In the 1930s, along with the approach of the world to the beginning of the Second World War, there was also a revolutionary process invisible to most in theoretical physics. Scientists from different countries moved further and further in the study of nuclear physics. At the very end of 1938, the German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann found that the atomic nucleus of uranium is in a state of instability. It is capable of splitting, that is, dividing into two parts, while releasing a huge amount of energy. Based on the discovery of Hahn and Strassmann, physicists of a number of countries independently predicted the possibility of a self-sustaining chain reaction in a certain mass of uranium.

Not only to the townsfolk, but also to politicians, all this fuss of scientists seemed frivolous and incapable of influencing world processes.

Meanwhile, physicists started talking about the possibility of creating weapons based on new discoveries that mankind did not yet know. It was about a bomb whose single charge could destroy an entire city, a bomb whose possession would allow the country that owns it to dictate its will to the world.

Such a discovery seriously alarmed scientists. The Nazi regime in Germany made no secret of its growing appetites, and if Hitler If a new super-powerful weapon were to fall, then it was scary to even think about the consequences.

Einstein writes to the President

The scientific potential of Germany was significantly weakened by the expulsion from the country of physicists of "non-Aryan origin", among which was the most famous scientist in the world. Albert Einstein.

Nevertheless, many venerable scientists continued to work for the Fuhrer, including Hahn and Strassmann, whose research so excited the scientific world.

Anti-fascist sentiments prevailed among the majority of physicists in the world. Summer 1939 Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner asked Albert Einstein to write a letter to the President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt in which to acquaint the politician with the new danger.

Einstein agreed, and on August 2, a letter in which the physicist introduced the American leader to the dangerous research being carried out in Nazi Germany was sent.

The appeal to Einstein was due to the fact that only he at that time had sufficient authority to force the powers that be to listen.

With great difficulty, only in October 1939 did the initiators of the letter manage to hand it over to Roosevelt. Despite Einstein's authorship, the President was skeptical, but then, after consulting with advisers, he established the "Uranium Committee", which was charged with studying the problem more carefully.

Game ahead of the curve

In November 1939, the Uranium Committee reported to Roosevelt that the use of uranium would make it possible to create a weapon with a destructive power far greater than anything known.

From that moment on, the United States set to work on building its own atomic bomb.

Leading American physicists, as well as scientists from other countries who emigrated to the United States, were involved in the implementation of the project.

Work on "atomic projects" was carried out in a number of countries, but in a war only the United States had sufficient funds to confidently move forward.

To implement the project, it was necessary to create several new military factories, around which cities with increased secrecy were formed. At the same time, American intelligence efforts were focused on obtaining information about how the German nuclear project was progressing. German research stalled without the necessary support from the state - Hitler needed a weapon that could be used immediately, and not in a few years.

In July 1942, the American atomic bomb program received additional fuel - Roosevelt achieved from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill consent to the relocation to the United States of the main participants of the British nuclear project Tube Alloys.

Commonwealth of Physicist and General

The preparatory work has been completed. On August 13, 1942, the White House decided to start work on the direct creation of an atomic bomb. The project was codenamed "Manhattan".

The project leaders were General Leslie Groves and physicist Robert Oppenheimer. The entire scientific part was assigned to Oppenheimer, and Groves had to deal with administrative issues and control over scientists who were not accustomed to strict secrecy and military discipline.

The budget of the Manhattan project was measured at an astronomical sum of two billion dollars. But such costs made it possible to move in several ways at once. So, the dispute about which bomb to create - uranium or plutonium, was resolved by the order to create both.

To accumulate stocks of weapons-grade plutonium, the city of Hanford was created, in which three special nuclear reactors were built. Another city built from the ground up, Oak Ridge, came about with a uranium enrichment facility built there.

In November 1942, construction began on the secret city of Los Alamos in New Mexico. It was in this city that it was planned to build the world's first atomic bombs.

K-25 installation at Oak Ridge. Photo: Public Domain

Special Purpose Regiment

Even before the first atomic bombs were built, in the summer of 1944, a special 509th air regiment was created. Its pilots flew specially designed B-29 bombers with extended bomb bays. Unlike their colleagues, the pilots of the 509th Air Regiment practiced the same technique: reaching the target in normal weather, dropping, and then a rapid turn and leaving to a safe distance so that the carrier would not be destroyed by powerful air currents. The command believed that by the time the 509th air regiment received a combat order, the resistance of the air defense and enemy fighters would be reduced to a minimum.

By June 1944, about 129,000 employees were involved in the Manhattan Project, of which 84,500 were involved in construction work, 40,500 were operators and 1,800 military. Then the number of military personnel increased to 5600.

Dubina against Stalin

By the spring of 1945, three atomic charges had been created: a shellless plutonium device, called the "Thing", as well as two bombs - a uranium "Kid" and a plutonium "Fat Man".

After the death of President Franklin Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman. The new president was a hardliner in relations with the Soviet Union and viewed the new weapon as "a club against Stalin».

Since the war in Europe was almost over, it was planned to test atomic bombs in Japan. However, this should have been preceded by tests at the site.

Truman hurried scientists - he wanted to have a new weapon by the beginning of the Potsdam Conference of the victorious countries in order to get a weighty argument in the diplomatic struggle.

Operation Trinity

For the first ever atomic test, they chose "Thing". The explosion was scheduled for July 16, 1945 at the Alamogordo training ground. The charge was installed on a thirty-meter steel tower, surrounded by measuring equipment. Within a radius of ten kilometers, three observation posts were equipped, and at a distance of 16 kilometers - a dugout for a command post.

The first atomic test was codenamed Trinity. There were a lot of predictions regarding its results - from complete failure to a global catastrophe that will destroy the planet. But Oppenheimer expected that the bomb would correspond to the planned power.

Testing was under threat due to the disgusting weather in the area of ​​the test site. Oppenheimer nearly quarreled with Groves. The military leader insisted on testing in any case, and the scientific one pointed out that with a strong wind, a radioactive cloud could cover nearby American cities.

But by 5:30 a.m. the weather returned to normal, and the explosion was carried out at the estimated time.

The effect exceeded expectations. The power of the explosion was about 18 kilotons of TNT. The crater after the explosion was about 76 meters in diameter. The shock wave spread to 160 kilometers, and the mushroom cloud rose to a height of 12 kilometers.

When the cloud dissipated, scientists and the military went to the epicenter in tanks lined with lead slabs from the inside. What they saw made a different impression on them. The military rejoiced, and the physicists were in a depressed state, realizing what kind of genie had just been let out of the bottle.

"Dr. Groves Pleased"

In order to maintain secrecy and not cause panic among the local population, the version invented by General Groves was given to the press. The Associated Press reported: “At dawn on July 16, an ammunition depot exploded in the desert near Alamogordo Air Force Base, New Mexico. The explosion was so strong that it attracted attention in Gallup - at a distance of 376 kilometers.

On the evening of July 16, 1945, Harry Truman, who was in Potsdam, received a coded message: “The operation was done this morning. The diagnosis is not yet complete, but the results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations. Dr. Groves is pleased."

This meant that the atomic bomb tests were successful. The President of the United States rejoiced - he received a weighty argument for influencing the Russians. At the very first meetings of the Potsdam Conference, he began to lead the discussion resolutely, being confident in the strength of his positions.

Judgment for the Japanese

On July 24, 1945, Truman decided to inform Stalin that the United States had a new weapon of great destructive power. The President brought the information to the Soviet leader after the next meeting, during the farewell on the steps of the Cecilienhof Palace.

To Truman's surprise, Stalin did not ask him a single question. The US President decided that the Soviet leader simply did not understand what was at stake.

In fact, Stalin knew much more than the American leader could imagine. In the Soviet Union, work was already underway to create their own atomic bomb. Soviet intelligence officers managed to get to the secret American cities involved in the Manhattan project, and received valuable information from there.

On the same day, July 24, Harry Truman approved the directive to the commander of strategic aviation General Carl Spaatz:“After August 3, as soon as weather conditions allow visual bombing, the 509th Composite Aviation Regiment of the 20th Air Army is to drop the first special bomb on one of the following targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, Nagasaki.”

For tens of thousands of residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the countdown of the last days of their lives has begun.

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  © Commons.wikimedia.org / Mushroom mushroom over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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  © Commons.wikimedia.org / Hiroshima before and after the explosion.
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  © Commons.wikimedia.org / Enola Gay crew with Commander Paul Tibbets in the center
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  © Commons.wikimedia.org / B-29 "Enola Gay" bomber
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  © Commons.wikimedia.org / Nuclear explosion over Hiroshima

In order to hide the purpose of the newly created structure, the Manhattan Engineering District was formed as part of the military engineering forces of the US Army, and Groves (until then a colonel) was promoted to brigadier general and appointed commander of this district.

More than 130,000 people took part in the Manhattan Project and cost nearly US$2 billion (about US$22 billion in 2016). More than 90% of the costs were for the construction of factories and the production of fissile material, and less than 10% for the development and production of weapons. Research and production took place at over 30 sites in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The project was also accused of gathering intelligence from a German nuclear weapons project. As part of the Alsos mission, Manhattan Project personnel worked in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they collected nuclear materials and documents, and also collected German scientists. Despite strict security inside the Manhattan Project, the Soviet " atomic spies successfully infiltrated it and gathered intelligence.

Start

Basic information

Many prominent scientists who emigrated from Germany in 1933 (Frisch, Bethe, Szilard, Fuchs, Teller, Bloch and others) were connected to the secret project, which started in 1939, as well as Niels Bohr, who was taken out of Denmark occupied by Germany. As part of the project, its employees worked in the European theater of operations, collecting valuable information about the German nuclear program (see Alsos Mission).

By the summer of 1945, the US military department managed to obtain atomic weapons, the action of which was based on the use of two types of fissile material - the uranium-235 isotope ("uranium bomb"), or the plutonium-239 isotope ("plutonium bomb"). The main difficulty in creating an explosive device based on uranium-235 was to enrich uranium - that is, to increase the mass fraction of the 235 U isotope in the material (in natural uranium, the main isotope is 238 U, the fraction of the 235 U isotope is approximately equal to 0.7%), so that make a nuclear chain reaction possible (in natural and low-enriched uranium, the isotope 238 U prevents the development of a chain reaction). Obtaining plutonium-239 for a plutonium charge was not directly related to the difficulties in obtaining uranium-235, since in this case uranium-238 and a special nuclear reactor are used.

The first test of the Trinity nuclear explosive device based on plutonium-239 (during the test, it was the implosion-type plutonium bomb that was tested) was carried out in New Mexico on July 16, 1945 (Alamogordo test site). After this explosion, Groves very revealingly responded to Oppenheimer's words: "The war is over," he said: "Yes, but after we drop two more bombs on Japan."

Groves initially proposed four objects for the atomic bombing: the cities of Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata and, most importantly, the center of ancient culture, the former capital of Japan, Kyoto. When assigning these objects, Groves was guided by considerations that were very far from humanity. When the audience objected to Kyoto, he gave two arguments to prove his point: firstly, the population of this city has more than a million inhabitants, which therefore promises a good explosion effect; secondly, it occupies a huge area, on which the estimated diameter of the destruction zone will fit perfectly, and therefore the picture of the explosion will be very indicative for experts.

When, as a result, Kyoto was still rejected as a goal by politicians, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were approved as goals, it turned out that there were prison camps for Americans and their allies near them, but even then Groves did not hesitate to instruct not to take this factor into account .

On August 6, 1945, the Little Boy uranium bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. As a result of the bombing, about 140 thousand people died. The world faced a nuclear threat for the first time. On August 9, a plutonium bomb was scheduled to drop "Fat Man" (eng. Fat Man) on the city of Kokura, but due to heavy cloud cover, the target was changed. The second Japanese city of Nagasaki was bombed, killing about 74 thousand people.

Members

In June 1944, about 129,000 employees were involved in the Manhattan Project, of which 84,500 were involved in construction work, 40,500 were operators (?) and 1,800 military. Later, the number of military personnel increased to 5600. Human calculators played an important role in the project.

The Manhattan Project brought together scientists from the UK, Europe, Canada, and the USA into a single international team that solved the problem in the shortest possible time. However, the Manhattan Project was accompanied by tensions between the US and the UK. Great Britain considered itself the offended party, since the United States took advantage of the knowledge of scientists from Great Britain (the Maud Comitty committee), but refused to share the results with Great Britain.

Development of the uranium bomb

Natural uranium is 99.3% uranium-238 and 0.7% uranium-235, but only the latter is fissile. The chemically identical uranium-235 must be physically separated from the more common isotope. Various methods of uranium enrichment were considered, most of which were carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The most obvious technology, the centrifuge, failed, but electromagnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion were successful in the project.

Isotope separation

Centrifuges

electromagnetic separation

Gas diffusion

The first atomic explosion did not produce too many memorable sayings. Only one made it into the Oxford Collection of Quotations ( Oxford Dictionary of Quotations ). After the successful test of a plutonium bomb on July 16, 1945, at Jornado del Muerto, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, quoted, somewhat altered, a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am Death, destroyer of worlds!" . Other words uttered by the specialist responsible for the test, Kenneth Bainbridge, should have been forever remembered. As soon as the explosion sounded, he turned to Oppenheimer and said: "Now we are all sons of bitches ...". Later, Oppenheimer himself believed that nothing more precise and expressive was said at that moment.

In general, a lot of nonsense was said in connection with the explosion. When Samuel Allison said his "two, one, zero - go!", A general standing nearby remarked: "It's amazing that you can count backwards at a time like this!" Allison later recalled that he flashed: “Wow, they survived! The atmosphere did not ignite ... ". Chemist George Kistiakovsky rushed to Oppenheimer and said, "Oppy, you owe me ten dollars!" (they were arguing about the test results). Project General Director Manhattan General Leslie Grose immediately appreciated the significance of what he saw: "The explosion was just right ... The war is over."

If the scientists and engineers said anything at all immediately after the explosion, they were mostly exclamations of surprise. Some remained silent - they were too absorbed in calculating the power of the explosion; others were amazed in various ways by the color of the fungus, the strength of the flash, and the roar. Physicist Edwin Macmillan later wrote that the observers were shocked by horror rather than rejoicing at the success. After the explosion, there was silence for a few minutes, followed by remarks like: "Well, this thing worked ...". Something similar, according to his brother Frank, Oppenheimer himself muttered, as soon as the roar died down enough to say: “It worked!”

Another reaction was not to be expected. Scientists and engineers worked on the creation of the atomic bomb for more than two years. The test was to show whether they succeeded or not. Looking into the past from the height of our time, we want to see an expression of anguish on their faces, we expect repentant tirades about the terrible consequences of what they have done, but nothing like this happens to most of them. Moral and political condemnation came later - and not to everyone. More than anyone, Oppenheimer indulged in public self-flagellation. Everyone especially remembered his statement: “Physicists have known sin. This knowledge is not to be avoided…”. But repentance began later. When the issue of using the atomic bomb against the civilian population of Japan was being decided, he, unlike some of his scientific colleagues, not only did not object, but insisted on it, and only a few months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki he told President Truman: “It seems to me that there is blood on our hands." Truman replied to the scientist: “It's okay. Everything will be washed off ... ”, and he severely punished his assistants:“ So that this slobber is no longer here! ”. Oppenheimer continued to suffer from remorse until the end of his days. Among other things, he was haunted by the question: why were there almost no such remorse? then, in then time? Here is the answer he offered to himself and others in 1954: “When you have an exciting scientific problem in front of you, you go headlong into it, and you postpone the question of what to do with the solution to the future, to the time when this technical solution will be found. So it was with the atomic bomb ... "

Both authors, Sylvan Schweber and Mary Palewski, are concerned about the gap between moral ideals and moral reality among those scientists who heralded the atomic age to the world and lived in its atmosphere in the postwar years. Both are moralists; both were driven to take up the pen by impulses of a very personal nature. Schweber is a physicist turned historian of science. In the 1950s, he worked at Cornell University with Hans Bethe, who during the war years was director of the theory department at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Book Under the shadow of the bomb , developed during the work of Schweber on the fundamental and not yet completed biography of the teacher, is, in essence, a lengthy glorification of Bethe's "decency", shown in the course of settling difficult relations between science and the Pentagon in the postwar period, in easing tensions between science and politics in the era McCarthyism. Bethe's impeccable behavior is contrasted with Oppenheimer's ambiguous behavior. As for Mary Palewski, she is the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked at the Los Alamos laboratory on the bomb trigger, whose misgivings about Hiroshima and the work on the bomb formed part of her daughter's "moral legacy". atomic fragments - a collection of not too closely related interviews with surviving project participants Manhattan. The author is interested in their experiences and political considerations - in the past, in Los Alamos, and in the future. What did they think of their brainchild when they were working on the bomb? what did they think of it after its creation?

One of the immediate consequences of Hiroshima was that American atomic scientists, primarily physicists, became a kind of courtiers of the Republic of the United States. Already in the course of the project Manhattan the corridors of power were always open to some of them. After the end of the war, the vast majority dreamed of returning to universities as soon as possible, to research work - but now everything went differently for them. The bomb had cost America two billion dollars, and America thought the money well spent. At the start of work at Los Alamos, physicists committed themselves to making just a few bombs, but now the government wanted a large nuclear arsenal, and Edward Teller had already launched a public agitation for the creation superbombs- hydrogen bombs. The Japanese were defeated, but since March 1944, General Groves was credited with saying that the real purpose of the bomb was to rein in the Soviets. In 1954, he declared this publicly. The Cold War was a bonanza for American physicists, but it also presented some of them with difficult political and moral problems.

Although Oppenheimer returned to his academic career months after Hiroshima, his career as the government's most important arms adviser was just beginning. He sat on committees in the Pentagon, he chaired the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the US Atomic Energy Commission, which developed a plan for the scientific development of nuclear weapons. It is this kind of conciliation and complicity that Schweber has in mind when speaking of Bethe's moral superiority over Oppenheimer. There were security guards in front of Oppenheimer's office at the Princeton Institute for Basic Research. When he was called on secret matters, the guests had to leave the office. All these visible signs of power and privilege, according to many, pleased Oppenheimer - at least until they suddenly stopped. On the contrary, Bethe's participation in the government's development of nuclear weapons was indirect and episodic. Unlike his Los Alamos boss, he remained committed to his research work, which became for him, says (as many as four times!) Schweber, the saving "anchor of impeccability."

It is permissible to disagree with this black and white picture. In assessing the morality of Oppenheimer's and Bethe's positions, it would be more natural to resort to semitones. The General Advisory Committee headed by Oppenheimer, while not rejecting the idea of ​​creating a hydrogen bomb in principle, objected to its urgent development. This same committee, wittily called the Gray Board, was convened in 1954 to relieve Oppenheimer of the constant presence of guards. When, in 1950, Truman nevertheless decided to create a bomb on an urgent basis, he by special orders closed any opportunity for Oppenheimer to speak publicly on this topic. The forced silence was painful for Oppenheimer, as is clear from the words spoken later: “What are we to do with a civilization that has always considered ethics as an important part of human life and was unable to talk about almost the total murder of everyone and everyone, except perhaps in in fine and game-theoretic terms?”

Bethe, unlike Oppenheimer, was at that time only a consultant at Los Alamos. He could speak and said what his conscience prompted: “The hydrogen bomb is no longer a weapon, but a means of destroying entire nations. Its use would be a betrayal of common sense and the very nature of Christian civilization." Even building a hydrogen bomb "would be a terrible mistake." And yet, he overcame himself so much that he worked diligently on the creation of this very bomb, justifying himself by saying that if such a weapon is feasible in principle, then the Soviets will make it sooner or later. The threat posed by them must be balanced. Then, it is one thing to develop weapons in peacetime, and another thing in wartime. The second, according to Bethe, was a moral matter, so the outbreak of the Korean War contributed to his spiritual peace. But that's not all: starting work on the hydrogen bomb, it turns out that he hoped that the upcoming technical difficulties were insurmountable (the judgment is "somewhat naive", according to his colleague on the project Manhattan Herbert York). There was also such an argument: "if not me, then there will always be someone else." Finally, among scientists who looked back at the moral side of the matter, there was a judgment: "If I were closer to Los Alamos affairs, I could contribute to disarmament." Years later, Bethe would write that all these considerations then “seemed very logical,” but would add that now “at times” he was preoccupied: “I would like to be a more consistent idealist ... To this day, I have a feeling that I did wrong. But that's what I did..."

Further, Schweber tries to show that Bethe behaved appropriately and honorably in response to the McCarthyist attacks on left-wing, internationalist, and pacifist scientists. In fact, no scientist of sufficient weight to withstand these attacks came out of this episode unsullied. Oppenheimer, apparently to save his own skin, denounced his own graduate students in a way that instilled fear in former colleagues at Los Alamos, including Bethe. Bethe, at first glance, behaved much better. When his colleague at Cornell University Philip Morrison was under attack, he rushed to defend him - but, firstly, let's not forget that it was incomparably easier for him to answer to the university commission of inquiry than Oppenheimer - to the anti-American commission that threw thunder and lightning. activities; secondly, this intercession of Bethe for a colleague, inspired and effective, was by no means unconditional. He first told the interim president of Cornell University that he, Bethe, was annoyed by Morrison's "benevolent attitude" toward the Soviet approach to disarmament, and then agreed with the university administration that he, Morrison's, political speech needed to be curbed.

Another consequence of Hiroshima was that, however complicated their role as courtiers of the nuclear state, some of the scientists working on the project Manhattan became public moralists. They were motivated to do so by both personal and purely technical considerations. First of all, they felt they had unique knowledge about the bomb they had created: what the bomb could do; about what should be expected in connection with it; about how the bomb might affect political structures and military strategy. Fearing that politicians who control scientists and the public have little understanding (if any) of the transformed reality, some physicists have taken it upon themselves to morally reflect not only on what should be done in a world that has become a nuclear arsenal, but also on the very nature of moral actions in this world. Then, they remembered that it was they, and not someone else, who handed people a monstrous weapon - and if some took this memory calmly, others lamented about what they had done. Driven by remorse, they wanted to publicly explain why they did what they did, and why it was right or at least excusable.

Like many at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer initially believed that the bomb was made to save the centuries-old gains of Western civilization and culture from Nazism - later he had to come to terms with the idea that the triumph of science threatened these gains. The generation of scientists who believed (as Schweber writes about this) that “scientific knowledge brings a good beginning to the world, that it is apolitical, open to everyone and belongs to everyone, and finally, that it is the engine of progress” - this generation turned out to be among the builders of the new world that shattered the faith that fed him.

Oppenheimer's moral thinking took a more philosophical direction than anyone else's. He is concerned about the properties of the open society created by science: “Having come into the world from the bosom of a field of human activity nurtured for centuries, in which violence was represented, perhaps, less than in any other; from the bosom of the region, owing its triumph and its very existence to the possibility of open discussion and free research - the atomic bomb appeared to us as a strange paradox: firstly, because everything connected with it is shrouded in mystery, that is, closed from society , secondly, because she herself has become an unparalleled instrument of violence ... ". Then, he was concerned about the social consequences of excessive faith in the limitlessness of possibilities and the reliability of scientific knowledge: “The belief that all societies are in fact a single society, that all truths are reducible to one, and every experience is comparable and consistently linked to another, finally, that complete knowledge is achievable - perhaps this belief portends the most deplorable end ... ". Oppenheimer warned society against the cowardly acceptance of the judgments of scientists in fields of activity not related to science: “Science does not exhaust all the activities of the mind, but is only a part of it ... Research in physics and other fields of science (I hope my colleagues working in these areas, let me say it on their behalf) do not supply the world with philosopher-rulers. So far, these studies have not produced rulers at all. They almost never produced real philosophers either…”.

Few of the scientists who worked on the project have survived to this day. Manhattan. The youngest are over eighty, Beta is 94 years old. More than once they got it in connection with the moral side of what they did; they will not be surprised by new books either. Mary Palewski's approach is serious and respectful. The scientists she was able to interview hardly told many more than they had said many times before. For his first interview, Bethe prepared two handwritten sheets in which he arranged his main arguments in the order convenient for him. He was not indifferent to the court of history - and fully armed tried to contribute to its writing. Mary Palewski listened to her interlocutors with bated breath in reverence; she asked them questions with the naivety of a heroine Mira Sofia, and yet atomic fragments recreate (moreover, better than Schweber's more professional and intellectually aspiring book) the spirit and essence of a living moral question, with all its uncertainties and inconsistencies.

Palewski asks nuclear physicists why they took to making this terrible weapon and how they felt after the bomb was dropped on Japanese cities. Most of those interviewed justified their actions on principles as rooted in civilization as the moral question raised by it, or pointed to the circumstances that forced them to work on building a bomb. The apologetics of physicists did not shake the author's position, but Mary Palewski ends the book without being able to consistently substantiate her deep conviction that the bomb should not have been made.

Why did you agree to participate in the project Manhattan? - The Nazi bomb would mean the destruction of all countries with an open and tolerant society; at first it was not supposed to use a bomb: it was needed only to keep the Germans from using their own. - Why didn't you withdraw from the project when by the end of 1944 it became clear that the Nazis did not have a bomb? - On the agenda was the creation of the UN, an organization with which great hopes were attached to establishing a lasting peace, and the UN should have known that such weapons exist and that their destructive power is enormous. This is what a saint like Niels Bohr had in mind when he heard about the successful test of the bomb and asked: "Was the explosion powerful enough?" - Why do so many of you justify Hiroshima? - The demonstration explosion proposed in Frank's report in June 1945 could have failed - and entailed catastrophic consequences during the Pacific War; even if such an explosion had been successful, Emperor Hirohito might not have been informed of it; only the use of a bomb against manpower could secure an unconditional surrender; without the bomb, many more people would have died both from Japan and from the allies; moreover, some of those interviewed felt that the Soviet involvement in the Japanese war should be kept as brief as possible, while at the same time showing the communists what power America had at its disposal. - Why didn't you put more effort into expressing your concern about the possible use of the bomb? - It was none of our business. Scientists are responsible for conducting research, not how their research results are used. In a democratic society, law, common sense, and virtue itself prescribe obedience to orders expressing the will of the people. By what right would physicists lecture a democratically elected government? It is true that disobeying Roosevelt's order was easier than disobeying Hitler's order - but the meaning of this disobedience would be completely different, and the very comparison of democracy with totalitarianism is unacceptable.

Not all scientists spoke in this spirit, but the majority passionately defended some of these positions. Only one physicist left Los Alamos when it became clear that the Nazis could not create a bomb - Briton [Polish origin] Joseph Rotblat. He later wrote: “The destruction of Hiroshima seemed to me an act of irresponsibility and barbarism. I was beside myself with anger…”. Experimenter Robert Wilson expressly regrets that he did not follow Rotblat's example, and of the others, very few spoke in this spirit. Subsequently, a few people - among them Wilson, Rotblat, Morrison and Victor Weiskopf - swore to work on the creation of weapons, but most continued to receive easy money with a clear conscience, which so fundamentally changed the nature of research in physics in the post-war years.

This majority felt no need to justify themselves. Herbert Yorke, who devoted most of his post-war career to the fight for nuclear disarmament, quite plausibly described the arrogance that reigned at that time: “The first thing you know about the Second World War is how it broke out. For me, this was the last thing I learned about it ... The first thing you knew about the atomic bomb was that we killed many people in Hiroshima with its help. For me, this was the last thing I learned about the bomb ... ". The more you can dispel the fog of uncertainty surrounding the development of weapons in wartime, the more difficult it is to find grounds for blaming specific people whose motives and opinions, influence and attitude towards what was happening did not remain unchanged during the years when they were developing the bomb. . Let the world be a better place if atomic weapons had not been created and put into action. Once you accept this, you are faced with the difficulty of identifying a scientist or a group of scientists who could be found guilty with any credibility.

However, there is still something to be said in connection with the experience of working on the project. Manhattan: something as disturbing as it is understandable and even seductive. For most scientists, it was an exciting, exciting game. They themselves admitted it, and more than once. Bethe wrote that for all the scientists at Los Alamos, their time there "was the most wonderful time of their lives." The English physicist James Tuck directly calls it "golden time". All the eminent scientists of that time were gathered there; they enjoyed each other's company; they worked together on a common and urgent task, the completion of which broke down artificial barriers between related university disciplines. The problems were scientifically interesting, the funding inexhaustible. According to Teller, the Los Alamos scientists were "one big happy family." After Hiroshima, when Oppenheimer left Los Alamos and returned to Berkeley, scientists in a farewell address thanked him for the wonderful time spent under his leadership: “We received much more satisfaction from our work than our conscience should allow us ...” They were so well together that some jokingly called the fence around the facility not a means to keep the inhabitants inside, but a protective wall from the outside world, not allowing outsiders to join their happiness. And one has to say: it was precisely this happy ecstasy at work, this complete preoccupation with a generously funded "scientific feast", that just hindered reflections of a moral nature.

And besides, the best minds of the scientific world, for the most part, did not remain indifferent to the temptation to join the power. Physicist Azidor Rabai notes how his friend Oppenheimer changed after the first bomb test: “ Noon- that's what his walk brought to mind; I don't think you can be more precise. He achieved his goal!..” This was the kind of power that not only gets along with moral torment, but also feeds on it, even flaunts at its expense. Stanislav Yulam wrote that Oppenheimer "perhaps exaggerated his role when he saw in himself the prince of darkness, the destroyer of worlds ...". Johnny von Neumann said more than once: “Some people like to repent. On sinfulness you can make a reputation for yourself ... ". But the fault of the scientists who created the bomb lies not in the bomb itself. On closer examination, their fault was that they took real pleasure in their work.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

5. Edwin Mattison McMillan (1907-1991), American nuclear physicist, Nobel laureate (1951, jointly with Glen Seaborg) in chemistry for the synthesis of the first transuranic element neptunium. The creator of the synchrocyclotron (simultaneously with the Soviet scientist V.I. Veksler developed the principle of autophasing). Chairman of the US National Academy of Sciences from 1968 to 1971.

6. Hans Albrecht Bethe (Bethe, 1906), American theoretical physicist, originally from Germany, winner of the Nobel Prize (1967) for research in astrophysics. He studied in Frankfurt and Munich, in 1931 he worked with Enrico Fermi in Rome, lectured in Tübingen (until 1933), from 1934 he worked at Cornell University in Ithaca, USA, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the Los Alamos Laboratory. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was among those who recognized their responsibility for the disaster. In 1955 he was awarded the medal. Max Planck, in 1961 - a prize to them. Enrico Fermi, gold medal to them. Lomonosov (1990).

7. This was the name of the US government project to create the first atomic bomb (1942-45).

8. Edward (Edie) Teller (1908-2003), American physicist, originally from Hungary, participated in the development of the atomic bomb, led the creation of the hydrogen bomb. He studied in Karlsruhe and Munich, where he was hit by a car and lost his foot. Worked with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, taught in Göttingen (1931-33). In the USA since 1935. Together with the Soviet physicist Georgy Gamow (1904-68), who fled to the West, he developed a new classification of subatomic particles during the radioactive decay of molecules. In 1939, in response to President Franklin Roosevelt's call for scientists to help defend the United States from Nazi aggression, he set about building nuclear weapons. From 1941 he worked with Enrico Fermi in Chicago, then with Oppenheimer at the University of California and at the Los Alamos Laboratory. After the end of the war, he was among those who encouraged the US government to create a hydrogen bomb, especially after the first Soviet nuclear test in 1946. When it became known that the physicist and communist Emil Klaus Julius Fuchs (1911-88) had been passing American and British nuclear secrets to Moscow for seven years (1943-50), President Truman threw all his efforts into the development of the hydrogen bomb, and Teller, together with Stanislav Yulam, proposed (1951) the so-called Teller-Ulam configuration, which provides the theoretical basis for the explosion. During Oppenheimer's hearing in 1954, Teller spoke against him, thereby contributing to the end of his former leader's administrative career. In 1954-58 he was deputy director of the Livermore Nuclear Laboratory. Ernest Lawrence in California, the second nuclear laboratory of the Pentagon. In 1983, he convinced President Reagan of the need for a strategic defense initiative ("Star Wars").

9. Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957), US Senator; achieved extraordinary influence in the early 1950s with sensational but unproven allegations of communist subversion by many government officials. In 1952-54 - Chairman of the Senate Committee of the Congress on the activities of government agencies, since 1953 - Chairman of its standing committee of inquiry. In 1954, he was convicted in an (almost unprecedented) act of the Senate for inappropriate behavior.

10. Sofia World- a book by the Norwegian writer Josten Gorder, which became a bestseller in the mid-1990s, in form - a fairy tale, in essence - a presentation in faces of the history of European philosophy for teenagers; the completeness and clarity of this exposition made it popular among adults. The heroine, the girl Sofia, lives in a world full of miracles: she passes through dense surfaces, finds herself in parallel spaces, and communicates with talking animals. Her counselor, Arno Knox, is obsessed with teaching the girl philosophy.

11. James Franck (James Franck, 1882-1964), American physicist, Nobel laureate for 1925 (together with Gustav Hertz). Born in Germany, in 1933 he emigrated to Denmark, since 1935 in the USA. Participated in the development of the atomic bomb. He objected to its military use: he offered to demonstrate to the enemy the power of an atomic explosion in an uninhabited place.

12. Hirohito (at birth Mitinomiya Hirohito, posthumous name Showa ("enlightened world"), 1901-1989), Emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989 (the longest reign in Japanese history). Author of several books on marine life. Nominally, before the surrender of Japan, he was a sovereign monarch, in fact, more often he only approved the policy of his ministers. According to some reports, he objected to an alliance with Nazi Germany and foresaw defeat in the war against the United States. In August 1945, he addressed the people by radio (violating the custom of silence of the Japanese emperors) with a message about accepting the terms of surrender to the allies. In 1946, he abolished the dogma of holiness of the Japanese emperors. In 1975, he was on a visit to Europe, violating another (1,500-year-old) custom that ordered Japanese emperors not to leave the country.

13. Joseph Rotblat (1908), physicist, anti-nuclear activist, co-founder (1957), general secretary (1957-73) and president (since 1988) of the Pugwash Science and Policy Conference, a worldwide organization of scientists headquartered in London . The organization studies the paths of national development and international security. The first meeting of scientists took place in July 1957, at the initiative of Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Frederic Joliot-Curie and others, in the village of Pugwash in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, on the estate of the American philanthropist Cyrus Eaton. Subsequent meetings were held in many countries, including the USSR. In 1995, Rotblat and his organization were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for many years of fighting for disarmament, especially for organizing and funding meetings between American and Soviet scientists.

14. Victor Frederick Weisskopf, American physicist, whose name bears the famous formula for calculating the theoretical proton velocity (single-proton theoretical rate).

15. Azidor Isaac Rabay (1898-1988), American physicist, Nobel laureate (1944) for the method developed in 1937 for studying the atomic spectrum using nuclear magnetic resonance. Professor at Columbia University (1937-1940) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1940-45). Member of the General Advisory Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission (1946-56), chairman of that committee (Oppenheimer's successor) from 1952 to 1956.

16. Seemingly an allusion to a Hollywood movie Noon Stanley Kramer (1952) with actor Gary Cooper.

17. Stanislav Marsin Yulam (Ulam, 1909-1984), an American mathematician, originally from Lvov (at that time Polish), who proved the fundamental possibility of creating a hydrogen bomb (Teller-Ulam configuration). Graduate of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. At the invitation of von Neumann, he worked at the Princeton Institute for Basic Research (1936), lectured at Harvard University (1939-40) and at the University of Wisconsin (1941-43). At Los Alamos from 1943 to 1965.

18. John (Johann, Janos) von Neumann (Neumann, 1903-57), American mathematician and physicist, originally from Hungary. In the USA since 1930. He was engaged in functional analysis, logic, meteorology, game theory, quantum mechanics. He paved the way for the creation of the first computers. His game-theoretic models have had a significant impact on economics. Since 1931 - professor at Princeton University, from 1933 until the end of his life - at the Princeton Institute for Basic Research.

Translation by Yuri Kolker, 2001,
Boremwood, Hertfordshire;
posted online January 22, 2010

magazine INTELLECTUAL FORUM(San Francisco / Moscow) No. 6, 2001 (with distortions).

Let us consider the main stages of work on the creation of the first atomic bombs in the United States based on materials published in the open press by the military curator of the Manhattan Project, American Brigadier General Leslie Groves.
This is the same Groves who, in 1942, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and appointed head of the American atomic project. It was this legendary general for the United States who came up with the code name Manhattan for the project and chose places for the construction of nuclear facilities, and subsequently organized their well-coordinated work and supply (Fig. 6.10).

About Richland
^^Hanford Engineer Works)
Rochester About
(Health Project)

DC.®
Washington,
Oak Ridge Q
(Manhattan District Headquarters. (Los Alamos Laboratory-Project Y) Clinton Engineering Works)
About Berkeley
(Radiation Laboratory)
(VanSmCor"pjO ChiTJadiumCorp.)
About Inyokern
(Projectcamei) Q j_os Alamos
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About Wendover
(Project Alberta)
(ProjecfAmes ChicagoSE
(Metallurgical Laboratory)

Qsylacauga
(Alabama Ornance Works)

About Alamogordo
(Project Trinity)

Rice. 6.10. US nuclear facilities
General Groves was engaged in the selection and placement of the leaders of individual areas of the project. In particular, Groves' perseverance made it possible to enlist Robert Oppenheimer for the scientific direction of the entire project.
Before joining the atomic project, Groves was not involved in physics, in addition to administrative activities in the US military, he was a construction specialist. Under his skillful leadership, the building of the Pentagon was built, which drew attention to himself. 6.11. Leslie Groves is a mania for authorities, both military and civilian.
The experience of building the Pentagon showed that Groves is an excellent organizer, can get along with people and, most importantly, is able to solve tasks in a short time with high efficiency.
On his appointment as project leader, Groves insisted on being promoted to the rank of brigadier general, stating, "I have often observed that symbols of power and rank work more strongly on scientists than on the military."
Already after the successful completion of the project, many American media accused the general of a lack of humanity and loyalty to his subordinates, which caused numerous conflicts with the scientific fraternity, which, having world fame behind it, was not always inclined to obey the military discipline established by the project manager.
After the end of the war, Groves once told reporters that he had managed to create an amazing machine with the help of “the greatest collection of broken pots,” referring to atomic scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners.
As is known, on December 6, 1941, the US government decided to allocate large appropriations for the development and manufacture of atomic weapons. All types of work were entrusted to supervise the military department, because the work, for well-known reasons, was supposed to be carried out in the strictest secrecy.
It wasn't until 20 years after the completion of the Manhattan Project that some details began to leak out about him. Soviet intelligence does not count, this is a special topic, which will be touched upon several times later.
Our modern journalists quite often blame the then leadership of the USSR (Stalin, Beria, Kurchatov) for their unjustified, in their opinion, rigidity in organizing work to create atomic weapons.
From the heights of the current pseudo-democracy, indeed, some administrative decisions may seem overly organized with a sort of camp flavor. However, the experience of carrying out similar work in the United States also bears little resemblance to the views of Palestine in a magic lantern.
Leslie Groves, in particular, makes no secret of his pride in building an unprecedented wall of secrecy. In his opinion, one of the main motives for such efforts, which irritated scientists, was the need: "To keep the discoveries and details of projects and factories secret from the Russians."
Under the leadership of the general, scientists worked in conditions of carefully dosed information. Within the same laboratory, communication between separate groups of employees required permission from the military administration.
There were also comic precedents. One Henry D. Smith ran two departments at the same time. So, formally, in order to communicate with himself on scientific and industrial issues, he had to receive Groves' special permission.
Naturally, within the Manhattan Project, a powerful own security service was deployed, which, in addition to monitoring the regime, was charged with questionnaires, interrogations, eavesdropping, monitoring the official and personal correspondence of all personnel, from dishwashers to leading specialists.
At especially secret objects, personal correspondence and telephone conversations were generally prohibited. Groves himself, in order to maintain secrecy, even avoided written reports to his superiors on the status of work. He preferred oral communications, as they say face to face.
Groves' own counterintelligence operated bypassing the FBI and the US State Department until the start of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, when the President officially announced the bomb to the Allies.
In a rhetorical question: "To bomb or not to bomb?" for Groves, naturally, as a true military man, there could be no doubt. Of course, to bomb, given everything spent on the creation of atomic bombs and the opportunity to declare strategic priority over the USSR, which by the time the war ended had the largest, most experienced and capable army in the world.
And this was frightening and forced to insist on testing bombs in the real conditions of modern warfare. And then there are the “broken pots”, many of which got involved in the Manhattan Project because of the fear that Hitler would have atomic weapons earlier and the world would be defenseless against the German nuclear threat.
When it turned out that even if the Germans had a bomb in the "here, here," stage, they would not have time to use it, some scientists categorically objected to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Even Albert Einstein on this occasion, however, after he made publicity: “If I knew that the Germans would not be able to create an atomic bomb, I would not lift a finger.”
After the tests of the atomic charge in Alamogordo, many of its creators openly opposed the bombing of Japan. The University of Chicago even created a special commission chaired by the Nobel laureate Professor Frank, which included Leo Szilard.
The commission sent a letter to President Truman on behalf of 67 leading scientists, participants in the project, justifying the inexpediency of the atomic bombing. The letter, in particular, drew the attention of the country's top leadership to the fact that the United States would not be able to maintain a monopoly in the production of atomic weapons for a long time. The two billion spent on the Manhattan Project and the justification of the military outweighed the arguments of scientists in the eyes of the president.
Groves said on this occasion: “Watching how the project was devouring gigantic funds, the government was more and more inclined towards the idea of ​​using the atomic bomb. Truman didn't do much by saying yes, because at the time one would have had more courage to say no.
As usual, the decision to bomb Japan was packaged in an attractive wrapper for the layman. There were assurances of extreme military necessity and the protection of American interests in the Far East. In his essentially exculpatory address to the nation, Truman assured everyone that the atomic bombings would save the lives of many thousands of American soldiers. Pipel and this time shaval.
But in fact, Japan had already been defeated, in the north were Soviet troops who had already liberated Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
By and large, the explosions were intended to intimidate the USSR. It was necessary to bang on the basis not of military interests, but of purely political ones, which actually determined the choice of targets.
Cities with a large population, flat terrain and a large area were needed. Groves initially proposed the cities of Kyoto, Niagata, Hiroshima, and Kokura on behalf of the project.
Politicians felt that the bombing of the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto, was not entirely humane. Kyoto was replaced by Nagasaki. When the targets were clarified, it turned out that there were prisoner-of-war camps near them, among which were mostly Americans, but Groves ordered that this should not be taken into account. The forest is cut down, the chips fly. Before the first bomb was sent on its last journey at the airfield, devout Americans held a divine service, blessing the pilots for the "holy" work, and thereby emphasizing that the Almighty approves of this action.
During the deployment of the Manhattan Project, the main tasks were to obtain the necessary quantities to create a bomb of radioactive materials, uranium and plutonium.

Rice. 6.12. Arthur Compton with Richard Downe
Scientists estimate that plutonium production in sufficient quantities could be carried out in a nuclear reactor for launch, which required 45 tons of uranium metal or uranium dioxide.
The first industrial installation was created on the basis of the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, led by Arthur Copton.
Groves met with Compton, Fermi,

Rice. 6.13. A. Einstein and L. Szilard
Frank, Wigner and Szilard on October 5, 1942. It should be recalled that it was Leo Szilard who persuaded Einstein to sign a letter to the American president about the need to develop work on the uranium project.
During this meeting, scientists were engaged in educational program, they popularly explained to Groves the proposed plutonium production technology and the properties of the bomb built on its basis.
Groves, first of all, was interested in the amount of materials in order to determine for himself and other military the scale of the upcoming work.
After this meeting, the general complained that the situation was unusual for him. For the first time in his biography, it was necessary to plan a work of grand scale not on the basis of specific inputs, as is customary among the military around the world, but on untested hypotheses of "leaky pots".
Groves was especially perplexed by the fact that the scientists themselves estimated the probability of the correctness of their hypotheses to be no more than 30%. When it came to plutonium, it turned out that it could take from 40 to 400 kg. This infuriated Groves, he could not imagine how reasonable production planning could be carried out under such conditions.
In his memoirs, Groves likened himself to a chef who was asked to serve 10 to 1,000 guests.
Questions arose at every turn. One of them was the task of cooling the reactor. How to cool it down? There were options for helium, air and water. At first, scientists settled on helium, but then it turned out that this coolant was inconvenient for a number of reasons, and they had to return to the idea of ​​using water.
Groves, after visiting the laboratory, determined for himself that the plutonium bomb is more real than the uranium bomb, because. the last option involved uranium isotope separation, a technology that was even more obscure than plutonium.
Obtaining plutonium. Microscopic amounts of plutonium were obtained in laboratory conditions. Even in December 1943, the Program had only two milligrams of material, while the separation of uranium isotopes was completely unclear.
To perform a huge amount of design, design and technological work, the DuPont company was involved, the engineering and design staff of which was distinguished by a high level of professionalism. The specialists of this company made a name for themselves on the implementation of large construction orders, in addition, before the deployment of the Manhattan Project, Groves had a chance to work with the company in the framework of army construction, which was not unimportant, given the upcoming scale of production.
Not all participants in the project shared Groves's views on the involvement of large industrial companies in the work. Scientists, especially those who came from Europe, tended to overestimate their capabilities in areas of creativity adjacent to scientific activity.
Some of them believed that it was enough to bring together 10 - 100 talented engineers, naturally, under their wise guidance, scientists, and things would go well. The fact is that none of these "tadpoles" even imagined the true scale of the upcoming work.
Later it turned out that more than 45,000 specialists were involved in the preparation of plutonium production. Even such an industrial giant as DuPont, despite unprecedented government subsidies, worked to the limit of its strength and capabilities.
Of course, it was difficult for Groves with scientists, especially with the Chicago team, which brought together researchers of the highest world standard, who, in principle, even hypothetically did not assume control over their activities.
In negotiations with DuPont specialists on behalf of the government, Groves emphasized that there is no protection against nuclear weapons, except for fear of retaliation, therefore, in order for retaliation not to come, the work must be carried out in deep secrecy, despite the participation of a large number of personnel in them. .
Work on plutonium should have started yesterday, despite the fact that it is not completely clear how to protect people involved in this production from radiation. In addition, the deployment of production must begin without traditional preliminary laboratory tests and trial operation of individual cycles.
The possibility of a chain reaction getting out of control was also not ruled out, i.e. the transition of the fission process of uranium nuclei to the explosion mode, because the design of the reactor was, to put it mildly, not worked out in this respect.
By the time industrial construction began, only fundamental theoretical issues had been resolved. DuPont specialists, after three days of communication with Groves and scientists from Chicago, summarized their opinion: “There can be no complete confidence in the feasibility of the process for the following reasons:

• A self-sustaining nuclear reaction has not been implemented in practice;
• Nothing definite is known about the thermal equilibrium of such a reaction;
• None of the nuclear reactor designs considered up to that time looks feasible;
• The possibility of extracting plutonium from a highly radioactive substance is also not proven;
• Even under the best assumptions about each stage of the process, the plant's output in 1943 will be a few grams of plutonium, and in 1944 - a little more. Assuming that the operating plant can be built on time, plutonium production will reach the planned value no earlier than 1945. However, this value may also turn out to be unattainable;
• The practical usefulness of the cycle developed at the Chicago Lab cannot be determined without comparing it with the uranium cycle that the Columbia University laboratories at Berkeley are working on, so studies and comparisons of these methods need to be made.”

Despite six damning arguments from experts, the board of directors of the company decided on the participation of the DuPont company in the Manhattan project.
In the meantime, 25 km from Chicago in the Argonne Forest, construction began on utility rooms and auxiliary laboratories for a nuclear reactor. Due to the lack of skilled labor, work was slow, so at the suggestion of Compton, it was decided to build a small experimental reactor under the stands of the university stadium in Chicago, to test the technology and test the idea itself.
The decision to use the stadium was largely adventurous. It was only through bewilderment that an experimental nuclear reactor could be located in the center of a multi-million city, under the stands of an existing stadium. Scientists, being great optimists in life, convinced the military and civilian leadership that the reactor was no more dangerous than a pot of boiling soup, turned off the gas, and the boiling stopped.

Rice. 6.14. Enrico Fermi in Chicago
However, lucky and December 2, 1942, the reactor was launched in an accident-free mode. The famous cipher went to the authorities: “The Italian navigator landed in the New World. The natives are friendly."
This meant that Fermi succeeded, and the reactor started working. A controlled chain reaction was carried out for the first time in the world, but this did not mean at all that it was possible to industrially obtain plutonium in quantities sufficient for the ultimate goal - an atomic bomb.
Fermi's groundbreaking achievement, however, did not guarantee that the atomic bomb would explode at all. In the reactor, the neutrons were slowed down by graphite, then they were easily captured by the nuclei of the radioactive substance.
For natural reasons, it was not possible to place a moderator in the bomb, i.e., the neutrons formed during the very first fission events would be fast and could fly through the nuclei of the active substance without stopping, and this excluded the possibility of an explosive process.
Compton and his scientific company, however, insisted that the probability of a plutonium bomb exploding was about 90%. They believed them and added agility in the construction of plutonium facilities. Scientists assured that if the government supported them, then the bomb could be made already in 1944, and at the beginning of 1945 it would be possible to make one bomb per month.
These prophecies were not destined to come true in full. On the laboratory table and in the workbooks of scientists, everything seemed simple and achievable, but in practice, at the engineering and construction level, difficulties arose that required time and effort to overcome, not to mention funds.
Given the state and pace of construction, and despite the undesirability of expanding the circle of knowledgeable persons, two more industrial giants, General Electric and Westinghouse, were attracted to the project.
Los Alamos. Until a certain level of development of the Manhattan Project, little attention was paid to the design of the bomb itself, because there was no
235 239
confidence in the possibility of obtaining large quantities of U and Pu.
The real design of the bomb, of those who had to build it, has not yet been presented. Under the patronage of Compton, Robert Oppenheimer, who had previously been a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, was appointed supervisor of research.
Oppenheimer started traditionally. He gathered around him a small team of theorists and set a task. At the first preliminary examination, it turned out that scientists know not much more about the design of the bomb than American housewives.
The optimistic idea that 20 scientists could create a bomb within three months disappeared at the very first questions from engineering and technical personnel and the military. It became obvious that work on the design of the bomb had to be started without waiting for the accumulation of the required amount of explosive radioactive material.
Robert Oppenheimer and Arthur Compton understood this. Oppenheimer, as you know, at that time was not a Nobel Prize winner, which made him less authoritative in the eyes of eminent colleagues, so the election of his candidacy for the position of supervisor was not without hesitation, both on the part of scientists and the military.
But, nevertheless, the appointment took place, and Oppenheimer set about organizing the laboratory. There was a placement problem. The fact is that the very specific properties of the product being developed also made specific requirements for its location.
The development site, on the one hand, should not be densely populated, but be able to quickly deploy communications, on the other hand, it should be an area with a mild climate that allows year-round construction and many outdoor works and have large water reserves. On top of that, it was necessary to ensure the accommodation of a large number of employees in a mode isolated from the outside world.
We stopped at the outskirts of the town of Albuquera, which was surrounded by rocks on three sides, which made it easier to ensure isolation. However, several hundred farms operated in the region, owning land. The population needed to be resettled, and this is not at all an easy, costly and fast business.
The next possible area was the town of Los Alamos (New Mexico). This area was good for everything, except for the lack of fresh water. The area could only be reached by a few mountain roads, which could be reliably controlled by a small force of military police. The area was so wild that the only school there was even closed.
It was impossible to find teachers who would agree to work in such a wilderness. It was the school that became the first building in which all work began.

Rice. 6.15. Oppenheimer at Los Alamos
Work on the design of the bomb received the code "Project Y".
The project was based on scientists who worked at Berkeley under the direction of Oppenheimer.
When recruiting scientists from university centers to the project, there was also a purely financial problem. At the university, the teaching brethren worked for 9 months for a good salary in fairly comfortable conditions, and in Los Alamos the conditions were little different from Spartan ones, plus complete isolation and salaries not much higher than at universities.
There was no opportunity to significantly increase the salaries of scientists, because the bomb was made not only by people of science, but also by numerous technical engineers and maintenance personnel. The salary of even the most venerable scientists should not have differed from others at times, this would have introduced social tension, which is unacceptable at objects of this type.
In particular, Oppenheimer, who headed the project, for some time received less salary than at the university. Groves was personally forced to intervene and, on an exceptional basis, increase Oppenheimer's salary to the university level.
Initially, it was assumed that the staff of the laboratory would be only 100 people, served by a small team of engineers, technicians and workers. As the work unfolds, it turned out that these numbers will increase many times over. The first employees of the "Project Y" found themselves in rather harsh living conditions, which was completely unusual for Americans, especially scientists. The employees were stationed on farms near Los Alamos. The housing was not landscaped, and the roads were not paved, the public catering system was not debugged, food was given out, oh horror, dry rations, there was no telephone connection in the usual mode.

Ordinary blast
Uranium-235
Rice. 6.16. One of the variants of the barrel-type atomic bomb
The construction of facilities at Los Alamos was complicated by a lack of qualified builders and not fully understood features of the design of atomic weapons. One of the main unresolved theoretical issues was the question of the time of an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction.
T
and
There was no certainty that the nuclear fission process that had begun would smash the entire mass of the explosive to shreds and the reaction would die out in the initial stage.
The simplest was the so-called barrel method, when one subcritical mass of fissile material (Fig. 6.16) was directed like a projectile towards another subcritical mass, which played the role of a target, the resulting mass was already supercritical, theoretically it followed that an explosion should have followed.
This scheme was the basis for the "Baby" design, which, when ready, was thrown at Hiroshima.
The second considered by scientists was an implosion (explosive) scheme. Inside the body of the bomb, a converging explosion was organized, volumetrically compressing the fissile substance.
On fig. 6.17. red rectangles show a system of conventional explosive charges that create a spherical shock wave from all sides

compressing the spherical layer of the active substance (blue) around another part of the substance.
As a result of the compaction of atomic explosives, a supercritical mass of radioactive material should have been formed. Such a scheme was implemented in the Fat Man project, which successfully landed on the Nagasaki.
In laboratory studies, it turned out that a simple barrel scheme is not acceptable for a plutonium charge, because there was a high probability of the reaction starting in the initial state of supercritical masses. At the beginning of work on the bomb, there was a lot of fundamentally unclear whether it would be a uranium or plutonium bomb, or maybe the charge would be combined. It was in this direction that the main work went. In the end, work began to be carried out in two directions, the Mk-I "Little Boy" and Mk-III "Fat Man" products went into production.

Rice. 6.18. "Gadget" on the tower
If with the Mk-1 product, using uranium as an explosive, everything was more or less clear, but not everything was clear with the plutonium charge. In this regard, a special device "Gadget" was developed, which was supposed to simulate a directed explosion using a conventional TNT explosive weighing about 100 tons (Fig. 6.18).
The explosion was carried out on May 7, 1945. In addition to the recording equipment, containers with fission products obtained in reactors were placed among the explosives, which made it possible to establish an approximate picture of the distribution of radioactive residues after the explosion and calibrate the shock wave registration sensors. Before that, no one had blown up such an amount of explosive at a time.
In June, the plutonium explosive device was assembled (Fig. 6.19) and delivered to the test site, to a 30-meter steel tower, which was placed in an open area. Underground observation posts were equipped at a distance of 9 km, and the main command post was located 16 km from the tower, and the base camp was located 30 km away.

The explosion was scheduled for July 16, it was supposed to happen at 4 o'clock in the morning, but due to heavy rain and wind, the time of the explosion had to be postponed. Oppenheimer and Groves, the leaders of the work, after consulting with meteorologists, decided to detonate at 0530 hours. For 45 s. before the explosion, automation was turned on and the entire most complex mechanism of the bomb prototype began to work offline, without the participation of operators, although an employee was on duty at the main switch, ready to stop the tests on command.
The explosion took place. Physicist Hans Bethe described his experience as follows: “It was like a gigantic flash of magnesia, which seemed to last a whole minute, but in reality took one or two seconds. The white ball grew and in a few seconds began to be covered with dust raised by the explosion from the ground. It rose, leaving behind a black trail of dust particles.

Rice. 6.20. After the explosion. Oppenheimer and Groves at the remains of the tower
In the first seconds after the explosion, everyone, including Oppenheimer, was overwhelmed by the amount of energy released. Recovering his senses, Oppenheimer quoted an ancient Indian epic: "I become death, the shaker of worlds."
Enrico Fermi, without reporting to the leaders, decided to independently assess the force of the explosion. He poured finely cut pieces of paper on a horizontal palm, which he put out of hiding during the passage of the blast wave. The papers were blown away. By measuring the range of their horizontal flight from calculated their approximate initial speed, and then estimated the power of the explosion.
The Fermi estimates are consistent with the data obtained after telemetry processing. After the explosion, Fermi experienced a nervous shock to such an extent that he could not drive a car on his own.
All forecasts for the power of the explosion did not come true, and in a big way. Robert Oppenheimer, as a result of his own calculations, received the figure of 300 tons in terms of TNT equivalent. The military, in an official press release, gave information about the explosion of a conventional ammunition depot.
The explosion crater had a diameter of about 80 m and only two meters deep, because the explosion occurred at a height of 30 m. Within a radius of 250 m, the entire area was covered with greenish glass formed from molten SiO2 sand.
As measurements showed, the radioactive cloud of the explosion rose to a height of about 11 km and was blown away by the wind to a distance of 160 km, the width of the contamination zone was about 50 km. The maximum value of radioactivity was recorded at a distance of 40 km from the epicenter and amounted to 50 roentgens.

Rice. 6.21. Products Mk-I "Little Wow" and Mk-III "FatMan"
The first atomic bombs. After successful testing of the experimental plutonium charge, the preparation of bombs for the “real work” began (Fig. 6.21), the “Kid” bomb had a diameter of 0.7 m, a length of 3 m, a mass of 4 tons and a uranium charge of 16 kg. The Fat Man bomb had a diameter of 1.5 m, a length of 3.2 m, a mass of 4.63 tons, and a mass of plutonium of 21 kg.
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima from a US Air Force B-29 bomber. Immediately after the successful intimidation operation, United States President Harry Truman issued a statement: “Sixteen hours ago, an American aircraft dropped a single bomb on Hiroshima, an important base of the Japanese army. This bomb was more powerful than 20,000 tons of TNT. Its charge is more than two thousand times greater than that of the British Grand Slam^, the largest bomb ever used in the history of wars.
The explosion of the first atomic bomb wiped out 10.25 km2 of the city of Hiroshima within microseconds, while 66 thousand people died immediately in the atomic tornado, 135 thousand people were injured.
The second bomb dropped on August 9, 1945 on Nagasaki immediately claimed the lives of 39 thousand people, and 64 thousand people suffered from the explosion. Both bombs were dropped from B-29 strategic bombers.
As expert scientists established after the bombings, atomic bomb explosions differ from similar processes in traditional chemical explosions. An ordinary explosion is the transformation of one type of internal energy of a substance into another while maintaining the initial mass of the reacting substance. In an atomic explosion, the transformation of the mass of the active substance into the energy of the explosive wave and radiation is observed. When evaluating the energy efficiency of an atomic explosion, it should be borne in mind that the speed of light is c « 3-10 m/s, which should be squared when calculating the energy, i.e. c2 « 9-1016 m°/s°, hence the colossal energy output, which is not comparable in order of magnitude with conventional explosives.

75 years ago, German scientists O. Gan and F. Strassmann made a sensational discovery - they split the nucleus of uranium-235 using a neutron.

The famous Ernest Rutherford, called the "father" of nuclear physics, did not believe in the possibility of obtaining atomic energy, calling talk about it "nonsense."

However, the discoveries of German scientists in Göttingen after some twenty years refuted the opinion of the scientist.

About the beginning of a new era in nuclear physics, the prehistory of the creation of "Baby" and "Fat Man" in the article by Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, USSR State Prize Laureate Yuri Grigoriev.

O. Gan and F. Strassman made a sensational discovery - they split the nucleus of uranium-235 using a neutron

In June 1919, the scientific director of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (Great Britain), Professor Ernest Rutherford, published the materials of his research, which proved that nitrogen atoms split when bombarded with alpha particles, and nitrogen turns into oxygen, i.e. one substance is transformed into another.

Scientific Director of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (UK) Professor Ernest Rutherford

This discovery, confirmed by the research of other scientists, undermined the foundation of classical physics of that time and opened up unknown ways to use the energy of the atom.

However, Rutherford himself until the end of his days categorically denied the possibility of obtaining nuclear energy, did not accept the idea of ​​a chain reaction, did not foresee the possibility of uranium fission.

In the autumn of 1933, at the annual meeting of the British Association, Rutherford gave a speech in which he noticed that people talking about getting atomic energy on a large scale were talking nonsense.

German brains in the service of atomic energy

Goettingen University is one of the oldest in Europe,

In Germany, the center of research, the school of physicists, was the small quiet university town of Göttingen, where scientists of different nationalities worked, physicists from many countries. He taught here in the 19th century.

Carl Friedrich Gauss,

he was succeeded by Felix Klein.

Lectures here:

Physicists from many countries have been here.

But after the economic crisis of 1930, when the Nazis began to gain strength in Germany, the situation in Göttingen changed significantly.

A group of German physicists led by Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Stark began to call themselves "national researchers" who rejected "Jewish physics" and extolled a certain "German physics".

Nobel Laureates

A. Einstein, who lived in Germany, went every winter to his villa in Passadena (California, USA). He went there in 1933, but never returned to Germany.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, the persecution of "non-Aryan" professors began in Göttingen, 7 of them were immediately fired, many emigrated.

A. Einstein, then living in Germany, used to go every winter to his villa in Passadena (California, USA).

He went there in 1933, but never returned to Germany, for which he was declared an enemy of the nation and expelled from the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

When the nucleus of uranium-235 splits, a huge amount of energy is released (chain reaction)

In 1938, German scientists O. Gan and F. Strassmann made a sensational discovery - they split the nucleus of uranium-235 using a neutron. On January 5, 1939, O. Frisch (Denmark), and on January 24 of the same year, J. Dunning (USA) experimentally established that a huge amount of energy is released during the fission of a uranium-235 nucleus.

On April 24, 1939, Professor Paul Harteck of the University of Hamburg informed the German War Office that nuclear explosives could be developed. He wrote: "The country that has learned to use their energy first will have such superiority over others that it will not be possible to close this gap." This was the beginning of a new era in nuclear physics.

The "Uranium Society" was founded in Germany. Outstanding physicists took an active part in its work:

On September 26, 1939, the "Uranium Society" was founded in Germany. Outstanding physicists took an active part in its work: W. Heisenberg, G. Geiger, W. Bothe, K. Weizsacker and others. In the Armaments Department, with the participation of physicists, a detailed program was developed - the uranium project (Project U).

22 research institutes were involved in the work. The Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute was designated as the scientific center, headed by Nobel laureate Professor Werner Heisenberg. He was considered the most famous German physicist left in Germany and one of the best theoreticians.

But back in July 1937, an article was published in the official SS organ, the Black Corps newspaper, under the heading "White Jews in Science." Its author, the staunch Nazi Johannes Stark, argued that scientists such as Werner Heisenberg and Max Planck were the patrons and sing-alongs of the Jews, that German science did not need their services, and that it would be best to treat them like Jews.

Heisenberg had to go through an inquest by the Gestapo that lasted almost a year. During this inquiry, the scientist proved his loyalty to the regime. And although in the end Himmler came to the conclusion that he was in front of a real German patriot, this hardly added enthusiasm to Heisenberg in developing an atomic bomb for Hitler.

The process of converting uranium-238 in a nuclear reactor into a new element, which is called "plutonium"

In July 1940, the 29-year-old German physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker theoretically established that uranium-238 should turn into a new element in a nuclear reactor, similar in its properties to uranium-235. It was named "plutonium".

In 1941, Weizsäcker applied for a patent, in which he first described in detail the principle of the plutonium bomb.

Americans did not appreciate the scientific discovery

In the prewar years, the United States did not have any scientific and technical groundwork for the atomic bomb. At the same time, many European physicists settled in the United States, who fled Germany and other European countries to escape the Nazis.

They were not yet US citizens, but it was they who perfectly understood that if Hitler got an atomic bomb, he would certainly use it.

Enrico Fermi - one of the greatest experimenters, the discoverer of transuranium elements, the father of the US nuclear program

Attempts by immigrant physicists to interest the American military in the superbomb were unsuccessful.

On March 17, 1939, physicist Enrico Fermi tried for a long time to convince Admiral Hooper, head of the US Navy Technical Directorate, of the need to conduct nuclear research in the interests of ensuring US security, but everything was in vain.

To the admiral, the very idea of ​​using the energy of an invisible atom for military purposes seemed simply absurd.

Desperate physicists-immigrants:

turned to Albert Einstein for help. They asked him to get an audience with Roosevelt and convince him of the need to expand work on atomic energy, but Einstein refused, because he himself did not believe in the possibility of releasing atomic energy, which he openly spoke to the American reporter W. L. Lawrence.

Nevertheless, on August 2, 1939, Teller and Szilard persuaded Einstein to at least sign the letter they had prepared to Roosevelt, since their names were not known to the president. This letter pointed out the possibility of creating an atomic bomb, explained the danger of it in the hands of Hitler, and offered to provide financial support for experimental work.

Teller and Szilard persuaded A. Einstein to sign a letter prepared by them to Roosevelt, since their names were unknown to the President

A representative of the Lehman Brothers financial group, a personal friend and unofficial adviser to the president, a native of Russia, Alexander Sachs, undertook to convey this letter to the president. On October 11, 1939, Roosevelt received Sachs.

At first, he listened to him extremely inattentively and distractedly, and sometimes incredulously, but when Sachs reported on the possible work of Hitler's physicists, reinforcing his story by handing over Einstein's letter, Roosevelt understood everything.

US President Franklin Roosevelt

After Sachs left, he called his military assistant, General E. Watson, and said to him, pointing to the papers brought by Sachs: "This calls for action!"

On November 1, 1939, the Uranium Advisory Council was established in the United States, but the American bureaucratic machine unwinded very slowly - the first appropriations for the uranium project were allocated only in February 1940, but this was not enough for practical work.

Szilard begged Einstein to sign another letter to the president. It was sent on March 7, 1940, but after that nothing significant happened.

The chain reaction was not carried out, a noticeable amount of uranium 235 could not be isolated from uranium 238, the production of large quantities of metallic uranium, heavy water, beryllium and pure graphite was still largely under discussion.

War was already raging in Europe, German troops were near Moscow and Leningrad, and the United States lived a peaceful life, and the war was far from them.

President Roosevelt made the decision to start the Atomic Project on Saturday, December 6, 1941, at a time when Japanese aircraft carriers were already approaching the line of attack on Pearl Harbor.

With a stroke of the pen, Roosevelt allocated $2 billion for the project. And already on the evening of December 6, he was delivered an intercepted and deciphered note that had come from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in the United States, which the Japanese intended to hand over to the US authorities the next day. After reading it, Roosevelt said: "This is war!"

The war for the United States began on Sunday, December 7, 1941, with the defeat of the American fleet based at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

"Manhattan Project"

At the beginning of the war, the US leadership did not believe that the Soviet Union would withstand Hitler's onslaught, and they were very afraid that after the defeat of the USSR, no one would be able to prevent Hitler from using the atomic bomb being developed in Germany against the United States.

Therefore, the need to develop their own atomic bomb for many senior officials became obvious. On June 7, 1942, the head of the National Defense Research Committee, W. Bush, reported to Roosevelt that a nuclear bomb could be carried out in practice.

On August 13, 1942, the atomic bomb plan was named the Manhattan Project. General Leslie Groves was appointed the administrative head of the project. Los Alamos, a desert area in the state of New Mexico, was chosen as the center of work.

Los Alamos Laboratory

The first American reactor. In December 1942, the reactor for the first time started operating in the mode of a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

Italian physicist - emigrant Bruno Pontecorvo (since 1950 a citizen of the USSR, later - Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences)

On December 2, 1942, under the stands of a sports stadium in Chicago, the world's first nuclear reactor, built under the guidance of emigrants E. Fermi and L. Szilard, started working.

This was reported to Moscow by a participant in these works, an agent of foreign intelligence of the NKVD, an Italian physicist - an emigrant Bruno Pontecorvo (since 1950 a citizen of the USSR, later - an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences).

At Los Alamos, a bomb design was developed, the critical mass of the warhead was calculated, and methods were tested to detonate an atomic charge.

In July 1943, Robert Oppenheimer was appointed Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. He managed to create a team that included a large group of prominent scientists: E. Lawrence, G. Urey, A. Compton, E. Fermi, Y. Wigner, E. Teller and many others.

At Los Alamos, the design of the bomb was developed, the critical mass of the warhead was calculated, and methods for detonating an atomic charge were tested. In Oak Ridge, Tennessee, uranium ore was used to produce uranium-235 and then make a bomb. At Hanford, Columbia, uranium-238 was irradiated in a nuclear reactor into plutonium, which could also be used to make an atomic bomb.

The case was moving forward, but there was not enough uranium, and this slowed down all the work. Uranium ore was mined in the Belgian Congo by the Belgian firm Union Minier, which was managed by Edgar Sengier. After the capture of Belgium by the Germans in 1940, Sengier emigrated to the United States, from where he ran the company. He ordered all the uranium ore in warehouses in the Congo to be transported to the United States.

At the end of 1940, 1250 tons of uranium ore were transported to New York and stored in a warehouse on Staten Island. And then Edgar Sengier began long walks around various offices of the US State Department, where he offered uranium ore, told what a valuable ore it was, that uranium, radium, etc. could be obtained from it, but everything was useless - the officials did not react.

The "Manhattan Project" was so classified that the US State Department, until the Yalta Conference in February 1945, had no idea that the US was developing an atomic bomb.

And at that time, General Groves was looking for ways and means of obtaining uranium ore. Colonel Nichols, who assisted him in this, accidentally learned that the manager of the Union Minier firm was in New York, and met with him. It should be noted that Sengier, who for nearly two years had been hounding the doorsteps of the State Department to no avail, did not greet the colonel very kindly.

After examining his ID, he asked: "Colonel, tell me, did you come here for business or just to talk?" But when Colonel Nichols realized that 1250 tons of uranium ore were lying in containers very close by, everything fell into place. Right there, on a piece of yellow paper that turned up, the first agreement was written by hand, everything else was later. The uranium issue was closed, and nothing interfered with the development of the atomic bomb.

In the United States, a special unit "Alsos" was created, which was to land in Europe with the first divisions of American troops and capture everything related to the German atomic bomb and other new weapons. Colonel Boris Pash, a descendant of Russian emigrants, was appointed commander of this unit.

At the end of August 1944, the Alsos unit, together with the forward detachments of the allied forces, entered Paris, then there were Strasbourg and Germany. They captured the leaders of the German uranium project, including Heisenberg himself, as well as documents and equipment. The very first conversations-interrogations and materials of eavesdropping on the conversations of the captured Germans showed that the Germans were lagging behind in the creation of nuclear weapons, which Boris Pash constantly reported to the United States.

From these reports it became clear that the Germans had no real atomic bomb, and no. And then a natural question arose. If so, then why is the US building an atomic bomb? Many physicists believed that it was no longer needed. On August 26, 1944, Niels Bohr was received by Roosevelt and told him for a long time about the changed situation and the opinion of many physicists.

The same Szilard, who several years ago persistently argued to Roosevelt the necessity of creating an atomic bomb, now turned to him with a proposal to stop this work. But he did not wait for an answer - on April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died.

The American president ignored the opinion of nuclear scientists

Szilard drew up a memorandum for the new President G. Truman, in which he argued the need to stop work on the atomic bomb and asked him to accept it. Truman, citing lack of time, entrusted this to James Byrnes, who was going to be appointed US Secretary of State. Byrnes listened to Szilard politely and outwardly attentively, but it was clear that he did not share his opinion.

After testing the first atomic bomb in Alomogordo on July 16, 1945, many American scientists turned to President Truman with a request to prevent the use of the atomic bomb, since Germany had already surrendered, and Japan was on the verge of surrender. All these and many other proposals of scientists were ignored.

A so-called "Provisional Committee" was created, consisting of politicians and the military. The committee considered the question not of whether the atomic bomb should be used, but of how best to use it. A group of scientists led by James Frank developed and sent to the Committee a document called the "Frank Report", which, in particular, stated: "The US military advantage gained by the surprise use of the atomic bomb against Japan will be nullified by the ensuing loss of confidence and the wave of horror and disgust that will sweep the world and likely split public opinion at home."

However, the opinion of scientists was not taken into account by American politicians. Instead, the report proposed demonstrating a nuclear bomb to the world by detonating it somewhere on a desert island so that America could say to the world: “You see what kind of weapons we had, but did not use them. We are ready to abandon its use in the future if other nations join us and agree to establish effective international control..

They carried out a nuclear bombing

ruins of hirashima

Nuclear explosion in Nagasaki

The Committee considered the "Frank Report" and rejected it. US President Truman knew for sure that there would be no retaliation, and ordered an atomic attack on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb "Kid" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Immediately after this, US President Truman made a public statement:

“16 hours ago, an American plane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important base for the Japanese army. The power of this bomb is greater than the power of an explosion of 20,000 tons of trinitrotoluene. Its explosive power is 2,000 times greater than the strength of the British bomb "Grand Slam" - the largest bomb used in the history of wars ... We are talking about the atomic bomb. It was the use of the forces that underlie the universe. The forces that are the source of the energy of the Sun were thrown against those who unleashed a war in the Far East ... We went on a gamble - we spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific invention in history, although we still did not know if anything would work out . And we won".

US President Truman firmly knew that there would be no retaliation, and ordered an atomic attack on Japan

On August 9, 1945, the Fat Man atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, and the Americans won again because it was a one-sided game. After that, Truman, in his speech on the radio, said: "We thank God that it (the bomb) came from us and not from our opponents, and we pray that he would show us how to use it according to his will and to achieve his goal."

Why Truman did not seek God's help on target designation before deciding to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains on his conscience, of course, if he had one. But God did not heed the prayers of the American president and did not give him any instructions about the further use of atomic bombs, especially "according to his will and to achieve his goal."

Indeed, Mr. Truman should not have tried to cover up his purely earthly goals with divine predestinations. About a quarter of a million people were killed and maimed by these two atomic bombs. It is unlikely that among them was at least one of those who "unleashed a war in the Far East."

Used Books:

1. R. Jung. Brighter than a thousand suns. State publishing house of literature in the field of atomic science and technology. Moscow, 1961

2. L. Groves. Now you can talk about it . Atomizdat, Moscow, 1964

3. M. Julius. The Secret of Huntsville. Politizdat, Moscow, 1964