Leo Szilard

Few scientists could have done more for the development of atomic energy than Leo Szilard. He was largely responsible for the initiation of the Manhattan Project, but afterwards made numerous attempts to stop the bomb, and to ease the cold war complications that arose afterwards. As a theoretical physicist, Szilard did not concentrate on a specific part of research in the Project, but rather provided numerous ideas for other participants. His friend and colleague Edward Shils described him as a man of "unresting sensitivity and intelligence, immensely energetic and controlled, and yet with great care and gentleness of manner (Wainstock, p. 38)." One of the "Ten Commandments" that he developed during the course of his life says, "Let your acts be directed towards a worthy goal, but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not means to an end (Szilard, p. VI)," and he seems to have followed it fairly well.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1898, Szilard was the oldest of three children in a well - to - do Jewish family. Since childhood, he always strove to be "different" from others; he even dressed differently than his schoolmates (Lanouette, p. 4). Taking after his father Louis Szilard, Leo studied biology and electrical engineering in college.

At the start of World War I, Leo was drafted to the front, but came down with influenza and stayed in Vienna for treatment. After the war, Hungary became a Soviet-style republic under communist Bela Kun. The Jewish population constituting the majority of Hungarian intelligentsia, actively participated in the revolution. This fact served to their great disadvantage when the Fascist regime of Nicholas Horthy took over in 1920. Much like Hitler would do thirteen years later, Horthy initiated racial quotas in universities. Szilard had to go the Institute of Technology in Berlin, as the admission there was, ironically, more fair than in Hungary. In Berlin, he met several brilliant physicists such as Albert Einstein, Max Von Laue, and Max Planck. Leo could not resist the intellectual atmosphere in the department, and quickly transferred to the study theoretical physics. Although he was new in the subject, he learned quickly, and received his PhD at the age of twenty-three (Bess, p.45). Szilard and Einstein became close friends, and in 1920 took out a joint patent for liquid refrigerator pumps with no moving parts.

After graduation, Szilard continued to work and teach in Berlin. He became fascinated with the prospects of liberating atomic energy after reading H. G. Wells' science fiction books. Wells predicted in 1914 that the atomic energy will find its applications in warfare, and the survivors of the war would establish a world government. According to Wells, the atomic energy would be discovered in 1933 (Bess, p. 45). In 1933, the French scientist Joliot announced that the splitting of the atom was possible. However, it was also in 1933 that Hitler's regime firmly established itself in Germany. Szilard was forced to resign from his position and fled to Vienna. While there, he actively tried to help the Jewish intellectuals in Germany find positions elsewhere and escape. Of course, Leo could not see the full scale of the coming catastrophe, but something was telling him to do everything possible to get out of Germany. He moved to London, and later to the United States, where he accepted a teaching position at Columbia University. In 1938, Danish physicist Niels Bohr arrived to New York with the startling news that two German scientists discovered nuclear fission. Szilard immediately set up series of experiment, in collaboration with Italian Enrico Fermi, to see if the theory was correct. On March 3, 1939, the chain reaction in uranium succeeded. Szilard later recalled,

Szilard realized that if he could imagine using the atomic energy to produce bombs, then so could the Germans. It was therefore of vital importance to prevent them from producing atomic bomb by al means. The only two known sources of uranium in the world at that time were in the Belgian Congo, and in Czechoslovakia. Since Czechoslovakia was under the Nazi occupation, one could only hope that Hitler would not use its resources. Szilard had already tried to prevent all the theoretical and experimental work on uranium that was done outside of Germany from publication, and ran into several conflicts with other scientists, so the only other thing left for him to do was restrict access to the Congo uranium. Szilard, Fermi, and another Hungarian Edward Teller went to see Einstein in Long Island, who was personally acquainted with the Belgian royal family. Einstein wrote a letter to the queen alarming her about the potential uses of uranium, and the scientists agreed to meet later for the final signing. In between the meetings, Szilard decided that the American Government should also be aware of the threat. He therefore wrote a letter directly to President Roosevelt, had Einstein write an introduction to it, and contacted a Wall Street banker Alexander Sachs who claimed to have easy access to the White House. Sachs delivered the letter to the President, and in October 1939 the government started providing the funding for the Columbia research.

Another branch of the project was organized at Chicago University, under the code name of Metallurgical Laboratory. Szilard and Fermi moved to Chicago, where they continued experiments. Szilard, however, was "an independent gadfly" of the project, in the words of Stephane Groueff: "He would rove through the labs, suggesting revolutionary approaches to the problems, sounding the alarm about Hitler's military advances, and often asking some young scientists to switch from one experiment to another. Leo Szilard always seemed to leave a trail behind him like the wake of a cyclone (Groueff, p, 24)."

When the experiments became successful enough that the government started thinking about transferring the project to the industry, Szilard resisted strongly. He was afraid that because of the bureaucratic delays, Germany would produce the bomb first and dominate the world. Alternatively, he feared that if the United States did not produce the bomb soon enough to be used in the war, the people of the world will never realize its tremendous destructive power, and will not be able to reach an arms agreement after the war. However, the project went on successfully, and Germany did not possess an atomic bomb by the end of the war.

In 1945, when Germany's defeat was clear enough, Szilard started doubting in the righteousness of the bomb production. His concept of moral imagination allowed him to foresee the complications that the bomb would bring into the international relations. He pictured the post-war world as one divided into two antagonistic "great powers", with the rest of the world more or less submerged under one or the other. The existence of the atomic bomb would provide a small child with a new and expensive toy, the full implications of which the child does not know. Any imprudent movement from either side, and the entire planet could go up in flames. It was therefore his duty as a man who knows more about atomic power than any of the politicians to prevent the atomic standoff from happening.. At about the same time, the Los Alamos laboratory was getting ready to test the first bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico. Szilard started acting in the direction opposite to his previous campaign. He wrote another letter to President Roosevelt, advising him against the use of the atomic bomb on Germany or Japan. "Japan [is] essentially defeated, and it would be wrong to attack its cities with atomic bombs as if atomic bombs were simply another military weapon," he said (Wainstock, p. 38). However, just as he received an appointment with Eleanor Roosevelt, came the sad news that the President had died. Szilard requested a direct meeting with Truman, but the new President directed him instead to see James Byrnes who, unbeknownst to Szilard, was going to become the new Secretary of State. Szilard went to see Byrnes n Spartanburg, South Carolina, on May 28, 1945. The following fragment of their conversation demonstrates the enormous breach between the two different viewpoints:

Szilard: If the United States used the bomb against Japan, we might start the atomic race between America and Russia which might end with the destruction of both countries.
Byrnes: General Groves had informed me that Russia does not have any uranium, and therefore cannot build an atomic bomb.
Szilard: Russia has access to uranium ore in Czechoslovakia and most probably in Russia, too. The government should postpone testing the bomb until it has developed a policy on the issue of how to cope with the problem that the bomb would pose to the world.
Byrnes: The government had already used two billion dollars making the bomb. How would you get the Congress to appropriate money for atomic energy research, if you do not show results for the money which has been spent already?

Byrnes was also concerned with the Russian troops that moved into the eastern European countries. He said, "It would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw from these countries, and Russia might be ore manageable if impressed by American military might (Wainstock, p. 38)." In other words, while Szilard was looking at the bomb from a moral standpoint, Byrnes considered it to be just another joker in a game of cards, an extra addition to the American military strength. Szilard was very upset with the conversation. Moreover, it got him into trouble with General Groves who was the military head of the Manhattan Project. Groves' agent followed Szilard and Byrnes, and the general considered the conversation a "grave breach of security." It was largely due to Groves' influence that Szilard's true role in the project was long unknown to the world; his papers were kept secret until long after his death (Lanouette, p. XVIII).

When Szilard returned to Chicago, the tensions between him and Groves intensified. To somehow resolve the argument, the leader of the project, Dr. Compton, organized a committee under he chairmanship of James Franck, to examine the issue of whether or not the bomb should be used, and if so, how. The report of the commission, also known as the Franck report, argued against the outright use of atomic bombs against Japan "on the grounds of expediency" (Szilard, p. 186). It favored the demonstration of a bomb without mass slaughter, just to convince Japan of the bomb potential. However, the report did not produce a desired effect on the military. Szilard decided to take another approach and framed an official petition to President Truman, arguing that atomic bomb were primarily means to destroy cities: "Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale." The petition drew about seventy signatures from the leading scientists in the project, but never became more that an expression of the scientists' moral standpoint. All the efforts failed as President Truman decided to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Upon realizing that the fight was lost, Szilard immediately directed his efforts into preventing the atomic confrontation between the United States and Russia. He devoted the rest of his life to private negotiations with both sides, struggling to achieve a firm agreement on the nuclear arms between the two giants. He also tried to make the information about the Manhattan Project and his efforts to stop the production of the atomic bomb open to the general public. However, General Groves strongly resisted declassifying Szilard's petition and other documents, and largely due to his influence Szilard's contribution to the project was unknown until after his death.

From the early discoveries of nuclear fission in 1933, Szilard had a clear vision in his mind of the world ruled by nuclear arms. Once he realized that such terror was indeed possible, he used all his efforts to prevent it. Although he may seem inconsistent in first initiating the American atomic bomb, and then trying to stop its creation, the events that happened between the two extremes, along with his moral imagination, account for the sharp change. In 1939, when it seemed that only a miracle could prevent Hitler from taking over Europe, if not the world, even a slightest possibility of the German atomic bomb alarmed those who had any idea of its potential. Szilard was one of them, and he immediately went inferred the possible consequences of a man like Hitler gaining atomic power. The only means to counteract Germany, as Szilard saw it, was for one of the Allies to create an atomic bomb, and thus have two bombs from each side prevent future use. In 1945, however, Germany was on the verge of defeat, it clearly did not have an atomic power, and was not close to developing one. In the changing situation, the American atomic bomb would no longer counteract an enemy power, and could become a single threat to the world peace. In other words, it was better to have two bombs in two opposing countries, but yet better to have none. Japan was not a significant enough threat to use atomic power against it. Szilard went beyond the cost-benefit calculations justifying the murder of a hundred thousand innocent people in order to prevent the death of a million; he was able to see the long-term consequences of the weapon, which his contemporaries could not even grasp until it was too late. His moral imagination was wide enough to allow for tactical changes while retaining the general strategy for peace.

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