fashion person, he was a good friend. >> he was loyal. >> questioner. >> why did you select the question of who was more important, oppenheimer or groves? >> good question. >> cindy did that. >> i think just to provoke controversy among -- >> i don't think it was more important. the question was independencible. >> i think there are people that are.

[ inaudible ] as not independenceable butispensable put achieving the goal of it. and those four people are groves groves secretary of war bernie nichols and oppenheimer. and if you look at the way money was spent as indicative of the problems problems 85% went to the

engineering district. that was nichols. personally i think groves was head and shoulders above anyone else as far as achieving the goal. he was in charge of everybody else. and everybody else knew that. and i'm not saying this because he was no great joy for the sed.

but nichols seems to be a forgotten man. i haven't heard his name mentioned at this event. and he was responsible for the fuel in -- [ inaudible ] much more of a job, actual lyly the born bob -- [ inaudible ]

it was a very difficult thing. and that was oppenheimer's achievement. but they took quite a while until they got the whole mess to solve that problem. groves ran the operation. and he was number one. and i think he was recognized. they should also recognize that the secretaries of war was the very important part of this. >> thank you. >> i'm really glad you brought

up general nichols for a couple reasons. one, he was important in ways you said it. but did he not make any of the decisions on you know, the sort of primary level decisions. those are made by groves. he carried them out. he carried them out very well. secondly, nichols came to hate general groves because of the way he felt groves treated him, you know, an errand boy. go get me two bars of chocolate, have this shirt pressed thinged like. that and he also -- nichols came to really despise oppenheimer. and he got back at him when he was the general manager of the atomic energy commission during mccarthy period and it was nichols who distorted the whole confirmation of the oppenheimer proceedings. we can have another conference about.

that he rewrote the letter of charges against oppenheimer for the atomic energy commissioners. and it's one of the reasons that i think the oppenheimer hearing will be vacated before the obama administration is over. >> okay. we have several hands up here. maybe i'll start with the easiest one. closest here. >> thank you very much. i'm going to try five indispensable people. they mentioned simpson. four bush, five roosevelt. without any of them, it wouldn't have worked. this leads to what is often said nowadays, we need a new marshal plan. we need a new manhattan project. with things like climate change

and other matters which are both politics and science to do things which are recognized by smart people that have been done is what was done in that period rep lickable to today or have we lost it and if we would have replicated it because we believe we needed to because something as critical as fighting a war against germany and japan, the moral equivalent of war, could we even do it or are we so atomized in our politics science and culture that we just could never do it again? >> well i think we did it once again in the race to the moon. i guess in is nothing like the manhattan project or the space race since then.

i any we'll be able to do it again. >> i don't mind weighing in there a tiny bit. so in the manhattan project there was the science part and the military part. i know that military part was very important. boy, that's driving me crazy. so, you know the setup of having the best scientists in the world work on common goal was necessitated by world war ii. everybody was in it to win it as the previous speaker said. it was like 99%. and these guys were incredible. you had to have the military and governmental support in a way that is very unfashionable now right? who says go -- we need more government projects to do things. it's not a common refrain. and there was a little violation

of the trust of the scientists after that. if i may with the oppenheimer case, it was not looked at the same. if you give your service to the country and, you know, be prosecuted, yeah that's a whole different environment. it's hard to imagine the absolute best scientific worldcoming together under government auspices now. but i guess it could happen. >> that's a very important point, i think. oppenheimer in the '54 trial, when he was put on trial in this secret kangaroo court, at that moment in history he was america's most famous scientists aside from his employees at the institute for advanced studies albert einstein. by the end of the trial, when they published the transports of what transcripts, he was

publicly humiliated. so this was a warning at the height of the mccarthy period. oppenheimer was the chief victim of that witchunt. this was a warning to all scientists that you cannot get off the reservation. you can welcome your opinion on scientific issues. but can you not compress your opinions on politics. you cannot be a public policy ibt lekt you'll. and if you dare to do so, you may be publicly humiliated. and i think this really wounded a whole generation of american intellectuals and scientists and even today, we're living with the residue of this mccarthy era.

you can see it in the debate over climate change. can you see it in the debate over any sort of fact driven argument. and our politics are being driven by people who are uninformed about the facts. we live in a scientific age and our picks are driven by clowns. >> we can all do that. >> i have another question here. >> hold it closer to your mouth, please. >> we have the department of energy for 30 years. and the physicist by background and familiar with big projects. i want to say that i don't -- i think everybody in this group is going to be united in saying

they're both indispensable. en that is too often a major accomplishment that is not that singular. i want to vote for oppenheimer anyway. the reason i want to vote for oppenheimer is as a physicist, he was able to express essentially everything i felt and needed both in the psychics and in the social conscience. and the tragedy that happened i think has society for some time that the tragedy of oppenheimer but his ability to articulate the moment both in the science and in this meaning for the world was a leadership quality that had to be there. and so i vote for oppenheimer because i'm a physicist.

and my question really is he was obviously torn immensely by this accomplishment. and i -- it seems almost that he may have regretted his role. is that true? >> i don't think anyone, you know, can answer that. at least, you know, i can't with any confidence. what i would say is that he regretted that the bombs were used the way they were used. i feel confident about that. i remember frank oppenheimer saying when asked the question would you do it again, you know long hesitation and saying yes, in those circumstances, i would do it again.

so the distinction problem by has to be made between the project and then the political decision to use the two bombs that existed on heroiroshima and nagasaki. you know, i don't know if -- well, that's it go. ahead. >> that's a good -- sums it up. i want to give a little bit of that family narrative. i grew up with it. regret versus not regret. when i first heard about the atomic bomb as a child i didn't know my grandfather. he was dead before i was born. i heard about it from my father. he told me in these terms, basically that you know, my grandfather was working during a time of war and he worked on a project like everybody else did. and he actually happened to work on a big project.

it turned out to be really important. but if he hadn't done that, he would have done any other action in the war. so the family feeling wasn't some sense of regret or a portrayed, you know, hand ringing. it was nothing like that. it was the people that served in war. did you feel bad for serving in war? he didn't. he didn't regret that. about the dropping of the bomb you know who's going to let that -- who is going to agree with that? i didn't hear much in family term. and his post war activities were entirely devoted to the volume of atomic energy which he saw extremely clearly what was going to happen that we would go into an arm race and have some ridiculous piling up of weapons and wanted to prevent that. and all his work was related to that. but i don't believe he ever regretted his work during the war partially as a necessary part of science and the fact that they were in the war.

>> another question? >> yes, what happened to general groves with his career after the war? >> well, basically, he was really kind of pushed out. his job, of course, there was a battle in late 1945 or early 1946 about, you know, what are we going to do with this atomic energy business here? are we going to leave it in the hands of the military or are we going to have civilian control? and there was a tussle over that. i think groves is falsely charged with believing that it should be left in the hands of military. he wanted free and clear. and eventually, of course, it ended up as the atomic energy act. truman went along it with. that's the way it's been ever since. as far as groves was concerned,

he went on to another job, another important aspect of his career. he became head of the arms forces special weapons project. had an office in the pentagon. basically, it was taking care of the bomb assembling it, moving it, storing it all of these things. and the things he did there go down to today. this is a second aspect that i have a chapter of in my book as unrecognized feature of groves' legacy. but after that, ike became chief of staff. they didn't get along at all. it was pay back time for groves. he stepped on a lot of toes. he used this priority business to say, you know we get first

dibs on whatever. don't bother me. all these other people came after him. and he really wanted to be chief of engineers. he was too young for that. he went to connecticut with remington rand and james rand liked to collect generals and he had mcarthur has an employee and ed groves. so groves was sort of head of research but didn't do very much. and spoke and eventually he retired from that. after a few years. he moved back to washington. he got a nice apartment on connecticut avenue. and as caroline said, unfortunately died country club in july 1970.

so there were no second acts. he didn't have a vacation in five or seven years. he enjoyed his grandchildren. he would eventually get quoted in the newspaper. and other things. but that part of his life is calm and he played more tennis and took up golf and traveled to europe and there were no second acts. that satisfied him. what they said about building it. and, you know, if there was any criticism, he has a huge stack

of annotations and certain books and, you know, got this wrong and then he was very much against academic historians. you have to talk to the real people that make things happen like me. >> do you have a question in there? >> i think you have to hold it very close to your mouth. almost.

>> thank you. >> i had essentially zero contact with general groves except on 1 1/2 occasions. after the news was out and everybody knew about the atomic bomb and where it came from and so forth, general groves decided that he was going to address the sed and the women's army core. and i can't remember the month that this was happening. i do remember it was cold. and again, i guess it was for christmas. we were standing out in the snow at the department theater in line and the women's army core went in first. and we were standing and shivering in the cold and they came out and we said what happened? and they said well, general groves was introduced to us by

the commandant of the post. and he stood there looking at it and said girls take a good look because this is probably as close to a general as you'll ever get. and then it became our turn to go in and filed in and sat down and he was introduced to us by the commandant of the post again. and he said right here, quickly. even if just put your name on a piece of paper on an envelope write him for christmas. thank you. >> yes. >> same thing. >> i think we talked about this when you came to our book club meeting. but i'm not sure.

>> anybody have questions? >> i got to vote for general groves. because he provided the material. he supervised the engineering and the chemistry that gave the physicist the material that they had to have to build the bomb. so my votes were as a chemist, my votes for general groves i have one question and that is we've been mentioning people that had a lot to do with the success of the manhattan project. where do you put general marshal in this? was he just you know one of the lesser players? actually, he was groves' boss as chief of staff of the army. and he was pretty close to general groves' secretary of war

simpson and was privy to a lot of the decisions that were made. so what role do you assign to general marshal in this? >> i'm waiting for your book to come out to find out what marshal's role was. let me back up a minute. the way the manhattan project was organized is that the secretary of defense was in charge of it in general. marshal had an office right next to simpson. and marshal knew most of the stuff that systemimpson knew about. he followed it fairly closely but never intervened in anything. simpson comes into it when the decision about using the bomb is made and what the arrange. should be for the post war, you

know world. and marshal's in on that a little bit. but all of the manhattan project decisions are made on the one hand by general groves and on the other hand by bush and jam conan, the two scientific heads of national research and defense council. and conan, the president of harvard who is a chemist is the bush's man on the manhattan project. so i think marshal -- and even simpson accept for the decision making projess of how the bomb is used are not involved in any of the groves-oppenheimer issues. >> one thing i'm just constantly amazed at is the degree to which these personalities that have

been identified here and there are others they defer to one another to take dosh carry out the decision whatever responsibility they have. there's into micromanagement. tldz no looking over the shoulder. marshal is chief of staff of the army and simpson is secretary of war. they have the whole war to run. and this is just one little part of it here. we'll give it to groves. groves ran with the ball. he never wanted to bother secretary marshal -- secretary simpson or general marshal. the only went to them only had he had to get something -- he had to get something to break the logjam or to get this and to get that. so he visited their office very infrequently. and they just let him run with it. and the whole country was run -- the whole war was run this way. the degree to which -- we live in such a changed situation

where, you know, everybody's looking over everybody's shoulder here. the press knew nothing about. this the congress knew nothing about this. to go back to the question about whether we could replicate it, i get asked this question all the time. i don't think it can be done again. it was highly secret. there was unlimited money. and, you know, there's a sentence that one of groves' classmates made that overwhelms me. he says no person ever had as much power as groves. you know, he is talking about eisenhower marshal, anybody else? i mean the core of that question is something that you know just wouldn't give that amount of responsibility and power to any single man. and that's what they did with groves. so i think marshal's role, i await your book also. and i think that's an important part of the story. that there were other people involved in all of this.

and it wasn't just groves and oppenheimer. but there were many members of the team. >> well let me comment. i think we're finally wading into some really controversial historical footnotes. i think you in the past have said that harry truman did not make a decision to drop the bomb. it was general groves. and i kind of agree with that. and coming back to your question with regard to general marshal you're quite right. he was looking at the big picture. he had a lot of things on his plate. the bomb he knew was comeing along and he had to make the decision on how to prepare for a land invasion of the japanese homeland. en that in your book i assume that is going to be a key

question that you're going to have to address that's been a controversy issue for decades. and it comes down to was general marshal given casualty estimates that if such an invasion were to occur a million american soldiers would die. so far a memo like that has never been found. the figdz that heures that he was given were much, much smaller, on the order of 67,000 casualties and maybe a little more later depending if there is a second invasion. so this comes back to the question that marty eluded to earlier. in fact, the bomb probably did not end the war.

it was the soviet invasion. the american invasion of the home islands was not scheduled by general marshal for at the earliest november and problem bhi later in the spring of '46. and by that time, everyone knew the war was going to be over. and so general groves made the decision to use the bomb because he had built it. and he wanted to use it. >> that's right. we go back to the question of abuse. and kai said that about truman not making a decision. yes, i have written a pape better that. and there is no piece of paper which says i harry truman authorize the use of the atomic bomb on japan. there just is not. and can you look far and wide and you'll never find one. the momentum of the program at the time was so extreme and we have to remember that fdr dies

on april 12th. harry truman, he doesn't know anything about the bomb. he knows very little about it. he's briefed by secretary simpson. and he's told about this massive thing. and now it's on his shoulders. about, you know what to do with all of this. and fdr was irresponsible and not telling truman more about it so that he was better prepared. but i obviously think and groves has said it the only decision that truman could have ever made was not to use the bomb. and it was full speed ahead. groves even wrote the orders for use and the orders for use were use as ready. use as ready. today we call that

predelegation. truman finally after the second bomb puts himself into the chain of command and says enough. we killed enough kids. enough. the order goes out and they stop atomic bombing. so he finally -- but he didn't authorize the original use of it. sandy sent the order to the pacific to use the bomb as made ready. and that phrase in there is a kind of give away that you're authorized to keep using them as many -- until you're told not to. and eventually he was. >> i just want to add something since i brought up the issue about the bomb not being

necessary. this is ab an argument that will go on forever. >> marty, you're going keep it short though. >> yeah i'm going to keep it very short. i just want to say one thing. there is no one, certainly not me, but no one i know of who argues that an invasion was preferable to using the bomb. the argument among historians is there were alternatives to an invasion and using the bomb. and very briefly those two alternatives, main alternatives was one making it clear to the japanese that the emperor was not going to be considered a war criminal. the people toreship would kin in japan although it wouldn't have the power it had before. and, two waiting for the soviets to come into the war which we knew they would do by

no later than the 15th of august and probably by the tenth of august. they came in on the eighth probably because hiroshima occurred on the sixth. >> well thank you very much. this is a fabulous panel. don't you agree? [ applause ] >> i think it was a plus. >> you're watching american history tv which airs each weekend on c-span3. you can also follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up on the latest history news. and there is more on american history tv's facebook page including video of recent programs and viewer comments much that's at

facebook.com/c-spanhistory. >> the c-span cities tour is partnering with our cable affiliates as we travel across the united states. join us in cox communication this is weekend as we learn about the history and literary life of omaha nebraska, where the de porres groups fighted for racial equality. >> omaha had a reputation in omaha and in the united states as a city that when you came in if you were black you needed to keep your head down and you needed to be aware that you weren't going to be served in restaurants and you weren't going to be able to stay in hotels. when the club began the operation the idea of the fact that terms civil rights -- they used the term social justice. civil rights wasn't part of the national lexicon at that time. the idea of civil rights was so far removed from the idea of the greater community of omaha or the united states that they were

operating in a vacuum. i always like to say that they were operating without a net. there were not the support groups. there were not the prior experiences of other groups to challenge racial discrimination and segregation. >> we look back to the union pacific and how the construction of union station helped omaha's economy. >> the railroad companies of america. it was founded in 1862 with the pacific railway act. so it combined several railroad companies to make union pacific and then they were charged with building the trancescontinental railroad. so they started here and moving west at central pacific started in on the west coast and was moving east. and they met up in utah. and that's really what propels us even farther. we become that point of moving west.

the gateway to the west. >> see all of our program from omaha saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3. >> it was in december of 1938 that two german scientists split the uranium atom. no one had done it until late 1938 and then the germans did it. and that just fueled the fire of the fear. >> oakridge national laboratory is a major research institution and oakridge national lab has been around since right after the second world war. and is a major and perhaps in

some senses the premier research institute in the entire united states. and some people would contend the world. it was started as part of the manhattan project in 1942. the manhattan project was the u.s. government's attempt to build anatomic weapon to drop on germany to end the second world war. and resulted in the atomic weapons that were ultimately dropped on japan in august of 1945 which did in the second world war i and out of that grew oakridge national laboratory. this was set up originally in 1943 as clinton laboratories. dn have the name oakridge at the time. and the purpose of clinton laboratories was to learn how to produce plutonium which was a radioactive element that could

split and release vast amounts of energy just like some uranium can. but they didn't know much about plutonium. it was an artificial element. it had to be created by man. they knew nothing about the characteristics of plutonium. building started in february of 1943. this facility, the graphite reactor as we know it today, was starting in spring of 1943, completed by november of 1943. and came on line as the world's first operating nuclear reactor and in this case, used specifically to produce tiny, tiny amounts of plutonium which were recovered and then shipped up to the laboratory which was part of the manhattan project in chicago. so they could be characterized up there.

and other bits of plutonium that were produced here were shipped tout los alamos laboratory in new mexico where the bombs were actually designed and built by robert oppenheimer and other famous physicists and ultimately tested out there in new mexico. so the purpose of oak ridge national laboratory was originally to serve as a test reactor which is where we are right now to produce trace amounts of plutonium for a nuclear weapon. and they realized -- i say they the government realized fairly quickly back in 1942 and '43 that oakridge and east tennessee were not the places to produce vast amounts of plutonium for a weapon. plutonium is a highly toxic element.

i mean it's very, very carcinogenic. very dangerous if not handled proper will. and east tennessee was not the place to be producing large amounts of plutonium. this reactor here, wasn't even called a reactor it was called a pile was designed simply to learn how to produce plutonium, not to produce large amounts of it. originally, the first reactor that was developed was at the university of chicago. and whom we all heard of was the principal scientists that developed that reactor. he did it in the squash cord of stag field which is where football used to be played at the university of chicago. they weren't playing football anymore. so that's where he ended up. in the squash courts under the grand stands at stag field.

he produced the first nuclear reactor. and proved that a self-sustaining nuclear reaction could be created and maintained. and that's what you have to have in order to produce plutonium is a chain reaction. but government said this is not the place to be messing around with nuclear reactors in downtown chicago. and so we're going to buy a tract of land somewhere. they ended up in east tennessee. they bought 100 square miles down here. and the purpose of this facility at oak ridge, it wasn't oakridge at that time. it was just farm communities. the purpose here was to not only build what we know today as the graphite reactor to produce these trace amounts of plutonium which could be used as a fuel and a weapon, but also to enrich uranium because the army corps of engineers which ran the

manhattan project under general leslie groves groves was sort of fellow that said, well dwoenlt know if plutonium is going to be a better fuel for a bomb or enriched uranium. and so we'll just produce both of them. we don't have time to try one and then try the other. and so here at oakridge, two facilities known as k-25 and y-12 were set up to produce enriched uranium. and they both produced enriched uranium but by different methods. so oakridge consisted that time of three facilities. clinton laboratories which is where the plutonium was to be experimented with. y-12 which was for enriched uranium and k-25 was for enriched uranium. all three were separated by ridges and many many miles of

distance. so that's what oak ridge was. but that's not the entirety of the manhattan project. in addition there was hanford in the state of washington where the plutonium was actually produced in kilogram amounts. and then the third measure facility was at los alamos in new mexico where scientists there under the direction of robert oppenheimer actually designed and built the nuclear weapons. the university of chicago had the metal laboratory where a lot of the basic work on plutonium was done. and then there were universities all over the united states clom yashgs michigan, iowa state berkeley at california and so on. all of which participated in various ways in the manhattan project. it was a massive undertaking,

$2.2 billion which was a tremendous amount of money during the war years. not so much today, of course. and the money was allocated without the knowledge of congress. and even vice president truman didn't know about it. so it was conducted in secret. there were secret cities here at oakridge. they had to build a secret city that ultimately ended up housing 7 a,000 or people. you couldn't get in couldn't get out without going through security. we were fearful that the germans would get access to our technology. and so it was obvious that all this had to be done in secret. and it was. people in the vicinities didn't know what was going on. it was a super secret project. if you were hired here and worked on the project, you only knew what your job was.

you weren't informed as to what anybody else was doing so that you only saw a little piece of the entire project and really with a few exceptions, you couldn't put together the entire story and understand what was going on. eventually, after a year or two they actually began to produce some enriched uranium over at y-12 and that enriched uranium was carried out of here in a handbag. on the train it went out to los alamos. somebody just carrying it normally and likewise small amounts of plutonium were shipped up to chicago where they could characterize it and out to los alamos where they could learn how to build a bomb using plutonium plutonium. so everything was coming in, train loads and train loads but nothing as far as anybody could tell was going out. but it was a very very open

secret undertaking. and no one knew what was going on except the manager until the bombs were actually dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki in japan in august of 1945. it was at that point that the local population here and the workers who had worked at y-12 and k-25 and so on actually learned that they had been producing an atomic weapon. and they went wild. there were dances in the streets and parties and everything and you can still see people in the streets holding up newspapers that says what -- you know we produced a bomb and the war was over and so on. here at oak ridge national laboratory or clinton laboratory as it was known at the time we had built this reactor and built a bunch of technology around the reactor or around the effect of

radiation on humans and the effects of radiation on the environment, fish and other critters out there. and we knew an awful lot about the technology associated with atomic energy. and so the decision was made actually, before the war ended in august of 1945, to maintain this reactor that had been built at the clinton laboratories known today as the graphite reactor and use the from a graphite reactor for purposes of better understanding nuclear power, nuclear energy and most importantly, use the reactor for producing radioisotopes, radioactive iso taupes with different elements that could be used in medicines. well, there are a variety of

different scientific topics that are undertaken here at oak ridge today. not many are as important but energy technology for instance, and energy conservation is a major undertaking. how do we build buildings and houses to conserve energy rather than waste it? neutron science going all the way back to the origins of graphite reactor. which is a major particle accelerator built here at oak ridge a few years ago at the cost of $1. 4/billion. and the applications of the neutron source are a met at about i think 400 or 500 sfav associated with the neutron source and when it comes fully

online, a thousand visitsers every year that will come here from all around the world to use the -- the facility. super computing at various times. oak ridge national lamp has the fastest civilian computer in the world. other times, we'll be second or third on the list. it is a multi disciplinary premier research facility. virtually any type of scientist engineer or social scientist can be found here somewhere on staff. and if you need to undertake a research project that involves multi disciplines chemistry biology, geology, engineering, physics, whatever you'll find those people here that can contribute to that research and there are all sorts of unique pieces of equipment which are not available out there to the

average researcher and in various ways those average researchers can get access to certain pieces of equipment here. so we've got a facility that is truly multi disciplinary, has the resources for undertaking virtually any kind of computational or research facility that you can imagine and has an incredible history to it. couldn't built something like this today anywhere in the world world. american history tv continues in prime time tuesday night with a look at the cambridge union debate 50 years ago between author james baldwin and national review founder william f. buckley jr. on the motion the american dream is at the expense of the american negro. first a discussion on william f. buckley and the american conservative's views on rais

during the mid 20th century. that's followed by a look at the political perspectives of james baldwin. and from a symposium marking the debate's 50th anniversary, african-american studies professor talks about race in america. that's tuesday night beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. on the next washington journal, bob deans with the natural resources defense council on the supreme court decision overturning the obama administration's air quality rule. the justices said the epa must consider costs before deciding to issue regulation. then a professor at george mason university law school looks at a 10-year-old supreme court ruling that allow iss the government to seize private property under certain circumstances. and gary gallagher a history professor at the university of virginia and how the memory of civil war is affecting the current debate

over the confederate battle flag. join the conversation by phone or on facebook and twitter. this summer book tv will cover book festivals from around the country and top nonfiction authors and books. in the middle of july, we're live at the harlem book fair for author interviews, panel discussions, and at the beginning of september, we're live from the nation's