Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era 1943-1945

After Trinity

A crashing let-down followed the long months of intense technical effort and the climax of victory; the Laboratory faltered and very nearly perished. Much of the credit for holding it together goes to Norris Bradbury, the Laboratory’s second and present director and the handful of men who shared his confidence in the facility’s future.

Before the summer of 1945 had ended, a mass exodus from the Hill had begun. Many scientists, technicians and graduate students rushed to return to universities and industries from which they had been begged, borrowed or stolen for the wartime project. Many were lured away, and still others seriously tempted, by large salaries offered by universities attempting to rebuild their depleted technical staffs. In general, the Laboratory was staffed at the end of the war with people who were far from sure they wished to remain in Los Alamos.

After the war, the Army-Navy E was presented to the Laboratory in special ceremonies at the Lodge.

For everyone there were some very large uncertainties. Neither the government nor the University of California had set down a plan for future operation of the Laboratory. The University had accepted the Los Alamos contract only as a patriotic gesture and there was no guarantee that the contract would continue. In the absence of national legislation on future use and control of atomic energy, there was little basis upon which to establish an appropriate policy for a laboratory whose initial mission was complete. Many thought the Laboratory would be abandoned. Others, suffering intense pangs of conscience, thought it ought to be —or that it should at least be turned over to basic and peaceful research.

All this was complicated by the question of whether or not a location on an isolated mesa top in New Mexico was adequate or satisfactory as a peacetime location for a laboratory of any kind.

Furthermore, life on the Hill had never been easy and now, with the job finished, there was little incentive to endure it. The combination of an absentee contractor and Army administration of community and auxiliary services had aroused a state of antagonism and irritation that, for many people, could only be solved by leaving Los Alamos. By October, the Laboratory staff, which numbered 3,000 at its wartime peak, was nearing its all time low of only 1,000.

Then, adding to the confusion, Oppenheimer announced plans to return to his peacetime duties, and appointed Bradbury to take over as temporary director.

An expert on conductivity of gases, properties of ions and atmospheric electricity, Bradbury had come to Los Alamos as an officer in the Naval Reserve after an outstanding academic career at Pomona, the University of California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, where he was a professor of physics. He was convinced that the nation would continue to need a laboratory for research into military applications of nuclear energy and that Los Alamos, now one of the world’s best-equipped research laboratories, was the logical place for it. He gambled that the government would eventually agree with him.

Meeting with key staff members in October 1945, Bradbury laid his cards on the table. While awaiting legislation, he said, “we should set up the most nearly ideal project to study the use of nuclear energy.” However, he continued, “we have an obligation to the nation never to permit it to be in a position of saying it has something that it has not. The project cannot neglect the stockpiling and development of atomic weapons during this period.” The re-construction of a peacetime laboratory had begun.

In the spring of 1946, the Laboratory took over technical direction of Operation Crossroads at Bikini in the Marshall Islands. The historic test series supplied highly significant technical data on the effects of atomic weapons on naval vessels and gave the staff additional experience in the conduct of weapons tests. It also gave the Laboratory a concrete objective when it was most needed and proved the Laboratory ability to conduct a major operation despite the loss of much of its experienced staff.

But still the situation in Los Alamos was uncertain. The final demoralizing blow had come in February 01 1946 when the community water lines froze solid for weeks. Water was brought up from the Rio Grande in a procession of tank trucks and doled out in buckets and pans to grim-faced housewives. The disaster climaxed the bitter resentment of the system of Los Alamos community operation and hastened the exodus of still more unhappy people.

In May, Bradbury played his ace: he announced that, effective in September, the Laboratory would cease to pay the way home for terminating employees. Those who had been unable to make up their minds, quickly decided, and the staff stabilized, leaving only those who shared Bradbury’s faith in Los Alamos.

The faith was confirmed often throughout the balance of 1946. In the spring, General Groves approved plans for construction of the Hill’s first permanent housing, and prefabricated units were added as quick relief for the critical housing shortage.

The biggest boost came in August, when Congress passed the McMahon Act, establishing the Atomic Energy Commission and putting atomic energy under civilian control. As 1947 began, the Commission took over and the University of California agreed to continue operating the Laboratory. With the Commission establishing as its first priority “the stabilization and revitalization of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory,” it became clear that Los Alamos would continue to play a key role in the nation’s atomic energy program.

Although the Laboratory continued development of advanced fission weapons, it shortly embarked upon its second major mission—development of the hydrogen bomb.

Theoretical possibilities for a thermonuclear weapon, an idea born during a lunchtime discussion in early 1942, had been under study since the earliest days at Los Alamos by a special group headed by Edward Teller. Theoretically, the scientists knew, a fusion reaction was possible, but it required temperatures far higher than any previously created by man. With the success of the fission bomb, these high temperatures had been achieved. The thermonuclear bomb was now in the realm of practical possibility.

World’s first full-scale thermonuclear detonation took place November 1, 1952 in the Pacific.“Mike” shot used a LASL thermonuclear device and was conducted by LASL personnel.

But major barriers were still unsurmounted. Once the cooperative efforts of Teller and Stanislaw Ulam made the necessary conceptual breakthrough, the Laboratory was able to launch an elaborate theoretical and experimental research program. The famous electronic brain, MANIAC, was built to handle the complex calculations of thermonuclear process, and the Laboratory went on a six-day week to get the job done. In November 1952, two months before the Laboratory’s tenth anniversary, the world’s first full-scale thermonuclear explosion shook the Pacific atoll of Eniwetok with the detonation of the Los Alamos device, “Mike.”

Since that time, several dozen LASL fission and fusion devices have been tested in eight series of tests in the Pacific and in eight series, comprising 100 shots, conducted at the Nevada Test Site. With nuclear detonations in the atmosphere banned by the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Los Alamos now conducts a vigorous underground testing program in Nevada.

During the first decade, as it is today, the Laboratory’s primary responsibility was development and improvement of nuclear weapons. However, in view of Bradbury’s emphasis on “programs of fundamental research and development related to the problems of nuclear energy,” it is not surprising only about half of the total Laboratory effort is now devoted to weaponry. Other programs cover a broad spectrum of investigation and development looking toward peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Beneficial exploitation of the atom at Los Alamos actually began as soon as the Laboratory was founded. Though the whole first purpose of the installation was to develop nuclear weapons, the nature of that purpose entailed a great deal of purely scientific research. It required people and equipment fitted for much more than the creation of bombs.

In addition to the enriched-uranium reactor development before Trinity, Los Alamos reactors using entirely different fuel systems have been created. One of them-the world’s first plutonium-fueled reactor and the first to rely on a fast-neutron fission chain—went into operation in 1946. In more recent years the Laboratory has developed a reactor using uranium phosphate fuel and another using molten plutonium. One present goal of the Los Alamos reactor program is to find good ways in which to design “breeder” reactors–reactors using neutron capture reactions to produce more fuel than they consume.

Los Alamos has also created the first nuclear rocket propulsion reactors (not intended to be flyable engines themselves, but designed to show the way toward the creation of propulsion systems far superior to those now in use).

Another peaceful program is Project Sherwood in which ways are being sought to harness the H-bomb fusion reaction and make it do useful work.

Scheduled for completion in 1971 is an 800 MeV proton accelerator which will produce pi mesons for the study of the atomic nucleus in ways not now possible. In addition, the meson facility may provide a valuable tool for cancer research.

The Laboratory’s Health Research program has expanded from radiation effects studies to explorations in the field of molecular biology. Over the years, while the Laboratory was making notable scientific advances, the community of Los Alamos itself was coming of age.

The AEC brought to Los Alamos–in the late 1940’s–an ambitious $121 million plan for community expansion and laboratory relocation which put new, modern technical facilities on neighboring mesas, removing the unsightly old wooden structures and their high fences from the town’s main street. A spacious, attractively landscaped shopping and community center was added. Schools and housing were built in a frantic effort to keep up with the need. A post office, library and medical center were added. In 1957, the gates came down and anybody who wanted to could come and go in the town.

Today, except for its rugged mountain setting, the community of bright green lawns and brilliant gardens looks just about like any suburban town. Its more than 16,000 residents enjoy an outstanding school system, a fast-growing shopping facility, plenty of recreation and three burgeoning residential subdivisions.

If Los Alamos is still not quite a “normal” community, it soon will be. In 1962, federal legislation was enacted to transfer commercial and residential property on the Hill from federal to private ownership and management. Nearly all property is now privately owned and final transfer of municipal operations and utilities to Los Alamos county was made in 1967.

Many changes have taken place on Pajarito Plateau during the past decades. Changes which have affected not only the community itself, but changes which have altered mankind’s whole outlook on the world in which he lives. But one thing will not change: the Laboratory’s adventurous spirit and the unmatched natural beauty of the setting which provides much of the inspiration for that spirit.

With an impressive record of accomplishments behind it, and its home town becoming what the AEC hoped in 1947 would be “a community satisfactory to scientists,” the Laboratory can look to a promising future.