Opinion How Oppenheimer and other 1945 leaders saw the future — and what really happened
With nuclear weapons on the nation’s mind thanks to the movie “Oppenheimer,” it’s worth looking back at how those who created them viewed their future — and how that future has unfolded.
The meeting was of the Interim Committee, a group appointed by Harry S. Truman less than a month after he became president, to advise on nuclear issues. The meeting, which has received less attention than it deserves, was to discuss “recommendations on temporary wartime controls, public announcement, legislation and postwar organization” of nuclear energy, according to notes from the session.
Among those present were Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall; James F. Byrnes, director of the Office of War Mobilization; Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard; Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development; physicist Karl T. Compton; and James B. Conant, president of Harvard University and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee.
Also in attendance were the chief scientists responsible for developing the atomic bomb: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Arthur Compton and Ernest O. Lawrence, each of whom had run elements of the Manhattan Project. Finally, there was the project manager, Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves.
Chairing the session was Stimson, a Republican who has served as secretary of state in the Hoover administration, whom Franklin D. Roosevelt had brought into his Cabinet in 1940 to show bipartisanship as it became apparent that the United States would become involved in World War II.
In opening the meeting, Stimson told the scientists that while their discovery “had been fostered by the needs of war, it was important to realize that the implications of the project went far beyond the needs of the present war. It must be controlled if possible to make it an assurance of future peace rather than a menace to civilization.”
He then laid out the questions for discussion: “1. Future military weapons. 2. Future international competition. 3. Future research. 4. Future controls. 5. Future developments, particularly nonmilitary.”
Thanks to the 18 pages of declassified top-secret notes taken at that meeting, we can read essentially what the participants said. Did that group, 78 years ago, get everything right? Did the future of nuclear weapons develop as its members envisioned? Here’s what they thought, and what happened.
1. On future weapons. The initial speaker was Arthur Compton, followed by Conant and then Oppenheimer. All three foresaw multiple generations of atomic weapons: what were to become the uranium, plutonium and, finally, thermonuclear bombs, the last also known as the H-bomb.
Oppenheimer estimated that the first might produce an explosive force of 2,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT; the second 50,000 to 100,000 tons of TNT and the third 10 million to 100 million tons of TNT.
What happened: The scientists’ forecast turned out to be almost totally correct.
2. On future domestic programs and developments. Lawrence pressed for the United States “to stay ahead in this field” and insisted that “research had to go on unceasingly.” He also recommended an expansion of nuclear plants producing radioactive materials to create a stockpile of bombs and material, along with encouraging industrial applications for such materials.
Oppenheimer “pointed out that one of the difficult problems involved in guiding a future domestic program would be the allocation of materials as between different uses.” Later, Arthur Compton would point out the potential use of these materials in naval propulsion, among other applications.
What happened: The government has continued to produce enriched uranium and plutonium, plus other bomb material when needed, along with nuclear fuel for Navy vessels. Private industry’s nuclear-power plants, meanwhile, have so far experienced limited growth.
3. On future research. Oppenheimer felt that building the bomb under war pressure “was simply a process of plucking the fruits of earlier research” and that “to exploit more fully the potentialities of this field ... a more leisurely and a more normal research situation should be established.”
Bush joined Oppenheimer in emphasizing that while it was necessary to concentrate on weapons during wartime, that would be wrong in peacetime. The men agreed “that only a nucleus of the present [Manhattan Project] staff should be retained and that as many as possible should be released for broader and freer inquiry” back in their universities and research laboratories.
Oppenheimer pointed out “the immediate concern [of developing the atomic bomb] had been to shorten the war,” but “this development had only opened the way to future discoveries.”
What happened: Though many scientists left Los Alamos, where the Manhattan Project was headquartered, after World War II, the facility has continued to operate. In 1952, Edward Teller and others started Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near Berkeley, Calif., which works alongside Los Alamos on both nuclear weapons and nonnuclear scientific problems.
4. On problems of control and inspection. Oppenheimer made a suggestion that illustrated both his practicality and his idealism. First, he said, fundamental knowledge of nuclear fission was “so wide spread throughout the world that early steps should be taken to make our developments known to the world.” He also thought “it might be wise for the United States to offer to the world free interchange of information with particular emphasis on the development of peacetime uses.”
He thought “the basic goal of all endeavors in the field should be the enlargement of human welfare” and suggested that “if we were to offer to exchange information before the bomb was actually used, our moral position would be greatly strengthened.”
Stimson referred to an earlier Bush-Conant memorandum that had recommended a future international organization to handle the exchange of nuclear information and promote cooperation. There should be complete scientific freedom, but the right of inspection should be given to an international control body, he said.
Facing what turned out to be reality, Stimson asked what kind of inspection would be effective, noting the difference between “democratic governments as against totalitarian regimes under such a program of international control coupled with scientific freedom.”
What happened: Oppenheimer’s suggestions about free exchanges were never acted upon. The International Atomic Energy Agency was created in July 1957 to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. Under Article III of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the agency administers international safeguards to verify that treaty parties fulfill their commitments.
Today, 191 countries, including five nuclear weapons states — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — have safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has the authority to carry out inspections.
5. On international competition and Russia. The Soviet Union, a wartime ally but under the iron fist of Joseph Stalin, drew special attention at the meeting. Oppenheimer expressed doubts “concerning the possibility of knowing what was going on in this field in Russia.” Marshall cautioned against “putting too much faith in the effectiveness of the inspection proposal.” Instead, he favored the “building up of a combination among like-minded powers, thereby forcing Russia to fall in line by the very force of this coalition.”
Byrnes said the U.S. program had “to push ahead as fast as possible … to make certain that we stay ahead and at the same time make every effort to better our political relations with Russia.”
What happened: A U.S.-Soviet arms race did take place, with each side deploying more than 10,000 nuclear weapons before treaties brought those numbers down. A race to modernize warheads and delivery systems is underway between the United States and Russia, with China increasing its numbers but still far behind.
6. On the bombing of Japan. Oppenheimer explained that the first atomic bomb would be different from the massive U.S. bombing attacks that had already taken place over Japan. The visual effect would be “tremendous” and be accompanied by “a brilliant luminescence which would rise to a height of 10,000 to 20,000 feet.”He said the “neutron effect of the explosion would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile.”
There was general agreement, according to Stimson, “that we could not give the Japanese any warning; that we could not concentrate on a civilian area; but that we should seek to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible.”
After a suggestion from Conant, Stimson agreed that “the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.”
What happened: A little over two months later, the first two nuclear weapons were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whatever the meeting participants hoped for the future, those two bombs were used as terror weapons, to kill and wound as many people as possible while pretending that the target was military in nature.
In short, nuclear weapons were created and used to end a war, not to fight one. Oppenheimer understood that only too well. He knew that ever more powerful weapons would be coming, which is why he so strongly opposed the H-bomb.
Perhaps, instead of just roiling clouds, his eponymous movie should have shown the actual death and destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so that today’s leaders, and those of the future, could see what a single weapon, of the thousands that now exist, could do.
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