Abstract
The U.S. government’s decision to develop the hydrogen bomb was a landmark of the nuclear arms race and a crucible of the science-military connection. Seeking a response to the unexpected and unwelcome news in the autumn of 1949 that the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic device, and with it the four-year American atomic monopoly, U.S. policymakers stood at a crossroads. One path was chosen on January 31, 1950, after four months of intense, sometimes bitter, and mostly secret debate within an elite stratum of government and military officials, scientists, and congressmen, when President Harry S. Truman, rejecting the advice of the Atomic Energy Commission’s General Advisory Committee (GAC), endorsed a program to develop thermonuclear weapons. Despite its “minimalist” aspects (1), the outcome represented a clear victory for one faction of the policy elite and, at least potentially, a missed opportunity to restrain the nuclear arms race at a far lower level of destructiveness than in fact evolved. The decision, and the subsequent stripping of the security clearance of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the GAC chairman who had argued against the H-bomb, also dramatized the ethical and political tensions present at the intersection of science and technology, military policy and strategy, and national and bureaucratic politics, and they offer a cogent case study of the technological and political forces driving the arms race (2).
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Notes
Warner R. Schilling, “The H-Bomb Decision: How to Decide without Actually Choosing,” Political Science Quarterly 76 (March 1961), 24–46.
Some important accounts of the H-bomb decision include Herbert York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (San Francisco: Freeman, 1976); Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission,vol. 2, Atomic Shield, 1947/1952 (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969), chap. 12; David Alan Rosenberg, “American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision,” Journal of American History 66 (June 1979), 62–87; Hans Bethe, “Comments on the History of the H-Bomb,” Los Alamos Science 3 (Fall 1982), 43–53; McGeorge Bundy, “The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb,” New York Review of Books,May 13, 1982, pp. 13–22; Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman and the H-Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 40 (March 1984), pp. 12–18; and R. Gordon Arneson, “The H-Bomb Decision,” Foreign Service Journal,May 1969, pp. 2729, and June 1969, pp. 24–27, 43.
Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield (2), covers the range of GAC activities.
Ibid.,p. 362.
For accounts of the Conant-Bush relationship and their wartime work see Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar G. Anderson, The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. 1, 1939/1946 (University Park, Pa.: Pensylvania State University Press, 1962); Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York: Vintage, 1977).
Interview with Hans Bethe, January 1985.
James B. Conant, “Notes on the `Trinity’ Test,” July 17, 1945, Bush-Conant Papers, folder 38, Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) collection, S-1 files, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; the document appears in James G. Hershberg, “Ends vs. Means: James B. Conant and American Atomic Policy, 1939–1947 ” (undergraduate thesis, Harvard University, 1982 ), pp. 191–194.
Conant and Bush to Stimson, September 30, 1944, Harrison-Bundy Papers, folder 77, Manhattan Engineering District, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Interview with Hans Bethe, January 1985.
Conant to Bush, “Possibilities of a Super Bomb,” October 20, 1944, Bush-Conant Papers (7), folder 3.
Ibid. Conant first learned of the possibility of constructing an atomic bomb during a visit to England in March 1941; James B. Conant, My Several Lives: Memoirs of a Social Inventor (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 277.
Interim Committee minutes, May 31, 1945, quoted in Sherwin, op. cit., 1977 (5), pp. 297–298; Robert C. Williams and Philip L. Cantelon (eds.), The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present, 1939–1984 ( Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984 ), p. 61.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 278.
Ibid.,pp. 277–279.
Conant to Bush, “Possibilities of a Super Bomb” (10).
Conant to Bush, May 9, 1945, Bush-Conant papers (7) folder 38. Italics in original.
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971 ), pp. 228, 234. (Hereafter, IMJRO.)
See Bethe, op. cit.,1982 (2), pp. 43–53; York, op. cit.,1976 (2), pp. 20–28, 106–107. Bethe’s article, originally written in 1954, echoed his testimony before the Oppenheimer board: “When President Truman decided to go ahead with the hydrogen bomb in January 1950, there was really no clear technical program that could be followed. This became even more evident later on when new calculations were made at Los Alamos, and when these new calculations showed that the basis for technical optimism which had existed in the fall of 1949 was very shaky, indeed. The plan which then existed for the making of a hydrogen bomb turned out to be less and less promising as time went on” (IMJRO, p. 33).
York, op. cit.,1976 (2), p. 25; Hewlett and Anderson, op. cit.,1962 (5), p. 32.
IMJRO, p. 236.
For instance, Bernstein, op. cit.,1984 (2), p. 13.
Documents on the so-called “Fishing Party” may be found in the John Dulles Papers at Princeton University. An article on the committee’s work is in preparation by the author.
Interview with E. F. Black, February 1985.
Capabilities of the Weapons Mentioned in the Directive from the Secretary of Defense,“ undated [but apparently April 19491, National Archives, Record Group 330, CD-1–31 TSRD entry 199A.
Draft Fishing Committee, Final Report, circulated July 22, 1949, Fishing Party file, John Foster Dulles Papers, Princeton University.
Conant Committee, Final Report, October 15, 1949, National Archives, Record Group 330, CD-1–31 TSRD entry 199A.
James B. Conant, “The Impending Atomic Age: 1948 Preview,” secret speech to National War College, September 14, 1948, copy in Conant Presidential Papers, Pusey Library, Harvard University.
Ibid.
Interview with Theodore Conant, January 1985.
James B. Conant, “Some Thoughts on the International Control of Atomic Energy,” May 4, 1944, Bush-Conant Papers (7), folder 97.
Quoted by Keyes DeWitt Metcalf, forthcoming posthumous memoirs, ed. Edwin F. Williams; see James G. Hershberg, “Preserving 250 Million Pages of Knowledge,” Washington Post, August 31, 1986, pp. A16–17.
James B. Conant, Education in a Divided World ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948 ), p. 14.
James G. Hershberg, “James B. Conant and the Atomic Bomb,” Journal of Strategic Studies 8 (March 1985), 78–92; Conant to Henry L. Stimson, January 22, 1947, Stimson Papers, Box 154, folder 18, Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn.
Quoted in Frederick Osborn, “Memorandum of Conversation,” March 10, 1949, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. I, 1949, pp. 39–43.
Interview with I. 1. Rabi, January 1982.
In a March 1947 letter for AEC files attesting to Oppenheimer’s loyalty after questions were raised about the physicist’s left-wing associations, Conant stated that from 1941 “until the present day I have seen him intimately and discussed with him all manner of questions. During the war I visited Los Alamos frequently and in so doing came to know him very well. Since the war, I have discussed not only atomic energy for industrial and military purposes, but all phases of the international problem of control. Likewise, our conversation has ranged over the whole field of American politics and foreign policy. Therefore, I feel sure that the statements I make about him are based on an intimate knowledge of the man, his views, and his emotional reactions” (IMJRO 1171, p. 378 ).
Interview with John H. Manley, November 1986.
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit.,1969 (2), p. 378.
Interview with John H. Manley, November 1986.
Hewlett and Anderson, op. cit.,1962 (5).
Interview with Hans Bethe, January 1985.
IMJRO (17), p. 378.
Oppenheimer, A. H. Compton, E. O. Lawrence, and E. Fermi, “Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons,” June 16, 1945, reprinted in Sherwin, op. cit.,1977 (5), pp. 304–305.
Quoted in Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists’ Movement in America, 1945–1947 ( Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, abridged edition, 1970 ), p. 166.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), pp. 491–492.
IMJRO (17), p. 390.
Testimony of Hans Bethe, ibid.,p. 327.
James B. Conant, “The Atomic Age: A Preview, 1947 Edition,” secret speech to the National War College, October 2, 1947, copy in Dwight D. Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers, 16–52 file, Box 27, Conant file (1), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kan.
Oppenheimer to Conant, October 29, 1947, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Conant to Oppenheimer, November 2, 1947, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, Oppenheimer Papers (49).
Frederick Osborn, “United Nations Atomic Energy Commission Diary,” February 18, 1948, entry, Osborn Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.
Conant, “Impending Atomic Age: 1948 Preview” (27).
Interview with John H. Manley, November 1986.
Conant, op. cit., 1970 (11), pp. 493–494. A possibly decisive factor in Conant’s decision to turn down the post was Truman’s commitment to appoint Lewis Strauss, who later played a key role in ensuring that Oppenheimer lost his security clearance; interview with Theodore Conant, January 1982.
David E. Lilienthal, Journals, vol. 2, The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950 ( New York: Harper & Row, 1964 ), p. 354.
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit.,1969 (2), p. 337.
Ibid.,pp. 337–338.
Conant, “Atomic Age: A Preview, 1947 Edition” (48).
Conant, “Impending Atomic Age: 1948 Preview” (27).
Conant to Oppenheimer, March 7, 1949, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, Oppenheimer Papers (49).
IMJRO (17), p. 805.
Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists ( New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958 ), pp. 328–329.
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit., 1969 (2), pp. 363–366.
Conant social notebooks, Conant Personal Papers, Pusey Library, Harvard University. The notebooks also show that Conant and Oppenheimer enjoyed a Sunday dinner at Conant’s on November 20, 1949, but only the menu (roast lamb, apple pie, ice cream) is recorded.
IMJRO (17), pp. 401–402.
Interview with Kenneth S. Pitzer, February 1985; Pitzer testimony, IMJRO (17), p. 699. However, Oppenheimer’s desk calendar indicates that Pitzer visited a week later.
For a description of the “infinite containment” school into which the pro—H-bomb scientists have been placed, see Robert Gilpin, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), pp. 102–107.
Oppenheimer to Conant, October 21, 1949, reprinted in IMJRO (17), pp. 242243.
Testimony of Edward Teller, IMJRO, p. 715.
IMJRO, p. 328.
Interview with Hans Bethe, January 1985. Though not asked about the letter during the hearings, Oppenheimer in 1957 privately recalled receiving “some kind of communication from Conant” in which he used the “over my dead body” phrase. Oppenheimer told a researcher, however, that “they were never able to find the letter.” Warner R. Schilling, “Interview with J. Robert Oppenheimer, 11 June 1957 (12 June),” p. 6, Case file, Box 65, Schilling file, Oppenheimer papers ( 49 ). What happened to the letter remains a mystery. I was unable to locate it despite searching AEC, Oppenheimer and Conant manuscript collections. It would not be surprising if Conant asked Oppenheimer to destroy the letter at the time.
Ibid.
Alvarez diary, October 24, 1949, entry, IMJRO (17), p. 782.
IMJRO, pp. 243, 231.
Oppenheimer to Conant, October 21, 1949, IMJRO, pp. 242–243.
Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 577.
IMJRO, pp. 385, 387.
David E. Lilienthal diary, entry of October 29, 1949, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J.; Lilienthal, op. cit., 1964 (55), pp. 580–581. 78a. Warner R. Schilling, “Interview with J. Robert Oppenheimer, 11 June 1957 (12 June),” pp. 6–7, Case file, Box 65, Schilling file, Oppenheimer papers (49).
Interview with George Kistiakowsky, January 1982; interview with E. Bright Wilson, Jr., December 1986; interview with I. I. Rabi, February 1982.
Interview with I. I. Rabi, February 1982.
James B. Conant, “Statement. (and Comments)” to the House Military Affairs Committee, November 29, 1945, Hearing on H. R. 4280, U.S. House of Representatives ( Washington, D.C., 1945 ), pp. 51–59.
Conant to W. Barton Leach, April 26, 1946, Leach Papers, Box 52, folder 6, Harvard Law School Library.
Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 581. Manley believes that Conant may also have been referring to previous proposals he considered outlandish, such as the nuclear-powered airplane.
Borden interview with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, February 20, 1954, FBI J. Robert Oppenheimer Serial file (100–17828), released under Freedom of Information Act. ( Hereafter, JRO FBI.) This and other FBI Oppenheimer documents cited here were made available by Professor Mart in Sherwin.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), pp. 49–50.
The GAC report is reprinted in York, op. cit.,1976 (2), pp. 150–159.
Ibid.,p. 49.
Ibid., pp. 154–155,157.
Conant to Reinhold Niebuhr, March 6, 1946, Box 3, Conant file, Niebuhr Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Bernstein, op. cit.,1984 (2), p. 13.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 303; interview with Theodore Conant, January 1982.
James B. Conant, “Fight for Liberty,” valedictory to Harvard undergraduates, January 10,1943, in Vital Speeches of the Day 9 (February 15, 1943 ), 282.
James B. Conant, “Force and Freedom,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1949, pp. 19–22.
For Conant’s citation of international control as a factor in his support for using the atomic bomb, see Conant to Grenville Clark, August 15, 1945, Conant correspondence file, Grenville Clark Papers, Dartmouth University Library, Hanover, N.H.; James B. Conant, “Atomic Energy,” Texas Reports on Biology and Medicine 5 (1947), 191; Conant to Harvey H. Bundy, September 23, 1946, Conant Presidential Papers (27); Hershberg, op. cit., 1985 (33), pp. 83–84.
All quotes from the GAC report are in York, op. cit.,1976 (2), pp. 151–159.
Ibid.,p. 156; Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 581.
York, op. cit.,1976 (2), p. 156.
Ibid.,pp. 158–159; Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 582.
Interview with Lee A. DuBridge, January 1982.
Interview with I. I. Rabi, February 1982.
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit.,1969 (2), p. 385.
Lewis Strauss, Men and Decisions ( New York: Doubleday, 1962 ), pp. 216–217.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Comments on Military View of Members of General Advisory Committee,” January 13, 1950, reprinted in Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis (eds.), Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 368373.
Interview with Glenn Seaborg, February 1985; Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit., 1969 (2), pp. 395–396.
Ibid.,pp. 394, 398.
The lunch is noted in a chronology of Acheson meetings on the H-bomb in the Acheson Papers, Truman Library, Independence, Mo.
Arneson, op. cit. (2), May 1969, p. 29.
Memorandum of telephone conversation with Admiral Souers by the Secretary of State, January 19, 1950, in U.S. Department of State, op. cit.,1949 (34), pp. 511–512.
Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 581.
Statement by the President on the Hydrogen Bomb,“ January 31, 1950, in Williams and Cantelon, op. cit.,1984 (12), pp. 131–132.
Lilienthal, op. cit.,1964 (55), p. 633.
Conant to William L. Marbury, June 30, 1954, courtesy of Mr. Marbury.
Ibid.
Conant to Oppenheimer, February 14, 1950, with Nat S. Finney to Conant, February 14, 1950, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, Oppenheimer Papers (49).
Conant to Bernard Baruch, February 24, 1950, Baruch Papers, Princeton University Library.
Portions of NSC-68 quoted in Etzold and Gaddis, op. cit.,1978 (103), pp. 435–442.
Citations in this and the following paragraphs are from “Records of the Meeting of the State-Defense Policy Review Group, Department of State, Thursday, March 2, 1950,” in Department of State, op. cit.,1949 (34), pp. 176–182.
D. S. Greenberg, “The National Academy of Sciences: Profile of an Institution (II),” Science 156 (April 21, 1967 ), 360–364.
Ibid.,p. 360.
Joel H. Hildebrand, “`Vendetta’?” letter to Science, June 5, 1967, pp. 1177–78.
Minutes of the Business Session, April 25, 1950, “ mailed on May 15, 1950; a second version of the minutes that omitted the names of Latimer and LaMer was mailed later at the suggestion of a member ”anxious to suppress the names of the chemists [because] it will not look well… to emphasize that the coup d’etat was engineered by chemists“ (Edwin B. Wilson to Zwemer, June 3, 1950); both in National Academy of Sciences Archives, Washington, D.C.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 498; Greenberg, op. cit.,1967 (118), p. 361.
Greenberg, op. cit.,1967 (118), p. 361.
Interview with George Kistiakowsky, January 1982.
Greenberg, op. cit.,1967 (118), p. 361.
Interview with George Kistiakowsky, January 1982.
Wilson to Zwemer, June 3, 1950 (121).
Minutes of the Business Session, April 25, 1950,“ May 15, 1950 (121).
Conant, op. cit., 1970 (11), pp. 498–494; interview with William L. Marbury, August 1986.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 499.
Interview with George Kistiakowsky, January 1982.
Kistiakowsky to Mrs. James B. Conant, May 1, 1980, courtesy of Elaine Kistiakowsky.
Kistiakowsky to Mrs. Conant, February 19, 1978, courtesy of Elaine Kistiakowsky.
Kistiakowsky to Mrs. Conant, May 1, 1980, courtesy of Elaine Kistiakowsky.
Greenberg, op. cit.,1967 (118), p. 364.
William T. Golden, memorandum for the record: Interview with Lawrence R. Hafstad, January 4, 1951, courtesy of Mr. Golden; The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years (1863–1963) ( Washington, D.C.: The Academy, 1978 ), p. 516.
Wilson to Zwemer, June 3, 1950 (121). Italics in original.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 499.
Greenberg, op. cit.,1967 (118), p. 361. He did please the academy, however, with his tactful handling of the affair in his memoirs; in 1975 the NAS council, in changing Conant’s membership status to emeritus, voted to convey the group’s “great admiration and respect for the spirit in which Mr. Conant accepted and described in his autobiography the sequents of events preceding the election of Detlev W. Bronk as President of the Academy” (NAS Archives).
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 499.
Hildebrand, op. cit.,1967 (120).
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 498.
Interview with Kenneth S. Pitzer, February 1985.
Interview with Luis Alvarez, February 1985.
Latimer’s testimony is in IMJRO (17), pp. 656–671.
Ibid.,p. 660.
Ibid.,pp. 663, 665.
Ibid., p. 387.
March 5, 1954, FBI interview with Latimer, in memorandum by C. A. Rolander, Jr., dated March 15, 1954, JRO FBI serial file (84), # 100–17828–947, p. 10. In this interview, Latimer contended that “DuBridge had supported Oppenheimer on the thermonuclear because of being naive and Conant had gone along with what he thought was the majority side.”
Lawrence R. Hafstad, quoted in William T. Golden, memorandum for the record (134).
Edwin B. Wilson to Detlev W. Bronk, May 1, 1950, NAS Archives.
March 5, 1954, FBI interview with Pitzer, in memorandum by C. A. Rolander, Jr., dated March 15, 1954 (147), p. 8.
New York Times,March 8, 1952.
April 4, 1952, FBI interview with Pitzer, in SAC, San Francisco, to the Director, FBI (J. Edgar Hoover), April 5, 1952, JRO FBI serial file (84), 100–17828–275; J. Edgar Hoover to Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, special consultant to the president, April 16, 1952, JRO FBI serial file (84), # 100–17828–291.
Interview with Kenneth S. Pitzer, February 1985.
March 5 and 8, 1954, FBI interviews with Alvarez, in memorandum by C. A. Rolander, Jr., dated March 15, 1954 (147), p. 18.
Interviews with Kenneth S. Pitzer and Luis Alvarez, February 1985.
May 1952 FBI interview with Teller, in report by FBI Albuquerque bureau dated May 27, 1952, AQ 100–1224, JRO FBI serial file (84).
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit.,1969 (2), p. 440.
Ibid.
Report of AEC liaison officer Chester Heslep, April 1954, quoted in Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds ( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981 ), pp. 252–253.
Interview with Kenneth S. Pitzer, February 1985.
James B. Conant to Vannevar Bush, “Complaints about S-1 Project at Chicago Reaching the President,” July 31, 1943, Bush-Conant Papers (7), folder 13.
David E. Lilienthal diary, January 28, 1950, Princeton University Library. Lilienthal excised the reference to Urey’s spreading “innuendo on GAC” from the published version of the diaries.
Hewlett and Anderson, op. cit.,1962 (5), p. 134.
IMJRO (17), p. 659; Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit.,1962 (2), p. 537.
May 6, 1952, FBI interview with Willard F. Libby, in report of Chicago bureau dated May 9, 1952, JRO FBI serial file (84).
Oppenheimer to Conant, June 8, 1951, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, Oppenheimer Papers (49).
James B. Conant, “Science and Politics in the Twentieth Century,” Foreign Affairs 28 (Janurary 1950), 201; James B. Conant, “The Problems of Evaluation of Scientific Research and Development for Military Planning,” speech to the National War College, February 1, 1950, National Defense University Archives, Washington, D.C.
Conant, “Problems of Evaluation of Scientific Research and Development for Military Planning” (167).
Conant diary, May 9, 1952, Conant Personal Papers (64).
J. Edgar Hoover to Tolson, Ladd, Nichols, July 10, 195, quoting Truman aide Adm. Sidney W. Souers, JRO FBI serial file (84), # 100–17828–324.
Hewlett and Duncan, op. cit., 1969 (2), p. 518.
James B. Conant, “Possibilities for Report to the President,” June 1952, Department of Energy Archives; Hewlett and Duncan note only Conant’s desire that “the President should be made aware of the results of Project Gabriel on the number of nuclear weapons that could be detonated without causing a health hazard” (op. cit., 1969 121, p. 518 ).
GAC to the President, June 14, 1952, declassified with deletions, Department of Energy Archives.
Conant diary, June 14, 1952, Conant Personal Papers (64).
Conant to Bush, March 26, 1954, Box 27, folder 614, Vannevar Bush Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Conant, op. cit.,1970 (11), p. 501.
Conant to Dulles, April 1, 1954, John Foster Dulles Papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Box 3, Strictly Confidential N-P ( 2 ), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kan.
Dulles to Conant, April 12, 1954, and Dulles to Conant, undated cable (April 1954), both in Dulles Papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Box 3, Strictly Confidential N-P (2).
Conant diary, April 19, 1954, Conant Personal Papers (64).
Conant’s Oppenheimer hearings testimony is in IMJRO (17), pp. 383–394.
Conant diary, April 26, 1954, Conant Personal Papers ( 64 ). Conant lunched the next day with Roger Adams, the foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, and noted in his diary that Adams “said Nat. Acad. members divided on Oppie! The Calif. gang of chemists said he was a security risk….”
Eisenhower to Conant, unmailed draft, April 26, 1954, Eisenhower Presidential Papers (Ann Whitman file), Conant folder, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kan.
Conant to “Bobby” (apparently Robert Cutler], April 30, 1954, copy in Lewis Strauss Papers, Conant file, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa.
Conant to William L. Marbury, June 30, 1954, courtesy of Mr. Marbury.
Conant to Oppenheimer, December 7, 1963, Case file, Box 27, Conant file, Oppenheimer Papers (49).
New York Times,March 9, 1970; Strauss to Conant, March 10, 1970; Conant to Strauss, March 30, 1970, all in Strauss Papers (183). Characteristically, Strauss maintained a file for the record on Conant containing possible derogatory information. On October 16, 1952, he filed a note stating that Robert LeBaron, chairman of the military liaison committee, “showed me reports, dated in 1944 and 1945 signed by V. Bush and J. B. Conant, and both advocating release of all atomic energy information to other nations, including Russia.” Strauss did not note that the OSRD leaders had recommended such actions as part of a general international control plan.
Conant interview in John C. Landers, “The Manhattan Project, as Seen by Dr. Conant, And a Commentary on the Unprecedented and What It Has Left Us,” March 1974 (unpublished ts), copy in Conant Personal Papers (64).
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Hershberg, J.G. (1988). “Over My Dead Body”: James B. Conant and the Hydrogen Bomb. In: Mendelsohn, E., Smith, M.R., Weingart, P. (eds) Science, Technology and the Military. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 12/1/2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2958-1_5
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