Before the Fallout by Diana Preston

Author:Diana Preston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

"V. B. OK"

IN THE UNITED STATES the bomb project was gathering momentum. On 19 January 1942, six weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt returned the "martial" National Academy of Science report submitted to him by Vannevar Bush the previous November under a short cover note on which he simply scrawled "V. B. OK," adding, "I think you had best keep this in your own safe." As Bush knew, these brief words were the sanction to build the bomb.

The S-i Project under its program chiefs made swift progress. In May, James Conant, having reviewed the entire nuclear program, reported to Bush the scientists' latest views that there were five basic ways to produce bomb fuel. U-235 could be separated by the centrifuge, diffusion, and electromagnetic processes. Plutonium could be manufactured from uranium in reactors moderated by either graphite or heavy water. All five methods were sufficiently advanced for the building of pilot plants and possibly for the preliminary design of production plants.

A key question was how to control this work and, given its sensitivity, how to camouflage the expenditure. It was essential to prevent sharp-eyed congressmen from spotting something unusual about government budgets and asking awkward questions. As early as 6 December—the day before the Pearl Harbor attack—Vannevar Bush and James Conant had discussed the desirability of placing the project under the army, whose huge budget could easily conceal the S-i Project. Now, Bush told President Roosevelt that the project might well determine the course of the war and recommended that "the whole matter should be turned over to the War Department." The president had no objection, providing Bush was absolutely certain that the War Department could guarantee absolute secrecy. Three months later he gave his formal approval to the army taking over the project. As a result, the majority of the project's funding would be hidden for the duration of the war in the army's huge Corps of Engineers budget under such bland entries as "procurement of new materials" and "expediting production."

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