Atomic

Title: Atomic – The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939-49

Author: Jim Baggott

Publisher: Icon Books, 2015 (First published 2009)

ISBN: 9781848319929

Pages: 576

The mushroom cloud and radiation fallout over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are forever seared into human conscience. Close on its heels, the world watched with bated breath as the Cold War antagonists built up their nuclear arsenal which was capable of destroying the entire civilization many times over. However, even with all their ideological disagreement with capitalism, the Soviet Union didn’t help proliferate nuclear weapons in the world. This was to change when the weapon reached the so-called rogue states. When Pakistan made the bomb with centrifuge designs stolen by Abdul Qadeer Khan from Germany, the world was again put on tenterhooks. They have already sold the secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. A theocratic state like Pakistan, which upholds terrorism as an instrument of state policy, is extremely vulnerable to leakage of nuclear material and it is only a matter of time before Islamic terrorists get hold of it from a pliant Pakistani military. Civilized societies can only shudder at the thought of these deadly weapons finding their way into the cache of the numerous mujahideens and suicide squads out there, always in the ready to kill indiscriminately in the name of Allah. In that respect, this book which narrates the story of the atom bomb is quite relevant today. The anxiety and fear of the people towards the end of World War II is still palpable. Jim Baggott is a British science writer with interests in science, philosophy and science history. He has authored many books and is a regular contributor to New Scientist magazine.

The book is structured into four parts – the mobilization of nuclear scientists from across the world following the outbreak of war, early frustrations and progress of weapon design, use of atom bombs in war and origins of the Cold War associated with Soviet nuclear tests. First light on nuclear secrets was shed in pre-war Germany. Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission in 1938. Frisch and Meitner established the theoretical framework for its materialization. Germany under Hitler quickly realized the potential of fission to produce a weapon of immense destructive power and subsequently banned the export of uranium. This rang the alarm bells across the Atlantic. Einstein wrote a secret letter to President Roosevelt in 1939, advising him about the plausibility of ‘extremely powerful bombs of a new type’. Nuclear research began with fervent interest on both sides of the ocean. America obtained the services of all notable scientists fleeing war-torn Europe and kick started the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos under Robert Oppenheimer. Germany responded with the formation of Uranverein (Uranium Club) under Werner Heisenberg. But Germany was constrained by lack of resources and raw materials. Its Norwegian source of heavy water was under constant attacks and sabotage by the Allies. The manpower for the research job was selected on the basis of Aryan racial purity which was doomed to fail from the start. Even with technical knowhow from Paris, which came under German occupation in 1940, they could not catch up with America. By June 1942, Germany secretly dropped the work on bomb design. This was not known to the Americans. Or, if they had known it, they chose to ignore it. There was concern in the US that instead of an explosive device, Germany might still go for a weapon that rained radioactive material in an area.

The book contains a few detailed descriptions of the nuclear processes that led to production of fissile material. Either Uranium-235 or Plutonium could be used to make a bomb. It was not an easy laboratory task to produce the material. Electromagnetic separation and purification of U-235 required magnets 250 feet long. Their construction exhausted America’s supply of copper. The US Treasury loaned 15000 tons of silver to complete the windings. The magnets were so powerful that it pulled the nails of men’s shoes and hairpins of women workers. The army immediately took control of the project. With the introduction of formal management structures, bureaucracy increased. The scientists were really fish out of water when communication between them was restricted for secrecy. Compartmentalization of various areas of the research ensured that only a few people could have an overall view of the game. Baggott describes in some detail the first above-ground testing of the bomb called Trinity and the bombardment of the two unfortunate Japanese cities. Kyoto was dropped from the target list as it was Japan’s ancient capital city and a major cultural centre. The bombers had to fly 2500 km from Tinian Island in the Pacific to drop the A-bombs. An attempt was aborted on 1 August 1945 due to bad weather. It is chilling to read that the planes turned away from the city of Kikuri at the last minute due to poor visibility and instead flew to Nagasaki and dropped the bomb.

Anyone following the progress of World War II would quickly discern the defeat of Japan in front after front in the Asia-Pacific region. It was only a matter of time before they would have been convincingly routed. Why then did the US use atomic bombs against them? Baggott does a great job in answering this important historical question. Even though Japan was in the jaws of defeat, it prized its honour as a nation above all else. An unconditional surrender, as demanded by the Potsdam Declaration, was hence unacceptable to them. Japanese militarists wanted to fight to the finish, as demonstrated by kamikaze suicide pilots who flew warplanes. If the war could be ended a little earlier, countless American lives could have been saved. Even as late as 21 July 1945, Shigenori Togo – the belligerent foreign minister – was adamant to continue the fight and declared that “even if the war drags on and it becomes clear that it will take much more bloodshed, the whole country as one man will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will so long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender”. The Battle of Okinawa earlier in 1945 served to remind the Allies of the ferocious battle that lay ahead for the conquest of the Japanese home islands. 12,500 Americans and 100,000 Japanese were killed in that single battle. Large scale firebombing of cities were killing thousands of Japanese civilians each day, but the Emperor and his regime was blind to the suffering of its people. In this scenario, the US wanted to create a psychological impression with an A-bomb. Besides, Stalin was itching for a share in the action on his eastern border and was to declare war on Japan by 15 August. This would have inevitably led to Soviet territorial claims in the Pacific region. Above all else, a staggering $2 billion were spent on the nuclear research effort and America literally wanted a ‘bang for its buck’. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the two nuclear strikes, but it should be remembered that the first incendiary attack on Tokyo had killed more people than that. In any case, it forced the Japanese to realize the folly of continuing the war and to surrender unconditionally just five days later.

A good chunk of the book is dedicated to the story of treachery on the part of scientists with communist affinities who had worked in the Manhattan Project. Klaus Fuchs was a senior researcher while Theodore Hall and David Greenglass were two crucial contributors to the engineering design. All three of them handed over top-secret documents to Soviet agents which saved the Russian nuclear program several years of wasted research and millions of rubles. Oppenheimer himself was under the watch for a considerable time. These people were attracted to communist ideology during their student days and were totally ignorant of what life was like in the Soviet Union that was touted as a Marxist’s heaven. As the truth slowly began to dawn, they broke links with the spy ring. It is strange that none of them wanted to flee to the safety of USSR even when it was clear that the security agencies were shadowing their every move. Evidently, they valued a few years of imprisonment in the UK or the US far more than an impoverished and intellectually oppressive lifetime in the Soviet Union. Igor Kurchatov, the director of the Soviet program, found his life much easier with the wealth of data flowing in from Los Alamos. The spy racket was exposed with the defection of Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in the Ottawa embassy of the USSR to the West immediately after the conclusion of the war.

The book is easy to read and very entertaining. But its immense size of nearly 500 pages presents a daunting task for the reader. The author could have easily condensed it to, say, 300 pages without losing the punch or fraying the verve. This vast real estate permits Baggott to list the names of each officer who took part and got killed in the clandestine raids on Vemork plant in Norway which supplied heavy water to the Uranverein. Such detailed coverage of a fringe effort is unwarranted. The book’s portrayal of the German physicists’ astonishment on hearing about the Hiroshima attack is an eye opener for those working in scientific research. The Germans considered themselves to be at the head of their profession and didn’t entertain the slightest notion that others could do it better in America. They had no knowledge of the American program and naively assumed that since the German program failed, the Americans also must have bitten the dust. When the news was broken to them, their illusory world of superiority was shattered and the rude sense of awakening exhibited the pitfalls of overconfidence of the scientists who should always have kept an open mind.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star