding tech-
niques. Individual welders then learn-
ed the techniques, each specializing in
those required for a particular type of
installation. At the height of construc-
tion, there were some twelve hundred
welding machines in use. All of the
work required rigid control and tedi-
ous inspection to ensure joints were
tight and no internal scale formed
that might later find its way into the
process system

At last, on 17 April 1944, the first
6-stage cell of the main plant was
ready for test runs. Brief trial oper-
ations of this unit continued in May.
During the summer months, as con-
stuction crews finished additional
stages, technicians put them through
trial runs. Although barrier tubes
were not available (installation of the
first did not begin until fall of 1944),
these tests permitted assembly of val-
uable data concerning performance of
other plant components and detection
of mechancial defects, such as leaks
and sealant failures. Approximately
two months behind schedule, equip-
ment contractor workmen completed
Case I (402 stages) to the point where
processing of feed material could
begin, but at least another month
passed before the unit attained the
0.9-percent level. The other cases

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

165

were completed either on time or
ahead of schedule. Kellex and J. A.
Jones transferred the last K-25 plant
unit to Carbide and Carbon, the op-
erating contractor, on 1 1 September
1945. Total construction cost, includ-
ing the 540-stage side-feed extension
(K-27) unit completed after the war,
was $479,589,999.

Plant Operation

In late 1942, when the atomic
project leaders were considering po-
tential operators for the gaseous dif-
fusion plant, Kellex's Percival Keith
expressed a strong preference for the
Union Carbide and Carbon Corpora-
tion.^'^ In this leading chemical firm
Keith saw a versatile organization
with skilled personnel who would be
able to not only operate the complex
diffusion production process but also
provide design, engineering, and con-
struction assistance to hard-pressed
Kellex engineers. Satisfied with
Keith's opinion. Groves directed Man-
hattan representatives to commence
negotiations with Union Carbide offi-

" Subsection based on DSM Chronology, 12 Dec
42, Sec. 4, OROO; Hewlett and Anderson, \eu<
World, pp. 120-22, 298-302, 374, 624-25; Dist
Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Dec 44 and Jan-
Sep 45, MDR, MDH, Bk. 2. Vol. 1, "General Fea-
tures," pp. 4.6 and 5.7, Vol. 2, pp. 2.2-2.3, and Vol.
5, pp. 2.1-2.7. 3.1-3.6, 4.3-4.4, 8.1-8.16 (especially
table following 8.3), 10.1-10.5, 12.1-12.2, and
Apps. Bl (Chart, K-25 Vacuum Testing Opns and
Progress), B22 (Org Chart, Ford, Bacon, and Davis,
31 Mar 44), F2 (Key Personnel, Carbide and
Carbon), DASA, Sm\\h' Report, p. 133; Org Charts,
U.S. Engrs Office, MD, 15 Feb 44, 1 Jun 44, 28 Aug
44, 10 Nov 44, 26 Jan 45, MDR; Memo for File, Maj
Wilbur E. Kelley (V-12 Opns Div chief), 23 Sep 44,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and
Prgms: K-25), MDR; Completion Rpt, Kellex Corp.,
sub: K-25 Plant, p. 3, OROO; Memo for File, Brig
Gen Thomas F. Farrell (Grovess Dep), sub: Jul 12th
Confs in New York, N.Y., 13 Jun 45, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 337 (LC), MDR.

cials. Finally, in January 1943, Union
Carbide agreed to become the prime
operating contractor — but through its
subsidiary, the Carbide and Carbon
Chemicals Corporation — and selected
one of its vice presidents, physical
chemist and engineer George T. Fel-
beck, as project manager in charge of
K-25 operations.

In the letter contract with Carbide
and Carbon, Keith made certain that
there was a provision for Kellex to
obtain help in plant construction.
Later modifications in the formal con-
tract, signed in November 1943, ex-
tended the operating contractor's
area of responsibility to include co-
ordination of barrier research and de-
velopment, construction and oper-
ation of a plant for producing nickel
powder, conversion of Bakelite facili-
ties to produce special barrier materi-
al, and assumption in February 1945
of the SAM Laboratories research
program, hitherto operated by Co-
lumbia University.

Under terms of the prime contract,
Carbide and Carbon was to receive an
operator's fee of $75,000 per month
for full plant operation, and addition-
al payments as warranted. Although it
would shoulder principal responsibil-
ity for production activities, it did not
agree — as did Du Pont with the
plutonium plant and the Tennessee
Eastman Corporation with the elec-
tromagnetic plant — to serve as sole
operator of the gaseous diffusion
plant. Carbide officials did not want
responsibility for conditioning the
process equipment against the corro-
sive nature of the uranium hexafluor-
ide process gas, nor did they want the
potentially hazardous task of manu-

166

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

facturing the volatile fluorine gas
used for conditioning.

As an alternative, District officials
had arranged with Chrysler, already
under contract for manufacturing the
converter component of the diffusion
system, to do the conditioning. But
when Kellex and Army authorities
came to working out details of the
equipment contract with the automo-
bile firm, they learned that it lacked
the necessary facilities for fluorine
conditioning in its Detroit plant. Fol-
lowing months of delay, Manhattan
and Carbide officials resolved the
problem in November 1943. Based on
recommendations by Union Carbide,
Carbon and Carbide officials tempo-
rarily assigned responsibility for oper-
ating the conditioning facilities to the
building contractor. Ford, Bacon, and
Davis, and building and operating re-
sponsibility for the fluorine produc-
tion facilities to the Hooker Electro-
chemical Company. Up until early
1945, when Carbide and Carbon as-
sumed full operational control of
these facilities, this arrangement per-
mitted the prime operating contractor
to concentrate its efforts on the proc-
ess and power plants.

Preparations

During 1943, with gaseous diffu-
sion plant production activities on a
limited scale, the Manhattan District
monitored the work of the several op-
erating contractors through its K-25
Construction Division. When oper-
ations began to expand rapidly in early
1944, the district engineer established
a K-25 Operations Division, headed
by Maj. John J. Moran (Chart 3).
For months Moran's division func-
tioned with only eight officers and

five civil service employees. Then as
the main diffusion plant became oper-
ational in 1945, the division acquired
some additional personnel and, by
the fall of that year, was operating
with fourteen officers, nine enlisted
men, and twenty civil service employ-
ees. But this was a relatively small
staff to oversee the multifarious activi-
ties of a production plant that at the
peak of its operations employed more
than eleven thousand workers. It
proved adequate, however, because
Colonel Stowers, the K-25 unit chief,
employed the staff of the New York
Area Engineers Office, which he also
continued to head, to assume a con-
siderable part of the load of maintain-
ing liaison among the major compa-
nies involved in gaseous diffusion
operations.

In the spring of 1944, about the
time construction crews were com-
pleting the first cell in the main proc-
ess building. Carbide and Carbon
began setting up its production orga-
nization at the plant site. The firm
had been recruiting personnel for an
operating force since late 1943, but
with only limited success. And be-
cause recruitment difficulties also ex-
tended to supervisory and technical
positions, the district engineer even-
tually had to augment the K-25
technical staff with skilled personnel
from the District's Special Engineer
Detachment.^®

'® On specific problems in recruitment of supervi-
sory and technical personnel see Memo, Stowers to
Marshall, sub: K-25 Proj Requirements, 21 Jan 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600 12 (Projs and
Prgms: K-25), MDR; MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 5, pp. 2.1-
2.4, DASA.

Chart 3— Organization of the Manhattan District, January 1945

DISTRICT ENGINEER

DEPUTY DISTRICT ENGINEERS

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

SPECIAL PROJECTS

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

WASHINGTON LIAISON

REPORTS S STATISTICS

SPECIAL STUDIES

SPECIAL STAFF

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

INTELLIGENCE S SECURITY

INTELLIGENCE. SAFEGUARDING
MILITARY INFORMATION t
\ BRANCH OFFICES

NAVAL DETACHMENTS

COORDINATOR

PRODUCTION

MADISON SOUARE AREA

Colorado
H3 S. St Lo

Alabama Ordnance Works
Morgantown Ordnance Works
Wabash River Ordnance Works

Delroit
Milwaukee

HANFORD ENGINEER WORKS

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

ADMINISTRATION

FISCAL BRANCH

ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH

CONTRACTS S CLAIMS

Contracts & Procurement
Engmeenng

PRIORITIES S EXPEDITING

I GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE ^

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

FOR

OPERATIONS

SAFETY BRANCH

MAINTENANCE t, UTILITIES

BRANCH
CLINTON ENGINEER WORKS

SERVICE BRANCH

Redistribution t, Salvage
Clinton Engineer Works
Redistribution & Salvage

Classified Material

Clinton Engineer Works

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

FOR

PERSONNEL

MILITARY PERSONNEL

Hanford Engineer Works

WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE

, US. Engrs OHice. Ml). 26 Jan 45. AcJniin Files.

iirrcsp. 020 (MED-Org). MDR.

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

167

As newly recruited workers report-
ed in, Carbide and Carbon made
preparations for their orientation and
training. By October 1944, a suffi-
cient number of instructors and train-
ees were on hand to establish an op-
erations training center in a building
formerly occupied by the local public
school. At the start, the center's cur-
riculum consisted of two major cours-
es: process training and vacuum test
training. Later, courses were added
for process maintenance men and in-
strument mechanics. In the begin-
ning, only men were enrolled, but the
continuing shortage of workers com-
pelled Carbide and Carbon to recruit
a large number of women as process
operators. After employees had re-
ceived more than eighty hours of
formal classroom training, they un-
derwent a period of on-the-job train-
ing before final assignment to an op-
erating position.

In August 1944, some new workers
had the opportunity to acquire practi-
cal experience on the operation of the
54-stage pilot plant, an experimental
unit located at the base of the U in the
main process building. The barrier
tubes were not yet available, so the
cell stages were fitted with steel ori-
fices instead of converters. This
meant, of course, that no isotope sep-
aration could occur. But, using either
nitrogen or "test fluid," ^^ the opera-

^^ "Test fluid," the chemical compound n-per-
fluoroheptane (CtFis) project chemists had devel-
oped for process building test runs, was a nonhy-
drogenous gaseous material with characteristics
similar to the process gas, uranium hexafluoride,
except that it was noncorrosive. During test oper-
ations in the first three buildings, however, C7F16
exhibited a number of technical deficiencies. Conse-
quently, in February 1945, project chemists decided
to discard it in favor of using the process gas in
final test runs, realizing that the latter — although
highly corrosive — would provide the same test infor-

tor trainees simulated actual plant op-
erations and plant managers were
able to develop operating techniques,
provide realistic training for foremen
and key operators, and test perform-
ance of seals, pumps, and valves. In
January 1945, Carbide moved all
training activities from outlying build-
ings to the 54-stage pilot plant.

Production Activities

By the end of 1944, J. A. Jones
construction crews were ready to turn
over the first 60 of the 402 stages of
Case I — the first major section of the
production plant. Jones employees
tested pumps, instruments, and other
equipment for operability in the pres-
ence of Carbide and Carbon repre-
sentatives, noting in an acceptance
report all deficiencies that would re-
quire adjustment, repair, or replace-
ment. Witnesses from both firms then
had to approve the report before a
completed plant section could be
turned over to the operating staff for
another series of tests preliminary to
actual production.

A typical preoperation test was to
make certain no leaks existed in the
process system, because the separa-
tion process would operate effectively
only under conditions approaching an
absolute vacuum, with an infinitesi-
mally small pressure buildup. SAM
Laboratories vacuum technicians and
Carbide and Carbon employees, all
specially instructed in detecting leaks,
worked together to carry out the deli-
cate preoperation test. The test teams
pumped down the process equipment

mation with a considerable savings in both time and
labor. See MDH, Bk. 2, Vol. 5, pp. 3.4-3.5, DASA.

168

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Completed Plant Section with corrugated steel sheathing

to a high vacuum and then played a
stream of helium water over every
welded joint, instrument, and valve. If
there were leaks, helium would enter
the system, where a mass spectrome-
ter would detect it. Some four hun-
dred to six hundred test personnel ul-
timately had to devote about eight
months to complete a check of the
whole gaseous diffusion plant.

As soon as a unit, or building, suc-
cessfully passed the leak-test require-
ments, plant operators prepared it for
a test run with regular process gas.
Before they could do this, however,
they had to make a thorough check
and calibration of all instruments and
carry out final conditioning of equip-
ment. The 130,000 instruments in the
main process area — probably up to
that time the largest number ever in-

stalled in a single production plant —
included many that were of special
design and development and some
that (for example, the mass spectrom-
eters) were extremely delicate and
complicated. Many, too, never before
had been used routinely in a commer-
cial-scale plant. Consequently, months
of painstaking testing, calibrating, and
checking were necessary before the
final steps to put the plant into
operation.

Units in the production plant cas-
cade began operating for the first
time on regular process gas in Febru-
ary 1945, testing procedures that sub-
sequently were employed throughout
the plant. The initial step was vapori-
zation of the feed material — solid ura-
nium hexafluoride from the Harshaw
Chemical Company in Cleveland — by

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

169

subjecting it to a series of hot baths
to convert it into a gas. The feed ma-
terial then entered the process stream
in its gaseous form at any convenient
feed intake point and flowed through
the cascade of enriching stages.
Emerging from these stages, the proc-
ess gas went through a stripping sec-
tion that carried depleted gas from
the higher enrichment stages back to
the lower part of the cascade for
recirculation.

By early March, construction crews
had completed sufficient additional
cells to permit start-up of a two-build-
ing cascade. Unfortunately, on the
ninth, as the actual start-up procedure
began, nitrogen flooded the two-
building cascade, because a worker
had failed to close a valve in a bypass
line. But quick purging action by
plant crews soon cleared the system
and, by the twelfth, they not only had
the two-building cascade in partial
production but also had connected
two more buildings to the system. On
the twenty-fourth, the whole of Case I
went on stream. In the months fol-
lowing, Cases II through IV were fin-
ished at the rate of a case per month,
until in mid-August the full plant cas-
cade of 2,892 stages was in operation.

From the start, production results
were much better than anticipated,
despite occasional minor interrup-
tions because of equipment failures
and operational errors. ^° By May
1945, Cases I and II were turning
out a product containing 1 percent
U-235. In the following month, using
slightly enriched material from the
liquid thermal diffusion plant as feed.

^° For a detailed listing of these interruptions
during the period of getting the K-25 plant into full
operation in the spring and summer of 1945 see
ibid., pp. 8.4-8.7, DASA.

operators drew off some product con-
taining nearly 7 percent U-235. After
the full plant cascade went on stream,
product concentration increased to 23
percent. During the fall, the plant
demonstrated a productive capacity
far higher than its designers had pre-
dicted. Contributing to this increased
rate of output was a cell stream effi-
ciency and barrier performance great-
er than expected.

In early 1945, the District's Produc-
tion Control Committee, appointed
earlier by Colonel Nichols to coordi-
nate production by the diffusion proc-
esses and the electromagnetic proc-
ess, had worked out a plan to achieve
the maximum feasible output of
U-235. Based upon a careful analysis
of each process, the committee direct-
ed that K-25 would not be brought
into the production chain until it
demonstrated a capability of produc-
ing a product enrichment of 1.1 per-
cent. The K-25 plant attained the 1.1-
percent level in April, and project
workers began sending the output to
the electromagnetic plant for final en-
richment. At the same time, thermal
diffusion plant workers who had been
sending the plant's output to the rela-
tively inefficient Alpha I stage of the
electromagnetic plant now began de-
livering the entire product output to
K-25. Thus, the gaseous diffusion
process became an integral part of
the U-235 production chain and,
during the spring and summer of
1945, contributed substantially to
the manufacture of the fissionable
material used in the fabrication of
atomic weapons at the Los Alamos
Laboratory.

The Army's success in bringing the
vast and complex gaseous diffusion

170

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Completed Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The K-27 extension unit subsequently was
erected adjacent to Poplar Creek, at the upper right.

plant into full-scale production was to
a considerable extent due to its
having formed in the union of Kellex
and Carbide and Carbon an effective
organization with the requisite re-
sources, industrial knowledge, and
skilled personnel. Fortunately, during
most of the 1943-45 period when
first the K-25 plant and then its K-27
extension were being brought from
the draftsman's table to fully operat-
ing production units, the various
Kellex-Carbide elements functioned
together surprisingly smoothly and ef-
ficiently considering the unrelenting
pressure of time and the frustrations
created by all kinds of wartime short-
ages in material and manpower.

Inevitably, however, there were oc-
casional misunderstandings and per-

sonality conflicts that threatened to
disrupt the teamwork of the organiza-
tion. One such incident occurred in
June 1945, when Kellex was phasing
out participation in the project and
leaving primary responsibility for
plant operation to Carbide and
Carbon. At this time, a dispute arose
over the role of Kellex's strong-
minded executive in charge, Percival
Keith. The problem seemed to be
that Carbide officials thought Keith
was no longer devoting as much time
to gaseous diffusion as he should,
whereas Keith felt that he should be
the judge of how much of his time
should be spent on the project. After
exceptional effort on the part of Gen-
eral Groves and his staff, Keith yield-
ed to persuasion and agreed to stay

THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION PROCESS

171

on in an advisory capacity to assist
Carbide and Carbon in operating the
production plant.

Considered in terms of its ultimate
production capabilities, the gaseous
diffusion plant did not attain a signifi-
cant level of output until the fall of
1945, after World War II had ended.
This was not the result of poor plan-
ning or a failure to fulfill, in the main,
established construction and produc-
tion schedules. Rather it stemmed
from the fact that when Groves and
the other leaders of the atomic energy
program were working out the plans
for the plant in 1943, the consensus
of opinion was that the war against
Japan would last at least until mid-
1946. Had this been the case, the
K-25 plant would have attained the
level of maximum output at the time
when U-235 would be needed in
large quantities for the weapons fabri-
cation program. Events, of course, did
not unfold quite as the atomic project
planners had anticipated, and the war
ended in August 1945. Consequent-
ly, full-scale operation of K-25 and its
K-27 extension constitutes an episode
in the immediate postwar history of

the Manhattan Project rather than its
wartime aspect. In this postwar period,
the great industrial complex so hur-
riedly designed, erected, and placed in
operation, employing largely inexperi-
enced personnel working under far
from favorable conditions, demon-
strated that it was the most efficient
and productive of all the process
plants built to manufacture U-235.

Shortly after the war was over, the
Manhattan District shut down the
liquid thermal diffusion plant and the
Alpha units of the electromagnetic
plant. But the gaseous diffusion plant
continued in operation as the basic
source of U-235 for the entire atomic
project. And in the postwar era, the
great plant at the bend of the Clinch
River became the prototype for new
facilities built elsewhere in the United
States to increase output of U-235,
and also for the production units built
in other countries to manufacture fis-
sionable uranium for atomic energy
programs. ^^

^'See Ch. XXV'III on the closing down of the
liquid thermal diffusion plant and the Alpha units of
the electromagnetic plant.

CHAPTER VIII

The Liquid Thermal Diffusion
Process

Leaders of the atomic energy pro-
gram had decided against large-scale
development of the liquid thermal
diffusion process in early 1943, partly
because they judged the process in-
feasible and partly because transfer of
a Navy project to the Army-directed
Manhattan Project was likely to result
in major administrative and security
problems. By the spring of 1944,
however, significant progress in ther-
mal diffusion research — coupled with
the threat of not reaching the requi-
site production level of fissionable
uranium because of delays in getting
the electromagnetic and gaseous dif-
fusion plants into full operation —
opened the way for serious reconsid-
eration of this method as a means for
providing a supplementary supply of
partially enriched material for the Los
Alamos Laboratory weapon program.

Research and Development:
The Role of the Navy

One advantage of the liquid ther-
mal diffusion method of separating
isotopes was its relative simplicity.
When a liquid containing isotopes of
a given element is placed in the annu-
lar space between two vertical con-

centric receptacles, the inner one
heated and the outer one cooled,
thermal diffusion — that is, the passage
of heat from the hot to the cold
wall — tends to concentrate lighter iso-
topes near the hot wall and heavier
isotopes near the cold wall and, si-
multaneously, because of convection,
to carry the hotter liquid upward and
the cooler fluid downward. The result
is accumulation of lighter isotopes at
the top of the receptacle and heavier
isotopes at the bottom, thus permit-
ting extraction of both fractions.

This method, first tested in the late
1930's by German scientists using
zinc salts dissolved in water, had pro-
duced a small amount of separation;
however, the phenomenon remained
a little-known scientific curiosity until,
in 1940, wartime events precipitated
intensive research by American scien-
tists to secure the fissionable materi-
als necessary for the atomic project.
In Washington, D.C., chemist Philip
H. Abelson of the Carnegie Institu-
tion and physicist-technical adviser
Ross Gunn of the Naval Research
Laboratory simultaneously sought fi-
nancial support from the government
for a liquid thermal diffusion research

THE LIQ.UID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

173

program. Abelson, who had worked
with chemist Glenn Seaborg on pluto-
nium chemistry at the University of
California, Berkeley, wrote to Urani-
um Committee Chairman Lyman
Briggs at the National Bureau of
Standards and described how urani-
um isotopes might be separated by
thermal diffusion, and Gunn, also a
member of the Uranium Committee,
passed on to other committee mem-
bers his own interest in the potentiali-
ties of the process. Acting on Briggs's
suggestion, the Navy decided to sup-
port research in hopes that it might
provide fuel for a nuclear power plant
suitable for submarines.

Abelson started his research at the
Carnegie Institution, but in October
1940 moved his experiments to the
Bureau of Standards. Then in June
1941, at Gunn's suggestion, Abelson
became an employee at the Naval Re-
search Laboratory, which had been
providing funds for his experiments
since September 1940, and shifted his
equipment to that institution. Using
36-foot columns consisting of two
vertical concentric pipes, the inner
carrying hot steam and the outer
process liquid, Abelson began actual
tests with uranium hexafluoride, a
compound so little known at the time
that he had to devise his own method
for producing the substance in quan-
tity. Results were disappointing at
first; however, by changing the spac-
ing between the hot and cold walls of
the columns, Abelson was able to
demonstrate that a separation factor
as high as 21 percent could be
achieved and an equilibrium separa-

tion could be attained in about two
days.^

In August 1942, when Abelson's re-
search had progressed to the stage
where he needed a pilot plant to as-
certain the feasibility of operating a
large-scale plant, the Navy undertook
the task of building the first thermal
diffusion pilot plant at its Anacostia
Station near the Naval Research Lab-
oratory facilities. Completed by No-
vember, the original pilot plant con-
sisted of five (later others were
added) 36-foot columns and the req-
uisite pumps, piping, and other
equipment; a recently installed 20-
horsepower gas-fired boiler provided
the necessary steam. From the start of
operations in December, the plant
proved amazingly reliable, running
for days at a time with scarcely any at-
tention from the operating staff.
Then in early 1943, the staff discov-
ered that greater operational efficien-
cy resulted from increasing the tem-
perature of the hot wall. Although the
higher temperature complicated
design because of the high pressures
required for hotter steam, it largely
overcame the excessively long equilib-
rium time required for the plant to
reach the stage of producing signifi-
cant amounts of U-235.

' On the early history of the Hquid thermal difTu-
sion method see Progress Rpt, Philip H. Abelson,
sub: Liq Therm DifT Research (Rpt 0-1977), 5 Jan
43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600 12 (Therm DifT
Proj), MDR: MI^H, Bk. 6, Sec. 2, "Research and De-
velopment," pp. 2.1-2.4, DASA, Hewlett and An-
derson, \eu' World, pp. 32 and 168-70; Smyth
Report, p. 47.

174

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Reassessment: Decision for Full-scale
Development

For a time in late 1942, the liquid
thermal diffusion method appeared to
have been eliminated from further se-
rious consideration for the atomic
weapon program. In September, Gen-
eral Groves and Colonel Nichols had
visited the Naval Research Laboratory
and had talked to Gunn, but the small
size of the project and the apparent
lack of urgency of its developmental
program had left the Manhattan com-
mander unimpressed. Groves, too, re-
called that Vannevar Bush, director of
the Office of Scientific Research and
Development, had just told him that
in March President Roosevelt had di-
rected that the Navy be excluded
from the S-1 program. Yet in late No-
vember, the S-1 Executive Committee
reassessed all of the more promising
methods for mass production of fis-
sionable materials and, at the last
moment, decided to include Abel-
son's project in its review.^

General Groves and the S-l's reas-
sessment group, the Lewis reviewing
committee headed by MIT Professor
Warren K. Lewis, visited the Naval
Research Laboratory on 10 December
and were sufficiently impressed with
Abelson's progress to recommend
continued support of the thermal dif-
fusion project. Bush took steps to get
continued support from the Navy,
channeling his efforts through Rear
Adm. William R. Purnell of the Mili-
tary Policy Committee to avoid con-

flict with the President's directive to
keep the Navy out of the S-1 project.
Purnell had Abelson's latest scientific
reports sent to S-1 Committee Chair-
man James B. Conant, who turned
them over to the S-1 Executive Com-
mittee. An S-1 subcommittee, com-
prised of Lyman Briggs, Eger V.
Murphree, and Harold C. Urey, re-
viewed the reports and visited the
Navy project. On 23 January 1943,
they informed Conant that "the Naval
Research Laboratory . . . [had] made
excellent progress in the separation
of isotopes by liquid thermal diffu-
sion . . . ," ^ but expressed concern
over the lack of solid production data
and the excessive length of the equi-
librium time. Consequently, the sub-
committee limited its recommenda-
tion to suggesting that a commercial
organization be invited to prepare
preliminary designs for a production
plant, a stage of development that the
gaseous diffusion and centrifuge
projects had attained nearly a year
earlier. But two days later Murphree
reviewed his own estimate of Abel-
son's project and proposed that the
Manhattan leaders consider substitut-
ing liquid thermal diffusion for gase-
ous diffusion in the lower stages of a
U-235 separation plant. ^

At the beginning of February, Gen-
eral Groves submitted the various
proposals concerning thermal diffu-
sion and the reports from Abelson to
the Lewis reviewing committee. After
due consideration the committee sug-

^Ltr, Briggs, Murphree, and L'rev to Conant,
23 Jan 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12
(Therm Diff Proj), MDR; Marshall Diary, 21 Sep 42,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Misc Recs
Sec, behind Fldr 5, MDR; Groves, \ow It Can Be
Told. p. 23; Hewlett and Anderson, Sew World, pp.
169-70.

^Ltr, Briggs, Murphree, and Urey to Conant,
23Jan43. MDR.

■•Memo, Nichols to Groves, 20 Jan 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Liq Therm DifT), MDR;
Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World, p. 171 (based on
Ltr, Murphree to Briggs, 25 Jan 43, OSRD).

THE LIQUID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

175

gested continuing with a limited pro-
gram of research and preliminary en-
gineering designs. The S-1 Executive
Committee accepted this recommen-
dation on the tenth, and another
review by Lewis, Briggs, Murphrec,
and Urey toward the end of the
summer resulted in essentially the
same recommendation.^

From September 1942 until April
1943, there was an almost complete
loss of contact between the Navy pro-
gram and the Manhattan Project. This
temporary exclusion from the main
arena of atomic energy activities did
not, in the long run, seriously impede
continued development, although
Groves's refusal in October to ap-
prove Abelson's request for addition-
al supplies of uranium hexafluoride
momentarily threatened the program.
Groves soon relented, however, when
Navy officials reminded him that
Abelson was the scientist who had de-
vised the process for producing large
quantities of uranium hexafluoride.
Abelson needed the increased quanti-
ties of the compound for the three-
hundred-column high-pressure pilot
plant he planned to build at the Phila-
delphia Navy Yard, where there was
an adequate supply of steam avail-
able. The Navy finally authorized con-
struction of the new plant in Novem-
ber and work started on a one-hun-

n.tr, C. H. Greenewalt (TNX Tech Div chief. Du
Pont) to Groves. 8 Feb 43, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 600.12 (Therm DifT Proj). MDR; Hewlett and
Anderson, Xeu' World, pp. 171-72; Rpt, Murphree
and Urey, sub: Prgm for Experiments To Be Car-
ried Out on Therm Diff Method, 19 Feb 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Liq Therm Difi). MDR;
Ltrs, Briggs, Urey, Murphree, and Lewis to Conant,
8 Sep 43, and Conant to Purnell, 15 Sep 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (Mil Policv), MDR.

dred-column segment in January
1944.6

The final impetus for full-fledged
development did not come from the
Army or the S-1 Committee, but
from that element most vitally con-
cerned with obtaining an early and
adequate supply of fissionable mate-
rials: the Los Alamos Laboratory.
In particular. Laboratory Director
J. Robert Oppenheimer was constantly
on the alert for any means that gave
promise of speeding up large-scale
production of fissionable materials. At
a time when the electromagnetic plant
at the Clinton Engineer Works was
just beginning to produce a sizable
amount of enriched uranium and
completion of the gaseous diffusion
and plutonium production plants still
was many months away, Oppen-
heimer reviewed certain fragmentary
data received earlier on the thermal
diffusion project. His information in-
cluded two nearly year-old reports by
Abelson and some oral reports re-
ceived from Capt. William S. Parsons,
the naval officer in charge of ord-
nance at Los Alamos.

Parsons had just returned from a trip
to the East, during which he had made
inquiries about the pilot plant under
construction at Philadelphia. He had
learned that the plant was scheduled
to begin operating on 1 July, using
one hundred columns to produce an
estimated 5 grams per day of an en-
riched product containing 5 percent
U-235. Oppenheimer knew that par-
tially enriched material in such small
quantities would not begin to fulfill
the requirements of the atomic

^Hewlett and Anderson, Xnt' World, pp. 171-72;
MDH, Bk. 6, Sec. 2, pp. 2.4 and 2.9, DASA; Smvth
Report, p. 147

176

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

project; however, the thought oc-
curred to him that if the one hundred
columns of the plant could be con-
nected in parallel rather than as a
fractionating pyramid, they might be
made to produce something like 12
kilograms a day of an enriched prod-
uct containing about 1 percent U-235.
And this output would be tripled
if Abelson carried out his plan to
erect a total of three hundred col-
umns, the number that could be oper-
ated on the steam available at the
Philadelphia Yard. On 28 April, Op-
penheimer wrote to Groves that de-
velopment of the thermal diffusion
process to provide partially enriched
uranium feed for the electromagnetic
process would give "hope that the
production of the Y-12 [electromag-
netic] plant could be increased by
some 30 or 40 percent, and its en-
hancement somewhat improved, many
months earlier than the scheduled
date for K-25 [gaseous diffusion]
production." ^

Groves did not reply immediately.
In later years he stated he did not
know why he or someone else had
not suggested thermal diffusion as a
feeder process for the electromagnet-
ic plant at least a year before; per-
haps, he conjectured, this occurred
because everyone at first had thought
of using a single process to achieve a
final product enrichment and, as a
single production system, thermal dif-
fusion had certain technical draw-
backs. But by August 1943, Manhat-
tan leaders had adopted the feeder
concept for the gaseous diffusion
plant, proposing to use its output to

feed the Beta cycle, and in this new
context they were then able to per-
ceive the potentialities of thermal
diffusion.®

Unquestionably, too, development
by an organization outside the Army-
administered Manhattan District was
an important factor contributing to
the delay. For this reason it did not
attract the active interest of most of
the scientists and engineers who orga-
nized the bomb project, and the Army
administrators feared security prob-
lems from bringing outside agencies
into the Manhattan Project. That the
latter consideration created at least
some reservation in Groves's mind as
to the feasibility of Oppenheimer's
suggestion seems borne out by the
fact that the Manhattan commander,
who was not characteristically a man
to allow grass to grow under his feet,
let a whole month pass before acting
upon it. Finally, on 31 May 1944,
Groves appointed a committee con-
sisting of Lewis and Murphree, who
had previously investigated the Navy
project, and physicist Richard C.
Tolman, who was serving as his scien-
tific adviser. This committee con-
firmed Oppenheimer's information,
except they found his prediction re-
garding the potential output of the
one-hundred-column plant overly op-
timistic. Groves informed Oppen-
heimer that he did not know yet
whether the Manhattan District would
avail itself of the Navy's facilities but
that "arrangements have been made
for this eventuality if it should be
desirable." ^

' Ltr, Oppenheimer to Groves, 28 Apr 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Therm DifTProj). MDR;
Oppenheimer Hearing, pp. 164-65.

^ Oppenheimer Hearing, pp. 119-20.
^ Ltr, Groves to Oppenheimer, 3 Jun 44. See also
Memos, Groves to Lewis, Murphree, and Tolman,

Continued

THE LIQIHD THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

177

• \ F . .^

Richard C. Tolman {1945 photograph)

On 5 June, Groves sent Conant and
Lewis to District headquarters to
confer with Colonel Nichols concern-
ing the practical feasibility of using
the Navy pilot plant at Philadelphia
and constructing a thermal diffusion
plant at the Tennessee site, employ-
ing steam available from the K-25
powerhouse. The two scientific lead-
ers ultimately concluded the thermal
diffusion plant "would probably be a
feasible [and] desirable adjunct to the
Y-12 process." ^«

Then on the twelfth. Groves re-
quested that Murphree, who had ex-
tensive industrial experience, make a

sub: Possible Utilization of Navy Pilot Therm DifT
Plant, 31 May 44, and Lewis, Murphree, and
Tolman to Groves, same sub. 3 Jun 44. All in
Admin Files, Gen Corresp. 600.12 (Therm DifT
Proj), MDR.

'"Memo, Nichols to Groves, 11 Oct 44, Admin
Files, Gen Gorresp, 600.12 (Projs and Prgms),
MDR. See Ch. XV'III for a detailed description of
the K-25 powerhouse.

Study to determine the cost, construc-
tion time, and amount of high-pres-
sure steam needed for a thermal dif-
fusion plant capable of producing 50
kilograms a day of enriched uranium
with concentrations of U-235 ranging
from 0.9 to 3.0 percent. Murphree
asked Tolman and the scientists Karl
P. Cohen and W. L Thompson, both
of whom had participated in previous
investigations of the Navy project, to
assist him in making the study. They
concluded that the 1.25-million
pounds per hour of steam that the
K-25 powerhouse (with some modifica-
tions) could supply would be approxi-
mately sufficient to operate a thermal
diffusion plant of sixteen hundred
tubes, costing about $3.5 million, and
capable of enriching 50 kilograms of
uranium a week to slightly less than
0.9-percent concentration.^^

Groves decided on 24 June to go
ahead with construction. Such a plant
promised to be relatively cheap. It
could use the already available steam
capacity at the gaseous diffusion plant
site at least for several months, pend-
ing completion of the K-25 cascade.
While its product would contain only
about 20 percent more U-235 than
natural uranium, this enrichment
would be translated into a vital 20-
percent-greater output by the electro-
magnetic plant. But Groves decided
against the recommendation to in-
clude the existing Navy facilities, be-

*'Ltr, Murphree to Groves, 22 Jun 44. See also
Rpt, Thompson and Cohen, sub: Process Design for
Liq DifT Plant. 17 Jun 44; Rpt, Thompson and
Cohen, Sub: Rough Prelim Estimate of Plant Cost,

19 Jun 44; Ltrs, Tolman to Groves, subs: Further
Info as to Steam C^apacitv at Tenn., 19 Jun 44, and
Still Later Info as to Steam Capacity at lenn.,

20 Jun 44. All in Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1
(Liq Therm Difl), MDR.

178

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

cause the Navy installation would not
be under direct control of the Army
and because he was convinced that
the Manhattan District would build
the thermal diffusion plant more
quickly if it were not diverted by the
problems of operating the Navy plant.
Both Groves and Nichols held to the
view that the key factor was getting
the plant into operation at the earliest
possible date to fill the anticipated
gap between the time the electromag-
netic plant reached full capacity and
the gaseous diffusion plant began
producing large quantities of en-
riched uranium feed.^^

Plant Design, Engineering, and
Construction

The need for exceptional speed in
both design and construction of the
thermal diffusion plant, designated
S-50 for security reasons, was an im-
portant consideration in Groves's se-
lection of the H. K. Ferguson Com-
pany as the prime contractor. In earlier
defense projects, the Manhattan com-
mander had been greatly impressed
with the Cleveland firm's ability to
complete a job on schedule. Against
the advice of his advisers, who
thought six months was an optimistic
schedule, Groves determined that the
plant must be in full operation in four
months. Furthermore, the first pro-
duction unit should begin operating
only seventy-five days after start of
construction. Groves offered the
high-pressure services of Manhattan's
Washington Liaison Office for expe-
diting procurement; instructed the
company to place its orders without

competition and by wire or tele-
phone, using wherever practicable the
same manufacturers who had supplied
equipment for the Navy pilot plant;
and ordered that plant components
be identical copies of those developed
for Abelson's project. ^^

To further ensure that Ferguson
would have access to all available as-
sistance the Army could provide,
Colonel Nichols in June 1944 estab-
lished an S-50 Division in the Man-
hattan District office. {See Chart 3) He
assigned Lt. Col. Mark C. Fox as unit
chief for the thermal diffusion project
and Maj. Thomas J. Evans, Jr., as his
assistant, with special responsibility
for overseeing plant construction. In
anticipation of the need for special
measures to enable Ferguson and its
subcontractors to successfully carry
out the extraordinarily demanding
terms of the S-50 contract. Colonel
Fox organized an Expediting Branch
in the division, which functioned
through District procurement officers
in industrial centers throughout the
United States.^''

With only a few weeks in which to
complete blueprints and let procure-
ment contracts, the Ferguson Com-
pany had no alternative but to adhere as
closely as practicable to the Naval Re-
search Laboratory design. Ferguson
engineers visited the laboratory and
the Navy turned over to them all of
the drawings and blueprints needed

^^Memo, Nichols to Groves, 11 Oct 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and Prgms),
MDR; Groves, Sow It Can Be Told. pp. 120-21.

"Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p. 121; MDH, Bk. 6,
Sec. 3, "Design and Construction," pp. 3.15-3.17,
DASA.

'■•MDH, Bk. 6, Sec. 6, "Organization and Person-
nel," p. 6.2, DASA; Org Chart, U.S. Engrs Office,
MD, 28 Aug 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 020
(MED-Org), MDR. When Colonel Fox was assigned
to another part of the Manhattan Project in March
1945, Major Evans replaced him as S-50 unit chief.

THE LIQUID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

179

for construction of the columns and
racks. They modified Navy designs
and developed new ones for certain
elements of the auxiliary equipment
only to the extent necessary to meet
the different conditions existing at the
Tennessee location. To save time
they based much of the construction
on simple field sketches, postponing
completion of detailed drawings until
after the plant was built. ^^

As laid out in the Ferguson engi-
neers' designs, the plant consisted of
2,142 columns, each 48 feet in height,
distributed in twenty-one racks. ^^
Each of the columns had three con-
centric tubes, comprised of a 1 Vi-inch
nickel pipe inside; a slightly larger
copper pipe in the middle; and a
4-inch galvanized iron jacket on the
outside. In the small (one one-hun-
dredth of an inch) annular space be-
tween the outer wall of the nickel
pipe and inner wall of the copper
pipe the diffusion process would
occur. Steam, under a pressure of 100
pounds per square inch and at a tem-
perature of 545 degrees Fahrenheit,
would circulate downward through
the nickel pipe while water at 155 de-
grees Fahrenheit would flow upward
through the iron jacket; simultaneous-
ly, uranium hexafluoride would flow
into the base of each column from a
reservoir, specially designed to main-
tain at the bottom of each column a
concentration of LI-235 approximat-
ing that in natural uranium. Designed
into the top of each column was a
system of freezing coils; this feature
eliminated the need for complicated
mechanical valves, and would permit

'^MDH, Bk. 6, Sec. 3, p. 3.6. DASA.

'®Thi.s and following paragraph based on MDH,
Bk. 6, Sec. 4, "Description of Plant," pp. 4.1-4.5,
DASA.

plant employees to draw off small
amounts of the enriched product at
frequent intervals.

All the racks, each with 102 col-
umns, occupied a single main process
building, a huge black structure 522
feet long, 82 feet wide, and 75 feet
high. Running the full length of the
west side of this building was a mez-
zanine partitioned into eleven control
rooms, one for each two racks, and an
equal number of transfer rooms con-
taining process equipment for supply-
ing feed material and removing en-
riched product and depleted uranium
hexafluoride from the columns. The
engineers designed the final rack with
separate control and transfer rooms
so that it could be used for employee
training and experimental work.

On 9 July 1944, Ferguson workers
began clearing the S-50 plant site in
the area adjacent to the K-25 power-
house. In less than three weeks they
had completed foundations for the
main process building and by mid-
August were installing the process
equipment. Pipe fitters and welders
concentrated on the major task of
erecting the twenty-one racks of col-
umns during September and October.
Test operations, however, soon re-
vealed that many of the columns
leaked at the top and bottom and
would require additional welding; yet
in spite of this delay, all racks were
ready for start-up operations by Janu-
ary 1945 and became fully operation-
al by mid-March. In the meantime,
the District had closed out the Fergu-
son construction contract, assigning
completion of subcontracts for re-
maining insulation and electrical sys-
tem work to other firms available in
the Clinton area. These subcontrac-

180

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

tors also completed auxiliary build-
ings, including a new S-50 steam
plant to supplement the K-25
powerhouse. ^^

Plant Operation

Because time was so short, and to
avoid endangering security by bring-
ing in yet another outside firm. Gen-
eral Groves insisted that the H. K.
Ferguson Company also operate the
plant. ^^ At first Ferguson officials ob-
jected, stating that as an engineering
construction company it maintained a
closed shop and, therefore, could an-
ticipate union trouble on its other
wartime jobs if it attempted to carry
on a nonunion operation at the Clin-
ton Engineer Works, where security
regulations prohibited employee
unions. But District representatives
soon overcame this objection by re-
sorting to a corporate fiction similar
to that which had worked so well with
the M. W. Kellogg Company on the
gaseous diffusion project. They per-
mitted Ferguson to form a wholly
owned subsidiary, designated the Fer-
cleve (from the words Ferguson and
Cleveland) Corporation. Fercleve then
accepted a letter contract on 1 July
(and a formal contract in late 1944),
according to which it would procure
supplies and materials; train person-
nel; and inspect, supervise, and oper-
ate the thermal diffusion plant in

"Ibid., Sec. 3, pp. 3.18-3.20, DASA. To equip
this boiler plant, the District acquired twelve surplus
boilers from the Navy, fabricated for use in destroy-
er escort vessels, and the Washington Liaison Office
secured a number of 25,000- and 482,000-gallon
tanks from excess Army stocks.

^* Except as otherwise indicated, section based on
ibid.. Sec. 5, "Operations," DASA; Org Chart, U.S.
Engrs Office, MD, 10 Nov 44, MDR. See also
Groves, \'ow It Can Be Told, p. 120, n. 8.

return for a fee of $11,000 a month.
To monitor the Fercleve contract,
Colonel Fox established an Oper-
ations Branch in the S-50 Division.

While Fercleve wasted no time in
taking steps to set up an operating
organization, its late start presented it
with some difficult problems. When
company personnel officials attempt-
ed to recruit an operating force, they
found the other plants had already
cut deep into the local labor market.
And they could not offer housing on
the reservation, a main inducement
used by the other operating compa-
nies. Problems also arose in Fer-
cleve's efforts to train operators. As a
beginning step, the company sent
four of its own employees and ten en-
listed men from the Manhattan Dis-
trict's Special Engineer Detachment
to Philadelphia to receive training
from Abelson. This group acquired
some experience in conditioning tech-
niques but learned little about oper-
ations because the Navy plant was not
yet completed. Then, on 2 Septem-
ber, an explosion wrecked a large
part of the Navy pilot plant, injuring
several of the trainees. This unfortu-
nate incident not only ended the ini-
tial training program but also raised
for a time some severe doubts con-
cerning the design of the Clinton
plant. Subsequently, however, Abel-
son and fifteen of his experienced
staff moved to the Tennessee site,
where they gave valuable assistance,
first in conditioning the production
plant and then in getting it into
operation. ^^

In spite of recruiting difficulties,
Fercleve by April 1945 had an operat-

'9 Groves, \ow It Can Be Told, p. 122.

THE LIQUID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

181

Liquid Thermal Diffusion Plant (long, dark building) at CEW. The adjacent K-25
power plant drew water from the Clinch River.

ing force, exclusive of military per-
sonnel, of about 1,600 at the Clinton
Engineer Works. In addition, Special
Engineer Detachment enlisted per-
sonnel, comprised primarily of men
trained in engineering or science,
served as operators and supervisors
in the plant, their number reaching
a total of 126 at the height of
operations.

While plant construction was still in
progress, Fercleve crews began condi-
tioning Rack 21 for start-up oper-
ations. When they opened the valves
to let high-pressure steam from the
K-25 power plant flow into the rack,
great quantities escaped with an ear-
splitting noise, and parts of the rack
were soon shrouded in hot vapor.
Under ordinary conditions such clear-
ly demonstrated indications of defec-

tive equipment would have resulted in
an immediate shutdown. But faced
with Groves's insistence that the first
units must be in operation by early
fall, Fercleve's plant manager had no
choice but to proceed with start-up
activities. Consequently, in the last
months of 1944, operating personnel
pressed ahead with start-up of addi-
tional racks, and soon plant employ-
ees came to accept the noise of escap-
ing steam, accompanied by great
clouds of vapor, as almost normal op-
erating conditions.

There can be little doubt that the
haste to get into production increased
already inherent operating hazards in
the thermal diffusion plant. In the
confined spaces of the diffusion col-
umns, high-pressure steam and urani-
um hexafluoride, which expanded 35

182

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

« FERCLEVE FIREPOWER^

Billboard at the S-50 Plant Site

percent in passing from a solid to a
liquid, created highly explosive
forces. During the period of full oper-
ation, the plant did have a somewhat
higher accident rate than the other
Manhattan production units, but the
incidence of really serious accidents
was not as great. Most were attrib-
utable to lack of training and the
inevitable confusion occasioned by
construction and operating crews hav-
ing to work in the same area
simultaneously. ^°

During the first months there were
times when results scarcely seemed to
justify the risks. The combined disad-
vantages of largely inexperienced per-
sonnel and numerous equipment defi-
ciencies seemed to forebode many
months of low output and work stop-
pages before the plant attained an ac-
ceptable level of production. Thus,
Colonel Nichols reported to General

Groves that total output in October
1944 was only a token 10.5 pounds of
uranium containing 0.852 percent
U-235. While production increased to
171.8 pounds in November, it fell
back to 20 pounds the following
month, when steam leaks forced nu-
merous shutdowns. With six racks in
operation during the first half of Jan-
uary 1945, production for the first
time approached predicted levels, but
shutdown of some of the K-25 steam
units for repairs in the last half of the
month reduced output again. Febru-
ary production reached a total of
3,158 pounds in spite of an inad-
equate steam supply — an anticipated
deficiency eventually overcome
through the prompt construction of
the S-50 steam plant. In the spring
and early summer of 1945, plant
output went up rapidly, reaching a
peak of 12,730 pounds in June. It
dropped back briefly in July because
of the changeover to the S-50 steam
plant, but by that time the thermal
diffusion process had served its pur-
pose for the wartime program. The
slightly enriched material it pro-
duced — sent first to the electromag-
netic plant for further enrichment and
then, beginning in late April 1945, di-
rectly to the gaseous diffusion plant —
added enough to the total output of
U-235 to guarantee a sufficient
amount for one bomb of an appropri-
ate design by the end of July. ^^

Operational studies made after the
surrender of Japan in August 1945
showed that, except in an emergency,
the gaseous diffusion plant, which was

^° For data on injury rates on the thermal diflu-
sion project as compared with those on the other
CHnton projects see MDH. Bk. 6. App. D8, DASA.
See also Ch. XX.

2 1 Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jul 44-
Jul 45, passim, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files,
Fldr 28, Tabs A and B, MDR; Smvth Report, p. 147;
Hewlett and Anderson, Sew HorW, pp. 299-301.

THE LIQUID THERMAL DIFFUSION PROCESS

183

just approaching full production,
could henceforth handle the lower de-
grees of enrichment alone and do it
more economically than the thermal
diffusion plant. Consequently, operat-
ing crews made preparations for shut-
ting down the thermal plant. After
continuing in production long enough
to extract the last product from mate-

rial remaining in the columns, the
plant ceased operating on 9 Septem-
ber 1945, less than a year after its
first unit had started up in the fall of
1944.22

22 Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, Sep 45,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 28, Tab B,
MDR.

CHAPTER IX

The Pile Process

Of the three fissionable materials
production processes (electromag-
netic, gaseous diffusion, and pile)
endorsed by the Military Policy Com-
mittee in 1942 for full-scale develop-
ment, the greatest gamble of all
appeared to be the pile method, pri-
marily because of a number of diffi-
cult technical problems facing project
scientists.^ Experimentation with re-
search piles at the University of Chi-
cago's Metallurgical Laboratory had
revealed that plutonium production
on a large scale would require the
design and engineering of special
process techniques and equipment to
cope with radioactivity and energy,
mostly in the form of heat, more in-
tense and pervasive than ever before
encountered in an industrial process.
Similarly, investigations into the
chemical separation of plutonium
from the transmutation residual of
natural uranium and highly radioac-

1 MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp,
MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab B, MDR. The original nucle-
ar reactor that Fermi and his scientific colleagues
constructed at the University of Chicago's Stagg
Field in late 1942 consisted of a cubic lattice of
lumps of uranium and graphite piled one layer upon
another. Hence, the structure came to be called a
pile, a convenient designation for reasons of securi-
ty because it did not reveal the purpose of a chain-
reacting system. The term nuclear reactor did not
come into general use until after the end of World
War II.

tive fission products had demonstrat-
ed that there were still many unan-
swered questions as to the best way
to carry out this ancillary phase of
plutonium production.

The Military Policy Committee had
taken these problems into account
when it decided in December to pro-
ceed with mass production of plutoni-
um. Several factors contributed to
this affirmative decision. The commit-
tee was much impressed by the
progress of research and development
in the plutonium process at the Met-
allurgical Laboratory and elsewhere,
and also was convinced that the vast
potential of the process warranted the
undoubted risks inherent in its devel-
opment. From a military standpoint,
project scientists told the committee,
the process would produce not only
fissionable material for an atomic
weapon but also, as a by-product, ra-
dioactive fission materials that prob-
ably could be utilized as an exception-
ally deadly chemical warfare weapon.
Even if the scientists and engineers
failed to develop the process in time,
the plutonium pile with its enormous
capabilities for producing heat could
become a major source of power for
peacetime uses. Given all of these
considerations, the Military Policy

THE PILE PROCESS

185

Committee could see no alternative to
continuing full-scale development of
the process.

Research and Development: Metallurgical
Laboratory

Following consolidation of most
plutonium research and development
at the Metallurgical Laboratory in
February 1942, Director Arthur
Compton formed an organization that
consisted of an engineering council,
headed by chemical engineer
Thomas V. Moore from industry,
and nine major divisions — physics,
theory, technical, chemistry, pilot
plant, fast neutron, clinical-biological
(subsequently health) physics, defense
measures, and engineering.^ One of

^Section on Metallurgical Laboratory based on
Org Chart attached to Rpt, Capt Arthur V. Peter-
son, sub: Visit to Chicago Proj, 29 Sep 42, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (misfiled under Therm
DifT Proj), MDR; Memo, Maj Peterson to Groves,
sub: Met Proj Org Chart, 14 Oct 43, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 201 ((^en), MDR; Smvth Report, pp.
63-65 and 92; Interv, Author with Norman Hil-
berrv, 3 Jan 63, CMH; MDH. Bk. 4, Vol. 2, "Re-
search." Pi. 1, pp. 2.5-2.8, 7.1-7.3, Apps. B3, B5-
B7, D2 (Constr Rpt Extracts), DASA; Completion
Rpt, Stone and Webster, sub: Clinton Engr Works,
Contract W-7401-eng-13, 1946, pp. 6-11, OROO;
Rpt, Compton, sub: Opn of Met Proj, by Univ of
Chicago, and Ms, Compton, sub: "Mr. Fermi, the
Argonne Laboratory and the University of Chica-
go," both 28 Jul 44,' .Admin Files, (k-n Corresp, 080
(Argonne-L'niv of Chicago), MDR; Tables (Employ-
ment by MD on Design, Research and Constr as of
31 May, 31 Jul, and 31 Oct 43) in Rpt, sub: MD Proj
Data as of 1 Jun 43 (most items as of 1 Jun 43, but
tables appear to have been added at a later date).
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and
Prgms), MDR; DSM Chronologv, 13-14 Sep 42,
Sec. 2(a), OROO; Compton, Alonuc Quest, pp. 82-86,
110-11, 114-15, 151-52, 157, 170-71, 185-86; Mar-
shall Diarv, 25 Jun-5 Sep 42, OCG Files, Gen Cor-
resp, Groves Files, Misc Recs Sec, behind Fldr 5,
MDR; Interv, Author with J. M. McKinley, 4 Jan 63,
CMH. Captain McKinley served as deputy area engi-
neer at Chicago from about November 1943 to July
1945 and as area engineer until about November
1945.

these divisions, fast neutron, was ac-
tually located at the University of
California, Berkeley, with work in
progress at several other institutions.
Other divisions, too, had some as-
pects of their work under way at
other sites (for example, chemistry, at
Iowa State, where metallurgist Frank
Spedding was testing the metallurgi-
cal properties of uranium; and at
California, where chemist Glenn Sea-
borg was investigating the virtually
unknown chemistry of plutonium).

Under Compton's supervision and
direction, the Metallurgical Labora-
tory scientific staff moved ahead effec-
tively with devising and testing pile
and chemical separation designs for a
large-scale plutonium production
plant. With this experimental activity
proceeding apace, Compton reported
to District Engineer Marshall the
pressing need for additional research
facilities. Marshall immediately con-
tacted Stone and Webster and had
the firm draw up plans to expand the
laboratory's physical facilities, direct-
ing that subcontracts be let to Chi-
cago area construction companies. At
the same time. Deputy District Engi-
neer Nichols worked out with Comp-
ton the land and building require-
ments for the Argonne Forest pilot
plant site, located southwest of the
city, and cleared the way for its acqui-
sition by the Corps of Engineers'
Great Lakes Real Estate Office.

By the fall of 1942, the Army had
become an active partner in the Chi-
cago program. To provide liaison
with the Manhattan District, as well as
to assist Compton in procurement
and personnel matters, Marshall
opened the Chicago Area Engineers
Office in the University of Chicago's

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

University of Chicago Physics Building

physics building, which was adjacent
to Compton's own headquarters and
the laboratory's administrative and
business offices, and assigned Capt.
James F. Grafton as area engineer.
Shortly thereafter, the decision to
reduce Stone and Webster's responsi-
bilities for Metallurgical Laboratory
construction to limited architectural
and engineer services shifted much of
the burden of administering the ex-
pansion program upon Captain Graf-
ton and his modest staff. The in-
creased work load of letting and over-
seeing the great number of University
of Chicago subcontracts forced Graf-
ton to enlarge his staff, which gradu-
ally increased in size from nearly 100
in the summer of 1943 — when the
Army took over all OSRD-sponsored

research and development contracts —
to a total of approximately 250 in July
1945. To provide additional space for
the expanding Chicago area staff, the
Manhattan District leased the state of
Illinois' massive grey 124th Field Ar-
tillery Armory, located only a short
distance from the university campus.
Sharing the quarters with the area en-
gineer's staff were the laboratory's
administrative personnel, an arrange-
ment that facilitated closer coordina-
tion between the two groups in such
matters as security, labor and materi-
als procurement, personnel, prior-
ities, patents, and finances.

During the Metallurgical Laborato-
ry building and remodeling program,
which continued uninterrupted until

THE PILE PROCESS

187

Argonnl LABOKAroR\ Near C^hicago, one of the Metallurgical Project's
research facilities.

late 1944, the Chicago Area Engi-
neers Office oversaw construction
that provided the Chicago program
with more than 500,000 square feet
of space, including an entirely new
chemistry building with an annex,
several new buildings at the Argonne
site, and extensively remodeled facili
ties in existing structures, all at an ul-
timate total cost of about $2.15 mil-
lion. In carrying out this expansion,
the Army received the constant and
effective support of the University of
Chicago's administrative staff, which
consistently adhered to the policy set
forth at the beginning of the program
in 1942, namely, that it would "turn
the University inside out if necessary
to help win the war. Victory is much

more important than survival of the
University." ^

Pile Design

In late 1942, as Army leaders
gradually became more familiar with
the plutonium phase of the atomic
bomb project, they realized that
progress in pile development at the
Metallurgical Laboratory was likely to
be the key factor determining how
soon large-scale production of fission-
able material would be possible. ** In

^Rpt, Compton, sub: Opn of Met Proj bv l'ni% of
Chicago, 28 Jul 44, MDR.

■* Subsection on pile designs based on Rpt, Peter-
son, sub: Visit to Chicago Proj, 29 Sep 42, MDR;
Min, Conf at Met Lab, 15 Oct 42, Admin Files, Gen

Continued

188

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

124th Field Artillery Armory in Chicago

September, General Groves, newly
appointed as Manhattan commander,
sent Capt. Arthur V. Peterson, a civil
engineer by profession, to visit the
Chicago scientists. Then using the de-
tailed information in Peterson's
report as a guide, Groves arranged a
series of personal visits to Chicago in

early October, during which he at-
tended the policymaking meetings of
the Metallurgical Laboratory Techni-
cal Council and conferred with mem-
bers of its engineers and scientific
staff.

The Manhattan commander was im-
pressed with the way in which Comp-

Corresp, 337 (Univ of Chicago), MDR; Min, Tech
Council, 5 Oct 42 (Rpt CS-286), 12 Oct 42 (Rpt
CS-294), 13 Oct 42 (Rpt CS-306), 15 Oct 42 (Rpts
CS-309 and -311), 23 Dec 42 (Rpt CS-397), 22 Jan
43 (Rpt CS-414), ANL; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 1,
pp. 3.1-3.16, and Pt. 2, pp. 4.2-4.7, and Vol. 3,
"Design," pp. 5.14-5.35, DASA; Hewlett and An-
derson, New World, pp. 174-82 and 193-98; Smyth
Report, pp. 42, 75, 81-83; Groves Diary, 5, 10, 15
Oct 42, LRG; Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 40-41
and 80-81; DSM Chronology, Nov-Dec 42, passim,
OROO; Memo, Peterson to Nichols, sub: Reassess-
ment Sess at Chicago (12/2/42), 4 Dec 42, Admin

Files, Gen Corresp, 410.2 (Uranium), MDR; MPC
Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR; Rpt. Mtg with Grccnewalt, 24
Feb 43 (Rpt CS-2644), ANL; Ltr, Greenewalt to
Groves, 8 Jul 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 080
(Argonne-Univ of Chicago), MDR; Compton, Atomic
Qiirsl. pp 161-63 and 167-70; Completion Rpt, Du
Pont, sub: CEW, TNX Area, Contract W-7412-cng-
23, 1 Apr 44, p. 303, OROO; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt
on DSM Proj, 23 Mar 43. OCC; Files, Gen Corresp.
MP Files, Fldr 28, Tab A. MDR. For a detailed
discussion of the plutonium production process, see
appropriate volumes in Division 4, Plutonium Project,
of the National Nuclear Energy Series.

THE PILE PROCESS

189

New Chemistry Building, Metallurgical Laboratory, on the University of Chica-
go campus. Barely visible is the gothic tower (at far left) of the football stadium where Ennco
Fermi achieved the first chaw reaction in a graphite pile.

ton had organized the laboratory and
with the exceptional capabilities of
the scientific staff. He indicated his
general approval of the research pro-
gram, expressing but one major criti-
cism: The program was not moving
fast enough to permit a decision on
which proposed pile design should be
adopted for full-scale development. If
necessary, he said, the research scien-
tists should develop more than one
design, regardless of the cost, be-
cause the earliest start possible on de-
tailed design and construction was
tremendously important. Groves re-
called later that he had quickly con-
cluded that "the plutonium process
[of all the methods proposed] seemed
to offer . . . the greatest chances

for success in producing bomb
material." ^

At the time of Groves's first visits.
Metallurgical Laboratory scientists
had achieved only limited progress in
transforming the results of pile re-
search into concrete blueprints for
pile design. Seriously handicapped by
the lack of pure uranium metal in the
quantities needed for essential experi-
ments, the research teams barely had
made a start on a program for pile
development that called for pile
design and engineering in three
stages: a 10,000-kilowatt experimental
unit, to ascertain whether a chain re-
action could be sustained; a 100,000-
kilowatt pilot pile, to test helium cool-

^ Groves, \ow It Can Be Told. p. 41.

190

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

ing and the mechanical techniques of
loading and discharging; and a
second 100,000-kilowatt pile, also
helium cooled, to be the first unit of
the large-scale production plant. Each
of these piles would employ graphite,
now available in ample quantities
from commercial sources, as a moder-
ator. The pile designers would have
preferred heavy water, which com-
bined in a single element the moder-
ating and cooling factor required, but
its continuing scarcity made design of
a pile employing that hydrogen iso-
tope impractical.

Groves found, too, that project sci-
entists had not reached agreement on
what was, in some respects, the most
crucial problem in pile design — how
safely and efficiently to disperse the
intense heat that would be produced
by the fissioning process in a high-
wattage pile. Under the three-stage
plan, Compton had given helium
cooling a priority position. At the
same time, however, physicists
Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard, as
well as other staff scientists, were still
giving serious consideration to a
number of other coolants, including
diphenyl and bismuth.^ Even water,
with its corrosive reaction to uranium
and high-neutron absorption, could
not be discounted.

Groves and the Manhattan District
officers who visited the Metallurgical
Laboratory in the fall of 1942 quickly
learned that the feasibility of all pile
designs would have to remain in
doubt until physicist Enrico Fermi
and his colleagues had completed

construction of an experimental pile
capable of a sustained chain reaction
and also had accurately measured the
neutron-absorbing characteristics of
each pile component (lattice, controls,
loading and unloading mechanism,
shielding, and coolant). At this stage
the pile researchers felt that attaining
a state of criticality was possible with
a properly designed and assembled
lattice of sufficiently pure graphite
and uranium metal. But what they
were uncertain of, and could not as-
certain until a chain reaction was set
going, was the actual size of the
multiplication factor k — the excess
number of neutrons above unity re-
quired to barely sustain fissioning in a
critical pile. And lacking this data,
design engineers found themselves
not knowing how much leeway they
had in selecting the materials for the
mechanical structure and coolant
system of the large-scale production
piles. "^

Spurred by the Army's insistence
on moving into engineering and con-
struction as rapidly as possible and by
the impending participation of E. L
du Pont de Nemours and Company as
a full-time partner of the Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory, Compton and the pile
researchers decided to modify earlier
plans. Under the revised program,
Fermi and his staff were to complete
as quickly as possible a low-powered
pile, to demonstrate the feasibility of
a chain reaction and furnish the
much-needed data about the k factor;

® Diphenyl is a white crystalline hydrocarbon that
melts at 160 degrees Fahrenheit and readily con-
ducts heat. Bismuth (Bi-83) is a grayish white metal,
with a reddish tinge, that absorbs relatively few neu-
trons and, like diphenyl, has a low melting point.

^ Criticality; or critical size, in a pile fueled with
uranium may be defined as the condition in "which
the number of neutrons produced in the fission
process just balances those lost by leakage and by
capture." See Glasstone, Sourcebook on Atomic Energy,
p. 518, par. 14.45.

THE PILE PROCESS

191

and another team was to begin work
on a second pile of low wattage at the
Argonne site, to provide project
chemists with the additional small
quantities of plutonium they urgently
needed to test methods and equip-
ment for separating the element. Pile
designers now would design only a
single 100,000-kilowatt helium-cooled
pile capable of producing an estimat-
ed 100 grams of plutonium daily; this
pile, they hoped, would function as
both the testing unit and the first unit
of the full-scale production plant. Fi-
nally, they were to continue testing
designs for piles cooled by water, di-
phenyl, and bismuth.

Fermi, achieving the historic first
sustained chain reaction on 2 Decem-
ber,® found that the k factor was con-
siderably larger than he had anticipat-
ed. This discovery removed a chief
objection to water, diphenyl, or even
air as a coolant in high-powered piles,
since the greater margin of k would
permit more neutron absorption with-
out reducing the efficiency of pile
operation. Also, the larger k factor
indicated a much greater choice in
materials of coolant pipes, the control
mechanism, and for load and dis-
charge equipment.

Nevertheless, in view of the ad-
vanced status of the helium-cooled
pile design, both Du Pont and the
Army continued to favor its develop-
ment as the prototype for the produc-
tion units, even though Fermi's new
data and other Metallurgical Labora-
tory scientists' encouraging research
into alternate methods had made
liquid or air cooling seem far more

^ See Ch. V for a fuller description of the historic
first sustained chain reaction on 2 I^ec 42.

feasible. By the time the Military
Policy Committee decided on 10 De-
cember to shift the location of the
large-scale plutonium production
plant from the Clinton Engineer
Works in Tennessee to a more isolat-
ed area, preliminary designs for the
100,000-kilowatt helium-cooled pile
were sufficiently complete to provide
the Army with the requisite criteria
not only for determining the safety,
power, water, and other site require-
ments but also for compiling the
specifications list of materials.

An unresolved point of concern to
project engineers, especially those
from Du Pont, was the feasibility of
operating a graphite-moderated pile
on an industrial scale, whether cooled
by helium or any other type of cool-
ant. Because so many technical uncer-
tainties still remained, Du Pont scien-
tists emphasized to Groves the need
for developing an alternate pile
design, as insurance against total fail-
ure, and expressed particular interest
in the technical and engineering ad-
vantages of a pile that could be both
moderated and cooled with heavy
water. The Military Policy Committee,
therefore, decided to continue the
heavy water research already in
progress, recommending the expan-
sion of heavy water facilities. Some
weeks earlier, Du Pont had suggested
that the manufacture of heavy water
by the distillation method could be
carried out by modifying certain fa-
cilities at the Morgantown (West Vir-
ginia), Wabash River (Indiana), and
Alabama Ordnance Works, where the
company was manufacturing muni-
tions for the government. Conse-
quently, in late December, Groves ap-
proved negotiation of contracts with

192

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

-.. ,^^^

-L,^

- ' .^ .if ^'

Heavy Water Production Plant at the Wabash River Ordnance Works

Du Pont to build and operate heavy
water plants at these facilities. {See
Map 2.)

From the standpoint of pile engi-
neering development, completion of a
pile design as quickly as possible was
a matter of considerable importance
to Du Pont. In January 1943, Du Pont
was still giving first priority to the
helium-cooled pile for the production
plant, even though company design-
ers were experiencing little success in
resolving complex technical prob-
lems. A hopeful portent, however.

was Fermi's latest research finding
into the value of k, which revealed
that the margin of neutrons in a ura-
nium-graphite pile was probably suffi-
cient to make either liquid or air cool-
ing feasible on a large scale. Encour-
aged by Fermi's data, Wigner and his
research team had pushed ahead on
designs for a water-cooled production
pile and were able to complete ac-
ceptable preliminary blueprints by
early January. At the same time, also
partly in response to Fermi's revela-
tion, a team of Du Pont and Metallur-

THE PILE PROCESS

193

gical Laboratory engineers and scien-
tists began intensive work on design
of an air-cooled pilot pile of moderate
wattage. In spite of minor difficulties,
the team completed virtually all pile
engineering designs and specifications
by the end of April. That same
month, in accordance with the earlier
decision to move the location of the
plutonium semiworks from Chicago
to Clinton, Du Pont commenced pile
construction at the Tennessee site.

Meanwhile, Wigner's group submit-
ted the preliminary designs for the
water-cooled production pile to Du
Pont. Du Pont engineers at first were
skeptical about the feasibility of the
water-cooled pile, because they seri-
ously doubted the problems of leak-
age and the water's corrosiveness
could be overcome; however, continu-
ing problems with the helium-cooled
pile designs finally persuaded them
that Wigner's pile might be the
answer for the plutonium produc-
tion plant. Terminating all helium
pile research in mid-February, Du
Pont design teams worked at an accel-
erated pace through the spring,
summer, and early fall to complete
blueprints for a water-cooled pile. In
October, as the early stages of build-
ing the plant at the Hanford site in
south central Washington State were
rapidly nearing completion, delivery
of the design specifications precluded
serious delays in meeting pile con-
struction schedules.

Chemical Separation Process Design

In the fall of 1942, the problems of

developing the second stage of the
plutonium production process — the
chemical separation of the new ele-
ment from irradiated uranium — ap-
peared less formidable to General
Groves and Du Pont officials than
those relating to development of the
pile and separating the isotope U-235
from LI-238, because chemical sepa-
ration generally involved techniques
already familiar to chemists and
chemical engineers. But time proved
this optimism was not warranted;
project scientists and engineers spent
almost as long developing an indus-
trial-scale separation process as they
did to complete design and engineer-
ing of a pile production process.
Since the beginning of the year, re-
search teams at the Universities of
Chicago and California, Berkeley, and
at Iowa State College had worked
without letup to design a suitable sep-
aration process. Handicapped at first
by the unavailability of more than mi-
crogram quantities of plutonium, the
teams had tested a variety of meth-
ods, all of which had required han-
dling the intensely radioactive by-
products by remote control. Deciding
finally in favor of a precipitation proc-
ess employing lanthanum fluoride in
solution as the carrier, project chem-
ists convened in Chicago on 15 Octo-
ber to present the results of their re-
search to representatives of the Army,
Du Pont, and Stone and Webster.^

^ For a fuller account of development of a process
for the chemical separation of plutonium consult
Met Lab Monthly Rpts, CN-I14, -239, -250, -261,
-299, -343, -359, -419, -421, mostly 1942, ANL;
Min, Lab Council (Met Lab), 31 Mav 43 (Rpt CS-

194

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

General Groves, Colonels Marshall
and Nichols, and Captain Grafton
joined with officials from the two
firms serving as prime contractors on
the plutonium project and members
of the Metallurgical Laboratory staff
to hear leaders of the separation
process research teams describe why
they believed the lanthanum fluoride
method was feasible for a large-scale
production plant. Impressed by the
practicality of the research teams'
proposed separation process based on
the precipitation method, both Army
and industry representatives approved
going ahead with further tests. They
also were duly impressed by the evi-
dence of intense radioactivity in the
separation process, a fact that subse-
quently contributed to the Military
Policy Committee's decision in De-
cember to shift the plutonium pro-
duction plant from Tennessee to an-
other location.

As further research in the winter
and spring of 1943 revealed that lan-
thanum fluoride presented certain
chemical problems not previously dis-
cerned, project scientists began test-
ing other substances and found that
bismuth phosphate gave the best re-
sults. In May, Du Pont managers de-
cided in favor of designing the chemi-
cal separation units at the Clinton

694) and 3 Jul 43 (Rpt CS-749), ANL; Min, Conf at
Met Lab, 15 Oct 42, MDR; DSM Chronology, 14
Dec 42, Sec. 25, OROO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 1,
pp. 6.1-6.8, and Pt. 2, 5.2, and Vol. 3, pp. 6.5-6.6
and 6.9, DASA; Smyth Report, pp. 71-73, 86-88, 97-
100; Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 50-52, 55-56, 100-
101, 175-76; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 41-42;
Glenn Seaborg, The Transuranium Elements (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 20-27;
Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World, pp. 182-85 and
204-05.

semiworks and the Hanford produc-
tion plant to employ bismuth phos-
phate, with the possibility of lantha-
num fluoride as a backup choice,
because both chemicals could be
employed in the same type of
equipment.

Du Pont Collaboration and
Other Problems

Steady progress on development of
pile and chemical separation process
designs in early 1943 demonstrated
the basic validity of the Army-orches-
trated arrangements for collaboration
between the Metallurgical Laboratory
and Du Pont. On occasion, however,
some differences surfaced between
the two organizations that posed a
possible threat to fully effective joint
cooperation. When such instances oc-
curred, the Army promptly intervened
and endeavored to provide the direc-
tion and guidance essential to main-
taining viable collaboration. In Janu-
ary, for example. Major Peterson,
who recently had replaced Captain
Grafton as the Chicago area engineer,
joined with Compton in developing a
plan to move the first chain-reacting
pile from the University of Chicago's
West Stands squash court to the Ar-
gonne site. Fermi and his fellow sci-
entists wanted to keep the pile on
campus; however, Army and Du Pont
officials considered pile operation in
the heavily populated university dis-
trict much too hazardous. A short
time later, the Army also acted as ar-
bitrator for Du Pont and the Univer-
sity of Chicago, securing an agreement
from the latter that it would operate
the Clinton semiworks.

THE PILE PROCESS

195

Maj. Arthur V. Peterson

While collaboration between the
Metallurgical Laboratory and Du Pont
proceeded harmoniously on most
matters, the emergence of seemingly
innocuous misunderstandings in Feb-
ruary portended more serious dis-
agreement in the future. ^° One of the
first "minor" disputes erupted over a
question on the extent the physicists
who had designed the water-cooled
pile at the Metallurgical Laboratory
should participate in drawing up the

^"Memo, Compton to Groves, sub: Opn of Piles
I, II, and III, 19 Jan 43; Memo, Compton to Groves,
sub: Chain-reacting Unit on Univ of Chicago
Campus, 2 Feb 43; Rpt, Compton, Fermi, and
Robert S. Stone (Clinical-Biological Physics Div
chief. Met Lab), sub: Public Hazards at West Stands,
3 Feb 43. All in Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12
(Projs and Prgms), MDR. Hewlett and Anderson,
Sew World, pp. 200-201. Ltr. (Compton to Groves, 5
Feb 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600 12 (misfiled
under Therm Diff Proj), MDR.

detailed engineering blueprints and
specifications for the production
plant. Crawford H. Greenewalt, Du
Pont's liaison representative to the
Metallurgical Laboratory, pointed out
that Du Pont's customary policy was
to rely primarily upon its own staff
for detailed design and that, while Du
Pont would want to have continued
access to the Chicago scientists for
occasional assistance, the initiative in
requesting such help should come
from the company. Eugene Wigner,
who had considerable training in en-
gineering as well as physics, dis-
agreed. He contended that his team
was entitled to an active role. When
Wigner learned Du Pont did not plan
to invite his group to Wilmington, he
concluded that his own earlier ex-
pressed opposition to having the firm
participate in the plutonium project
was the reason. He offered to resign
as group leader, hoping that would
clear the way for the rest of his team
to go to Wilmington. Compton ex-
plained that Du Pont's action was cus-
tomary practice and not motivated by
any personal objection to the scien-
tist. While Wigner's suspicions were
not entirely allayed, he agreed to con-
tinue with the project. He stayed only
briefly in Wilmington, however, and
then returned to Chicago, where
Compton diverted him to the expand-
ing heavy water pile program. ^^

The Wigner incident pointed up a
major problem for the Army in ad-
ministering the Manhattan Project. As
development of a process moved
from basic research into engineering.

''Compton, Atomic Quest, pp. 168-69; Ltr, Wigner
to Compton, 5 Aug 43, Incl to Memo, Peterson to
Groves, sub: Dissatisfaction at Met Lab, 13 Aug 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 080 (Labs), MDR.

196

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

construction, and operations, many of
the scientists were no longer needed.
Yet Manhattan leaders had to have
ready access to the fundamental
knowledge and skills of these scien-
tists. For security reasons, too, scien-
tists who had become privy to impor-
tant aspects of the program could not
simply be released and sent back to
the colleges and universities. One so-
lution was to transfer them to labora-
tory positions at Clinton, Hanford,
Los Alamos, or to the staff of indus-
trial firms under contract to the
project. But for the majority who
must be retained on the staff of basic
research organizations like the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory, there had to be
continuing programs of meaningful
research and development. In such a
novel and relatively undeveloped
field, devising useful research projects
was not difficult; the problem was to
keep the always limited resources in
manpower and materials channeled
into those projects that would con-
tribute most directly to the ultimate
production of atomic weapons.

By spring, Compton found a good
compromise solution in the project
for design of a heavy water pile, al-
ready under way on a limited scale
and acceptable to both Du Pont offi-
cials and Groves because they viewed
it as an essential backup for the Han-
ford plant. Furthermore, it was of in-
terest to many of the Metallurgical
Laboratory scientists. The promise of
increasing supplies of heavy water
from both Trail (British Columbia)
and the Du Pont-operated distillation
plants prompted Compton to work
out an agreement with Greenewalt
and Colonel Nichols that provided for
centering all future heavy water re-

search at the Metallurgical Laboratory
under the direction of Professor
Henry D. Smyth, head of the physics
department of Princeton University. ^^

But Major Peterson reported that,
in spite of the initiation of the heavy
water pile program, Metallurgical
Laboratory scientists continued to be
discontented with Du Pont's methods
and procedures. Many disliked the te-
dious work of reviewing the detailed
blueprints for the Hanford plant, a
chore made necessary because the
Metallurgical Laboratory had to ap-
prove all process designs. When they
found errors, they concluded Du Pont
was mismanaging pile development.
Wigner, too, again complained that
Du Pont was not consulting sufficient-
ly with its Chicago counterpart on
heavy water pile design, thus delaying
its development.

In late June, Groves decided the
time had come to deal with what he
termed the "scientist problem." In

*^ For a detailed discussion of Manhattan
Project's heavy water program and heavy water pile
development see MDH, Bk. 3, "The P-9 Project,"
and Bk. 4. Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 3.3-3.14. DASA. Brief
discussion in this and following paragraph on the
heavy water pile program at Chicago based on
Notes on Conf Held at Wilmington, Del., on April
16th, Incl to Memo, Nichols to Groves, 19 Apr 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 337 (Wilmington), MDR;
Ltr, Greenewalt to Compton, 12 Jun 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 441.2 (Polymer), MDR; Trans-
mittal Ltr, Compton to P-9 Reviewing Committee
Members, sub: Memo on Transmittal of P-9 Rpt,
1 1 Aug 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (P-9 Re-
viewing Committee), MDR; Memo, Capt Lawrence
L. Grotjan (Columbia Univ Area Engr) to Nichols,
17 Apr 46, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Urey),
MDR; MPC Min, 9 Sep 43, OCG Files, Gen Cor-
resp, MP Files, Fldr 23, Tab A, MDR; DSM Chro-
nology, 10 Nov 42, Sec. 23(i), OROO; Hewlett and
Anderson, Neui World, pp. 201-04; Smyth Report, pp.
101-02; Compton, Atomic Qufst. pp. 99-100; Groves,
Now It Can Be Told, p. 15, n. 8.

THE PILE PROCESS

197

line with a suggestion from the MiH-
tary Policy Committee, he arranged
with President Franklin D. Roosevelt
to write a letter, addressed to him but
actually intended for the atomic
project scientists. Emphasizing first
the need for strictest adherence to se-
curity in atomic matters (there had
been incidents involving scientists,
particularly at Los Alamos), the Presi-
dent went on to say that he had
placed Groves in complete charge of
carrying out "all development and
manufacturing aspects of the work."
He concluded that "whatever the
enemy may be planning, American
Science will be equal to the
challenge." ^^

The Manhattan commander made
certain this letter received wide circu-
lation among project scientists. In
Wigner's group, it appears to have
elicited an unfavorable response.
"They felt," Peterson reported to
Groves, "that it was unfair for the
President to give authority to you and
that his closing sentence concerning
American Scientists being equal to
any challenge was a farce since he al-
lowed them neither responsibility nor
authority." In the opinion of some
members of the group, "the presence
of Du Pont and the Army slows the
project. . . ." ^*

In early August, General Groves
appointed a committee to review the

^^ Ltr (source of quotations), Roosevelt to
Groves, 29 Jun 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP
Files, Fldr 25, Tab D, MDR; MPC Min, 24 Jun 43,
MDR.

** Memo, Peterson to Groves, sub: Dissatisfaction
at Met Lab, 13 Aug 43, MDR. Peterson erred in
paraphrasing from the President's letter, stating
"American Scientists" instead of "American
Science."

role the heavy water program should
have in the atomic bomb project, a
step that was, at least in part, also in-
tended to allay dissatisfaction among
the Chicago scientists. Headed by
MIT Professor (chemical engineering)
Warren K. Lewis, with Standard Oil
Vice President Eger V. Murphree,
physicist Richard C. Tolman, who was
Groves's scientific adviser, and Har-
vard Professor (chemistry) E. Bright
Wilson, Jr., as members, the group
upheld the Army, Du Pont, and
Compton's earlier objectives. They
recommended continuation of a rela-
tively modest heavy water pile re-
search program at the Metallurgical
Laboratory "as insurance against a
possible failure of the Hanford graph-
ite piles to produce 49 [plutonium] at
their rated capacity, and secondarily
to explore the possibilities of a
method for producing 49 which might
utilize uranium more efficiently than
graphite piles." ^^

By early fall, the scientists' dissatis-
faction had declined substantially,
partly as a result of the chance they
had had to unburden their grievances
to members of the committee and
partly because the major design phase
of pile development was nearing an
end. Even Wigner, acceding to Comp-
ton's wishes, agreed somewhat reluc-
tantly to continue to oversee work on
the heavy water pile. Nevertheless,
Compton later recalled that, although
the collaboration had achieved basic
design of the plutonium semiworks
and production plant by late 1943,
there remained in the relationship "a

1* Rpt, Committee on Heavy Water Work, 19 Aug
43, Att. 2 to MPC Min, 9 Sep 43, MDR.

198

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

state of tension that caused continual
concern to those responsible for the
success of the undertaking." ^^

Organization for Plutonium Production

In early 1943, General Groves and
the Military Policy Committee devot-
ed considerable attention to assisting
Du Pont and the Metallurgical Labo-
ratory staff in forming a plutonium
production organization. In this orga-
nization Du Pont was to have primary
responsibility for design, construc-
tion, and — except for the semiworks —
operation of the plutonium facilities.
Because of the uniqueness of the
processes involved, the firm's limited
experience in dealing with them, and
the overall urgency of the bomb
project, Du Pont felt its scientists and
engineers would need assistance from
the Metallurgical Laboratory staff in
all phases of the plutonium program.
Thus, as the setting for collaboration
was about to shift— although in a
somewhat altered form — from the
design to the construction and pro-
duction phases, the Army once again
had the primary administrative task of
preventing fundamental differences in
the two organizations' modus operandi
from interfering with the progress of
the program.

Du Pont's TNX Division

At the end of 1942, after analyzing
the unusual nature of the problems
involved in the plutonium production
process and weighing the District's
stringent requirements for security
and safety, Du Pont established a spe-

cial organization for plutonium activi-
ties within the company itself. ^'^
Given the designation TNX Division,
this new unit functioned as a subordi-
nate element of the company's Explo-
sives Department, which already had
designed and was operating a number
of government-owned munitions
plants. Locating the TNX Division in
a regular company department was
consistent with Du Pont's decision to
organize and administer its plutonium
program in accordance with its stand-
ard operating procedures, and, con-
comitantly, because this arrangement
helped to conceal the true character
of TNX operations, it fully satisfied
the District's requirements for project
security.

Du Pont's operating procedures dif-
fered somewhat from comparable in-
dustrial firms in the early 1940's. The
company did not have a highly cen-
tralized organizational structure and
method of operation but was a kind
of industrial confederation of semiau-
tonomous departments, each with
many of the characteristics of an inde-
pendent business enterprise. Guided
by broad policies laid down by top
executives, a general manager admin-
istered each department very much in
the same fashion as the president of a
company, operating under his own
budget and making most of the rou-
tine decisions. When additional assist-

Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 169.

'^ Except as otherwise noted, subsection on Du
Pont's plutonium organization based on E. I. du
Pont de Nemours and Company, Du Pont 's Part m the
Xatwnal Security Program. 1940-1945 (Wilmington,
Del.: Du Pont, 1946), pp. 8-9; Rpt, Du Pont, sub:
Constr at Hanford Engr Works, Contract W-7412-
eng-1, Du Pont Proj 9536, Proj Hist (hereafter cited
as Du Pont Constr Hist), 9 Aug 45, Vol. 1, pp. 22-
39, HOO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 3, pp. 10.2-10.3 and
App. B7, DASA; Groves Diary, 16 Dec 42, LRG;
Hewlett and Anderson, Sew World, pp. 187-88.

THE PILE PROCESS

199

ance was needed, the manager could
get it from Du Font's permanent aux-
iliary departments — the Engineering
Department, for example — that fur-
nished regularly required services,
such as plant construction and per-
sonnel recruitment.

Consistent with these operating
procedures, Du Font's management
turned over to the general manager
of the Explosives Department, E. B.
Yancey, overall responsibility for most
of the company's plutonium program.
Yancey, already extensively involved
in other wartime projects, delegated
direct authority over the program to
his assistant general manager, Roger
Williams. A chemical engineer with
extensive experience in wartime con-
struction for the government, Wil-
liams's introduction to the atomic
project had been as a member of the
Lewis reviewing committee. He now
became, in effect, the active head of
the TNX Division, with responsibility
for Du Pont plutonium activities at
Wilmington, Clinton, and Hanford.

Drawing personnel from most of
the departments of Du Font, as well
as from company-operated war plants
and the Metallurgical Laboratory,
Williams organized TNX into two
major subdivisions: the Technical Di-
vision, which carried out design de-
velopment in close collaboration with
the Chicago and Clinton researchers;
and the Manufacturing Division,
which advised the Engineering De-
partment on construction of the plu-
tonium facilities and planned and su-
pervised production plant operations.
From the Grasselli Chemicals Depart-
ment, Williams selected chemical en-
gineer Crawford Greenewalt to head
the Technical Division. Serving, as
General Groves perceived it, "as the

bridge between the hard-driving,
thoroughly competent, industrial-
minded engineers and executives at
Wilmington and the highly intelligent
but theoretically inclined scientists at
Chicago," Greenewalt spent much of
his time at the Metallurgical Labora-
tory and Clinton semiworks and thus
left his assistant, George Graves, in
charge of routine administration.^^
Williams's choice to head the Manu-
facturing Division was R. Monte
Evans, a production manager of long
experience, most recently with the
company's Ammonia Department.

The extensive involvement of Du
Font's Engineering Department in the
atomic project came about as a result
of the company's policy of building its
own plants rather than contracting
them out to regular construction
firms. E. G. Ackart, Du Font's chief
engineer and Engineering Depart-
ment head, assigned to his deputy,
Granville M. Read, primary responsi-
bility for the construction aspects of
the plutonium program and to John
N. Tilley the vital role of liaison offi-
cer to the Explosives Department.
Eventually, the Engineering Depart-
ment committed more than 90 per-
cent of its personnel and resources to
plutonium construction.

Metallurgical Project

In 1943, shortly after Du Font had
established its TNX Division, Arthur
Compton, faced with the rapid
growth of the plutonium research
program, extensively restructured and
expanded its administrative organiza-
tion. By October, the plutonium orga-

** Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 79.

200

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

nization, now designated the Metal-
lurgical Project, ^^ comprised the Met-
allurgical and Argonne laboratories
at Chicago; the newly designed Clin-
ton Laboratories (cover name for the
plutonium semiworks) at the Tennes-
see site; and the many research pro-
grams under way at other institu-
tions — eventually seventy — in the
United States.

Giving up his dual position as
chairman of the Metallurgical Labora-
tory and its Executive Committee
(which he abolished), Compton
became director of the Metallurgical
Project and appointed three associate
directors: Norman Hilberry, his
former student and longtime personal
assistant, as associate director for re-
search; ^° Robert S. Stone, from the
University of California at Berkeley,
as associate director for health mat-
ters; and Wilbur C. Munnecke, from
the University of Chicago, as associate
director for administration. At the
same time, using the Metallurgical
Laboratory Technical Council as a
basis, he established the policy-
making Metallurgical Project Council

'^Subsection on Metallurgical Project based on
Org Chart attached to Rpt, Peterson, sub: Visit to
Chicago Proj, 29 Sep 42, MDR; Memo, Peterson to
Groves, sub: Met Proj Org Chart, 14 Oct 43, MDR;
Rpt, Compton, sub: Opn of Met Proj by Univ of
Chicago, 28 Jul 44, MDR; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 1,
"General Features," pp. 9.2-9.3, and Vol. 2, Pt. 1,
pp. 2.1-2.2, 7.1, App. B5, DASA; Smyth Report, pp.
63-65 and 92; Compton, Atomic Qtmt, pp. 82-86
(quotations from p. 84), 157, 170-71, 185-86; Hil-
berry Interv, 3 Jan 63, CMH.

^"Hilberry, who served as Compton's personal
representative on those occasions when the latter
could not carry out some of his many professional
commitments, became, in effect, associate director
of the entire Metallurgical Project in late 1943,
when Compton moved his headquarters to Oak
Ridge. Hilberry remained at the Metallurgical Labo-
ratory in Chicago, where he had his office. See
Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 185.

and, as council members, selected
twenty-five leading staff scientists
from the subordinate laboratories.

The Metallurgical Project was from
its initiation "a novel enterprise" for
Arthur Compton, who, even before
the reorganization of the plutonium
program, had realized that its ulti-
mate success in producing some hun-
dreds of pounds of plutonium for the
wartime needs of the atomic project
was dependent on coordinating the
resources and talents of literally thou-
sands of scientists and technicians. He
had made a substantial beginning
toward attaining the program objec-
tive in 1942 through the organization
and operation of the Metallurgical
Laboratory, and now he endeavored
to assure its success by providing in
the Metallurgical Project the organiza-
tion with the means to carry through
to completion the research, develop-
ment, design, and engineering of the
plutonium facilities.

District Area Offices

Starting in late 1942, as the scien-
tific and industrial elements of the
plutonium program rapidly expanded,
the Army responded by enlarging its
own organization for overseeing the
program. As each major element
began to function, the Manhattan Dis-
trict established an area office for it.
By early 1943, area offices were oper-
ating in Chicago, Clinton, and Han-
ford; at Du Pont headquarters in Wil-
mington, Delaware; at the heavy water
plants in British Columbia, West Vir-
ginia, Alabama, and Indiana; and at
the larger research programs in
progress elsewhere in the country.

THE PILE PROCESS

201

such as at Iowa State College in
Ames.^^ {See Chart 1.)

In the early phases of plutonium
development, the Chicago and Wil-
mington area offices were the largest
and most important. And once Du
Pont started construction of the plu-
tonium semiworks in Tennessee, the
district engineer enlarged Major Pe-
terson's Chicago area responsibilities
to include the Clinton installation.
After visiting the site, Peterson set up
a Clinton branch of his Chicago area
office, designating it the TNX Oper-
ating Division. In August 1943, when
the District headquarters moved from
New York City to Oak Ridge, this di-
vision became the Clinton Laborato-
ries Division as a result of a major ad-
ministrative reorganization. Peterson,
while continuing as the Chicago area
engineer, assumed additional respon-
sibilities as the new division chief but
turned over immediate supervision of
the plutonium semiworks to his new
assistant. Captain Grafton, who had
been with the recently abolished Clin-
ton Area Engineers Office, until he
(Peterson) could relocate to the Ten-
nessee site. To handle most of the
routine administrative services for the
Chicago area office, the District head-
quarters furnished the area office's
new division with a token staff of

2^ Except as indicated, subsection on area offices
based on Org Charts, U.S. Engrs Office, MD, 15
Aug 43, 1 Nov 43, 15 Feb 44, 1 Jun 44, 28 Aug 44,
and 26 Jan 45, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 020
(MED-Org), MDR; Ltr, Groves to Styer, sub: Pro-
motion of Lt Col Franklin T. Matthias, 25 Oct 44,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 210.2 (Off Promo),
MDR; Matthias Diary, Jan-Sep 43, passim, OROO;
Du Pont, In Xatwnal Secimty Program. App. 3B (origi-
nally issued as Stockholdns Bulletin. 24 Aug 45), p.
61; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, "Construction," Apps.
B57-B58, and Vol. 6, "Operations," pp. 18.1-18.6
and Apps. B8-B10, DAS A; Compton, Atomic Quest,
pp. 107-08; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 72-73.

three District officers, five (later nine)
technically trained enlisted men, and
five civil service employees. By late
1943 and early 1944, with the shift
from research and development to
construction and operation of the
large-scale production plant, the area
office at Hanford expanded rapidly
while those at institutional research
centers reduced their activities and
staffs.

The precise character of the admin-
istrative relationships between the
Chicago, Wilmington, Hanford area
offices and the Manhattan District
headquarters in Oak Ridge varied
considerably. Certain factors, howev-
er, tended permanently to influence
this relationship. One of these was
geography. The stringencies of war-
time travel and communications and
Hanford's relatively isolated location
resulted in the area engineer, Lt. Col.
Franklin T. Matthias, having a good
deal more administrative autonomy,
at least in routine matters, than Peter-
son in Chicago or Maj. William L.
Sapper in Wilmington. Matthias main-
tained a permanent liaison official,
Mr. H. J. Day, in the Oak Ridge office
to keep him informed on current
Manhattan developments and to serve
as a channel for expediting action on
Hanford requests. By way of contrast,
the Chicago office always maintained
a much closer day-to-day relationship
with the District headquarters, par-
ticularly after Peterson began spend-
ing a major part of his time in
Tennessee as of late 1943. ^^

22 On charts showing the organization of the U.S.
Engineers Office, Manhattan District. Oak Ridge, in
late 1943. H. L. Day is listed as the liaison officer
for the plutonium project. See Org Charts, 15 Aug

Continued

202

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

While the Chicago area engineer
supervised plutonium research and
development activities, the Wilming-
ton area engineer had primary re-
sponsibility for monitoring plutonium
engineering and design, with a sec-
ondary assignment of supervising Du
Font's feed materials program at the
company's Chambers Chemical and
Dye Works in Deep Water, New
Jersey. Design activities centered in
Wilmington, where the Du Pont
design staff and visiting Metallurgical
Project scientists collaborated on the
engineering blueprints and specifica-
tions for the plutonium facilities in
Tennessee and Washington State.
Review and approval of these designs
before their dispatch to company en-
gineers at the Clinton and Hanford
sites constituted the most important
tasks of Major Sapper's Wilmington
staff, which, much of the time, re-
ceived assistance from personnel who
were temporarily detailed from the
Hanford area office. Because close co-
ordination between the Wilmington
and Hanford area offices was essential
on all matters relating to construction
and operation of the production
plant, Sapper reported to the district
engineer through Colonel Matthias.

A civil engineer with considerable
experience in civilian construction.
Colonel Matthias recruited both mili-
tary and civilian personnel, many
from other Corps of Engineers
projects, to form the operating nucle-
us (more than five hundred personnel
by 1944) of a burgeoning office orga-
nization. To complement Du Pont's

and 1 Nov 43, MDR. Matthias noted in his diary on
2 Aug 43 that Day was going to be located at the
Oak Ridge headquarters after 14 August. On the
relative autonomy of the Hanford area engineer see
Matthias Diary, 12 Sep and 28 Oct 43, OROO.

field construction organization at the
Hanford site, Matthias established
major divisions to monitor the many
construction-related activities of the
prime contractor and its numerous
subcontractors. Similarly, to reflect
the reorientation of plant activities
when Du Pont converted its construc-
tion organization into one for plant
operations, he revamped the Hanford
area office by expanding the produc-
tion division; by forming a new engi-
neering and maintenance operations
division; and, to the extent necessary,
by reorganizing the security, safety,
labor relations, fiscal audits, and com-
munity affairs sections. ^^

Army-Du Pont Administration

The Army-Du Pont plan for coordi-
nating and controlling project activi-
ties at the Hanford Engineer Works
(HEW) illustrates the way in which
District and TNX officials went about
jointly administering the plutonium
production program.^'* On matters of
general policy, TNX executives could
consult with Colonel Nichols, to
whom Groves had given broad re-
sponsibility for plutonium construc-
tion and production, or, if necessary,
directly with Groves — but only after
informing Nichols. On nonpolicy mat-
ters, TNX officials were to communi-
cate with Colonel Matthias (or, where

^^ On the area engineer and Du Pont construc-
tion and operations organization at Hanford Engi-
neer Works see MDH, Bk. 4, Vols. 5 and 6, each
App. B, DASA; Du Pont Constr Hist, Vol. 1, HOO;
Intro to Rpt, Du Pont, sub: Memoranda for File on
HEW Opns, 1944-46 (hereafter cited as Du Pont
Opns Hist), Sep 46, HOO.

^"•Ltr. E. B. Yancey to Dist Engr, Attn.: Nichols,
sub: Corps of Engrs-Du Pont Corresp and Con-
tracts of HEW, 4 May 43, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 161 (Du Pont), MDR.

THE PILE PROCESS

203

appropriate, with Lt. Col. H. R.
Kadlec, his construction chief); or
Major Sapper at Wilmington; or Maj.
James E. Travis at District headquar-
ters, who in 1943 headed the Service
and Control Division at Oak Ridge.

On questions relating to nonpolicy
matters submitted by Matthias,
Kadlec, and other staff members, Du
Font's officials at the Hanford site
could make decisions, furnish infor-
mation, or provide recommendations
as they saw fit; when necessary, they
could consult with their department
or division in Wilmington by teletype.
In those instances when the Hanford
area engineer or his staff members
were dissatisfied with results of in-
quiries directed to the Du Pont field
staff, they were authorized to commu-
nicate directly with Roger Williams or
Granville Read or with Major Sapper.

Inevitably, many problems arose
that could not be readily resolved by
the local area engineer, or even by
the district engineer, and the majority
of these ended up on General
Groves's desk in Washington, D.C.
Most often they involved important
policy decisions or required extensive
negotiations with other wartime agen-
cies. For example, during the design
and construction phases of the pluto-
nium project. Groves had to deal with
problems of electric power supply at
Hanford, acute shortages of essential
workers at both the Hanford Engi-
neer Works and Clinton Laboratories,
deferment of key civilian scientific
and technical personnel, and procure-
ment of a great variety of materials
and equipment. Groves and his small
liaison staff frequently intervened per-
sonally to expedite solutions. In a
comparatively few cases, problems
had to be resolved by the Military

Policy Committee or by special re-
viewing committees that Groves ap-
pointed. Typical was the heavy water
research and experimentation pro-
gram, which required an investigation
by a reviewing committee and a deci-
sion by the Military Policy Committee
to determine the scope of this
program and the extent of inter-
change with the Canadians that was
permissible.^^

Beginning in late 1942, the com-
bined efforts of Groves, Compton,
Greenewalt, and Williams facilitated
effective Metallurgical Project-Du Pont
collaboration through an interchange
of both expert personnel and scientific
and technical information of all
kinds. ^^ To explain the Metallurgical
Laboratory scientists' preliminary heli-
um- and water-cooled pile designs to
Du Pont's TNX staff, Compton dis-
patched the respective pile research
teams to Wilmington. While most of
the Chicago scientists stayed at Wil-
mington only for a limited time, at least
one young physicist, John A. Wheeler,
who was an expert on pile develop-
ment, became a permanent member of
the Du Pont design staff. The design
teams from Wilmington that visited
the Metallurgical Laboratory in No-
vember were the vanguard of many
others who, in subsequent months, fol-

^^ For examples of problems relating to power
and labor see correspondence in HB Files, Fldr 51,
MDR. The extent of Groves's involvement in solv-
ing such problems can be traced in Groves Diary,
Apr-Jun 43, passim, LRG. On the heavy water prob-
lem see MFC Min. 9 Sep 43, MDR.

^^ Discussion of development of the means for
collaboration between the Metallurgical Project and
Du Pont based on Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp.
48 and 79-80; Smyth Report, pp. 92-93; Compton,
Atomic Quest, pp. 164-65; DSM Chronolog>', 25 Nov
42, Sec. 23(a), OROO; Rpt, Whitaker, sub: Conf at
Wilmington, 17-18 Dec 42 (Rpt CS-406), ANL.

204

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

lowed periodically to confer with the
Chicago scientists about the latest de-
velopments in the pile process.
Greenewalt, too, regularly spent ex-
tended periods in Chicago (and, later,
at Clinton) and assigned Du Pont
physicist J. B. Miles as his permanent
representative at the Metallurgical
Laboratory. Both Greenewalt and
Miles, when they were in Chicago,
attended meetings of the Metallurgical
Project Council and regularly con-
ferred with the laboratory group
leaders.

The frequent interchange of expert
personnel gradually became a key fea-
ture of the collaboration, extending
eventually to include not only ex-
changes between the Chicago scien-
tists and Wilmington designers but
also between the Wilmington design-
ers and the Clinton researchers, and
among the Clinton, Chicago, and
Hanford scientific staffs. While Metal-
lurgical Project scientists on occasion
complained bitterly that the Du Pont
design staff was not consulting ade-
quately with them on some matters,
on the whole the interchange appears
to have been one of the most essen-
tial and profitable aspects of the
collaboration.

Consistent with the plan to em-
ploy the Metallurgical Project essen-
tially as a Du Pont research and de-
velopment division, the plutonium
project leaders incorporated into the
Metallurgical Project-Du Pont work
relations agreement certain special
provisions to ensure a continuous and
adequate exchange of scientific and
technical information. The Metallurgi-
cal Project scientists regularly sent
copies of pertinent reports to the Du
Pont design team; in turn, the Wil-
mington designers kept the Chicago

and Clinton researchers fully in-
formed on current layout and process
design decisions, all of which then
had to be approved by appropriate
members of the Metallurgical Project
staff. A further interchange occurred
when Du Pont submitted completed
blueprints and process drawings to
the district engineer for the usual
contract review. The district engineer,
in compliance with the work agree-
ment, then sent the completed de-
signs to the Metallurgical Project staff
for final approval of the scientific and
technical aspects.

The Semiworks: Clinton Laboratories

In the early months of 1943, while
design groups were still developing
pile process designs and engineering
specifications, Du Pont construction
workers began building the plutoni-
um semiworks — in April, for security
reasons, officially designated CHnton
Laboratories — at the Clinton Engi-
neer Works in Tennessee. The
semiworks site, consisting of 112
acres and officially named the X-10
area, lay between two ridges along a
small creek in the isolated Bethel
Valley, some 20 miles southwest of
the town of Clinton and about 10
miles southwest of the planned com-
munity of Oak Ridge. Tentative plans
for the semiworks (they would be al-
tered and expanded several times
during the period of construction)
called for an air-cooled uranium-
graphite pilot pile and chemical sepa-
ration plant, 2'^ as well as an extensive

2^ Plutonium project officials conceived the Clin-
ton pilot pile and separation plant as a true
semiworks for the Hanford production plant; how-

Continued

THE PILE PROCESS

205

research laboratory and a number of
support, training, and administrative
facilities.

Construction

In his February 1943 progress
report to General Groves, District En-
gineer Marshall set 1 July as the con-
struction completion date for the plu-
tonium semiworks.^® The X-10 pile
and separation plant had to be put
into operation as quickly as possible,
to provide not only the design and
operational data for the Hanford pro-
duction plant but also the small quan-
tities of plutonium so urgently
needed for ongoing research and test-
ing. Furthermore, the facilities were
required to train key Du Pont em-
ployees in the techniques of plant
operation.

Pending completion of engineering
designs for the permanent installa-
tions, and less than a month after
Du Pont had signed the letter con-
tract (8 January 1943), company con-
struction crews began building the
temporary, service, and utility facili-
ties. In March, other Du Pont crews
began work on the permanent instal-
lations, starting with the chemical
separation plant. Even though

ever, with the decision to use water to cool the Han-
ford piles, the air-cooled pilot pile, strictly speaking,
lost its function. The officials weighed the possibili-
ty of converting the Clinton pile, but finally decided
that early production of small quantities of plutoni-
um was more important. Hence, only the separation
plant functioned as a true pilot facility. See Smyth
Report, p. 76; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, p. 4.1,
DASA.

^^ Subsection on semiworks construction based
primarily on Completion Rpt, Du Pont, sub: CEW,
TNX Area, 1 Apr 44, OROO; Disl Engr. Monthly
Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan-Sep 43, MDR; MDH, Bk. 4,
Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 2.1-2.10, DASA; Hewlett and An-
derson, Xeu' World, pp. 207-10.

Greenewalt, who was supervising
design of this plant, had not yet
reached a decision on which of sever-
al chemical processes would be em-
ployed in it, the Wilmington design
teams had accumulated sufficient en-
gineering data to permit a start on its
basic components. As these neared
completion in the late summer,
Greenewalt decided to employ the
bismuth phosphate separation

method, which required installation of
miles of pipe as well as other process
apparatus. By early fall the chemical
plant was ready for test operations,
but these could not be carried out
until the pilot pile produced irradiat-
ed uranium slugs.

Construction work on the pilot pile
did not progress as swiftly and expe-
ditiously as that on the separation
plant, because the Du Pont design
staff did not complete the engineer-
ing blueprints for the air-cooled pile
until the end of April and crews exca-
vating the pile site unexpectedly
struck a large bed of soft clay, neces-
sitating installation of much more
foundation work than had been antici-
pated. It was June before construction
crews started pouring concrete for
the 7-foot-thick walls of the pile's
great outer shell, which would pre-
vent escape of radioactive emissions,
and late summer before they complet-
ed them. Thousands of holes pierced
the front facing of the shell, to permit
insertion of uranium fuel slugs. The
side and rear walls and the massive
top also had numerous openings of
varying sizes and shapes, to accom-
modate experimental and operating
equipment built into the pile. The
outer shell finished, technicians began
to assemble the pile itself, putting

206

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

into place hundreds of carefully ma-
chined graphite bars to form its inner
core — a structure measuring 24 feet
square and weighing an estimated
1,500 tons. In the meantime, other
workmen constructed the four-story
concrete and wood building to house
the pile and its auxiliary facilities — a
control room, a small "hot" labora-
tory equipped to handle radioactive
materials, and a core removal area.

In spite of constant pressure by
General Groves on Du Font's Engi-
neering Department, completion of
the Clinton Laboratories was slow,
primarily because of the extent of the
support and training facilities the
semiworks required. Because of the
isolation of the Bethel Valley X-10
site from the Y-12 (electromagnetic),
K-25 (gaseous diffusion), and S-50
(liquid thermal diffusion) areas, Du
Pont had to provide the semiworks
with its own machine shops, water
supply and treatment installations, a
steam plant, storage areas, and class-
rooms and laboratories for training. A
number of other factors beyond the
control of company officials also con-
tributed to serious delays. The addi-
tion of installations not included in
the original engineering designs and
major alterations in building plans
doubled the amount of construction.
Furthermore, building schedules
could not be maintained in the face of
persistent shortages in both common
and skilled labor in the region adja-
cent to the Tennessee site that, de-
spite efforts, grew worse in late 1943.
Unsatisfactory housing and commut-
ing conditions aggravated these short-
ages by increasing absenteeism and
worker turnover. Finally, there were
the chronic wartime difficulties in

procurement of essential building
materials.^®

The Army, endeavoring to assist
Du Pont in overcoming specific bot-
tlenecks, achieved its greatest success
in expediting materials and equip-
ment procurement. For example,
when Du Pont found that its standard
5-cubic-yard trucks for hauling ready-
mixed concrete were too heavy for
the poor condition of the entrance
road at the construction site, the Clin-
ton area engineer obtained on short
notice enough lighter trucks from the
St. Louis District to do the job. Simi-
larly, the area engineer's procurement
staff arranged for the transfer of
steam boilers, an item in extremely
short supply, from a Du Pont plant
near Nashville to the X-10 site. In an-
other instance, when the quarry at the
site failed to supply all the crushed
stone needed, the area engineer se-
cured authorization for Du Pont to
pay a higher rate for material re-
quired in road construction, thus ena-
bling the company to purchase addi-
tional amounts from sources available
outside the reservation.^^

The Army's resolution of procure-
ment problems enabled Du Pont to
meet the District's revised schedule
for completion and start-up oper-
ations of the semiworks, which Gen-
eral Groves optimistically predicted
in his October construction progress
report to Maj. Gen. Wilhelm D. Styer,

29 Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 78; Ltrs, Read to
Groves, 15 Apr 43, and Groves to Read, 22 Apr 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and
Prgms), MDR; Completion Rpt, Du Pont, sub: CEW,
TNX Area, 1 Apr 44, pp. 44-72, OROO. See Ch.
XVII for details on measures taken to try to solve
the CEW labor shortage.

30 Completion Rpt, Du Pont, sub: CEW, TNX
Area, 1 Apr 44, pp. 70-71 and 203-04.

Clinton Laboratories Pilot Pile at CEW. Workers are inserting a uranium slug in
the east loading face of the graphite pile.

208

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

the Army Service Forces chief of
staff, ^^ could be expected by mid-De-
cember. Events in the ensuing
months bore out Groves's optimism.
CHnton Laboratories workers began
"charging" the pile in early Novem-
ber and, before the end of the year,
were processing the first batch of irra-
diated slugs in the chemical separa-
tion plant and sending the resulting
product to the Metallurgical Labora-
tory for use in further experiments.
And by early 1944, only weeks later
than Groves had estimated, the Man-
hattan commander had the satisfac-
tion of knowing the semiworks was
largely completed and well on the
way to full operation. ^^

Operation

As director of the plutonium pro-
gram, Compton began to develop
plans for operating pile facilities at
the Tennessee site as early as Sep-
tember 1942. He asked physicist
Martin D. Whitaker, who had taken
part in the early planning for a labo-
ratory at the site, to select Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory staff members to serve
as the nucleus of the X-10 operating
organization. While witnessing the
ongoing planning and construction of
the Clinton Laboratories in the ensu-
ing months, Whitaker and his staff
made the necessary preparations for
its future operation, giving a high pri-

^*The Army Service Forces, formerly the Services
of Supply, became the official designation with the
issue of WD GO 14 on 12 March 1943.

^^Memo, Groves to Styer, sub: Constr Progress,
MD, 19 Oct 43, AG 313.3 (22 Aug 47); Dist Engr,
Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Apr, May, Sep, Oct,
Dec 43 and Feb 44, MDR; Completion Rpt, Du
Pont, sub: CEW, TNX Area, 1 Apr 44, pp. 303 and
313, OROO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 4.7 and
5.3, DASA.

ority to manpower recruitment.^^

To obtain the requisite number of
operating personnel to perform both
industrial and managerial functions,
Whitaker's staff relied heavily on the
resources of the Metallurgical Project
laboratories and Du Pont. The first
permanent operating personnel ar-
rived from the Metallurgical Labora-
tory in April, at which time Du Pont
began to transfer its technicians. The
number of employees increased rap-
idly during the months that followed,
peaking in March 1944 at fifteen hun-
dred, which included the first ten of a
contingent of one hundred enlisted
men from the District's newly formed
Special Engineer Detachment (SED).
From March until the end of January
1945, which was the period of full
semiworks operation, total personnel
(that is, permanent employees, train-
ees for Hanford, and the SED
contingent) averaged about thirteen
hundred. ^"^

As the pilot pile attained full-scale
operation in January 1944, Whitaker
and Compton submitted to Major Pe-
terson, now chief of the Clinton Lab-
oratories Division, a projected re-
search and development program. In
it they outlined a specific schedule for
plutonium production through March
'and, in some detail, emphasized that
more than 75 percent of the laborato-
ries' 160-man technical staff would
concentrate on product isolation stud-
ies, which were essential for Hanford

^'Hewlett and Anderson, A'ra- World, pp. 210-12.

='^MDH, Bk, 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 8.2-8.4 and App.
B7 (Summary, Total Employees of Clinton Labs),
DASA; Stanley L. Falk and Author, Notes on Intervs
of X-10 Personnel at Oak Ridge, 22-24 Jun 60,
CMH. See Ch. XVI for details on the formation of
special military units, such as the SED, and on other
aspects of personnel recruitment.

THE PILE PROCESS

209

operations, and only 12 percent on
product production. Peterson ap-
proved the program, without major
changes, as the basis for semiworks
operation that would contribute most
effectively to the continued de-
velopment of large-scale plutonium
production. ^^

Soon after the pilot pile began op-
erating, the Clinton Laboratories op-
erating staff introduced certain design
modifications with the goal of achiev-
ing greater pile productivity. Month
by month, as the staff raised the effi-
ciency of pile operation, Colonel
Nichols kept General Groves in-
formed of the increased output. By
May, the pile was operating at a
power level of 1,800 kilowatts, almost
double that conceived by its design-
ers, and the addition of two large fans
in June and July significantly raised
the level to 4,000 kilowatts. ^^

These increases would have been to
no avail, however, had the separation
plant failed to perform as anticipated.
The operating staff remained very un-
certain about the success of the chem-
ical plant, because process design-
ers — lacking more than minute
amounts of plutonium — had not been
able to make adequate laboratory
tests of either the bismuth phosphate
or alternate lanthanum fluoride sepa-
ration method, so by early 1944 plu-
tonium project officials were greatly
relieved when the separation plant
produced a small amount of relatively
pure plutonium out of the first batch

of slugs from the pile. In February,
with the pilot pile producing irradiat-
ed uranium at a rate of one-third of a
ton each day, the district engineer es-
timated that plutonium production
for the first month of the separation
plant's operation would total over
500 milligrams. During the next five
months of operation, the operating
staff introduced occasional modifica-
tions that eventually increased the ef-
ficiency of the separation plant from
40 to over 90 percent. The plant op-
erated as a production unit until Jan-
uary 1945, when enough plutonium
had been produced to meet project
needs. The Clinton Laboratories then
undertook experiments with other ir-
radiated materials as fissionable fuel.
At this stage the separation process
was no longer required and the plant,
which had processed a total of 299
batches of uranium slugs, ceased
operations. ^"^

In addition to testing and operating
the pilot pile and separation plant,
the Clinton Laboratories technical
staff supplemented the Metallurgical
and Argonne laboratories staffs' ef-
forts to find solutions to the many
day-to-day problems that arose direct-
ly out of the design, construction, and
operation of the Hanford plants. For
example, the Clinton staff had an
active role in improving the canning
of uranium slugs, including develop-
ment of techniques to detect failure
and tests to ascertain the effects of

'^Memo, Whitaker and Compton to Peterson,
sub: Clinton Labs Prgm as of 1 Dec 43, 25 Jan 44,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 600.12 (Projs and
Prgms), MDR.

36MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 4.1 and 4.8-4.9,
DASA; Disl Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan
and Aug 44, MDR.

^^Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan,
Mar-Jun, Oct 44 and Jan 45, MDR; MDH, Bk. 4,
Vol. 2, Pt. 2, pp. 5.1-5.5, DASA; Smyth Repnrl. pp.
76 and 102-04; Hewlett and Anderson, Sew World,
pp. 211-12; Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 190. The
Clinton Laboratories technical stafFs recommenda-
tions for the separation process are in the Rpt CN-
2021, 1 (Xt 44, OROO.

210

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

water corrosion. They also studied
high-neutron absorption by certain
fission products produced in pile op-
eration, a phenomenon that might
cause the pile to become inoperative.
But from a study of two of these
products, samarium and gadolinium,
they concluded that these rare elements
would not lead to shutdown of the pile.
They failed, however, to observe that
another of the neutron-absorbing
products, a radioactive isotope of
the rare gaseous element xenon, was a
far more potent poisoning agent. The
Clinton staff used the pile, too, for
testing materials to be employed in
construction of the Hanford piles, in-
cluding aluminum, graphite, brass, neo-
prene, bakelite, concrete, and masonite
(for shielding).^*

With completion of the essential as-
pects of the Clinton Laboratories pro-
gram, which ran for more than two
years (1 March 1943-30 June 1945)
and cost approximately $12.3 million
($6.8 million just for salaries), the
University of Chicago was anxious to
be relieved of its responsibility as op-
erator of the plutonium semiworks — a
role it had accepted, but with the
greatest reluctance. Acceding to the
university's request. General Groves
discussed with Compton the question
of transferring operations of the lab-
oratories to an industrial firm. Their
choice was the Monsanto Chemical
Company of St. Louis. Groves dele-
gated to Charles A. Thomas, a com-
pany official who had been associated
with the atomic project in various ca-
pacities and was currently coordinator
of chemical and metallurgical work at
Los Alamos, the task of carrying out
negotiations. On 2 May 1945,

Thomas and Groves met with other
company representatives to approve
an agreement under which Monsanto
would take over operations of the
Clinton Laboratories from the Univer-
sity of Chicago on 1 July. On this
date, Monsanto activated a special di-
vision to handle general administra-
tion, appointing Thomas as division
head, and Martin Whitaker assented
to stay on as director of the laborato-
ries, now to oversee operations for
the production of experimental mate-
rials, such as radioactive isotopes, and
the conduct of radiation research. ^^

The Hanford Production Plant

While Du Pont was building the
semiworks, its TNX Division was
moving ahead with plans and prelimi-
nary preparations for construction of
the production plant. As soon as the
Army acquired the site, both the TNX
chief and Hanford area engineer set
up field organizations that promptly
began overseeing the formidable task
of establishing, in the vast and remote
semidesert region along the Colum-
bia River, the support facilities essen-
tial to construction and operation of a
highly complex industrial enterprise.
Except for railroads and power trans-
mission lines, these facilities were
almost entirely lacking, and Du Pont
and the Army had to devote many
months and considerable manpower
and materials to providing them
before construction could begin on
the plant's permanent structures.'**'

MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 1. pp. 6.2-6.8, DASA.

39lbicl., Pt. 2, pp. 3.5-3.6, DASA; Groves Diary,
23-25 Apr and 2 May 45, LRG; Compton, Atomic
Quest, p. 197; Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p.
627.

*° Paragraphs on preliminary measures that Du

Continued

THE PILE PROCESS

211

Clinton Laboratories, consisting of the large pilot pile building, the chemical separation
plant (structure directly to the rear), and other support facilities

Consequently, during much of
1943, Du Pont and its subcontractors
extended and improved existing
roads and railroads, power and tele-
phone lines and sewer and water sys-
tems. They built temporary facilities
that, because of the remoteness of the
site and also the safety and security

Pont and the Army had to carry out in preparation
for construction of the Hanford plutonium plant
based on MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, Sees. 1-5, DASA; Du
Pont Constr Hist, Vols. 1-2, HOO; Matthias Diary,
1943, passim, OROO; Memo, Travis to Marsden
(Ex Off, MD), sub: Status of HEW as of 2 Jun 43,
same date, in Rpt, sub: MD Proj Data as of 1 Jun
43, MDR. See Chs. XIII-XIV and XVI for detailed
account of measures taken to solve the problems in
materials and manpower procurement for Hanford.

requirements, had to be unusually ex-
tensive, including the Hanford camp for
construction workers, numerous build-
ings to house Du Pont and Army ad-
ministrative personnel in the field,
and a variety of shops. Thus, at White
Bluffs, adjacent to the site selected
for the plutonium separation plants,
they built shops to fabricate concrete
pipes, masonite panels, and steel
plate sections; at Hanford, near the
construction camp, erected a shop
to shape, cut, bore, face, and test
graphite; and at strategic points in
the plant construction area, installed
five concrete plants. In addition, they
provided repair and maintenance

212

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

shops, including those for railroad,
automotive, electrical, and construc-
tion equipment.

Du Pont and the Army also were
able to begin some work that related
directly to the construction of the
production plant. For example, the
Army's Seattle district engineer su-
pervised soil tests and borings at the
sites selected for the permanent plant
facilities. These tests and soil samples
provided Du Pont field engineers with
essential data on the weight-carrying
capacities of the ground, especially
significant because many of the plant
installations were enormously heavy;
on rock formations likely to cause dif-
ficulties in excavation work; and on
the availability of aggregate for
making concrete. Field survey teams
inspected existing transmission lines
and road nets in the plant areas,
reaching the conclusion that these fa-
cilities were adequate to meet the re-
quirements for the earliest phases of
plant construction. The area engineer
and Du Pont were able to agree on
optimum locations for most of the
major plant installations, taking into
account also safety, security, transpor-
tation, availability of river water, and
other related factors."*^

Construction

Decisions on the character and lo-
cation of various plant installations
deviated surprisingly little from the
general layout of the production plant
developed back in mid-December
1942 to serve as a guide in site selec-
tion. These early plans had projected

initial construction of at least three
pile and two separation units, with
provision made for the addition, if
need be, of three more piles and an-
other separation unit. In the main,
such changes as the Du Pont design
team did make reflected the subse-
quent decisions to employ water cool-
ing rather than helium for the graph-
ite piles and a bismuth phosphate
precipitation method in the separa-
tion units. ^^

The specific layouts provided for
seven separate process areas, six of
them located generally in the north-
ern half of the 400,000-acre Hanford
reservation and the seventh in a
sector directly north of the operating
village of Richland in the southeast-
ern corner of the reservation (Map 4).
The three production piles were lo-
cated at the points of a triangle
formed by a bend in the Columbia
River near White Bluffs. Designated
as the 100 B (West), 100 D (North),
and 100 F (East) Pile Areas, each was
about 1 mile square and, for reasons
of safety, about 6 miles distant from
any neighboring installation. About
10 miles directly south of the pile
sites were the three separation pro-
cess areas: 200 W (West), 200 E (East),
200 N (North). In the West Area
there were two separation plants, with
a mile of open desert between them;
in the East Area, only a single separa-
tion plant; and in the North Area,

*'MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, pp. 2.1-2.7, DASA; Matth-
ias Diary. 24 Feb 43, OROO. See Chs. XVIII and
XIX for more details on development of process
support facilities for the production plant.

"^This paragraph and the several that follow
based on DSM Chronology, 14 Dec 42, Sec. 25,
OROO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 3, pp. 2.1-2.2., 3.1-3.7.
Apps. A2 and A4 (Maps, Location of Major Instls),
and Vol. 6, pp. 2.1-2.5, DASA; Du Pont Constr
Hist, Vols. 3-4, HOO; Hewlett and Anderson, New
World, pp. 214-22 and map opposite p. 225. See Ch.
XV for general layout of the plant in relation to site
acquisition.

MAP 4

214

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

only the lag-storage facilities for hold-
ing the pile-processed uranium metal
until natural decay reduced its radio-
activity to a point where it could be
sent to the separation plants. In the
seventh process site — the 300 Area —
were the metal testing and fabricating
facilities for preparing uranium to be
charged into the piles.

In scheduling construction of the
various permanent installations, Du
Pont gave priority to the 300 Area,
for it included many installations that
were essential both to building and
operating the rest of the plant. Here,
for example, were facilities for testing
many of the building materials to be
incorporated into the piles and sepa-
ration units, for preparing uranium
metal to be charged into the piles,
and for assembly and calibration of
instruments to control production op-
erations and protect workers against
radiation. One of the buildings
housed an operating test pile. An-
other held the machines that
"canned" uranium in metal contain-
ers to be inserted for processing in
the piles.

In spite of the high priority, how-
ever, Du Pont experienced great diffi-
culty in meeting building schedules in
the 300 Area. Stabilizing designs was
the most frequent cause of delay, at-
tributable primarily to the lack of pre-
vious experience. Related to the
design problem was the frankly exper-
imental character of many of the fa-
cilities. Other factors slowing con-
struction were the shortage of skilled
labor and the classified nature of
much of the work, requiring restric-
tion of access to the 300 Area. Yet
construction crews pressed forward
during the summer and fall of 1943,
turning to the area engineer for as-

sistance. Through Army intervention
with wartime labor officials, the com-
pany secured permission for double
work shifts of nine hours on urgently
required buildings. It also obtained
special handling in procurement of
certain materials. It let subcontracts,
which the area engineer approved, to
firms with specially qualified person-
nel and equipment and speeded up
procedures for approval and issue of
designs. These various expedients,
however, were never quite sufficient
to overcome the bottlenecks, and
work in the 300 Area remained con-
sistently behind schedule.*^

In the three pile areas and the 300
Area, Du Pont faced the problem of
erecting a great variety of facilities.
Each pile area comprised an industrial
complex made up not only of a pro-
duction unit but also of support ele-
ments. The latter included equipment
for pumping vast amounts of water
from the nearby river and subjecting
it to treatment to make it suitable for
cooling the piles. It also included re-
frigeration and helium-purification
units and extensive storage facilities.
Each area, too, had its own facility to
provide steam and some electricity.
Most of the support elements had to
be housed in large industrial-type
buildings, some of them with tall
stacks and water storage tanks on
high steel-frame towers.

For the experienced Du Pont engi-
neers and foremen, much of the work
was sufficiently conventional to
present no serious problems other

43 Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Nov-
Dec 43 and Dec 44, MDR; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, pp.
6.1-6.4 and Apps. B35-B37 (Tables and Charts,
Constr Progress and Subcontracts for Metal Fab and
Test Area), DASA.

THE PILE PROCESS

215

The 300 Area at HEW, where Du Pont workers manufactured uranium slugs and tested
materials for the piles. The slogan on the water tower reads, "Silence Means Security. "

than those attributable to geographic
isolation and wartime conditions. The
exception was the production piles.
Housed in concrete structures rising
more than 120 feet from the flat
desert floor, these great machines for
transmuting uranium into plutonium
presented construction problems
never encountered before, even by
Du Font's highly competent field
forces. As in the 300 Area, but on a
far vaster scale, the construction
crews not only had to cope with
almost day-to-day changes in design
and specifications but also to adopt
many expedients based upon results

of tests, construction experience, and
limitations of materials.

Using water as a coolant required
installation of a complex system of
river pumps; purification, aeration,
and distillation units; and retention
basins for holding radioactive water
until natural decay permitted its
return to the Columbia. Because
keeping the piles at a proper temper-
ature was crucial, plant designers in-
cluded a refrigeration unit in both the
North (100 D) and East (100 F) Areas
as a precautionary measure to cool
river water during the summer
months; however, to save time, they

216

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

The 100 B Pile Area at HEW, consisting of the production pile (building with single
stack), the steam-electnc plant (building with twin stacks), the pump house (on the Columbia
River), and other support facilities

did not provide this unit in the West
(100 B) Area, gambling on the chance
it might not be necessary.'**

Completion of at least one pile and
a separation unit would start produc-
tion of urgently needed plutonium.
Accordingly, Du Pont and Army offi-
cials agreed to give the West Pile
Area priority, concentrating the limit-
ed materials and manpower available
to expediting its construction. Late in
1943, they scheduled the West Pile

** Paragraphs on construction of production piles
based on MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, pp. 3.2-3.5, 6.5-6.22,
Apps. B38-B42, and Vol. 6, pp. 2.5-2.18, DASA;
Du Pont Constr Hist, Vol. 3, pp. 636-811, HOO;
Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World, pp. 216-18; Dist
Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan-Mar 44, MDR.

for operation by June 1944, but by
February, with the plant only 27 per-
cent complete, they rescheduled the
start-up date to mid-August. At the
same time, they established later com-
pletion dates for the North and the
East Pile Areas.

The pace of construction, however,
was disappointing. In general, the fac-
tors that slowed construction in the
300 Area also adversely affected the
pile areas — the isolated location of
the Hanford reservation, aggravating
shortages of manpower and essential
materials, the uniqueness of much of
the construction, and the continuing
need for alterations in orginial de-
signs and specifications.

THE PILE PROCESS

217

As in the 300 Area, the Army gave
its approval to Du Font's various ex-
pedients to speed up construction.
The company instituted shift work in
September 1943, at the same time ex-
tending the regular work week to six
nine-hour days (in some cases,
manual labor temporarily put in ten
hours a day, seven days of the week).
It let more than thirty subcontracts to
firms that would carry out specialized
aspects of the job — for example,
boiler and elevated tank erection,
pipe work, concrete block and cement
brick construction, channel excava-
tion — and thus gained access to des-
perately needed manpower and
equipment. And Du Pont repeatedly
turned to District procurement per-
sonnel in Hanford, Oak Ridge, and
Washington, D.C., for assistance in
obtaining a great variety of scarce ma-
terials and equipment, including such
items as solenoid valves, synthetic
cable, and stainless steel fittings and
valves. The Army also expedited ship-
ment of many crucial items from sup-
pliers distant from the isolated site,
authorizing use of air and rail ex-
press, trucks, and even the Army Air
Forces' Air Transport Command
planes. The Army, too, allowed Du
Font's TNX Division to ease the per-
sistent design bottlenecks by sending
out special personnel to work in the
division engineer's office at the West
File site, authorizing them to make
on-the-spot minor alterations without
clearing them with the home office.

By spring of 1944, these expedients
and a gradual easing of manpower
problems brought a decided improve-
ment in the progress of pile area con-
struction. The district engineer esti-
mated that the West File Area was
nearly half completed, and in Septem-

ber he pronounced it ready to go into
operation. Du Font construction
crews failed to meet the scheduled
October completion date for the
North File, requiring an additional
two months. Then, with the advan-
tage of experience and a far more
adequate supply of labor, they man-
aged to finish the East File Area on
10 February, five days earlier than the
projected completion date. Weeks
earlier, the West File had discharged
its first batch of "active metal," and
plant workers immediately sent it to
the West Separation Area for
processing.'*^

In building the chemical separation
facilities, Du Font crews encountered
many of the same problems they
faced in construction of the produc-
tion piles; however, for the most part,
the problems were never quite as
severe. There was more time to build
the separation units, as no irradiated
slugs would be ready for processing
until weeks or months after the first
pile began to operate, and there were
fewer installations to build, with a
total of thirty-two process buildings in
the three separation areas (200 E, W,
and N) as compared with fifty-three in
the three pile areas. Also, there was
less need for changes in specified
design, construction materials, and
equipment.*^

45 See MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, Apps. B41 (List. Sub-
contractors for Pile Area Constr) and B42 (List, Ma-
terials Used), DASA; Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on
DSM Proj, Apr, Jun, Nov, Dec 44 and Feb 45, MDR.

*^ Paragraphs on construction of plutonium sepa-
ration units based on MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 5, pp. 3.5-
3.7, 6.22-6.31, Apps. B43-B46, and Vol. 6, pp.
2.18-2.26, DASA; Du Pont Constr Hist, Vol. 3. pp.
812-983, HOO: Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World.
pp. 219-22: Dist Engr, Monthly Rpt on the DSM
Proj, Jan 44, MDR.

218

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Design problems were a significant
factor in delaying the construction of
the separation plants. Du Pont design
teams could do little toward provid-
ing detailed blueprints and specifica-
tions until project scientists and engi-
neers reached a decision on the exact
chemical process to be employed.
Even after the decision to use the bis-
muth phosphate method, designers
had to await additional data from the
Clinton separation plant, still under
construction. Consequently, in 1943,
Du Pont had accomplished little
beyond site preparation and excava-
tion in the separation plant areas.

Detailed blueprints and specifica-
tions, finally ready by early 1944, pro-
jected construction of four separation
plants — two in the East Area and two
in the West Area (in June, project of-
ficials canceled one East Area unit
when performance data at the Clinton
separation plant indicated it probably
would not be needed). Completed
layouts provided for a variety of pro-
cess buildings and supporting facilities.
The dominant feature of each plant
area was a "cell building," an en-
largement of the six-cell unit in the
Clinton plant. Viewed from a dis-
trance across the level desert, this
massive (800 feet long, 65 feet wide,
and 80 feet high) concrete structure
resembled an ancient mausoleum. A
railroad system interconnected the
various facilities and provided the
means for transporting the thick-
walled portable casks that brought ir-
radiated slugs from the pile areas for
temporary storage in the North Area
and final processing in the East or
West Separation Areas.

Insufficient manpower proved a
major problem never fully solved, but
partially alleviated by Army-sanc-

tioned reallocation of workers from
other parts of the project, very fre-
quent use of shift and Sunday work,
and extended hours. Materials short-
ages, most notably of stainless steel,
resulted in serious delays. With Dis-
trict assistance, Du Pont saved three
to four months in obtaining stainless
steel for more then 700,000 feet of
piping; 150,000 bolts; and other
equipment. The company saved time,
too, by subcontracting (with approval
of the area engineer) work on struc-
tural steel, railroads, pipe and tank
installation, and other aspects of
construction.

The disappointing progress in con-
struction reported by the district en-
gineer at the end of December 1943
clearly indicated that his earlier pro-
jections had been far too optimistic.
Thus in February 1944, Du Pont
issued new start-up dates for various
elements of the pile and separation
areas, which became the basis for
subsequent building schedules. Al-
though plagued by continuing delays
in delivery of stainless steel, Du Pont
completed the two West Area separa-
tion plants and the North Area lag-
storage facilities in December, in time
to accept the first irradiated slugs
from the West Pile. Finally, in early
February 1945, with the East Separa-
tion Area ready to be turned over to
operating crews. Colonel Nichols re-
ported to General Groves that the
Hanford Engineer Works was sub-
stantially completed.'*'^

*'' Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Jan,
Apr, Jun, Dec 44 and Jan 45, MDR.

THE PILE PROCESS

219

Chemical Separation Plant Under Construction at HEW

Operation

Although construction crews were
months away from completing all of
the major elements of the plant, Du
Pont operating crews took the first
step in starting plant operations when
they began charging the West Pile
with aluminum-covered uranium slugs
on 13 September 1944.^^ As with the
electromagnetic and diffusion plants
at the Clinton Engineer Works, pro-
duction of plutonium at Hanford was
a highly technical operation, carried

**^ Except as indicated, subsection on production
plant operation based primarily on MDH, Bk. 4,
Vol. 6, DASA; Du Pont Opns Hist, HOO; Matthias
Diary, Sep 44-Aug 45, OROO; Hewlett and Ander-
son, Xeu' World, pp. 304-10. The Army's activities
in providing essential services are described in sub-
sequent chapters, especially XVI-XX.

out, for the most part, by an operat-
ing force comprised of Du Pont engi-
neers, technicians, and trained plant
personnel. The Army had only a lim-
ited role in plant operations, its pri-
mary function being to maintain those
conditions in the plant areas and
Richland village community that
would enhance in every way possible
production of plutonium. To this end,
the Hanford Area Engineers Office
continued to provide most of the
services instituted in the period of
site development and plant construc-
tion, including security, safety, trans-
portation and communications, per-
sonnel and materials procurement,
fiscal and contract review, and com-
munity support.

220

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Completed Chemical Separation Plants (foreground and background), sennced by
the twin-stacked steam-electnc facility

In mid-August, Du Pont operating
personnel began taking over the West
Pile building, although construction
crews continued to work in the area.
On the seventeenth, Colonel Matthias
notified Colonel Nichols at Oak Ridge
that he thought "anytime after the
27th of August would be a good time
to come out for the initial starting op-
erations." Both Nichols and Groves
found reasons for visiting: ostensibly,
as project officials, to confer on labor
and safety problems; tacitly, as engi-
neers, undoubtedly drawn by the nat-
ural desire to see near completion a
project to which they both had devot-
ed many months of effort. Groves ar-
rived on 1 September and Nichols on

the following day. Matthias took each
on a personal inspection tour. Both
gave special attention to the crucial
preparation of the uranium fuel. They
were pleased to learn that a welding
process had largely eliminated leaks
in the cans, or slugs that held the ura-
nium fuel, a problem that for many
months had posed a threat to the
whole process.'*^

Neither Groves nor Nichols could
be present on 13 September, when
the plant workers started up the West

''^ Matthias Diary, 1-2 Sep 44 and 17 Aug 45
(source of quotation), OROO; Groves Diary, 1 Sep
44, LRG. On uranium canning problem see MDH,
Bk. 4, Vol. 6, pp. 4.7-4.9 and 5.7-5.8, DASA; Hew-
lett and Anderson, Xew World, pp. 223-26 and 303-
04.

THE PILE PROCESS

221

Area production pile for the first
time. But Colonel Matthias was on
hand, as were Compton and Fermi
from the Metallurgical Project and
Greenewalt and Williams from Du
Pont. In a scene somewhat reminis-
cent of that dramatic occasion when
Fermi had achieved the first con-
trolled chain reaction, the redoubta-
ble Italian physicist inserted the initial
uranium fuel can into the production
pile at 5:43 p.m. Thus began the slow
procedure, interrputed by many tests
that would bring the pile, on the fif-
teenth, to that level of reactivity
known as dry critical. At this stage,
without cooling water present in the
fuel tubes, the pile contained enough
uranium to sustain a chain reaction.
Up to this point the pile was perform-
ing precisely as anticipated. ^°

For the next few days the loading
crews, under Fermi's guidance, insert-
ed additional slugs, building up to the
number he estimated would be re-
quired for the pile to be reactive with
cooling water in the tubes. They
reached this number — actually 838
tubes loaded — late in the afternoon of
18 September and began final tests of
the cooling system. These tests and
other measurements continued for
several days, until shortly before mid-
night on the twenty-sixth. At 10:48
P.M., with more than 900 of the 2,004
tubes loaded, they started withdrawl
of the control rods to begin for the
first time plutonium manufacture on a
production scale. But to their sur-
prise, when they tried to increase the
power level, the level of reactivity

began to decline and, by 6:30 p.m. on
the twenty-seventh, the pile shut
down completely. Colonel Matthias
immediately informed General
Groves, who was visiting the Radi-
ation Laboratory in Berkeley. Arriving
in San Francisco on the thirtieth,
Matthias explained to Groves that the
pile operators at first believed that
water, or some other neutron-absorb-
ing substance, had leaked into the
pile. Yet when they found no evi-
dence of this, they concluded that un-
anticipated buildup of a fission by-
product had inhibited reactivity
of the pile. Matthias suggested to
Groves "that certain of the high-ranking
scientists come out to Hanford immedi-
ately to supervise corrective action." ^^
Meanwhile at Hanford, Greenewalt
had turned to the Metallurgical
Project scientists for an explanation.
Nothing in the Clinton operations
seemed to provide an answer, but the
Argoime staff discovered that when
they ran the heavy water pile at its
highest power level for a period of
twelve hours (which they had not pre-
viously done), its reactivity first rose
and then declined following a pattern
similar to that observed at Hanford.
The data from the Argonne pile also
confirmed that the "poisoning" of the
pile was caused by one of the fission
by-products, a radioactive isotope of
the rare gaseous element xenon. At a
meeting with Compton and Metallur-
gical Project scientists in Chicago on

50 Matthias Diary, 13-14 Sep 44, OROO; Rpt,
Matthias to Dist Engr, sub: Monthly Opns, 30 Sep
44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, SIQIi (Misc), MDR;
Du Pont Opns Hist, Intro, p. 22, and Bk. 4, HOO.

5' Quotation from Matthias Diary, 30 Sep 44
OROO. See also ibid., 16-17, 19-21, 25-29 Sep 44,
OROO; Groves Diary, 29-30 Sep 44, LRG; Dist
Engr, Monthly Rpt on DSM Proj, Sep 44, MDR;
Memo, Matthias to Groves, sub: Status of 100 B
Area Opns, 18 Sep 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
319.1 (Misc), MDR; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 6, pp. 4.9-
4.10 and App. Dl (Xenon Poisoning), DASA.

222

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

3 October, Groves was highly critical
of the scientists for not having discov-
ered a phenomenon that might well
prevent production of sufficient plu-
tonium in time to be used in the war.
Sensing the gravity of Groves's
words, Compton left immediately for
Hanford so that he could take direct
action. ^^

By the time Compton reached Han-
ford on the fourth, operating person-
nel working under Greenewalt, Hil-
berry and others had found that by
adding more uranium slugs to the
pile charge they could increase the
power level without inducing a de-
cline in reactivity. This demonstrated
that pile operation at a higher power
level overcame the dampening effects
of xenon poisoning, but it still did
not tell the pile operators how much
more uranium they would have to
load into the pile to raise the power
level to that point where it would effi-
ciently produce plutonium. Nor did it
indicate whether the existing controls
and instrumentation of the pile were
adequate for such operation.

For answers to these critical ques-
tions they had to carry out a time-
consuming series of tests. They
gradually increased the uranium load,
carefully checking and adjusting the
complicated control devices and in-
struments of the pile. By late Novem-

^^ Memo, Compton to Groves, sub: Oscillation
EfTect of W Pile, 30 Oct 44, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 400.12 (Experiments), MDR; Memos, Walter
Zinn (Argonne Lab scientist) to Compton, 3 Oct 44,
Compton to Groves, sub: Draft Notes to Mtg at Chi-
cago, 3 Oct 44, and Matthias to Groves, sub: Start-
up Opns of 100 B Area, 3 Oct 44, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 319.1 (Misc), MDR; Oppenheimer Heanng, p.
174; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 3.13-3.14 and
5.2-5.3, and Pt. 2, pp. 6.4-6.5, DASA; Hewlett and
Anderson, Xew World, pp. 306-07; Dale F. Babcock,
"The Discovery of Xenon-135 as a Reactor Poison,"
Sudear Sews 7 (Sep 64): 38-42.

ber, they showed conclusively that by
fully loading the pile, including slugs
in the extra tubes that Du Font's con-
servative designers had installed
against the advice of the scientists,
the pile would operate at its designed
power level. As a final precaution, the
operating personnel tried operating
the 100 D pile (completed in Novem-
ber) with uranium in all tubes, but
without cooling water. The success of
this dry critical test clearly demon-
strated that the 100 B pile, with the
added protection of cooling water,
was likely to function as designed. On
28 December, the 100 B pile, with all
its 2,004 tubes loaded went into oper-
ation, marking at last the start of full-
scale production of plutonium. ^^

Xenon poisoning and uranium can-
ning problems were not the only
technical difficulties faced by Du
Font's operating personnel as they
took over control of the other units of
the plutonium production plant. But
none of the other start-up problems
posed so serious a threat to the effec-
tive operation of the plant, and Du
Pont engineers found solutions ade-
quate to eliminate or counteract their
adverse effects upon the plutonium
production process.^*

^^ Dist Engr, Monthly Rpts on DSM Proj, Nov-
Dec 44, MDR; Memo, Compton to Mrs. O'Leary,
Attn: Groves, 7 Oct 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
400.17 (Mfg-Prod-Fab), MDR; Groves, Notes on
Conf with Greenewalt in New York, 18 Oct 44,
Admm Files, Gen Corresp, 337 (Confs), MDR;
Memos, Matthias to Groves, sub: Start-up Opns of
100 B Area, 17 and 20 Oct 44, Admm Files, Gen
Corresp, 319.1 (Misc), MDR; Matthias Diary, Oct-
Dec 44, passim, OROO; MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 6, pp.
4.10-4.12 and App. Dl, DASA; Compton, Atomic
Quest, pp. 191-94; Hewlett and Anderson, \eui
IVorld. pp. 307-08.

^^ For a more detailed account of some of the
other operating problems that developed in Han-
ford pile operations see MDH, Bk. 4, Vol. 6, pp.
4.12-4.19, DASA.

THE PILE PROCESS

223

With attainment in March 1945 of
full-scale production at Hanford, the
plutonium project leaders turned with
renewed energy to establishing firm
production schedules and to reaching
agreement on final specifications for
the product. General Groves, aware
that the war in Europe was rapidly ap-
proaching an end and knowing that
the scientists at Los Alamos would
soon need substantial quantities of
plutonium, arranged with Du Pont to
run the two refrigerated production
piles above their rated operational
level during the spring and summer
of 1945. Carried out at some risk, this
procedure substantially increased
product output and thus provided the
plutonium for an atomic device in
July and for one of two bombs in
August. Through these events, vindi-

cation finally came to the atomic
project leaders on their late- 1942 de-
cision to go ahead with the develop-
ment of the pile process — a decision
that, in the intervening years, when
the plutonium program experienced
repeated setbacks, may well have ap-
peared to many to have been a seri-
ous error in judgment. ^^

^^The correspondence concerning speeding up
plutonium production at Hanford is in two separate
MDR files. Ir Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 400.17
(Mfg-Prod-Fab): Ltrs, Groves to Williams, 13 Jan 45,
and Williams to Groves, 16 Jan 45. In OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Fldr 5: Ltrs, Williams to
Groves, 14 Feb 45, and Groves to Williams, 15 Feb
45, both Tab I; Memo, Nichols to Groves, sub: Site
W Prod Schedule, 9 Mar 45, Tab J; Ltr, Groves to
Oppenheimer, 22 Mar 45, Tab L; Ltr, Groves to
Williams, 22 Mar 45, Tab J; Ltr, Williams to Groves,
9 Apr 45, 1 ab M; Memo, Groves to Nichols, 20 Jul
45, Tab S. See Ch. XXIV on the relationship be-
tween the development of the implosion bomb at
Los Alamos and the rate of plutonium production at
Hanford.

PART THREE
SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

CHAPTER X

Anglo-American Collaboration

On 15 December 1942, the Military
Policy Committee submitted its first
report to the Top Policy Group on
the "present status and future pro-
gram" of the Manhattan Project. The
report dealt at length with such mat-
ters as scientific progress, the organi-
zation of the project, the need for
funds, the availability of raw materi-
als, and the status of the Anglo-Amer-
ican atomic partnership. The latter,
reported the committee in something
of an understatement, needed "clarifi-
cation." ^ In effect, at the urging of
OSRD Director Vannevar Bush, S-1
Chairman James B. Conant, and
General Groves, the Military Policy
Committee was proposing a reconsid-
eration of American policy on the ex-
change of information and a presi-
dential decision not only on the im-
mediate problem but also on the far-
reaching one of postwar relations in
the field of atomic energy.^

This call to reevaluate Anglo-Amer-
ican collaboration on atomic energy
research and development was a
result of the extensive and rapid ex-

» MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, OCG Files, Gen Corresp.
MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab B, MDR.

2 Memo, Stimson, 29 Oct 42, HB Files, Fldr 47.
MDR; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR. This theme is de-
veloped at length in Hewlett and Anderson, New
World, pp. 256-67.

pansion of the Manhattan Project
during the past six months. Until then
the American effort had faced serious
problems and its leaders had been
willing, even eager, to compare notes
with their British counterparts. But,
by the fall, with both the scientific
and engineering programs moving
ahead, the project's military and civil-
ian administrators had made an im-
pressive start at cutting away red
tape, thus assuring the atomic pro-
gram a strong and solidly backed po-
sition in the American war effort. As
the need for British assistance seemed
less urgent, a new attitude about in-
terchange took, hold, and in Decem-
ber project leaders voiced their in-
creasing reluctance, reinforced by
growing security considerations, to
give the British the fruits of American
labors.

Breakdown of Interchange

The atomic partnership between
the United States and Great Britain,
which the allies had begun on a
small scale in the fall of 1940 and
developed into a full exchange pro-
gram by late 1941, first underwent
a slight modification in the early
summer of 1942. Meeting at Hyde

228

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Park on 20 June, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston
S. Churchill agreed that the United
States should take the major role in
atomic weapons production and that
Great Britain should devote its al-
ready severely limited resources to
the more immediate problems of
fighting the war. In spite of this
somewhat qualified yet carefully con-
sidered arrangement, which would
permit the British to avoid the risk
that large-scale atomic installations
might be damaged or destroyed by
German air raids, Churchill left the
conference with the "understanding
. . . that everything was [still] on the
basis of fully sharing the results as
equal partners," and shortly thereaf-
ter Roosevelt reported to Bush that
he and Churchill were "in complete
accord." ^

It appeared that the two wartime
leaders had reaffirmed continuation
of the free and open exchange of
atomic information; however, devel-
opments in the months following the
Hyde Park summit clearly illustrate
the slow waning of Anglo-American
collaboration. On 5 August, six weeks
after the Roosevelt-Churchill talks,
the British Cabinet officer in charge
of atomic energy, Sir John Anderson,
Lord President of the Council — who
was to the Tube Alloys program what
Secretary Stimson was to the DSM
program — wrote to Bush. He pro-
posed integrating the British gaseous
diffusion project into the American

program and, as a consequence, pro-
viding British representation for the
OSRD S-1 Executive Committee.*
Thus, with the simultaneous transfer
of the British heavy water research
group to Canada, which Sir John con-
currently was suggesting to Canadian
authorities, most Tube Alloys activi-
ties would be removed beyond the
danger of German air attacks. Sir
John also made reference to the
broader question of controlling
atomic energy, both during the war
and afterwards. For this, he recom-
mended immediate implementation of
a joint policy on patents and raw ma-
terials and the early establishment of
an Anglo-American commission on
atomic energy.

Anderson's proposals reached Bush
at a time when the Manhattan Project
still was beset with major difficulties;
scientific problems loomed large, ade-
quate priorities were lacking, no deci-
sion had been reached on site ques-
tions, and even the basic matter of
organization remained unresolved.
Bush, accordingly, was in no position
to commit himself to anything far-
reaching, no matter how much he still
desired British assistance. Finally on
1 September, after checking with
Stimson's assistant, Harvey Bundy,
Bush replied to Anderson, expressing
general approval of close Anglo-
American collaboration but putting
off for the moment any specific im-
plementation of this principle. Only

^ Quotations from Msg, Prime Minister to Harry
L. Hopkins, 27 Feb 43, HLH, and Memo, Roosevelt
to Bush, 11 Jul 42, FDR. See also Ltr, Bush to
Styer, 19 Jun 42, HB Files, Fldr 6, MDR; Ltr, Bush
to President, 19 Jun 42, FDR; Winston S. Churchill,
The Second World War: The Hinge of Fate (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1950), pp. 374-81.

■* The terms Tube Alloys and DSM (Development of
Substitute Materials) were the official code names
for the British and American atomic energy projects
in WW II. See Ltrs, Anderson to Bush, 5 Aug 42,
HB Files. Fldr 47, MDR; Cowing, Britain and Atomic
Energy, pp. 188-89; Ceorge C. Laurence, "Canada's
Participation in Atomic Energy Development," Bulle-
tin of the Atomic Scientists 3 (Nov 47): 326.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

229

the transfer of the heavy water
group to Canada — an action subse-
quently taken — elicited his immediate
concurrence. For the rest, he said, he
would reply "somewhat later when
other broad phases have been
resolved." ^

Within the next few weeks, Manhat-
tan leaders were successful in over-
coming many of the uncertainties. Yet
a strong desire for the kind of close
partnership Anderson had suggested
still was lacking; indeed, when Gener-
al Groves raised the question of
Anglo-American relations at the S-1
Committee meeting in Stimson's
office on 23 September, no one
pressed for immediate action. Be-
cause some members felt working
closely with the British might even
slow down American research, the
committee agreed to delay any deci-
sion until Stimson had talked with the
President. When Bush wrote to An-
derson a week later, he outlined the
new American organization and urged
continued close contact, but he pur-
posely avoided a precise commitment,
pending word from the President.^

It was the end of October before
Stimson was able to discuss the issue
with Roosevelt, for this was a period
when relations between the Secretary
of War and the President were some-
what strained by disagreement over
the forthcoming North African oper-
ations and Stimson saw Roosevelt in-
frequently. Finally, following a Cabi-

5 Ltr, Bush to Anderson, 1 Sep 42, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 16, Tab A, MDR. See
also Memo, Bush to Bundy, 1 Sep 42, HB Files,
Fldr 47, MDR.

6 Rpt, Bundy, sub: S-1 Mtg at Secy War's OfTice,
23 Sep 42, HB Files, Fldr 6, MDR; Groves, Xow It
Can Be Told, p. 128; Ltr, Bush to Anderson, 1 Oct
42, HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; Ltr, Bush to Bundy,
1 Oct 42, HB Files, Fldr 7, MDR.

net meeting on the twenty-ninth, he
seized the opportunity to talk with
Roosevelt alone. After pointing out
that the United States was doing most
of the work on atomic energy, the
Secretary added that Manhattan lead-
ers wanted to learn what commit-
ments the President had made to the
British. When the President assured
him his conversation with Churchill
had been "of a very general nature,"
Stimson suggested going "along for
the present without sharing anything
more than we could help." The Presi-
dent agreed but indicated that he,
Churchill, and Stimson had better talk
over the whole problem before too
long. And there the matter rested."^

Meanwhile, as the American Army
took over management of more as-
pects of the atomic project, the Brit-
ish were becoming disturbed at the
trend toward an independent course
that minimized Anglo-American coop-
eration. Hence, no one was surprised
when Anderson proposed that
Wallace A. Akers, the engineer who
headed the British Directorate of
Tube Alloys (which was comparable
to Conant's position as chairman of
the S-1 Executive Committee) should
visit Washington, D.C. During the
weeks that followed Akers' arrival in
early November, he assiduously con-
sulted with Bush, Conant, and
Groves, seeking ways to link more
closely the American-British atomic
energy programs but achieving only
an agreement on steps to set up and
support the British heavy water re-
search group in Canada.

■' Memo, Stimson, 29 Oct 42, MDR. See Stimson
Diary, HLS, for the state of Stimson's relations with
the President during this period.

230

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

What Akers wanted, based on his
understanding of agreements reached
"at the highest levels," was a "really
cooperative effort between the two
countries." ® This would include joint
research, development, and produc-
tion efforts, and complete interchange
of information on all aspects. British
scientists and engineers would work
in American plants and their Ameri-
can counterparts would do the same
in England. Each country would make
available to the other all atomic data
in its possession, including theoretical
and developmental information, plant
designs, and operational details. This
approach, insisted Akers, was the
most efficient way of assuring success
for the program and, moreover,
would be in harmony with the under-
standing between the President and
the Prime Minister.

The position taken by Bush,
Conant, and Groves — as worked out
among themselves and at meetings of
the Military Policy and S-1 Executive
Committees — fell considerably short
of Akers' view. They were still uncer-
tain about what Roosevelt had told
Churchill, and especially about what
he now desired, and because they
were not convinced that complete co-
operation on all phases of the pro-
gram would necessarily build an
atomic bomb any sooner, they pre-

* Quotation from I.tr, Akers to Conant, 15 Dec

42, HB Files, Fldr 47. MDR. See also Draft Memo,
sub: Interchange With British and Canadians on
S-1, 15 Dec 42, Incl to Ltr, Conant to C.J. Macken-
zie (Canada's Natl Research C^ouncil head), 2 Jan

43. HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; MPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42,
MDR; Hewlett and Anderson, Xeiv World, pp. 264-
67; Groves. Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 128-29; MPC
Min, 12 Nov and 10 Dec 42. OCG Files. Gen Cor-
resp. MP Files, Fldr 23. Tab A. MDR; DSM Chro-
nology, 14 Nov 42, Sec. 2(0, OROO; Groves Diary,
13 Nov and 8 Dec 42, LRG; Cowing. Bnlaw and
Atomtc Energy, pp. 148-54.

ferred that cooperation and inter-
change of information be restricted to
matters that would be of use to each
partner in the successful prosecution
of the war. The three Americans
also shared the suspicion that Akers'
arguments most probably were "influ-
enced by an undue regard for possi-
ble postwar commercial advan-
tages." ^ Another serious concern was
the growing problem of security,
which would increase if British scien-
tists were permitted access to all
project developments. Finally, too,
joint Anglo-American production cer-
tainly would complicate production
efforts in the United States and might
actually impede, rather than speed
up, the manufacture of atomic bombs.

From the American view, the extent
of atomic cooperation that would be
desirable varied according to the spe-
cific phase of the program concerned.
Bush, Conant, and Groves felt there
should be no interchange whatsoever
on the electromagnetic separation
process, because the British were not
working on this method and presum-
ably had no "need to know." Akers
replied with the argument that com-
plete cooperation had been agreed
upon, regardless of which country de-
veloped the idea or of where the pro-
duction plants were to be built.
Progress on one method had a direct
bearing on work being done on other
methods, he insisted, and there ought
to be full interchange on the electro-
magnetic process.

On the gaseous diffusion process,
where the British had done consider-
able work, the American project lead-
ers were willing to permit unrestrict-

' Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p. 129.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

231

ed interchange on experimental and
design problems, but felt that ex-
change of information beyond this
was unnecessary. Akers argued that
limiting exchange on gaseous diffu-
sion to these aspects was not accepta-
ble. The British should be given full
information on construction and op-
eration of the production plant, and
British engineers and scientists actual-
ly should be employed in it. Not only
did this fall within his understanding
of the Churchill-Roosevelt agreement,
but also, as he emphasized, the Brit-
ish were already working on a diffu-
sion plant.

As for production data on LI-235,
Bush, Conant, and Groves held that
none should be given to the British
because of the fact that their interest
in uranium production was only for
experimental purposes. The same ap-
plied to plutonium. The three Ameri-
cans were willing to exchange infor-
mation about scientific findings, but
not about the design, construction, or
operation of production plants. Heavy
water, which might be used to manu-
facture plutonium, fell into the same
category. Akers continued to argue,
although in vain, for full British par-
ticipation in American efforts.

Regarding the work at Los Alamos,
Bush, Conant, and Groves proposed
that there should be no interchange
with the British on information per-
taining to weapon research and devel-
opment. Once again Akers urged full
reciprocity of information, and again
his arguments were without effect.

As a direct result of these extended
discussions, the Military Policy Com-
mittee prepared a comprehensive
progress report on its views on future
U.S. -British relations in the field of
atomic energy. The report, dated

15 December, identified "only one
reason for free interchange of secret
military information between allied
nations — namely, to further the pros-
ecution of the war in which both are
engaged." ^° The consensus of the
committee was that, because the Brit-
ish had now given up any intention of
manufacturing atomic bombs or sig-
nificant amounts of fissionable materi-
als during the war, making produc-
tion data available to them would not
increase their military capabilities. Al-
though the work of British scientists
on diffusion and heavy water was well
along, the results of their research
was not essential to the Manhattan
Project; American efforts in these
areas were considerably advanced. A
complete halt of interchange on diffu-
sion and heavy water would be an in-
convenience, but it would not serious-
ly hinder progress of the American
program.

Nor did the committee see any
moral objections to halting inter-
change. Both countries had worked
on the basic concept, as, indeed, had
the Germans. British studies on diffu-
sion probably had benefited from
American research, and vice versa.
Heavy water had been used in a ura-
nium pile first in France and then in
Britain at the instigation of refugee
French scientists. But only after the
discovery in the United States that
plutonium was fissionable by fast neu-
trons had the British given a high pri-
ority to the heavy water program.
And, as Conant emphasized, the Brit-
ish had not followed a policy of unre-

lOMPC Rpt, 15 Dec 42, MDR. Hewlett and An-
derson (Xeui World, p. 266) state that the section on
interchange in this report was drafted by Conant
with the concurrence of Groves and Bush.

232

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

stricted interchange in the past. They
had been unwiUing to share with
American scientists information about
several of their own developments — a
secret bomb disposal method for
one — because they would not help the
American military effort. ^^

The committee concluded that halt-
ing interchange would not unduly
hinder the Manhattan Project, could
hardly be regarded as unfair, and had
obvious security advantages. Howev-
er, complete cessation certainly would
cause friction with the British and
might adversely affect the flow of ura-
nium from Canada and other areas.
Thus, in its report the committee rec-
ommended that a policy of limited in-
terchange, confined to information
that could be used to win the war,
should be adopted as national policy.

With the approval of three mem-
bers of the Top Policy Group, the
Military Policy Committee report, a
copy of a letter from Akers to Conant
restating the British position, and a
separate summary by Bush of both
British and American views reached
the White House on 23 December.
Two days after Christmas, Stimson
went to see Roosevelt. The British, he
had just learned, had signed a treaty
with the Soviet Union in September
to exchange information on new
weapons, including any that might be
developed in the future. The treaty,
said Stimson, came as a complete sur-
prise and had a direct bearing on any
Anglo-American exchange of informa-

tion. Obviously, it posed the possibil-
ity that weapons development data
passed on to the British eventually
would reach the Russians. This news
apparently reinforced the arguments
set forth by the Military Policy Com-
mittee, and the next day, 28 Decem-
ber, the President told Bush that he
approved the committee's recommen-
dations. ^^ In so doing, he adopted
for the United States a new policy of
limited interchange with its atomic
partner across the Atlantic — one that
restricted collaboration to informa-
tion of use during the war.

The Quebec Agreement

With the United States' position on
limited atomic partnership soHdly af-
firmed, Conant undertook the task of
informing both the British and the
Canadians. The day after New Year's
(2 January 1943), he wrote to Dean C.
J. Mackenzie, head of Canada's Na-
tional Research Council, and ex-
plained how the new American policy
would affect the work on heavy water
under way in Montreal. ^^ Then on the
seventh, he prepared a lengthy
memorandum in which he outlined
the specific regulations for Anglo-
American cooperation. Because Co-
nant never officially presented this
memorandum to the British, it was in
effect only a working paper. Its con-
tents, however, generated consider-

"Note by Conant, in Ms, "Diplomatic History of
the Manhattan Project," p. 7n, HB Files, Fldr 111,
MDR. That the British were unwilling to provide in-
formation on certain of their own developments was
not mentioned in the final version of the report sub-
mitted to the President. See also Memo, Bush to
Hopkins, 26 Feb 43, HLH.

'2 Ltrs, Bush to President, 16 Dec 42, with added
note of 23 Dec 42, and President to Bush, 28 Dec
2, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25,
MDR; Ltr, Akers to Conant, and Draft Memo, sub:
Interchange With British and Canadians on S-1,
both 15 Dec 42, HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; Stimson
Diary, 26-27 Dec 42, HLS; Cowing, Britain and
Atomic Energy, pp. 154-55.

'3 Ltr, Conant to Mackenzie, 2 Jan 43, MDR.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

233

able controversy, and Churchill later
complained to presidential aide Harry
Hopkins that Conant's memorandum
"drastically [limits] interchange of
technical information and entirely de-
stroys [Roosevelt's] . . . original con-
ception" of a " 'coordinated or even
jointly conducted effort between the
two countries.' " ^^

Although Akers had read Conant's
memorandum, he apparently had
elected to keep his thoughts to him-
self. But on the twelfth, he ran head-
long into the practical effects of the
new policy at a meeting with Colonel
Nichols of the District staff and Perci-
val C. Keith of Kellex. When Akers
asked for full exchange of information
and access for British scientists to the
American diffusion production plant,
Nichols informed him that such re-
quests would be "subject to General
Groves' decision," the outcome of
which the British representative could
by now undoubtedly guess. ^^

The problem came to a head on
the afternoon of the twenty-sixth at a
meeting with Groves and Conant.
Akers protested, argued, and bar-
gained, largely in vain, for a relax-
ation of the American attitude. All he
achieved was Groves's statement that
America probably would be willing to
reopen information exchange on
heavy water production if Great Brit-
ain would make significant use of it

** Quotation from Msg, Prime Minister to Hop-
kins, 27 Feb 43, HLH. Memo, Conant, sub: Inter-
change With British and Canadians on S-1, 7 Jan
43, OSRD; the essential points in this memorandum
are reprinted in Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, p.
156. See also Hewlett and Anderson, Mew World, p.
268. Churchill was quoting the letter he received
from Roosevelt, dated 1 1 Oct 41, FDR.

'^Memo for File, Nichols, sub: Mtg With Akers on
Jan 12th, 13 Jan 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 001
(Mtgs), MDR.

before the end of the war and would
indicate a willingness to make slight
adjustments regarding interchange on
the diffusion process. On other mat-
ters — electromagnetic separation, the
use of heavy water in a chain reaction,
the furnishing of uranium metal and
purified graphite to the Canadian
group, the chemistry of plutonium,
and the design and construction of a
weapon — the American project lead-
en; remained adamant. Unsuccessful
in his mission, Akers returned home
to England a few days later. ^^

Meanwhile, word had reached the
Moroccan town of Casablanca, where
Churchill and Roosevelt were meeting
to discuss Anglo-American strategy.
During the mihtary talks the subject
of atomic energy was not even men-
tioned; but, in confidence, the Prime
Minister asked the President about
the American position on Tube
Alloys. Roosevelt's reply, as the Prime
Minister related it to Bundy, was to
assure Churchill again that atomic
energy was a joint enterprise. Hop-
kins, also present during the ex-
change, quickly added that the prob-
lem could be easily straightened out
as soon as the President returned to
the White House. ^'

'^Note by Akers and attached extract of his cable,
26 Jan 43, Incls to Ltr, Akers to Groves, 29 Jan 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 091 (British), MDR;
Groves Diary, 26 Jan 43, LRG; Msg, Prime Minister
to Hopkins, 27 Feb 43, HLH.

'^ Dates of Casablanca Conf: 14-24 Jan 43.
Msg, Prime Minister to Hopkins, 16 Feb 43, and
Memo, J. M. Martin (principal private secretary for
Churchill at Casablanca) to Hopkins, 23 Jan 43,
HLH; Memo, Bundy, sub: 22 Jul 43 Mtg at 10
Downing Street, HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; Richard
C. Tolman, sub: Diary of Trip to England, 29 Oct
43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 334 (British Inter-
change), MDR; Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World,
p. 270. While Hewlett and Anderson accept Bundy's

Continued

234

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

The two leaders parted, Roosevelt
to Washington and Churchill to
London via the Middle East. Soon
after returning home in early Febru-
ary, the Prime Minister apparently re-
ceived a thorough briefing on Akers'
disturbing experience in the United
States and, on the sixteenth, he
cabled Hopkins to remind him of his
assurances given at Casablanca. "The
American War Department," com-
plained Churchill, "is asking us to
keep them informed of our experi-
ments while refusing altogether any
information about theirs." ^^

That Churchill had expressed his
perturbation to Hopkins rather than
directly to Roosevelt indicates the im-
portance he attached to the problem.
The Prime Minister was well aware
of Hopkins's close relationship with
Roosevelt and regarded him as a
"most faithful and perfect channel of
communication."^^ A personal repre-
sentation by "Lord Root of the
Matter," as he once called Hopkins,
would be more effective than a simple
cable direct to the President. Yet, cu-
riously enough, Hopkins apparently
knew little about atomic energy mat-
ters. Certainly his ready assurances at
Casablanca indicated his unfamiliarity
with the complexities of the problem. ^°

statement in his memorandum of 22 Jul 43 that at
Casablanca Churchill spoke directly to both Roose-
velt and Hopkins on Tube Alloys, Margaret Cowing
{Britain and Atomic Energy, p. 159) suggests that the
discussion may have been only between Churchill
and Hopkins.

1^ Msg, Prime Minister to Hopkins, 16 Feb 43,
HLH.

19 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The
Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1950),
pp. 24-25.

2° Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An
Intimate History (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1948), p. 5. The first reference to atomic energy in

But in the weeks that followed
Churchill's cable, Hopkins set about
familiarizing himself with the problem
of Anglo-American interchange. Now
well briefed by Conant and Bush, and
perhaps by Lt. Gen. Brehon B.
Somervell, the Army Service Forces
(ASF) commander, he replied to
Churchill's continued prodding with
cables that avoided a direct answer
and thus left the American position
unchanged. Bush, in turn, reviewed
the policy separately with Conant and
Stimson and collectively with fellow
members of the Military Policy Com-
mittee at its 30 March meeting.
"None of us," he reported to Hop-
kins on 31 March, "can see that the
present policy, which was approved
by the President after it had had the
careful review and approval of Gener-
al Marshall, Secretary Stimson, and
Vice President Wallace, is in any way
unreasonable, or such as to impede
the war effort on this matter. Neither
can we see that the application
is at present unwise." Supporting a
strongly worded memorandum from
Conant, which he enclosed. Bush
stressed, as had Conant also, the
growing American belief that British
desire for information about the
American program was not for war-
time weapons development but,
rather, for postwar commercial and
industrial application. This might per-
haps be considered in another con-
text, said Bush, but it should in no
way be allowed to interfere with the
Manhattan Project or with the
"proper conduct of the secure devel-
opment of a potentially important

the Hopkins papers (HLH) appears on 23 Jan 43,
during the Casablanca Conference.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

235

weapon." ^^ Apparently convinced of
the correctness of the American
policy, Hopkins allowed the matter to
drag on through April without resolu-
tion. Even though he had promised
British Foreign Secretary Anthony
Eden a telegram that would give his
"views fully," he never sent it.^^

Except for limited exchange be-
tween the Montreal and Chicago
groups, Anglo-American collaboration
slowed almost to a standstill. Sir John
Anderson, fearing a weakening of
Churchill's negotiating position, re-
fused an American request that chem-
ist Hans von Halban, a refugee from
the French atomic program, be per-
mitted to come to New York to confer
with Fermi and Urey on heavy water
problems, and in partial reaction the
Military Policy Committee reduced
American support of the heavy water
project at Montreal. Hopkins's pro-
crastination did nothing to improve
the steadily deteriorating situation,
and British scientists began thinking
seriously of building their own U-235
plant. During this time, the only
answer the British received to
Churchill's protests was an indirect
one: an explanation of the American
position by Bush and Conant to Dean
Mackenzie of the Canadian project as
he passed through Washington, D.C.,
on his way to London to discuss the
problem with his British colleagues.

^* Quoled phrases from Memo, Bush to Hopkins,
31 Mar 43 (enclosed is Memo, Conanl to Bush, 25
Mar 43), HLH. See also Msgs, Prime Minister to
Hopkins, 16 Feb, 27 Feb (two), 20 Mar, 1 Apr 43,
and Hopkins to Prime Minister, 24 Feb and 20 Mar
43, Memos, Bush to Hopkins, 26 Feb 43, and Hop-
kins to Lord Halifax (British ambassador to U.S.),
13 Apr 43. All in HI.H. See also MPC Min, 30 Mar
43. MDR

22 Memo. Halifax to Hopkins, 14 Apr 43; Msg,
Hopkins to Kden, 15 Apr 43 (source of quotation).
Memo, Hopkins to Halifax. 15 Apr 43. All in HI.H.

By then, however, Churchill had
decided to pay a personal call on
Roosevelt. ^^

The Trident Conference, as
Churchill dubbed his third major war-
time meeting with Roosevelt, began
in Washington on 12 May; however, it
was not until the twenty-fifth, his last
day in the national capital, that he
raised the problem of atomic inter-
change. Hopkins telephoned Bush,
and that afternoon the two Americans
met with Professor Frederick Linde-
mann (Lord Cherwell), the British
physicist who was one of Churchill's
closest advisers. An able negotiator,
Lord Cherwell had already formed
some strong opinions about who was
responsible for the new American po-
sition. The whole situation, he had
told Canadian Prime Minister William
Lyon Mackenzie King a week earlier,
was the fault of the American Army,
which had taken over the atomic
energy program from the scientists.
"They are as difficult about it in their
relation with Britain," King noted in
his diary, "as Stalin had been in tell-
ing of what was being done in
Russia." ^^

23 Memo, Bush to Hopkins, 27 Apr 43, HLH;
Churchill, Hinge of Fate, pp. 782-83; Cowing, Bntam
and Atomic Energy, pp. 157-64.

2"* Qiioted from J. W. Pickersgill, The Mackenzie
King Record. 1939-19-f-t. Vol. 1 (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1960), p. 503. For Trident, see
Churchill, Hinge of Fate. Ch. 20, and Maurice Mat-
loff. Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare. 1943-
1944. U.S. Army in World War II (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959), Ch. VI.
For Cherwell, see R. F. Harrod, The Prof: A Personal
Memoir of Lord Cherwell (London: Macmillan and (^o.,
1959). A less sympathetic view is C. P. Snow, Science
and Government (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1961). This account of the meeting at
Hopkins's oflice is based on Memo for File, Bush,
sub: Conf With Harry Hopkins and Lord Cherwell
at White House, 25 Mav 43, Ind to Memo, Bush to

Continued

236

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

The meeting resulted in an im-
passe, although it did clarify matters
to some extent. After Bush restated
the American position and explained
the reasons, Lord Cherwell pressed
for a change. He denied Great Britain
was aiming at any postwar commer-
cial advantage, but admitted the Brit-
ish wanted to be in a position to build
atomic weapons once the war was
over. During the war, he added, his
government was willing to depend on
the United States for these weapons,
but in the postwar period it could not
afford to rely on any other power for
military security. Bush and Hopkins
immediately pointed out this was a far
different question than had been pre-
viously discussed. It concerned broad-
er problems of postwar international
relations, the solutions to which,
Hopkins noted, the Roosevelt admin-
istration constitutionally could not
commit its successor. Lord Cherwell
indicated that if the United States re-
fused to provide the desired informa-
tion on atomic production, the British
might — to guarantee their own future
security — have to undertake an imme-
diate production program of their
own, diverting whatever was neces-
sary from the main war effort. But he
did not put this in the form of an out-
right threat.

The main question had at last been
isolated: Was it necessary for America
to provide Britain with production
data during the war to ensure her
military security in the postwar era? It
was clear to Hopkins where the prob-
lem lay and he told Bush to do noth-
ing further on the matter. Presum-

Hopkins, 26 May 43, HLH. A copy of Bush's memo-
randum of 25 Mav is also in Ms, "Diplomatic Hist of
Manhattan Proj,' Ann. 9, HB Files, Fldr 111, MDR.

ably, Hopkins would take it up with
the President.

That evening, Churchill apparently
discussed the problem privately with
Roosevelt. There is no record of this
meeting. Indications are that the
President was not informed of the
Bush-Hopkins-Cherwell conference.
Once again he showed his earlier will-
ingness to cooperate fully with the
British. The next morning Churchill
cabled Sir John Anderson that the
President, foreseeing that the general
agreement on wartime interchange
would be fulfilled by the almost cer-
tain use of the bomb in the war, had
"agreed that the exchange of infor-
mation on Tube Alloys should be re-
sumed and that the enterprise should
be considered a joint one." ^^

Whatever Roosevelt told Churchill,
he did not pass it on to Bush or Stim-
son. How much Hopkins knew is not
clear, but he was at least aware that
Roosevelt had promised Churchill
something. A month after Trident,
Bush had his first opportunity to brief
the President on this talk with Lord
Cherwell. Roosevelt seemed im-
pressed, but he said nothing about
any arrangements he might have
made with the Prime Minister and
simply told Bush to "sit tight" on in-
terchange.^®

2^ Msg, Prime Minister to Lord President (Sir
John Anderson), 26 May 43, quoted in Churchill,
Hitige of Fate. p. 809. See also Ltr, Roosevelt to
Bush, 20 Jul 43; Ltr, Cherwell to Hopkins, 30 May
43; Msg, Prime Minister to Hopkins, lOJun 43. All
in HLH. The latter message implies that Hopkins
may have been present at the Churchill-Roosevelt
discussion. On Roosevelt's ignorance of the Bush-
Hopkins-Cherwell conference, see Hewlett and An-
derson, Xew World, p. 274.

2 6 Memo for File, Bush, sub: Conf With Presi-
dent, 24 Jun 43, quoted in Hewlett and Anderson,

Continued

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

237

Meanwhile, the British had sent
Akers to Ottawa, and during his stay
in the Canadian capital, Churchill had
cabled Roosevelt once again, seeking
to implement their agreement on
atomic energy. He received no satis-
factory reply. Finally in mid-July, the
President asked Hopkins what to do
about interchange. Hopkins replied
that he [Roosevelt] had "made a firm
commitment to Churchill in regard to
this when he was here and there is
nothing to do but go through with
it." ^' Accepting this fact, on the twen-
tieth the President cabled Churchill
that he had arranged matters "satis-
factorily." The same day he wrote
Bush, who was in London attending
to other scientific matters, that be-
cause "our understanding with the
British encompasses the complete ex-
change of all information," he should
"renew . . . the full exchange of in-
formation with the British Govern-
ment regarding the Tube Alloys." ^®
The President's letter should have
settled the matter. Yet, by one of
those peculiar quirks of fate, the new
directive did not reach the OSRD di-
rector in time to be effective.

On the fifteenth, an unexpected
confrontation by an agitated Prime
Minister, who daily was becoming
more and more disturbed over the in-

Xew World, p. 274. Stimson's diary does not indicate
that he discussed interchange with Roosevelt during
this period. Hopkins's probable knowledge may be
inferred from Msg, Prime Minister to Hopkins, 10
Jun 43; Msg, Hopkins to Prime Minister, 17 Jun 43;
Ltr, Cherwell to Hopkins, 30 May 43. All in HLH.

"Memo, Hopkins to President, 20 Jul 43, HLH.
See also Msg, Former Naval Person (Churchill) to
Roosevelt, 9 Jul 43, FDR; Memo, Roosevelt to Hop-
kins, 14 Jul 43, FDR; Cowing, Britain and Atomic
Energy, pp. 164-65.

"Msg, President to Former Naval Person, 20 Jul
43, and Ltr, Roosevelt to Bush, 20 Jul 43, HLH;
Hewlett and Anderson, \ew World, p. 275.

terchange problem, had occasioned
Bush to refer him to Secretary Stim-
son, who, with Bundy, also was
visiting England. Two days later,
Churchill asked Stimson to "help him
by intervening in the matter." ^^ Har-
boring strong feelings about the value
of close Anglo-American collabora-
tion on all wartime activities, Stimson
arranged for a conference on the
twenty-second. Shortly before the
meeting, the Secretary met with Bush
and Bundy. Particularly concerned
about the need for careful interna-
tional cooperation under the new
world conditions that atomic energy
would create, Stimson questioned
Bush carefully and forcefully, and at
times the OSRD director felt almost
as if he were being cross-examined by
the distinguished lawyer. When
Bundy suggested constitutional limita-
tions on the President's power to
make long-term commitments, Stim-
son dismissed this as "the argument
of a police-court lawyer." But in the
end, he agreed that Bush should
present the American position to the
British as he saw it.^°

That afternoon, the three Ameri-
cans sat down with the Prime Minis-
ter, Anderson, and Lord Cherwell.
Because Churchill, for reasons
that are not known, had not yet
received Roosevelt's cable, none of
the participants were aware of the

^'Quotation from Stimson Diary, 17 Jul 43, HLS.
See also Rpt, Stimson to Roosevelt, sub: Trip to
United Kingdom, attached to entrv of 10 Aug 43,
HLS.

^"Quotation from Elting E. Morison, Turmoil and
Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L Stim-
son (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., I960)', p. 617.
See also ibid., p. 618; Stimson Diary, 22 Jul 43,
HLS; Hewlett and Anderson, Xeu> World, pp. 275-
76.

238

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

President's decision to reaffirm a
policy of full interchange. Churchill
opened the session with a vigorous
defense of the British position, em-
phasizing his fear that unless Great
Britain had the means and knowledge
of how to develop atomic weapons,
Germany or Russia might "win the
race for something which might be
used for international blackmail." He
seemed particularly concerned about
the possible atomic threat from
Russia, which appeared to be at the
root of his worries about the postwar
world. If the United States would not
"interchange fully," he said. Great
Britain would have to undertake its
own development "parallel" to that of
the Manhattan Project, no matter how
this might affect the rest of the war
effort. 31

As diplomatically as possible, Bush
attempted to restate the American
view and to point out that the main
U.S. -British differences lay in the area
of "postwar matters." Stimson sec-
onded this approach by reading aloud
a short, clear analysis of the situation
he had written in preparation for the
meeting. 3^ The Prime Minister then
proposed a five-point agreement to
be signed by Roosevelt and himself.
Under this agreement, there would be
"free interchange" of atomic informa-
tion within a "completely joint enter-
prise"; neither government would
"use this invention against the other";
neither would "give information to
any other parties without the consent

of both"; neither would use atomic
weapons "against any other parties"
without the other's consent; and, fi-
nally, "in view of the large additional
expense incurred by the U.S.," British
commercial or industrial use "should
be limited" in whatever way the Presi-
dent deemed "fair and equitable." ^^
Stimson agreed to pass these pro-
posals on to the President. He could
not comment officially, but he was
obviously pleased. "Satisfactory at-
mosphere produced," ^^ he noted in
his diary. Bush, too, felt somewhat
better, for while the Prime Minister's
proposed free interchange still
seemed dangerous from a security
viewpoint, Churchill had made a con-
vincing disclaimer of any postwar
commercial motivations. When
Churchill received Roosevelt's 20 July
message several days after the confer-
ence, he was unable to determine
from the general terms of the mes-
sage that the President, in fact, had
completely reversed the American po-
sition. Only Roosevelt's explicit in-
structions in his 20 July letter to Bush
would have indicated this shift in
policy. But the letter of instructions,
which the OSRD cabled to Bush on
the twenty-eighth, was somehow gar-
bled in transmission or decoding; it
ordered Bush to review, rather than
renew, full interchange. Even this mild
wording gave Bush some concern, but
not nearly as much as the original
version would have.^^

3 1 Memo for File, Bundy, sub: 22 Jul 43 Mtg at 10
Downing Street, MDR. See also Bundy's penciled
notes written at the meeting, same file. On the Rus-
sian threat see Pickersgill, Mackenzie King Record, pp.
532 and 543.

3^ Stimson's penciled notes are filed in HB Files,
Fldr 47, MDR.

33 Memo for File, Bundy, sub: 22 Jul 43 Mtg at 10
Downing Street, MDR.

34 Stimson Diary, 22 Jul 43, HLS. See also draft
of Msg, Stimson to Marshall, unsigned but written
m the Secretary's hand, HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR.

35 Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 277; Msg,
President to Former Naval Person, 20 Jul 43, HLH;

Conlinued

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

239

On the same day Churchill ap-
proved a formal draft of the British
proposal, which he forwarded to
Stimson on the thirtieth. This version,
drafted by Anderson and revised by
Churchill, was basically the same as
the one the Prime Minister had pre-
sented orally. It eliminated the specif-
ic references to 'Tree interchange"
within a "completely joint enter-
prise," substituted a general state-
ment about pooling "all available
British and American brains and re-
sources," and made even more explic-
it the British disclaimer on "industrial
and commercial aspects." Sir John
Anderson would go to Washington
at once, said Churchill, to help ar-
range "for the resumption of
collaboration." ^^

Back in Washington, Bush learned
the actual wording of the President's
instructions. He also found awaiting
him a strong memorandum from
Conant, which reiterated the Harvard
president's "conviction . . . that a
complete interchange with the British
is a mistake" and authorized Bush, if
he saw fit, to quote him "on this
point to those in higher authority." ^'^
This proved unnecessary, for the Brit-
ish remained unaware of Roosevelt's

Msgs. Bush to Bundv, 27 and 28 Jul 43, HB Files,
Fidr 47, MDR; Ltr, Carroll L. Wilson (Ex Asst to
Bush) to Roosevelt, 28 Jul 43, FDR.

36 Ltr, Churchill to Stimson, [30] Jul 43 (date de-
rived from internal evidence), and Ind (draft heads
of agreement between President of the United
States of America and Prime Minister of Great Brit-
ain, 28 Jul 43), HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR. See also
Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, p. 168; Msgs,
Roosevelt to Churchill, 26 Jul 43, and Churchill to
Roosevelt, 29 Jul 43, FDR.

^■'Memo, Conant to Bush, sub: Exchange of Info
on S-1 Proj With British, 30 Jul 43, HB Files, Fldr
47, MDR.

actual position and continued negoti-
ating on the basis of American policy
as explained by Bush in London.

With the approval of Secretary
Stimson, Bush carried out final nego-
tiations with Anderson. He kept in
close touch with the Secretary,
Bundy, and General Marshall — Vice
President Wallace and General
Groves were out of town — and espe-
cially with Conant, who participated
in the opening talks with Anderson
on 3 August. Stimson and Marshall
also had lunch with the British repre-
sentative, but their conversation ap-
pears to have been more of a general
discussion than a bargaining session.

On the sixth, after an exchange of
letters. Bush and Anderson came to a
meeting of minds on a proposed
agreement to be signed by Roosevelt
and Churchill. This agreement was
based on the four-point draft
Churchill had sent Stimson a week
earher, but added a fifth section "to
ensure full and effective collabora-
tion." This section provided for es-
tablishment of the Combined Policy
Committee, which would determine
the role of each country, maintain an
overall review of the project, allocate
critical supplies, and have the final
say in interpreting the joint agree-
ment. There would be interchange on
all sections of the project. Details
would be regulated by ad hoc agree-
ments, subject to committee approval,
and Bush stipulated that information
made available to committee mem-
bers would be general in nature. An-
derson also agreed that the commit-
tee would not interfere with the

240

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Army's control of the Manhattan
Project.^®

The next day, Bush forwarded the
draft agreement and copies of his cor-
respondence with Anderson to the
President. He acknowledged the de-
layed directive of 20 July sent to him
by Roosevelt, but then went on to
state his conviction that his under-
standing with Anderson "provided
adequately for appropriate inter-
change, with due regard to the main-
tenance of security, and with the
object of providing the British with all
of the information they can utilize in
this connection in the prosecution of
the war, in return for the benefit of
the deliberations of their own scientif-
ic and technical groups." ^^ In a sepa-
rate note to Bundy, Bush urged that
Secretary Stimson "impress upon the
President" the desirability of limiting
agreements to wartime objectives and
the dangers of making commitments
for the postwar period. "^^

General Marshall, too, urged cau-
tion, and Bundy strongly recommend-
ed to Stimson that the President talk
with Bush, or at least carefully read
the Bush-Anderson correspondence,
before signing any agreement with

**Ltrs, Anderson to Bush, 4 (source of quotation)
and 6 Aug 43, and Bush to Anderson, 6 Aug 43,
HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; Ltr, Bush lo Anderson,
3 Aug 43, and IncI (extracts from report dated 15
Dec 42), copy in U.S. Department of State, Confer-
ences at Washington and Quebec, 19-43. Foreign Rela-
tions of the United States, [Diplomatic Papers],
1943 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1970), pp. 640-41; Memo, Conant to Bush,
sub: Exchange of Info on S-1 Proj With British, 6
Aug 43, HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR; Ltr, Bush to Presi-
dent, 7 Aug 43, FDR; Stimson Diary, 5 Aug 43.
HLS; Groves Diary, 3-6 Aug 43, LRG. See also
Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 277-79;
Gowing, Bntam and Atomic Energy, pp. 168-71.

3» Ltr, Bush to President, 7 Aug 43. FDR.

*° Ltr, Bush to Bundy, 6 Aug 43, HB Files, Fldr
47, MDR.

Churchill. He emphasized to the Sec-
retary that Bush and Conant were
trying to protect Roosevelt from any
possible charges that he was exceed-
ing his legal authority or acting from
any other motivation than a desire to
win the war. Strongly impressed by
Bundy's urging, Stimson went to the
White House on 10 August, deter-
mined to make these points. Whether
or not he did is unclear, but he did
describe the negotiations with
Churchill and raise at least one
caveat. He asked the President wheth-
er a problem might arise from
Churchill's proposal that neither
country would use atomic energy
against third parties without the con-
sent of the other. Roosevelt indicated
he saw no danger in the provision. '^^
Even as Stimson met with
Roosevelt, the Prime Minister was set-
tling himself in Quebec, in prepara-
tion for meeting with the President at
the Quadrant Conference that would
begin in a few days. Only then did
General Groves, who had been busy
on inspection trips to the West Coast
and New York, learn of the forthcom-
ing conference and realize the pro-
posed agreement would be discussed.
More than half a year had passed
since the President had had a report
on the Manhattan Project from the
Military Policy Committee, and
Groves felt Roosevelt should have an
up-to-date summary before his meet-
ing with Churchill. Groves drew up a
twenty-page report; cleared it with the
committee; and, on 21 August, with-

■'^ Memo, Bundy to Stimson, 6-7 Aug 43, and at-
tached penciled notes by Stimson; Memo, Bundy to
Marshall, 6 Aug 43, and penned comment by Mar-
shall. Both in HB Files, Fldr 47, MDR. See also
Stimson Diary, 10 Aug 43. HLS.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

241

out showing it to Wallace or Stimson,
directed Colonel Nichols to hand
carry it to General Marshall in
Quebec, where Quadrant was already
under way. The report, which covered
all Manhattan activities, included a
brief summary of relations with the
British and, in the light of the Bush-
Anderson negotiations, asked the
President for further instructions. But
when Colonel Nichols arrived in
Quebec with the document. General
Marshall informed him that Roosevelt
and Churchill had already signed an
agreement on atomic energy. '^^

The two leaders had approved the
proposed agreement at Hyde Park,
where Churchill had visited Roosevelt
from 12 to 14 August.*^ But it was
not until the nineteenth, in Quebec's
historic fortress known as The Cita-
del, that they actually affixed their
signatures to the "Articles of Agree-
ment Governing Collaboration Be-
tween the Authorities of the U.S.A.
and the U.K. in the Matter of Tube
Alloys," or, simply, the Quebec
Agreement. It called for the earliest
possible completion of the Tube
Alloys project, ruled out "duplicate
plants on a large scale on both sides
of the Atlantic," and acknowledged
the "far greater expense" borne by
the United States. It agreed "never"
to "use this agency against each
other" and "not to use it against third
parties without each other's consent,"
and it prohibited giving "any informa-
tion about Tube Alloys to third par-
ties except by mutual consent." In
view of the heavier burden carried by

*2 MPC Rpt, 21 Aug 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp,
MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab E, MDR; Groves, AW It Can
Be Told, p. 135; Groves Diary, 4-23 Aug 43, LRG;
MPC Min, 13 Aug 43, MDR.

" Pickersgill, Mackenzie King Record, p. 543.

the United States, "any post-war ad-
vantages of an industrial or commer-
cial character" would be "dealt with
... on terms to be specified by the
President . . . ," and the Prime Min-
ister specifically disclaimed "any in-
terest" in them "beyond what may be
considered by the President ... to
be fair and just and in harmony with
the economic welfare of the world."
Finally, using the Bush-Anderson ar-
rangement for interchange as the
basis, the Quebec Agreement estab-
lished the Combined Policy Commit-
tee in Washington, D.C., and desig-
nated six members.

On the choice of members,
Roosevelt apparently did not consult
any of his advisers, except possibly
Hopkins. American members were
Stimson, Bush, and Conant; British
members were Field Marshal Sir John
Dill, head of the British Joint Staff
Mission in Washington, and Col. John
J. Llewellin, Washington representa-
tive of the British Ministry of Supply.
The sixth member was Canada's Min-
ister of Munitions and Supply, Clar-
ence D. Howe, an American-born en-
gineer whose appointment Churchill
had cleared earlier with Mackenzie
King. The British had felt that the Ca-
nadians, even though they were not
a party to the Quebec Agreement,
should have representation on the
high-level committee because they
would be making important contribu-
tions to the atomic energy project
in Montreal.

The Quebec Agreement set the of-
ficial basis for Anglo-American atomic
relations for the rest of the wartime
period. It did not establish the free
and open interchange the British had
desired and that the President,

242

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

indeed, had offered in his letter of
20 July. It called for "full and effec-
tive collaboration," and both Roose-
velt and Churchill believed they had
provided the basis for it; however, in
reality, collaboration would comprise
only what was necessary for the war
effort, avoiding any form of inter-
change that might conceivably hinder
progress of the Manhattan Project/^

Implementing the Agreement

Combined Policy Committee

Despite pressure by Bush and Gen-
eral Marshall, and the presence in
Washington of Akers and four leading
British scientists who were anxious to
implement interchange,^^ two weeks
passed before the President revealed
the details of the Quebec Agreement
to Manhattan officials, including par-
ticulars on the Combined Policy Com-
mittee. With Churchill visiting at the
White House, the President first
wanted the Prime Minister's concur-
rence in the contents of the Military
Policy Committee's report before any
meeting of the new committee took
place. '^^

"■•The American original of the Qiiebec Agree-
ment is in HB Files, Fldr 49. MDR. The full text
was published in the Xew York Times, 6 Apr 54. A
copy of the agreement is also in U.S. Department of
State, Conferences at Washington and Quebec. 1943, pp.
1117-19. Available records do not indicate that
Roosevelt discussed the Quebec Agreement with
any American from the time of his conference with
Stimson on 10 August until after the document was
signed.

"^Sir Francis Simon of Oxford University, Sir
James Chadwick of Cambridge University, and Sir
Rudolph E. Peierls and Marcus L. f2. Oliphant, both
working at the University of Birmingham.

*«MPC Rpt 21 Aug 43, MDR; Memo, Bush to
President, sub: Tube Alloys-Interchange With Brit-
ish, 23 Aug 43, HLH; Memo, Marshall to President,
6 Sep 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr

On 8 September, after lunch at the
White House, Stimson discussed the
Quebec Agreement with Roosevelt
and Churchill. Having learned only
that morning that he was to be chair-
man of the Combined Policy Commit-
tee, he asked permission to name ASF
chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Wilhelm D.
Styer, as his deputy — a request the
President and Prime Minister readily
approved. ^"^

An hour or so later, the first infor-
mal meeting of the Combined Policy
Committee took place in the Penta-
gon. One reason for the hasty con-
vening was to accommodate the four
British scientists, waiting impatiently
to exchange data. Bush was out of
town and Howe had not yet arrived
from Canada, but Stimson, Conant,
Dill, and Llewellin proceeded without
them. General Styer was also present,
as was Bundy, acting as secretary.
They formed a technical subcommit-
tee, with Styer as chairman, to make
recommendations on the American
and British programs, to prepare di-
rectives for interchange of research
and development data, and to pro-
pose ad hoc arrangements for inter-
change in the area of plant design,
construction, and operation. The sub-
committee consisted of three scien-
tists who had a thorough knowledge
of the American, British, and Canadi-
an projects — Richard C. Tolman, who

25E, MDR; Memo, Col Frank McCarthy (Gen Staff
Secy, OCS) to Marshall, 6 Sep 43 (with Marshall's
penned endorsement to Bundy), and Ltr, Dill to
Marshall. 7 Sep 43, HB Files, Fldr 7, MDR; Stimson
Diary, 7 Sep 43, HLS; Ltr, Bush to Styer, 20 Aug
43. Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201 (Bush), MDR;
paraphrase of Msg, Lord President to Prime Minis-
ter, 28 Aug 43, HLH.

*7 Stimson Dairy, 8 Sep 43, HLS: Memo, J. M. M.
[Martin] to Prime Minister, sub: 1 ube Alloys, 9 Sep
43, HLH.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

243

was General Groves's scientific advis-
er; Sir James Chadwick, the eminent
British physicist; and C. J. Mackenzie
of the Canadian National Research
Council. Despite some hesitation by
Dill and Llewellin about delegating
their authority, the Combined Policy
Committee authorized the subcom-
mittee to act independently on inter-
change whenever there was unan-
imous agreement among its four
members.'*^

Working Out Interchange Arrangements

Styer's subcommittee met on 10
September, to consider a plan drafted
by General Groves and submitted by
the Military Policy Committee. Be-
cause this plan hewed fairly closely to
the earlier American proposals on in-
terchange, it fell considerably short of
what the British desired. On weapon
development it recommended assign-
ment of two British scientists to Los
Alamos under the same security re-
strictions governing American scien-
tists there. On the gaseous diffusion
and heavy water pile processes it sug-
gested interchange of scientific infor-
mation through a joint committee. On
the centrifuge and thermal diffusion
processes, which would probably soon
be dropped, Styer's subcommittee
should decide whether interchange
"might affect this decision." As for
the electromagnetic and graphite pile
processes, on which the British had
done little work, interchange would
serve no useful purpose, for these
methods had reached the stage where

changes "would result in serious
delay in completion.'"*^

The subcommittee, largely at the
insistence of Chadwick, recommended
some modifications to the plan favor-
able to the British view. On the gase-
ous diffusion and heavy water pile
processes, interchange should extend
to some aspects of development and
production. There should be ex-
change of scientific data on the
graphite pile to the extent it might be
helpful in the Anglo-Canadian devel-
opment of the heavy water pile pro-
cess. Chadwick's contention that the
British might be able to contribute to
development of the electromagnetic
process should be explored by a com-
mittee consisting of Groves, Tolman,
and Australian physicist Marcus L. E.
Oliphant. In keeping with the Military
Policy Committee's recommendations,
the subcommittee reached agreement
on possible personnel for other com-
mittees or representation needed to
carry out interchange on the various
processes. Chadwick and Sir Rudolph
E. Peierls, the University of Birming-
ham physicist, would serve as British
representatives at Los Alamos; von
Halban with Metallurgical Project Di-
rector Arthur Compton, or one of his
principal assistants, as a committee to
exchange data on the heavy water pile
process; Sir Francis E. Simon, physi-
cist at Oxford's Clarendon Laborato-
ry, and Peierls with Keith, the Kellex
head, and Urey on a gaseous
diffusion committee; and Oliphant,
Simons, and Peierls on a committee
with American representatives desig-

ns cpc Min, 8 Sep 43, and Ltr, Llewellin to
Bundy, 10 Sep 43, HB Files, Fldr 9, MDR. See also
earlier draft of Bundy's minutes, same file. Stimson
Diary, 8 Sep 43, MDR.

"^MPC Min, 9 Sep 43 (source of quotation),
MDR; Tech Subcommittee Min, 10 Sep 43, HB
Files, Fldr 28, MDR. See also MFC Rpt, 15 Dec 42,
MDR.

244

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Sir James Chadwick (left) consulting with General Groves and Richard Tolman on
Anglo-American interchange

nated by Bush or Conant to decide
the extent of interchange on the
centrifuge and thermal diffusion
processes. ^°

Despite the considerable progress
made by the subcommittee, there was
little specific interchange in the weeks
that followed. Part of the difficulty lay
in the lack of specific working proce-
dures. To set these up, Tolman went
to England in October to consult with
Chadwick and other British scientists
and with Sir John Anderson. General
Groves, who was becoming increas-
ingly impatient to implement inter-
change in those areas where it was
sanctioned, closely monitored Tol-
man's negotiations from his Washing-
ton office and attempted to facilitate

Anglo-American coordination by keep-
ing members of the Military and Com-
bined Policy Committees regularly
informed.^ ^

50 Tech Subcommittee Min, 10 Sep 43, MDR.

5^ In Admin, Files, Gen Corresp, MDR, see fol-
lowing files: 334 (British Interchange), for informa-
tion on Tolman's trip; 201 (Conant) for Memo,
Groves to Conant, 2 Nov 43; 680.2 for Ltrs, Llewel-
lin to Groves, 10 Nov 43, with enclosed draft, and
Groves to LleweUin, 12 Nov 43; 371.2 (Scty) for
Ltrs, Capt Horace K. Calvert (Intel and Scty Sec
chief) to Lt Col John Lansdale (Groves's Spec Asst
for Scty), sub: Visit of British Natls to DSM Proj
7 Oct 43, and Maj Robert S. Furman (Groves's Spec
Proj Off) to Calvert, same sub, 21 Oct 43. See also
MPC Min, 14 Dec 43 (with Memo, Groves to MPC,
10 Dec 43, as Att. 1), MDR; Memo, Styer to CPC,
14 Dec 43, HB Files, Fldr 28, MDR; CPC Min, 17
Dec 43, HB Files, Fldr 10, MDR; MPC Rpt, 4 Feb
44, Incl to Ltr, Groves (for MPC) to President, same
date, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25,
Tab C, MDR; Groves Diary, 27 Oct, 2 and 4 Nov
43, LRG. For the British perspective on drawing up

Continued

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

245

When Groves received word that
another team of British scientists
soon would be arriving in the United
States, the need for a speedy proce-
dural agreement on interchange
became even more critical to him. Yet
not until mid-December were the
British and Americans able to com-
plete interchange procedures. With
the approval of the Military and Com-
bined Policy Committees, the new
procedures went into effect on the
fourteenth. Naming Chadwick as the
"immediate scientific adviser to the
British members" of the Combined
Policy Committee, the terms of this
agreement permitted that he have
"access" to all work on "research and
plant scale" on both sides of the At-
lantic. The slight and unassuming
Cambridge professor, who, surpris-
ingly enough, got along exceptionally
well with the robust and outspoken
Groves, would also help guide experi-
mental work at Los Alamos, where he
would be joined by a small number of
other British scientists. Peierls, and
one or two others, would work with
Kellex on the diffusion process and
also would discuss theoretical prob-
lems of bomb construction with
American scientists; he could not,
however, visit Los Alamos. Oliphant
and six assistants would work with
Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley on re-
search and design and then move to
Los Alamos to assist on ordnance
problems. Oliphant would continue
his close contacts with the electro-
magnetic project during production
and would be free to visit England to

interchange arrangenienls see Cowing, Britain and
Atomic Enngy, pp. 23S-S4. Colonel Llewellin was re-
placed on the CPC bv Sir Ronald I. Campbell, a vet-
eran member of the British embassy stafT in
Washington.

supervise any similar research there.
About fifteen British scientists and in-
dustrialists, led by Akers, would ex-
change information on diffusion at
Columbia University and Kellex. Re-
search on heavy water piles at Mon-
treal would be continued under a
joint program to be worked out with
those doing similar work in the
United States. ^^

This arrangement was, in effect, the
implementation of the Quebec Agree-
ment. While it did not actually pro-
vide full information exchange, it
went further than most members of
the Manhattan Project administrative
staff would have preferred. Certainly
the arrangements were more liberal
than Groves would have wished, al-
though he later claimed full credit for
having drawn up these "rules regulat-
ing the . . . British scientists." ^^
While anxious to get any British help
that might speed the progress of the
American program, he was generally
opposed to providing Great Britain
with anything more than was abso-
lutely necessary to gain this aid. "I
was not responsible for our close co-
operation with the British," he assert-
ed a decade later. "I did everything to
hold back on it." ^^

By the end of January 1944, eigh-
teen British scientists had reached
New York, Washington, D.C., Berke-
ley, and Los Alamos, and more were
expected. Only one problem re-
mained outstanding, namely, arrange-
ments for cooperation between the
Montreal and Chicago scientists on

52 Memo, Croves to MPC, 10 Dec 43, Att. 1,
MDR; MPC Min, 14 Dec 43, MDR; Cowing, Britain
and Atomic Energy, pp. 234 and 236-37.

*3 Croves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 136-37.

** Oppenheimer Hearing, p. 175.

246

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

pile research. Around the middle of
the month, senior members of both
groups had discussed a joint program
of research that would lead to the
construction of a heavy water pile.
Yet to Manhattan leaders in Washing-
ton, it seemed doubtful the venture
would be of significant value during
the war, and Groves and Conant, at
least, preferred that it should not
begin. ^^

On 17 February, however, at the
next meeting of the Combined Policy
Committee, Chadwick pressed for ap-
proval of a Canadian heavy water pile
to undertake large-scale production of
plutonium. Great Britain and Canada
would provide the funds, the United
States the heavy water, and the three
nations would exercise joint control
over the project. Neither Groves, who
was not a committee member, nor
Styer was present, but Bush and
Conant apparently raised some ques-
tions. Would the project result in mili-
tarily significant production before the
end of the war? Was it advisable to use
up resources, especially ore? The com-
mittee turned the problems over to a
subcommittee composed of Groves,
Chadwick, and Mackenzie. ^^

The subcommittee discussed a
heavy water pile with Compton,
Fermi, and others at Chicago and
with von Halban and his colleagues at
Montreal. Then, on 6 April, it submit-
ted its report to the Combined Policy
Committee. The Hanford Engineer

ss MPC Rpt, 4 Feb 44, MDR; Laurence, "Can-
ada's Participation in Atomic Energy Development,"
p. 325; Hewlett and Anderson, \ew World, p. 282.

56 CPC Min, 17 Feb 44, OCG Files, Gen Corresp.
MP Files, Fldr 9, Tab B, MDR; Stimson Diary,
17 Feb 44, HLS; Hewlett and Anderson, Xerv World,
pp. 282-83.

Works, the subcommittee concluded,
would produce enough plutonium to
satisfy "essential military needs" for
the war, and production at the pro-
posed Canadian plant could not begin
in time "to have an appreciable influ-
ence on the outcome of the present
war." On the other hand, the poten-
tialities of the heavy water pile were
so great that its development could
not be "wholly neglected." Accord-
ingly, it recommended continued re-
search and development at both Chi-
cago and Montreal, with an increased
staff and the appointment of a direc-
tor for the Canadian project; the
design and construction of a heavy
water pilot pile in Canada by the
United States, Great Britain, and
Canada; and future consideration of a
small production pile when the exper-
imental stage was further advanced. A
week later the Combined Policy Com-
mittee adopted this program, and in
the ensuing months Groves, Chad-
wick, and Mackenzie continued to
keep an eye on the project for the
committee and see to it that the ap-
proved recommendations were car-
ried out.^''^

The new Montreal director was
physicist John D. Cockcroft, and his
staff was rapidly reinforced with Brit-
ish and Canadian scientists. In early
May, as plans for construction of the
pilot plant matured. General Groves
approved an isolated site previously
selected by the Canadians, near Chalk
River, Ontario, on the south bank of
the Ottawa River and about 1 10 miles

^'' Rpt, Groves, Chadwick, and Mackenzie to CPC,
sub: Joint Development of Heavy Water Pile, 6 Apr
44, HB Files, Fldr 28 (also in Fldr 103), MDR. See
also CPC Min, 13 Apr 44, DS, and pertinent docu-
ments in HB Files, Fldrs 12 and 105, MDR.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

247

northwest of the Canadian capital.
{See Map 2.) Late in the month, Cock-
croft, von Halban, and others from
Montreal visited Chicago. A second
meeting was held in Montreaf two
weeks later. Discussion was limited by
the rules governing interchange that
Groves, Chadwick, and Mackenzie
were in the process of drafting. These
regulations, which the Combined
Policy Committee approved formally
on 19 September, limited interchange
to information necessary for the
design, construction, and operation of
the Chalk River pilot plant. Scientists
at Montreal could learn about the
pilot pile at Clinton and the research
piles at Argonne, and receive basic
scientific data essential to the heavy
water pile. They were not to be fur-
nished with information about pro-
duction plant construction at Hanford
or the chemistry of plutonium or the
method of separating that element,
because these developments were not
necessary for work at Chalk River. Fi-
nally, the regulations directed that the
Montreal group should establish strict
security in the transmittal of all data.
General Groves designated Maj.
Horace S. Benbow as his liaison offi-
cer at Montreal, or Evergreen, to use
its code name, and directed that the
Chicago area engineer handle all Ev-
ergreen requests. For scientific liai-
son. Groves assigned physicist Wil-
liam W. Watson and chemical engi-
neer J. R. Huffman to report directly
to him rather than the Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory director.^®

The policy established in the spring
of 1944 for interchange on the Cana-
dian project completed the arrange-
ments approved the previous Decem-
ber for Anglo-American information
exchange on atomic energy and ful-
filled the terms of the Quebec Agree-
ment of August 1943. British scien-
tists were now working with Ameri-
cans in the United States on several
phases of the overall program and
were reviewing a limited amount of
information. In the remaining months
of the war, Anglo-American relations
steadily improved, although, inevita-
bly, minor problems arose. ^^

Patent Problems

One of the problems relating to in-
terchange with which the Combined
Policy Committee had to concern
itself periodically during 1943 and
1944 was patent rights. The United
States and Great Britain in August
1942 had concluded an executive
agreement on exchange of patent
rights that provided a general basis
for negotiating more specific arrange-
ments applicable to particular areas of
interchange.^^ At the time of this agree-

58 Rpt, A. W. Nielson and W. H. Sullivan, sub:
Review of Liaison Activities Between Canadian and
United States Atomic Energy Projs, 19 Feb 47, HB
Files, Fldr 103, MDR; Rpt (to CPC), sub: Progress
on Canadian NRX Proj, 24 Aug 44, HB Files, Fldr
103, MDR; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4, "Auxiliary Activi-

ties," Ch. 9, DASA; MPC Min, 10 May 44, MDR;
DSM Chronology, 7 and 15 Jun 44, each Sec. 15,
8 Jun 44, Sec. 2(b), and 12 Jun 44, Sec. 7, OROO;
CPC Min, 19 Sep 44, HB Files, Fldr 13, MDR;
Groves Diary, May-Jun 44, LRG; Ltr, Howe to W.
L. Webster (British Supply Council in North Amer-
ica), 29 Apr 44, HB Files, Fldr 12, MDR. See also
Evergreen progress reports, etc., HB Files, Fldr 32,
MDR.

*'For details on British implementation of inter-
change see Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, pp.
239-44.

^"U.S. Department of State, Interchange of Patent
Rights, Information, Inventions, Designs, or Processes:
Agreement Between the United States of America and Great
Britain, Signed at Washington, August 24, 1942, Execu-
tive Agreement Series 268, Pub 1803.

248

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

ment, Sir John Anderson had suggest-
ed to Bush the adoption of a joint
patent policy relating specifically to
atomic energy as an important aspect
of international control. Bush, howev-
er, did not think the time was propi-
tious for establishing such a policy;
instead, he recommended that partici-
pating countries could facilitate even-
tual estblishment of controls by
seeing to it that most patent rights
concerning atomic energy within their
own borders were publicly owned. ^^

The need for patent arrangements
became even more obvious after the
signing of the Quebec Agreement.
With scientists of both countries
working together, a common policy
was necessary to protect both individ-
ual and national rights. Secrecy and
security aspects further complicated
the difficult technicalities inherent in
all patent matters.

In the fall of 1943, Arthur Blok,
patent expert in the British Depart-
ment of Scientific and Industrial Re-
search, and Capt. Robert A. Laven-
der, retired American naval officer
who advised Bush and later Groves
on patent questions, attempted to
reach some agreement. They conclud-
ed that the 1942 agreement did not
apply to atomic developments and
drew up a new proposal. ^^ When

" Ltr, Anderson to Bush. 5 Aug 42, MDR; Hew-
lett and Anderson, New World, pp. 262-63.

*^Ltr, Blok and Lavender to CPC Subcommittee,
1 Oct 43 (recommendations were shown to Chad-
wick but submitted directly to the CPC, because
Styer's group was not familiar enough with patent
problems to add anything to basic suggestions);
Memo, Webster to Bundy, sub: Memo on Patents
Signed by Arthur Blok and Capt Robert A. Laven-
der, 7 Mar 44. Both in HB Files, Fldr 18, MDR.
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 418-20.

Bush pointed out certain inadequacies
in the Blok-Lavender proposal at
the Combined Policy Committee on
13 April 1944, the committee referred
the problem to its recently appointed
joint secretaries, Harvey Bundy and
W. L. Webster of the British Supply
Council. During the summer the two
men studied the question, conferring
frequently with Lavender, Blok, Bush,
and others; and in September, they
drew up a lengthy administrative pro-
cedure, which the committee ap-
proved at its meeting on the nine-
teenth. But project lawyers found that
the procedure was in conflict with the
United States patent law, and not
until February 1945 was it properly
amended. As finally approved at
the 8 March committee meeting, the
arrangement was still an ad hoc proce-
dure, neither final nor complete, leav-
ing the negotiation of a permanent
settlement to the future.®^

New Partnership Strains: Repatriation
of French Scientists

The liberation of France following
the Allied invasion of Western
Europe in the summer of 1944 placed
new strains upon the British-Ameri-
can atomic partnership.®'* The imme-

"In HB Files, MDR, see followmg files: Fldr 18
for Memo, Bundy and Webster to CPC, sub: Certain
Aspects of Patent Matters Arising from Special Proj,
18 Sep 44 (containing drafts and related corre-
spondence); Fldr 47 for Ltrs, Webster to Howe,
26 Aug 44, and Howe to Webster, 29 Aug 44; Fldr
13 for CPC Min, 19 Sep 44; Fldr 18 for Memo,
Bundy to Lavender, sub: Annex A to CPC Memo, 2
Apr 45 (containing drafts and related correspond-
ence); and Fldr 46 (copy in Fldr 105) for CPC Min,
8 Mar 45.

^■^ Except as indicated, section on problem with
French scientists based on HB Files, Fldr 36 (French
Situation) and Fldr 55 (S-1 U.S. Cables), MDR;

Continued

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

249

diate source of the dispute was the
repatriation of five French scientists —
Hans von Halban, Pierre Auger, Lew
Kowarski, Jules Gueron, and Bertrand
Goldschmidt — who had fled to Eng-
land from France after the German
invasion in 1940 and then gone on to
Montreal in 1943 to work in the Ca-
nadian atomic program. When they
began to apply for permission to visit
or return permanently to their home-
land, American atomic leaders con-
tended such visits posed too great a
security risk, particularly because
physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie, head
of the French atomic program, was
known to be a member of the Com-
munist Party.

The Americans, and especially Gen-
eral Groves, took the view that the
French should not be allowed to go
back to France until the war was over.
In May 1944, when Pierre Auger ter-
minated his employment with the Ca-
nadian project, citing a desire to
return to France to assist Joliot-Curie
in rebuilding French science, Groves
and the British representatives in
America agreed that neither he nor
any of the other French scientists in
Canada should be permitted to do so
and that measures should be taken to
prevent any atomic information from
reaching that country. Nevertheless,
when Auger went to London in
August to become a full-time member

OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 12 (Intel
and Scty), Fldr 16 (Special Rpts), and Fldr 26,
MDR; Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World, pp. 331-
35; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 224-29; Ber-
trand Goldschmidt, The Atomic Adventure: Its Political
and Technical Aspects, trans. Peter Beer (Oxford, Eng-
land, and New York: Pergamon Press and Macmillan
Co., 1964), pp. 12-43; Wilfrid Eggleston, Canada's
Xuclear Story (London: Harrap Research Publica-
tions, 1966), pp. 29-181; Gowing, Britain and Atomic
Energy, pp. 289-96 and 343-46.

of the French Scientific Mission in
that city, British authorities permitted
him to visit France.

In October, Gueron requested per-
mission to visit France on personal
matters. Groves, who had learned that
Gueron planned to see Joliot-Curie,
opposed the visit because Gueron
knew a great deal about the atomic
project and was reputed to be an
"ardent Free Frenchman" and sup-
porter of General Charles de Gaulle.
But British authorities indicated they
had agreed to let Gueron go. When
Groves learned this, he determined to
have the French scientist kept under
surveillance by Manhattan security
personnel while in France. The Brit-
ish objected strongly. Gueron was "a
man of integrity," they asserted, and
ought not to be treated as if he were
a prisoner. ^^

Manhattan leaders interpreted
these British actions to be a clear vio-
lation of the terms of the Quebec
Agreement, which forbade communi-
cation of atomic information to third
parties without mutual consent, and
requested the American ambassador
in London, John G. Winant, to secure
an explanation. Sir John Anderson re-
plied that the British had made agree-
ments with the French scientists
before they went to Canada. The first
to come to England — von Halban and
Kowarski — had negotiated an agree-
ment for exchange of patent rights re-
lating to atomic energy between
France and the United Kingdom.
Later when Auger, Gueron, and
Goldschmidt reached England, they
had worked out employment arrange-

^^ Quotations from General Groves's memoran-
dum (26 Dec 44) to Secretary of War on French sit-
uation, HB Files. Fldr 36. Tab K, MDR.

250

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

mcnts that assured them their right to
return to France as soon as the war
made it feasible and also their status
as French civil servants and as adher-
ents of General de Gaulle and the
Free French. Because the French sci-
entists had made a "very special con-
tribution" to the Tube Alloys project,
in the form of "research already start-
ed by Joliot and by his action at the
time when France was over-run," Sir
John contended the French had "a
better claim than any other fourth
country to participate in any post-war
T. A. arrangements," and he did not
think it wise to embark on a course of
action that would "lead the French
authorities to raise the matter prema-
turely and with a sense of grievance
already established." ^^

Anderson's revelation came as a
shock to leaders of the American pro-
gram. Except for some information
on British acquisition of rights under
von Halban's patents that Vannevar
Bush had learned about earlier, they
had known nothing about the agree-
ments between the British and French
scientists. Sir John had not mentioned
them during negotiations for the
Quebec Agreement, yet, as Groves
saw it, these third-party obligations
were in obvious contradiction to that
agreement. He also thought Sir John
was wrong to feel he had to placate
Joliot-Curie and furnish him with in-
formation about the American
project.

*^ Sir John Anderson's reply was sent in the form
of an aide-memoire, a copy of which is in HB Files,
Fldr 18, Tab J, MDR. See also at Tab J, Memo,
Groves to Winant, 31 Oct 44, and Incl (comments
by Maj William A. Consodine, a Manhattan security
officer). Consodine explains how he obtained a copy
of the aide-memoire for the Manhattan commander in
Memo (extract), Consodine to Groves, received on
28 Oct 44, HB Files, Fldr 107, MDR.

Consequently, Groves expressed
some reluctance in consenting to a
British request in November 1944
that von Halban be allowed to visit
London, with the understanding that
the French scientist would not be al-
lowed to go to France. But as soon as
von Halban arrived in England, Sir
John went to Ambassador Winant
with the plea that von Halban should
be permitted to see Joliot-Curie to
ensure preservation of the status quo
with France. Faced with Sir John's in-
sistent request, Winant asked Groves
to come to London to talk with the
Chancellor, but Groves did not go be-
cause he was too involved in urgent
atomic project matters. Under con-
tinuing pressure from Sir John,
Winant finally consented to von Hal-
ban's visit to Paris. The British pro-
vided the French scientist with an
agenda establishing limits for infor-
mation about the American atomic
project that he was to give to Joliot-
Curie, but Manhattan intelligence
agents learned subsequently that von
Halban had furnished the French
atomic chief with much additional
highly secret data about the American
project. There were strong indica-
tions, too, that Joliot-Curie himself
was shortly going to request assign-
ment to work on the Manhattan
Project. ^^

When Groves learned of von Hal-
ban's visit more than a week after it

®^ See correspondence relating to von Halban
case in OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, MDR. In
Fldr 26, Tab I, especially Memo, Lansdale to
Groves, 2 Dec 44; Draft Transcription of Lansdale
Notes and Rpt, Hans [von] Halban to Akers, sub:
Nov 24-Dec 5 Visit to France, 5 Dec 44. In Fldr 16,
Tab A, Ltr, Richard W. Perrin to W. L. Gorell
Barnes (both British Foreign Svc officials), 8 Dec
44.

ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

251

had taken place, he determined to
bring an end to what he perceived as
a deliberate British policy to secure
postwar commercial advantage in the
atomic energy field largely at the ex-
pense of the United States. As Groves
saw it, Anderson was continuing to
permit disclosure to the French of im-
portant information relating to atomic
research that had been "developed by
Americans with American money, and
given to the British pursuant to inter-
change agreements subsidiary to the
Quebec Agreement." ^®

On 14 December, Groves wrote to
the Secretary of War, stating that
"pending the receipt of instructions
from you, 1 will take steps to safe-
guard the security of the DSM project
by delaying insofar as practicable the
passing of vital information concern-
ing it to the representatives of any
government other than our own." ^^
Stimson met with Groves, Bundy, and
Harrison the next day. He informed
them he would take the matter up
with the President at the earliest op-
portunity. He instructed Groves to
prepare a complete resume of the
French situation and requested Bundy
to notify Ambassador Winant that,
until the Combined Policy Committee
met to discuss the situation, he
should refer to Washington "any fur-
ther British proposals for disclosures
or contacts which might lead to dis-
closures to the French. . . ." "^^

^^ Memo, Groves to Secy War, 26 Dec 44, HB
Files, Fldr 36. Tab K, MDR; Groves, Xow It Can Be
Told. pp. 226-27.

«9 Ltr, Groves to Secy War, 14 Dec 44, HB Files,
Fldr 36, Tab I., MDR.

'^° Msgs, Bundy (sent by Groves) to Winant,
26 Dec 44 (source of quotation), and Winant to
WD, 27 Dec 44, HB Files, Fldr 55, MDR; Stimson
Diary, 15 Dec 44, HI.S. Groves's rcsuinc is in
Memo, Groves to Secy War, 26 Dec 44, MDR.

It was not until 30 December that
Stimson was able to see the President.
Groves accompanied the Secretary to
the White House and the two re-
viewed for Roosevelt the entire
French problem, emphasizing that
Anderson appeared to have deliber-
ately deceived Winant and other
American representatives in England
regarding Britain's commitments on
atomic energy matters to France.
Roosevelt's reaction was that Winant
had been "hoodwinked." What, he
wished to know, were the French
after? Stimson and Groves said they
believed France wanted to secure a
full partnership in the tripartite
atomic agreement. Roosevelt indicat-
ed that France in its current unstable
political situation was not a suitable
partner and, even if it were, he saw
no justification for letting it share in
the partnership. The discussion then
turned to other matters relating to
the atomic energy program.'^

With the backing of the President,
Stimson and Groves, assisted by
Bundy, endeavored to prevent further
disclosures of atomic secrets to the
French during the winter and spring
of 1945.'^ They had a statement ap-

" Memo, StiiTison, sub: Conf With President,
30 Dec 44; Memo for File, Groves, 30 Dec 44;
Memo, Groves to Chief of Staff, 30 Dec 44; Notes
by Stimson To Aid in Preparation of Agenda for
Mtg of President and Secy War with Groves. All in
OCG Files. Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 24, MDR.
Stimson and Groves Diaries, 30 Dec 44, HLS and
I.RG.

'2 In HB Files, MDR, see the following files: Fldr
14 (copies in Fldrs 22 and 105) for CPC Min, 22 Jan
45; Fldr 46, Tab C, for Memo, Howe to CPC, 6 Mar
45; Fldr 103 for Ltr, Mackenzie to Stimson, 8 Mar
45; and Fldr 107 for Memo, Groves to Secy War, 13
May 45, and Incl, Ltr, Chadwick to Groves, 8 May
45. See also Stimson Diary, 19 and 22 Jan 45, HLS.
The Secretary of War makes no mention in his diary
of later developments in the French situation in the
spring and summer of 1945.

252

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

proved by the Combined Policy Com-
mittee for Sir John Anderson to use
if, as anticipated, the French request-
ed full participation in the atomic
energy program. The gist of this
statement was that, for reasons of
security, all detailed discussion of
atomic matters with the French must
be postponed until the end of the
war, when the British would guaran-
tee "fair treatment of any claims
. . . relating to commercial or indus-
trial applications of nuclear sources of
power." ^^

When Sir John met with Joliot-
Curie on 23 February in London, he
did not present the formal statement,
but he did adhere generally to the
policy set forth in it. He indicated
that, because of the continuation of
the war and because British leaders
could not readily get together with
their French counterparts, progress
on shaping postwar policies had not
been possible. Anderson found that
Joliot had concluded from the favor-
able British actions with regard to
von Halban and Gueron, and the
other French scientists, that Great
Britain recognized the interests of
France in atomic energy matters and,
in the postwar period, would strongly
support her in the pursuit of these
interests.

Fear that there might be another
breakdown in Anglo-American inter-
change if he persisted in his strong
support of French atomic interests
appears to have engendered a modi-
cum of moderation in Sir John; how-
ever, he persisted in efforts to have
British leaders propose that the

French be assured of greater partici-
pation in atomic matters as soon as
security considerations made this fea-
sible. Two pressing concerns motivat-
ed Sir John's actions: his belief that
Britain owed this support to the
French atomic scientists for their con-
tribution to the British and Canadian
atomic programs, and his fear that
any policy that offended France might
drive her into the Russian camp in
the postwar period.

In March 1945, Bundy and Groves
worked out an acceptable arrange-
ment with the British and Canadian
authorities for keeping the French
atomic scientists (except Auger who
was now in Paris working with Joliot)
in the United States or Canada until
the war was over. In early May,
Auger's status temporarily gave cause
for concern when word reached
Groves through Chadwick that Joliot,
under pressure from one of the min-
isters in the French government, felt
compelled to begin an active atomic
energy program, including a survey of
French territories for uranium and
the start of research projects for the
preparation of pure uranium metal
and graphite. But Auger assured Brit-
ish scientists he would take no active
part in the proposed program, and by
summer of 1945 atomic developments
in the United States had reached a
point where the French problem no
longer constituted a major threat to
the security of the Manhattan
Project.'^

"Paper, [Bundy], sub: Problems With Respect to
the French, 19 Jan 45, HB Files, Fldr 36, Tab I,
MDR.

"•Memo, Groves to Secy War, 13 May 45, and
Incl; Ltr, Chadwick to Groves, 8 May 45, MDR; Rpt,
sub: Summary [of French Situation], Incl to Memo,
Groves to Secy State James F. Byrnes, 13 May 45,
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 12, Tab D,
MDR.

CHAPTER XI

Security

The leaders of the American atomic
energy program, aware of the tremen-
dous military potentiality of atomic
weapons and reports of German
atomic research, recognized almost
from the beginning the need for
maintaining a high degree of secrecy.
An important factor in their decision
in early 1942 to turn over administra-
tion of the program to the Army was
their conviction that it was the organi-
zation best prepared during wartime
to enforce a foolproof system of secu-
rity. Such a system would ensure that
the Axis powers remained ignorant of
Allied interest in developing atomic
weapons; reduce the likelihood that
the Axis states, particularly Germany,
would accelerate their own efforts to
produce atomic weapons and under-
take espionage and sabotage activities
against the American program; and,
most significantly, from the stand-
point of military effectiveness, aliow
the Allies to employ these weapons
against the Axis nations with maxi-
mum surprise.^

' Knowledge of the progress of the Germans, or
the other .Axis states, in atomic research and devel-
opment was not based upon precise and accurate in-
telligence information, for such was not available to
the Allies. Nevertheless, because the Allies lacked
specific information to the contrary, they had to
assume that at least Germany would make a serious
attempt to develop atomic weapons. See Rpt to

Early Aspects

First efforts to estabhsh security in
atomic matters had occurred in 1939,
when refugee physicists in the United
States attempted to institute a volun-
tary censorship on publication of
papers concerning uranium fission.
American scientists did not accept
this suggestion initially, but the out-
break of World War II brought home
to many of them the need for control
over publications relating to atomic
fission. To formalize a censorship
program, the Division of Physical Sci-
ences of the National Research Coun-
cil in April 1940 established a com-
mittee that succeeded in getting most
scientists to withhold publication of
papers on sensitive subjects, particu-
larly those concerned with uranium
fission. 2

In June, when the government-
sponsored Committee on Uranium

President, sub: Status of Tube Alloys Development,
9 Mar 42, Incl to Ltr, Bush to President, same date,
HB Files, Fldr 58, MDR; DSM Chronolog>, 26 Sep
42, Sec. 2(e), OROO; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, "Intelli-
gence & Security," p. 1.1, DASA; Groves, \ow It
Can Be Told, 140-41; MPC Rpt, 7 Aug 44, Incl to
Memo, Groves to Chief of Staff, same date, OCG
Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab K, MDR.
2 On the early efforts to establish a voluntary cen-
sorship program see the Prologue to this work and
the Smvth Report, pp. 331-32.

254

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

became a subcommittee of the newly
constituted National Defense Re-
search Committee (NDRC), it also
became subject to the security meas-
ures currently in efTect for federal
agencies. The NDRC, knowing that it
was to be concerned chiefly with
projects for the Army and Navy,
adopted security regulations that con-
formed to those of the two military
services. Under these regulations
NDRC subcommittees were required
to adhere to a policy of strict com-
partmentalization of information, to
classify all sensitive materials, and to
obtain security clearances for all
employees.

Transfer of the NDRC uranium
program to the Office of Scientific
Research and Development (OSRD)
in November 1941 did not significant-
ly alter existing security arrange-
ments, because the OSRD patterned
its own security system largely along
the lines of the NDRC program. As
the OSRD became more involved in
negotiation and administration of
contracts with industrial and research
organizations, however, it expanded
its security controls to provide a more
adequate coverage, adding security
measures for personnel administra-
tion, classified information, and plant
protection.^

The modest OSRD security system
sufficed until, in the spring of 1942,
the start of the uranium program's
rapid expansion — the letting of nu-
merous contracts with industrial
firms; the employment and interac-
tion of ultimately tens of thousands of
workers, scientists, and engineers;
and the formation of complex organi-

zations to construct and operate the
large-scale production plants and
their atomic communities — enor-
mously complicated the problems of
security just at the time the Army un-
dertook its new role as project admin-
istrator. Although these measures
were necessary for the more rapid
achievement of a successful fission
weapon, they also tended to weaken
security."* Consequently, the Army
almost immediately undertook a reor-
ganization and expansion of the exist-
ing OSRD security system and, even-
tually, also endeavored to bring the
system more directly under control
of the Manhattan District. The sys-
tem that finally evolved was in many
respects unique and introduced
a number of innovations in tech-
nique and organization that subse-
quently would be adopted as standard
features of government security
programs.

The District's Security System

The security system, as it took form
in the newly established Manhattan
District, resembled that already in ex-
istence in most other engineer dis-
tricts. Under Army regulations in
force in 1942, the security program of
an engineer district was hmited to
routine local security requirements.
When broader problems arose, the

^ Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War, pp.
27-31 and 246-55.

Mbid., pp. 246-47; Ltr, Compton to Conant,
8 Dec 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Rpts),
MDR. Compton's letter to Conant complained that
the security-inspired policy of compartmentaiization
was delaying determination of the purity standards
that must be met for the plutonium to be employed
in an atomic weapon. This well illustrates the recur-
ring conflict in the Manhattan Project between the
demands of the program and the requirements of
security.

SECURITY

255

district engineer or security officer
could call upon the resources of the
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, in the
War Department. Since June 1939,
under provisions of a presidential
proclamation, the War Department's
Military Intelligence Division (MID)
had shared responsibility for matters
of espionage, counterespionage, and
sabotage in the United States with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
and the Office of Naval Intelligence.
In the latest revision (February 1942)
of this Delimitations Agreement — so
designated because it set forth the
area of jurisdiction of each agency —
the MID's assignment was to cover
the military establishment, including
War Department civilian employees
and civilians on military reservations
or under military control, plus a large
part of the munitions industry.^

Organization and Scope

Colonel Marshall, in organizing the
Manhattan District security program
soon after becoming district engineer
in June 1942, formed the Protective
Security Section. Under direction of a
member of Marshall's staff, this sec-
tion emphasized such aspects as per-
sonnel, plant, and military informa-
tion security. At the same time, to
provide the District security staff with
counterintelligence assistance, Mar-

niDH. Bk. 1. \ol 14. p. 7.1. DAS.A, OCE Cir
1070. sub: Org for Protective Sctv Svc in OCE
(>onstr Div and in OfTire of I)iv and Area Engrs,
15 Jun 42. CE 025.1 CXP. Engrs Eibrary, Fort Bel-
voir, \'a.; Ms, Capt (". |. Bernardo, "Counterintelli-
gence Corps Histor\ and Mission in World War 11"
(Fort Holabird, Baltimore, Md.: CIC School, n.d.),
pp. 4 and 13, NARS; Ms, Army Service Forces, In-
telligence Division, "History of the Intelligence Divi-
sion," 4 vols. (Armv Service Forces, ca. 1946),
1(2):13-14, l(8):l-2, l(9):10-n, NARS; Groves,
Sow It Can Be Told, p 138.

shall arranged with the Assistant
Chief of Staff, G-2, Maj. Gen. George
V. Strong, for security liaison with the
MID's operating element, the Military
Intelligence Service (MIS). From his
staff. General Strong assigned coun-
terintelligence responsibility for the
atomic project to Maj. John Lansdale,
Jr., who had been a lawver in civilian
life.

Because effective security oper-
ations required maximum secrecy,
Major Lansdale personally visited the
Western Defense Command G-2 and
each service command and requested
that they each select an officer to
report directly to him, bypassing both
the G-2 and the commanding general
of each service command.^ To further
facilitate carrying out the internal se-
curity functions for the atomic
project, Lansdale also organized a
quasi-clandestine counterintelligence
group. This group operated under
cover of the Investigation Review
Branch, Assistant Chief of MIS for Se-
curity, which Lansdale headed. He re-
ported directly to General Groves,
and his group in effect was answer-
able to the Manhattan Project com-
mander in all substantive respects,
even though it functioned from the
G-2 office in the Pentagon."^

^ An organization formerly called a corps area,
serving as a field agency of the Army Service Forces
in a specified area. Under the reorganization of the
War Department on 9 Mar 42, there were nine geo-
graphical service commands throughout the L'nited
States, each providing services (including adminis-
trative, financial, legal, statistical, medical, welfare,
etc., for Army elements), constructing facilities, fur-
nishing fixed communication services, and procur-
ing, storing, maintaining, and distributing supplies
and equipment for Army use. See WD TM 20-205,
Diclionarv of United States Armv Terms, 1944, p.
249.

^MDH, Bk. 1, \ol. 14, pp. 7.1-7.2, DASA;
Groves. \ow It Can Be Told, pp. 138-39; Marshall

Continued

256

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND 1 HE AlOMIC BOMB

By early 1943, the pace of the Dis-
trict's growth — both geographically
and in terms of personnel — and its in-
creasing security requirements em-
phasized the need for a more compre-
hensive counterintelligence program.
In February, General Strong trans-
ferred Capts. Horace K. Calvert and
Robert J. McLeod to the District
headquarters, where they formed the
District's new Intelligence Section. To
ensure that this section, which Cap-
tain Calvert headed, had full access to
the intelligence and security facilities
of the Army service commands.
Strong requested that each command
designate a staff officer to act as a
point of liaison with the Manhattan
District and, to guarantee secrecy, au-
thorized that each correspond directly
with Calvert's section. At the same
time. Groves continued his earlier
practice of meeting with G-2 officers
to make certain that District security
problems were brought to the atten-
tion of appropriate Army officials.®

The counterintelligence program
became the foundation for a country-
wide permanent organization of this
aspect of the District's security
system. During the course of the year,
the District organized its own Coun-
terintelligence Corps (CIC) and, as its
staff increased in size, assigned new-
personnel to those areas where there
was the greatest concentration of
project activities. Ultimately, the
project had a total of eleven branch
intelligence offices at key points
across the United States, from New

Diary, 20 Jul 42, OCG Files, Gen Gorresp, Groves
Files. Misc Recs Sec, behind Fldr 5, MDR; Ltr, Lans-
dale to Col R. W. Argo. Jr. (Dep Chief of Mil Hisi),
3Jan75, CMH.

»MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, p. 7.2, DASA; Groves, \ow
II Can Be Told. pp. 138-39.

York to Pasadena (Calilbrnia). An of-
ficer assigned to a branch usually
worked out of an area engineer's
office and, in addition to his intelli-
gence duties, served as security offi-
cer on the engineer's stafi. While in
matters of command these officers
came under control of the Manhattan
District intelligence and security offi-
cer and reported to him, they also
maintained a direct liaison channel
with the director of mtcUigence of the
service command that had jurisdiction
over their area.^

Expansion and Centralization

Rapid growth also necessitated ex-
pansion of other aspects of the Man-
hattan Project's security system. In
1942, the District's relatively modest
internal security organization had
served well enough for a program
that consisted primarily of administer-
ing research and development activi-
ties carried on in university and in-
dustrial laboratories; but, by summer
of 1943, a vast program of plant con-
struction and operation had begun.

The move of the District headquar-
ters from New York to Oak Ridge in
August provided an opportune time
for reorganization. {See Chart 2.) The
first step was consolidation in July of
the Protective Security and Intelli-
gence Sections. Captain Calvert took
over responsibility for the combined
unit, designated the Intelligence and
Security Section. Although this
change was relatively minor from an
administrative standpoint (the section
continued in a distinctly subordinate
position in the District's Service and

MDH. Bk. 1, Vol. 14, pp. 7.2-7.4, DASA.

SECURITY

257

Control Division), it represented a
significant shift towards centralization
in security matters. This change was
consistent with General Groves's con-
viction that only through a high
degree of centralized control could he
and his administrative staff maintain a
close and constant scrutiny over the
security program. ^°

Shortly after the District had com-
pleted its move to Oak Ridge, a reor-
ganization in the Army's administra-
tion of counterintelligence operations
in the zone of interior (ZI) posed a
threat to Groves's control and cogni-
zance over the project's internal secu-
rity functions. To economize on inter-
nal investigative operations and to
concentrate G-2 efforts on expanding
counterintelligence operations over-
seas, the War Department directed
the transfer, effective 1 January 1944,
of the WDGS (War Department Gen-
eral Staff) G-2 counterintelligence ac-
tivities in the ZI to the Office of the
Provost Marshal General. The effect
was to decentralize even further the
Army's ZI counterintelligence func-
tions to the service commands, in-
cluding maintenance of data files on
individuals which Manhattan intelli-
gence officials considered essential to
their operations. The change also
seemed certain to enhance the diffi-
culties the atomic project already was
experiencing in coordinating its inter-
nal security operations with the serv-
ice commands. ^^

'"Org Chans, U.S. Engrs Offire, MD, \5 .'Vug
and 1 Nov 43, Admin Files, Gen (.orresp, 020
(MED-Org), MDR; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p.
139.

i> Ms, ASF, "Hisl Intel Div, • 1(9): 10-1 1; Ms, Ber-
nardo. "CIC Hist," pp. 14-15. Both in NARS. WD
Cir 324, sub: Transfer of CI Functions Within the
ZI, 14 Dec 43. Memos, CG OIG (Maj Gen VirgilL.
Peterson) to Dep Chief of Staff (Lt Gen Joseph T.

From his vantage point as head of
the atomic project's counterintelli-
gence group inside G-2, Colonel
Lansdale endeavored to have the
group exempted from the reorganiza-
tion requirements. When his efforts
failed, General Groves decided that
the only acceptable solution was to
move Lansdale's unit into the Man-
hattan District. The G-2 sanctioned
this change in December, and Lans-
dale secured authorization to estab-
lish a special counterintelligence de-
tachment. Groves arranged for Lans-
dale's transfer to the Manhattan Dis-
trict; however, instead of placing him
in charge of the new CIC Detach-
ment, he brought Lansdale into his
Washington office as his special as-
sistant for security affairs. Lansdale's
assignment was to keep the Manhat-
tan chief abreast of problems and de-
velopments affecting internal security
and foreign intelligence wherever
they might arise in the project. ^^

The shift of all project counterintel-
ligence activities to the District re-
quired major changes in its security
organization. {See Chart 3.) The Intel-
ligence and Security Section in Febru-
ary 1944 became a full-fledged divi-
sion and, in keeping with Groves's

McNarney), sub: Intel Activities in Svc Cmds, 6 Nov
43, and Col O. L. Nelson (Asst to McNarney) to CG
ASF and to ACS G-2, same sub, 25 Nov 43, repro-
duced in Monograph, Office of the Provost Marshal
General, 'The Lovaltv Investigations Program,"
Tab 45, CMH (see also pp. 52-58 for details on the
elimination of unnecessary investigations). Millett,
Anny Sennce Forces, pp. 358-59. Ltr, Strong to CG
4th Svc Cmd, sub: Personnel on DSM Proj, 27 Dec
43, reproduced in MDH. Bk. 1, Vol. 14, App. .\2,
DASA. Ibid., pp 7.5-7.7, DASA. WD Bur of Pub
Rels, sub: Script for Radio Broadcasts, 12 Aug 45,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 000.73 (Radio Broad-
casts), MDR.

'^Ltr, Lansdale to Argo, 3 Jan 75, CMH; Testimo-
ny of Lansdale in Oppenlmmer Hearing, pp. 259-60.

258

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

centralization policy, moved from the
Service and Control Division into the
district engineer's own office. To re-
place Captain Calvert, whom Groves
had selected for a special intelligence
mission in London, Colonel Nichols —
the district engineer since August
1943 — brought in an experienced in-
telligence officer, Lt. Col. William B.
Parsons, to head the new division. In
this capacity Parsons administered the
District's security program with the
assistance of Major McLeod, the
deputy, and Capt. Bernard W. Menke,
the executive officer, and with sup-
port from a large operating staff of
military and civilian personnel. Al-
though Parsons officially reported to
Nichols, he personally kept General
Groves appraised of all developments.
Expanding intelligence and security
activities necessitated procurement of
additional personnel to carry out sup-
portive security functions, such as
plant inspections and technical and
undercover investigations. Colonel
Parsons drew 25 officers and 137 en-
listed men from the War Depart-
ment's counterintelligence manpower
pool and the District's personnel spe-
cialists recruited a large number of ci-
vilians. In May 1944, to provide ad-
ministrative services for the expand-
ing security force, Nichols activated
the 13th Special Engineer Detach-
ment (Provisional) and assigned Par-
sons the additional duty of unit com-
mander. Concerned about achieving
greater efficiency in security oper-
ations. Parsons requested and re-
ceived permission in January 1945 to
combine the 13th with the CIC
Detachment. ^^

By this time, Parsons' Intelligence
and Security Division had become a
highly centralized unit, organization-
ally divided into six separate
branches: Clinton Engineer Works
(CEW), Security, Administration,
Safeguarding Military Information
(SMI), Branch Offices, and Evaluation
and Review. The CEW, Security, and
Administration Branches, for which
McLeod had direct responsibility,
dealt primarily with security matters
at the Tennessee site. The CEW
Branch administered the local civilian
guard force and the military police
contingent that protected the Tennes-
see reservation; coordinated subordi-
nate security offices in the K-25 (gas-
eous diffusion), Y-12 (electromag-
netic), and X-10 (pile) process areas;
and, through a board established for
the purpose, reviewed security cases.
The Security Branch chiefly moni-
tored activities related to security of
project manufacturing plants, espe-
cially at the Clinton site, and the ship-
ping of classified materials and equip-
ment. The Administration Branch was
concerned primarily with personnel
security problems, both military and
civilian, but also provided facilities for
the special handling of the division's
mail and records and administered
certain confidential funds.

The SMI, Branch Offices, and Eval-
uation and Review Branches, for
which Captain Menke had direct re-
sponsibility, eventually evolved as a

•3 Org Charts, U.S. Engrs OfTice, MD. 15 Feb 44,
MDR; MDH, Bk. 1. Vol. 14, pp. 7.7-7.8, DASA;

Memo, Strong to CG ASF, sub: CIC Detachment for
MD, 18 Dec 43, reproduced in ibid., App. B3,
DASA; Ltr, Col Donald E. Antes (Spec Insp for
Fiscal Procedures) to Groves, sub: Investigation of
Promotions. MD Intel Br, 13 Jul 45, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Recs Insp: Hanford, 1945-46),
MDR.

SECURITY

259

Changing of the Guard: Military Police Contingent at CEW

central clearinghouse for intelligence
and security matters that related not
only to the Tennessee site but also to
the various project operations else-
where. The principal responsibility of
the SMI Branch was that of project-
wide monitoring of programs in secu-
rity education, censorship, and the
handling of classified materials. The
Branch Offices Branch, as its name
would indicate, was responsible for
coordinating field security operations
in the eleven geographical areas
where atomic energy activities were in
progress and for reporting the area
engineers' security problems to the
division's Evaluation and Review
Branch. The latter branch concentrat-
ed in one office functions hitherto
performed by several of the branch

intelligence offices — most notably,
those concerned with the conduct of
subversive investigations and the
preparation of special reports on Dis-
trict security matters for higher
echelons. ^^

Counterintelligence Activities

Counterintelligence activities con-
stituted one of the most significant
aspects of the District's security pro-
gram. Through effective counterintel-
ligence measures, the District sought
to provide the shroud of secrecy nec-

'^MDH. Bk. 1, Vol. 14. pp. 7.2-7.13 and App. A7
(Org Chart), DASA; Memo, Col Elmer E. Kirkpat-
rick, Jr. (Dep Dist Engr) to Groves, sub: Insp of
Intel Div, Oak Ridge, 15 Dec 44, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 319.1 (Insp of Intel Div), MDR.

260

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

essary to forestall all attempts by the
enemy not only to gain information
about the American atomic energy
program but also to sabotage it.

Yet by its very nature, the Manhat-
tan Project remained vulnerable to es-
pionage and sabotage. The District's
recruitment of thousands of individ-
uals with almost every conceivable
kind of background and from all parts
of the country made likely the em-
ployment of some potential spies and
saboteurs, no matter how efficient its
clearance procedures might be, and
its widely scattered installations made
implementation and maintenance of
uniform security procedures through-
out the project very difficult. The re-
ality of these conditions forced
project leaders to assume that, sooner
or later, Germany and Japan — and
even the Soviet Union — would learn
of the atomic energy program and,
more importantly, use espionage to
expand their knowledge of it and sab-
otage to destroy America's military
advantage. ^^

1 o detect and counter potential es-
pionage and sabotage activities, the
District's GIG Detachment relied pri-
marily upon extensive intelligence in-
vestigations. The majority of these in-
vestigations were of a preventive
character, designed to minimize the
likelihood that security might be
breached. Of this type, for example,
were the many security checks into
the unauthorized transmission of clas-
sified information. In most instances,
GIG personnel found that the infor-
mation leaks thus uncovered were the
result of carelessness or ignorance on

the part of the employee or individual
with knowledge of the project. But
because it was always possible such
leaks were surface ramifications of
much more dangerous espionage ac-
tivity, all cases of careless handling of
classified data received prompt and
rigorous corrective action.

A second type of preventive investi-
gation was the supplementary and
more thorough check into the back-
ground of employees earlier subject-
ed to routine clearance procedures.
Most supplementary investigations
were made because preliminary data
indicated an employee might be a po-
tential security risk or routine proce-
dures had not produced adequate in-
formation about the person's back-
ground. Typical cases were those in-
volving scientists or technicians who
recently had come from abroad, espe-
cially those who had come from areas
under control of the Axis powers.
Faced with a continuing shortage of
scientifically and technically trained
personnel, project leaders early had
adopted the policy of weighing the
degree of risk against the contribu-
tions an employee with security clear-
ance problems could make in devel-
opment of atomic weapons. "All
procedures and decisions on security,
including the clearance of personnel,"
Groves recalled, "had to be based on
what was believed to be the overrid-
ing consideration — completion of the
bomb. Speed of accomplishment was
paramount." ^^

Perhaps the most notable example
of the application of Groves's dictum
on employing talented individuals

'*Rpt to President, sub: Status of Tube Alloys
Development, 9 Mar 42, Incl to I.tr, Bush to Presi-
dent, same date, MDR.

'6 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 141-42. See
also MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, pp. 2.1-2.2, DASA.

SECURITY

261

who were security risks was the case
of J. Robert Oppenheimer. When the
Manhattan commander decided to ap-
point Oppenheimer as head of the
Los Alamos Laboratory in February
1943, he did so with full knowledge
that the theoretical physicist, who had
worked on the project since late
1941, had only an interim security
clearance from the OSRD. OSRD Di-
rector V^annevar Bush, S-1 Commit-
tee Chairman James B. Conant, and
the other scientific leaders were gen-
erally aware of Oppenheimer's past
record of association with Commu-
nist-related organizations and individ-
uals. They knew that during the
1930's he had been attracted to a
number of Communist-front organiza-
tions and, while never a member of
the party itself, made fairly regular
contributions to Communist-support-
ed causes. Communist fellow-travel-
ers, including his former fiancee, were
among his friends, and his wife and
brother and sister-in-law were former
Communists. With the signing of the
Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939, Oppen-
heimer had begun to have serious
doubts about the Communists; how-
ever, he continued to contribute to
the Spanish War Relief through party
channels until the spring of 1942 and
to maintain a casual contact with his
former friends. ^"^

Despite his record of past Commu-
nist associations. Groves decided Op-
penheimer was the best choice to

'^ Discussion of Oppenheimer security clearance
based on Oppenheimer Heating, especially testimony of
Oppenheimer, Groves, Pash, and Bush; Memo,
Groves to Secy War, sub: Loyalty Clearance of J. R.
Oppenheimer, 24 Mar 47, Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 333.5 (Clearance Ltrs), MDR; Groves, Com-
ments on Draft Ms "Now It Can Be Told," LRG;
Intcrv, British writer Hailey with Groves, 13 Dec 57,
LRG.

direct the bomb laboratory at Los
Alamos, for since 1941 he had been
involved in this aspect of research
and development under Metallurgical
Laboratory Director Arthur Compton
and in the summer of 1942 had
become head of the project team con-
centrating on that work. Hardly had
Oppenheimer arrived at Los Alamos
in the spring of 1943 when the ques-
tion of his clearance arose in a new
form. At the request of the Manhattan
commander, Lt. Col. Boris T. Pash,
chief of the Counterintelligence
Branch of the Western Defense Com-
mand, began an investigation of sus-
pected Soviet espionage in the Radi-
ation Laboratory at Berkeley. Several
men known or thought to be associat-
ed with Oppenheimer came under
suspicion and, as a result, so did Op-
penheimer himself.^® On 29 June,
Pash submitted his conclusion that
Oppenheimer "may still be connected
with the Communist Party." He of-
fered three possible courses: to re-
place Oppenheimer as soon as possi-
ble; to train a second-in-command at
Los Alamos as a possible replace-
ment; and, Pash's recommendation,
to have Oppenheimer meet with Gen-
erals Groves and Strong in Washing-
ton so that they could brief him on
"the Espionage Act and its ramifica-
tions" and also instruct him that the
government was fully aware of his
Communist "affiliations," that no
"leakage of information" would be
tolerated, and that the entire project
would be held under "rigid control."
In recommending this procedure.

'® See Rpt, MID, sub: Investigations of Federa-
tion of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Techni-
cians, Local 25, 13 Aug 43, Incl to Memo, Groves to
Bundy, 17 Aug 43, HB Files, Fldr 61, MDR.

262

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Pash was of the opinion that Oppen-
heimer's "personal inchnations would
be to protect his own future and rep-
utation and the high degree of honor
which would be his if his present
work is successful, and, consequently,
. . . that he would lend every effort
to cooperating with the Government
in any plan which would leave him in
charge." In any event, he suggested,
Oppenheimer should be told that two
bodyguards were being assigned to
protect him against violence from
Axis agents. These bodyguards
should be specially trained counterin-
telligence agents who would not only
serve as bodyguards but also keep a
check on Oppenheimer.^^

Colonel Pash's report did not
change Groves's opinion. After a
quick visit to Los Alamos, during
which he presumably discussed mat-
ters with Oppenheimer, Groves di-
rected on 15 July that he be cleared.
On his return to Washington a few
days later, he directed "that clearance
be issued for the employment of
Julius Robert Oppenheimer without
delay, irrespective of the information
which you have concerning Mr. Op-
penheimer. He is absolutely essential
to the project." ^^ As he wrote the
Secretary of War four years later, "it
was apparent to me that [Oppen-
heimer] would not be cleared by any
agency whose sole responsibility was
military security. Nevertheless, my
careful study made me feel that, in
spite of [his] record, he was funda-

mentally a loyal American citizen and
that, in view of his potential over-
all value to the project, he should be
employed." ^^

Most security cases investigated by
the District's CIC Detachment in-
volved breaches of classified informa-
tion or allegations against employees
handling classified work of disloyalty
to the United States or of affiliation
with organizations espousing subver-
sive ideologies. While many such
cases presented the possibility of espi-
onage, in fact, investigations turned
up only about one hundred instances
of such activity. When suspected cases
appeared on the increase in 1943, the
Manhattan commander selected a
number of the District's own CIC per-
sonnel to serve as special undercover
agents. They occupied strategically lo-
cated positions in project offices, lab-
oratories, and plants, set up listening
posts, checked intensively into per-
sonnel and other records of individ-
uals under suspicion, and took other
measures designed to solve espionage
cases. ^^

The appointment of special agents
was a move towards greater formali-
zation of the procedure for dealing
with espionage, which continued to
increase as the project grew in size
and scope. Another constructive
measure was the establishment of a
group of permanent surveillance

'^ Memo, Pash to Lansdale, sub: J. R. Oppen-
heimer, 29 Jun 43, reproduced in Oppenheimer Hear-
ing, pp. 821-22.

2° Memo (source of quotation). Groves to Dist
Engr, sub: J. R. Oppenheimer, 20 Jul 43, repro-
duced in Oppenheimer Heanng, p. 170; Groves Diary,
14-20 Jul 43, LRG.

2' Memo, Groves to Secy War, sub: Loyalty Clear-
ance of J. R. Oppenheimer, 24 Mar 47, MDR.

22 Details on appointment of special agents and
surveillance squads based on MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14,
pp. 2.3-2.4, DASA; Ltr, Lansdale to Argo, 3 Jan 75,
CMH; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p. 139; MPC Rpt,
21 Aug 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr
25, Tab E, MDR. The section on Russian activities,
which deals with espionage incidents at Berkeley,
provides a good example of Groves's reports to the
Top Policy Group on intelligence developments.

SECURITY

263

squads to carry out supplemental and
nonroutine personnel investigations.
Members of these squads, as well as
other District security agents, soon
became adept in employing profes-
sional counterespionage techniques
and in using such surveillance equip-
ment as cameras with special lenses
(telephoto and other types) and con-
cealable listening and recording de-
vices. During their investigations of
persons suspected of espionage activi-
ties, either District employees or indi-
viduals who had contact with project
personnel, the agents operated in the
guise of diverse roles — to mention
only a few, hotel clerks, bell captains,
tourists, electricians, painters, con-
tractors, and gamblers.

To ensure effective functioning and
control of the surveillance squads and
other special security agents on a
countrywide basis. District security of-
ficials developed new channels of
coordination and communication.
Through Colonel Lansdale's counter-
intelligence staff at Groves's Washing-
ton headquarters, field security teams
at the various branch intelligence of-
fices had access to information from
the FBI and other government securi-
ty agencies. These field teams also
had to file written reports of their
findings and activities on a regular
basis with the Evaluation and Review
Branch of the Intelligence and Securi-
ty Division. As these reports accumu-
lated in the files at District headquar-
ters, they became an important source
of information for operation of the
whole counterintelligence program.
General Groves, in particular, made
use of the data garnered from these
reports in concert with information
acquired from other government

agencies in preparing his periodic
Military Policy Committee and Top
Policy Group briefings on intelligence
developments affecting the atomic
program.

Espionage Incidents

The most serious espionage activity
came not from the enemy but from
America's wartime ally: Soviet Russia.
Having in the United States a large
diplomatic and consular staff as well
as other officials for overseeing lend-
lease and other assistance programs,
the Russians had a more than ade-
quate reservoir of personnel for main-
taining an extensive espionage appa-
ratus in this country. Soviet agents,
masking as diplomatic and consular
officials, turned to members of the
Communist Party of the United States
and to party sympathizers for assist-
ance in penetrating American wartime
institutions and projects. The Rus-
sians, making the plea that the Ameri-
can government was withholding im-
portant information and thus unnec-
essarily delaying Allied victory, re-
cruited many native Communists and
fellow-travelers to assist them in ob-
taining vital secrets about wartime
activities. ^^

As early as February 1943, counter-
intelligence agents of the FBI and
Western Defense Command became
aware that the Russians were obtain-
ing data concerning activities of the
Radiation Laboratory at the Universi-
ty of California. Further investigation
revealed that, in October 1942, a
leading member of the American
Communist Party on the West Coast

23 Ms. ASF, "Hist Intel Div," 1(7):8-10, NARS.

264

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

had advised a fellow party member
employed at the Radiation Laboratory
to retain his position so he could
obtain knowledge of the secret work
under way there. This employee and
other Communists or Communist
sympathizers working at the laborato-
ry were passing on information about
the atomic project at Berkeley to
Communist Party members, who
promptly turned it over to the Soviet
vice consul in San Francisco. Evi-
dence came to light in early April that
a high official in the Soviet embassy
in Washington had recently given
money to a West Coast Communist
leader, to be used for espionage. In-
tensive investigation by Western De-
fense Command counterintelligence
agents resulted in prompt identifica-
tion of those Radiation Laboratory
employees who were engaging in es-
pionage activities. The laboratory dis-
charged the suspects and, where fea-
sible, the Army inducted them into
service, placing them in nonsensitive
assignments in which they could be
kept under regular observation.^'*

The District's CIC Detachment
scarcely had completed breaking the
original espionage chain at Berkeley
when, in late August, Oppenheimer
reported his suspicion that new leaks
apparently had developed in the lab-
oratory's security system. On the oc-
casion of a visit to Berkeley, Oppen-
heimer met with Colonel Pash and
told him he had learned that a

24MPC Rpt. 21 Aug 43, MDR; MPC Min, 29 i:)ec
44, Exhibit F (summary of L'.S. -based counterintelli-
gence developments affecting Manhattan Proj),
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 23, Tab A.
MDR; Rpt, sub: Siunmary [of] Russian Situation,
Incl to Memo, Groves to Secy State James F.
Byrnes, 13 May 45, OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP
Files, Fldr 12, tab D, MDR.

member of the University of Califor-
nia staff, a man who had been a close
friend, was acting as an intermediary
for transmission of data from certain
Radiation Laboratory employees to
representatives of the Soviet Union.
By Oppenheimer's account, his friend
had been recruited by an official of
the Federation of Architects, Engi-
neers, Chemists, and Technicians, a
CIO (Congress of Industrial Organi-
zations) union currently trying to or-
ganize employees of the Radiation
Laboratory. In subsequent question-
ing, Oppenheimer refused to disclose
the name of his friend on the grounds
that he was certain the friend was no
longer passing information to Soviet
representatives. Oppenheimer's un-
cooperativeness at this juncture re-
sulted in the Manhattan commander
taking personal action. Groves
promptly met with the Los Alamos
Laboratory chief and, because the se-
curity of the atomic project was at
stake, ordered him to reveal the name
of his friend. Faced with Groves's in-
sistence in the matter, Oppenheimer
named Haakon Chevalier, a professor
of romance languages at the Universi-
ty of California. A short time later,
the university dismissed Chevalier
from his teaching post and he left
Berkeley. In retrospect, the likelihood
that Chevalier passed any classified
information about the project to the
United States seems remote. ^^

2^ In 1954, Oppenheimer testified before the
AEC's Personnel Security Board, which was holding
hearings to consider serious charges against the
former director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that
would lead ultimately to the withdrawal of his gov-
ernment security clearance. Oppenheimer admitted
that he had fabricated the story about Chevaliers
espionage activities; however, he never adequately

C.oniinued

seciirhv

265

rhc (Ihcvalier case was not the
final incident of espionage at the Ra-
diation Laboratory. Less than a year
later, another serious security leak
had developed there. With assistance
from Communist Party members
living in the San Francisco area, a key
scientist from the laboratory met with
officials from the local Soviet consul-
ate. The scientist passed on informa-
tion concerning the pile process, cer-
tain chemical data, and the recently
arrived British scientists. The Dis-
trict's CIC Detachment was able to
end this espionage activity effectively
by securing immediate discharge of
the offending scientist, after which, as
far as is known, representatives of the
Soviet Union made no further at-
tempts to get information from the
Berkeley project. ^^

Meanwhile, probably acting on the
l)asis of information gained at the Ra-
diation Laboratory, the Russians had
assigned one of their best men to the
Chicago area, with the task of estab-
lishing an espionage channel at the
Metallurgical Laboratory. By early
1944, this Soviet agent, who was a

explained whv he had done so. Oppcnheinier's testi-
mony in 1954 and documents relating to it are in
Oppenheimer Heunng, passim. For fuller accounts of
the Oppenheimer case sec Strauss, Men and Deci-
sions, pp. 267-95, and Philip M. Stern, The Oppen-
heimer Case: Serunty on Trial (New \'ork: Harper and
Row, 1969). For further details on espionage activi-
ties at the Radiation Laboratory and the Oppen-
heimer case see MPC Rpt. 4 Feb 44, OCG Files,
(;en Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25. Tab C. MDR; Rpt.
sub: Summary [of] Russian Situation, Incl to Memo,
Cirovcs to Byrnes. 13 May 45, MDR; Intcrv, Author
with Lt Col Peer de Silva (former (^IC staff member,
(i-2. West Def Cmd, with special assignment to
Rad Lab), 8 Apr 75. CMH; Diary of Lt Col E. H.
Marsden (hereafter cited as Marsden Diary), 20 July

43, OROO. Marsden was the District's executive
olluer.

-'^MPC Mm, 10 Mav 44, MDR; MPC Rpt, 7 Aug

44, MDR; Rpt, sub: SunmiarN |oi| Russian Situ;.li<)n.
hid to Memo, Cioves to BMurs. 13 Mav 45, MDR.

highly trained engineer with working
experience in both Russian and
American industry, had made contacts
with several Metallurgical Laboratory
employees. By the time the FBI
learned of his activities in April, the
Soviet agent had obtained consider-
able technical information, which he
had passed on to the Russian consul-
ate in New York. Once identified, the
laboratory summarily dismissed the
suspected employees. Subsequently,
the District's CIC Detachment discov-
ered that one of the discharged work-
ers — a reserve officer who had been
called to active duty and assigned to
the Northwest Territory in Canada —
had taken highly classified material
with him when he left the Metallurgi-
cal Laboratory. Fortunately, District
security officials were able to arrange
for confiscation of this material (it
was located in the officer's baggage)
and for transfer of the officer to a
post in the Pacific Theater of Oper-
ations where he would have no op-
portunity to pass on his knowledge to
Russia or the Axis powers. ^^

Judged in terms of the ultimate util-
ity of the information gained, Russian
efforts at espionage at the Los
Alamos Laboratory in late 1944 and
early 1945 — the crucial period of
bomb development — were the most
successful of the wartime period. But
project counterintelligence agents did
not learn of this activity until the late
summer of 1945, after the war was
over. In a sensational postwar trial,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and
Morton Sobell were convicted of steal-
ing classified data from the laboratory

^'Rpt, sub: Summarv |ofl Russian Situation, Incl
to Memo, Cloves to Bvtnes, 13 Mav 45. MDR.

266

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

with the assistance of Mrs. Rosen-
berg's brother, David Greenglass, an
Army sergeant at Los Alamos, and of
transmitting it to Russian agents. Los
Alamos, too, was the place where the
German refugee scientist, Klaus
Fuchs, while serving as a member of
the British team sent to the United
States under the interchange pro-
gram, gained a substantial part of the
technical knowledge of the bomb that
he subsequently passed on to the
Russians, first in June 1945 and
thence periodically until his arrest by
British authorities in early 1950.^^

Project leaders also had antici-
pated that, as the Russians, the
Axis powers — particularly Germany —
would launch an equally vigorous es-
pionage campaign, but they uncov-
ered no evidence of such activity
during the war. In early 1944, at a
time when available Allied intelli-
gence indicated that the Germans
might well have attained an advanced
stage in the development of atomic
weapons, the Military Policy Commit-
tee reported to the Top Policy Group
that "no espionage activities by the
Axis nations with respect to this
project have been discovered, al-
though there have been suspicious
indications." ^^

Measures Against Sabotage

In a project where the ultimate goal
depended upon continuous progress

^* Postwar revelations of espionage activities at
Los Alamos during Worid War II may be traced in
Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. pp. 143-45, and in Rich-
ard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic Shield.
1947-1952. A Histon,- of the United States Atomic
Energy Commission, Vol. 2 (University Park, Pa.:
Pennsvlvania State University Press, 1969), pp. 312-
14,415,472.

29MPC Rpt, 4 Feb 44, MDR.

in intricate and closely related pro-
duction processes, unscheduled
delays or interruptions of any kind
could be disastrous. Sabotage in any
form, whether perpetrated by outsid-
ers or insiders bent upon slowing
down or disrupting a particular pro-
cess, constituted an ever-present
hazard. Recognizing the seriousness
of this threat. General Groves direct-
ed that any suspicion of sabotage be
reported to him immediately. In keep-
ing with Groves's policy of constant
vigilance to detect any hint of sabo-
tage, the District's CIC Detachment
thoroughly investigated every instance
of mechanical failure, equipment
breakdown, fire, accident, or similar
occurrence not readily attributable to
normal causes, and kept under con-
stant observation all processes and ac-
tivities that might attract the efforts of
saboteurs. In addition, other security
personnel regularly inspected the se-
curity systems and personnel clear-
ance procedures at the project's vari-
ous installations, with the objective of
detecting and correcting possible
weaknesses that might invite
sabotage. ^°

Illustrative of Groves's policy was
the investigation into the mystifying
failure of the first great magnets in-
stalled in the electromagnetic plant at
the Clinton Engineer Works. Follow-
ing a brief period of operation, the
magnets began to malfunction. After

aoMDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, pp. 2.5-2.6, DASA. For a
detailed discussion of typical measures undertaken
to provide for the physical and personnel security of
a specific project installation — in this instance, the
gaseous diffusion project at Clinton — see MDH,
Bk. 2, Vol. 1, "General Features," pp. 6.2-6.3, Vol.
2. "Research," pp. 9.2-9.4, Vol. 3, "Design," pp.
16.2-16.6, Vol. 4, "Construction," p. 4.2, and \'oI.
5, "Operation," pp. 9.2-9.10, DASA.

SECURITY

267

disassembling one of the magnets
piece by piece, Kellex engineers
found that in its oil circulation and
cooling system rust and dirt particles
were bridging the gaps between the
silver bands forming the coil compo-
nent, which they attributed to the
manufacturer's failure to maintain
sufficiently rigid standards of cleanli-
ness. The significance of this incident
was that it revealed the inherent vul-
nerability of the electromagnetic in-
stallations and the need for constant
surveillance in order to thwart possi-
ble sabotage. ^^

The district's continuous and thor-
ough efforts to protect the project's
installations and operations against
sabotage were signally successful.
During the war years, there were no
definitely established incidents of sab-
otage traceable to enemy agents. In
most cases where breakdowns or
other failures occurred under suspi-
cious circumstances, investigations re-
vealed they were probably the result
of causes other than enemy sabotage.
For example, during construction of
the original gaseous diffusion plant at
the Tennessee site, inspectors discov-
ered someone had driven nails
through the rubber coverings of vital
electric cables leading underground
from the power plant to the main
production plant. The perpetrators of
this act were never found, although
the evidence indicated strongly it was
the work of disgruntled employees. ^^

3' Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 104-05; MDH,
Bk. 5, Vol. 3, "Design," p. 4.6, and Vol. 5, "Con-
struction," pp. 3.10-3.11, DASA.

32 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 112-13; Com-
pletion Rpt, M. W. Kellogg Co. and Kellex Corp.,
sub: K-25 Plant, Contract W-7405-eng-23, 31 Oct
45, p. 12, OROO.

A quite different type of interfer-
ence with plant operation briefly
threatened the Hanford Engineer
Works in early 1945. Groves reported
to the Military Policy Committee in
February that Army and Navy intelli-
gence had recorded more than fifty
incidents of Japanese balloons at vari-
ous sites along the Pacific Coast,
some of them carrying incendiary and
fragmentation bombs. While none of
these appears to have been directed
specifically against the Hanford instal-
lations, on 10 March a balloon of this
type struck a high-tension transmis-
sion line running between the Grand
Coulee and Bonneville generating sta-
tions and caused an electrical surge
through the interconnecting Hanford
line that carried power to the produc-
tion piles. Automatic safety devices at
the three piles were activated, briefly
shutting down their operation. For-
tunately, the bombs attached to the
balloon did not explode and the
transmission line was not seriously
damaged. ^^

Other Functions

One of the most unusual duties as-
signed to the District's CIC Detach-
ment was that of furnishing body-
guards for key Manhattan scientific
leaders. CIC personnel accompanied
J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Law-
rence, Arthur Compton, and Enrico
Fermi almost continuously. They ac-
companied other scientists at inter-
vals, when they were at work on
projects that required their special

^^MPC Min, 24 Feb 45, MDR; Memo, Matthias to
Groves, sub: 10 Mar 45 Power Outage, 29 Mar 45,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 675, MDR; Matthias
Diary, 25 Feb and 10-1 1 Mar 45, OROO.

268

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

protection. Colonel Marshall had
originated the idea of bodyguards,
suggesting that they serve also as
drivers, to conceal their true function
and to reduce the likelihood of acci-
dents. Compton's bodyguard, a
former Chicago policeman, traveled
with him in the guise of a special as-
sistant. When Compton was in resi-
dence at Oak Ridge, his guard served
as a member of the local police force.
District security officials exercised
considerable care in selecting individ-
uals for bodyguards, seeking those
who had demonstrated ability to
adapt themselves readily to the kind
of situations in which scientists were
likely to be involved. ^^

Safeguarding Militayy informatwn

Even though District security offi-
cials had planned and implemented a
multi-faceted security system to pro-
tect all aspects of project operations
and developments, they fully realized
that maintenance of total secrecy in
such a vast project was unlikely. What
was more feasible, they believed, was
to prevent leakage of any useful
knowledge of the program's special
scientific concepts, industrial tech-
niques, and military objectives — or, in
Army parlance, "safeguarding military
information." ^^

s-'MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, pp. 2.10-2.11, DASA:
Marsden Diary, 20 Jul 43, OROO; Nichols, Com-
ments on Draft Hist "Manhattan," Incl to I.tr, Nich-
ols to Chief of Mil Hist, 25 Mar 74. CMH: Comp-
ton, ,4/om/f Q««/, pp. 183-84.

35 AR 380-5, 28 Sep 42. The War Department
issued a substantially revised version ot AR 380-5
on 15 Mar 44, adding the category Top Secret to
the previously existing categories Secret, Confiden-
tial, and Restricted. See Sec. 1, par. 3.

Compartmentalization Policy

Under the provisions of Army secu-
rity regulations, the basic responsibil-
ity for the protection of classified in-
formation rested upon "all military
personnel, civilian employees of the
War Department, and . . . the man-
agement and employees of all com-
mercial firms engaged in classified
work or projects for the War Depart-
ment." ^^ In applying this principle to
the atomic program. District security
officials placed particular emphasis
upon limiting the amount of classified
information permitted to any single
individual or group of individuals.
District security regulations estab-
lished two basic rules which were to
"govern the right to possess classified
information"; a person must need the
information in order to carry out his
job and have access only to the
amount of information "necessary for
him to execute his function." To
make doubly certain an individual em-
ployee was restricted to "the mini-
mum necessary for the proper
performance of his duties," District
regulations further directed that "em-
ployees . . . shall be organized into
small working groups or teams so far
as possible, each working on its own
phase of the job and not being per-
mitted to inspect or discuss the work
being done by others." ^"^

This compartmentalization policy
became a far more pervasive influ-
ence in the project after the Army as-

36 Ibid., Sec. 1. par. 9.

3' Qiiotations from MD, Intel Bull 5, Safeguard-
ing Mil Info Regs, 27 Nov 43 (revised 1 Sep 44),
Sec. 3, reproduced hi MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, App.
B7. DASA.

SECURITY

269

Security Sign at the Tennessee Site

sumed full responsibility for its ad-
ministration. Where the OSRD had
applied compartmentalization primar-
ily to research and development orga-
nizations, the Army incorporated it
into virtually every type of activity un-
dertaken by the project. Typical was
the District's insistence that produc-
tion plant blueprints be broken down
and distributed in such a way as to
reveal as little as possible to any one
individual about the overall character
of the project. Similarly, the District
required that equipment orders to
commercial firms specify that an item
not be manufactured and assembled
at the same location. And when the
production plants reached the point
of start-up operations, plant managers
received instructions to split up
orders for raw materials among a

number of suppliers so that the pur-
pose for which they were being used
could not be readily ascertained.

While project leaders agreed that
some compartmentalization of infor-
mation was necessary, considerable
difference of opinion prevailed on the
extent of limiting scientific and tech-
nical interchange, both between sec-
tions functioning within a laboratory
or plant and between the various in-
terrelated installations of the project.
Military administrators, in contrast to
their civilian counterparts, favored the
enforcement of stricter controls.
These generally took the form of
written agreements covering those or-
ganizations and installations that
needed to exchange data. The agree-
ments specified in detail how and
what information could be inter-

270

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

changed. Inevitably occasions arose
when developments required inter-
change of classified information not
covered in agreements. In such in-
stances, project leaders applied di-
rectly to the district engineer or to
General Groves for special permission
to exchange the data needed.^®

One of the most important inter-
change arrangements formed oc-
curred in June 1943, when General
Groves met with Compton and Op-
penheimer for the purpose of estab-
lishing "the principles which should
govern the interchange of information
between the Chicago [Metallurgical
Laboratory] and Los Alamos proj-
ects. . . ." As a basic criterion deter-
mining what information should be
interchanged, they set up the test that
only data that would "benefit work at
both Chicago and Los Alamos"
should be exchanged. The agreement
that resulted spelled out, in consider-
able detail, exactly what information
could and could not be interchanged
(the latter included those categories
relating to production piles, military
weapons, and the time schedules of
various developments); designated by
name those individuals at each instal-
lation who were qualified to carry on
interchange; and outlined exact pro-
cedures of exchange — by formal re-
ports, secret correspondence, or visits
and conferences. On the most sensi-
tive matters, or where there was seri-
ous doubt about interchange, the only

38 Groves, \ow It Can Be Told. pp. 80 and 140;
Govving, Britain and Atomic Energy, p. 150; Talk,
Groves to Women's Patriotic Conf on Natl Def (25-
27 Jan 46), sub: "The Atomic Bomb," Admin Files.
Gen Corresp, 337 (Women's Patriotic Conf on Natl
DeO. MDR; Memo, Marshall to Only Those Con-
cerned, sub: DSM Proj-Clinton Engr Works, 18 May
43. OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 28, Tab
A, MDR; MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, pp. 6.3-6.4, DASA.

channel of exchange was through a
visit to the Chicago laboratory by
either Oppenheimer or a specifically
designated group leader. Although
negotiators of the agreement must
have been aware of the generally re-
strictive character of its provisions,
they nevertheless emphasized that its
major objective was "to maintain as
rapid and effective interchange of in-
formation as possible." ^^

Compartmentalization of informa-
tion probably aroused more adverse
criticism — both from participants in
the atomic program and from some of
those who, in retrospect, have re-
viewed its history — than any other
single aspect of the project's security
system. Among the participants, the
most vociferous critics were the scien-
tists, accustomed to working in col-
lege and university laboratories where
they could freely interchange the re-
sults of their work with scientific col-
leagues in all parts of the world.
Project scientists, such as Leo Szilard,
held that overcompartmentalization
was a primary cause of extended
delays in achievement of scientific and
technical objectives of the program.
Testifying before a committee of
Congress after the war, he asserted,
for example, that "compartmentaliza-
tion of information was the cause for
. . . failure to realize that light urani-
um [U-235] might be produced in
quantities sufficient to make atomic
bombs. . . . We could have had it
eighteen months earlier. . . . We did
not put two and two together because
the two two's were in a different com-

^^ Memo, Groves to Compton and Oppenheimer,
sub: Interchange of Info Between Chicago and Los
Alamos, 17 Jun 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 201
(Tolman), MDR.

SECURITY

271

partment. . . ." *° On another occa-
sion he contended also that compart-
mentalization was not really "too suc-
cessful" because "significant matters
gradually leak through anyway." "^^

Joining Szilard in condemning com-
partmentalization in the strongest
possible terms was Edward U.
Condon, the prominent American
physicist who had come to the atomic
project from the Westinghouse Re-
search Laboratories. In fact, after
spending only a month at Los
Alamos, Condon came to the conclu-
sion that he would be of more use to
the war effort at Westinghouse than
at the New Mexico laboratory. The
project's security policy, he asserted,
had a morbidly depressing effect on
him. "I feel so strongly," he contin-
ued, "that this policy puts you in the
position of trying to do an extremely
difficult job with three hands tied
behind your back that I cannot accept
the view that such internal compart-
mentalization ... is proper." ^^

Most other contemporary critics
took a somewhat less extreme posi-
tion. Concerned about insufficient in-
terchange of data among atomic
project scientists causing delays in the
solutions of problems related to
bomb development, Compton sug-
gested to the OSRD S-1 Committee
in December 1942 that it might be

'"' Excerpts from Szilard's statements before Sen-
ate Special Committee on Atomic Energy given in
Memo, Nichols to Groves, 12 Jan 46, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 201 (Szilard), MDR.

■** Memo for File, William S. Shurcliff, sub: Tran-
script of Notes Taken on 8-11 Oct 44 Trip to Chi-
cago, 14 Oct 44, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 001
(Mtgs), MDR. Shurcliff, a liaison official with the
OSRD, talked to Szilard about security measures
and recorded his comments in this memorandum.

''^ Ltr, Condon to Oppenheimer, 26 Apr 43, In-
vestigation Files, Gen Corresp, Personnel Scty In-
vestigations (Condon), MDR.

wise to increase the number of "re-
sponsible persons who are free of
compartmentalization. . . ." *^ Simi-
larly, in June 1943, physicist Richard
C. Tolman, in his role as Groves's sci-
entific adviser, expressed concern that
the "proposed regulations [to govern
interchange between the Chicago and
Los Alamos scientists were] perhaps
not quite as liberal as may later prove
warranted." In the weeks following
the institution of these regulations,
both Oppenheimer and Edward
Teller, who was working on a part-
time basis at Los Alamos, were trou-
bled by what they viewed as inad-
equate liaison channels between the
New Mexico laboratory and the other
installations where related work was
in progress.'*'*

When British officials and scientists
came to the United States in late
1942, they were surprised to learn
that General Groves planned further
compartmentalization, which many of
them viewed as already having been
applied to an extent that made effi-
cient operation impossible. Further-
more, the British soon found that the
Americans used the policy as a con-
venient excuse for withholding infor-
mation. Thus, the policy became in-
termeshed with the whole question of
interchange with the British, a prob-
lem that was resolved only after many
months of negotiation.^^

'^^ Ltr, Compton to Conant, 8 Dec 42, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1, MDR.

*■* Ltr, Tolman to Groves, 1 1 Jun 43, Admin F"iles,
Gen Corresp, 000.71 (Releasing Info), MDR. See
also Ltr, Teller to LIrey, Incl to Memo, Nichols to
Groves, 1 1 Aug 43, and Ltr, Oppenheimer to
Groves, sub: Liaison With Site X, 4 Oct 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 001, MDR.

''^ Gowing, Bntain and Atomic Energy, pp. 150-51.
See Ch. X.

272

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

By early 1944, most project person-
nel had come to accept the policy as a
fact of life. In looking back after the
war was over, even some scientists
who had found compartmentalization
so distasteful grudgingly conceded it
had probably been necessary. The
eminent American (German-born)
physicist James Franck, for example,
while speaking at a conference on
atomic energy at the University of
Chicago in September 1945, conclud-
ed that "so far as secrecy is con-
cerned, they [Army officers] were un-
relenting and, in all honesty, we have
to admit that they had to be." But, he
went on to remind his listeners that
the policy had exacted a "stiff price"
in the "wasting of talent and scientific
manpower and the loss of precious
time. . . ." "^^

From the military point of view,
compartmentalization was precisely
what was required, both for security
and for achieving the most efficient
functioning of scientists and technolo-
gists. As (reneral Groves expressed
his conviction in retrospect:

Compartmeniaiization of knowledge, to
me, was the very heart of security. My
rule was simple and not capable of misin-
terpretation — each man should know ev-
erything he needed to know to do his job
and nothing else. Adherence to this rule
not only provided an adequate measure
of security, but it greatly improved over-
all efficiency by making our people stick
to their knitting. And it made quite clear
to all concerned that the project existed
to produce a specific end product — not to
enable individuals to satisfy their curi-
osity and to increase their scientific
knowledge.'*'

PoUcy Exception: Informing Congress

The District's policv of compart-
mentalization of information on the
atomic project, in Groves's words, ap-
plied "to everyone, including mem-
bers of the Executive Department,
military personnel and members of
Congress." No one was to have access
"solely by virtue of his commission or
official position." Adherence to this
policy was possible as long as Man-
hattan's funding came from sources
already earmarked for the War
Department. But project leaders
anticipated considerable trouble in
the future, because securing new
funds would entail congressional
authorization.^^

By early 1944, the compartmentali-
zation policy was becoming less and
less feasible with Congress because of
the increasing size of the program, its
rapidly rising cost, and the need to
begin planning for its postwar admin-
istration. Under the original directive
from the President, the atomic pro-
gram obtained funds from the money
appropriated under the Engineer
Service-Army budgetary category.
Funds from this source sufficed as
long as Manhattan's budgets re-
mained relatively modest. But when
project leaders estimated that the
program would need at least $600
million for fiscal year (FY) 1945, they
decided they would have to find a way
to provide some information to se-
lected members of Congress who had
a need to know. They consulted with
President Roosevelt, who thereupon

■•^As quoted by Alice Kimball Smith in A Peril and
a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945-47
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 95.

"'Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 140.

■"Ibid, (source of first quotation), p. 360; MD,
Intel Bull 5, Safeguarding Mil Info Regs (source of
second quotation), 27 Nov 43 (revised 1 Sep 44),
Sec. 3, DASA.

SECURITY

273

directed that Stimson, Bush, and
General Marshall brief the leaders of
both parties in the House and the
Senate."*®

On 18 February, Stimson, Bush,
and Marshall went to the office of
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn,
where they were joined by Majority
Leader John W. McCormack and Mi-
nority Leader Joseph W. Martin, Jr.
Stimson outlined the history of the
atomic project, including its cost to
date, and estimated the total amount
needed to complete it; Bush de-
scribed the project's scientific back-
ground and indicated the likely de-
structive power of an atomic weapon;
and Marshall discussed the potential
role of atomic bombs in the Allied
strategy for winning the war. The leg-
islators pledged their unreserved sup-
port, stating that they viewed its high
cost as well worth the price. They
promised to work out a system for
handling the Manhattan appropria-
tions in committee so that there
would be no danger of disclosure of
their purpose. Bush found that the
"entire meeting was most reassuring,
as it was quite evident the three
congressmen were exceedingly anx-
ious to be of aid to the War Depart-
ment in carrying a very heavy
responsibility." ^°

In June, Stimson, Bush, and Maj.
Gen. George J. Richards, the War De-
partment budget officer who was sub-
stituting for Marshall while he was
out of town, repeated the briefing for

"^MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4, "Auxiliary Activities,"
Ch. 1, pp. 2.4-2.5, DASA. Groves, \'ow It Can Be
Told. pp. 360-62; Stimson Diary, 14-15 Feb 44,
HI.S.

^°Memo, Bush to Bundv, 24 Feb 44. OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 14, Tab A, MDR;
Stimson Diary, 18 Feb 44, HI.S.

the leaders of the Senate. Present
were Majority Leader Alben W. Bar-
kley and Minority Leader Wallace H.
White, as well as Chairman Elmer
Thomas and Senior Minority Member
Styles Bridges of the military subcom-
mittee of the Senate Appropriations
Committee. Stimson recalled that
"the four gentlemen who met with us
were very much impressed. They . . .
promised that they would help and
keep absolute silence about it and
prevent discussion in public as to
what it was about." ^^

During the remaining months of
1944, congressional leaders succeed-
ed in keeping the vast majority of the
members of Congress ignorant of the
atomic project. Accustomed to war-
time restrictions, most members were
willing to accept — without protest —
the assurance of their leaders that the
work was secret and that the needed
apropriations were essential to the
war effort. But for a few members this
policy was unacceptable, and they di-
rected individual inquiries to the War
Department about rumored develop-
ments at the atomic sites.

A case in point was Congressman
Albert J. Engel of Michigan, a
member of the House Appropriations
Committee, who in February 1945
was unwilling to accept automatically
the War Department's request for FY
1946 funding from money appropri-
ated under the Expediting Production
budgetary category. In a visit to
Under Secretary Patterson on the
twenty-fourth, the Michigan repre-
sentative stated that he had heard

*' Stimson Diary (source of quotation), lOJun 44,
HLS; Memo lor File, Bush, 10 Jun 44, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 14, Tab A, MDR;
MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4, Ch. 1. pp. 2.8-2.11. DASA.

274

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

rumors of extravagance and waste
and that he wanted more information
before approving the War Depart-
ment's FY 1946 funds. Remembering
that in late 1943 War Department of-
ficials had dissuaded him from
making a proposed trip to the Clinton
site, this time he firmly insisted that
Patterson allow him to inspect the
atomic installations. When Stimson
heard from Patterson of Engel's in-
sistence upon visiting project facili-
ties, he sought assistance from the
leaders of the House of Representa-
tives. As Speaker Rayburn was away,
Stimson turned to Congressman John
Taber of New York, another member
of the Appropriations Committee. He
and Taber sat down with Engel and
persuaded him to forgo objections to
funds on the floor of the House, but
only after promising him an opportu-
nity to visit some "outside installa-
tions" of the project. ^^

This experience convinced the Sec-
retary of War and the Manhattan
commander, as well as other project
leaders, that more and more members
of Congress would be demanding
current information about Manhat-
tan's activities. Consequently, they ar-
ranged to have a selected delegation
from each House visit Clinton and, if
they wished, also Hanford. With the
President's approval for this plan.
Groves and Stimson, accompanied by
the Secretary's aide. Col. William H.
Kyle, visited Clinton on 10 April to
prepare "for future trouble with
Congressmen." ^^

Upon the unexpected death of
Roosevelt on the twelfth, the inspec-
tion trip to Clinton was delayed, but
only temporarily. In May after Presi-
dent Truman had given his assent.
Speaker Rayburn helped select five
members from the House Appropria-
tions Committee — Clarence Cannon,
the chairman, George H. Mahon,
J. Buell Snyder, Engel, and Taber.
Under the careful guidance of the
Manhattan commander and the dis-
trict engineer, the five congressmen
spent two days inspecting the Clinton
Engineer Works. The legislators re-
turned to Washington convinced that
public funds had been well spent and
prepared to support the project's
budgetary requests for FY 1946. A
visit by a comparable Senate delega-
tion to inspect atomic facilities was
not feasible until after V-J Day, when
a group from the upper house toured
the Hanford Engineer Works. ^*

Administrative Aspects

As security requirements increased,
the Army established a variety of
units to administer its highly compart-
mentalized information security pro-
gram. By necessity, the program from
about late 1942 up until the District's
major intelligence and security reor-
ganization in early 1944 was limited
in scope. Faced with a rapid influx of
new personnel, both civilian and mili-

*^ Stimson Diary, 26 (source of quoted words) and
28 Feb 45, HLS; Groves, Now It Can Be Told. p. 363;
MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4, Ch. 1, pp. 2.5-2.6, DASA.

S3 Stimson Diary, 31 Mar 45, HLS.

54 Ibid., 15 Mar, 2, 6-11, and 25 Apr, 4 and 30
May 45, HLS. Groves Diary, 22-24 May 45, LRG.
Notes on Trip to Knoxville, Tenn., 10 Apr 45, Incl
to Memo, Kyle to Bundy, 1 1 Apr 45; Ltrs, Stimson
to Bush, 31 Mar 45, and Bush to Stimson, 2 Apr 45.
All in HB Files, Fldr 7, MDR. MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 4,
Ch. 1, pp. 2.12-2.13, DASA. Groves, AW // Ca?i Be
Told, pp. 363-65. Hewlett and Anderson, Xew World,
pp. 302 and 339-40.

SECURIIY

275

tary, the District's Protective Security
Section concentrated chiefly on devel-
oping ways for instructing them in the
meaning of classified information and
the correct methods for handling it.
To facilitate this education process,
the small staff hurriedly prepared and
distributed a manual that provided a
"statement of District policy regard-
ing Protective Security proce-
dures . . . ," including an extensive
section on safeguarding classified
information.^^

An intensification of protective
measures during the first half of 1943
resulted in the establishment in
August of the Plant Security Section
for Safeguarding Military Informa-
tion. In an effort to assure attainment
of the desired security objectives, the
SMI staff developed a new intelli-
gence bulletin. This bulletin, issued
in November, set forth in detail the
requirements and procedures for
safeguarding military information,
emphasizing that "matters of vital im-
portance to the government must be
protected at all times whether at war
or at peace . . . [and thus] great cau-
tion [must] be exercised in the han-
dling and in the dissemination of all
information — written or oral — relative
to this Project at any time." ^^

By early 1944, consolidation of the
District's intelligence and security fa-
cilities opened the way for a more
comprehensive information security
program, and the establishment in
May of a separate SMI Section (redes-
ignated SMI Branch in 1945, when
organizationallv restructured as a sub-

ordinate unit of the District's Intelli-
gence and Security Division). Under
the expanded program, security offi-
cials launched studies of all aspects of
the atomic project — equipment, mate-
rial, products, processes, operations,
administrative matters — to determine
the appropriate classification for their
mention in correspondence and other
documents. They set up code names
(some already in use) for major sites,
important materials, items of equip-
ment, and even for the more widely
known scientists working on the
project. Under this scheme, for exam-
ple, Los Alamos became Site Y, pluto-
nium became 94, the implosion bomb
became Fat Man, and scientist Arthur
H. Compton became A. H. Comas.
Using the staff and resources of the
SMI Section, District authorities di-
rected attention to those areas where
security leaks were most likely to
occur. Thus, the section regularly re-
viewed project correspondence with
other government agencies, such as
the Selective Service concerning de-
ferment of key personnel, and advised
on the security classification that
should govern each of the thousands
of contracts that the District negoti-
ated with outside individuals and
firms. ^"^

The establishment and maintenance
of effective adherence to security re-
quirements among the project's thou-
sands of contractor organizations
comprised one of the most challeng-
ing and complex aspects of the infor-

"WD, VS. Kngrs onkc, MD, Protective Sctv
Manual. 1 Feb 43. reproduced in MDH, Bk. 1, X'ol
14, App. (;5, DASA.

5« MD, Intel Bull 5. Safeguarding Mil Info Regs,
27 Nov 43 (revised 1 Sep 44). Sec. 3, DASA.

"MDH. Bk. 1. Vol. 14, pp. 6.3-6.5, DASA
Memo, Marshall to Onlv Those Concerned, sub
DSM Pioj-Clinton Kngr Works, 18 May 43, MDR
Ltr. Oppenheimer to Oroves, sub: [L'se of Cover
Names], 2 Nov 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp. 680.2
(Visits), MDR; Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 182.

276

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

mation security program. District au-
thorities oversaw contractors' security
activities through several channels.
The branch intelligence offices in
principal cities throughout the United
States provided a convenient point of
contact, and periodic checks of con-
tractor facilities and operations by se-
curity inspectors from District head-
quarters constituted a second avenue
of control. These inspectors particu-
larly observed methods of handling
classified materials and storing docu-
ments. District security officials also
investigated contractors' personnel
recruitment programs, written corre-
spondence, stock registration state-
ments to the Securities and Exchange
Commission, and similar activities in
which security leaks were likely to
occur. Finally, when a contractor ter-
minated his contract with the atomic
program. District security officials
made certain that all classified materi-
als were returned to project control
or that the contractor provided for
their adequate protection.^®

Security problems involving firms
under contract most frequently arose
where these organizations were carry-
ing out large-scale development of
project facilities. Such development,
as at the Clinton and Hanford sites,
inevitably brought overcrowding of
local housing, acute labor shortages,
greatly increased road traffiic, and
other adverse changes that placed a
severe strain on normal community
activities. The resulting public resent-
ment, generally focused on the con-
tractor firms, created an environment
in which threats to security were more
likely to occur. In the spring of 1943,
for example, Du Font's effort to ar-

range for housing and other facilities
for the thousands of employees who
would work on the Hanford project
stirred up resentment in surrounding
communities, already aroused by the
Army's land acquisition program. The
spread of rumors, adverse criticism in
the local newspapers, and unfounded
statements by local officials tended to
draw widespread public attention to
the project, posing a serious threat to
security. Lt. Col. Franklin T. Matthias,
the Hanford area engineer, and mem-
bers of his staff spoke at meetings of
service clubs in communities adjacent
to the project, in an endeavor to
counter the rumors and misinforma-
tion concerning Du Font's role in the
project. By these and similar efforts
they laid the groundwork for obtain-
ing the support and good will of the
local citizenry — an absolute essential
to maintaining the security of the
project. ^^

Efforts to maintain good communi-
ty relations was an important aspect
of the District's information security
program, which had as its prime ob-
jective the forestalling of security
breaks, first by anticipating them and
second by teaching project personnel
how to be "instinctively alert-minded
and security-wise." ^° Although the
SMI Section had primary responsibil-
ity for carrying out the program, em-
ployee education in security matters
devolved chiefly to the SMI staffs at
the branch intelligence offiices. Each
staff, for example, conducted orienta-

ls MDH. Bk. 1, Vol. 14. pp. 6.7-6.8. DA.SA.

^^ Memo, MaUhias to Groves, sub: Public Mtgs in
Which Du Ponl Participated, 23 Apr 4?>. Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 001 (.Mtgs), MDR; Matthias
Diary, 20 and 28 Apr 43, OROO.

«OMD, Intel Bull 3, Sctv Plducational Prgm,
1.^ Sep 4,3, reproduced in MDH, Bk. 1, \'()l. 14,
App B8, DA.SA.

SECURITY

277

tion and refresher sessions for Corps
of Engineers personnel; provided
each contractor with instructional ma-
terials for in-house security education
briefings for its personnel; and used a
variety of media — training films, cir-
culars and handbills, payroll inserts,
telephone stickers, and editorials in
project newspapers — to remind Dis-
trict employees of the importance of
unremitting attention to the demands
of security. ^^

Because of the policy of compart-
mentalization, the quantity and varie-
ty of educational subject matter avail-
able for training purposes was limit-
ed. Most workers had knowledge of
only the project activity under way at
the site where they were employed,
and most generally did not even know
exactly what was being made in the
facility where they worked. And even
in some instances, project officials
had concocted for employees — those
working at the electromagnetic
plant — a plausible but inaccurate and
misleading explanation of the process
involved and the product produced,
with the warning that this information
was given to them only to help them
carry out their jobs. Lacking concrete
data on which to base an appeal to
employees, security officials had to
request that they accept the necessity
for strict adherence to secrecy largely
on faith and out of a sense of patriot-
ism and loyalty to the men on the
fighting fronts.

As did most wartime agencies in-
volved in secret work, the Manhattan
District resorted to censorship of vari-
ous kinds as a means of safeguarding
classified information. In the first few
months after the Army assumed re-

sponsibility for the atomic program,
the District and branch security staffs
began a cursory review of a few lead-
ing daily newspapers and periodicals
and gradually enlarged this check of
publications until it covered some 370
newspapers and 70 magazines. The
censors, several of whom were
Women's Army Corps members, were
particularly on the lookout for publi-
cation of anything that would reveal
classified information, attract atten-
tion to the project, or furnish an
enemy agent or anyone else with
knowledge sufficient to determine the
nature of the project. ^^

While review of newspapers, peri-
odicals, and other publications pro-
vided some protection against damag-
ing revelations about the project, the
fact remained that once such informa-
tion appeared in print an element of
secrecy was lost. Much more effective
was a system that prevented publica-
tion of sensitive information. Under
the Office of Censorship's "Codes of
Wartime Practices for the American
Press and American Broadcasters,"
newspapers, periodicals, and radio
broadcasters voluntarily agreed to re-
frain from discussing certain specified
subjects and mentioning certain
terms. In February 1943, Vannevar
Bush proposed that the atomic energy
program be brought under this volun-
tary censorship. At first, both General
Strong, the Army intelligence chief,
and General Groves had serious res-
ervations about making the atomic
energy project subject to this censor-
ship arrangement, fearing that the re-

Ibid., pp. 6.10-6.11, DASA.

62 Ibid., pp. 6, 12-6. 15. and Bk. 5, Vol. 6, "Oper-
ation," p. 6.1 and App. Bl, DASA; Groves, Xow It
Can Be Told. p. 146.

278

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

suits "might be more detrimental
than otherwise." ^^

Finally, military leaders reluctantly
agreed to the voluntary press censor-
ship plan, persuaded primarily by the
insistence of Nathaniel R. Howard, as-
sistant director of the Office of Cen-
sorship and a former editor of the
Cleveland News, that this was the only
way to maintain press security of the
project. On 28 June 1943, Byron
Price, director of the Office of Cen-
sorship, sent out a special request to
all editors and broadcasters that they
extend the previously issued precau-
tion not to publish or broadcast any-
thing about "new or secret military
weapons . . . [or] experiments" to
include:

Production or utilization of atom
smashing, atomic energy, atomic fission,
atomic splitting, or any of their
equivalents.

The use for military purposes of
radium or radioactive materials, heavy
water, high voltage discharge equipment,
cyclotrons.

The following elements or any of their
compounds: polonium, uranium, ytterbi-
um, hafnium, protoactinium, radium, tho-
rium, deuterium.^'*

The aim of censorship was to pre-
vent all mention of the atomic pro-
gram in the American press; however,
on the advice of the Office of Censor-

^^ Strong's reaction to the proposal during a dis-
cussion with General Styer, who later reported the
discussion to Groves in Memo, Styer to Groves,
18 Feb 43, AG 313.3 (22 Aug 47), copy in CMH. See
also Memo, Bush to Styer, 13 Feb 43, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 000.73 (Censorship), MDR; Groves,
Now It Can Be Told, p. 146.

^* Price, sub: Note to Editors and Broadcasters —
Confidential — Not for PubHcation, 28 Jun 43, Incl to
Ltr, Howard to Groves, 28 Jun 43, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 000.73 (Censorship), MDR. See also
Groves, Now It Cmi Be Told, p. 146; MFC Min,
24 Jun 43, MDR.

ship, the District permitted a limited
amount of information about certain
aspects of the project to appear in
newspapers published in communities
near the Clinton and Hanford sites.
Office of Censorship officials pointed
out that complete suppression of in-
formation about activities at these lo-
cations would actually draw more at-
tention than a policy of judicious re-
lease of news of local interest, careful-
ly controlled so as not to reveal any
vital secrets. They cited as an exam-
ple the land acquisition at Hanford,
which required relocation of many
people and resulted in court proceed-
ings. Stories on these events in news-
papers of the Washington-Oregon
region would not violate essential se-
curity as long as they did not reveal
the purpose of the acquisition or
the interconnection of the Hanford
project with other parts of the atomic
program. General Groves assented to
this policy but took the added precau-
tion, suggested by Office of Censor-
ship officials, of having Manhattan
District representatives visit the edi-
tors or publishers of local newspapers
and operators of local radio stations
to request their cooperation in main-
taining the security of the project. ^^

At Los Alamos, security authorities
endeavored to keep all mention of the
site and its activities out of the press.
Total exclusion was more feasible at
the New Mexico installation because
of its military administration and geo-
graphic isolation from surrounding
communities. The policy was rein-
forced in late 1943 through the use of

^^ Ltr, Howard to Lt Col Whitney Ashbridge
(Asst, Opns Br, Constr Div, OCE), 1 Apr 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 000.73 (Censorship), MDR;
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 146-47.

SECURITY

279

regular mail censorship and other
measures to minimize the likelihood
that knowledge of the site would
come to the attention of the press. ^^
It was inevitable that a voluntary
censorship system would not be total-
ly effective, and on those occasions
when some reference to the project
or atomic energy occurred in the
press or on the radio, the District se-
curity office and the Office of Censor-
ship took immediate steps to limit its
circulation and to run down it origins.
A rash of censorship violations oc-
curred in late 1943. A columnist in
the Washington Post announced that
the Senate's Truman Committee was
about to investigate a "half-a-billion
dollar" War Department project in
the state of Washington that was "re-
ported to be one of the largest single
projects that's to be built from scratch
in the Nation's history." On the same
day the Post article appeared in the
Spokane Spokes man- Review, and soon

®® Ltr, Groves to Oppenheimer, 1 Nov 43; Ltr,
Capt Peer de Silva (Santa Fe Area Intel Ofl) to
Lansdale, sub: Censorship at Los Alamos, 8 Nov 43;
Memo, Lansdale to Groves, same sub, 10 Nov 43.
All in Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 311.7 (Santa Fe),
MDR. Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p. 147.

thereafter the wire services picked up
the news item. Almost simultaneously,
several newspapers in Tennessee ran
a story on the state's Selective Service
that contained a passing reference by
the head of the service, Brig. Gen.
Thomas A. Frazier, to "the Clinton
Engineer Works in secret war produc-
tion of a weapon that possibly might
be the one to end the war." In both
instances, prompt action by the Office
of Censorship led to withdrawal of
the articles before they had received
wide circulation. Subsequent action
by the War Department resulted in
tracing down the sources of the leaks
and in implementing improved secu-
rity measures to prevent such oc-
currences in the future. ^"^

®^ Memo (source of first quotation). Groves to
Secy War, sub: Publicity Concerning DSM Proj,
15 Dec 43; Memo (source of second quotation).
Groves to Secy War, sub: Violation of Vital Scty
Provs by Brig Gen Thomas A. Frazier, 10 Jan 44,
and Incl; Rpt, Lansdale, sub: Publicity Concerning
Clinton Engr Works, 3 Jan 44. All in HB Files, Fldr
62, MDR. References to atomic energy and the
atomic project — some intentional, some accidental —
occurred many times in the public media during the
war. Examples of those investigated by Manhattan
District security officials may be found in HB Files,
Fldr 7, MDR, and in .Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
000.73 (Censorship), MDR.

CHAPTER XII

Foreign Intelligence Operations

The Manhattan Project's security
system involved the conduct of not
only domestic but also foreign intelli-
gence operations, for in terms of mili-
tary strategy gaining all possible in-
formation about atomic activities in
the Axis nations — especially Germa-
ny — was as important as safeguarding
state-of-the-art information on Ameri-
can nuclear research and develop-
ments. Hitler's recurring claims that
Germany had devised secret weapons,
as well as existing intelligence reports
on both German interest in the nucle-
ar research of French physicist Fred-
eric Joliot-Curie and German produc-
tion of heavy water at the Rjukan
(Norway) plant, convinced project ad-
ministrators of the likelihood that
Germany had under way a well-devel-
oped atomic energy program. In
order to carry out necessary counter-
measures against these presumed
enemy efforts to produce atomic
weapons. Allied military leaders in
1943 and 1944 intensified their for-
eign intelligence operations in the
European Theater of Operations
(EFO), giving a high priority to se-
curing more information about enemy
atomic activities. Manhattan Project
officials initiated much of this intelli-
gence effort, but eventually the War
Department General Staff, General

Marshall, Secretary Stimson, and a
number of other military leaders con-
tributed directly to its success.^

Organization of the ALSOS Mission

Upon receipt of any intelligence in-
formation on atomic developments in
enemy nations, the Army G-2, the
Office of Naval Intelligence, and the
Office of Strategic Services, as well as
other existing intelligence agencies,
dispatched a current intelligence
report to the Manhattan District for
the attention of General Groves. Until
the fall of 1943, this reporting system
had served to keep the Manhattan
commander and other project leaders
apprised of at least the accessible
areas of enemy atomic activities. But
in September, after the Fifth Army
had landed in southern Italy, Groves
perceived a unique opportunity for
the Army to exploit new sources of
information, especially about the
German atomic program, as U.S.
forces moved up the Italian penin-
sula. With the firm support of OSRD
Director Vannevar Bush, Groves met
with Maj. Gen. George V. Strong, the
Army G-2, to explore ways of achiev-

'MPC Min, 13 Aug 43, OCG Files. Gen Corresp,
MP Files, Fldr 23, lab A. MDR.

FOREIGN INIELLIGKNCE OPERATIONS

281

ing this objective. The proposed
course of action, with which Bush
coiK urred, was tlie eslabhshmeiU of a
special intelligence mission in Italy.

Shortly thereafter, Strong met with
General Marshall and suggested that
a small group of civilian scientists, as-
sisted by military personnel, be sent
to Italy to conduct inquiries into sci-
entific projects in that country, with
the hope that they might reveal some-
thing about German developments.
Marshall promptly approved the plan
and asked Groves to take responsibil-
ity for foreign intelligence related to
atomic energy. Apparently the Chief
of Staff was convinced that Manhattan
Project personnel and direction
would result in better coordination,
coverage, and less risk to security.^

Manhattan, OSRD, Army G-2, and
the Navy all furnished personnel for
the newly designated Alsos mission,^
which completed its organization by
late fall of 1943. As chief of Alsos
General Strong appointed Lt. Col.
Boris T. Pash, an intelligence officer
whose earlier competence in the Man-
hattan District's espionage investiga-
tions at the Radiation Laboratory had
impressed Groves. When the new
mission reached Italy in late Decem-
ber, it had fourteen members, includ-

2 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, pp. 18.5 and 189-90;
Ms, Col Bruce W. Bidwell, "History of the Military
Intelligence Division, Department of the Army Gen-
eral Staff" (Washington, D.C.: Department of the
Army, n.d), Pt. 5, p. 6.25, copy in NARS.

^ Inadvertently, the letters of the code name
Alsos form the Greek word meaning "grove." Gen-
eral Groves's first reaction, when a scholarly col-
league informed him of the meaning of the word,
was to request the G-2 to adopt a more innocuous
name. After further consideration, however, he de-
cided against making the change because he feared
that to do so would create an even greater security
hazard because of the attention it would draw to the
mission. See Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p. 191.

ing Pash, an administrative officer,
four scientists — two OSRD, one
Army, one Navy — four interpreters,
and four attached counterintelligence
agents. Opening the Alsos field
headquarters near Naples on the sev-
enteenth, Pash established liaison
with the Fifth Army Intelligence
Section and representatives of Mar-
shal Pietro Badoglio's Italian civil
government.

ALSOS Operations in Italy

Alsos teams in the early weeks of
1944 interviewed Italian scientists and
examined captured technical docu-
ments in Naples, Taranto, and Brindi-
si, and elsewhere in the zone of occu-
pation.* They soon realized that little
data on scientific developments in
Germany and northern Italy was avail-
able in southern Italy, but discovered
that Rome held more promise. To
gain access to the Italian capital,
Alsos officials prepared two alternate
plans: the first, have Alsos personnel
enter Rome with the Fifth Army as
soon as the city fell; the second, bring
Italian scientists out of Rome and
northern Italy even before this oc-
curred. Neither plan succeeded, how-
ever, because of the unexpectedly
slow advance of the Allies. Alsos
teams also had little success securing
information from Italian scientists
behind enemv lines, and bv March

* Except as otherwise indicated, section based on
Ms, Bidwell, "Hist Mil Intel Div, " Pt. 5, pp. 6.25-
6.26, NARS; MDH, Bk. 1. Vol. 14, "Intelligence and
Security," Foreign Intel Supp. 1, pp. 1.1-3.6, DASA;
Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 190-94; Lincoln R.
Thiesmeyer and John E. Burchard, Combat Scientists,
Science in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and
Co , 1947), pp. 164-65; Boris T. Pash, The ALSOS
Mission (New York: Award House, 1969).

282

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

most team members had returned to
the United States.

From the information secured in
southern Italy, Alsos scientists con-
cluded that the Germans were carry-
ing on little, if any, experimental ac-
tivity with atomic energy. From their
reports Groves estimated that the
German program was at about the
same stage the American program
had been when the Army assumed re-
sponsibility for its further develop-
ment. But the evidence was not suffi-
cient. For this reason and with an eye
to the coming invasion of Western
Europe, Alsos scientists recommend-
ed that measures be undertaken to
secure knowledge of scientific de-
velopments in new theaters of
operation.^

When Colonel Pash, who was in
London preparing the Alsos mission
to accompany the invasion of Western
Europe, received word that Allied
troops had entered Rome on 4 June,
he immediately left for Italy. Arriving
in Rome on the fifth, he helped to
identify a number of important scien-
tific intelligence objectives, including
questioning of the members of the
physics laboratory at the University of
Rome. A reconstituted Alsos group
for Italy carried out this and other
tasks. Two Manhattan officers, Maj.
R. C. Ham, who took charge of the
group when Pash returned to Eng-
land, and Maj. Robert R. Furman, a
special projects officer from Groves's
Washington staff, played an important
part in its work. The results of the
group's investigations tended to reaf-
firm those of the earlier Alsos mis-

sion that German atomic activities
were on a very limited scale.®

Manhattan 's Special Intelligence
Activities, 1944

Anticipating that Alsos would con-
tinue its operations in Western
Europe, Groves established a liaison
office in London. In December 1943
he sent Major Furman to make pre-
liminary arrangements with the Brit-
ish government, and in January 1944
he assigned Capt. Horace K. Calvert,
chief of the Manhattan District's secu-
rity program, to head the new office.
Calvert quickly established working
relations with G-2, European Theater
of Operations, U.S. Army (ETOUSA),
with the American embassy, and with
the British atomic energy organiza-
tion, and also assembled a small staff
of researchers and investigators.

In the early months of 1944, Cal-
vert's group concentrated on collect-
ing further background data on
German atomic activities, seeking es-
pecially to obtain more information
on the number of atomic scientists
and technicians at work, on the loca-
tion of physics laboratories and indus-
trial facilities engaged in operations
related to atomic energy, and on the
mining and stockpiling of ores con-
taining fissionable materials (uranium
and thorium). For example, by perus-
ing German physics journals and
questioning refugee European scien-
tists, they learned the names and
likely whereabouts of the most impor-
tant German atomic scientists; and by
periodic aerial surveillance of the

* Groves, Xow It Can Be Told, p. 194; MPC Min,
28 Jul 44 and 24 Feb 45, MDR.

« Groves, Now It Can Be Told. pp. 208-10; Pash,
ALSOS Mission, pp. 30-32.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERA! IONS

283

mines at Joachimsthal (Jachymov),
Czechoslovakia, they maintained a
check on the production of uranium
ore, an indicator of the extent of
German atomic activities. Thus by the
time a revived Alsos mission pre-
pared to follow the Allied invasion
that summer, the London group had
ready a promising list of matters to
be investigated.'

At the same time, other representa-
tives of the American program were
in England to advise the Allied mili-
tary leaders on development of de-
fense measures against atomic weap-
ons. There had been a growing con-
viction among a number of the ad-
ministrative and scientific leaders of
the Manhattan Project that the Ger-
mans might employ some type of
atomic weapon, cither in attack upon
Great Britain or in defense against an
Allied landing in Western Europe.
Most American scientists believed that
if the Germans did attempt to employ
nuclear materials on the battlefield,
they would use radioactive fission
products in the form of some kind of
poison gas. The Germans, the Ameri-
can scientists reasoned, were most
likely to have concentrated their ef-
forts on development of a plutonium-
producing pile, because this was the
method that promised to produce the
most active material with the least in-
vestment in plants and fissionable ma-
terials. The Americans knew from
their own experience that pile oper-
ation produced not only plutonium
but also a large amount of radioactive
by-products. If the Germans had suc-
ceeded in developing and operating a
pile — and no one was certain they had
not — they would have built up a con-

siderable supply of these radioactive
materials.^

General Groves, very much aware
of the possibility of radioactive war-
fare, took specific measures to inform
American and British military leaders
of how to deal with the threat. In late
1943, he directed that a project team
prepare an instruction manual on the
use of radioactive materials in war-
fare, for distribution to the military
leaders, and in December, with the
concurrence of General Marshall, he
authorized a briefing of four officers
from the ETOUSA staff temporarily
on duty in the United States. Maj.
Arthur V. Peterson, a chemical engi-
neer long associated with the pile
program, conducted the briefing at
the Metallurgical Laboratory, includ-
ing information on probable uses of
the materials, their effects and how
they could be treated, and possible
defense measures. He also instructed
the four officers to inform key officers
in ETOUSA, suggesting they report
any unusual or unexplained symp-
toms observed by medical personnel
and fogging of films detected by
signal or air personnel. Headquarters,
ETOUSA, took the recommended ac-
tions promptly, but in the early
months of 1944 found no evidence of

'Groves, \ow It Can Be Told. pp. 194-98.

8MPC Mill, 14 Dec 43, MDR; MPC Rpt. 4 Feb 44.
OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab C,
MDR; Groves, \ow It Can Be Told, pp. 199-200. See
also the several reports, memorandums, and other
documents pertaining to how the Germans might
use radioactive materials for military purposes in
Admin Files, (ien Corresp, 319.1, MDR. Because of
this threat, the Manhattan District during the
summer of 1943 supplied its area offices in Boston,
Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, as well as
Groves's headquarters in Washington, D.C., with
Geiger counters as a means to detect the presence
of radioactivity in the event of an air raid.

284

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

the use of radioactive materials by the
Germans.^

As time for the AUied invasion of
Western Europe approached, General
Groves turned his attention to the
possibility that the Germans would
employ radioactive warfare to disrupt
the landings on the Continent. He
consulted with a number of Manhat-
tan Project leaders but did not get
any information or helpful advice,
except from James B. Conant. He de-
cided, nevertheless, to warn General
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commanding
General, Supreme Headquarters,
Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF),
directly of the danger of radioactive
poisoning. With approval from Gen-
eral Marshall, he sent Major Peterson
to England to brief Eisenhower and
his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Walter
Bedell Smith, and other members of
the SHAEF and ETOUSA staffs. Ei-
senhower's reaction was restrained.
"Since the Combined Chiefs of Staff
have not brought this information of-
ficially to my notice," he wrote to
Marshall, "I have assumed that they
consider, on the present available in-
telligence, that the enemy will not im-
plement this project. Owing to the
importance of maintaining secrecy to
avoid a possible scare, I have passed
this information to a very limited
number of persons; moreover, I have
not taken those precautionary steps
which would be necessary adequately

^ Memo, Maj Peterson to Groves, sub: Special In-
struments, 14 )un 43; Memo, Nichols to Groves,
30 Oct 43; Manual on Use of Radioactive Materials
in Warfare, no author. All in Admin Files, Gen Cor-
resp, 319.1, MDR. Memo, Groves to Chief of Staff,
23 Jul 43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 020 (Chief of
Staff), MDR. MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, Foreign Intel
Supp. 2 (by Lt Col Arthur V. Peterson), pp. 4-6,
DASA. Groves. Xow It Can Be Told. p. 200.

to counter enemy action of this
nature." ^°

Nevertheless, Eisenhower did take
several measures to alert his com-
mand. Briefings on radioactive war-
fare were held for the chiefs of the
American Navy, Army Air Forces, and
logistical commands in Europe, as
well as for a limited number of their
staff members. He also informed Lt.
Gen. Sir Hastings L. Ismay, Chief of
Staff to Prime Minister Churchill. At
the request of the Supreme Head-
quarters, ETOUSA prepared a plan of
operation for the American forces
under the code name Peppermint,
which provided that detection equip-
ment be readied for quick dispatch to
the Continent, if needed, and made
arrangements for obtaining more
equipment and the technical person-
nel required to use it. The plan also
called for briefing of specified staff
officers and again requested reports
of unexplained fogging of photo-
graphic film and certain types of clini-
cal symptoms and medical cases. The
British subsequently devised a similar
plan. A short time before the invasion
of Normandy, Headquarters, Chemi-
cal Warfare Service, ETOUSA, car-
ried out rehearsals of Operation Pep-
permint to test the plan and equip-
ment. Aerial and ground surveys
checked for presence of radioactivity
in bombed areas along the coast of
England and at troop- and supply-
concentration centers. Survey results
indicated that the Germans had not
used radioactive materials, so Oper-

'° Qiiotation from Ltr, Eisenhower to Marshall,
1 1 May 44. See also Memo, Groves to Chief of
Staff, 22 Mar 44. Both in OCG Files, Gen Corresp,
Groves Files, Fldr 18, Tab A, MDR.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS

285

ation Peppermint never went into
effect. ^^

ALSOS Operations in Western Europe,
194^-1945

In early 1944, while planning its
special intelligence objectives, the
Manhattan Project also took the initia-
tive to reestablish an even larger
Alsos mission in Western Europe.
Groves and Bush in March requested
the newly assigned Army G-2, Maj.
Gen. Clayton L. Bissell, to form a
new Alsos group along the same
lines as the earlier Italian mission.
Bissell agreed a new high-level scien-
tific organization was needed to ex-
ploit intelligence opportunities in the
wake of the invasion armies, but there
was indecision in the War Department
General Staff as to what kind of orga-
nization should be used. Concerned
by the delay. Groves personally inter-
vened with the G-2. As a result, the
Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Joseph
T. McNarney, approved a reorganiza-
tion plan on 4 April, with Groves and
Bush selecting the military and civil-
ian scientific personnel and General
Bissell the intelligence and adminis-
trative staff. ^2

The new Alsos mission had its own
advisory committee, a scientific direc-
tor, and an enlarged staff of military

' ' Ltr, Eisenhower to Marshall, 1 1 May 44; Admin
Memo 58, Office of Chief Surg, ETOUSA, sub: Rpt
of Epidemic Disease, 3 Mav 44, Both in OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, Groves Files, Fldr 18, Tab A, MDR.
Admin Memo 60, Office of Chief Surg, ETOUSA,
sub: Rpt on Fogging or Blackening of Photographs
or X-rav Film, 3 May 44, reprinted in Groves, Sow It
Can Re Told, pp. 203-04 MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14,
Supp. 2, pp. 6-10, DASA.

'2 Groves, \ow It Can Be Told. p. 207; Ms, Bid-
well, "Hist Mil Intel Div, " Pt. 5, pp. 6.26-6.27,
NARS; Groves Diary, 2. 6, 10 Mar and 3 Apr 44,
LRG.

and civilian personnel. The advisory
committee was comprised of the di-
rectors of Naval Intelligence and the
OSRD, the commanding general of
the Army Service Forces, and the
Army G-2, each of whom appointed a
deputy to carry out the actual work of
supervising the mission. The commit-
tee members and their deputies
shared responsibility with the scientif-
ic director, Samuel A. Goudsmit, a
physicist from the University of Michi-
gan, who had been on leave to work
at MIT's Radiation Laboratory.

Born in the Netherlands and edu-
cated in European universities,
Goudsmit had a first-rate scientific
reputation and a command of several
languages. As a student and later a
frequent visitor to many of the scien-
tific centers of Europe, he had
become personally acquainted with
many of the leading physicists on the
Continent. That he had not been em-
ployed on the Manhattan Project was
an advantage, because, in the event of
his capture by the enemy, he could
not be forced to reveal secret infor-
mation about the atomic program. ^^

'^Except as otherwise indicated, account of
second phase of the Alsos mission based on MDH,
Bk. 1, Vol. 14, Supp. 1, pp. 2.2-2.4 and 4.1-4.50,
DASA; Ms, Bidwell, "Hist Mil Intel Div," Pt. 5, pp.
6.26-6.41, NARS; Groves, \ow It Can Be Told, pp.
207-49; Thiesmeyer and Burchard, Combat Scientists.
pp. 165-79; Pash, ALSOS Mission, pp. 52-248;
Samuel A. Goudsmit, ALSOS (New York: Henry
Schuman, 1947), pp. 14-127. Data on the German
atomic program in World War II drawn from David
Irving, The I'lnts House (London: William Kimber,
1967), subsequently published in an American edi-
tion under the title The German Atomic Bomb: The His-
tory of Xuclear Research m Xazi Germany (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1968); Albert Speer, Inside the
Third Reich — Memoirs, trans, from the German by
Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Macmillan
Co., 1969), pp. 269-72; Michel Bar-Zohar, The Hunt
of German Scientuts. trans, by Len Ortzen from the
French La Chasse aia Sai'anls allemands (New York:
Hawthorn Books, 1967).

286

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

With assistance from the OSRD,
Goudsmit expanded the civihan scien-
tific staff until, by the end of August,
it included more than thirty scientists.
Colonel Pash, after establishing a
London office, recruited additional
military personnel required for the in-
creased administrative and operation-
al duties of a larger mission. For pur-
poses of military administration and
supply, Alsos was attached to the
Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff,
G-2, ETC. In spite of direct support
from Eisenhower's headquarters, Pash
experienced some difficulties in se-
curing adequate counterintelligence
personnel and in making other orga-
nizational arrangements. Part of the
problem was that Alsos's high securi-
ty classification limited knowledge of
its purpose and activities to only a
few high-ranking Allied officers.

While the directive establishing the
new Alsos stated its mission in very
broad terms (it was to secure "all
available intelligence on enemy scien-
tific research and development, par-
ticularly with reference to military
application"), both its military and
scientific leaders viewed its primary
purpose to be uncovering and analyz-
ing German atomic activities. Further-
more, the limited size of its staff
(there were never more than slightly
over one hundred military and civilian
personnel) precluded any extensive
investigations outside the nuclear
physics field, although it did give
some attention to bacteriological war-
fare, aeronautical research, proximity
fuses, guided missiles, and similar
developments.

The first Alsos operations in
France were largely unproductive in-
vestigations at the University of
Rennes and at L'Arcouest, where

Joliot-Curie's summer home was lo-
cated. Joliot was not in L'Arcouest,
but Colonel Pash, Major Calvert, and
two counterintelligence agents found
him in his laboratory at the College
dc France when they accompanied the
2d French Armored Division as it led
the forces liberating Paris in late
August 1944. After receiving news of
the French physicist's whereabouts,
the Alsos scientific director proceed-
ed to Paris to interview Joliot. Goud-
smit subsequently learned that the
German scientists had used Joliot's
cyclotron and other laboratory facili-
ties; however, he failed to obtain
enough data during the interview to
determine the extent of enemy
progress in atomic matters.^*

Alsos investigative efforts became
much more productive following relo-
cation of its headquarters from
London to Paris in mid-September
1944. Alsos teams established con-
tact with officials of the Belgian urani-
um mining firm. Union Miniere du
Haut Katanga, and obtained informa-
tion on the shipments of uranium
products that had gone into Germa-
ny. They also learned that there were
still uranium materials in Belgium and
that other stock had been shipped to
France. Groves undertook immediate
measures to bring these materials
under control of the Manhattan
Project agency that had been formed
for that purpose, the Combined De-
velopment Trust, and dispatched
Major Furman, who had taken part in
the Italian Alsos mission, to locate all
uranium stocks in areas under Allied
control.

'"•Key provisions of the Alsos directive are
quoted in Ms, Bidwell, "Hist Mil Intel Div," Pt. 5, p.
6.29, NARS.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS

287

Soon Alsos teams had tracked
down and secured 68 tons of uranium
materials in Belgium and about 30
tons at Toulouse, France. Groves di-
rected prompt shipment of these
stocks to England and thence later to
the United States for safekeeping. A
subsequent Alsos mission located
and eventually secured substantial
uranium stock in storage near Stass-
furt in central Prussia. ^^

As Allied armies moved eastward
toward the Rhine in the fall of 1944,
Alsos teams gained considerable
knowledge about the probable loca-
tions of German atomic activities. Re-
search had begun at the Kaiser Wil-
helm Institute in Berlin but had been
moved near the small towns of He-
chingen and Bissingen in Wuerttem-
berg, located in the Black Forest
region of southwest Germany, when
heavy bombing of the German capital
started in 1943. Aerial photo surveil-
lance instituted by the Manhattan in-
telligence office in England that
summer had concluded new construc-
tion there was not an atomic plant,
but other Allied intelligence sources
indicated the Germans had some kind
of atomic operations in progress in
the area. Questioning of German pris-
oners, too, had cast suspicion on the
town of Oranienburg, 18 miles north
of Berlin, as a possible location of a
processing plant for thorium and
other ores related to atomic energy
research.

Finally, in late November 1944,
Alsos representatives were able to

'^On the Combined Development Trust see Ch.
XIII. For further details on the seizure and handling
of captured stock see Ms, "Diplomatic Hist of Man-
hattan Proj," pp. 31-32, HB Files, Fldr 111, MDR,
and MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 14, Supp. 1, pp. 4.36-4.37,
DASA.

question German atomic scientists at
the University of Strasbourg. The 6th
Army Group's special unit, the Stras-
bourg T-Force, and Alsos teams en-
tered the city with the first Allied ele-
ments. From the scientists and the
documents they found there, they
learned that Germany's wartime
atomic research program had begun
in early 1942. It had not, however,
gotten beyond the research and de-
velopment stage. When the Nazi lead-
ers had learned of the possibility of
producing atomic weapons, they had
offered to provide the atomic pro-
gram with more money. But the
German scientists had turned down
the funds as premature. By 1944, they
still had not discovered an effective
way to separate U-235 from ordinary
uranium, although they had succeed-
ed in manufacturing uranium metal
for use in the piles they had built.
They had not, however, attained a
chain reaction in these piles. ^®

While the Strasbourg data indicated
strongly that the Nazis had not
achieved significant progress toward
the fabrication of atomic weapons, it
was not sufficient to convince General
Groves, Allied military leaders, and
Allied scientists. Some argued, for ex-
ample, that the Strasbourg evidence
might have been planted deliberately.
In fact, some Alsos military members
advocated bombing raids on suspect-
ed German atomic sites in the Black
Forest region, but Alsos scientists
dissuaded them from this course.

The latter group, however, raised
no objections to Groves's request for

'^ For a description of the efforts of the Nazi gov-
ernment to provide support for the German atomic
program see Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 269-
71, and Stimson Diarv, 13 Dec 44, HLS.

288

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

bombing of installations at Oranien-
burg. The town was in the projected
Russian occupation zone and there-
fore could not be investigated by
Alsos. Groves dispatched an officer
from his staff to explain the mission
to General Carl A. Spaatz, command-
er of the United States Army Strategic
Air Forces in Europe, who on 15
March 1945 ordered Eighth Air Force
bombers to drop almost 1,300 tons of
bombs and incendiaries on the facili-
ties at Oranienburg. ^ "^

Preparing to follow the Allied
armies into Germany in early 1945,
Alsos corrected certain organization-
al weaknesses revealed during the
Strasbourg operations. Full-time as-
signment of German-speaking scien-
tists helped ensure their prompt avail-
ability when they were most needed.
Establishment of close liaison with
SHAEF and ETOUSA headquarters,
in Paris, and with the 21st, 12th, and
6th Army Groups headquarters en-
abled Colonel Pash to keep more
abreast of front-line military develop-
ments, and hence in a better position
to exploit intelligence opportunities.

The reorganized Alsos units dem-
onstrated their greater effectiveness
as they followed the Allied armies
toward the Rhine in February 1945.
Establishing another advance base at
Aachen, they investigated scientific in-
telligence objectives in the university
cities of Cologne and Bonn, at metal-
making plants in Frankfurt, and, a

^' Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Gate, eds.,
Europe: Argument to V-E Day, January 19-4-4 to May
1945, The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 3
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 53
and 753. The account of the bombing of Oranien-
burg on 15 Mar 45 indicates that the town was a
railroad center and site of aircraft plants, but does
not mention atomic facilities. See also Groves, Now
It Can Be Told, pp. 230-31.

short time later, at the IG Farben In-
dustries plants in Ludwigshafen. As
Alsos scientists had anticipated, none
of these investigations turned up sig-
nificant information on German
atomic developments. But they
helped to prepare the way for
effective exploitation of the impor-
tant atomic objectives in southwest
Germany.

The first of these to become acces-
sible in the spring of 1945 was Hei-
delberg. There an Alsos team cap-
tured several leading German atomic
scientists; nuclear equipment, includ-
ing a cyclotron; and many valuable
documents. Data uncovered in Hei-
delberg also further substantiated ear-
Her evidence that most of the other
important German atomic scientists
and their research installations were
in the region south and east of Stutt-
gart. But Alsos penetration of this
area posed a problem because of the
decision by the Allied leaders in early
1945 that it fell within the French
zone of operations.

In April 1945, while American
atomic leaders endeavored to work
out a solution to the French zone
problem, Alsos teams operating out
of advanced base headquarters at
Heidelberg and Aachen investigated a
variety of atomic targets at other
points in west and southwest Ger-
many. Northeast of Frankfurt, at the
town of Stadtilm in Thuringia, where
the German government had relo-
cated a part of the physics branch of
the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Alsos
found many technical documents relat-
ing to the atomic program, parts for a
low-temperature pile, heavy water
equipment, and 8 tons of uranium
oxide. The Gestapo had evacuated

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS

289

the most important laboratory staff
members, but Alsos scientists inter-
viewed a number of lesser status who
had remained in Stadtilm. At the uni-
versity town of Goettingen, located
south of the city of Hannover, and at
the adjoining village of Lindau, an-
other Alsos team found several scien-
tists and technicians who had consid-
erable knowledge of German wartime
scientific programs. Most notable
among this group was the chief of the
planning board of the Reichsforschungs-
rat (National Research Council), the
central German agency for scientific
research for military purposes. From
Goettingen, an Alsos team pushed
north to Celle, located 22 miles
northeast of Hannover, where, ac-
cording to information obtained at
Stadtilm, the Germans had installed
an experimental centrifuge for sep-
arating uranium isotopes. On the
seventeenth, the team found the cen-
trifuge in a laboratory located in a
spinning mill guarded by British
troops.

These various findings by Alsos
teams appeared further to confirm
that the German wartime atomic
energy program was of relatively
modest character and had made little
progress toward producing atomic
weapons. But the American atomic
leaders could not be fully satisfied
that this was the case until Alsos
teams had investigated the reported
atomic facilities relocated by the Ger-
mans from the Berlin area to the
Black Forest region in Wuerttemberg
and had captured the principal
German atomic scientists believed to
be residing in that area. They also
agreed that, for reasons of security,
American troops must be the first to
occupy and inspect these facilities.

Their first hope was that zone bound-
aries in southwest Germany could be
adjusted to exclude the atomic facili-
ties from the French zone. But by
early April, the State Department's in-
sistence upon having full knowledge
of the reasons for making readjust-
ments — a request incompatible with
Manhattan's security requirements —
convinced Groves that other means
must be found to assure American
penetration ahead of the French in
the crucial Wuerttemberg region. On
the fifth. Groves, Marshall, and Stim-
son agreed that the Manhattan com-
mander should implement his own
proposal that Alsos teams, accompa-
nied by American troops, move into
the Wuerttemberg region, question
German atomic scientists found there,
remove appropriate records, and de-
stroy the atomic installations.^®

Marshall directed Groves to coordi-
nate with the Operations Division of
the War Department and SHAEF in
developing a plan for what came to
be known as Operation Harbor-
age.^^ Groves sent his special assist-
ant for security affairs, Lt. Col. John
Lansdale, Jr., to Europe to assist the
SHAEF planners. They first consid-
ered carrying out a combined para-
chute and ground operation, but by
20 April the rapidly shifting tactical
situation had eliminated the need for
the air phase of the operation. In-
stead, SHAEF ordered Colonel Pash
to undertake a conventional intelli-
gence operation, with the objective of
seizing appropriate persons, docu-
ments, buildings, and materials. For

isstimson Diary. 4-5 Apr 45, HLS.

1^ General Groves gives a detailed account of his
role in the planning of Operation Harborage in
Xow II Can Be Told. pp. 233-36.

290

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

this purpose, the Supreme Headquar-
ters created a new special task force,
designated T-Force. Comprised of
fourteen American and seven British
officers, five scientists, eight counter-
intelHgence agents, and fifteen enhst-
ed men, T-Force was attached to the
6th Army Group and reinforced by
the 1269th Engineer Combat Battal-
ion (less Company B), all under the
command of Pash. When French
forces appeared to be on the verge of
moving in to the Wuerttemberg area
in late April, SHAEF gave Pash per-
mission to launch Operation Harbor-
age. On the twenty-second, Pash, ac-
companied by Brig. Gen. Eugene L.
Harrison, G-2 of the 6th Army
Group, led T-Force across a bridge-
head at Horb, on the Neckar River,
about 56 miles east of Strasbourg.
They moved south and east 20 miles
to Haigerloch, which they seized on
the twenty-third. In the next two
days, T-Force elements also occupied
Hechingen, 9 miles east of Haiger-
loch, and Bissingen, a few miles
southwest, and Tailfingen, a few miles
southeast of Hechingen, thus com-
pleting a sweep of the Black Forest
villages suspected of having atomic
installations or personnel.

What the Alsos scientists found in
these communities finally and defi-
nitely confirmed the limitations of the
wartime German atomic program. "It
was so obvious," Samuel Goudsmit
later recalled,

that the whole German uranium set up
was on a ludicrously small scale. Here [at
Hechingen] was the central group of lab-
oratories, and all it amounted to was a
little underground cave, a wing of a small
textile factory, a few rooms in an old
brewery. To be sure, the laboratories
were well-equipped, but compared to
what we were doing in the United States

it was still small-time stuff. Sometimes we
wondered if our government had not
spent more money on our intelligence
mission than the Germans had spent on
their whole project. ^°

Besides laboratories and equip-
ment, Alsos teams found concealed
supplies of heavy water, 1.5 tons of
metallic uranium cubes, 10 tons of
carbon, and miscellaneous other nu-
clear materials. They also located im-
portant scientific and technical
records, but most significant were the
German scientists they took into cus-
tody. These included Otto Hahn,
who, with Fritz Strassmann, had con-
ducted in 1938 the experiments that
resulted in the fissioning of uranium
by neutrons, subsequently confirmed
by Lise Meitner and Otto R. Frisch.

Not all of the known remaining
leaders of German atomic science
were found in the Black Forest
region, but information uncovered
there led to capture in May 1945 of
those still at large by other Alsos
teams operating in Bavaria. These in-
cluded the world-famous Werner Hei-
senberg, a Nobel Prize winner, and
Walther Gerlach and Kurt Diebner,
two of the chief administrative offi-
cials in the German atomic program.
After preliminary interviews by Alsos
field teams. Allied authorities re-
moved the captured scientists by easy
stages to rear areas — first to Ver-
sailles, then Belgium, and finally in
July to England — where they were
subjected to further intensive interro-
gation. Although the enemy scientists
were under British administrative
control during their extended intern-
ment in England, representatives of

20 Goudsmit, .4L50S, pp. 107-08.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS

291

the Manhattan Project exercised a
consultative role in determining their
intelligence exploitation and ultimate
disposal. Unwilling to see the German
scientists come under Russian con-
trol, both British and American
atomic authorities insisted on detain-
ing them in England until there was a
reasonable assurance that when they
returned to Germany they would
reside and work in either the British
or American occupation zone, a con-
dition that was not finally met until
the end of 1945.21

Alsos continued operating in the
wake of the Allied armies in the
summer and fall of 1945, seeking ad-
ditional evidence of German atomic
developments. Penetrations to Ham-
burg, Berlin, Vienna, and elsewhere
resulted in the capture of a few more
scientists but provided little addition-
al new information or facilities. When
the Alsos mission finally disbanded
in November, it had, as General
Groves later assessed its results,
"only confirmed what we already
knew and it was quite clear that there
was nothing in Europe of further in-
terest to us." 22

When the interned German scien-
tists learned that the United States
had dropped atomic bombs on Japan
in August 1945, they endeavored to
explain why Germany failed to devel-
op an atomic weapon. Their explan-
tion coincided generally with the
picture that Alsos teams had pieced
together from the evidence they had
gathered in Germany. Although
German scientists had begun research
on the practical application of atomic

energy in 1939, they soon had come
to the conclusion that, because of lim-
ited resources and facilities available
to them, production of atomic explo-
sives was not feasible and had con-
centrated on developing an atomic
engine as an alternate source of
power. They had persisted along
these limited lines even after Albert
Speer, the Nazi Minister of Arma-
ments, had offered in 1942 to in-
crease financial support for the
atomic program. Speer later recalled
that Heisenberg and other German
atomic scientists had given him the
distinct "impression that the atom
bomb could no longer have any bear-
ing on the course of the war."^^
Administrative problems, too, had
plagued the program; a partial con-
solidation in 1942 had not ended the
fragmentation and duplication that had
developed when atomic research had
been divided among three different
and competing governmental agen-
cies. In the estimate of the historian
of the German program, the com-
bined effect of these negative factors
was that "after the middle of 1942,
Germany virtually marked time until
the end of the war, gaining in those
three years knowledge that could
have been won in as many months
had the will been there. . . . Ger-
many's nuclear scientists failed to win
the confidence of their government,
and were left stranded on the shores
of the atomic age." 2"*

^' On the internment and treatment of the
German scientists in England see Groves, Xow It
Can Be Told. pp. 333-40.

"Ibid., p. 248.

"Speer, Inside the Third Retch, p. 27L

"Irving, The I'mis House, p. 274. See also Alan D.
Beyerchen, Saentisls Under Hitler: Politics and the Phys-
ics Community m the Third Reich (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1977), pp. 188-89, 193-97, 201-
02.

CHAPTER XIII

The Raw Materials Program

From the very beginning of the
atomic energy project, one of the
most important activities was procure-
ment of basic raw materials, many of
them never before in great demand.
The Office of Scientific Research and
Development had begun acquiring a
number of these materials through
the planning board of its S-1 Section
and through Stone and Webster, and
in mid- 1942, when the project was
placed under the direction of the
Army, the Manhattan District as-
sumed responsibility for the ongoing
materials program. With the long-
range objective of ensuring America's
control of the world's more signifi-
cant deposits of uranium and thori-
um,^ the District almost immediately
became involved in acquisition efforts
at an international level. This, project
leaders felt, was critical to national se-
curity and would prevent unfriendly
nations from securing these supplies.

'When thorium 232 captures a slow neutron, it
converts into thorium 233. The thorium then disin-
tegrates quickly into protoactinium 233, which then
decomposes, but more slowlv, into uranium 233.
Uranium 233 is fissionable by slow neutrons and
thus potentially a material for sustaining a chain
reaction. Thorium, like uranium, occurs widely in the
earth's crust, but similarly not often in sufficient
concentration to provide economically workable de-
posits. Before World War II, it was most commonly
used in the manufacture of gas mantles.

Geographic Search and Field Exploration

In October 1942, shortly after Gen-
eral Groves became executive officer
of the Manhattan Project, Deputy Dis-
trict Engineer Nichols and Union
Miniere Director Edgar Sengier suc-
cessfully completed negotiations for
the District's acquisition of the com-
pany's remaining stocks of mined ura-
nium ore, stored on Staten Island and
in the Congo, ^ thus assuring the
atomic program a sufficient supply to
meet its wartime requirements. Yet in
the ensuing months, project leaders
gradually came to realize that raw ma-
terials procurement could not be lim-
ited to meeting only the immediate
wartime demands. First, by their deci-
sion to build and operate several
large production plants, they had es-
tablished a requirement for a continu-
ing supply of uranium, not only for
the wartime weapons program but
also for postwar armaments and de-
velopment of atomic energy as a great
new source of power. Second, they
became increasingly aware of impor-
tant strategic considerations as, be-
ginning in 1943, the United States ne-
gotiated interchange agreements with

'See Ch. W for details on acquisition of Belgian

THE RAW MATERIALS PROGRAM

293

Great Britain. Both the American and
British leaders concluded that the
best future interest of the two coun-
tries would be served by a joint effort
to seek out and gain control over as
much of the world's uranium and tho-
rium deposits as possible; this policy,
they reasoned, would ensure their
governments ready access to major
new resources of inestimable value
and would keep these resources out
of the hands of their potential en-
emies. Furthermore, project leaders
perceived that, strictly from the view-
point of national interest, it would be
better for the United States to con-
serve its own apparently limited do-
mestic resources and use whatever
raw materials it could acquire from
other countries instead.^

Although occupied with a myriad of
other matters relating to plant con-
struction in early 1943, General
Groves took time to develop an orga-
nization for carrying out the project's
long-range raw materials objectives.
He presented his ideas to the Military
Policy Committee at its 5 February
meeting, emphasizing that he wanted
to have "a competent mining expert
examine the possibility of developing
in the United States a suitable source
of supply of the crucial ores." By late
March, the Manhattan commander
was discussing the possibility of en-
gaging the Union Carbide and
Carbon Corporation, already under
contract to operate the gaseous diffu-
sion plant at Clinton, to undertake a

3MPC Rpt, 21 Aug 43, Fidr 25, Tab E; MPC Mm,
24 Jun 43, Fldr 23, Tab A. Both in OCG Files, Gen
Corresp, MP Files, MDR. Groves, Xow It Can Be
Told, p. 180. Ms (unsigned), "Atomic Bombs," Apr
45, HB Files, Fldr 15, MDR.

broad program of ore exploration for
the Manhattan Project.*

Groves's selection of Union Car-
bide rather than some other compa-
ny, or the Manhattan District, or an-
other government agency was due to
a number of considerations, with the
security aspect of primary importance.
Because Union Carbide made regular
foreign purchases of many uranium
minerals, he felt it was highly unlikely
that the chemical firm's ore explora-
tion activities for the District would
attract any undue attention. Also es-
pecially attractive was the fact that the
company, because of its long experi-
ence in mineral surveys and explora-
tions, currently had an organized —
although inactive — subsidiary, the
Union Mines Development Corpora-
tion, to administer the ore program.
Following negotiations, Union Car-
bide agreed to activate Union Mines,
and on 24 May, Union Mines Presi-
dent J. R. Van Fleet accepted a letter
contract. Under terms of this con-
tract. Union Mines would carry out a
worldwide search for new sources of
uranium, evaluate its findings, and
make recommendations as to the best
way for the United States to explore
them; the government would pay all
costs; and Union Mines would work
without a fixed fee or profit.

For reasons of security, and to
avoid duplication of administrative
overhead operation. Union Mines lo-
cated its headquarters in the New
York City office building already oc-
cupied by other elements of Union
Carbide. Security also was the main
consideration in the administrative

* MPC Min, 5 Feb (source of quotation) and
30 Mar 43, MDR.

294

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

decision to set up a separate Manhat-
tan unit for monitoring Union Mines
survey and exploration activities, as
well as to maintain liaison with Dis-
trict headquarters and its major pro-
curement office at Madison Square.
On 15 June, in rooms adjacent to
those of Union Mines, the district en-
gineer established the Murray Hill
Area Engineers Office and, as area
engineer, assigned Maj. Paul L.
Guarin.^

While Major Guarin was organizing
a small staff of technical experts and
clerks. Union Mines started recruiting
trained personnel for its staff By
mid- 1944, the company had assem-
bled approximately 130 individuals,
assigning half of them to the New
York office and the rest to field
projects in the United States and
abroad. To achieve its program objec-
tives. Union Mines organized staff
functions along several lines. The
New York-based geologists, transla-
tors, and clerks concentrated on a
thorough search of available technical
literature on world mineral resources,
in all languages. Field teams of
mining engineers and geologists in-
vestigated known or suspected
sources of uranium and thorium. A
small group in New York studied
ways to improve the methods and
equipment for ore exploration, and
another small unit at Union Mines
headquarters oversaw research on
beneficiation and metallurgical pro-
cesses that might be suitable for con-

centration of uranium ores. Making
maximum use of the nearby facilities
of Union Carbide, Union Mines was
able to administer the entire ore pro-
gram with a relatively small overhead
staff and at a cost of approximately
$600,000 a year.6

During the period of its wartime
operations. Union Mines supplied
Manhattan leaders with a variety of
reports. After studying the various in-
struments and techniques for area
surveying and ore testing. Union
Mines research staff compiled data on
the latest or improved devices for de-
tecting uranium and thorium deposits
and for testing ore samples. It also
examined some sixty-five thousand
volumes and, based on its findings,
produced fifty-six reports covering
occurrences of uranium and thorium
in about fifty different countries, in-
cluding not only enemy-controlled
lands such as Czechoslovakia and
Thailand but also areas as remote as
Greenland and Madagascar. And from
the company's field exploration pro-
gram, field teams prepared a total of
fifty-seven reports of investigations
carried out in thirty-six states and the
territory of Alaska and about forty-
five reports of investigations conduct-
ed in some twenty foreign countries."^

5 Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p. 180; First Annual
Rpt, Murray Hill Area Engrs Oflice, sub: Proj S-37,
30 Jun 44, pp. 1-2, OROO; Memo, Guarin to
Groves, sub: Union Mines Proj, 6 Jul 44, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 095 (Union Mines), MDR;
MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 2, "Geographical Exploration,"
pp. 1.1-1.3, DASA.

6 Rpt, Murray Hill Area Engrs Office, 30 Jun 44,
pp. 2-8, 12-13, 42-44 (Charts 2-4), OROO;
Groves, sub: Union Mines Proj, 6 Jul 44, MDR;
MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 2, pp. 1.2-1.3 and 3.2-3.5, DASA.

^ MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 2, pp. 1.4-1.16 and Apps. Bl
(list and summary of all reports by Literature Re-
search Div-B5), DASA. Rpt, Murray Hill Area Engrs
Office, 30 Jun 44, pp. 22-34, OROO. Memo, Mer-
ritt to Nichols, sub: Resume of Prod of Uranium
Products for MD in Colorado Plateau Area, 26 Jan
45, 410.2 (Uranium); Rpt, Union Mines, sub: Sum-
mary of Investigations to 1 Feb 44, same date, 095
(Union Mines). Both in Admin Files, Gen Corresp,
MDR. Ltr. Stimson to MacArthur (Cdr in Chief. SW

Conlinucd

THE RAW MAITRIALS PROGRAM

295

Beginning in early 1944, the
Murray Hill area engineer used the
Union Mines data to provide the dis-
trict engineer with comprehensive
lists appraising uranium production
possibilities in various countries. A
typical list, for example, rated occur-
rences in the Belgian Congo as excel-
lent; those in the United States,
Canada, and Sweden as good; those
in Czechoslovakia, Portugal, and
Union of South Africa as fair; and
those in Madagascar, Australia, Brazil,
and England as poor. By 1945, the
area engineer was also including re-
ports on thorium. Brazil and India
were rated excellent, while the United
States, Korea, Netherlands East
Indies, Malaya, and Siam were judged
fair. In this manner, the Union Mines
data provided the essential guidelines
for reaching the long-range objective
of the ore program.®

Ore Control Agency: Combined
Development Trust

By the summer of 1943, the Ameri-
can atomic project's supply require-
ments for sufficient raw materials had
convinced its leaders of the impor-
tance of establishing adequate control
over the world's more significant de-
posits of uranium and thorium. In its
21 August report to the President, the
Military Policy Committee advanced

Pacific Area). 31 Mar 44. HB Files, Fidr 25. MDR.
.Stimson wrote to MacArthur requesting clearance
for a visit by a L'nion Mines representative interest-
cA in "inlormation |on| certain natural resources
which might be founcJ in vour theater."

» Rpt. Murrav Hill Area Kngrs OfTice. .SO jun 44,
pp. 8-11, OROO. MDH. Bk 7, Vol. 2. pp. 1.16-
1.21. DASA. Rpt, Union Mines, sub: .Summary of
Investigations to 1 Feb 44, same date; Memo,
(iuarin to Groves, sub: I nion Mines Proj, 6 Jul 44.
Both in Admin Files, Cien Corresp, 095 (I'nion
Mines), MDR.

this idea, warning that "the major
world supply [is] in the Belgian
Congo [and] not under our control in
any way.^ This situation, the commit-
tee felt, did not bode well for the
United States, especially in the post-
war era: America's knowledge and
technical capability to fabricate atomic
weapons would be of no avail without
the raw materials to do the job.

How to secure these raw materials
became a priority issue for project
leaders, who felt one way was to gain
control over the Congo supply.
During the fall. Colonel Nichols at-
tempted to convince Union Miniere
Director Edgar Sengier that the flood-
ed Shinkolobwe mine should be re-
opened and its entire future output
sold to the United States; however,
Sengier, who understood the poten-
tial of atomic power, did not wish to
make any commitments that he could
not later justify to the Belgian gov-
ernment as having been based upon
military requirements.

The American failure to secure a
long-term contract from Sengier for
future production of Congo ore came
up for discussion at the 14 December
meeting of the Military Policy Com-
mittee. The consensus of the commit-
tee was that, with the Belgian govern-
ment in exile in London and British
commercial interests apparently hold-
ing or having direction over nearly a
third of Union Miniere stock. Great
Britain was likely to gain control of
the Congo uranium. So from the
American point of view, the commit-
tee concluded, the best move would
be to secure joint control. Conse-

9 MPC Rpt, 21 Aug 43, MDR. Although signed by
Bush, Groves had drafted this report.

296

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

quently, on the seventeenth, the
American and British members of
the Combined PoHcy Committee, ^"^
agreed to begin studies preparatory
to recommending joint action. ^^

Speaking for the Mihtary PoHcy
Committee, General Groves recom-
mended to the President in February
1944 that the Belgians be "strongly
encouraged" to reopen the Shinko-

'" Churchill and Roosevelt's signing of the
Quebec Agreement on 19 Aug 43 established the
Combined Policy Committee in Washington, D.C.,
with membership as follows: Secretary Henry L.
Stimson (United States), as chairman, Dr. Vannevar
Bush (United States), Dr. James B. Conant (United
States), Field Marshal Sir John Dill (Ignited King-
dom), Col. John J. Llewellm (llnited Kingdom), and
Mr. Clarence D. Howe (Canada). Field Marshal Dill
was head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Wash-
ington, Colonel Llewellin was the Washington rep-
resentative of the British Ministry of Supply, and
Mr. Howe was Canada's Minister of Munitions and
Supplv. See Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, pp.
170-72, and Groves, Xow It Can Be Told pp. 133-37.

'•MPC Min, 14 Dec 43, MDR; CPC Min, 17 Dec
43, HB Files. Fldr 10, MDR; Ms, "Diplomatic Hist
of Manhattan Proj." p. 18, HB Files, Fldr 111,
MDR; Groves, Xow It Can Be Told. p. 170. After the
breakdown of Anglo-American collaboration on
atomic matters in early 1943, Great Britain devel-
oped a strong interest in securing a reliable source
of uranium for its future needs. Two actions by the
United States, however, caused leaders of the Brit-
ish atomic project to feel genuinely alarmed: in the
spring, when the United States contracted to pur-
chase practically the entire output of the (Canadian
Eldorado mine (hitherto the chief source of uranium
for the British program) through the end of 1945;
and in the fall, when the United States attempted to
buy the entire output of the Belgian-owned Shinko-
lobwe mine in the Congo. The first incident was
sufficient impetus for the British to seek a resump-
tion of Anglo-American cooperation, and in August
the two allies signed the Quebec Agreement. The
signing of this agreement opened the way for the
two atomic partners to pursue a joint program to
obtain control of the world's uranium resources. Al-
though the fall incident seemed threatening to Brit-
ish interests, the United States realized by the end
of the year that Great Britain occupied a better van-
tage point and thus took the initiative to implement
joint cooperation and control measures. For an ac-
count of Anglo-American problems and coordina-
tion on uranium supplies see Ciowing, Bntain and
Atomic Energy, pp. 179-85.

lobwe mine and that the United
States and Great Britain take what-
ever steps were necessary to ensure
"joint control" of uranium in the
Congo. The two countries also should
collaborate to secure all accessible
supplies elsewhere, "not only for the
period of the war, but for all time to
come." The Top Policy Group en-
dorsed these recommendations and,
on the fifteenth. Secretary Stimson
and OSRD Director Vannevar Bush
lunched with Roosevelt and secured
his approval. ^^

Following these recommendations,
the Combined Policy Committee gave
its tentative approval to a draft plan
for American-British-Canadian col-
laboration on 17 February. The com-
mittee would establish a Washington-
based business corporation, or similar
agency, headed by a board of six di-
rectors (three to be chosen by the
United States, two by Great Britain,
and one by Canada), and the United
States would pay half the cost of the
organization. Great Britain and
Canada the rest. As directed by the
committee, the new organization
would give first consideration to ob-
taining control of the Congo ore
deposits. ^^

'2 Quotations from MPC Rpt, 4 Feb 44, OCG
Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, Tab C, MDR.
See also Memo, Bush to Bundy, 14 Feb 44, OCG
Files, Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 25, MDR; Stim-
son Diary, 15 Feb 44, HLS; Cowing, Bntain and
Atomic Energy, pp. 298-99.

"CPC Min, 17 Feb 44, OCG Files, Gen Corresp.
MP Files, Fldr 9, Tab B, MDR; Stimson Diary,
17 Feb 44, HLS; Articles of Agreement Governing
Collaboration Between the Authorities of the United
States of America, the Kingdom of Great Britain,
and the Dominion of Canada in the Matter of Urani-
um Ore, draft of 14 Feb 44, HB Files, Fldr 23.
MDR. The draft adopted on the seventeenth does
not appear to have differed substantiallv from that

THE RAW MATERIALS PROGRAM

297

Final negotiations on this wartime
agreement took place in London be-
tween Sir John Anderson, now Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and Ameri-
can Ambassador John G. Winant.
This arrangement made for a some-
what ticklish stituation, for neither
Secretary of State Cordell Hull nor
anyone else in the Department of
State knew anything about the exist-
ence of the Manhattan Project. In the
interest of continued secrecy, Presi-
dent Roosevelt took the view that
Ambassador Winant was his repre-
sentative, not Secretary Hull's, and
that negotiations could be conducted
through Winant without recourse to
the Department of State. He designat-
ed Secretary Stimson to oversee the
negotiations, and instructions reached
Winant over Stimson's rather than
Hull's signature. For these delicate
negotiations then, the War Depart-
ment assumed a role normally accord-
ed to the State Department. Although
highly irregular, the War Department
continued to play this role in subse-
quent quests for overseas uranium
and thorium resources.

Winant's instructions were carried
by Maj. Harry S. Traynor, a highly
trusted officer on the Manhattan Dis-
trict staff, whom General Groves de-
tailed to brief and assist the ambassa-
dor.^'* Traynor arrived in London in

dated on the fourteenth (cf. Hewlett and Anderson,
Xew World, p. 286). The arrangement was strictly for
wartime purposes. Following the end of hostilities,
it was subject to review and such revisions as might
be necessary to meet postwar conditions.

''• Description of London negotiations based on
voluminous collection of memorandums, reports,
cables, drafts, and similar materials in HB Files,
Fldrs 48, 54, 56, 60, 65, and 99, MDR. See especial-
ly narrative reports by Major Traynor in Fldr 89 and
an account by him reproduced in Groves, Xow It
Can Be Told, pp. 171-74. See also Stimson Diary,
Mar-Jun 44, passim, HLS.

mid-March, armed with a letter from
the President, a copy of the draft
agreement, and instructions to do
everything in his power to assist
Winant in completing the accord as
quickly as possible. "Any delay in ne-
gotiations," wrote Roosevelt to his
ambassador, "might prejudice a suc-
cessful conclusion." ^^

Despite this admonition for speed,
nearly three months passed before
the London conferees were able to
resolve the intricate problems associ-
ated with preparing the so-called
Agreement and Declaration of Trust.
Some of these problems were legal in
nature, and to aid in their solution
Winant requested the assistance of
Brig. Gen. Edward C. Betts, judge ad-
vocate general of General Eisenhow-
er's European Theater of Operations
headquarters, and Secretary Stimson
complied. Betts, whom Winant trust-
ed implicitly, also enjoyed the confi-
dence of Sir Thomas Barnes, Sir John
Anderson's legal adviser, and the two
men worked well and easily with each
other.

One legal question that arose even
before Traynor left for England was
raised by the President himself: If
the proposed organization was es-
tablished as a corporation, could its
existence and transactions be kept
a secret under United States law?
There was general agreement that
Roosevelt's concern for security was
justified, and after considerable legal
study. Sir Thomas suggested and
General Betts agreed that the best so-
lution was to make the organization a
common law trust.

'n.tr, Roosevelt to Winant, 3 Mar 44, HB Files,
Fldr 60. MDR.

298

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

A second legal problem was wheth-
er the President had the authority to
enter into the type of agreement con-
templated. Two briefs were prepared
on this question — the first, at the di-
rection of Secretary Stimson, by Brig.
Gen. Boykin C. Wright, the Army
Service Forces' International Division
director, who as a civilian had headed
a New York law firm; and the second,
on General Groves's orders, by three
lawyers on the Manhattan staff: Lt.
Col. John Lansdale, Jr., Maj. William
A. Consodine, and Pvt. Joseph Volpe,
Jr. Both briefs agreed that the pro-
posed arrangement was within the
power of the President to make exec-
utive agreements without recourse to
Congress, but both also questioned
the legality and practicability of estab-
lishing a corporation. General Betts
seconded these conclusions, which
further supported the recommenda-
tion that the organization be estab-
lished as a trust.

There were also other questions.
Should Canada be a signatory to the
trust agr«"'"ment? Should thorium be
included with uranium as a valuable
source of fissionable material? The
question concerning Canada arose be-
cause it was not a party to the
Quebec Agreement. The conferees
decided to drop all references to the
country from the trust agreement, but
Winant and Anderson stipulated in an
exchange of letters that one of the six
directors of the trust would be a Ca-
nadian.^® As for thorium, because

Metallurgical Laboratory scientists in
the spring of 1944 had concluded
that it might eventually prove to be
the best fuel for atomic piles, the con-
ferees in London decided to include
it with uranium in the Declaration of
Trust.

The negotiations were monitored
carefully from Washington, where
Secretary Stimson, Harvey Bundy, as
Stimson's special assistant for scientif-
ic affairs, and General Groves kept in
close communication with Winant.
Drafts of the proposed trust agree-
ment were sent back and forth be-
tween the two capitals, and in the
midst of the London talks Traynor
traveled to Washington to confer with
his superiors. This coordination, how-
ever, did not result in a timely resolu-
tion of the discussions, which were
complicated by the fact that Ambassa-
dor Winant, Major Traynor, Sir John
Anderson, and W. L. Gorell Barnes, a
representative of the British Foreign
Office, simultaneously were involved
in quite lengthy negotiations with
Belgian officials in London regarding
an agreement on future control and
development of the rich Congo ore —
the primary reason for establishing
the trust. ^"^

It was early June before the confer-
ees had coordinated and affirmed in
final form all aspects of the Decla-
ration of Trust. Prime Minister
Churchill signed first, affixing his sig-
nature on two copies of the agree-

'^ Earlier the British and Americans had agreed
that Canada should share in controlling the Congo
uranium supplv. Sec Ltr, Field Marshal Dill to
Bundv, 6 Mar 44, HB Files, Fldr 48, MDR.

'■^ Copies of various drafts of trust agreement and
related work papers m HB Files, Fldr 48, MDR.
Drafts and fmal text of Belgian Agreement in HB
Files, Fldr 57, MDR. See also Major Traynor's
Notes on [First] Trip to London, England, 12 Apr
44, and Rpt on Second Trip to London, 22 May 44,
submitted to Bundv, Attn: Secy War. Both in HB
Files, Fldr 99, MDR.

THE RAW MATERIALS PROGRAM

299

ment. Forthwith, a special courier car-
ried the documents to Washington,
where, on the thirteenth. President
Roosevelt also signed them. This
trust agreement established the Com-
bined Development Trust which,
under the general direction of the
Combined Policy Committee, would
supervise the acquisition of raw mate-
rials in "certain areas" outside of
American and British territory.^* The
individuals named as trustees, whom
the committee approved at its next
meeting in September, were: for the
United States, Charles K. Leith, a dis-
tinguished mining engineer, George
L. Harrison, a businessman and spe-
cial assistant to Stimson who had
been helping out on Manhattan prob-
lems, and General Groves; for Great
Britain, Sir Charles J. Hambro, head
of the British Raw Materials Mission,
and Frank G. Lee, a British Treasury
representative; and for Canada,
George C. Bateman, a deputy minis-
ter and member of the Combined Re-
sources Board in that country. At the
first meeting of the Trust on the four-
teenth, Groves was elected chairman
and Sir Charles deputy chairman of
the group. ^^

Ore Acquisition in Foreign Areas

For the leaders of the American
atomic energy project, the much en-

'*Onc of two originals of Agreement and Declara-
tion of Trust, dated 13 Jun 44, the day Roosevelt
signed, filed in HB Files, Fldr 49, MDR. The term
certain areas was introduced so as not to offend Rus-
sian sensibilities when the terms of the agreement
became public. Msg, Stimson to W'inant, 17 Apr 44,
HB Files, Fldr 106, MDR.

'^CPC Min (draft version of minutes prepared by
Bundv and Webster, the CPC's joint secretaries),
19 Sep 44, HB Files, Fldr 13, MDR; CDT Prov
Min, 14 Sep 44, OCG Files, (,en Corresp, MP Files,
Fldr 9. Tab B, MDR.

larged program of exploration, con-
trol, and acquisition of radioactive
ores in foreign areas represented the
logical continuation and expansion of
the ongoing ore program in the
United States and Canada. ^° Because
the deposits would be in countries
not under American or British con-
trol, they left the problem of acquisi-
tion to the Combined Policy Commit-
tee and the Combined Development
Trust. Operating at the international
level, these joint American-British
groups were technically outside the
direct control of the Manhattan Dis-
trict; however, their activities inevita-
bly were influenced greatly and relat-
ed closely to those of the American
project, not only because in the fore-
seeable future the latter would have
the greatest need for fissionable ma-
terials but also because two of its in-
fluential personalities held key posts
in both organizations. General

^^ In July 1943, Union Mines surveyed the Great
Bear Lake region in Canada through a Canadian
subcontractor. Ventures, Ltd. This firm was author-
ized to make purchases for Union Mines, but the
project was barely under way when in September
the Canadian government decided to take control of
all radioactive substances in the Yukon and North-
west Territories, promising to keep the L'nited
States fully informed concerning all ore discoveries
and to exploit them for the mutual benefit of both
countries. In the spirit of the Quebec Agreement,
General Groves subsequently arranged to have
Union Mines terminate its contract with Ventures
and transfer all of its claims to the Canadian gov-
ernment. Union Mines settled its contract with Ven-
tures in late 1944, agreeing to a lump-sum pavment
to cover all costs incurred bv the Canadian firm. See
MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 2, pp. 2.2-2.4, DASA. Memo,
Groves to Bush, Purnell, and Styer, 27 Sep 44;
Memo, Nichols to Groves, 17 Oct 44, Incl to Memo,
Nichols to Groves, sub: Agreement With Canadian
Govt, 8 Nov 44. All in OCG Files, Gen Corresp, MP
Files, Fldr 2, MDR. Stanley U \ Dziuban, Militaiy Re-
lations Between the l'nited States and Canada. 1939-
1945. U.S. Army in World War II (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959), pp. 287-
88.

300

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND 1 HE ATOMIC BOMB

Groves, as chairman of the Combined
Development Trust, tended to domi-
nate its activities. And in the Com-
bined PoHcy Committee, Maj. Gen.
Wilhelm D. Styer headed the impor-
tant technical subcommittee, whose
reports furnished much of the data
for the parent committee's decisions
on matters relating to Manhattan's
production and weapons development
program. ^^

The first important achievement for
the United States and Great Britain
was final agreement with the Belgians
in early fall of 1944. As soon as the
two countries had reached agreement
in June on establishment of the Trust,
General Groves and Sir Charles
Hambro, acting on behalf of the
Trust, began direct negotiations with
Edgar Sengier to expedite arrange-
ments with the African Metals Corpo-
ration for reopening Union Miniere's
Shinkolobwe mine. The diplomatic
negotiations finally culminated in the
Belgian, or Tripartite, Agreement of
26 September, effected by an ex-
change of letters among Foreign Min-
ister Paul H. Spaak of Belgium, Chan-
cellor Anderson, and Ambassador
Winant.22

2'CPC Min, 8 Sep 43, HB Files, Fldr 9, MDR;
CDT Prov Min, 14 Sep 44, OCG Files, Gen Cor-
resp. MP Files, Fldr 9, Tab B, MDR.

22 Ltrs, Spaak to Winant and Anderson, both 26
Sep 44, and Incl (Memo of Agreement); Ltrs, An-
derson and Winant to Spaak, both 26 Sep 44. All m
HB Files, Fldr 49, MDR. Extensive materials, includ-
ing copies of correspondence, cables, notes of meet-
ings, cirafts and texts of agreements, relating to the
Belgian Agreement and the arrangement with the
African Metals Corporation are in HB Files, Fldrs
17, 54, 55, 57, 106, MDR. and m OCG Files, Gen
Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 16, MDR. A brief descrip-
tion of the negotiations and an analysis of the
agreements made mav be found in Ms, "Diplomatic
Hist of Manhattan Proj," pp. 17-18 and 25-26, HB
Files, Fldr 111, MDR.

Under terms of the agreement, Bel-
gium granted the United States and
the United Kingdom an option on all
of its uranium and thorium resources
in recognition of the fact that "the
protection of civilization" required
"effective control of said ores. . . ."
The option was to continue in effect
for the period needed to carry out
ore contract arrangements set up
under the agreement, as well as for
an additional ten-year period. Bel-
gium reserved the right to retain such
ore as might be needed for "her own
scientific research and . . . industrial
purposes. . . ." ^^

But the two atomic partners did not
secure this control over the Congo
ore deposits without making some
major concessions. President Roose-
velt had approved the concessions in
August 1944, harking to the advice of
Stimson, who monitored the negotia-
tions, that if they were not granted
the Belgians might delay indefinitely
reopening the Shinkolobwe mine. Of
particular importance was the two
allies' agreement to enter into a con-
tract between the Trust and African
Metals for purchase of 3.44 million
pounds of uranium oxide under terms
acceptable to the Belgian govern-
ment. In addition, they also assented
to furnish Union Miniere with the
new equipment and materials it would
require to reopen and operate the
Shinkolobwe mine. Finally, they
granted the Belgians the right to par-
ticipate in any future utilization that
might be made of the Congo ores "as

23 Memo of Agreement, Incl to Ltrs, Spaak
Winant and Anderson, both 26 Sep 44, MDR.

THE RAW MATB:RIALS PROGRAM

301

a source of energy for commercial
purposes. . . ." ^4

Meantime, representatives of the
Trust and African Metals, conferring
in New York, had worked out the
terms of the contract to cover the
procurement of the 3.44 million
pounds of uranium oxide. On 17 Oc-
tober, they signed the formal con-
tract. It provided that the Trust
would purchase only the oxide in the
uranium ore, letting African Metals
retain the radium and other precious
metals contained in the concentrate.
Reaching agreement on a fair price
was difficult, for its value had never
been determined on the open market
and depended ultimately upon the
success of the atomic bomb project.
They finally settled upon a price
based primarily on known cost fac-
tors — $1.45 a pound for high-grade
material, five cents less for low grade,
free on shipboard at the port of
Africa (Lobito in Angola or Matadi in
the Belgian Congo). Perhaps partly to
compensate for any losses likely to
result from the uncertainty as to a fair
price, the Trust agreed to reimburse
Union Miniere for costs it incurred up
to $550,000 in reopening Shinko-
lobwe mine, and also to assist it in
procuring materials, equipment, and
skilled labor. With this assistance,
Union Miniere, which already had
taken preliminary steps for resump-
tion of uranium mining operations in
the Congo, estimated that it could
begin delivery of new oxide to the
Manhattan Project bv late 1945 or
early 1946.2 5

In anticipation of the heavy finan-
cial obligations that the Trust would
have to meet under terms of the Afri-
can Metals contract, as well as under
other ore acquisition contracts that it
expected to negotiate in the future,
the American trustees had already
taken steps to secure funds for pay-
ment of the United States' share of
the cost of Trust operations. This had
turned out to be a fairly complex
problem, because the Trust's require-
ment for extreme secrecy and for
continuous access to funds without
time limitations to meet contractual
obligations tended to run counter to
legally established governmental fiscal
procedures. General Groves had un-
dertaken responsibility for coming up
with a plan that would circumvent
these legal barriers without impairing
the contractual capabilities or security
of Trust operations. Groves present-
ed his plan to the Combined Policy
Committee on 19 September 1944,
emphasizing that the objectives of the
agreement under which the Trust had
been set up in the previous June
made absolutely necessary an access
to adequate funds. The committee
unanimously endorsed the plan and
Groves set about immediately to put
it into effect. 26

The essential feature of Groves's
plan was a special fund to be deposit-
ed with the Department of the Treas-
ury, from which he or other designat-

2* Ibid.; Memo, Slimson to President. 25 Aug 44,
HB Files, Fldr 49. MDR.

26 Ltr, Groves to Stimson, 24 Nov 44, HB Files,
Fldr 27, MDR; CPC Min. 19 Sep 44, MDR; Croves,
\ow It Can Be Told. pp. 177-78.

26 Groves had in mind paragraph 2 of the Agree-
ment and Declaration of Trust, dated 13 Jun 44,
which directed that the CDT should "gain control
of and develop production of Uranium and Thori-
um supplies in certain areas . . . and for that pur-
pose . . . take such steps as it may in the common
interest think fit" to accomplish this objective. 1 he
original of this agreement is in HB Files, Fldr 13,
MDR.

302

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

ed American members of the Trust
could draw money as needed, without
further authorization being required.
Money from this fund would be
placed in the Federal Reserve Bank in
New York City to cover the United
States' share of payments on Trust
contracts. On 21 September, Under
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson
directed allocation to Groves of an
initial sum of $12.5 million from
funds already appropriated for na-
tional defense purposes. By the time
Groves received the check, however,
his legal staff had found that funds
deposited with the Treasury were
subject to handling and processing by
many employees in both the Treasury
and the General Accounting Office,
too great a security risk for the Man-
hattan Project. A possible alternative
was to deposit the money directly in
the Federal Reserve Bank in New
York City or in a private banking in-
stitution in that city. But after further
consultation with War Department
lawyers and with Secretary Stimson
and George Harrison, a fellow trust-
ee, Groves concluded that probably
not even this step could be taken
without first informing Secretary of
the Treasury Henry Morgenthau.

On 17 October, Groves and Harri-
son met with Stimson in his office to
try to resolve the Trust's quandary
over its funds. There appeared to be
no legal way around the requirement
that the Trust must secure the con-
sent of Secretary Morgenthau before
depositing the $12.5 million with the
Treasury. Yet Stimson was convinced
Morgenthau would insist on having
full knowledge of the atomic bomb
project before giving his consent.
This, Stimson felt, he could not do
without permission from the Presi-

dent, whom he did not wish to bother
concerning such a relatively unimpor-
tant matter. Stimson finally was per-
suaded to attempt to get Morgen-
thau's sanction of the special fund
without telling him the reason for its
existence; but, as the Secretary of
War had predicted, he refused. Fortu-
nately, however, further negotiations
between Manhattan District and
Treasury officials revealed that Secre-
tary Morgenthau maintained several
accounts in his office which were not
subject to the usual auditing and ac-
counting procedures and that Trust
funds might be placed in one of them
without danger of exposure. Groves
visited the Treasury Secretary on
27 October and, still without reveal-
ing the purpose, received permission
to place Trust money in one of the
special accounts. Henceforth, Groves
made withdrawals from the account,
depositing them in the Bankers Trust
Company of New York to cover pay-
ments on the African Metals and
other contracts. In the period from
late 1944 until he resigned from the
Trust at the end of 1947, the Manhat-
tan commander deposited a total of
$37.5 million in the Trust's Treasury
account. ^^

2 7 The complex history of CDT financing may be
traced in the following documents. Except as other-
wise indicated, all items are in MDR, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 9, Tab B: CDT Prov
Min, 14 Sep 44; Memos, Und Secy War to WD
Budg Off, 21 Sep 44 and 4 Aug 45; Memos for File,
Groves, both 17 Oct 44; Memo, Groves to Secy
War, 27 Oct 44; Ltr, Daniel W. Bell (Act Secy
Treas) to Groves, 30 Oct 44; Ltr, Groves, Harrison,
and Leith to Sloan Colt (Bankers Trust Co. presi-
dent), 15 Nov 44; Memo, Groves to Secy War, 6 Jun
45, HB Files, Fldr 37, MDR; Memo, Groves to Und
Secy War, 4 Aug 45; Ltr, Groves to Fred M. Vinson
(Secy Treas), 14 Aug 45; Memo, Groves to WD
Budg Off, 24 Aug 45; Memo, Col Ernest C. Bomar

Continued

THE RAW MAI ERIALS PR()(,RAM

303

In late 1944, the British were inter-
ested in devising a more comprehen-
sive plan for a long-range procure-
ment program for raw materials.
They expressed a particular need for
a study that would provide informa-
tion on developing radioactive ore
sources within British areas outside of
Canada. At its 19 September meeting,
the Combined Policy Committee
agreed unanimously that the Trust
should undertake a worldwide survey
of current and potential sources of ra-
dioactive materials. Committee mem-
bers also acknowledged the need for
more data on requirements, but they
emphasized the theoretical nature of
scientific and technical information
and the difficulty of obtaining accu-
rate estimates. Nevertheless, the com-
mittee directed its technical subcom-
mittee to investigate and report on
the uranium required for a "unit ex-
plosive of specified energy ..." and
for the next stage in development of
atomic weapons, as well as scientific
and technical factors that might have
an important effect on future ore re-
quirements for atomic explosives.^®

The technical subcommittee com-
pleted its report in mid-November;
however, after hearing a brief oral

(Act WD Budg Off) to CG ASF, Attn: Office of
Fiscal Dir (Col Foster), sub: CDT, 28 Aug 45, and
1st Ind. HQ. ASF, Office of Fiscal Dir, fwd to Und
Secy War, Attn: Col Freidlich, 30 Aug 45, HB Files,
Fldr 51, MDR; Ltr, (iroves to Secy Treas, sub: Ter-
mination of Account, 5 Dec 47; Ltr, E. F. Bartlet
(Fiscal Asst Secy, I reas) to Groves, 8 Dec 47; Ltr,
Groves to Secy Armv, 8 Dec 47. See also Groves,
Xoiv It Can Be fold. pp. 1 76-77.

28 Quoted phrase from CPC Min, 19 Sep 44,
MDR. Memo, Sir Ronald L CamplK-ll (British CPC
member) to CPC Joint Secys, sub: Development of
Coordinated Prgms for Procurement of Raw Materi-
al for T(ube) A(lloys) Proj, 24 Aug 44; Ltr, Bundy
and Webster to Stver, 2 Oct 44. Both in HB Files,
Fldr 27, MDR.

summary of its contents in January
1945, the Combined Policy Commit-
tee laid it aside without further
action. The committee followed a
similar course with the Trust's ore
survey, which Groves had sent to
Stimson on 24 November. Although
based upon more complete data from
the Murray Hill Area Engineers Office
sources compiled by Union Mines and
from the British Directorate of Tube
Alloys, the survey did not substan-
tially alter the overall picture that Union
Mines had depicted in its earlier re-
ports submitted to the district
engineer. ^^

As chairman of the Trust, General
Groves made some specific recom-
mendations based on data from the
Trust's ore survey. The United States
and Great Britain should continue in-
vestigation into uranium and thorium
resources, organizing permanent
survey groups in England and Canada
similar to the Union Mines teams op-
erating in the United States; every
effort should be made to build up
stockpiles in territories controlled by
the two countries; major ore deposits
outside these territories (for example,
uranium in the Congo and thorium in
Brazil) should be purchased and
shipped for storage to areas under
control of the two atomic powers; and
lesser deposits (for example, in Portu-
gal, Czechoslovakia, and Madagascar)

29 CPC Min, 22 Jan 45, HB Files, Fldr 14, MDR;
Memo, Tech Subcommittee to CPC, sub: Ore Re-
quirements for Prod of Explosives, 16 Nov 44, HB
Files, Fldr 27, MDR; Chart (analvsis of estimated re-
quirements of uranium ore for each of several pro-
posed tvpes of atomic weapons), OC-G Files, Cien
Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 2, MDR; Rpt, CDT, sub:
Survey of W orld's Resources of Uranium and Thori-
um, 26 Oct 44, Incl to Ltr, Groves to Stimson,
24 Nov 44, MDR.

304

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

should be brought under control by
purchase or by political agreements.
The United States and Great Britain
endeavored to carry out most of
these recommendations. Where politi-
cal or diplomatic negotiations were
required, action was taken through
appropriate government channels.
Where commercial agreements
would suffice, the Trust initiated
negotiations. ^°

The quest for other sources contin-
ued in 1945. Early in the year British
officials began negotiations with the
British and Portuguese owners of ura-
nium mining properties in Portugal,
preparing the way for their purchase
by the Trust. At the end of January,
Colonel Guarin, Manhattan's raw ma-
terials expert, returned from an ex-
tended inspection trip to the Congo
with new information on the progress
being made by Union Miniere in re-
opening the mines there, and as a
result of his report, the Trust negoti-
ated with African Metals for the pur-
chase of more Congo ores that
summer. Even the advancing Allied
forces in Belgium, France, and Ger-
many furnished additional small
quantities of captured uranium ore
stores.^ ^

These seized stocks became a
matter of slight disagreement be-
tween the United States and Great
Britain. The Declaration of Trust pro-
vided that all uranium, or thorium,
secured from whatever source was to
be held jointly, but it was generally

3° Ltr, Groves to Stimson, 24 Nov 44, MDR.

31 CPC Min, 22 Jan 45, Fldr 14; CPC Min, 8 Mar
45, Fldr 46 (copy in Fldr 105); CPC Min, 4 Jul 45,
Fldr 37 (copy in Fldr 105); Ltr, Stimson to Secy
State, 29 Jul 44, Fldr 7; Ms, "Diplomatic Hist of
Manhattan Proj", pp. 31-32, Fldr 111. All in HB
Files, MDR. Groves Diary, 29 Jan 45, LRG. Cowing,
Britain and Atomic Energy, pp. 313-14.

understood that the first objective of
the atomic program in both countries
must be to supply the American
project with the raw materials it
needed to develop and build suffi-
cient atomic weapons to win the war.
However, some British scientists felt
that at least a part of the captured
ore, which had been shipped from the
Continent to England for temporary
storage, ought to remain there to
ensure that the British Tube Alloys
project would have adequate supplies
on hand. Groves disagreed. When he
learned in June 1945 that ore cap-
tured in Germany was being held in
Great Britain, he wrote Secretary
Stimson and asked that the Combined
Policy Committee request its prompt
shipment to the United States "to in-
crease our margin of safety of raw
material." British committee members
expressed concern that allocation of
all of the ore to the United States
would leave Great Britain with virtual-
ly no reserves at the end of the war.
The committee, nevertheless, reaf-
firmed the policy that while the war
lasted all raws materials received by
the Trust, including that captured,
should go to the United States for
weapon production. At the same
time, to placate British fears, the com-
mittee stated that if the Trust should
acquire more than needed for the
manufacture of weapons, it should
hold it in reserve to be shared jointly
after the war.^^

3^ Quoted phrase from Memo, Groves to Stim-
son, 23 Jun 45, HB Files, Fldr 37. MDR. Agreement
and Declaration of Trust, 13 Jun 44, Fldr 49; Rpt,
CDT, sub: Survey of World's Resources of Uranium
and Thorium, 26 Oct 44, Incl to Ltr, Groves to
Stimson, 24 Nov 44, Fldr 27; CPC Min, 8 Mar 45,
Fldr 46. All in HB Files, MDR.

THE RAW MATERIALS PROGRAM

305

Incoming mineral survey reports in-
dicated that kolm, a coal-like material
intermixed yvith oil shale deposits
mined in Sweden, contained uranium.
In early 1944, a British team and a
group of Swedish mineral experts
concluded that kolm's potentialities
were sufficient to warrant denying
other powers access to the mineral.
At the request of the Combined
Policy Committee, the American min-
ister in Stockholm, Herschel V. John-
son, opened negotiations with the
Swedes. The negotiations, conducted
with the knowledge of the British
minister in Stockholm, ended without
a formal agreement. The Swedish
government, however, prohibited
export of uranium-bearing ores and
agreed to inform the United States
and Great Britain if in the future it
should decide to permit their
export. ^^

While the British gave full support
to the program for control and acqui-
sition of uranium, they were much
less enthusiastic about a similar pro-
gram for thorium. On 27 January
1945, British committee member Sir
Ronald I. Campbell, who had re-
placed Col. John J. Llewellin, wrote to
Stimson, expressing doubt as to the
wisdom of Groves's suggestion that
the Trust, without direct committee
approval, should undertake measures
that would likely require political
agreements and trade options. In Sir
Ronald's view, both the Combined
Policy Committee and the two gov-
ernments ought to have time to ex-

amine the implications of such negoti-
ations before the Trust proceeded.
Sir John Anderson advanced similar
views, emphasizing that widespread
occurrence of thorium limited the
possibility that the United States and
Great Britain could effectively prevent
other nations from acquiring and pur-
chasing substantial quantities of the
material. He also suggested that, be-
cause limited amounts of thorium
were needed in the immediate future,
the two allies should rely upon the
rather ample commercial production
available from the Indian state of
Travancore.

The United States, however, did
not want to rely solely on British
controlled thorium supplies and in
mid-February proceeded — without in-
forming the British government — to
investigate acquisition of supplies out-
side of British-American control. In
the meantime. Sir John had read
Colonel Guarin's report on the obsta-
cles to a rapid increase in uranium
ore production from the Congo and
also had learned of new information
that emphasized the potential of tho-
rium. Because of these developments,
he agreed in early March to go along
with a more vigorous policy on thori-
um. But he was overtaken by events,
for the United States was already
engaged in secret unilateral negotia-
tions with Brazil to gain access to its
thorium resources.^'*

Playing a significant role in laying
the groundwork of these negotiations

"CPC Min. 4 Jul 45. Fldr 'M: Draft of Proposed
Agreement With Swedish (iovt and Related Papers,
Jul-Aug 45, Fldr 53; Ms, "Diplomatic Hist of
Manhattan Proj," pp. 29-30, Fldr 111. All in
HB Files, MDR. Oowing, Bnlnin and Atomic Energy
p. 314.

^''Ftr, (irovcs to Stimson, 24 Nov 44; I.tr, Camp-
bell to Stimson, 27 Jan 45; Memo, sub: Supplies and
Requirements for liube) A(llovs), 3 Mar 45 (adden-
dum to memo giving Sir John Anderson's views,
dated 3 Feb 45). All in HB Files, Fldr 27, MDR.
(iowing, Bntani and .iloniic Eiiergy. p. 316.

306

MANHATIAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

was General Groves, who was very
much aware that most atomic scien-
tists, including those in Germany and
the Soviet Union, recognized that
thorium might soon have to replace,
or supplement, scarce uranium. When
he learned Secretary of State Edward
R. Stettinius, Jr., would be passing
through Brazil in mid-February, en
route from the Yalta Conference
(3-11 February) to attend an inter-
American meeting in Mexico City, he
saw an opportunity to approach the
Brazilians secretly. Taking advantage
of a conference with the President on
other matters, Groves requested and
received permission to brief Stettinius
on the atomic project. He subse-
quently talked with Stettinius and also
arranged to have an officer from the
Manhattan staff, Maj. John E. Vance,
accompanv the Secretarv of State to
Brazil. ^^

On 17 February, Stettinius con-
ferred with President Getulio Vargas
on the question of thorium and the
Brazilian chief executive approved the
opening of negotiations. In the ensu-
ing months, specially appointed Bra-
zilian and American delegations — the
United States representatives includ-
ed three Manhattan officers: Col.
John Lansdale, Jr., Major Vance, and
1st Lt. Joseph Volpe, Jr. — worked out
details of an agreement, signed on 6
July 1945. It provided that the United
States would purchase each year for
three years at least 3,000 tons of tho-
rium-bearing monazite ore. In addi-
tion, the United States would have an

option to buy all other thorium-bear-
ing compounds Brazil might produce
in the initial three-year period, with
the right to renew this option for ten
more successive three-year periods.
The British had no knowledge of the
agreement, but in September the
United States agreed to the under-
standing reached earlier in March by
the Combined Policy Committee that
each country should have equal privi-
leges in any arrangement for thorium
acquisition and control made with
Brazil. 36

When the committee approved the
start of negotiations with Brazil, it
also endorsed taking steps to obtain
control of thorium in India and in the
Netherlands East Indies. The British
began discussions with Travancore
authorities in the summer of 1945,
but the negotiations proved difficult
and not until 1947 was a less than
satisfactory agreement reached. Nego-
tiations conducted at the same time
with the Dutch concerning the East
Indian sources were more successful,
and in August 1945 an agreement
granted thorium purchase options to
the United States and Great Britain. ^"^

3^ Memo, Groves to Bundv, 6 Feb 45, HB Files,
Fldr 27, MDR; Ciroves, .\'oiv' II Can Be Told. p. 184.

36 Memo, Groves to Bundy, 6 Feb 45. MDR;
Memo, Groves to MPC, 23 Feb 45, OCG Files. Gen
Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 23, Tab A. MDR; Ltr,
Groves to Secy War, 8 Mar 45, OCG Files, Gen
Corresp, MP Files, Fldr 9, Tab B, MDR; CPC Min,
8 Mar 45, HB Files, Fldr 46, MDR; Ms, "Diplomatic
Hist of Manhattan Proj," pp. 27-28 and Anns. 24-
25, HB Files, Fldr 111, MDR; Gowing, Bntairi and
Atomif Energy, p. 317.

"CPC Min, 8 Mar 45, Fldr 46; CPC Min, 4 Jul
45, Fldr 37; Memo, Groves to Stimson, 7 Jun 45,
Fldr 37. All in.HB Files, MDR. Gowing, Bntam and
Atomic Energy, pp. 317-18. Groves, Sow It Can Be
Told. p. 184.

CHAPTER XIV

The Feed Materials Program

The Manhattan District's acquisi-
tion of uranium- and thorium-bearing
ores was only the initial step in pro-
viding the essential materials for the
large-scale electromagnetic, diffusion,
and pile processes.^ The District also
had to bring under contract and to
monitor the operation of a complex
network of processing plants for re-
fining and converting the ore, first
into pure concentrates of uranium
oxide (black oxide) or sodium uranate
(soda salt) and then into the chemical
feed forms of uranium dioxide and
trioxide, uranium tetrafiuoride and
hexafluoride, and uranium metal.
Thus for the Army, development and
management of the feed materials
program, begun by the Office of Sci-
entific Research and Development
(OSRD) and Stone and Webster in
1941-42, proved to be one of its
most challenging and difficult tasks
in administering the atomic bomb
project.^

' Because thorium has fissionable properties simi-
lar to uranium, Manhattan Project leaders vigorous-
ly pushed a program to locate and control world re-
sources of this heavy element. But existence of ade-
quate supplies of uranium for the atomic bomb
project made unnecessary procurement and process-
ing of thorium during World War II.

2MDH, Bk. 7, \'ol. 1, Feed Materials and Special
Procurement, " pp. 1.1-1..T, DASA.

Program Organization and
Support Activities

With ore acquisition activities pro-
ceeding apace. District Engineer Mar-
shall in October 1942 formed a Mate-
rials Section to monitor the shipment
of uranium-bearing ores and other
materials from mines, tailing piles,
storage depots, and processing plants,
as well as their treatment through
various stages of refinement and con-
version into feed materials. He select-
ed Lt. Col. Thomas T. Crenshaw as
section head and assigned several Dis-
trict officers already familiar with
some aspect of materials procurement
to assist him — including Capt. Phillip
L. Merritt, a geologist by training,
and Capt. John R. Ruhoff, a chemical
engineer who, when serving as the St.
Louis area engineer, had overall re-
sponsibility for the District's uranium
metal production. Also, because of
Colonel Nichols's deep involvement
in the earlier OSRD acquisition
progam, Marshall had his deputy con-
tinue to give his special attention and
expertise to the District's feed mate-
rials program.^

^ I'nless otherwise indicated, details on the ad-
ministrative and personnel aspects of the feed mate-
rials program are based on ibid., pp. 1.15-1.22 and

(.oiiiimiod

308

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

The relocation of District head-
quarters from New York to Oak
Ridge in mid-August 1943 occasioned
a complete reorganization of the Ma-
terials Section. (See Chart 2.) Colonel
Nichols, now the district engineer, de-
cided to leave the materials group in
New York City, close by the ports of
entry and storage points for ores
coming from overseas and also con-
venient to the headquarters of many
of the firms under contract to supply
feed materials. He redesignated the
section as the Madison Square Area
Engineers Office and, with transfer of
Colonel Crenshaw to Oak Ridge as
the officer in charge of all Clinton op-
erations, assigned Ruhoff, recently
promoted to lieutenant colonel, to be
the Madison Square area engineer.
Colonel Ruhoff took over administra-
tion of a burgeoning materials group,
numbering nearly four hundred by
early 1944, and an indication of its
key role during the period of the
project's greatest activity, from late
1943 to the fall of 1944, was Nichols's
practice of coming to New York for
weeklv meetings with Ruhoff and his
staff. 4'

Apps. B1-B4 {Org Charts), DASA; Rpts, Mat Sec
(later Mad Sq Area Engrs Office), Oct 42-Aug 45,
passim. MD-319.1 (Rpts MSA), OROO. The period
covered in these reports on the materials program
varies from a single week to two months. The newlv
organized Materials Section on 28 Oct 42 submitted
its first report to the district engineer for Colonel
Nichols's attention, and the reconstituted Madison
Square Area Engineers Office on 6 Aug 43 submit-
ted its first report through Lt. Col. E. H. Marsden,
executive officer at the new District headquarters in
Tennessee, for the attention of the district engineer.
*Rpt, Mad Sq Area Engrs Office, 29 Apr 44, App.
3, OROO; Nichols, Comments on Draft Hist "Man-
hattan," Incl to Ltr, Nichols to Chief of Mil Hist,
25 Mar 74. CMH. Nichols arrived at the new desig-
nation of the area office because of its location near
Madison Square, at Eiflh Avenue and Iwenty-third
Street.

The Madison Square staff, three-
quarters of which worked in the New
York City area and the rest at various
points in the field, oversaw a program
comprised essentially of four oper-
ations: a search for additional raw ma-
terials; their procurement in whatever
form might be available; their refine-
ment; and their conversion into feed
materials. To ensure a steady flow of
raw and semirefined materials to the
project's processing plants, staff
members closely monitored the
scheduling of ore shipments from
Africa to the port of New York; made
or expedited arrangements for their
storage; approved procurement of
partially processed uranium-contain-
ing materials; and assisted in con-
tracting with crude ore refining firms
(African Metals Corporation, Eldo-
rado Mining and Refining Company,
and Vitro Manufacturing Company)
to obtain uranium oxide, uranium
sludge, radium and radioactive lead,
and similar products. They also over-
saw various research programs
(Princeton and Yale Universities, Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology,
and National Bureau of Standards),
supplying them with an ever-increas-
ing variety of other chemicals and
special materials.

Staff members in the field provided
liaison between the Madison Square
office and seven area offices reporting
to Ruhoff (Chart 4). Of these, two—
the Murray Hill Area Engineers Office
in New York and the Colorado Area
Engineers Office in Grand Junction —
monitored materials procurement,
while five — Iowa (in Ames), St. Louis,
Wilmington, Beverly (near Boston),
and Tonawanda (near Buffalo) — over-
saw feed materials processing oper-

Chart 4 — Feed Materials Network, January 1945

MANHATTAN DISTRICT

MADISON SQUARE AREA

MURRAY HILL AREA

UNION MINES DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

COLORADO AREA

UNITED STATES VANADIUM CORPORATION
M VANADIUM CORPORATION OF AMERICA
METALS RESERVE CORPORATION

AFRICAN METALS CORPORATION

ELDORADO MINING AND
REFINING COMPANY

VITRO MANUFACTURING COMPANY

IOWA AREA

IOWA STATE COLLEGE

ST. LOUIS AREA

MALLINCKRODT CHEMICAL WORKS

WILMINGTON AREA

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY

BEVERLY AREA

METAL HYDRIDES, INC.

TONAWANDA AREA

LINDE AIR PRODUCTS COMPANY
ELECTRO METALLURGICAL COMPANY
HOOKER ELECTROCHEMICAL COMPANY
HARSHAW CHEMICAL COMPANY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

YALE UNIVERSITY

MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

Somre: MDH, Bk. 7. \'ol. 1. App. B4, DASA.

310

MANHATTAN: 1 HE ARMY AND THE AlOMIC BOMB

ations. A single area engineer admin-
istered the Iowa and St. Louis offices,
traveling between the headquarters
located at Iowa State College and the
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. In Wil-
mington, the busy area engineer at
Du Pont kept a check on that firm's
production of feed materials in addi-
tion to overseeing its plutonium pro-
gram. In Beverly, the area engineer
supervised the District's contract for
uranium metal production with Metal
Hydrides, Inc. And in Tonawanda,
the area engineer had responsibility
for contracts with the Linde Air Prod-
ucts Company, a subsidiary of the
Union Carbide and Carbon Corpora-
tion, for production and chemical
processing of uranium oxide into its
dioxide and salt forms and with the
Electro Metallurgical Company for
production of uranium metal; later he
supervised contracts with the Har-
shaw Chemical Company of Cleve-
land, which made uranium tetrafluor-
ide and uranium hexafluoride, and
with the Hooker Electrochemical
Company of Niagara Falls, New York,
which reclaimed uranium from slag
produced in the mining of carnotite
and other ores.^

Feed Materials Procurement

Raw Materials

From 1943 to the end of the war
the Manhattan Project steadily in-
creased its supplies of uranium ore,
to ensure sufficient stores for conver-

sion into the black oxide needed for
the feed materials processing plants.
Ore procurement activities, which
reached a high point in 1944 and
then leveled off somewhat in early
1945, were concentrated in three
major areas: Africa, Canada, and the
United States. Project leaders were
aware in 1943 that the wartime needs
of the bomb program were likely to
exhaust both the immediately avail-
able domestic and Canadian deposits,
and the security implications of this
situation ultimately led to a District
policy of using, to the greatest extent
possible, ore from foreign sources.^

The most significant foreign source
of natural uranium was the Belgian
Congo, where the Belgian mining
firm. Union Miniere du Haut Katan-
ga, controlled all mineral rights. Fol-
lowing negotiations, the District pro-
cured the African ore through Union
Miniere's subsidiary, the African
Metals Corporation. For the period
October 1942 to December 1944, cost
of 30,000 tons of Congo ore contain-
ing 3,800 tons of black oxide totaled
more than $9 million, based on the
price of oxide averaging about $1.12
per pound. The District's Washington
Liaison Office arranged for purchase
of additional Congo ore, containing
more than 3,100 tons of oxide and
costing more than $10 million.^

All Canadian ore, procured through
the Eldorado Mining and Refining
Company (formerly, until June 1943,

^MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 2.1-6.3 and App. II,
DASA. List, sub: MD Contracts With Various Univs,
Incl to Memo, Marsden to Groves, 2 Nov 43; List,
sub; Signed Prime and Subcontracts Over $100,000,
Incl to Memo, Marsden to Groves, 31 Aug 43. Both
in Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161, MDR.

6 MPC Rpt, 21 Aug 43, OCG Files, Gen Corresp,
MP Files, Fldr 25. Tab E, MDR; U.S. Engrs Office,
Mad Sq Area, sub: Notes on . . . Ltr to Sen [Edwin
C] Johnson [Colo.], 5 Dec 45, Admin Files, Gen
Corresp, 312.1. MDR.

^ Data on uranium ore purchases in this and sub-
sequent paragraphs based on charts in MDH, Bk. 7,
Vol. 1, Apps. F1-F3, DASA.

THK FEED MA lERIALS PR()C;RAM

311

Eldorado Gold Mines), came from the
Great Bear Lake area. In May 1943,
with completion of Stone and Web-
ster's initial purchase order (15 July
1942), the District negotiated another
contract with a representative of El-
dorado's sales agency in the United
States. But procurement officials soon
experienced serious difficulties in im-
plementing this contract and decided
to terminate it. Colonel Ruhoff,
acting in his capacity as chief of the
newly constituted Madison Square
Area Engineers Office, agreed in Sep-
tember to the terms of a new contract
with Eldorado; he approved a second
agreement in December 1944. For the
period July 1942 to December 1944,
cost of 4,200 tons of Canadian ore
containing 1,137 tons of black oxide
was slightly over $6.6 million, based
on the price of oxide varying from
about $1.95 to over $4.00 per
pound. ^

Domestic sources of natural urani-
um were in the Colorado Plateau
region of the states of Colorado,
Utah, and New Mexico. The uranium
in this region occurred in carnotite
ores, which also contained vanadi-
um — an element urgently needed in
the war effort because of its use as a
hardening agent in the manufacture
of steel. District procurement officials,
learning in late 1942 that those firms
actively mining carnotite ores and re-
fining vanadium did not extract the
relativelv small amount of uranium in

» Ibid., pp. 3.1-3.3 and App. F2, DASA; MPC Min
(and attached documents), 24 Feb 45, OCG Files,
Gen Corresp, MP Files, Fidr 23, lab A, MDR;
Memo, 1st Lt Winston H. Pickett (Intel & Scty Div)
to Groves, sub: Contract Disclosure in Current Ca-
nadian Case (Relating to Ore Supply Prgm in WW
II), 15 Mar 46, Investigation Files, (k-n Corresp,
Boris Pregel, MDR.

the refuse materials, began negotia-
tions in early 1943 to acquire these
tailings. Because these tailings were
in the form of sand, and thus too
heavy for economical shipment, they
arranged contracts with several vana-
dium operators — the government-
owned and -financed Metals Reserve
Corporation,^ the privately owned
and operated Vanadium Corporation
of America, and the United States Va-
nadium Corporation, a Union Car-
bide subsidiary — and proposed they
convert the tailings into concentrates
(sludges). The advantage of the con-
centrates was that they would yield a
higher percentage of uranium for
conversion into black oxide and that,
in this form, shipment to the Buffalo-
area processing firms would be a less
costly operation. For the period No-
vember 1942 to February 1945, cost
of 380,000 tons of carnotite sands
containing 1,350 tons of black oxide
was more than $2.1 million, based on
the price of oxide averaging about
$0.80 per pound. 10

Uranium ore from North America
yielded considerably less black oxide
than that from Africa, primarily be-

^ The Metals Reserve Corporation, a subsidiary of
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, was estab-
lished under legislation enacted by Congress in
1940, with the objective of providing for purchases
of strategic and critical materials. By late 1944,
Metals Reserve, which Congress had supplied with
adequate funds and power to procure items needed
by war industries and for stockpiling, had spent
some $1.7 billion for 19 million tons of materials.
See Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, pp.
203-04.

lOMDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 4.1-4.8, 7.8-7.13,
App. F3, DASA; Memo, Merritt to Nichols, sub:
Resume of Production of Uranium Products for MD
in (Colorado Plateau Area, 26 Jan 45, Admin Files,
Gen Corresp, 410.2 (Uranium), MDR; Rpis, Mat Sec
(later Mad Sq Area Engrs Office), 3 Jul- 13 Aug 43.
OROO.

312

MANHAITAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

cause of the much greater oxide con-
tent of the latter. The African ore
from the Belgian Congo contained an
estimated average of over 2-percent
black oxide, whereas Canadian ore
from the Great Bear Lake area as-
sayed at somewhat more than 0.5 per-
cent and domestic ore from the Colo-
rado Plateau region at 0.25 percent.
For this reason, the combined quanti-
ty of estimated black oxide in urani-
um ore purchased from the North
American sources accounted for only
one-third of the total contracted for
the entire project. ^^

Special Materials

So tremendously important to the
success of the atomic project was se-
curing and processing raw ores that
this operation tended to obscure an-
other significant activity of the Dis-
trict's feed materials program: pro-
curement of special materials. A
number of these materials were diffi-
cult to obtain in the quantities needed
or completely unavilable from com-
mercial sources. Hence, their pro-
curement was often not simply a
matter of District officials approving a
purchase order or letting a contract,
but required planning and imple-
menting means for the radical expan-
sion of such limited sources as existed
or for even approving construction of
entirely new plants. Two separate sec-
tions in the Madison Square Area
Engineers Office had responsibility
for special procurement — the Special
Materials Branch and the Special
Projects Branch. ^^

' » MDH, Bk. 7, \'ol. 2, "Geographical Explora-
tion," pp. 1.6-1.7, DASA.

12 MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 1.9, 6.1, Apps. B and
G-K (see charts), DASA.

Demands for special chemicals and
other materials of the project's re-
search and production facilities in-
creased rapidly in 1943 and 1944. For
testing and operating atomic piles
there was need for radium and radio-
active lead as a neutron source,
graphite and beryllium as neutron
moderators, and helium as a coolant;
for the heavy water project at Trail,
nickel chromium for a catalyst; for the
gaseous diffusion project, elemental
flourine and a variety of fluorinated
chemicals, including those suitable for
cleaning, cooling, lubricating, and
sealing; for the manufacture of urani-
um metal, magnesium and calcium;
and for the design and test of the
bomb at Los Alamos, a seemingly
endless list of materials — bismuth,
tungsten, boron, beryllium, and many
others.

The quantity and variety of special
materials needed by the project pre-
sented the Madison Square staff with
a whole spectrum of challenging
problems. Some proved to be rela-
tively simple. For example, radium
and radioactive lead, which were by-
products of uranium processing,
could be obtained from the same
firms that refined the ore. In the early
period, project officials purchased
most of the radium required through
the New York firm, Canadian Radium
and Uranium Corporation, which pro-
cured most of its supply from Eldora-
do Mining and Refining. In 1943,
however, difficulties in reaching
agreement on contractual terms and
prices caused them to turn to Joseph
A. Kelly, who acted as agent for the
Radium Chemical Company of New
York. After 1943, Kelly supplied most

THE feb:d materials program

31:

of the radium required by the project.
As for radioactive lead, the District
obtained most of its requirement for
this material from Eldorado Mining's
ore-refming operations at Port Hope,
Ontario. ^^

Acquisition of a suitable pile mod-
erator was one of the most difficult
procurement problems in the early
months of the project's plutonium
program. Pile designers finally decid-
ed to employ graphite rather than
heavy water or beryllium, because it
was the only one of these neutron-ab-
sorbing substances available in quan-
tity from commercial sources and
because Metallurgical Laboratory sci-
entists and researchers at the National
Carbon and Speer Carbon Companies
recently had devised a process that
would produce an adequate supply of
high-grade graphite for the program
This success with graphite did not
however, end interest in obtaining be
ryllium and heavy water for experi
mental purposes. Project scientists
particularly those at Los Alamos
showed an increasing interest in be-
rvllium metal in the later years of the
war. Only a single American firm,
Brush Beryllium Company of Lorain,
Ohio, produced beryllium commer-
ciallv for the fabrication of certain
alloys. From 1943 to 1946, the
Madison Square staff concentrated its
efforts on increasing the production
capacity of this firm, assisting it in ob-
taining priorities on new equipment
and other materials from the War
Production Board and also in expand-
ing its plant. By 1945, these measures
had led to a substantial increase in
production of beryllium metal. ^"^

Generally speaking. District pro-
curement officials had to cope with
no more than the usual stringencies
of the tight wartime economy in ob-
taining moderate quantities of such
elements as magnesium, calcium, bis-
muth, tungsten, boron, and helium.
Because early decisions for helium-
cooled production piles appeared to
forecast a future need for very large
amounts of the gaseous element, they
arranged with the Bureau of Mines,
which controlled helium distribution,
for large-scale procurement, including
transfer directly of funds from the
War Department to Interior to pay
the costs. In 1943, they also assisted
in negotiation of a contract with the
General American Transportation
Company of Chicago for purchase of
special tank cars to ship the helium to
Hanford. But the decision by pile de-
signers later that year to use water as
the primary coolant greatly reduced
the need for helium, and the District
materials group sharply cut back the
earliest procurement schedules for
the element. ^^

Another material that presented
special procurement problems was
elemental fluorine, to include its
chemical derivatives. This highly cor-
rosive, and therefore hazardous-to-
handle, element was the choice of the
project designers for combining with
uranium to make the gaseous feed
material (uranium hexafluoride) for
operating several of the main produc-

'3 Ibid., pp. 6.1-6.3 and Apps. F5-F6, DASA.
'Mbid., App. K, DASA; Rpt, Ruhofl, .sub: Mat De-

velopments for 1 1-27 Oct 42, 27 Oct 42, MD-319.1
(Rpts MSA), OROO; Rpls, Mat Sec (later Mad Sq
Area Kngrs Office), 9 Nov 42, 6 and 13 Aug 43,
OROO: Smvth Report, p. 65.

'^MDH. Bk. 7, Vol. 1, App. I, DASA: List, sub:
Signed Prime and Subcontracts Over $100,000, Incl
to Memo. Marsden to (iroves, 31 Aug 43, MDR.

314

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

tion plants. Because of the huge re-
quirements of just the gaseous diffu-
sion plant, as well as the problems of
shipment, the designers decided to
build a fluorine gas production plant
right at the diffusion plant site. The
District's materials group also played
a significant role in letting contracts
and overseeing the activities of a
number of private research institu-
tions (Johns Hopkins, MIT, Purdue)
and chemical firms (American Cyna-
mid, Du Pont, General Chemical,
Harshaw Chemical, Hooker Electro-
chemical, Kinetic Chemicals, Penn
Salt) in the development and supply
of the numerous fluorinated hydro-
carbon chemical compounds — in the
form of coolants, sealants, and lubri-
cants — needed to operate the plants
safely and efficiently with the highly
corrosive feed material. ^^

Feed Materials Production

The initial phase of the feed mate-
rials production network was conver-
sion of the uranium-bearing crude
ore into pure concentrates of black
oxide and soda salt by various indus-
trial firms under contract to the Dis-
trict. In each case the refining treat-
ment was quite similar and involved
subjecting the crude ore to the suc-
cessive processes of pulverization into
a sandlike material, acid immersion,
precipitation to eliminate impurities,
and roasting (drying).

Eldorado Mining at its Port Hope
refinery processed all Canadian ore

and some Congo ore into black oxide,
whereas the Vitro Manufacturing
Company at its Cannonsburg (Penn-
sylvania) refinery processed only
Congo ore into soda salt. Designed
only for treating the higher-grade
Congo and Canadian ores, neither the
Eldorado nor Vitro plants could
properly process the carnotite con-
centrates from the Colorado Plateau
region. Aware that the Linde Air
Products Company had produced for
the OSRD a satisfactory grade of
black oxide from carnotite concen-
trates, the District's Materials Section
at the end of 1942 made arrange-
ments with Linde to refine new stocks
of concentrates at its plant in Tona-
wanda. New York, as well as to
produce other feed materials for the
project. With assistance of the Tona-
wanda area engineer, Linde expanded
its black oxide production facilities,
but, by late 1943, was phasing out do-
mestic ores and using its facilities to
refine higher-yielding African ores.^"^

Figures compiled by the Madison
Square Area Engineers Office, begin-
ning in September 1943, show that
the amount of uranium from all
sources available for refinement in
the United States and Canada, and
the quantity of black oxide and soda
salt extracted from this ore, grew dra-
matically from 1943 to 1945. Thus, at
the end of September 1943, the Man-
hattan District had available 2,920
tons of uranium ore and produced
1,660 tons of black oxide and soda
salt. A year later, the quantities rose

'«MDH. Bk. 7, \()l 1. App. K, DASA; List, sub:
Contracts To Be laktii Over bv MD, Incl to Ltr. W.
1. W'ensel (lech Aide, OSRD) to Marshall, 20 Mar
43, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161, MDR; List, sub:
MD Contracts With \arious Univs, Incl to Memo,
Marsden to Groves. 2 Nov 43, MDR.

'^MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 1.20, 7.1-7.8, Apps.
C-IA and F7, DASA. Details of earlv development
of black oxide production bv Linde in 1942-43 may
be followed in Rpts, Mat Sec (later Mad Sq Area
Kngrs Office), Oct 42-Aug 43, 30 Oct. 30 Nov, and
31 Dec 43, 29 jan 44, OROO.

THE FEED MATERIALS PROGRAM

315

to 5,640 tons available and 3,500 tons
of black oxide and soda salt pro-
duced. And at the close of September
1945, the figures stood respectively at
6,600 tons of ore and 5,150 tons of
black oxide and soda salt.^^

The final phase in the feed materi-
als production network was the con-
version of black oxide and soda salt,
through a series of chemical treat-
ments, into one of the several chemi-
cal feeds suitable for processing in
the electromagnetic, diffusion, and
pile plants. The first step changed
black oxide or soda salt into brown
oxide (uranium dioxide) or orange
oxide (uranium trioxide), the latter an
important feed material for the elec-
tromagnetic process in its early stages
of development. The second step
transformed brown oxide into green
salt (uranium tetrafluoride). The
third, and final, step converted green
salt into one of a number of uranium
compounds — for example, gaseous
uranium hexafluoride for the gaseous
and liquid diffusion processes and the
electromagnetic process in its last
stage of development — or into urani-
um metal, the prime feed material
for the pile process. ^^

Because the OSRD had made con-
siderable progress in arranging con-
tracts with industrial firms to provide
for each of the different chemical
treatments required to produce feed
materials, the principal task remaining
for Manhattan leaders was that of
shaping the project's feed materials
processors into a production network
capable of supplying most of the

feeds for the Clinton and Hanford
production plants, regardless of the
adverse effects of sabotage, technical
failures, or other inhibiting factors.
By early 1943, having extended
OSRD contracts and negotiated new
agreements, they organized and ex-
panded this network so that, in effect,
it comprised three parallel chemical-
processing chains, the first link in
each chain consisting of processors of
both brown and orange oxide; the
second, those of green salt; and the
third, those of uranium metal. ^^

Mallinckrodt, Du Pont, and Linde
comprised the brown and orange
oxide links. Mallinckrodt, which had
pioneered in development of the
highly efficient ether process for re-
fining uranium under the leadership
of Ruhoff, provided the most impor-
tant link. During the course of the
wartime project, it produced nearly
4,200 tons of brown and orange
oxide, nearly twice the output of the
other two firms, and including almost
all of the oxide used by the electro-
magnetic project. In cooperation with
Yale University, it continued research
that culminated in design and con-
struction of a plant for continuous ex-
traction of brown oxide from raw ore
(pitchblende), not completed until
1946. The Du Pont plant, built adja-
cent to the company's big Chambers
Chemical and Dye Works across the
Delaware River from Wilmington in
Deep Water, New Jersey, processed

»8Rpts, Mad Sq Area Engrs Office, 30 Oct 43,
31 Oct 44, 29 Nov 45, OROO.

19 Ibid., Sep-Dec 43, OROO; MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1,
pp. 8.1-10.10, DASA.

^° See Ch. I on the origins in the atomic bomb
program of the idea of parallel production chains,
characterized as a nuclear steeplechase involving
various methods for producing fissionable materials.
List, sub: S-1 Contracts, Incl to Ltr, Irvin Stewart
(Ex Secy, OSRD) to Groves, 14 Dec 45, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 161 (S-1 Contracts), MDR;
MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. I, pp. S10-S13 and App. F8,
DASA.

316

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

mainly scrap and by-products material
to produce almost 2,000 tons of
brown oxide. Linde, operating the
third plant, processed black oxide
from its own refinery to produce a
total of about 300 tons of brown
oxide. ^^

Four chemical firms comprised the
green salt links. Fhree were the same
firms that produced brown oxide and
the fourth was the Harshaw Chemical
Company of Cleveland, which the
OSRD had originally brought under
contract to produce green salt in the
summer of 1942. District procure-
ment officials drew up new contracts
for a substantially enlarged output in
the fall of 1942 — with Harshaw in
September and the other three com-
panies in November. These contracts,
except for that with Harshaw, re-
mained in effect for the duration of
the war and resulted in production of
more than 7,200 tons of green salt:
2,926 by Mallinckrodt, 2,060 by
Linde, 1,640 by Harshaw, and 608 by
Du Pont. When more uranium hexa-
fluoride was needed for the diffusion
plants, the Madison Square Area En-
gineers Office renegotiated the con-
tract with Harshaw, providing in a
new agreement that the Cleveland
firm convert black oxide into green
salt and then into uranium hexafluor-
ide. At the same time, the Madison
Square office also arranged to have
Harshaw raise its output of uranium
tetrachloride, which it had been pro-
ducing in small quantities since early
1943, to meet a sudden increase in
demand for the electromagnetic pro-
duction plan.^^

Four commercial firms and a col-
lege formed the uranium metal links.
Mallinckrodt, Du Pont, Electro Metal-
lurgical, Metal Hydrides and Iowa
State, at one time or another, were
involved in metal production for the
wartime atomic project, although only
the first three firms constituted the
permanent links in the parallel feed
materials chains. Uranium metal pro-
curement dated back to the earliest
days of the atomic energy program,
because the material was required for
laboratory research and experimenta-
tion. Both the National Bureau of
Standards and the OSRD had let con-
tracts to university research laborato-
ries and commercial chemical firms to
develop a process for mass produc-
tion of uranium metal of a high
degree of purity. The processes de-
vised by Metal Hydrides proved to
have serious drawbacks. Iowa State,
however, had developed a method for
reducing green salt with calcium
(later, magnesium proved more effec-
tive) at high temperatures inside a
steel bomb and recasting the end
product into metal in an induction-
heated furnace. So successful was this
method that Iowa State itself em-
ployed it to manufacture a consider-
able amount of metal for the project.
Subsequently, the Army let contracts
to Mallinckrodt, Du Pont, and Electro
Metallurgical to produce metal using
the steel bomb method. ^^

When the Army took over direction
of materials procurement, it contin-
ued the metal-production contracts

2» MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 8,1-8.7, DASA.

22 Ibid., pp. 9.1-9.9 and App. F8, DASA; Rpts,

Mad Sq Area Engrs Office, 31 Oct and 30 Dec 44,
31 Jan 4.5, OROO.

23 MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 10.1-10.9, DASA. See
al,so Ch. III.

THE FEED MATERIALS PROGRAM

317

with Metal Hydrides and Iowa State
and negotiated new contracts with
Electro Metallurgical and Du Pont. In
several instances, District officials had
to monitor construction of additional
plant buildings, at government ex-
pense, to expedite the production of
uranium metal under these contracts.
Metal Hydrides and Du Pont had seri-
ous operating problems that limited
their output of metal, although Metal
Hydrides subsequently developed a
highly successful metal-recasting op-
eration. Nevertheless, by the time Dis-
trict officials shut down most produc-
tion of new metal in late 1943 — Iowa
State continued its output until late
1944 — the various contractors had
manufactured several thousand tons.
By late August 1944, the Madison
Square area engineer reported deliv-
ery of nearly 3,500 tons of metal to
Hanford and Clinton, comprised of
1,000 tons from Electro Metallurgical,
900 from Iowa State, 650 from Mal-
linckrodt, 610 from Metal Hydrides,
and lesser amounts from other
processors. These deliveries included
both new metal and metal recast
into ingots from turnings and other
scraps from machining and fabricating
operations. ^^

Quality Control Program

One factor that made materials pro-
curement difficult was the almost uni-
versal requirement for previously un-
heard of standards of quality. In the
feed materials program, for example,
procurement schedules required that

uranium metal contain no more than
0.1 of 1 percent of impurities that
would affect its efficiency in the pile-
operating process. Similarly stringent
standards were established for graph-
ite, fluorinated chemicals, and other
materials. Because most of the com-
mercial contractors who furnished
these materials were unprepared to
carry out the physical and analytical
tests necessary to maintain these high
standards, the materials group had to
build up its own quality control
organization.^^

In February 1943, Colonel Cren-
shaw's staff began negotiations with
Princeton, MIT, the chemical section
of the Metallurgical Laboratory, and
the National Bureau of Standards,
with the objective of forming these
research institutions into a central
quality control laboratory group. The
plan was to have the scientists at each
institution analyze and test samples
from the uranium metal production
plants, as well as to devise more ef-
fective methods of metal analysis, to
furnish personnel and facilities when
needed to supplement those of the
manufacturing plants, to investigate
other materials, and to provide gener-
al guidance for the control program.
In addition, the Metallurgical Labora-
tory was to carry out physical tests of
brown oxide and finished metal for
the pile process. Because all of these
institutions already were engaged in
some aspect of analysis and testing of
uranium, the Materials Section simply
supplemented or revised existing con-
tracts with them to provide the neces-

24 Ibid., pp. 10.2-10.9 and .\pp. F8, DASA; Rpt.s,
Mat Sec (later Mad Sq Area Kngrs ORice), Sep-Dec
42 and 31 Aug 45, OROO.

25MDH, Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 12.1 and App. G,
DASA; Rpts, Mat Sec, 15 Feb and 4 Mar 43,
OROO.

318

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

sary organization of the central qual-
ity control laboratory group. ^^

By spring, the Materials Section
had completed satisfactory arrange-
ments with Princeton, MIT, and the
Bureau of Standards. Colonel Cren-
shaw reported in May that these three
institutions were "doing an excellent
job, and have attacked the problem as
a job of commercial analysis, which is
the case." ^^ The Metallurgical Labo-
ratory expressed a preference for car-
rying out its part of the analytical
work under its existing overall re-
search contract, but Crenshaw op-
posed this, because he knew it would
prevent the Materials Section from
exercising direct control over the lab-
oratory's part in the analytical pro-
gram. The reasons why the laboratory
did not want such a contract soon
became apparent: The scientists did
not relish performing routine analysis
and testing of metal samples because
it took time and used facilities they
would rather devote to more original
and challenging research and devel-
opment activities.^®

Colonel Crenshaw arranged a meet-
ing with Richard L. Doan, associate
director of the University of Chicago's
Clinton Laboratories in Tennessee,
and George E. Boyd, chief of the ana-
lytical chemistry group at the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory. The two scien-
tists agreed that the Metallurgical
Laboratory would continue to per-
form routine chemical analysis and
testing of brown oxide and uranium

26MDH. Bk. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 12.1-12.2, D.A,S.A:
Rpts, Mat Sec, 15 Feb and 3 Apr 43, OROO; Coch-
rane, Measures for Progress, p. 383.

" Rpt, Mat Sec, 18 Mav 43, OROO.

28 Ibid., 3 Apr, 4 and 18 Mav, 5 Jun 43, OROO.

metal until the workload in this area
declined. This would occur shortly,
they knew, when Iowa State complet-
ed facilities for quality testing its own
metal output. By fall of 1943, the
other institutions had taken over most
of the routine chemical analytical
work that the Metallurgical Labora-
tory had been doing. The Madison
Square area engineer attested to the
effectiveness of the quality control
program when, at the end of Novem-
ber, he reported to Colonel Nichols
that the feed materials program was
making metal of a higher degree of
purity than any previously produced
by the atomic energy project. ^^

Development of the feed materials
program ahead of the fissionable ma-
terials production and weapon pro-
grams was a matter of necessity, for
the latter were completely dependent
upon an adequate supply of the feed
and other materials essential to their
operation. In less than two years, the
Manhattan District's materials organi-
zation was able to expand the already
existing OSRD program, solving seri-
ous technical problems and securing
the requisite priorities to meet on
schedule the requirements for the re-
search and development, testing, and
start-up in operations of the major
production plants for the manufacture
of fissionable materials. By late 1944
and in 1945, the District could begin
to phase out, or reduce, some aspects
of the program and to give some at-
tention to the postwar requirements
of the atomic energy program.

29MDH, Bk. 7. \'ol. 1. pp. 12.2-12.4, DASA; Rpts,
Mat Sec (later Mad Sq Area Engrs Office), 18 jun
and 30 Nov 43, OROO.

CHAPTER XV

Land Acquisition

During the war the Manhattan Dis-
trict assembled extensive real estate
holdings for its principal installations
in Tennessee, New Mexico, and
Washington State, as well as smaller
tracts for its support facilities in other
places, totaling more than 500,000
acres. Manhattan acquired most of
this land, at least up to the point of
occupancy, during the period Septem-
ber 1942 to August 1943; however,
because of unavoidable legal delays in
closing out procurement of original
sites and recurring demands for addi-
tional space, it continued to be in-
volved in some acquisition activities
through September 1945.^

Land acquisition for the atomic
energy project presented special
problems hitherto never encountered
by War Department agencies in their
World W^ar II real estate procurement
programs. The Manhattan Project re-
quired absolute secrecy and unheard
of speed in acquiring the needed
sites. Yet these essential objectives
were, in fact, inherently self-defeat-
ing, for land acquisition activities
tended to attract widespread public
attention and measures to expedite
quick settlements tended to conflict
with those for maximum secrecv.

Nonetheless, convinced that the ulti-
mate success of the project was at
stake, Manhattan officials persisted in
enforcing strict security measures,
even though the latter produced a
far-reaching tide of local opposition
at the Tennessee and Washington
sites. 2

Clinton Engineer Works

The District's acquisition program
in Tennessee officially began on
29 September 1942,=^ when Under
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson
approved Maj. Gen. Eugene Rey-
bold's letter directive requesting pro-
curement of land for the Kingston
Demolition Range, so-called for secu-
rity reasons but in January 1943 offi-
cially redesignated the Clinton Engi-

' Site selection for the major Manhattan installa-
tions is discussed in detail in C.hs. III-\'.

^ Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, pp.
441-42; U.S. Statutes at Large. 1942, \ol. 36, Pt. 1.
Second War Powers Act, Title II, p. 177; MDH, Bk.
4, \'ol. 4, 'Land Acquisition, Hanford Engineer
Works," pp. 4.19-4.20, DASA.

^ Except as otherwise indicated, facts and figures
pertaining to the Tennessee land acquisition pro-
gram are drawn from MDH, Bk. 1, \'ol. 10, "Land
Acquisition CEW," and from the appendices to that
volume. Figures on the total acreage of the site and
other statistics relating to the acquisition program
are summarized on pp. 2.47-2.49. Many of the doc-
uments pertinent to the program are reproduced in
App. B.

320

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

neer Works (CEW).* (See Map 3.)
Under terms of this directive, the En-
gineers chief had official authorization
to purchase approximately 56,200
acres ^ {Table 2), primarily in eastern
Tennessee's Roane and Anderson
Counties, using money appropriated
from the Engineer Service-Army cate-
gory of available funds.

In anticipation of approval of this
directive, the Engineers' ORD (Ohio
River Division) Real Estate Branch on
28 September had opened a project
office, designated the CEW Land Ac-
quisition Section, at Harriman, a
Roane County town a few miles west
of the site. The ORD staff began im-
mediately to secure for the section
the services of some fifty appraisers

4 Ltr, Robins (Act Chief of Engrs) to CG SOS,
sub: Acquisition in Fee of Approx 56,200 Acres of
Land for Demolition Range Near Kingston, Tenn.,
and 2d Ind (directive approval), Col Marion Rush-
ton (Asst Ex, Office of Und Secy War) to Chief of
Engrs, both 29 Sep 42, Incls to Memo, Col John J.
O'Brien (CE Real Estate Br chieO to Lt Col Whitney
Ashbridge (CE Mil Constr Br), sub: Land Acquisi-
tion in Connection With MD, 17 Apr 43, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 601 (Santa Fe), MDR. The town
of Kingston was located about 7 miles southwest of
the site area.

^ Acquisition of ten additional parcels of land, au-
thorized in subsequent directives issued from June
1943 through August 1944, brought the District's
real estate holdings to a total of approximately
58,900 acres. These parcels of land were mostly
small tracts required for the adequate development
and protection of the original site. (See Map 3. ) Sev-
eral tracts were secured to facilitate development of
the transportation network, notably 70 acres in July
1943 for the right of way of a spur track built from
the Southern Railway at Blair south along Oxier
Creek to the north boundary of the original site.
The largest additions were made in 1944, when the
gaseous diffusion plant on the Clinch River at the
western end of the reservation needed more
ground. In April of that year the TVA granted the
District a temporary-use permit for some 279 acres,
and in August the CEW Land Acquisition Section
acquired another 2,800 acres, consisting chiefly of
an elevated area along Black Oak Ridge needed to
improve perimeter security near the gaseous diffu-
sion plant.

for the job of appraising an estimated
800-850 separate tracts. The fact that
division personnel currently were in-
volved in another large-scale acquisi-
tion program for the Dale Hollow
Dam and Reservoir, situated on a
branch of the Cumberland River near
the Tennessee-Kentucky border, com-
pounded the difficulty of their new
task; however, they resolved the prob-
lem by arranging to borrow the ap-
praisers, on a short-term basis, from
several regional Federal Land Banks
and from the Tennessee Valley Au-
thority (TVA) real estate staff In
keeping with War Department prac-
tices of basing appraisals mainly on
an estimate of prevailing property
values as determined by a review of
comparable sales, on interviews with
owners, and on actual physical inspec-
tion of each tract, the appraisers were
able to complete most of the work on
the original site by the end of 1942.^
The directive of 29 September had
authorized procurement of the origi-
nal site by condemnation. This per-
mitted not only immediate acquisition
of those parts of the area needed for
preliminary construction but also ex-
pedited acquisition of properties with
defective titles. On 6 October (effec-
tive 7 October), the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Ten-
nessee, Northern Division, issued an
order of possession at the request of
ORD Real Estate Branch attorneys.
The court took cognizance of the
hardship to landowners facing remov-

* Ltr, Fred Morgan (CEW Land .Acquisition Sec
Proj Mgr) to Joseph G. Colgan (House Mil Affairs
Committee investigator), 6 Aug 43, copy in MDH,
Bk. 1, Vol. 10, App. B2i, DASA; Memo, Marshall to
Groves, sub: Major MD Contracts, 27 Apr 43,
Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 161, MDR; Knoxville Jour-
nal, 4 Feb 43.

LAND ACQUISITION

Table 2 — Land Acquisition at CEW, 1942-1944

321

Date of
Directive

Acreage To
Be Acquired *

Estimated
Cost

Type of Control
Acquired

Use or Purpose

29 Sep 42

56,200
15.1
70
3.73

47.7
62
17
279

.89

.32

425

2,375

$3,500,000

1,750

14,107

400

3,740
14,600
5.100

200
100

170,000

Outright purchase
Outright purchase
Outright purchase
Outright purchase

Outright purchase
Perpetual easement
Outright purchase
Temporary-use permit

from TVA
Perpetual easement
Outright purchase
Temporary-use permit

from TVA
Temporary-use permit

from TVA
Lease or outright

purchase

Original site

For protection and security
Spur track right of way
Channel diversion of Poplar

Creek
Borrow pit
Access road

14 Jun 43

3 Jul 43

15 Jul 43

25 Sep 43

5 Feb 44

3 Mar 44

19 Apr 44

Expansion of facilities

2 Mav 44

4 Aug 44

Access road

28 Aug 44

Security

^ Figures given here represent the amounts estimated in the real estate directive, the sum totaling about
59,500 acres. The actual acreage finally acquired was less, approximately 58,900 acres.
Source: MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 10, pp. 1.3-1.4, 2.21-2.26, App. Bl, DASA

al on short notice by limiting the gov-
ernment's right of immediate exclu-
sive possession to those sections
where it was "essential to full and
complete development of the
project. . . ." '

The Manhattan District did not take
exclusive possession of any tracts for
construction purposes before 15 No-
vember, although it had exercised
right of entry at many points before
that date. The CEW Land Acquisition
Section requested that owners and
tenants, most of whom were
farmers, be prepared to vacate at
various times between 1 December
1942 and 15 February 1943. In some

''Copies of the condemnation petition, 6 Oct 42,
filed by U.S. Atty James B. Prexier, Jr. et al., and the
order of possession (source of quotation), 6 Oct 42,
signed by Judge George C. Taylor, in MDH,
Bk. 1, Vol. 10, App. G7, DASA.

instances, where immediate vacating
would cause undue hardship, the Dis-
trict permitted landowners to stay on
even beyond the 15 February date.
The effectiveness of this lenient
policy is attested to by the fact that
project officials never had to resort to
a court order to secure eviction of an
owner from the Clinton site.

As soon as the ORD Real Estate
Branch had assembled sufficient data
to meet legal requirements concern-
ing areas needed immediately for
military construction, branch attor-
neys filed declarations of taking. They
filed the first declaration on 20 No-
vember 1942, covering a segment
comprised of 13 tracts. By mid-Janu-
ary 1943 declarations were on file for
184 tracts covering 9,614 acres and,
by May, for 742 tracts constituting

322

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Earm at the 1 ennessek Site, typical of those acquired by the Manhattan District

53,334 acres — or nearly all privately
owned property of the original site.
Meanwhile, during the winter and
spring of 1943, CEW Land Acquisi-
tion Section negotiators had succeed-
ed in obtaining stipulation agree-
ments on more than half the tracts in
litigation. By the end of May, agree-
ments of this type had been worked
out on 416 tracts comprising 21,742
acres. In those cases where the nego-
tiators failed to secure stipulation
agreements, branch attorneys con-
sented to submit them to a jury of
view, an institution provided for
under lennessee law to assist
litigants in reaching agreement on
settlement prices for expropriated
property. The jury, comprised of five

persons named by the Federal District
Court, visited each of the tracts in
contention and then advised new set-
tlement prices uniformly higher than
those established by War Department
appraisers. When the owners were
unwilling to accept even these higher
prices, the government stopped using
this method of settlement.®

The rise of local opposition to the
acquisition program seriously threat-
ened to delay efforts by Department
of Justice special attorneys to quickly
bring the remaining unsettled cases to
trial. Contributing to the opposition

^ Knoxville Journal. 9 Jan 43; Remarks of Congress-
man John Jennings, Jr. ( I enn.), U.S. Congress,
House, Congressional Record. 78th Cong., 1st Sess.,
22 Apr 43, Vol. 89, Pt. 10, pp. A 1 197-99.

LAND ACQllSITION

323

was the Federal District (Court's late-
1942 publication in its registry of the
amounts placed on deposit for ad-
vanced payment to landowners, in
compliance with the declaration-of-
taking procedure. Because these
amounts represented a percentage of
the total valuation of the tracts, the
landowners easily deduced the War
Department's appraised valuation on
the various tracts. The coincidence of
a local political campaign provided
candidates with an opportunity to
promise, if elected, to secure higher
prices than those established by gov-
ernment appraisers. Area newspapers
publicized widely the appraised prices
and the local politicians' comments
and, in general, were hostile to the
acquisition program and its
methods.^

By the end of November, many
landowners were thoroughly aroused.
On the twenty-third, a delegation of
property holders petitioned the
project manager of the CEW Land
Acquisition Section, protesting the
low appraisal prices. That evening
more than two hundred owners met;
they formed a landholders investiga-
tion committee and made arrange-
ments to hire lawyers and appraisers
so that committee members could re-
ceive expert assistance. Taking note
of these developments, a Knoxville
newspaper commented that "the
public of course actually knows noth-
ing in detail of the justice of the pro-
tests being made by these

citizens. . . . We do know that since
everybody else is getting a fair price
for the material and labor which will
go into this Federal project, there is
certainly no justification for these
farmers being singled out for an
economy slaughter." ^°

Dissatisfaction with appraised
values was not the only cause for op-
position. Relocation of more than one
thousand landowners and tenants
with their families proved difficult.
Recent TVA acquisition of much of
the good river bottom farmland in the
vicinity had created a shortage of
available vacant farms, enhanced local
land values, and forced many farm
people to move. Some of the dis-
placed farmers who had moved to the
Clinton site naturally resented having
to move again. Even vacant houses in
nearby towns were at a premium be-
cause of the influx of construction
workers for the new project. Many
landowners lacked sufficient ready
cash to move on short notice. The
War Department had no funds to aid
them and adequate assistance was not
immediately obtainable from other
government agencies, such as the
Farm Security Administration. Even
owners with financial resources found
that the District's deadlines on vacat-
ing did not give them sufficient time
to hire moving vehicles, which were
in short supply in the local area.^^

9MI^H. Bk. 1, Vol. 10, pp. 2.9 and 2.42-2.43,
DAS.A; Knnxville Journal 1, 20, and 25 Nov 42; Fine
and Remington, Corps of Engineers: Construction, pp.
174-84. Numerous examples of local opposition to
War Department land acquisition are presented in
the last-named source.

^° Knoxville Journal. 24 Nov, 25 Nov (source of
quotation), 30 Dec 42; Remarks of Jennings, Congres-
sional Record. 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 22 Apr 43, Vol.
89, Ft. 10. pp. Al 197-99.

I'MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 10, pp. 2.40-2.42, DASA;
Iclg, Jennings to Secy War, 24 Oct 42, copy in
ibid., App. B2b, DASA; Robinson, Oak Ridge Story,
pp. 2() and 28.

324

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

Rumors contributed considerably to
fomenting local opposition. One per-
sistent rumor was that the Clinton
site was being acquired for the benefit
of a large private corporation in fla-
grant abuse of the right of eminent
domain. But overriding security re-
quirements prevented District officials
from providing the public with a gen-
eral explanation. Thus, in an attempt
to abate public criticism. Col. John J.
O'Brien, chief of the CE (Corps of
Engineers) Real Estate Branch, re-
quested that the Department of Agri-
culture investigate the appraisal pro-
gram. The department's factfinders
later stated in their report that "the
general management of the project,
the appraisal of the land and the ap-
proach to the landowners have been
fair and just, and we do not see what
would be accomplished by a reap-
praisal of the land." The Engineers'
resurvey of the area had revealed,
they continued, that in many in-
stances the tracts were actually small-
er than recorded in existing property
deeds; that the owners had tended to
overvalue their land because they
were prone to exaggerate its produc-
tivity; and, because many were veter-
ans of one or more of the five previ-
ous TVA land acquisition projects
within 70 miles of the Clinton site,
that they had developed "a technique
of complaining" that had proved to
be very effective in securing higher
prices for their property. ^^

Meanwhile, disaffected farmers
sought the assistance of their con-
gressman, John Jennings, Jr., a Re-
publican from Knoxville. As early as

October 1942, Jennings had written
to Secretary Stimson on behalf of his
constituents: "I realize the necessity
of the step taken but I do hope ade-
quate steps will be taken to safeguard
these people, that they speedily be
paid for their farms, and every step
possible be taken to see that they are
relocated on farms." ^^ Although the
War Department promptly had as-
sured him "that every effort will be
made to preserve the interests of the
landowners concerned," ^"^ the pro-
tests continued to increase. Feeling
the futility of his earlier efforts, Jen-
nings submitted a resolution to the
House of Representatives on 1 Febru-
ary 1943, requesting creation of a
select committee to investigate the
prices offered landowners. "A large
number of owners . . . ," the resolu-
tion read, "assert that the War De-
partment has had the land appraised
by nonresidents of the State of 1 en-
nessee who are totally unfamiliar with
the value of such land. . . . Inexpert
and unfair appraisals . . . are result-
ing in the forced sale of such land
... at prices totally inadequate to
enable the former owners to acquire
homes and farms of comparable
value." ^^

The House took no immediate
action on Jennings' resolution, and he
continued to seek relief for his con-
stituents through War Department

'^Mcmo, George K. Fairell (Agri Dept specialist)
to O'Brien, sub: Kingston Demolition Range,
19 Feb 43, topv in MDU, Bk 1, Vol. 10, App. B2e,
DASA.

"Ltr, Jennings to Secv War, 17 Oct 42, copy in
ibid., App. B2a, DASA.

'"Ltr (source of quotation), John W. Martyn
(Admin Asst to Secy War) to Jennings, 27 Oct 42,
App. B2a; Telgs, Jennings to Secy War, 24 Oct 42,
and I'nd Secv War to Jennings, ,S Nov 42, App.
B2b. Copies in ibid., DASA.

'^Quotation from //. Res. 91. Congressional Record,
78th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 Feb 43. Vol. 89, Ft. 1, p.
508. See also Remarks of Jennings on //. Res. 91.
ibid., 2 Feb 43, p. 509; Knoxville Journal. 4 Feb 43.

LAND ACQUISITION

325

channels. In late February, he in-
formed Under Secretary of War Pat-
terson that he was receiving numer-
ous complaints of destruction of
buildings and other facilities on the
site before providing owners the
usual opportunity to salvage them.
Patterson replied that such salvage
was not feasible because it would take
too long and interfere with construc-
tion activities already in progress.
Furthermore, he assured Jennings, no
waste was involved because Manhat-
tan District engineers were converting
existing buildings on the site for use
by the project wherever this was pos-
sible. Again in April, Jennings com-
plained to Corps of Engineers offi-
cials that improper statements
concerning landowners were being
made by their personnel in testimony
before the jury of view. Corps observ-
ers who had attended the jury hear-
ings said the congressman's allega-
tions were not true. Finally, on 9 July,
Chairman Andrew J. May of the
House Military Affairs Committee, to
which the resolution had been
referred for review, appointed Re-
presentative Clifford C. Davis, a
Democrat from the Tenth District of
lennessee, to carry out an inquiry.
Davis selected Representatives Dewey
Short, a Republican from Missouri,
and John Sparkman, a Democrat from
Alabama, as members of an investi-
gating subcommittee and also invited
Jennings to be present at the subcom-
mittee's public hearings. ^^

Announcement of the pending in-
vestigation came while the Justice De-
partment special attorneys were push-
ing ahead with trial of condemnation
cases on the Clinton tracts. The fed-
eral court juries, almost without ex-
ception, substantially increased pay-
ments to property holders. This
seemed to further confirm the pre-
vailing local view that the original ap-
praisals were far too low and farmers
who had accepted payment ought to
be entitled to supplementary compen-
sation. After consulting with Manhat-
tan officials, the Justice Department
decided to suspend further trials, at
least temporarily, as the congressional
investigation might result in a major
revision of the appraisal data upon
which the government was basing its
prosecution of condemnation cases. ^"^

The War Department determined
to adhere to a policy of full coopera-
tion with the congressional investiga-
tors. The ORD division engineer in-
structed the CEW project manager to
take "extreme care ... to prevent
adverse reaction because of any
claims being made that the War De-
partment is pursuing a non-coopera-
tive policy." ^® Manhattan officials did
not interfere when a subcommittee
investigator interviewed landowners
who had written letters of complaint.
The CEW project manager responded
promptly to a written request from
the House Military Affairs Committee
general counsel for a comprehensive

'*I.tis, Jennings to Und Secv War, 27 Feb 43,
t'nd Secy War to Jennings, 13 Apr 43, and Lt Col
C. C. Fletcher (Act Real Estate On for ORD Div
Engr) to Rev bold, sub: l.tr of Jennings Re Alleged
Improper Statements of J. H. McKenzie (Just Depi
Spec Altv), 15 Apr 43, copies in MDH, Bk. 1, Vol.
10, App. B2d-e. DASA. See also ibid., pp. 2.11-

2.12, DASA; Knoxville Journal. 10-11 Jul and 13 Aug
43.

I'' 1st Ind, Fletcher to Morgan, 13 Jul 43, to I.tr,
Morgan to ORD Div Engr, sub: Investigation of Ap-
praisals bv (^{jngressional Investigating Committee,
12 Jul 43, copies in MDH, Bk. I, Vol. 10, App. B2h,
DASA.

'« Ibid.

326

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

statement of its functions and activi-
ties, including a list of the appraisers
who had worked on the project, to-
gether with a description of their
qualifications; however, he did not re-
lease any records to the subcommit-
tee without approval of the ORD divi-
sion engineer. ^^

The subcommittee held two public
hearings: on 1 1 August at Clinton, for
the benefit of Roane County resi-
dents; and the following day at Kings-
ton, for Anderson County residents.
About three hundred persons, mostly
land owners and their families, at-
tended at Clinton, but considerably
fewer were present in Kingston. The
CE Real Estate Branch head sent his
chief appraiser and an officer to rep-
resent the Engineers chief. General
Reybold, at the hearing; the ORD di-
vision engineer, also his chief apprais-
er; and the district engineer, the CEW
project manager. 2°

At Clinton, Congressman Jennings
reviewed the history of the acquisi-
tion, emphasizing particularly the
landowners' complaints that they had
been underpaid for properties taken
over by the government and, as a
final comment, declaring that all of
his own efforts to have the War De-
partment reconsider appraisals had
been turned down "as cold as ice." ^^
In subsequent testimony. War Depart-
ment officials, disgruntled landown-
ers, and project appraisal staff mem-

'^ Ibid.; Ltrs, Colgan (for H. Ralph Burton,
House Mil Affairs Committee general counsel) to
Morgan, 3 Aug 43, and Morgan to Colgan, 6 Aug
43, copies in MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 10, App. B2i, DASA.

2° The town of Clinton was located 4 miles north-
west of the site. Ltr. Col R. G. West (Ex OIT, ORD)
to Reybold, sub: Investigation of C^KW Land Acqui-
sition at Harriman, Tenn., 30 Aug 43, copy in
MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. ip, App. B2m, DASA.

2> Ibid.

bers asserted that appraisers had
greatly undervalued most properties,
failed to interview owners, and used
coercion in getting stipulations. Some
witnesses charged that the CEW
project manager had promised
owners they would have an opportu-
nity to salvage their buildings and
equipment, but they were not permit-
ted to do this. The ORD chief ap-
praiser took the tack in his testimony
that if the appraisers and negotiators
had done all that was alleged by the
landowners, they were acting contrary
to all instructions issued by General
Reybold. He urged that the apprais-
ers and negotiators be given a hear-
ing, but only two witnesses represent-
ing this group were called to testify,
and they both vehemently denied
most of the charges that had been
made against them. The subcommit-
tee adjourned on 12 August, after
hearing testimony from Anderson
County owners at Kingston. ^^

Ihe congressional committee did
not make its report public until De-
cember. The report consisted chiefly
of ten recommendations for improv-
ing War Department real estate acqui-
sition practices, only two of which re-
lated specifically to the CEW pro-
gram, ihe first stated that the War
Department should review and make
adjustments in all those cases at the
Clinton site where "the landowner
was persuaded, against his better

22 Ltrs, Morgan to Fletcher, subs: Rpt on Hearing
Before House Mil Affairs Subcommittee in Connec-
tion With Land Acquisition at Harriman, lenn.,
1 1 Aug 43, and Rpt of House Mil Affairs Subcom-
mittee— CEW, 13 Aug 43; Ltr, West to Reybold,
sub: Investigation of CEW Land Acquisition at Har-
riman, 30 Aug 43. Copies of all in MDH, Bk. 1, Vol.
10, App. B2q and m, DASA. Knoxmlle Xeit's-Sentmel,
12-13 Aug 43. Knoxxnlle Journal, 12-13 Aug 43.

LAND ACQLJISI I ION

327

judgment, by coercion, threat, or
promise, for whatever reason or rea-
sons, to accept less than the true
vakie of his property." Ihe second
recommended that "landowners who
suffered losses on standing crops
. . . for any reason not attributable
to the landower, should be properly
compensated for said losses." The
rest of the recommendations, taken as
a group, constituted a critique of War
Department acquisition policies in
general. More care should be taken to
ensure protection of landowners' con-
stitutional rights as guaranteed under
the Fifth Amendment. In ascertaining
fair prices on land, the government
real estate appraisers should give
more attention to determining
comparable land values and take into
consideration all factors relating to
relocation of the owner on property
similar to that he had given up. To
make sure that these objectives were
achieved. War Department real estate
agencies should employ only fully
qualified appraisers and negotiators.
The Corps of Engineers' real estate
manual should be revised to cover
unusual conditions, such as those
found at the Clinton site. Finally, no
promises or commitments should be
made to property holders, except
where they could be made a matter of
written official record. ^^

Save for a brief delay in prosecut-
ing the condemnation cases, the con-
gressional investigation interfered
very little with land acquisition
progress and not at all with construc-

tion of the U-235 production facili-
ties. Nothing came of the committee's
rather severe criticism of appraisal
prices, as neither Congress nor the
War Department took steps to give
additional compensation to landown-
ers whose property had been acquired
under stipulation agreements. By
August 1944, all of the original
56,700-acre site had been acquired.
As finally constituted, it consisted of
806 tracts secured by purchase, 38
tracts held under easements, and 4
tracts obtained under TVA tempo-
rary-use permits. In September, three
months after closing down oper-
ations, the CEW Land Acquisition
Section reopened its Harriman office
to monitor the additional acquisition
of approximately 2,800 acres. Needed
to ensure greater security of the gase-
ous diffusion plant, this acquisition
involved negotiations on 41 separate
tracts and was not completed until
March 1945.^4

Total cost of the CEW real estate
acquisition program cannot be deter-
mined, because project records list
administrative charges as part of the
overall expenditures for engineer
military activities. The actual sum
paid out for purchase of land and im-
provements, for severance damages,
and for certain other nonadministra-
tive costs totaled slightly more than
$2.6 million, substantially less than
the estimated cost of $3.5 million in
the original directive of 29 September
1942. Of the total, the Army expend-
ed the largest part, $2.58 million, in

2^ The recommendations were printed in the
Kno.willf /oiirnal on 6 Dec 4!3. Comments deiending
War Department procedures as they related to each
of the recommendations are given in MDH, Bk. 1,
Vol. 10, pp. 2.12-2.16 and App. F5, DASA. See also
I .S. Armv CE Real Estate Manual. 1942.

24 MDH, Bk. 1, Vol. 10 pp. 2.45-2.46 and App.
E1-E4, DASA; Ltr, Robins (Dep Chief of Engrs) to
CG ASF, sub: Acquisition of Additional Land for
Sctv Purposes in K-25 Area, 28 Aug 44, copy in
ibid., .App. Blf, DASA.

328

MANHATTAN: THE ARMY AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

outright acquisition of slightly more
than 55,000 acres, purchased at an
average cost of about $47 per acre.^^

Los Alamos

Although the size of the Los
Alamos site approached that of the
Clinton site, its acquisition presented
far fewer problems for the CE Real
Estate Branch. Federal agencies al-
ready owned and controlled 90 per-
cent of the land needed for the site,
and for this the War Department had
only to negotiate a comparatively
simple transfer agreement with each
agency. Furthermore, because a rela-
tively small number of private owners
held title to the remaining parcels,
branch officials anticipated that nego-
tiations with individual owners would
be a far less time-consuming oper-
ation than at the Tennessee site.^^

On 25 November 1942, Under Sec-
retary of War Patterson approved a
directive to acquire a site at Los
Alamos "for establishment of a Dem-
olition range." In support of his re-
quest for approval of this acquisition,
the Engineers chief had submitted
data derived from two comprehensive
preliminary reports — one prepared by
the division engineer of the South-

25 Ibid., p. 2.47, DASA: Ltr. W. T. Brooks (State
of Tenn Hwv Engr) to ORD Div Engr, 8 Jul 43; Ltr,
West to Brooks, 3 Sep 43; Ltr, J. W. Love (Harri-
man Power Dept Mgr) to Sen Tom Stewart (Tenn.).
10 Jan 44; Ltr, Robins to Sen Kenneth D. McKellar
(Tenn.), 11 Feb 44; 1st Ind, O'Brien to ORD Div
Engr, 25 Jul 44, to Ltr, Fletcher to Revbold, sub:
Edgemoor Bridge and Solway Bridge, Tenn., 17 Jul
44. Copies of all in ibid., App B2f and n-o, DASA.
Robinson, Oak Ridge Story, pp. 26 and 28. Some
3,720 of the total 58,900 acres brought under CEW
control already were owned by the government or
were acquired bv lease, easement, or use permit.

26MDH, Bk, 8, Vol. 1, "General," pp. 3.5-3.6,
DASA. Selection of the Los Alamos site is discussed
in detail in Ch. IV.

western Division (SWD) at Dallas,
Texas, and the other by that divi-
sion's district engineer at Albuquer-
que, New Mexico. These reports indi-
cated that the Manhattan Project re-
quired approximately 54,000 acres,
most of it semiarid forest and grazing
lands located on the east slopes of the
Jemez Mountains in Sandoval County.
Cost of acquisition, the reports esti-
mated, would be small, because all
but about 8,900 acres were federally
owned and the grazing and forest
lands were of relatively low value.
The directive set the approximate
cost at $440,000 and authorized the
Engineers chief to finance the acquisi-
tion from available engineer funds. ^'^
Because the process of acquiring
the Los Alamos site promised to be
relatively uncomplicated and speedy,
there was little need for establishing a
special real estate project office. The
SWD Real Estate Branch in Albuquer-
que had sufficient staff and resources
to oversee the myriad details and the
district engineer had assigned one of
his assistants, Maj. John H. Dudley, to
coordinate and supervise all phases.
Working closely with Lt. Col. John M.
Harman, the Los Alamos post com-
mander designate, the Albuquerque
real estate staff took immediate steps
to implement the plan to purchase

2^ Quoted phrase from Ltr, Robins (for Chief of
Engrs) to CO SOS, sub: Acquisition of Land for
Demolition Range at Los Alamos, N.Mex., and 2d
Ind (directive approval), Patterson to Chief of
Engrs, both 25 Nov 42, Incls to Memo, O'Brien to
Ashbridge, sub: Land Acquisition in Connection
With MD, 17 Apr 43, MDR. See also Prelim Real
Estate Rpt, SWD Div Engr, sub: Los Alamos Proj,
21 Nov 42, Admin Files, Gen Corresp, 319.1 (Rpts),
MDR; Rpt, L.S. Engrs Office, Albuquerque Dist,
sub: Proposed Site for Mil Proj at Los Alamos
Ranch School, Otowi, N.Mex., 23 Nov 42, Admin
Files, Gen Corresp, 600.03, MDR.

LAND ACQL ISniON

:529

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Typical 1 errain of the Los Alamos Site

the site in five separate sections (A, B,
C, D, and E), which ensured comph-
ance with the War Department's
pohcy of taking possession of prop-
erty only as it was actually needed.^®
{See Map 3.)

Area A comprised a large block of
land at the center of the site, which
include the fifty-odd buildings and ex-
pansive campus grounds (several hun-
dred acres) of the Los Alamos School
that the Army acquired first and had
full title to by early 1943 under terms
of a $350,000 direct-purchase con-
tract. The other areas — Area E to the
north of Area A and Areas B, C, and
D to the south — formed a kind of se-
curity belt to protect t