Sometimes,nothing changes,current example,Russia and Uranium....
CHAPTER SIX
“Don’t Make a Big Production”
Colonel Kotikov’s first concern, each morning, was to visit the chart room in
the Operations Office. A huge map, showing the route from Great Falls to
Fairbanks, had been mounted on the magnetized steel wall which held in
position small metal markers, on each of which hung a tag bearing the
number of each plane en route. The markers were moved forward by a WAC
assistant, on a ladder, in accordance with teletype advice coming in. Colonel
Kotikov could read the situation at a glance.
Toward the end of April, 1943, there was an unusual congestion of
Airacobra pursuit planes at our field. We usually handled about 400 a month,
in comparison with 80 medium bombers and 15 cargo ships in the same period; the Airacobras were used as anti-tank weapons by the Russians.
There was always a chronic shortage of American pilots, but in 1943 the
demand was ravenous – in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, in Europe, in Asia, and
in the American system of global air transport which was a wonder of the war.
Now, to Kotikov’s disgust and fury, as many as 200 Airacobras were
stacked up on the field. The markers clustered on the map as thick as bees.
When he criticized us for allowing the situation to develop, I pointed out that
the Russians had troubles, too; this he took as an insult. “Never, never,” he
shouted, “does Russia have shortage of pilots!” He said he could order 10,000
Russian pilots to Great Falls in a matter of days. “And you’ll have to feed
them!” he said with satisfaction.
He made life miserable for Colonel L. Ponton d’Arce, commander of Gore
Field. “We’ve got to have more pilots,” he yelled. Colonel d’Arce assured him
that the problem had been taken personally in hand by Major General Harold
L. George, chief of the Air Transport Command; and the head of his Alaskan
Wing, Brigadier General William H. Tunner. The Russian’s contempt was
supreme. “Bah, promises!” he snarled.
And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Two days later, out of
inbound craft tumbled strange new fliers, bewildered and annoyed. Some had
been snatched from well-earned rest between trips to Ireland. Others hailed
from bases in Puerto Rico, Long Beach, Boca Raton, Oklahoma City. Test
Pilots had been plucked from Wright Field. There were even a few prodigies
with instrument certificates; such defiers of storm and darkness were rare as
hen’s teeth. The group totaled about twenty, in contrast to the mere three
General Tunner had scraped together.
Few of the pilots had ever heard of Great Falls, and all were dumb founded
by its extensive facilities and operations. “What the hell’s going on here?” they
muttered. Some were disturbed at finding they were to pilot Airacobras to
Alaska, almost a synonym for the North Pole. Scarcely one had driven a
pursuit plane since flight training days, so we set up a refresher course in
take-offs and landing. After a short time the emergency squad vanished as if it
had never been.
Word was prompt to arrive at headquarters of the Air Transport Command,
and there was an uproar. It was absolutely forbidden to procure pilots except
through A.T.C which alone could judge the whole situation and decide which
emergency was most critical in the entire war effort. Colonel d’Arce informed
me had had been reproved for “going outside channels,” and asked whether I
was the one who called in the extra pilots.
Colonel Kotikov, to whom I appealed, promptly stated that he was
responsible. He had simply got tired of waiting and gone “straight to Mr.
Hopkins.”
“So that’s how it was,” Colonel d’Arce scowled bitterly.
One morning a few weeks later, I was standing at my usual post beside
Colonel Kotikov’s desk. At his elbow lay a stack of folders with which I had
long been acquainted. They were held together with elastics. On the outside
binder was pasted a typewritten label in English, “Re: Experimental
Chemicals.” While telephoning to Washington, the Colonel would often cry
out: “Chemicals!” I would fetch the sheaf of documents from his wife, who as
his secretary kept them in a locked drawer.
This portfolio was the apple of his eye. Mrs. Kotikov took it home every
night. I sometimes stopped by the Pennsylvania Apartments in the morning
and drove them to work. I once saw Mrs. Kotikov drag the dossier from a
hiding-place under the mattress, while her husband was pulling on his
handsome boots of black leather.
When the chemical dossiers were complete and ready for Moscow,
together with kindred folders on “Metals,” Kotikov refused to trust them to an
ordinary messenger. His courier was a luminary of the Soviet Purchasing
Commission, Semen Vasilenko, who was known in this country as an expert
chemist but turned out to be Russia’s authority on pipes and tubes. (The
gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge and the Hanford Plutonium Works use
many miles of pipes.)
My diary later showed * that Vasilenko flew from Great Falls in a special
plane carrying about 4,000 pounds of “diplomatic mail.” He and the cargo
were protected by three Russian guards, whom I recorded as Leonid
Rykounin, Engeny Kojevnicov and Georges Nicolaiev.
* see pages 158, 159 (Chapter 15 - Conclusion)
After Vasilenko’s arrival from Washington, Colonel Kotikov led him to an
Airacobra standing about one city block’s distance from the nearest building,
with an open view on every side. They spread the papers out on one of the
wings of the plane, and the two men discussed them for an hour.
This precaution was due to the Colonel’s pet bogy, dictagraphs. There
were no dictagraphs in the field, but that did not stop him and his aides from
searching for them every day in lamp fixtures and telephone books, and behind calendars and pictures. They even sounded the walls. I gathered it
was not American spies that he feared but Soviet police agents.
One morning in April 1943, Colonel Kotikov asked whether I could find space for an important consignment of nearly 2,000 pounds. I said: “No, we have a quarter of a million pounds’ backlog already.” He directed me to put through a call to Washington for him, and spoke for a while in his own tongue. Then he put a hand over the mouthpiece and confided to me in English: “Very special shipment experimental chemicals – going though soon.”
There was an interval of Slavic gutturals, and he turned to me again. “Mr.
Hopkins – coming on now,” he reported. Then he gave me the surprise of my
life. He handed me the phone and announced: “Big boss, Mr. Hopkins, wants
you.”
It was quite a moment, I was about to speak for the first time with a
legendary figure of the day, the top man in the world of Lend-Lease in which I
lived. I have been careful to keep the following account as accurate in
substance and language as I can. My memory, normally good, was stimulated
by the thrill of the occasion. Moreover, the incident was stamped on my mind
because it was unique in my experience of almost 25 months at Newark and
Great Falls.
A bit in awe, I stammered: “Jordan speaking.” A male voice began at once:
“This is Mr. Hopkins. Are you my expediter out there?” I answered that I was
the United Nations Representative at Great Falls, working with Colonel
Kotikov.
Under the circumstances, who could have doubted that the speaker was
Harry Hopkins? Friends have since asked me whether it might not have been
a Soviet agent who was an American. I doubt this, because his next remark
brought up a subject which only Mr. Hopkins and myself could have known.
He asked: “Did you get those pilots I sent you?”
“Oh yes, sir,” I responded. “They were very much appreciated, and helped
us in unblocking the jam in the Pipeline. We were accused of going out of
channels, and got the dickens for it.”
Mr. Hopkins let that one go by, and moved on to the heart of things.
“Now, Jordan,” he said, “there’s a certain shipment of chemicals going
through that I want you to expedite. This is something very special.”
“Shall I take it up,” I asked, “with the Commanding Colonel?”
“I don’t want you to discuss this with anyone,” Mr. Hopkins ordered, “and it
is not to go on the records. Don’t make a big production of it, but just send it
through quietly, in a hurry.”
I asked how I was to identify the shipment when it arrived. He turned from
the phone, and I could hear his voice: “How will Mr. Jordan know the shipment
when it gets there?” He came back on the line and said: “The Russian Colonel
out there will designate it for you. Now send this through as speedily as
possible, and be sure you leave it off the records!”
Then a Russian voice broke in with a demand for Colonel Kotikov. I was
full of curiosity when Kotikov had finished, and I wanted to know what it was all about and where the shipment was coming from. He said there would be
more chemicals and that they would arrive from Canada.
“I show you,” he announced. Presumably, after the talk with Mr. Hopkins, I
had been accepted as a member of the “lodge.” From his bundle on war
chemicals the Colonel took the folder called “Bomb Powder.” He drew out a
paper sheet and set a finger against one entry. For a second time my eyes
encountered the word “uranium.” I repeat that in 1943 it meant as little to me
as to most Americans, which was nothing.
This shipment was the one and only cash item to pass through my hands,
except for private Russian purchases of clothing and liquor. It was the only
one, out of a tremendous multitude of consignments, that I was ordered not to
enter on my tally sheets. It was the only one I was forbidden to discuss with
my superiors, and the only one I was directed to keep secret from everybody.
Despite Mr. Hopkins’ urgency, there was a delay of five weeks. On the
morning of June 10th, I caught sight of a loaded C-47 which was idling on the
runway. I went over and asked the pilot what was holding him up. He said he
understood some kind of special shipment was still to come. Seven years
afterward the pilot identified himself to the press as Air Forces Lieutenant Ben
L. Brown of Cincinnati.
I asked Colonel Kotikov about the plane, and he told me the shipment Mr.
Hopkins was interested in had just arrived at the railroad yards, and I should
send a truck to pick it up. The consignment was escorted by a Russian guard
from Toronto. I set down his name, and copied it later in my diary. It was
Vladimir Anoufriev. I identified him with the initials “C.C.” for “Canadian
Courier.”
Fifteen wooden cases were put aboard the transport, which took off for
Moscow by way of Alaska. At Fairbanks, Lieutenant Brown has related, one
box fell from the plane, smashing a corner and spilling a small quantity of
chocolate-brown powder. Out of curiosity, he picked up a handful of the
unfamiliar grains, with a notion of asking somebody what they were. A Soviet
officer slapped the crystals from his palm and explained nervously: “No, no –
burn hands!”
Not until the latter part of 1949 was it definitely proved, from responsible
records, that during the war Federal agencies delivered to Russia at least
three consignments of uranium chemicals, totaling 1,465 pounds, or nearly
three-quarters of a ton. Confirmed also was the shipment of one kilogram, or
2.2 pounds, of uranium metal at a time when the total American stock was 4.5
pounds.
Implicated by name were the Lend-Lease Administration, the Department
of Commerce, the Procurement Division of the Treasury, and the Board of
Economic Warfare. The State Department became involved to the extent of
refusing access to files of Lend-Lease and its successor, the Foreign
Economic Administration.
The first two uranium shipments traveled through Great Falls, by air. The
third was dispatched by truck and railway from Rochester, N.Y., to Portland,
Ore., and then by ship to Vladivostok. The dates were March and June 1943,
and July, 1944. No doubt was left that the transaction discussed by Mr.
Hopkins and myself was the one of June, 1943.
This was not merely the largest of our known uranium deals with the Soviet
Union, it was also the most shocking. There seemed to be no lengths to which some American officials would not go in aiding Russia to master the secret of
nuclear fission. For four years monopoly of the A-bomb was the cornerstone
of our military and overseas policy, yet on September 23, 1949, long in
advance of Washington estimates, President Truman announced that an
atomic explosion had occurred in the Soviet Union.
In behalf of national security, the Manhattan Project during the spring of
1943 clapped an embargo on America exports of uranium compounds. But
zealots in Washington appear to have resolved that Russia must have at all
costs the ingredients for atomic experiment. The intensely pro-Soviet mood of
that time may be judged from the echoes in later years.
For example, there was Joseph E. Davies, Ambassador to the Soviet Union
in 1936-39, and author of a book and movie of flagrant propaganda, Mission
to Moscow. In an interview with the Times-Herald of Washington for Feb. 18,
1946, he was quoted as saying:
“Russia, in self-defense, has every moral right to seek atomic bomb
secrets through military espionage if excluded from such information by
her former fighting allies!”
There also was Professor Harold C. Urey, American scientist, who sat in
the innermost circle of the Manhattan Project. Yet on Dec. 14, 1949, in a
report of the Atlantic Action Committee, Dr. Urey said that Major Jordan
should be court-marshaled if he had removed anything from planes bound for
Russia.
When American supplies were cut off, the device of outmaneuvering
General Groves was to procure the materials clandestinely from Canada. *
Not until 1946 did the commander of the Manhattan Project learn from the Un-American
Activities Committee that his stockade had been undermined.
* The government of Canada frowned on uranium sales, but thought the U.S.
has the right to determine whether Russia should have the precious product.
In fact, it would appear that Canada’s alertness rather than ours prevented
further shipments.
My share in the revelation was testimony under oath leading to one
conclusion only – that the Canadian by-pass was aided by Mr. Hopkins. At his
direction, Lend-Lease issued a certificate of release without which the
consignment could not have moved. Lend-Lease channels of transportation
and Lend-Lease personnel, such as myself, were used. Traces of the scheme
were kept off Lend-Lease books by making it a “cash” transaction. The
shipment was paid for with a check of the Amtorg Trading Corporation.
Because the initial branch of the airlift to Moscow was under American
control, passage of the chemicals across the United States territory could not
be avoided, in Alaska if not Montana. On account of that fact, the cash nature
of the project, it was necessary to obtain an export license from the Board of
Economic Warfare.
Such a document, covering a shipment of American origin, was first
prepared. It was altered, to comply with the Canadian maneuver, by some
B.E.W official whose identity has been concealed by the State Department. As
amended, the license was issued on April 29, 1943. Its serial number was C-
1643180.
But two facts were forgotten: (a) public carriers use invoices, and (b) the
Air Force kept tallies not only at Great Falls but Fairbanks.
By diligent searching, freight and airway bills yielded incontestable proof
that 15 boxes of uranium chemicals were delivered at Great Falls on June 9,
1943, and were dispatched immediately, in a Lend-Lease plane, to the Soviet
Union.
The shipment originated at Eldorado Mining & Refining Ltd. Of Great Bear
Lake, and was sent through Port Hope, Ontario. It was authorized by a
Canadian arms export permit, No. OF1666. The carrier was the Chicago,
Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railway. Listed as consignee was Colonel A. N.
Kotikov, resident agent of the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission at
Gore Field, Great Falls.
The story behind the story is as follows:
On Feb. 1, 1943, Hermann H.
Rosenberg of Chematar, Inc. New York City, received the first inquiry about
uranium ever to reach his office. The applicant was the Soviet Purchasing
Commission which desired 220 pounds of uranium oxide, 220 pounds of
uranium nitrate, and 25 pounds of uranium metal. At that date Oak Ridge was
under construction, but would not be in operation for another year.
Six days earlier the war Production Board had issued General Reference
Order M-285, controlling the distribution of uranium compounds among
domestic industries like glass, pottery and ceramics. A loophole was left by
overlooking the export of such materials for war purposes. The Russians
claimed that they had urgent military need for uranium nitrate in medicinal
research and for uranium oxide and metal alloys in hardening gun barrel steel.
There was nothing for the U.S. to do but grant an OK, since we did not want to
imply that we were suspicious of Russia’s request.
Uranium metal was unavailable. On March 23, at Rosenberg’s instance,
the S. W. Shuttuck Chemical Co. of Denver shipped four crates, weighing 691
pounds, to Colonel Kotikov at Great Falls. The Burlington railroad’s bill of
lading described the contents merely as “chemicals,” but it was accompanied
by a letter from Rosenberg to Kotikov designating the contents as 220 pounds
of uranium nitrate and 200 (not 220) pounds of uranium oxide. Since it was a Lend-Lease transaction, defrayed with American funds, no export license was
required. The cargo was dispatched without friction along the Pipeline.
But the War Production Board, from which clearance had been sought,
alerted the Manhattan Project. It was too late to halt the Shattuck sale.
General Groves reluctantly approved it on the ground that it would be unwise
to “tip off” Russia as to the importance of uranium chemicals – a fact with
which Moscow was only too familiar.
During the investigation, I was embarrassed by the questions as to why
tables of exports to the Soviet Union contained no mention of uranium. The
Shattuck consignment was legitimate. It had been authorized by Lend-Lease,
the War Production Board, and the Manhattan Project.
Some months later I ran into John F. Moynihan, formerly of the Newark
News editorial staff. A Second Lieutenant at the Newark Airport when I was
there, he had risen to Colonel as a sort of “reverse press-agent” for General
Groves. His duty was not to foster publicity but prevent it.
“I heard you floundering about,” he said, “and wished I could tell you
something you didn’t know. I was sent to Denver to hush up the records in the
Shattuck matter. It was hidden under the phrase, ‘salts and compounds,’ in an
entry covering a different metal.”
General Groves moved rapidly to stop the leak through which the Shattuck
boxes had slipped. By early April he had formed a nationwide embargo by
means of voluntary contracts with chemical brokers. They promised to grant
the United States first right to purchase all uranium oxide, uranium nitrate and
sodium uranate received by the contractors.
The uranium black-out was discovered by Rosenberg when he tried to fill
another order from the Soviet Purchasing Commission, for 500 pounds each
of uranium nitrate and uranium oxide. On April 23, 1943, Rosenberg was in touch with the Canadian Radium & Uranium Corp. of New York, which was
exclusive sales agent for Eldorado Mining & Refining, Ltd., a producer of
uranium at Great Bear Lake.
An agreement to fill the Soviet order was negotiated with such dispatch that
in four days Rosenberg was able to report victory to the Purchasing
Commission. The shipment from Ontario to Great Falls and Moscow followed
in due course.
The Port hope machination had the advantage, among other things, of bypassing
the War Production Board, which was sure to warn the Manhattan
Project if it knew the facts, but could only be kept in ignorance because its
jurisdiction ran only south of the border.
General Groves was advised at once of the Soviet application for 1,000
pounds of uranium salts. He was not disturbed, being confident the embargo
would stand. After declining to endorse the application, he approved it later in
the hope of detecting whether the Russians would unearth uranium stocks
which the Manhattan Project had overlooked. American industries were
consuming annually, before the war, upwards of 200 tons of uranium
chemicals.
“We had no expectations,” General Groves testified December 7, 1949, “of
permitting that material to go out of this country. It would have been stopped.”
[1] So far as the United States was concerned, the embargo held fast. The
truth that it had been side-stepped by means of resort to Canadian sources
did not come to the General’s knowledge until three years later.
Another violation of atomic security was represented by the third known
delivery to Russia, in 1944. It proved to be uranium nitrate. During May of that
year, Colonel Kotikov showed me a warning from the Soviet Purchasing
Commission to look out for a shipment of uranium, weighing 500 pounds, which was to have travel priority. The Colonel was soon returning home. As
the climax of his American mission, he proposed to fly the precious stuff to
Moscow with his own funds.
Disguised as a “commercial transaction” within American territory, the deal
was managed by Lend-Lease. Chematar and Canadian Radium & Uranium
abandoned in favor of the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department,
although the Treasury, under regulations, had no authority to make uranium
products available to the Soviet Union.
Contractors were asked to bid, and the winner was Eastman Kodak
Company. Somewhere in this process, the expected 500 pounds shrank to
45. Eastman Kodak reported the order to the War Production Board as a
domestic commercial item.
Whatever the motive, it was determined not to send the compound by air.
After a Treasury inspection in Rochester, the MacDaniel Trucking Company
drove it to the Army Ordnance Depot at Terre Haute, Ind., arriving July 24. *
*From the hearings of the Un-American Activities Committee, Dec. 5, 1949, p. 932: “MR. TAVENNER: Were there shipments of uranium passing through your field which originated at places other than Canada after you received the Canadian shipments? MR. JORDAN: I believe the other shipments came from Army Ordnance.”
The shipment turned up in freight car No. 97352 of the Erie Railroad, and
got to North Portland, Ore., on Aug. 11. By means of shifts not yet divulged,
the uranium nitrate found itself aboard a Russian steamship, Kushirstroi,
which left for Vladivostok on Oct. 3. Colonel Kotikov, who had planned a
triumphal entry into Moscow with a quarter-ton of “bomb powder” as a trophy,
gave up the project in disgust on learning that the shipment would be only 45
pounds.
In charge of uranium purchases for the Manhattan Project in 1944 was Dr.
Phillip L. Merritt. Appearing January 24, 1950, before the Un-American
Activities Committee, Dr. Merritt swore he was taken by surprise, a day
earlier, on discovering for the first time that the Eastman Kodak order had
been shipped to Russian by way of Army Ordnance.
General Groves was likewise uninformed. Asked as a witness whether it
was possible for uranium shipments to have been made in 1944, he
answered: “Not if we could have helped it, and not with our knowledge of any
kind. They would have had to be entirely secret, and not discovered.” [2] He
declared that there was no way for the Russians to get uranium products in
this country “without the support of U.S. authorities in one way or another.” [3]
The Soviet Purchasing Commission appears to have had instructions to
acquire without fail 25 pounds of uranium metal, which can be extracted from
uranium salts by a difficult process requiring specialized equipment.
Supported or advised by Lend-Lease, the commission for a whole year
knocked at every available door, from the Chemical Warfare Service up to
Secretary Stimson.
As a matter of fact, uranium metal was then non-existent in America, and
for that reason had not been specified in the Manhattan Project’s embargo or
named as a “strategic” material.
Stimson closed a series of polite rebuffs with a letter of April 17, 1944, to
the chairman of the Purchasing Commission, Lt. General Leonid G. Rudenko.
But Moscow was stubborn. Under Soviet pressure, the commission or its
American friends had an inspiration. Why not have the uranium made to order
by some private concern?
As usual, a roundabout course was taken. The commission first
approached the Manufacturer’s Chemical Co., 527 Fifth Avenue, New York, which passed the order along to A.D. Mackay, Inc., 198 Broadway. By the
latter it was farmed out to the Cooper Metallurgical Laboratory in Cleveland.
According to Mr. McKay, neither he nor the Cooper concern suspected that
their customer was the Soviet Union.
But McKay reported the deal to the War Production Board, which warned
the Manhattan Project. The latter’s expert on rare metals, Lawrence C.
Burman, went to Cleveland, it is related, and urged the Cooper firm to make
sure that its product was of “poor quality.” He did not explain why. But the
metal, of which 4.5 pounds was made, turned out to be 87.5 per cent pure as
against the stipulated 99 per cent.
Delivery to the Soviet Union was then authorized of a small sample of this
defective metal, to represent “what was available in the United States.”
Actually shipped was one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. The Purchasing
Commission abruptly silenced its demands for pure uranium. But the powers
that be found it suitable to omit this item, as well as the Rochester sale, from
the 1944 schedule of exports to Russia.
From the start, in contrast to the atmosphere prevailing in Washington, the
Manhattan Project was declared by General Groves to have been “the only
spot I know that was distinctly anti-Russian." [4] Attempts at espionage in New
York, Chicago and Berkeley, California, were traced back to the Soviet
Embassy.
They convinced General Groves in October, 1942, that the enemies of our
atomic safeguards were not Germans of Japanese, but Russians. “Suspicion
of Russia was not very popular in some circles (in Washington),” he stated. “It
was popular at Oak Ridge, and from one month of the time I took over we
never trusted them one iota. From that time on, our whole security was based
on not letting the Russians find out anything.” [5]
That the Russians found out everything from alpha to omega, has been
established by volumes of proof. Through trials in Canada, England and the
United States there has been revealed the existence of an espionage network
so enormously effective that Russia, scientists calculated, “should have been
able to make a bomb considerably before September, 1949.” The network
chief was the former Soviet Vice Consul in New York, Anatoli A. Yakovlev,
who fled in 1946.
In light of these disclosures, there stands in plain view the answer to a
mystery that troubled James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, at the Potsdam
Conference. Following a session of the “Big Three,” on the afternoon of July
24, 1945, Harry S. Truman walked round the large circular table to Joseph
Stalin’s chair. We had perfected a new bomb, he said, more powerful than
anything known. Unless there was an early surrender, we would use it against
Japan.
Stalin’s only reply [writes Mr. Byrnes] was to say that he was glad to
hear of the bomb and he hoped we would use it. I was surprised at
Stalin’s lack of interest. I concluded that he had not grasped the
importance of the discovery. I thought that the following day he would
ask for more information about it. He did not… [6]
On the contrary, Stalin probably knew more about the bomb than Truman
and Byrnes together. Perhaps he was struck speechless by the simplicity of
his American guests. What did they take him for, he may have been thinking,
not to have informed himself to the last particular regarding a weapon bound
to revolutionize war?
As someone remarked bitterly: If we ever hear of Stalin’s death, we know
that he died laughing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The Story of Heavy Water”
One morning in November, 1943, Colonel Kotikov protested against the
manner in which a C-47 had been packed. He showed me tiers of large
bottles. The necks and stoppers, secured with wire, protruded from wooden
crates. Alternate bottles had been loaded bottom-up to conserve space. The
Colonel insisted that they all had to be topside down, with each bottle lashed
down separately. “We must repack,” he ordered.
Though all our loading was done by a crew of American civilians, freight
was checked in the warehouse, from duplicate manifests, by a young Russian
non-com, Senior-Sergt. Andrei Vinogradsky. He was a mysterious character
whom we suspected of spying on Colonel Kotikov for my Fairbanks host,
Alexei A. Anisimov. The Sergeant seemed to understand little English, and
communicated with the air-stevedores through signs and interpreters.
I gave orders to repack the cargo. It may be that Sergeant Vinogradsky
pointed to the wrong entry, or that crewmen mistook the line to which his finger pointed. At any rate, one of them astonished me by asking: “What is it –
that heavy water stuff?”
“Heavy water?” I echoed, for I had never heard the expression. Yes, said
the worker, that was what was listed on the manifest. Thereafter, for all of us,
such carboys were “heavy water,” on this and other transports. Many times I
heard the shout: “Be careful of that heavy water!”
The fact is that the five-gallon demijohns actually contained sulfuric acid. It
was demonstrated six years later, during the Fulton Lewis broadcast of
December 6, 1949, that this misunderstanding was general. Three former
members of the Gore Field ground crew Elmer Williams, John Kukay and
Leonard Woods were quoted as declaring stoutly that with their own hands
they had loaded “big carboys of heavy water.”
Unwittingly Colonel Kotikov helped the mistake along by asking over the
phone whether the “heavy water plane” had taken off. I said no. He directed
me to hold it and drop by his office for a bundle of papers to be handed to the
pilot. While leafing through the folder, I caught sight of the words, “heavy
water,” and asked the Colonel what they meant. “Something for our new
chemical plants,” came the answer.
What is popularly known as “heavy water” is technically called deuterium
oxide. It is in crystal form, not liquid.
In alleging medical and other grounds for its needs of uranium oxide and
uranium nitrate, Russia had taken care to observe an appearance of truth, for
such use is not unknown to therapeutics. It had been tried out in throat sprays
and lent its name to Uranwein, a German specific against diabetes. Uranium oxide had been tested as an alloy for toughening steel, but it was found
difficult to handle and had erratic results. Therefore when Moscow asked for
heavy water, they let the cat out of the bag. Except for curious experiments
regarding plant growth, heavy water boasts only one useful property: it is the
best of moderators for slowing down the speed of neutrons in nuclear
reactions.
Records of evidence [1] prove that on August 23, 1943, Hermann
Rosenberg of Chematar received an application from the Soviet Purchasing
Commission for 1,000 grams of deuterium oxide. The purpose stated was
“research.”
A supplier was found in the Stuart Oxygen Co. of San Francisco, which
shipped the merchandise on October 30, by railway express, to Chematar’s
New York office. Rosenberg forwarded the consignment to the Purchasing
Commission in Washington, which dispatched it on November 29, by way of
the Pipeline to Rasnoimport, USSR, Moscow U-1, Ruybjshova-22.
The order was packed with as much tenderness as if it had been a casket
of jewels. Forty Pyrex ampules, each containing 25 grams, were enclosed in
mailing tubes and wrapped in layers of cotton. The ampules were divided in
lots of 10 among four cartons, which were placed, with further precautions
against damage, in a large wooden box. This was strapped and sealed. The
overall weight was 41.12 pounds. The cost of the fluid content was that of
expensive perfumes - $80 an ounce.
The export of heavy water to the Soviet Union was approved by a release
certificate, No. 366, dated November 15, with the signature of William C.
Moore, Division for Soviet Supply, Office of Lend-Lease Administration.
If General Groves had been consulted, the heavy water would not have left
this country. Had it been known at the time, he said, that 1,000 grams were
available, unquestionably he would have bought the treasure himself. He
added: “If it had been pure.” [2] That it was between 99.7 and 99.8 per cent
pure was attested by an independent analysis made for Rosenberg in the
laboratories of Abbot A. Hanks, Inc., San Francisco.
At the beginning of 1945, the Soviet Purchasing Commission placed with
Rosenberg a second order for heavy water. Only 100 grams were sought. He
applied once more to the Stuart concern, which expressed the “liquid
diamonds”* to Chematar on February 7. One week later Rosenberg forwarded
the parcel to the commission. Its subsequent adventures have not been
traced. In August of the same year Rosenberg was naturalized as an
American citizen.
* From General Groves’ testimony on Dec. 7, 1949: “It is just like somebody
would tell me they shipped a dozen Hope diamonds.”
In good faith, I assured the Un-American Activities Commission at the first
hearing that passed through Gore Field “we had separate loads of carboys of
heavy water that we could hardly move.” [3] At my second hearing before the
committee on March 3, 1950, I admitted confusing “heavy water” with
sulphuric acid, and I explained how the confusion occurred. [4]
Was one kilogram of heavy water and were mere hundreds of pounds of
uranium chemicals too insignificant for important use?
Specialists agree that the quantities delivered were inadequate for
producing one A-bomb or even one experimental pile. They point out, however, that scarcely any fraction of a substance can be too small for
laboratory research. The head of a pin could not have formed with the first
plutonium ever made. From 500 micrograms were determined most of the
properties and the chemical behavior of an element which 18 months earlier
had been entirely unknown.
On the presumption that 1,465 pounds of uranium salts were contributed to
the Soviet Union, metallurgists estimate that they were reducible in theory to
875 pounds of natural uranium, which in turn would yield 6.25 pounds of
fissionable U-235. But 4.4 pounds of the latter, or nearly two pounds less, are
capable of producing an atomic explosion. Authority for this assertion may be
found in the celebrated report which Dr. Henry DeWolf Smyth of Princeton
University wrote at the request of General Groves and published in 1945.
The Shattuck and Eldorado purchases totaled 1,420 pounds. With their
third requisition the Russians expected so confidently to acquire another 500
pounds that papers to that effect were drafted and sent to us in Montana. If
the full amount had been available, instead of 45 pounds, the aggregate
would have been 1,920 pounds, or virtually one ton.
At his Paris laboratory, while chief of the Atomic Energy Commission of
France, Frederick Joliot-Curie built an experimental pile to which he gave the
affectionate name of “Zoe.” It actually ran, though the wattage was feeble. The
quantity of uranium crystals, said Dr. Joliot-Curie, was “something in the order
of one ton.”
It seems fair to take into account not merely what the Russians got, but
what they tried to get. With Communist tenacity and ardent support from both
White House and Lend-Lease, the Soviet Purchasing Commission strove again and again to obtain 8½ tons each of the uranium oxide and uranium
nitrate, plus 25 pounds of uranium metal. The campaign started in February,
1943,* and persisted until the Russians were squelched by Secretary Stimson
during April, 1944.
*Captain Kavanagh of the U.S. Army replied as follows in 1943 to a Russian
request for uranium: “The amount of eight and one-half tons of uranium
requested is unavailable in this country.”
There are memorable instances of what can be achieved with less than 17
tons of uranium powders. One was a model atomic pile which went into
operation at Chicago University on December 2, 1942. “So far as we know,”
Dr. Smythe recounts, “this is the first time that human beings ever initiated a
self-maintaining nuclear chain reaction.” With a power level of 200 watts, the
device served as a pilot plant for the Hanford Engineer Works. The uranium
supply available to them was six tons.
Even earlier, before the Manhattan Project was dreamed of, a group of
scientists at Columbia University began a course of hazardous experiments
under the leadership of two foreign-born savants, Leo Szilard of Hungary and
Enrico Fermi of Italy.
They were so ill-supported with cash that 10,000 pounds of uranium oxide
had to be “rented” at a nominal fee of 30 cents a pound from Boris Pregel,
president of the Canadian Radium & Uranium Corp. of New York who was
later unjustly made a scapegoat by the press for the secret Canadian
shipment.
Here was done all the preparatory work moving toward the eventual
creation of the first man-made elements in history, neptunium-93 and
plutonium-94. From the group’s creative imagination rose in time the vast
plutonium plant at Hanford, Washington and, in a large sense America’s atom
bomb itself. The materials of that triumph were not 17 but 10 tons of uranium
compounds.
One of my lucky experiences was that of chancing upon the February 27,
1950 issue of the magazine Life shortly before the Un-American Activities
Committee. I bore the copy with me to the witness chair. It contained an
illustrated article on the atomic bomb.
I learned for the first time that a plutonium pile consists of giant blocks of
graphite, surrounded by heavy walls of concrete and honeycombed with
aluminum tubes. In these tubes, it was related, are inserted slugs of natural
uranium, containing 1 per cent of U-235. The intensity of the operation was
declared to be governed by means of cadmium rods.
Graphite, cadmium, aluminum tubes – where had I met the words before?
In the Russian Lend-Lease figures* which I had added to the Jordan diary.
Re-examining those pages, I discovered that during the four-year period
1942-45 we contributed to the Soviet Union, 3,692 tons of natural graphite,
417 tons of cadmium metals and tubes in an entry designating 6,883 tons of
“aluminum tubes.”
* See Chapter 9, Anatoli B. Gromov, First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy
and chief of the NKVD in the U.S., granted my request for the Soviet lists of
Lend-Lease figures, in view of my work with the Russians at Great Falls.
The figure for cadmium was arresting in view of its extreme scarcity in this
country and because of the fact that it occurs, so far as we know, sparsely if at
all in the Soviet Union. Under war stimulus, American production of cadmium
rose from 2,182 short tons in 1940 to 4.192 in 1945.
It was interesting to find that in 1942-45 we shipped to Russia 437 tons of
cobalt – a staggering amount when collated with American production, which
was nothing before the war, and increased to 382 tons in 1942 and 575 in
1945.
That cobalt is valuable in the A-bomb for retarding radioactive emanations,
and could be equally so in the hydrogen bomb, has been affirmed by a
chemical engineer who was consultant to one of the war agencies. “Cobalt,”
says he, “was one of our highest scarcity materials. If I had known that so
large a proportion was going to the Russians, I should have suspected them
of being at work on the bomb.” Incidentally, cobalt was the first item to be
restricted by President Truman in the Korean emergency.
Almost as curious was the discovery that we shipped to Russia more than
12 tons of thorium salts and compounds. Two other elements alone, besides
uranium and plutonium, are fissionable. They are protactinium and thorium.
The former may be disregarded because of its rarity in nature. But thorium,
which is relatively plentiful, is expected by physicists to rival uranium some
day, or even supplant it, as a source of atomic energy.
Then there were cerium and strontium, of which the Soviet Purchasing
Commission obtained 44 tons. Both metals, along with cadmium, thorium and
cobalt, figured in Colonel Kotikov’s dossier on experimental chemicals. They
are useless for atomic purposes. But Russian scientists may have been working their way through the rare earths and metals, on a well-founded
suspicion that something momentous was afoot in that group.
Everyone is aware, of course, that these elements have industrial or
military functions unrelated to the atomic bomb, but Russia had a very critical
interest in procuring A-bomb components from America. Red scientists are
said to have been the first in Europe to announce the theory of nuclear fission.
As America discovered at a cost of billions of dollars, it is a far cry from
setting down speculations on paper to putting them in practice at the
dimensions imposed by modern war. Thus the Kremlin was frantically
inquisitive about large-scale production techniques developed by the
Manhattan Project.
The following incident occurred after my first broadcast from the private
studio at the home of Fulton Lewis, Jr., in Maryland: A few minutes after we
went off the air, a long-distance call rang in. The speaker was General
Groves, from his residence in Connecticut. He wished to verify a particular
quotation from the memorandum I made of my night examination of the
“diplomatic suitcases.” Mr. Lewis read the passage: “Walls five feet thick, of
lead and water, to control flying neurons.” There was a long silence. Putting a
hand over the mouthpiece, the commentator remarked: “I think the General
must have fallen out of his chair!”
One ground for minimizing my evidence is a claim that Russia had
abundant uranium of its own, in connection with massive radium deposits in
the former area of Turkestan, the Kazakh Republic and the state of Tannu
Tuva, north of Mongolia. More than 30 years ago, it is said, Soviet physicists
worked out the correct formula for separating uranium from radium. On the other hand, as atomic experts are fond of pointing out: “You can never have
too much uranium.”
If a blunder occurred, such objections proceed, it was not the shipment of
minor quantities of uranium compounds to the Soviet Union, but the
publication of Dr. Smyth’s book, which told not only how to make a nuclear
bomb but how not to make one. The chief atomic authority of Norway, Gunnar
Randers, is cited as having pronounced that the indiscretion of this publication
saved Russia and every other country two years of research.
According to Professor Szilard, “one half of the atomic bomb secret was
given away when we used the bomb, and the other half when we published
the Smyth report.” After the espionage trials, however, one may ask whether
the Smyth revelations were not more informative to the American public than
to the Politburo.
W. L. White, noted war correspondent and author of Report on the
Russians, tells the following first-hand account of how much more they knew
in Russia in 1944 than Americans did:
Just what do they know in the Soviet Union about our atomic secret? When
I visited Russia in 1944 they knew more than I did. A Soviet guide took our
party on a tour of Leningrad. At the badly bombed Kirov electrical plant, a
curious contraption of rusty steel caught my attention.
“What is that?” I asked Kirilov, our guide.
“Oh, that,” said Kirilov, “is cyclotron. Is used by our great Soviet physicist,
Professor Joffe, when he makes, how you say, splitting of atom. But this is old,” continued Kirilov. “The new ones we move them behind Ural mountains.
Behind Urals Professor Joffe has much newer, much better.”
“Of course,” I was humoring him. I could see he was trying to make the
point that, even with the enemy at its gates, in the Soviet Union this research
in the theoretical science will continue.
But Kirilov doggedly went on. “Behind Urals we have many big things. We
have like you call in America, Manhattan Project. You know this, yes?”
“Oh, of course,” I said. “We have lots of war projects in New York.” “Not in
New York,” said Kirilov, looking at me intently, “Manhattan Project. You know
of this?”
“But Manhattan,” I said, “is a part of New York. Of course I know
Manhattan. I live there!”
It was not until an entire year passed – and the atomic bomb went off at
Hiroshima – that I understood, at last, exactly what that poor, stammering
Kirilov had been trying to ask me. [5]
In any event, it is heartening to know that, on the whole, our uranium
embargo stood firm. Moscow was prevented from winning its grand objective
of 17 tons, in contrast to the delivery of 15 tons of uranium chemicals to Great
Britain, which the Manhattan Project authorized.
The steadfastness of the General Groves organization against Russia was
the more admirable in that it was challenged by Mr. Hopkins, with the power of
the White house behind him. After the Un-American Activities Committee closed its hearing on March 7, 1950, I was examined searchingly by
Government investigators.
They tried to lure me into admitting a possibility, however faint, that the person to whom I spoke might have been Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., who had died five months earlier, on October 11, 1949.
My answer was that never once, during my two years at Newark and Great Falls, did I hear so much as a mention of Stettinius, though reference to Hopkins was daily on the lips of the Russians.
It is common knowledge that on August 28, 1941, Stettinius succeeded Hopkins as titular chief of Lend-Lease, and held the post until September 25, 1943, when the agency was merged with kindred bodies into the Foreign Economic Administration, with Leo A. Crowley as Administrator. But even the official biographer of Mr. Hopkins does not hesitate to write:
Hopkins knew that policy governing Lend-Lease would still be made in the White House and that the President would continue to delegate most of the responsibility to him. Stettinius was his friend and they could work together – and that was that. [6]
Another effort to clear Hopkins was based on the supposition that he acted in ignorance of what it was all about. Even if he helped the Russians to get A bomb materials, the implication ran, it was as the unsuspecting tool of Soviet cunning.
The Hopkins papers for Mr. Sherwood’s book were organized by Hopkins’
longtime friend, Sidney Hyman. A fortnight after my first broadcast he was quoted as affirming that, until Hiroshima, Harry Hopkins had not “the faintest
understanding of the Manhattan Project,” and “didn’t know the difference
between uranium and geranium.”[7]
On the contrary, Harry Hopkins was one of the first men anywhere to know about the atom bomb. Dr. Vannevar Bush chose Hopkins as his intermediary for presenting to Mr. Roosevelt the idea of the atom bomb. It was in consultation with Hopkins that Dr. Bush drafted the letter, for Mr. Roosevelt’s signature, which launched the A-bomb operation on June 14, 1941! Where do we learn this?
In the official biography of Mr. Sherwood, on pages 154 and 155. Finally, on page 704 we are told that the head of a state, Winston Churchill, “was conducting this correspondence on the atomic project with Hopkins rather than with the President, and that he continue to do so for many months thereafter.”
A witness on the topic, General Groves testified that to the best of his recollection and belief he never met Harry Hopkins, talked with him on the telephone, or exchanged letters or dealt with anyone claiming to represent him. But the General thought it incumbent to remark: “I do know, of course, that Mr. Hopkins knew about this project. I know that.” [8]
An early symptom of White House obsession for “reassuring Stalin” has
been described by General Deane. In letters to American war agencies, dated
March 7, 1942, Mr. Roosevelt ordered that preferential position, in the matter
of munitions, should be given to the Soviet Union over all other Allies and
even the armed forces of the United States.
Then and there, decided the former chief of the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow, was “the beginning of a policy of appeasement of Russia from which we have never recovered and from which was are still suffering.” [9]
This obsession was also observed by William G. Bullitt, during a
conversation in which Mr. Roosevelt outlined his Russian policy. From three
years’ experience as an Ambassador to Moscow, Mr. Bullitt answered with
reasons, now wholly vindicated, why the program was sure to fail.
“Bill, I don’t dispute your facts,” said Mr. Roosevelt. “They are accurate. I don’t dispute the logic of your reasoning. I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry (Hopkins) says he’s not, and that he doesn’t want anything but security for his country.
And I think that if I give him everything that I can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of peace and democracy.” [10]
They tried to lure me into admitting a possibility, however faint, that the person to whom I spoke might have been Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., who had died five months earlier, on October 11, 1949.
My answer was that never once, during my two years at Newark and Great Falls, did I hear so much as a mention of Stettinius, though reference to Hopkins was daily on the lips of the Russians.
It is common knowledge that on August 28, 1941, Stettinius succeeded Hopkins as titular chief of Lend-Lease, and held the post until September 25, 1943, when the agency was merged with kindred bodies into the Foreign Economic Administration, with Leo A. Crowley as Administrator. But even the official biographer of Mr. Hopkins does not hesitate to write:
Hopkins knew that policy governing Lend-Lease would still be made in the White House and that the President would continue to delegate most of the responsibility to him. Stettinius was his friend and they could work together – and that was that. [6]
Another effort to clear Hopkins was based on the supposition that he acted in ignorance of what it was all about. Even if he helped the Russians to get A bomb materials, the implication ran, it was as the unsuspecting tool of Soviet cunning.
On the contrary, Harry Hopkins was one of the first men anywhere to know about the atom bomb. Dr. Vannevar Bush chose Hopkins as his intermediary for presenting to Mr. Roosevelt the idea of the atom bomb. It was in consultation with Hopkins that Dr. Bush drafted the letter, for Mr. Roosevelt’s signature, which launched the A-bomb operation on June 14, 1941! Where do we learn this?
In the official biography of Mr. Sherwood, on pages 154 and 155. Finally, on page 704 we are told that the head of a state, Winston Churchill, “was conducting this correspondence on the atomic project with Hopkins rather than with the President, and that he continue to do so for many months thereafter.”
A witness on the topic, General Groves testified that to the best of his recollection and belief he never met Harry Hopkins, talked with him on the telephone, or exchanged letters or dealt with anyone claiming to represent him. But the General thought it incumbent to remark: “I do know, of course, that Mr. Hopkins knew about this project. I know that.” [8]
Then and there, decided the former chief of the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow, was “the beginning of a policy of appeasement of Russia from which we have never recovered and from which was are still suffering.” [9]
“Bill, I don’t dispute your facts,” said Mr. Roosevelt. “They are accurate. I don’t dispute the logic of your reasoning. I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry (Hopkins) says he’s not, and that he doesn’t want anything but security for his country.
And I think that if I give him everything that I can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of peace and democracy.” [10]
99s
SOURCES
CHAPTER SIX
“Don’t Make a Big Production”
1. Hearings, General Groves, p. 941.
2. Ibid., p. 945.
3. Ibid., p. 900.
4. Ibid., p. 948.
5. Ibid., p. 947.
6. Speaking Frankly, James F. Byrnes (Harper, 1947), p. 263
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Story of the “Heavy Water”
1. Hearings, testimony of Hermann H. Rosenberg, Jan. 24, 1950, p. 1035.
2. Hearings, General Groves, p. 954.
3. Hearings, testimony of Major Jordan, Dec. 5, 1949, p. 932.
4. Ibid., March 3, 1950, p. 1155.
5. Kansas City Star, March 17, 1950.
6. Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 376-377.
7. Newsweek, Dec. 19, 1949.
8. Hearings, General Groves, p. 947.
9. The Strange Alliance, p. 89.
10. Life, June 30, 1949.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Story of the “Heavy Water”
1. Hearings, testimony of Hermann H. Rosenberg, Jan. 24, 1950, p. 1035.
2. Hearings, General Groves, p. 954.
3. Hearings, testimony of Major Jordan, Dec. 5, 1949, p. 932.
4. Ibid., March 3, 1950, p. 1155.
5. Kansas City Star, March 17, 1950.
6. Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 376-377.
7. Newsweek, Dec. 19, 1949.
8. Hearings, General Groves, p. 947.
9. The Strange Alliance, p. 89.
10. Life, June 30, 1949.
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