The majority annex, signed by Conant, Rowe, Smith, DuBridge, Buckley, and Oppenheimer, cited moral rather than technical reasons for opposition to an “all-out” effort to develop the super bomb. “We recommend strongly against such action,” this group wrote. “We base our recommendation on our belief that the extreme dangers to mankind inherent in the proposal wholly outweigh any military advantage that could come from this development… [T]his is a super weapon; it is in a totally different category from an atomic bomb… Its use would involve a decision to slaughter a vast number of civilians… If super bombs will work at all, there is no inherent limit in the destructive power that may be attained with them. Therefore, a super bomb might become a weapon of genocide.” And, finally: “In determining not to proceed to develop the super bomb, we see a unique opportunity of providing by example some limitations on the totality of war and thus of limiting the fear and arousing the hopes of mankind.”
The minority annex, signed by Fermi and Rabi, went even further in its abhorrence of the very idea of a “Super.” “Necessarily,” they wrote, “such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes.” And, further, “It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country.” They added this now-famous comment, “It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light,” and went on to recommend that the President “tell the American public, and the world, that we think it wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate a program of development of such a weapon.” They went on: “At the same time it would be appropriate to invite the nations of the world to join us in a solemn pledge not to proceed in the development or construction of weapons of this category.”
Since every member of the General Advisory Committee who took part in these deliberations was a party to either the majority or the minority annex and thus expressed opposition to the Super on moral grounds, it is a bit odd that the committee as a whole, in its main report, cited technical difficulty as the principal reason for opposing the development. It is likely that among all the members, only Oppenheimer and Fermi had a deep enough understanding of the underlying physics to have reached an informed opinion about the level of technical difficulty in making a Super. The other members no doubt accepted the testimony of these two in endorsing the conclusions stated in the main report. As it happened, Fermi pitched in and became a major contributor to the H-bomb development after President Truman authorized it in late January 1950. (It was my privilege to work with Fermi at Los Alamos in 1950-51.) Oppenheimer, although he made no personal contributions to the development, switched from opposition to support once he became convinced, in June 1951, that, with the Teller-Ulam idea, the H bomb was quite feasible. (More later on the meeting that probably changed his mind.)
The Commission forwarded the advisory committee report to President Truman on November 11, 1949, a little less than two weeks after the report was completed, with what amounted to a lukewarm endorsement.{5} Of the Commission’s five members,[24] just three supported the report’s recommendations. The supporters were the Commission Chair, David Lilienthal; Sumner Pike; and Harry Smyth.[25] The dissenters were Gordon Dean and Lewis Strauss. Strauss, a confidant of Edward Teller, had been pushing hard since the news of the Soviet atomic bomb test in September for an accelerated program to develop a thermonuclear weapon. He took his case separately to the President in a letter dated November 25, 1949, a letter in which he mentions that his views are supported by his fellow Commissioner Gordon Dean.{7} Dean was apparently aligned with Senator Brien McMahon on nuclear weapons issues. McMahon, who had authored the 1946 bill that created the Atomic Energy Commission and was “Mr. Atomic Energy” in the Congress, vigorously advocated a priority effort to develop an H bomb.{8}
In retrospect, it is easy to see that the go-ahead provided by Truman on January 31, 1950, was inevitable.[26] He had a bare majority of the Atomic Energy Commission supporting the advisory committee’s go-slow recommendation. He had influential advice favoring full speed ahead not only from Lewis Strauss but from Louis Johnson, the Secretary of Defense, from the generals in uniform,{10} and from Senator McMahon.{11} At the same time, he could hardly have avoided absorbing what was becoming public advocacy by McMahon and like-minded politicians.{12} And, just beginning to sweep the country, as the Cold War heated up, was an anticommunist fervor that made it hard to contemplate any step that might entail trust in, or cooperation with, the Soviets. No argument on moral grounds, it was widely believed, could have any meaning in dealing with what Strauss called the “atheists” of the Soviet Union.{7}
In November, after receiving the Commission’s tepid endorsement of the advisory committee’s report, Truman appointed a three-man committee to advise him on the matter. Its members were Louis Johnson, in favor of full steam ahead on the H bomb; David Lilienthal, already on the record in opposition to a priority program; and Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State, in principle neutral.{12} Acheson was Truman’s closest, most trusted advisor{13} and in fact leaned toward pursuing the H-bomb program without delay. Acheson was not a knee-jerk hawk but had reached the conclusion that the United States should have at its disposal any and all weapons that were feasible to design and build.{14} By the time this committee walked into the President’s office with its recommendation and its proposed statement on January 31, the President very likely already knew what he was going to do,{15} and was probably pretty sure that the committee, by at least two to one, was going to support the position he had reached. In fact, Lilienthal had come around to the belief that the country should go forward with an all-out effort, so the committee’s recommendation was unanimous. The President read and approved the proposed statement and it was promptly handed out to waiting reporters, who rushed for the phones. By some accounts, this meeting lasted only seven minutes.{16}
24
The Atomic Energy Commissioners as of fall 1949 and early 1950: David E. Lilienthal, Chair, a lawyer and former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority—also a dedicated diarist; Gordon Dean, a lawyer who had worked in the Justice Department and in the law firm of Brien McMahon (McMahon, at this time, was a member of the U.S. Senate and chaired the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy); Sumner Pike, a businessman who had been a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Henry DeWolf Smyth, professor of physics at Princeton University; and Lewis Strauss, a banker and admiral in the U.S. Navy Reserve.{6}
25
Smyth placed his call to Wheeler in Paris before the General Advisory Committee report. Had Smyth known what the GAC would recommend, it seems unlikely that he would have sought to recruit Wheeler.
26
Here is the full text of Truman’s January 31, 1959 statement: “It is part of my responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to see to it that our country is able to defend itself against any possible aggressor. Accordingly, I have directed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so called hydrogen or superbomb. Like all other work in the field of atomic weapons, it is being and will be carried forward on a basis consistent with the overall objectives of our program for peace and security.
“This we shall continue to do until a satisfactory plan for international control of atomic energy is achieved. We shall also continue to examine all those factors that affect our program for peace and this country’s security.”{9}