MARK OLIPHANT:TRUE FATHER OF THE ATOMIC BOMB

By Roland Perry

Australian  Mark Oliphant had an instinct based on unprecedented experimental comprehension that an atomic bomb could be built using Uranium. By 1939  he was the most outstanding physicist in the UK, running a laboratory at Birmingham University.  But he was  prominent and unique also for saying the ultimate explosive could be created. Other greats---Albert Einstein, Denmark’s Niels Bohr, Germany’s Max Born, the US’s Robert Oppenheimer, and the UK’s Nobel Laureate George Thomson---all said it could not be done. They were in accord in claiming 100 tons of Uranium would be needed at the site of the intended target, which made it a practical impossibility. 

Oliphant, headstrong and determined, set out to prove it could be done with under a ton. He, like tens of millions of the British people, was under siege during the German Luftwaffe’s incessant bombing of major cities and towns from the beginning of World War 11. Near death experiences from bombs dropped on his lab was incentive enough for Oliphant, who believed he could develop the weapon to stop Hitler. 

He hired two brilliant Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany---Rudolf Peierls and Otto Fritsch---to work in his lab. These three acted as a tag team in secret, trying different amounts of uranium, with varying sized equipment pieces. They bombarded the element with electrons and neutrons to split off the fissionable part—the U235 isotope---which would be the fuel used for the weapon. 

They worked for two years, with hardly a break, all the time making notes to have their experiments accord with the theory. After that time, Oliphant asked them to write a memorandum, which he edited and re-edited until it was digestible for any scientist. This memo, one of the most important in history, was just the beginning. 

Oliphant then had to oversee the work of four major universities on the bomb’s plant and production feasibility as outlined in the Memorandum. After several months the so-called MAUD technical committee met at the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Picadilly at 11 a.m. on 2 July 1941. 

 Oliphant was asked if he saw the need for amendments to their 30-page report. He thought the report of dense text, formulae and graphs was far too esoteric for anyone to understand beyond those at the meeting. Oliphant was in an excoriating mood, having come from a decade at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, run by the science legend, Lord Rutherford, who stressed that reports must always be clear and digestible for anyone of average intelligence. Oliphant mentioned Rutherford’s homily that if the Cavendish Laboratory’s charwoman did not understand a report, then its author did not either. 

‘This may just get through to the War Cabinet,’ Oliphant said. ‘But none of them are scientists, let alone physicists. They will have no hope of grappling with this jargon. We must reduce it to a tenth of this—say, three pages. And it must be in English.’

Oliphant became the report’s editor-in-chief. The summary began: ‘It will be possible to make an effective Uranium Bomb, which, containing 25 pounds [11 kilograms] of active material, would be equivalent as regards destructive effect of 1800 tons of TNT …’ Oliphant was a stickler for integrity, however, and insisted that a corollary should be added: the detonation ‘would release large quantities of radioactive substances, which would make places near to where the bomb exploded dangerous to human life for a long period.’

The cost of making the bomb would be prohibitive and it might just be operational in two years---by mid-1943. The summary added, tellingly, that the final bomb  could be carried by a modern bomber. 

The Committee’s 3-page report was sent to the War Cabinet, and finally Churchill, who was told the bomb should go forward, especially as the Germans might beat the British to it.

Churchill reacted positively, drafting a memo to his military chiefs in which he said: ‘I feel that we must not stand in the path of improvement.’ He added that he was quite happy with the ‘explosives’ they already had, but nevertheless supported the new weapon.

 President Franklin D Roosevelt had been made vaguely aware of the Uranium bomb’s potential and had set up only a token scientific commission headed by Lyman J. Briggs, the director of the National Bureau of Standards. He was an agriculturalist and an administrator, with no background in physics. It was almost as if Roosevelt was ensuring that the investigation of nuclear fission would be put on the backburner.

The commission made no progress. Briggs had been sent the MAUD report in July 1941. He was asked to forward it to the president’s top scientist, Vannevar Bush, and to James B. Conant, chief of the United States’ main scientific body, the National Defense Research Committee. Briggs, through laziness or ignorance or both, shoved the MAUD report in a safe and consulted no one about it.

That perplexed the MAUD committee, chaired by Nobel Laureate George Thomson. All that work laid out clearly, and not a peep out of the Americans in response. He was aware that Oliphant was travelling to the United States to work on radar technology developments, so he wrote to him asking him to make a few ‘guarded enquiries’ concerning the MAUD report and the Americans’ reaction.

Thomson knew that Oliphant was never likely to be ‘guarded’ in his enquiries. The uranium bomb was his baby, and he too was anxious to discover why the Americans were staying silent.

Oliphant opted for the fastest route to the United States, flying in a B-24 Liberator bomber from the Prestwick airfield, in Scotland. He had a cockpit seat and wore a mandatory flying suit and oxygen mask. A supply of amphetamine tablets was available to help passengers avoid falling asleep, but it seemed that the flight crew needed them more. The plane came close to running out of fuel. Emerging out of low, thick cloud, it fell short of its intended Gander airbase, on Newfoundland island, but the pilot managed to land the plane on a new earth strip.

Few things fazed Oliphant after he’d experienced bombing for the best part of eighteen months in the United Kingdom. He went straight on with his journey to three meetings: at MIT’s radiation lab in Boston, then at Bell Telephones in New York, and at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Each stop saw him lauded for his role in radar development. But that praise was not repeated during his disquieting meeting with the dilatory, grey-haired Lyman Briggs. The 67-year-old American was ignorant of the physics, ‘dull and incoherent’. Oliphant was ‘amazed and distressed’ by Briggs’ incompetence, and to learn that the MAUD report was locked away in a safe and had not been distributed to either Vannevar Bush or James Conant.

Oliphant lunched with Bush and Conant separately, explaining the details of Frisch and Peierls’ discoveries, but both were unconvinced. Conant remarked that the uranium bomb was ‘for the next war’ and did not grasp what was being explained to him. Oliphant realised that the two Americans had not had their thinking sharpened by bombs being dropped on them. The United States was not at war, so there was no urgency.

He had one ace left up his sleeve: his good friend at Berkeley University, the cyclotron (atom-smashing) expert Ernest Lawrence. The Australian was into his explanation in Lawrence’s office when  J. Robert Oppenheimer, a colleague of Lawrence’s, entered the office. The Australian ploughed on, noting the astonishment on the new man’s face.

Oppenheimer interrupted Oliphant at one point, questioning whether the three of them should be having such a discussion about a classified US military defence topic.

Oliphant ignored him, having had enough of the niceties of security when the fate of the planet was at stake. Realising Oppenheimer’s ignorance on the matter, Oliphant opined that ‘it was terrible! People like you and Enrico Fermi [the outstanding Italian physicist] should be well-apprised of it. We [the UK] need you!’

Oliphant’s visit turned Ernest Lawrence into a convert. He was in touch with the influential Professor Arthur Compton, a Nobel laureate in 1927, and transformed him into a uranium bomb disciple. The MAUD report was now disseminated widely, along with Oliphant’s urgent reminder that the Germans were in the race for the bomb, and both had impact. Physicist Leo Szilard, who had cajoled Einstein into writing to Roosevelt about the vague possibility of a Uranium bomb), read the MAUD story, contacted Lawrence and felt vindicated. Oliphant had laid out both the theory and the practicality of the U-235 bomb in terms that even some politicians could understand.

Szilard wrote in September 1941: ‘If Congress knew the full history of the atomic energy project, it would create a special medal to be given to meddling foreigners for distinguished service, and Dr Oliphant would be the first to receive one.’

It was the Hungarian’s humorous way of staving off criticism from Conant and Bush, who had still not gleaned the importance of what had been presented to them. Suddenly, thanks to Oliphant’s efforts, Szilard and many other physicists were alert to this new science—and they were excited.

Events escalated. Lawrence, now Oliphant’s most worthy proxy in the United States, met with Compton and Conant for coffee in Chicago. Lawrence put the MAUD/Oliphant case and was embarrassed to be ticked off by Conant for having discussed classified information on atomic research with Oppenheimer, who did not have a US security clearance. 

But The esteemed University of Chicago professor Compton nodded in furious agreement with Lawrence: the work had to be done. 

Compton, Lawrence and Conant now contacted Vannevar Bush, whose own lackadaisical attitude was stiffened. He took the MAUD report to Roosevelt and made a strong case in favour of action. The president agreed to commence a research program to build the uranium bomb. It was an amazing turnaround, given the recent torpor at the top of the US government. Just three weeks later, Roosevelt wrote to Churchill suggesting their two nations should make a joint determination to produce the bomb.

The key now was for a serious effort to be made by the two nations, given that personalities, distance, beliefs and motivations could all block progress. Lethargy could also set in, especially if Conant’s recent comment that the uranium bomb would be ‘for the next war’ proved unintentionally prescient. It came much sooner than expected.

The date was 7 December 1941, 73 days after Oliphant had enlightened Lawrence, Oppenheimer and the US government. That was the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The urgent need for the development of an atomic bomb was graphically laid bare.

It led to the Manhattan Project for the joint Anglo-American effort to create an atomic bomb. The US set up a massive network of buildings that had to be co-ordinated by Major-General Leslie Groves, an engineer by training, who was the overall director. His last big Government task had been to build the Pentagon. This new project was ten times bigger. 

The UK, with Oliphant’s guidance, chose the best physicists to join the Americans. He became a key part of the joint team. On 18 September 1943 Oliphant and another British physicist, James Chadwick met with Oppenheimer, who had been chosen to manage the laboratory tasked with designing the bomb. 

At the meeting Groves 47, was a force of nature, leaning forward at his Washington DC desk and making a case for both these ‘British’ scientists to join the project at Los Alamos, in the New Mexico desert, a site chosen by Oppenheimer. The theoretical physicist leaned back in his chair, smoking a pipe, and only took it out of his mouth to reinforce the director’s pitch. 

Groves let Oppenheimer try to persuade Oliphant to come on board. James Chadwick was different. He would go with the flow as a floating liaison executive for the British efforts on the bomb, which had effectively been subsumed by the Manhattan Project. He would rely on Oliphant for advice both on policy and how the uranium fuel production was going.

Oliphant was the real target for acquisition. Oppenheimer knew that the Australian would be the perfect foil for him and would solve technical hitches that would have been outside his own capabilities. Groves offered extra pay and superb conditions for Oliphant, who pointed out that he would have to fly  a lot around the US and over the Atlantic. 

Oppenheimer spoke of the collegiate atmosphere already building in the remote Los Alamos location. None of this, Oliphant explained, was as important as his working with Lawrence on the cyclotron at Berkeley, which the Australian had decided to do.

‘It doesn’t matter what kind of mighty weapon you build,’ Oliphant said with his usual frankness, ‘it is going to need plenty of U-235 fuel, which will be generated by the cyclotron work. You are both better off letting me concentrate on that if you want this thing to succeed.’

Once the theoretical and lab experiments were done, Oliphant always saw the Manhattan Project as an engineering job, where the two types of bombs—U-235 and plutonium—had to be built. This was not a big challenge for him. Creating the fuel was.

Oppenheimer was disappointed. He asked Oliphant to visit Los Alamos from time to time, to which the Australian agreed.

Groves had no choice but to acquiesce to Oliphant’s rejection. He was impressed with the Australian’s manner, which was not unlike his own. He took him aside after the meeting to ask a favour.

‘The President is concerned about whether the cooperation with you Brits will work,’ Groves said. ‘He needs to be reassured about the project. Could you see him about it?’

‘I can do that,’ Oliphant replied. ‘But why me?’

Grove explained that, as an outsider, someone not in the employ of the American military or science establishments, Oliphant was ideal for the task. He flattered the Australian, telling him he was the best man to explain to Roosevelt the technical problems that were holding up progress and how they would be overcome.

Oliphant suggested James Chadwick, but Groves shook his head. ‘Great guy,’ he said, ‘but “retiring”.’  By contrast, Oliphant was direct when he enunciated his passion for the project’s aims. Groves could not have put a reserved Englishman in front of Roosevelt.

Oliphant agreed and had a pleasant meeting with the president in the Oval Office. It lasted about an hour, in which he expressed his enthusiasm and optimism about the bomb-making success.

Oliphant left the White House satisfied that his struggle to manipulate the British government to back his push for the major war weapon, and his efforts to drive the Americans to it via Ernest Lawrence in 1941, had been worth it. He then felt hopeful that Germany and Japan would be defeated. Oliphant also believed  that following an Allied victory, the world would have what he considered to be the greatest gift to humankind: nuclear energy.