Living with Nuclear Weapons
Considering the government’s deliberate control of information before and after Crossroads, it is perhaps no
surprise that the test blasts actually allayed domestic fears of atomic war. "On returning from Bikini," wrote William
L. Laurence, a New York Times science reporter, "one is amazed to find the profound change in the public attitude
toward the problem of the atomic bomb. Before Bikini the world stood in awe of this new cosmic force. Since
Bikini this feeling of awe has largely evaporated and has been supplanted by a sense of relief unrelated to the grim
reality of the situation. Having lived with the nightmare for nearly a year [since Hiroshima and Nagasaki], the
average citizen is now only too glad to grasp at the flimsiest means that would enable him to regain his peace of
mind".113
Many years later the public-relations role played by the Bikini tests of 1946 seemed apparent. "Their spiritual
effect was great," wrote historian Robert Jungk. "For they soothed the fears of the American public almost as much
as the bombs dropped on Japan had aroused them."114
There had been some opposition to the atomic explosions at Bikini. After the Federation of Atomic Scientists
unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the tests protesters gathered in New York’s Times Square.115 But America’s
nuclear machinery—forged through extremely close cooperation between government and private industry during
the wartime Manhattan Project—was picking up speed and consolidating alliances along the way.116 America had
entered the cold war, and atomic bombs were requisite materiel.
Rhetorical abhorrence of nuclear bombs accompanied the beefed-up nuclear weaponry appropriations and further
atomic bomb test explosions.117 President Truman inaugurated "an American political tradition," as authors Michael
Uhl and Tod Ensign described it: "Denounce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, urge disarmament, and advocate
peaceful uses of atomic energy, while continuing to produce and test nuclear weapons under the guise of national
security."118
The issue of how the government should supervise atomic energy came to the fore in 1946, with a struggle over
whether regulation should be entrusted to the U.S. military or civilian administrators. A petition campaign,
spearheaded by the Federation of Atomic Scientists, deluged Congress with messages favoring civilian control of the
atom. When the law establishing the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took effect in August 1946, its provisions
seemed to reflect a victory for the forces backing civilian authority over nuclear development.119
The U.S. Government’s executive and legislative branches, with appointments by the president and confirmation
powers plus oversight duties by Congress, would keep watch over the AEC. Yet, underneath the proclaimed civilian
umbrella, America’s top military officers retained basic roles in the government’s atomic policy decisions.
The 1946 law that established the AEC also set up the Military Liaison Committee, located in the Pentagon and
charged with supervising America’s nuclear program from a "national defense" standpoint. While usually a civilian,
that panel’s head represented the Defense Department; the committee’s members were military officers.120
Supporters of civilian nuclear control soon began to realize they had won a hollow victory. The AEC was
effectively interwoven with U.S. military authority—which was, after all, the prime user of the atom.121
Those eager for nuclear proliferation American-style found that in many respects they could enjoy the best of
both worlds: the appearance of civilian control, with the military still calling the shots.122 In the face of Pentagon
expertise and clout, the legislative branch quickly accepted a junior role in nuclear matters. When the 1950s began,
members of the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy still were not privy to the number of bombs in the
U.S. nuclear stockpile.123
The American military, meanwhile, rapidly became the primary source of funds for scientists in numerous fields.
And those who paid the pipers composed the tunes. By autumn 1946 the trend was becoming painfully obvious to
many atomic scientists, including Philip Morrison. Speaking at an annual public-affairs forum sponsored by the New
York Herald Tribune, Morrison commented on this evolving relationship: "At the last Berkeley meeting of the
American Physical Society just half the delivered papers . . . were ‘supported in whole or in part’ by one of the
[Armed] Services . . . some schools derive 90 percent of their research support from Navy funds . . . the Navy
contracts are catholic. . . . The now amicable contracts will tighten up and the fine print will start to contain talk
about results and specific weapon problems. And science itself will have been bought by war on the installment
plan.
"The physicist knows the situation is a wrong and dangerous one. He is impelled to go along because he really
needs the money."124
The nation’s major universities grew steadily entangled in the atomic funding net. In spring 1947 prime academic
institutional involvement came from the University of California—operating Los Alamos in New Mexico and the
Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley—and from the University of Chicago, main operator of the Argonne National
Laboratory along with dozens of other colleges acting as copartners. By the end of the decade scores more large
universities were under large atomic contracts from the government.
Less than seven months after the AEC came into existence, President Truman issued a "loyalty order" authorizing
police investigations into the moral fiber and political fidelity of federal employees.125 Atomic researchers with
government grants were also subject to such inquiries. Robert Jungk characterized the results as an "unhealthy
climate of suspicion, accusations and time-wasting defense against false charges."126
"From 1947 on," he added, "the atmosphere in which the Western scientists lived became more and more
oppressive every year." Throughout the U.S., England, and France scientists faced "loyalty committees," firings,
interference with international travel, and general harassment—so that "in the laboratories of the Western world
people started whispering to one another, anxiously on the watch for the State’s long ears, as had hitherto been the
case only in totalitarian countries."127
The fear ran from the lowest lab intern to the most esteemed scientific pioneer. Attending the University of
California, physics student Theodore Taylor and a few other pupils devised a proposal for a general strike by
American physicists. They approached J. Robert Oppenheimer, then at the height of his considerable national power
in nuclear policy circles. Taylor always remembered Oppenheimer’s words. After he read over the written proposal,
Oppenheimer said, "Take this paper. Burn it. Never recall it. Anyone who knew of this would label you a
Communist and you would have no end of trouble the rest of your life."128
113. Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, p. 240.
114. Ibid.
115. Bolt, Nuclear Explosions and Earthquakes, p. xiv.
116. Most members of a blue-ribbon consultant board, entrusted by the State Department to come up with an initial plan for international control of atomic
capabilities, were top executives in large American business institutions—General Electric Company, Monsanto Chemical Company, and New Jersey Bell
Telephone Company. The pattern of policy formulations dominated by representatives of corporations, standing to reap huge profits from further nuclear
expansion, was well established.
117. For details on proposals and negotiations regarding international control of atomic energy in the late 1940s, see D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its
Origins, Vol. I (Garden City and New York: Doubleday, 1961 ), Chapters 13 and 14; see also, Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, Chapters 14 and 15;
also, The H Bomb (New York: Didier, 1950), pp. 170-171, for comments by Professor Hans J. Morganthau.
118. Uhl and Ensign, GI Guinea Pigs, p. 32.
119. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, pp. 382-383.
120. York, The Advisors, p. 61
121. See Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, p. 244.
122. It soon became clear that entrenched enthusiasts for civilian jurisdiction over atomic matters generally saw it as the most effective way to bring the nuclear
age to rapid maturity. In a speech aimed at rallying support for the civilian-control concept, one of its most influential boosters, Connecticut Senator Brien
McMahon, left no doubt that he was seeking the most productive way to develop a wide array of atomic technologies: "Of course the military should be
consulted on the military aspects of atomic energy and this is as far as any civilian commission should be required to go. The military is noted for its
reactionary position in the field of scientific research and development. The most successful weapons of war throughout history have been conceived and
developed by civilians and the atomic bomb was no exception. It is because I am concerned about the nation’s security, as well as the development for
peaceful use of atomic energy, that I want civilians to control this force unhindered by the military." (Fleming, The Cold War, p. 382.)
123. The H Bomb, p. 158.
124. Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, p. 248. For an account of the military’s atomic research contracting activities on campuses the spring after
Morrison’s speech, see Business Week, March 22, 1947, pp. 32-38.
125. Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, p. 249.
126. Ibid., p. 251.
127. Ibid.
128. John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974), Ballantine paperback edition, p. 41.