Companies as a Public Service and brought you today, your television provider. Up next, the Manhattan Project is a subject of a lecture by George Mason University history professor Martin Sherman is the author of a world destroyed, harris she met and its like a cease and a coauthor of a pulitzer winner, mr. Sherman details the development of the atomic bomb, beginning with the discovery efficient in 1938 through the use of atomic bombs in cities like kawasaki and hershey. The event was hosted in washington d. C. It is just under two hours. Our speaker tonight is martin sure. When hes the professor at the history at martin mason. Hes also the author of a world destroyed, the atomic bomb and the world, alliance which won the historic foreign relations, as well as the american book prize. It was a 1975 finalist for it is subtitled hiroshima and its legacies. Hes held appointments at the cardoza fund, visiting as this thing professor at American History at Yale University and as the burnett mailer visiting professor at wellesley college. He started dartmouth, uc berkeley, the university of pennsylvania, hes received the national endowment, in 2007 he was inducted into the American Academy of arts and sciences. So please join me now in a warm welcome for professor martin. Is it working . Good. Thank you ruth. My mother wrote that introduction i hope you liked it. It was more fulsome because my father can get a chance to added it. Im really glad to be here to talk about this topic. I think it is the kind of subject that needs to be reviewed again and again and again because unfortunately the Nuclear Issue is still with us, and it looks like its going to be with us for a very long time. So i had a chance to just talk with it to a few of you, and i know that at least this i chatted with have a particular interest in all broad aspects of the Manhattan Project. And this top im going to give, however focuses on as the subtitle says visions of the nuclear future. But is it focuses on the people who were thinking about what Nuclear Weapons would do, not only for the war but the post war period. That is one of the themes of the stock tonight. That Nuclear Weapons were from the very beginning not just a weapon that was thought about with respect to the war, but the implications of such a powerful transformative weapon was automatically folded into ideas of what effect it would have on the post war period. Now many of you no doubt are interested in the views of those like oppenheim, or general groves, haunts beta, and many many other participants in the project. And id like to suggest to you that if you want to follow up voices, visions of the nuclear future, and the voices that are the subject of tonights discussion, that you go to Manhattan Project voices. One word. Manhattan project voices. The Heritage Foundation has a website with lots of interviews. Some of which i did. But lots of different interviews that were done by other people with the major figures in the Manhattan Project. So i think its not too much to say that the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki structured the future of not only the atomic age and how the atomic bomb was seen and valued, but also the future of civilization. So were talking about a very big subject here. And one that in a fact has changed over time in terms of our views of the major issues. 70 years ago there was a certain consensus on eve you, 50 years ago there was more diversity of views about the issues. And today there are many many, many many views. But one of the interesting things is that the atomic bomb, although it was not predicted 100 years before it was developed, the idea that science would transform the human condition was something that people thought about even in the 19th century. And one of my favorite quotes with respect to that issue was by henry brooks adams in a book he wrote an 1862 where he says the following. Man has mounted science, and has now run away with. I firmly believe that for many centuries more signs will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science may have the, someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power. And the human race commits suicide by blowing up the world. Now thats 1862. And the beginning of the nuclear age is a moment when that possibility emerged. No matter how devastating, no matter how terrible previous weapons were, there is absolutely nothing that compares to that transformative effect of Nuclear Weapons. Now im going to talk about the period of the discovery of the Nuclear Vision to the post were period. I hope the discussion will expand to beyond present day. But to organize the top ive divided into four pieces. I divided the pie in quarters. And the first section of the top is about possibilities when Nuclear Weapons were, not Nuclear Weapons, when vision was first discovered in its implications were forced thought about, what were the possibilities . That runs from about 1939 till about 1941, until the time in which the United States entered the war after pearl harbor. The Second Period is from lets see pearl harbor until about the time president roosevelt died in april, 1945, and president truman took president ial office. And that was a time of panic. Especially at the beginning of that period. And then, about the time that truman comes in we start to talk about promotion, that is how is the bomb going to be promoted to the world. How is it going to be revealed. Are we going to just have a test . Are we going to use it on the japanese . Are we not want to use it at all . Whatever. These issues with issues that were discussed in visions of the nuclear future. Finally in the post war period were talking about the eminence. The United States, the sole possessor of this incredible force. So lets begin at the beginning. With the discovery of Nuclear Fission. I may be reviewing some think that most of you know. But Nuclear Weapons, i keep saying that, Nuclear Vision was discovered in germany. At it was discovered by two chemists, not physicists, chemists. They were doing a series of experiments where they were bombarding the element, adams of elements in the periodic table with neutrons to see what would happen. They got to the 92nd element, uranium, and the bombarded it with a neutron. And the most amazing thing happened. They ended up not with uranium, but with burial. A tomahawk number 56, as opposed to 90. And some leftover elements of uranium. So they did it again. Same thing happened. They couldnt figure out what in the world had occurred. They sent their experiment to former colleague, lisa, who was jewish and had to leave germany. Lisa we might know, whos a physicist, and her nephew, another physicist, figured out what had happened. A uranium adam had split into, and when the weed the two elements, the berry am and what was left of the uranium, it weighed less than the uranium atom. How many of you are watching the einstein series on television . So basically e mc squared that means that when air energy is converted, energy is converted back and forth, what had happened is that some energy had been released in this bombardment. And if it zillion of these adams could be split at the same time, up the sleeve, and unprecedented amount of energy would be released. And that was scary, and it was fantastic, in it in a sense it transformed the whole understanding of what could happen in the universe. And this was in line with a lot of other transformations that had occurred in the 20th century. We mentioned and stunts theory of relativity, then his special theory of relativity. Then the new conception of relativity, then has embers uncertainty principle. Classical physics had been completely transformed by these new insights, and now this. So it was an amazing event. And it was an amazing event with all kinds of not clearly understood possibilities. One being perhaps we could end up with a weapon. Now you all know about einsteins leather to roosevelt. Einstein said to his friend lynn is polling i made one great mistake in my life when i signed a letter to president roosevelt recommending that the atomic bomb be made. But there was some justification. The danger that the germans might get them. That of course was the possibility that led to the panic phase two. And that letter that and stein wrote to roosevelt was however not a letter that said we have to hurry up and build atomic bombs because the germans are ahead of us and we need to build atomic bombs. It was much more cautious and it was written by leo who had worked with einstein in berlin years and years before. Einstein wrote that it is conceivable that much less vision as a source of power that extremely powerful bombs of a new type might be instructed. And he pointed out that a single bump of this type carried by boat and exploded by port might very well destroy the whole port, together with the surrounding territory. Now if the letterhead ended at that it might not have had the effect that it had which was for roosevelt to say give it to an aide, his name was paul watson, and to say look into this. But the last part of the letter was critical. I understand i start had wrote that germany had actually stopped the sale of uranium from the czechoslovakia mines that germany has taken over. So you can understand that the framework for what would eventually become the Manhattan Project, even in this earliest stage when nobody knew if it was even possible if a weapon could come out of this discovery, but the framework was this is something really important that can make a difference. Roosevelt initiated activity. And the activity in the United States has basically committees of scientists and some military people studying the not only implications of the strassmann discovery, which by the way was published in Nature Magazine in 1939. I think i neglected to mention that the experiment had taken place in december of 1938. A couple of months later its published in Nature Magazine, which is the premier Science Magazine in the English Speaking world. So every physicist around the globe knew about this, and had the same thoughts that had that he put in this letter that einstein wrote to roosevelt. But the committees in the ended states between the spring of and 10 39, where the summer of 1939, which is when the letter was sent to roosevelt could not figure a way that it was possible to build a Nuclear Weapon. They looked into all sorts of possibilities, but in effect got nowhere in england however, there were two refugees from germany, a couple of jewish scientists, a fresh, lisas nephew, and rudolph. They were in britain and they were not alloweds to work on the most secret project that the british were involved with. Anybody know what that was . Radar. Okay. I have an informed audience. It was radar. And they immediately decided well, what do we know best . Nuclear fission. Lets work on that, and lets see if we can figure out if it could be possible to get the Nuclear Fission built. Working off of advice from a lot of people, just going into the problem, using their imaginations theyve figured it out. The key to the conclusion that if you could collect enough uranium to 35, which is the isotopes of natural uranium to 38, it would be very very small, less than 1 of if there was some way to extract uranium to hundred 35 which had fast neutrons, then it would be possible to build a Nuclear Weapon in two years. In two years. Now the discovery of Nuclear Weapons, i did it again, of Nuclear Fission had occurred in december, 1938, published in february of 1939. That was more than two years ago. The discovery was made in germany, and comes to the conclusion in britain two years later that a bomb could be used in two years. Oh my gosh. Or at the germans well on their way to building a atomic bomb. Possibly. At least they thought, the vision of the Manhattan Project. The germans are ahead of us. They must be ahead of us. They have a lot of good physicists who remain in germany. So the british, who have an agreement with the United States to Exchange Information with each other that might be helpful for the war effort send the report to the United States, and that report arrives sometime in the spring of 1941. Spring, 90 40, one was still before pro harbor. And it has a transformative effect and the activities in the United States. Then her bush, who is the head of the office of Scientific Research and development, which is the office that oversees all the wartime atomic bomb projects, bush gets this memo and he writes the mom all to henry simpson, the secretary of war which also goes to president roosevelt. The reason it goes to the secretary of war is that the bump project is going to be under the secretary of war pages. And he says, one thing is certain. If such explosive were made, it would be thousands of times more powerful than existing explosives, and its use might be determining. And its just might be determining. And that is the thick of the Manhattan Project. And that is the intellectual engine so to speak, or the vision that drives the project that is warp speed. Roosevelt approves the Manhattan Project on december six, 1941. Very interesting day. December six, 1941 december seven, 8 00 in the morning, pearl harbor time, pearl harbor is bombed. The Manhattan Project is underway in the war is underway virtually at the same time. And remember, the germans maybe two years ahead of us. When general groves is appointed to run the Manhattan Project he is assured that he has the highest priority for material. He has the highest priority for recruiting scientists. He has the highest priority for everything, because its use might be determining. And so the Manhattan Project moves as fast as possible to completion. Now most studies of the atomic bomb, or the atomic bombing, the use of the atomic project came in 1845 when harry truman became president. That is a big mistake, because franklin del inner roosevelts rule is absolutely critical in understanding the attitudes towards atomic weapons that truman inherited when he became president. What happens after pearl harbor in the war . What is the environment in which the Manhattan Project develops . Six months after pearl harbor theres the great battles, navy battles of midway and karl c. And the United States defeat the japanese fleet at midway and cardinal sea. That stops the advance of Japanese Forces towards our country. And it begins the process of turning the war in the pacific around, and the difficult, bloody process of island hopping. One island. Battle after battle begins. Thats six months after pro harbor. Thats june, 1942. Thats the war in the pacific. It has turned around within six months. The war in europe. That takes longer. Remember that takes place in september of 1939. The United States comes in right after pearl harbor, and the battle of stalling grad in the winter of 1942, 1943, stops the german advance and begins the process of turning the war a reopened, and moving the soviet forces towards germany. So by the spring of 1943, which is exactly when russ alumnus opens, in april of 1943, the war is moving in the direction of victory for the United States. Churchill and roosevelt, the american military, the British Military leave were going to win the war, if the British Public and the American Public continue to support this difficult, bloody, awful global war. Were going to win it. Analysts, unless, the germans get the bum first. If the germans get the bomb first all bets are off, because as bush said the war could be determining, roosevelt believe that, churchill believe that, all of the military who were informed and there were very few military who were involved in the Nuclear Program it was so secret. But whoever was informed about the Nuclear Program that if we build a bomb first, or if no one builds above that we can win the war first. But if the germans get the bomb first all bets are off. And the scientists of course were behind this belief. So in effect, by 1943, the spring of 1943, only months after loss alamos is opened up the bomb is seen as whatever you want to call it, a magic bullet which it itself could magically win the war. This wasnt such a fantastic and off the wall kind of idea. We talked about radar a couple of moments ago, and how important that was to the british were effort. It was our most top secret effort. And in fact, i think virtually all historians agree that it was the british sapporo de with its radar that allowed the british to win the battle of britain over skies over great britain. It turned hitler to attack the soviet union, rather than finish of the in th