From the series Atom and industrialisation of science
At a conference in January 1946 in Princeton, New Jersey, Albert Einstein was asked why, when humanity’s intellect had advanced so far as to discover the structure of the atom, it had not been able to devise the political means to prevent its use. The scientist replied: That is simple, my friend. It is because politics is more difficult than physics
[Grenville Clark, The New York Times, April 22nd, 1955].
Truman, Churchill, Stalin, and the atomic bomb
From July 17th to August 2nd, 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin [1878-1953], British Prime Minister Winston Churchill [1874-1965], and American President Harry Truman [1884-1972] met in the German city of Potsdam. Their purpose was to negotiate the terms for the end of World War II, after Germany had surrendered on May 8th. Japan was still at war.
The Potsdam Conference was the first meeting of the Allied leaders in which the atomic bomb was mentioned, albeit indirectly. Churchill’s main concern was to keep it secret from the Soviets, after the signing of the 1943 Quebec Agreement, aimed at maintaining the Anglo-American monopoly on the new weapon. Truman was making his debut on the international stage as president and was eagerly awaiting news on the results of the Trinity Test
, the first atomic bomb test in Alamogordo.
According to Diana Preston in her book Before the Fallout [2005], when Truman became president after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12th, 1945, he knew little about the Manhattan Project, but in the first 24 hours of his presidency he was briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson [1867-1950]. James Byrnes [1882-1972], Roosevelt’s advisor and future secretary of State, told Truman that the bomb could put the US in a position to dictate the terms of the end of the war. Even before being tested, the bomb had already become a diplomatic tool in relations between powers.
On July 16th Truman learned of the success of the Trinity Test
. On July 24th he informed Stalin of the existence of the bomb. Truman wrote in his memoirs: [On July 24th] I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make ‘good use of it against the Japanese’
[Bertrand Goldschmidt, Atomic Rivals, 1967].
Stalin’s indifference convinced Churchill and Truman that he knew nothing of the Manhattan Project. They were wrong. Stalin, through his network of spies, particularly Klaus Fuchs [1911-1988], had known for years about the progress of the Anglo-American plans to build a nuclear weapon. As early as October 1941, the Soviet government had received from its spies a copy of the MAUD Report, which analysed the feasibility of the atomic bomb [British Research and American Capital
, Internationalism, August-September 2022]. It is likely that Stalin knew as much about the Trinity Test
as Churchill and Truman.
On the night when the Soviet leader heard of the American success, it is said that he laughed with his colleagues and told them to speak with Igor Kurchatov [1903-1960], responsible for the construction of the first Russian atomic bomb, to speed things up.
According to Graham Farmelo, historian of Physics at the University of Cambridge, in his 2013 book Churchill’s Bomb, Stalin believed that the Anglo-Americans wanted to use the new bomb as a means of pressure to impose their plans in Europe and in the world. By August 20th, 1945, five weeks after the detonation of the first American atomic bomb in Alamogordo, Stalin had fully realised its strategic importance and the Soviet State Defence Committee (GKO) accelerated its own project [David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 1994].
Truman, Roosevelt, and Niels Bohr
On September 1st, 1939, the day Nazi troops invaded Poland and two days before Britain declared war on Germany, Niels Bohr [1885-1962] and John Wheeler [1911-2008] published a report that laid the theoretical foundations of nuclear fission. They explained that it occurred only in U-235, which constitutes 0.7% of natural uranium, from which it was extremely difficult to separate it. This document was crucial in directing efforts to build the atomic bomb. Obtaining the amount of U-235 necessary for a nuclear explosion required such an industrial effort that, Bohr initially believed, it made the construction of a weapon impossible.
Bohr is an important figure in the debate over the construction and use of the atomic bomb: he had a strong influence not only in the physics community, but also at the highest levels of politics. Unlike Churchill and Truman, who estimated they had a ten-year advantage over the Soviets, the Danish scientist had a more realistic view of the Soviet Union’s capacity to build the bomb. Knowing many Russian scientists personally, he thought the margin of time before they produced it would be very narrow. Bohr had great respect for Soviet science. On December 23rd, 1940, he wrote to Abram F. Ioffe [1880-1960], an eminent Russian physicist, expressing a positive judgement on the status of physics research in his country. This assessment inspired his efforts in 1944 and 1945 to prevent the nuclear arms race [David Holloway, op. cit.].
Arriving in England on October 6th, 1943, Bohr was informed by British physicists about the British and US plans for the atomic bomb. He was surprised to hear that the project he had dismissed, because it required a gigantic industrial effort, was underway. On November 29th Bohr left for the USA, where he met General Leslie Richard Groves Jr. [1896-1970], head of the Manhattan Project.
The American general attempted to recruit the Danish physicist, who declined the offer, although he was fascinated by the gigantic scale of the enterprise built on the theoretical foundations that he himself had laid. Bohr was allowed, in December 1943, to visit Los Alamos, where he saw the project that, four years earlier, he had deemed impossible. During the visit, he realised that nuclear science was becoming a major industry. He told Edward Teller [1908-2003]: I told you it couldn’t be done without turning the whole country into a factory. You have done just that
.
Bohr immediately understood that the atomic bomb was not just a scientific issue, but primarily a political one, and he developed ideas that he later presented in his meetings with US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill.
Farmelo’s thesis is that Bohr’s political ideas were based on the principle of complementarity in quantum physics, which he defined in 1927. It states that the particle and wave aspects of a physical phenomenon never appear simultaneously, so that any experiment that allows the observation of one aspect prevents the observation of the other. The two aspects are, however, complementary, as both are essential to provide a complete physical description of quantum phenomena.
Bohr’s illusion
According to Farmelo, Bohr applied this principle beyond science. He saw the atomic bomb not only as a terrible threat to humanity, but also as an opportunity, because its destructive potential would provide the attacked country with a retaliatory power that would deter the attacker. In this, he anticipated the theory of the balance of terror. Just as wave and particle can coexist in the theory of quantum physics, so too could the atomic bomb and the absence of war coexist on the international stage.
Farmelo’s interpretation would explain why the first question Bohr asked J. Robert Oppenheimer [1904-1967] about the bomb at Los Alamos was: Is it destructive enough as an explosive that no sane leader would ever be able to use it, for fear of a retaliation of the same kind by the enemy?
.
Bohr was certain that the Soviets were working on the bomb, so there was no point in keeping it secret. Goldschmidt writes that the scientist, aware of the political revolution caused by the atomic bomb, thought that it was essential to inform the USSR about the Manhattan Project and that the bomb should be placed under international control. By sharing nuclear science, the terror of war and peace could coexist.
If the atomic bomb could be built, it would have been foolish to think that the science behind it could be kept secret. Sooner or later, the governments of every industrially advanced country would instruct their scientists to find a way to build atomic bombs, triggering a nuclear arms race. This is what the Danish scientist wanted to avoid. Bohr was not against the Manhattan Project; on the contrary, he saw it as a prerequisite for a world without war, on the condition that its results were shared with the other powers.
Bohr applied quantum physics reasoning to international politics, but, as Einstein said, politics is not as simple as physics. Bohr’s idea of convincing Roosevelt and Churchill to share atomic bomb construction information with the USSR was yet another fantasy of a nuclear scientist trying to influence the decisions of political and military power.
Apparently, Roosevelt led the Danish physicist to believe that he shared his concerns and encouraged him to raise the issue with the British. On May 16th, 1944, the meeting between Bohr and Churchill was disastrous: the British Prime Minister brutally rejected the idea of sharing nuclear science and technology with the Soviets.
The meeting of September 18th between Churchill and Roosevelt at Hyde Park put an end to Bohr’s attempt. The final memorandum stated: [international] agreement regarding its control and use, is not accepted. The matter should continue to be regarded as of the utmost secrecy [...] Enquiries should be made regarding the activities of Professor Bohr and steps taken to ensure that he is responsible for no leakage of information, particularly to the Russians
. Churchill wanted to place Bohr under house arrest, reproaching him for having leaked information regarding this matter, which could potentially amount to a crime punishable by death [Bertrand Goldschmidt, op. cit.].
At Potsdam, with Germany by then defeated and Japan’s defeat certain, the dynamics of the relationships between the three allied imperialist powers, Russia, Britain, and America, had changed. It was no longer a matter of winning the war, but of partitioning the world, and for Russia and Britain having the atomic bomb was necessary to avoid being in a position of weakness compared to the United States. The industrialisation of science had become part of their power politics.