THe Dawn of the Atomic Age
Nuclear fission, Soviet spies, and the race to end the second World War
Click here to see a timeline of events. Most useful dates: December 7, 1941 through July 16, 1945
Click here to see a timeline of events. Most useful dates: December 7, 1941 through July 16, 1945
[Nuclear fission: the process by which an atom splits into lighter atoms and releases nuclear energy]
Building the Bomb
Overview of Los Alamos*
What: top-secret atomic weapons laboratory Where: Los Alamos Ranch School, Otowi, New Mexico. 33 miles northwest of Santa Fe When: 1942-1945 Why: Develop atomic bombs. Defeat the Germans. End World War II. Important names: J. Robert Oppenheimer - Project Director General Leslie Groves - Leading Military General Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman - POTUS * The name "Los Alamos" is classified information. The location was referred to as Site Y, Project Y, the Zia Project, Santa Fe Area L, or most commonly, The Hill. |
"[Los Alamos] was Mountain Resort meets Army Camp." |
Why Los Alamos?
The goal was isolation. When searching for a place to home Project Y, General Leslie Groves and Project Director J. Robert Oppenheimer were looking for a sparsely populated area with nonintrusive weather and an easily secured terrain. Groves appreciated the high mesa that made it easy to patrol and workable terrain which required little clearing before construction began. The nearest town was 16 miles away. The site was previously home to the Los Alamos Ranch School in Otowi,NM which was built in 1918 as an "outdoor school" for boys. Otowi was easily accessible, had a better water supply, and lay in a more sparsely populated area. In November 1942 Los Alamos was selected. After one final graduation, the US government took over the school and used the facilities for immediate housing. Los Alamos totaled 54,000 acres.
"The Secret City"Los Alamos could not be found on any map. The scientists and their families who arrived had no idea where they were or where they were going. After arriving at LAMY, the administrative hub of the Manhattan Project, young men and women were directed to 109 E. Palace Ave. in Santa Fe, NM. At 109 E. Palace, they were told to travel another 35 miles to Pajarito Plateau and up to "The Hill." Each resident shared the same P.O. Box 1663. (By the end of the war, 5,000 people were assigned P.O. Box 1663.)
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Aerial view of Project Y site
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Every person wishing to enter Los Alamos needed to present a badge
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SecurityResidents of Los Alamos could not travel more than 100 miles from the location. If they ran into a friend on the outside by chance, they needed to give a detailed report to the site's security. Long distance calls were monitored and mail was censored in a strict (and illegal) way. High barbed wire fences blocked the perimeter of the site while armed guards patrolled the inner fences. Colored badges were used to allow access to certain areas and information. Blue badges were given access only to the small compartment of their work while white badges were allowed extensive access.
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The role of women
Women participated in the Manhattan project in both a military and civilian capacity. Women provided administrative and clerical assistance and filled in wherever they could. While most women were white, there were important contributions made by African-American, Hispanic, and Native American women. The women were generally overworked and underpaid compared to their male counterparts.
The Women's Army Corps of Engineers march
Women serve as machine and switchboard operators
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Most of the women serving in the Manhattan Engineering District (MED) were soldiers and officers of the U.S. Army. More than 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in World War II. WACs were assigned to the Corps of Engineers as early as 1943. So many women were recruited into the MED that on June 3, 1944, the Manhattan District WAC Detachment was established. When the war ended, more than 400 WACs had served in the Manhattan District.
MED women became cryptographers, spectroscopists, classified information handlers, metallurgists, electronics technicians, stenographers, telephone operators, nurses, photographers, clerks, laboratory technicians, and human computers. Less than a dozen women at Los Alamos held scientific posts. |
Espionage
The spies who infiltrated Los Alamos and passed information along to the Soviet Union expedited their atomic bomb development by at least two years. Though Soviet messages began being archived during the war by the Army Signal Intelligence Service, they were not closely studied until after the war, since the Soviets and Americans were Allies. It wasn't until 1946 that Meredith Gardner decoded the Soviet trading messages.
Comparison of first nuclear tests KT = kilotons
Comparison of first nuclear tests KT = kilotons
- 16 July 1945, United States: Trinity Test, Alamogordo, NM, Plutonium Implosion Device (20 KT)
- 29 August 1949 Soviet Union: “Joe-1” aka First Lightning, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, Plutonium Implosion Device (22 KT)
David Greenglass is the infamous American spy "who turned his family in." Greenglass, his sister, and brother-in-law, the Rosenbergs, were all convicted of espionage. When the three were arrested, Greenglass sold out his sister and brother-in-law in an FBI plea bargain. He served 10 years of his 15-year sentence while Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
were executed in 1953 at New York's Sing Sing prison. |
Theodore Alvin Hall was the youngest physicist to work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during World War II. Though he was never convicted, he was later identified as an American spy helping to pass information to the Soviets.
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Klaus Fuchs was a German member of the British physics team and is the most well-known Soviet spy of the Manhattan Project. Fuchs passed most information to Soviet Agent, Harry Gold, in the summer of 1945. Fuchs was convicted and sent to prison in Britain.
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Communism and American Student Groups
DefinitionsSocialism: public ownership or control of property and natural resources. Each person lives in cooperation with one another. Everything produced is essentially a social product, meaning everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share.
Communism: political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is a heightened form of socialism. One main distinction between the two is the communists’ adherence to the socialism of Karl Marx.
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Marxism: a doctrine developed by Karl Marx in the mid-19th century consisting of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology, a theory of history, and an economic and political program.
Leninism: principles put forth by Vladimir I. Lenin, an important figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He founded the organization known as Comintern (Communist International) and was posthumously the source of “Leninism.” The conjoined doctrine of Marx’s works with Lenin’s formed Marxism-Leninism, which became the Communist worldview.
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By the 1920's, the Communist Party in America was 12,000 strong. That number continued to rise in the 1930's as American communists helped in leading and organizing groups such as the American League for Peace and Democracy, the National Negro Congress, the American Writers Union and the American Youth Congress. The US Communism movement was well-received among the young people of the country and there soon grew an emergence of Communist journals and periodicals, as well as student groups on college campuses. The Young Communist League USA was a communist youth organization focused on the development of its members into Communists, through Marxism–Leninism study and active participation in American working class struggles.