The Target Committee (Kindle Single) Read online

  THE TARGET COMMITTEE

  by Paul Ham

  Contents

  The Committeemen

  The Target Committee Meets

  Henry Stimson’s Committee

  Henry Stimson’s Eclipse

  The Scientists Do Their Duty

  The Joint Chiefs Meet

  Notes and Sources

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  The Committeemen

  TOP SECRET TOP SECRET

  Date: May 12, 1945

  Memorandum for: Major General L.R. Groves

  Subject: Summary of Target Committee Meetings on May 10 and 11, 1945

  1. The second meeting of the Target Committee convened at 9:00 AM, May 10, in Dr. Oppenheimer’s office at Site Y with the following present: General Farrell; Dr. C. Lauritsen; Colonel Seeman; Dr. Ramsey; Captain Parsons; Dr. Dennison; Major Derry; Dr. von Neumann; Dr. Stearns; Dr. Wilson; Dr. Tolman; Dr. Penney; Dr. Oppenheimer.

  In May 1945 thirteen highly intelligent individuals filed into Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s office at Site Y, code for Los Alamos. They were all of a gentlemanly, rational disposition, and several were at the summit of their careers. All had a vital scientific or military link with the Manhattan Project, the purpose of which was to build an atomic bomb. The most influential committeemen were Oppenheimer, Navy Captain William “Deak” Parsons and Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, the eyes and ears of Major General Leslie Groves, the head of the project, who did not attend but to whom they all ultimately reported.

  Oppenheimer

  Robert Oppenheimer was a tall, thin man with blue eyes and a shock of dark hair. He tended to walk on the balls of his feet, giving the appearance that he floated by. A baggy, light suit hung off his lanky frame and, together with his pork-pie hat, suggested a maverick, faintly clown-like impression.

  Nobody disputed his scientific and managerial brilliance, but his appointment as scientific leader of the Manhattan Project had not gone unopposed. Oppenheimer was a Jew; his former girlfriend, Jean Tatlock, a communist; and his brother, Frank, a Jewish communist. Those facts had placed Oppenheimer outside the East Coast establishment who played God’s deputy in deciding who ran America. The secret services believed Oppenheimer’s dubious associations with ‘reds’ compromised him and, in the early 1940s, had refused to clear him to work on the Manhattan Project.

  Oppenheimer’s exceptional intellectual and, as it proved, administrative, gifts overrode the security risk in the eyes of Major General Groves, who directed the project. That Oppenheimer was related to, or slept with, communists did not mean he shared their convictions, concluded Groves. He had read Oppenheimer’s dossier and saw something that eluded the secret services. On July 20, 1943 the general confirmed the scientist as “absolutely essential to the project.”1 Thus began one of the oddest and most effective working partnerships in American history: Groves, boorish, precise and demanding; Oppenheimer, frail, cultured and intellectual.

  Born in 1904 to a wealthy, liberal New York family, Oppenheimer’s early correspondence portrays an extremely clever young man in the thrall of his transcendent intellectual gifts. At Harvard (where he attended Danish physicist Niels Bohr’s lectures in 1923) and later at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Oppenheimer used his prodigious talent as a tool for rapid self-advancement. To the Harvard authorities he justified his case for jumping straight to advanced physics on the grounds that he had received 96 percent in his physics entrance exam and “grade As” in all his subjects.

  He was widely read, and provided a “partial” list of the books he had studied, including several volumes on kinetic theory, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and quantum theory; James Crowther’s Molecular Physics; Henri Poincaré’s La Physique Moderne and Thermodynamique; James Walker’s Introduction to Physical Chemistry; Wilhelm Ostwald’s Solutions; J. Willard Gibbs’ On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances; and Walther Nernst’s Theoretische Chemie. These were advanced texts and Oppenheimer read them in their original languages. He also read Ancient Greek and Latin. He had already completed his freshman year with top grades in French prose and poetry (Corneille through to Zola), the history of philosophy, and courses in math, chemistry and physics. “Whatever reading or work you may advise, I shall be glad to do . . .” he told the academic board at Harvard.2 He was 19.

  The young Oppenheimer styled himself a philosopher-aesthete who affected an interest in literature over science. Marcel Proust’s À La Recherche du Temps Perdu left a deep impression on him. He was fond of quoting a favorite passage from memory:

  Perhaps she would not have considered evil to be so rare, so extraordinary, so estranging a state, to which it was so restful to emigrate, had she been able to discern in herself, as in everyone, that indifference to the sufferings one causes, an indifference which, whatever other names one may give it, is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty.3

  There was nothing rebellious or dissipated in the young Oppenheimer; rather something joyless – a space of pure intellect in his “separate prison” from other men, as he put it in a juvenile poem. In a piece of precocious literary criticism he described Joseph Conrad’s Youth as “a beautiful novelette on the futility of youthful courage and idealism.”4 Perhaps, but was not the futile pursuit of ideals a rite of passage for the young? Oppenheimer, on the contrary, strove for perfection – of what use were ideals if one failed to catch and realize them?

  In his mid-20s Oppenheimer suffered from depression, hallucinations and suicidal feelings – “a tremendous inner turmoil.” He self-diagnosed a schizoid personality, but his friends claimed that he overcame the challenges it posed through sheer hard work and strength of mind. At one point, in London, he dismissed his Harley Street psychiatrist as “too stupid”: “[Robert] knew more about his troubles than [the doctor] did,” wrote a friend. “Robert had this ability to . . . figure out what his trouble was, and to deal with it.”5

  Oppenheimer’s driving psychological impulse was a fear of failure, a fear that somehow his talents would go unrecognized. In this he had something in common with Groves. “Ambitious” is too crude, too obvious, a term for such complex men; they acted in defiance of, or in spite of, the voices prophesying defeat as surely as they pursued the laurels of victory.

  The precocious student grew into a loyal friend, excellent teacher and inspiring leader. Along the way, in the 1920s at Cambridge and the University of Göttingen in Germany, Oppenheimer met the greatest physicists of the day and formed close relations with Max Born, his professor at Göttingen with whom he wrote “On the Quantum Theory of Molecules,” his most cited work. His students at Berkeley and later at Caltech became his admiring disciples. The physicist Hans Bethe, one of his staunchest friends – who would work with him on the atomic bomb – said of him:

  Probably the most important ingredient he brought to his teaching was his exquisite taste. He always knew what were the important problems, as shown by his choice of subjects. He truly lived with those problems, struggling for a solution, and he communicated his concern to the group . . . He was interested in everything, and in one afternoon they might discuss quantum electrodynamics, cosmic rays, electron pair production and nuclear physics.6

  Oppenheimer was, in sum, the closest thing to a 20th century Renaissance man. His mature attributes – the rare fusion of scientific excellence, a creative sensibility, self-discipline and organizational flair – marked him for a senior role on the Manhattan Project. He certainly wanted the job, to be inside the tent. It would satisfy his yearning to know the people who presumed to know and control him.

  He wanted not so much to share the nest of the American establishment as to feel free
to share it, and then take it or leave it. His family’s wealth could buy yachts, ranches and horses, but not this – the status of welcome insider, free to come and go as he pleased. His sheer brilliance would force admission to the gilded enclave: It convinced Groves, and Groves persuaded the innermost sanctum of American power.

  Parsons

  Into the office strode a tall, balding man with a huge, dome-like forehead. Unlike the slightly nervous Oppenheimer, Navy Captain William “Deak” Parsons, 44, exuded the inscrutable calm of the complete insider. A director of the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, Parsons was designated to command the first atomic bombing mission, should it proceed, codenamed Project Alberta.

  Parsons’ studious manner and innocuous presence, like so much else about the man, belied his intimacy with the apparatus of power. Parsons had an open line to Groves, who in turn liaised with the Pentagon and the White House. Parsons worked closely with Groves and Oppenheimer, but not even they shared his complete understanding of “the gadget” – as they called the atomic bomb, then in development – to which he devoted his every waking hour. He approached his job with the care and respect of a Swiss watchmaker, his knowledge of the innards of the world’s first nuclear weapon unrivalled.

  Indeed, Parsons’ absorption in his work suggests that he felt a closer kinship with machines and electronic systems than with his fellow human beings. A pioneer in the discovery of radar, and the inventor of the proximity fuse, he was a superb technician and ordnance expert – perhaps the finest the US Navy had produced. Parsons shared with Groves and senior colleagues on the Manhattan Project a disdain for human fallibility – the easy compromise that tempted the average man, the weakness and laziness that drew him along the path of least resistance.

  Like most American service personnel Parsons admitted to no feeling for the Japanese people; the distinction between civilian and combatant held no sway over his mind. The Japanese cities were military centers, names on a map; the ordinary people, members of an inhuman race, unworthy of consideration. It was not that the Americans at command level bothered openly to hate the Japanese people; rather, that the fate of Japanese civilians simply did not figure in any calculation of strategic or operational imperatives. They were simply the targets of a schedule of bombing raids that would continue, on an atomic scale if necessary, to destroy Japanese cities with the aim of breaking civilian morale.

  Parsons’ touchstones were Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Bataán and Pearl Harbor, but his desire for vengeance would soon become personal. In the days before the atomic mission departed, he would visit his 19-year-old half-brother, a casualty of Iwo Jima, lying in a San Diego naval hospital. A Japanese mortar had ripped off the young man’s jaw and blinded his right eye.

  When the time came to deliver the gadget to Tinian Island, Parsons would accompany it across the Pacific like an archeologist delivering priceless treasures from some ancient tomb. But that was several months ahead. For now, this exceptionally gifted man studied and restudied the structure of the bomb, thinking through the steps by which it would be delivered, dropped and detonated over a Japanese city. Today, on May 10, 1945, his role on the Target Committee would be vital in deciding which city it would be.7

  Farrell

  The most senior military figure at the meeting was Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, deputy commanding general and chief of field operations on the Manhattan Project. A highly decorated veteran of five major First World War operations, Farrell was the proud recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart.

  Raised on a farm near Brunswick, New York, Farrell attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he completed a degree in civil engineering. He then worked on the construction of the Panama Canal. It is a crowning irony of his life that, while best known for helping to develop a weapon that would destroy a city, Farrell spent most of his peacetime career working to build cities, roads and infrastructure.

  Slight in stature, fit and energetic, this fast-talking officer possessed an unusual ability to manage a multitude of problems at once. He quickly mastered the physics of nuclear fission and was a hands-on manager. On signing for a shipment of plutonium being delivered to a Manhattan Project plant, he once handled a metal ball containing the lethal material:

  I took this heavy ball in my hand and I felt it growing warm, I got a certain sense of its hidden power. It wasn’t a cold piece of metal, but it was really a piece of metal that seemed to be working inside. Then maybe for the first time I began to believe some of the fantastic tales the scientists had told about this nuclear power.8

  As one of Groves’ most trusted deputies and ablest engineers, Farrell was responsible for overseeing the delivery of the “vial of wrath” (as he would later describe the atomic bomb, in a postwar press release) to Japan. On the Target Committee and on Tinian Island, Farrell would serve as Groves’ deputy in all atomic matters, anointing himself, with characteristic humility, “General Grove’s handyman.”9

  Groves

  Although he did not attend their meetings, Major General Leslie Groves hovered over the Target Committee with a sort of godlike omnipotence. From his Manhattan redoubt and offices scattered through his empire, Groves saw and heard everything that went on, chiefly through Farrell.

  If access to information is power, Groves was among the five most powerful people in America in May 1945. His security clearance scaled the heights of the military and political establishment. He knew the likely destiny of Japan – insofar as nuclear weapons might decide it – ahead of senior politicians and military commanders. The state department was unaware of the bomb until February that year, when Groves chose to let them in on the secret; General Douglas MacArthur was not officially informed until mid-1945; and fleet admirals Ernest King and Chester Nimitz, respectively commander-in-chief of the United States fleet and commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, were only told, on Groves’ recommendation, in early 1945.10

  By then, Groves had been working on the bomb for three years. His power over the project was complete. Anyone who opposed his will found themselves mysteriously sidelined or smoothly removed. Few questioned the project’s purpose; their very awareness of the bomb’s development implied their approval of its use. And Groves had powerful champions, chief among them the new president, Truman, and James Byrnes, who would be appointed secretary of state on July 3, 1945. In May 1945 these three men saw Japan as the immediate target, but Russia as America’s future enemy. “There was never . . . any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the project was conducted on that basis,” Groves later wrote.11

  Groves achieved a widespread reputation as a great brute of a man, tyrannical and unyielding, but his positive qualities are not as well recognized. Groves’ mastery of industrial engineering, his iron self-discipline and astonishing organizational skills qualified him as possibly the only man willing to attempt to build an atomic bomb in the time available. His working hours (around the clock), his dismissal of anyone not up to the job, and his pachydermatous indifference to criticism – often remarked on by his colleagues – further recommended him. His superiors wanted a man able to withstand the pressure of one of the most difficult jobs of the war effort.

  To his detractors, Groves seemed ruthless, possibly cruel; to his admirers, such as his deputy Colonel Ken Nichols, he was “outstanding.” Nichols famously described his boss as “the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for,” going on to say:

  He is most demanding. He is most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make difficult, timely decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know . . . And in summary, if I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss I would pick General Groves.12

  Groves was the third son of four children to an austere Presbyterian army chaplain, “for w
hom thrift was one of the godliest of virtues,”13 and a gentle, sickly woman worn down by the weight of constant travel and hard work. The family was always on the move, following Chaplain Groves’ service itinerary. Biblical remonstrations pursued the boy and Sunday Sabbaths were strictly observed.

  Groves grew into a tall, athletic young man, not yet the obese figure of his middle years. As a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology he kept his own counsel, self-absorbed and diligent. The premature death, from pneumonia, of his elder brother Allen, his parents’ favorite, stung young Leslie to action. Defying his father’s wishes, he enrolled in 1916 in the US Military Academy at West Point. His arrogance won him few friends there: He had inherited his father’s tight-fistedness and refused to pay for his laundry, earning him the nickname “Greasy,” an appellation that followed him through life. He graduated fourth in his class.

  Lonely and unpopular, he rose through sheer grit and intelligence, not relying on the personal charm or good humor that smoothed the advancement of less talented men. As a young captain, he “gave the impression of a man of great latent power, who was biding his time,” observed his biographer Robert Norris.14

  As a military engineer he took on huge projects that would have overwhelmed most men. After successfully overseeing the construction of the Pentagon, Groves was an obvious candidate to command the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), the official title of the atomic bomb project. Groves was reluctant at first to accept the job. He had not seen active service in the First World War and had hoped for a combat role this time – but he was open to persuasion. “If you do this job right, it will win the war,” Lieutenant General Brehon Somervell, commanding general of US Army Service Forces, had told him. If further persuasion were needed, Major General Wilhelm Styer, a member of the Military Policy Committee that oversaw the development of atomic energy, reassured Groves that his appointment would transform the war effort.15