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H. C. Urey about the Bomb, Nobel Prize Winner to Leslie Groves About Manhattan Project, “I have always felt badly that we had to use the bomb but I could not see that any other decision could have been made”
H. C. Urey about the Bomb, Nobel Prize Winner to Leslie Groves About Manhattan Project, “I have always felt badly that we had to use the bomb but I could not see that any other decision could have been made”
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Urey Harold



H. C. Urey About the Bomb, Nobel Prize Winner to Leslie Groves About Manhattan Project

 

“I have always felt badly that we had to use the bomb but I could not see that any other decision could have been made.”

 

HAROLD C. UREY, Typed Letter Signed, to Leslie R. Groves Jr., December 6, 1965. 1 p., 8.5" x 11". Very good.

 

Excerpts

“How very nice to hear from you again and I am so glad that you liked my letter to the New York Times Magazine. I have always felt badly that we had to use the bomb but I could not see that any other decision could have been made.”

 

“I also do not consider world government practical. I have never subscribed to the World Federalists at all. My association has been with Clarence Streit’s idea of a union of the western democracies—countries that have approximately the same political systems, the same sort of ideas as embodied in the United States Constitution, similar religions, similar cultures of every kind. It is probably impossible even to do this, but it has always seemed to me that perhaps is might not be completely impossible and so I have worked and talked for this idea. Many people think that it is a way by which we increase the split between East and West, but my answer is that the split already exists and I do think if the West spoke as a unit instead of many voices that it would ameliorate many difficulties that we are facing.”

 

Historical Background

In a letter appearing in the New York Times Magazine of October 24, 1965, Urey answered the question, “Would you make the bomb again?” with a resounding “yes.”

 

Clarence Streit (1896-1986) was an American journalist who played a pivotal role in the Atlanticist and world federalist movements. While covering the League of Nations for the New York Times in 1929, Streit became convinced that mankind’s best hope was a federal union of democracies, and he wrote Union Now in 1939 to support the political integration of democracies in Western Europe with other English-speaking countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa).

 

Atlanticism, as the movement for a close relationship between the United States, Canada, and Western Europe became known, manifested itself most prominently during and immediately after World War II through the establishment of institutions like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Marshall Plan.

 

In contrast, the World Federalist Movement seeks a global federal system of democratic institutions. Created in 1947 by those concerned that the new United Nations was too similar to the League of Nations that had failed to prevent World War II, the World Federalist Movement advocated a stronger federal system with autonomous powers. Prominent advocates have included Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, and others. In 1965, the movement established offices near those of the United Nations in New York City.

 

 

Harold C. Urey (1893-1981) was born in Indiana and received a degree in zoology from the University of Montana in 1917. After World War I, he became an instructor in chemistry there. He received a PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1923 and studied in Europe before further postgraduate study at Johns Hopkins University. There, he coauthored with Arthur Ruark one of the first English texts on quantum mechanics. In 1929, he became an associate professor at Columbia University. There, he discovered deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934. He founded the Journal of Chemical Physics in 1932 and served as its editor until 1940. As an expert on isotopes, Urey became involved in the enrichment of uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. For work on enriching uranium, General Groves successfully nominated Urey for the Medal for Merit, the highest civilian decoration of the time, awarded by the President of the United States.  After the war, Urey served as professor of chemistry at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, and from 1952 to 1958, at the University of Chicago. He later helped develop the field of cosmochemistry and became an expert on lunar studies.

 

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.

 

 



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