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Glenn Seaborg, Discoveror of Plutonium, on Atomic Energy Commission & Experiences on Manhattan Project
Glenn Seaborg, Discoveror of Plutonium, on Atomic Energy Commission & Experiences on Manhattan Project
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Seaborg Glenn



Glenn Seaborg, Discoveror of Plutonium, on Atomic Energy Commission & Experiences on Manhattan Project

 

Typed Letter Signed, to Leslie R. Groves Jr., January 26, 1961, Berkeley, CA. 1 p., 8.5" x 11".  Very good.

 

Excerpts

“It was very kind of you to write me in connection with my recent appointment. I very much appreciate your good wishes as I undertake the challenges of my new responsibility.

 

“I too have been disappointed with the change in the membership of the Commission over the years. I suppose some of this is just a natural result of the political process and the fact that the AEC has necessarily become involved in so many issues which are not directly related to science. I have no doubt that you are quite correct that it takes a long period of time to become adequately acquainted with the manifold and complex matters with which the Commission has to deal.”

 

“I still remember the excitement of the Manhattan District days and feel that for many of us that period was a highly valuable training ground for large scale research and development work and for scientific administration.”

 

Historical Background



With Glenn Seaborg’s discovery of plutonium in 1941 as a byproduct of uranium, its potential use to construct a bomb of unprecedented power became obvious to him, but no one had yet isolated even a speck of the material. Leaders of the Manhattan Project gave Seaborg a chance to isolate plutonium in the amounts required for a weapon at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. Seaborg began work there in April 1942, and by August, Seaborg’s group had isolated enough plutonium for it to be seen under a microscope. By December, they had worked out a production process, and in December 1944, full-scale production of plutonium began in a massive plant in southern Washington. Eight months later, plutonium from that plant was used in the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima was made using uranium.

 

In late 1960, president-elect John F. Kennedy decided to appoint Seaborg as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. The appointment was nearly derailed when members of Kennedy’s transition team learned that Seaborg had been listed in a magazine article as one of “Nixon’s Idea Men.” Seaborg, a lifetime Democrat, said he considered outgoing Vice President Nixon only a casual acquaintance. Nominated by Kennedy on January 16 and confirmed by the Senate on February 24, 1961, Seaborg served as chair of the Atomic Energy Commission until 1971. During his tenure, he commissioned studies of the ecological and biological effects of nuclear weapons. He participated in the negotiations leading to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty which prohibited above-ground nuclear weapon testing, which Seaborg considered to be one of his greatest accomplishments. He later advised President Lyndon Johnson to support the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, first opened for signature in 1968.

 

Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999) was born in Michigan but grew up in California and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1933. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. He became a pioneer in nuclear medicine and was a prolific discoverer of isotopes. He and fellow researchers first identified plutonium in February 1941, and Seaborg alone or with collaborators discovered another nine elements. In 1951, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with mentor Edwin McMillan for the discovery of the first transuranium elements. In 1942, he worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory with Enrico Fermi. After the war, he led nuclear chemistry research at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California on behalf of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. President Truman appointed Seaborg a member of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, a position he held until 1960. From 1961 to 1971, Seaborg served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1971, he returned to the University of California, Berkeley as a university professor and later chancellor.

 

Leslie R. Groves Jr. (1896-1970) was a United States Army General with the Corps of Engineers who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Born in New York to a Protestant pastor who became an army chaplain, Groves graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1918 in a course shortened because of World War I. He entered the Corps of Engineers and gained promotions to major by 1940. In 1941, he was charged with overseeing the construction of the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world, with more than five million square feet. Disappointed that he had not received a combat assignment, Groves instead took charge of the Manhattan Project, designed to develop an atomic bomb. He continued nominally to supervise the Pentagon project to avoid suspicion, gained promotion to brigadier general, and began his work in September 1942. The project headquarters was initially in the War Department building in Washington, but in August 1943, moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer selected the site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for a laboratory, and Groves pushed successfully for Oppenheimer to be placed in charge. Groves was in charge of obtaining critical uranium ores internationally and collecting military intelligence on Axis atomic research. Promoted to major general in March 1944, Groves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Manhattan Project after the war. In 1947, Groves became chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. He received a promotion to lieutenant general in January 1948, just days before meeting with Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower, who reviewed a long list of complaints against Groves. Assured that he would not become Chief of Engineers, Groves retired in February 1948. From 1948 to 1961, he was a vice president of Sperry Rand, an equipment and electronics firm. After retirement, he served as president of the West Point alumni association and wrote a book on the Manhattan Project, published in 1962.

Ex. Leslie Groves Family, Christies Auction.

 

 



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