1913

1919

1922

1992

1932

1932

1932,

1932
1984

December 1938

December 1938
January 26, 1939
August 2, 1939

September 1, 1939
October 11, 1939

vi

Niels Bohr suggested the existence of a central
nucleus with electrons moving in orbits around the
outside.

Discovery of protons by Ernest Rutherford.

J. W. Marden from the Lamp Division of
Westinghouse obtained a patent for reducing
uranium halides with aluminum, publishing the
first known example of uranium preparation in the
United States.

P,P, Alexander, a student at M. L T., reported his
thesis work on reduction of uranium oxide with
calcium hydride.

FL C. Urey discovered heavy hydrogen cailed
deuterium, which was used in atom smashing
experiments.

Ernest Lawrence reported in the literature about his
invention of the cyclotron, an instrument that
accelerated atid aimed protons and other nuclear
Particles at a target, using erful magnets to
control the action of those particles imeolyed
James Chadwick announced the discovery of the
neutron, a neutral-charged particle of about the same
mass as a proton.

1. S. Taylor developed an air ionization chamber to
determine the value of a roentgen. .
Fr, and L Joilei-Curie discovered artificial
radioactivity by bombarding aluminum with alpha
particles, noticing neutrons and positively charged
particles were emitted.

Nuclear fission discovered by Otto Han and Fritz
Strassmann by bombarding uranium and noticing it
broke into two fragments. Made public in Die
Naturwiesenschaften, January 1939.

Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch confirm the experiment
and inform Niels Bohr of their findings.

Niels Bohr reports the European discoveries at a
meeting on theoretical physics in Washington, D.C.
Einstein letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
detailing need for atomic bomb project.

Germany invaded Poland, setting off World War II.
President Roosevelt met with Alexander Sachs, a
Tepreseniative from Einstein and other immigrant



10

Jowa State College fared no better in the secondary historical accounts
because so many of them were taken from the “official” documents above.
Shortly after the declassification of the countless documents on the atomic
bomb project in the seventies, The Secret History of te Atomic Bomb! appeared
The first book to be published that relied heavily on the Manhattan District
History, this account filled in many of the gaps that to chat date had been
unavailable to researchers, The book emphasizes the scientific and
technological development of the project and serves as a good summary of the
more complete history located in the National Archives. This book contains
only a few references to contributions by Iowa State College.

The best and probably most thoroughly researched scholarly document
on the Manhattan Project is the Atomic Energy Commission's first volume of
a series on the history of the commission by Hewlett and Anderson.!? The
authors cover the development of the atomic bomb in their first volume.
Given unlimited access to the classified and unclassified documentary and
archival materials under the auspices of the Commission, Hewlett and
Anderson produced a non-partisan, independent history of the time period,
with a particular emphasis on the scientific advancements within the
Manhatian Project. The substantial notes section of the book is an especially
invaluable scholarly aid. Iowa State's contributions are given several scattered
references, and almost one-half page details the Ames process for reducing

1Wanthony C Brown and Charles B. MacDonald, eds, The Secret History of the Alomic
Bomb (New York: Dial Press, 1977), 4
A Rep Pawlet and Ones BE, Anderson, ey! ‘The New World, 1999-1946. Vol. 1 of
History ited States Atomic Energy Conmonission (University
University Press, 1962).

Park Pennsytvanis State



6
which the federal agencies (NDRC, OSRD, and MED) adopted was, by and
large, characterized by the academic atyle of management.

The Ames Project then serves as a case study of a wartime classified
leboratory—a laboratory conducting and managing research in the name of
national security. But just as importantly, it is typical of federally-funded
research units appearing after the war because most of the rules and
regulations thet controlled research administration in the war laboratory
evolved into the rules and regulations that governed university-wide
relationships with the federal government after World War II.

An Explanation of the Format of the Dissertation

This dissertation will examine the Ames Project in that light—as a
Precursor for the post-war research apparatus of Iowa State College. Though
the dissertation will discuss some aspects of science and technology, it will
concentrate primarily upon the administrative aspects of the Ames Project
during World War Il, examining the history of the Amies Piojé¢t in the life of
Towa State at the time and its contributions to the development of the college's
research infrastructure after the wat. The author uses newly-released archival
materials, interviews from many of the actual participants in the war-related
research project, and some heretofore private manuscripts and unreleased
interviews related to the project and its participanis to analyze the Ames
Project in detail. Although Patt 1 will chronicle the scientific role for the Ames
Project, it will also concentrate on the organizational structures that were
initiated and adapted to place a security-intensive laboratory on an academic
campus. Part 2 will concentrate primarily upon administrative issues, defining



15

THE GENESIS AND ORGANIZATION OF THE AMES PROJECT
Pre-1941 Uranium Research Activities

Niels Bohr. an imminent physicist in Copenhagen, remained late in his
laboratory on January 3, 1939, finishing up work before he was to leave for an
extended research visit at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New
Jersey Otto Frisch, another Danish physicist, rushed into the laboratory with
incredible news from his aunt, Lise Meitner, a recently exiled Austrian
physicist. Meitner had just received news from Germany that Otto Hahn, her
former collaborator, and his new colleague Fritz Strassmann had bombarded
uranium with neutrons and praduced barium “Had they split the atom?”
Hahn asked in a letter to his former colleague, Meitner. After several long
discussions with his aunt, Frisch contacted a biologist friend and asked him
‘what term was used when a dell split, “Fission,” was the term Frisch heard
from his friend, and he was the first to apply it to what happened in the Hahn-
Strassmann experiment.22

Hahn and Meitner had been collaborating on identifying mystery
radioactivity materials, generally thought to be transuranfc (beyond uranium)
that Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist, had first discovered in the mid-thirties
when he bombarded uranium with neutrons. This problem was also being
investigated in France by frene and Frederic Joilet-Curie. In fact, Hahn and

22Ruth Moore, Nidls Hor: The Man, His Science, & the World They Changed (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 222-223.



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February 1943

April 1943
May 1943

June 1943

Summer 1943

September 8, 1943
November 1943

February 1944

March 1944
June 6, 1944
July 1944

September 1944
December" 1944
December 16-26, 1944
February 1945
February 4-9, 1945
March 1945

April 12, 1945

April 25, 1945

May 7, 1945
July 16, 1945

May 1945
June 1945

x

Construction of the electromagnetic plant (Y-12) and
the plutonium pilot plant (X-£0) begun at Clinton,
Bomb design work began at Los Alamos.

Manhattan Engineer District took over all research
and development contracts from OSRD.
Construction for the gaseous diffusion plant (K-25)
begun at Clinton.

The headquarters of the Manhattan Engineer District
‘was moved to Oak Ridge at the Clinton Engineer
Works.

Surrender of Italy.

Pile at Clinton {X-10) in operation. Iowa State
supplied almost 90 percent of the uranium for this
plant.

Y-12 plant at Clinton sent first 200 grams of U235 to
Los Alamos.

Bomb models tested at Los Alamos,
Allied invasion of Normandy (D-day).

The plutonium gun bomb (Thin Man) was
abandoned, lea only the Little Boy (uranium
gun device) and Fat Man (plutonium implosion
device) for possibilities. :

First pile at Hanford operating. a
Cliemical separation plants at Hanford finished.
Battle of the Bulge.

Los Alamos received first plutonium shipment.
Yalta Conference.

Tokyo was firebombed, resulted in 100,000 deaths.
Roosevelt died and Truman became president.
Stimson and Groves brief Truman on the
Manhattan Project activities.

Germany surrendered.

First successfal fest of atomic bomb at Almogordo,
New Mexico.

Tokyo firebombed again, resulting in 83,000 deaths.
Scientists at the Metallurgical Laboratory issue the

Franck Report asking for a demonstration drop of
before using it in a war effort.

the atomic bomb



il
uranium metal, A more recent, popularized Pulitzer Prize book by Richard
Rhodes!6 updates the atomic bomb story, providing a novelistic type format for
the reader, It is well-documented for the scholar but adds little information on
the lowa State story.

Vincent C. Jones,!9 with help from the Center for Military History,
examines the Manhattan Project from the US. Army's viewpoint, His well-
documented volume depends heavily on the Manhattan District History and
summazizes in great detail the Army's role in the development of the atomic
bomb. It includes topics such as the Army take-over of the project from the
civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD}, the creation of
the Manhattan District, the appointment of General Leslie Groves as head of
the District, the administration of the production plants, laborataries, and
other support facilities, the actual testing and employment of the bomb, and a
chapter on the transition from the Army-controlled Manhattan Engineer
District to the civilian-administered Atomic Energy Commission after the war.
For the researcher, the bibliographical essay is invaluable for its detail,
currency, and complete location information, but Iowa State is virtually
ignored except in a chapter on laboratories that provided fuel feed materials.

Personal accounts proliferate in the atomic energy story, but none are
more famous than the one by Groves,?0 Leslie R. Groves, the General in

1988). 18Richard Rhodes. The Making of the Aforic Bonsb (New York: Simon and Schuster,
986}.

19vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Aroyy arid the Atomic Bomb, United States Army in
World War E Special Studies (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1985).

taste R. Graves, Now it Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhatian Project (New York:
Harper & Row, 1962).



2

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4
The Significance of the Ames Project

From 1942-1945, lowa State College, like several other universities and
colleges, conducted classified, war-related research, under the sponsorship
of the National Defense Research Council (NDR), the Office of Scientific
Reseaxch and Development (OSRD), and the Manhatian Engineer Distzict
(MED), three federal government units each supervising research on the
atomic bomb, Although some scientists participated in research during
World War I, the United States entered that war at such a late date that
research activity was minimal compared to that of World War IL10

At the beginning of World War 0, few administrative structures
existed within most academic institutions to carry on extensive weapons
research. The federal government likewise had no single central
organizational unit dedicated to weapons xesearch. In general, government
research fimding agencies consisted primarily of specialized bureaus like
the Consus Bureau, the Bureau of Mines, and for awhile the Works Progress
Administration, whieh supported applied research in narrow fields. Tha

and 2," (October 12, 1945), in the Ames Laboratory Papers Record Group 17/1, Robert W. Parks
and Ellen Sorge Parks Library, Ames, lowa thereafter cited as Ames Laboratory Papers);
“Schedule and Script’, the Ames Laboratory Papers; Press Release about the Ceremony, the
Ames Laboratory Papers, In 1906 the Navy instituted the Navy E Award for excellence, first
awarding it in gunnery, later expanding it io include engineering and communications
excellence in wartime activities, With the advent of World War I, the award recognized
industria? plants that produced war machinery. In World War IJ, both the Army and Navy
supported the award.

WVannevar Bush, Science the Emiless Frontier: A Report to the President (Washington:
The Government Printing Office, 1945), 80, There are no really accurate estimates for
government funded research in World Wae I, but the research budget of the government in
ga fras $15,000,000. By 1940, it had grows to $69,000,000 and by 1944 the total grew to over

720,000,



October 21, 1939
1940
‘1940

April 1949
June 27, 1940
May 1941

May 17, 1941

June 22, 1941
June 28, 1941

July 2, 1941
July 11,1941

October 9, 1941
November 9, 1941

December 7, 1941
December 8, 1941

December 10, 1941
December 16, 1941

vii

scientists, convincing him to create a uranium study
group.

First meeting of the Committee on Uranium with
Lyman Briggs of the National Standards of Bureau
serving as chairman.

John R, Dunning and his research group at
Columbia University discovered that fission is more
readily produced in Us3g than in Uz3e.

Two new elements created from uranium
bombardment: neptunium (atomic number 93) and
plutonium (atomic number 94).

American scientists ose voluntary censorship
plan for scientific publications. {
Organization of the National Defense Research
Council (NDRC) organized under Vannevar Bush.
Glenn Seaborg proved that plutonium was more
fissionable than U235.

A National Academy of Sciences committee headed
by Arthur Compion released its first report
encouraging further research in power applications
of nuclear energy.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Institution of the Office of Scientific Research and
Development (OSRD).

The British MAUD report is released and concluded.
that an atomic bomb was feasible.

A second National Academy of Sciences report
confirmed the first one in May,

Vannevar Bush convinced President Roosevelt to
start an all-out study of uranium, but with strict
secrecy controls,

The third and last National Academy of Sciences
report like the MAUD report confirmed the
feasibility of an atomic bomb.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

U.S, declared war on Japan as result of previous day's
bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Germany and Staly declared war on the United States.
The secret Top Policy Committee became responsible
for policy derisions in uranium research.



Groves, Leslie R.

Hahn. Otto

Hilberry, Norman

Hopkins, Harry L,

Joilet-Curie, Frederic

Lavender, Cpt. Robert

Lawrence, Ernest O.

McCoy, Herbert

Meitner, Lise

Oppenheimer, J. Robert
Sachs, Alexander

xiii

(1898-1970) Brigadier General in the Army Cozps of
Engineers who was placed in command of the
engineering and production side of the Atomic
Bomb Project, called the Manhattan Engineer
District.

(1879-1968) Collaborator with Lise Meitner at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. Discovered
fission with Fritz Strassmann for which he won the
Nobel prize in 1944.

Originally from New York University, he became the
right hand man of Compton at the Metallurgical
Laboratory. His official title was Associate Project
Director and his task was to see that the various
groups worked effectively toward their goals.
(1890-1946) Long-time friend and advisor of
President Roosevelt. :

(1900-1958) French chemist who with his wife, Irene
Joilet-Curie (1897-1957), worked on early experiments
with transuranium elements, particularly in the area
of induced radioattivity.

Career Naval officer who was called out of
retirement to head up the patent office within OSRD
in 1942.

(1901-1958) Nobel prize-winning physicist {1939} for
the invention of the cyclotron, He was director of
the University of California at Berkeley Radiation |
Laboratory and worked on the electromagnetic
separation of uranium.

(1870-1945) The foremost rare earth Specials ist in the
country. He was invited to head up the chemistry
division at Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, but
since he was retired he suggested Frank H. Spedding
as his substitute.

(1878-1968) Head of the nuclear physics department
at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute where she worked on
radioactivity experiments with Otto Hahn. Shortly
after she fled Germany, her former colleagues
discovered fission.

(1904-1967) American physicist and director of Los
Alamos.

{b. 1897} Russian-born economist crucial in
convincing Roosevelt to creafe a committee on



September 15, 1942 -

September 17, 1942

September 19. 1942

September 23, 1942

September 24, 1942
Ociober 1942
October 1942,

October-November 1942

November 1942

December 2, 1942

December 1942
December 28, 1942

ix

and then east an 1t-pound ingot of uranium, the
largest single piece of uranium to that date.

Towa State signed two contracts, one for production
and one for research, both directly with OSRD rather
then under Meialfurgical Laboratory.

Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves appointed chiet of
the Manhattan Engineer District MED),

General Groves resolved the priority rating problems
by procuring an unheard of rating of AAA for the
Atomic Bomb Project.

A Military Top Policy Committee named, consisting
of Vannevar Bush, James Conant, General Styer of
the Army, and Admiral Purcell of the Navy to direct
Groves’ activities within the Manhattan Project.
Clinton Engineer Works site chosen in the hills of
eastern Tennessee near the city of Knoxville.
DuPont chosen as commercial contactor for the
chemical separation plant at the Clinton plant.

‘The centrifuge method of separation of uranium is
dropped.

Upon recommendation from Arthur Compton and
other scientists, Groves decided to separate buildin;
of the atomic bomb from the Chicago Metallurgic
Laboratory and place it in more isolated site, Los
Alamos, New Mexico, selected as site for bomb
development, code-named Project ¥ with J. Robert
Oppenheimer in charge.

The Military Policy Committee endorsed
recommendations from Groves and Conant that the
project move from research stage directly to the
development of industrial-scale plants using
electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion of uranium
and pile production of plutonium.

First self-sustaining chain reaction under the
direction of Entico Fermi at the West Stands, Stage
Field, University of Chicago, Iowa State provided
two tons of uranium metat for the project.

Hanford, Washington, selected as site for plutonium
production rather than Clinton.

President Roosevelt officially approved all plans for
the production of atomic bombs. P



5

largest research funding unit supporting scientific research, the United
States Department of Agricuiture, worked primarily with land grant schools
through state experiment stations to subsidize research in agriculture and
related areas. There was no central organized science policy nor one group
in the federal government that could finance research in broad academic
disciplines. In addition, most government funding efforis in the early 1930s
revolved around recovery from the depression and not support for science at
alli .

World War II though demonstrated a successful marziage between
government and science, But before this marriage could be consummated,
oth the federal government and universities and colleges had to inaugurate
2 new administrative system in order to oversee unique war-related
research. That same structure, in many ways distinctive to classified
research, became the foundation for post-war federal and university
relationships éo continue.

The new administrative. structure also exhibited one of two
administrative management styles or a combination of both in some cases:
an academic system of committees, group research, and consensus-building
indicative of academic institutions, or the hierarchical, control-based,
command-laden military structure of management. Even though the
military eventually controlled the atomic bomb project through classified
research, this dissertation contends that the administrative apparatus

114, Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government: JA History of Poices and
Activities to 1940 (Cambridge: ‘The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2957), 361.



iv
WORKER HEALTH AND SAFETY e-sssessnaseerestettmrines overs mens seeiemn arvana 6A
Intoduction. sam emnnnenanepnnyss asessenssnesene OA
Early Health Protection Under OSRD Jurisdictiot.sacstesatusmnd65
The Health Diviston at the Metallurgical Project,....1-ime-timen LOD

The Development of Health and Safety Measures under the
Manhattan Engineer District, nntnesontemmenenevens +

Health and Safety at Iowa State College .nsseinsreamsesanneets

SUMMARY: THE IMPACT OF THE MILITARY MANAGEMENT
STYLE UPON THE ACADEMIC MANAGEMENT STYLE,

T9426T94S siessrenternoretvumeenannen nace +

CONCLUSIONS; THE IMPACT OF THE AMES PROJECT UPON

JOWA STATE COLLEGE... 499
BIBLIOGRAPHY... ree0 ea ans QOS
Primary Sources neni. nnensininsicnatienscneemneniat tena aatvnst es 208
ee 8 |

Secondary Sources...

APPENDIX A. THE GENESIS AND ORGANIZA’ IN
OF THE AMES PROJECT: (=.=. a

APPENDIX B, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE
AMES PROJECT, 1942-45 .

APPENDIX C. THE ACADEMIC VS THE MILITARY STYLE OF
MANAGING RESEARCH neo mssuis«

APPENDIX D. SECURITY REGULATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS.......247

APPENDIX E. CONTRACTING—FINANCIAL CONTROL OF
THE AMES PROJECT .nene te sancneecteres ton anteessssenmesimane ones enmmneaia DL

APPENDIX F. WORKER HEALTH AND: SABETY 1. eeuce see wnmenrvemnennms 289.

tact wen DAK

APPENDIX G. THE IMPACT OF THE AMES PROJECT UPON
TOWA, STATE COLLEGE —esscussisssiesecettestieetrattert an sn tememennn nnn 29



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2

Tevebaugh, Art Kant, and Charlie Banks, all young men and women who had
for several years of their lives worked day and night in rooms behind a
barricade in the Chemistry Building.? Soon Stimson’s voice echoed

throughout the room:

The zecent use of the atomic bomb over Japan, which was today
made known by the President, is the culmination of years of
Herculean effort on the part of science and industry working in
cooperation with the military authorities.

As the scientists listened fo Stimson’s recounting of the history of the
Manhattan Project and about the importance of laboratories and facilities at
places familiar to them but unknown to the public at large—-Clinton Engineer
Works Los Alamos, and Hanford—~a somewhat pleasant announcement

came over the airwaves:

Certain other manufacturing plants much smaller in scale are
located in the United States and Canada far essential production
of needed materials. Laboratories at the Universities of Columbia,
Chicago, and California, and lowa State Callege and at other

schools as well as certain industrial laboratories have contributed

SHarry A. Svec, interview with author, Ames, Iowa, February 1991; Adrian Daane,
telephone interview with the author,” March 18, 2992.

4Quoted from “Statement by the President of the United States, “ August 6, 1945, in
MED History Book 1, Vol. 4, Chapter 8, Part I, No- 2. press release 1. Aiso appeared in New
York Times, August 7, 1945.7.

SYhe Clinton Engineer Works was actually the laboratory facifil and Oak was
the town next fo the plant The laboratory was never officially called. Gai Ridge until after
the war. In this dissertation alf references to the laboratory will refer to the Clinton

ineer Works and references to the town will be Oak Ridge, (New York Times, August 7,
1945, 7; “Background Information on Development of Atomic Energy Under Manhattan Project,”
December 31, 1946, in MED History, Book !, Vol. 4, Chapter 8, Part I, No. 2, press release no,
99; F, G. Gosling, The Manhattan Project: Science in the World War, Energy History

Series (Washington, D.C: US, Department of Energy, Office of Administration and Haman
Resources Management, 1990), 20, “ear



xvi

T must also thank the many librarians, archivists, and historians at the
facilities J visited and telephoned to complete this research. I especially thank
the staff at the lowa State University Parks Library Special Collections Room
and the Ames Laboratory. To Anne, Becky, and Betty, I thank for patiently and
courteously finding me matetials in the boxes in the archives and for sharing
with me the enthusiasm of small discoveries. To Diane Borgen at the Ames
Laboratory, J especially thank for allowing me access to the materials in the
Antes Laboratory warehouse, to the photographic collection, and to the tape
recordings in the vault. This courtesy was especially appreciated because I
know she and her staff had other things on their minds, such as a federal
inspection tour, but they patiently worked with me.

Thanks must also go fo all those I interviewed. The men who worked
on the project—Drs. Carlson, Voigt, Peterson, Daane, $vec, and Wilkelm—I
thank for the interviews. Their enthusiasm and assistance in helping me
discover the information I needed was most appreciated. And though I was
not a scientist by training, they never withheld information, but patiently
explained processes, experiments, and other matters in ways I could always
understand. Their leads to other people to contact were also most helpful.

Special thanks must also go to Edith Landin and Elizabeth Calciano.
Giving me access to these most important and personal documents was much
appreciated. They made me feel the presence of the man who, though dead
now, still leaves his mark on the Ames Laboratory—Dr. Frank Spedding. The
interviews and the manuscript history were entertaining and most useful. I
must especially thank Edith for allowing me in her home to do the necessary



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CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT EVENIS

ca 400 B.C. Democritus, a Greek, theorized that minute particles
or atoms, which were unchangeable and indivisible,
composed ail material things.

1789 M. H. Klaproth from Germany isolated a metallic
substance from pitchblende, naming it uranium after
the recently-discovered planet Uranus.

1803 John Dalton proposed al! elements were composed
of like atoms and were distinguishable from each
other by mass.

1841 Eugene Peligot, a French chemist, first prepared

uranium as a metal afier obtaining uranium
chioride and reducing it with potassium.

1869 Dmitri Mendeleyev of the University of St.
Petersburg found that all elements could be arranged
in the order of atomic weights. Fle created the first
periodic table of elements.

1893 Henri Moissan, a French chemist, obtained a metallic
uranium ingot from uranium oxide and sodium
chloride. This experiment was repeated in 1942 by
many of the scientists on the atomic bomb project

m with better success. .

1895 W. C. Roentgen discovered x-rays.

1896 A. HL Becquere? presented to the Paris Academy of
Sciences his discovery of radioactive radiation from
uranium,

1898 Marie and Pierre Curie announced the discovery of
polonium in July and radium in December.

1905 Albert Einstein published his special theory of

relativity including the equation for the equivalence
of energy and mass (E=>MC2).

1910 B Saddy suggested existence of atoms with different
atomic masses but identical properties called
isotopes.

1911 Emest Rutherford proposed an atomic theory where

a critical mass and a positive charge were located in
nucleus of atom.



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June 21, 1945

June 16, 1945

July 17-August 2, 1945
August 6. 1945
August 8 1945

August 9, 1945
August 12, 1945

August 14, 1945
September 2. 1945

September 9, 1945
September 15, 1945

November 1. 1945
August 1, 1946
January 1, 1947 ©

August 15, 1947
December 31. 1947

xi

‘The Franck Report's plan for a demonstration was
rejected by the U. 5. government.

Scientists successfully tested a piutonium implosion
device in the desert near Almogerdo, New Mexico,

code-named Trinity.

Potsdam Conference.

Uranium bomb (Little Boy) dropped on Hiroshima.
Russia declared war on Japan and invaded
Manchuria.

Plutonium bomb (Fat Man) dropped on Nagasald.
The Smyth Report, containing the story of the secret
Manhattan. Project activities, was released

Japan offered allies terms of surrender.

Japan signed surrender articles on the U.SS.
issouri.

‘¥-12 shut down at Clinton.
Amny-Navy E Award with four stars conferred to

Towa State for production efficiency. Presented b
Groves to the Eollege in a public ceremony, October
12, 1945,

Tnstitctte for Atomic Energy established at Iowa State
College.

US, Atomic Energy Act signed by President Truman.
cordance with the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 all
atomic energy activities were transferred to civilian

control under the U, 5. Atomic Energy Commission.
The Manhattan Engineer District was abolished.
The National Defense Research Committee {(NDRC)
and the Office of Scientific Research and
Development (OSRD) were abolished and thei
functions that remained were transferred to the
Department of Defense.



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17

The Einstein letter

Though the experiment was exciting for its energy applications,
scientists had already predicted that a powerful weapon could be produced
from such a release of energy. In the United States, several recently-arrived
European immigrants were particularly cancerned because the discovery had
occurred in Germany and that added to the fear that Germany could first
produce an atomic weapon. Enrico Fermi, a recent émigré from Italy, upon
hearing the historic news in January 1939 "shaped his hands into a large-sized
bail. .A little bomb tike that, he remarked, and it would all disappear.”26

Leo Szilard, a brilliant physicist formerly of Hungary. and another
former European physicist colleague, Eugene Wigner, met in the summer of
1939 to discuss the uranium research events, particularly the development of a
waniunr graphite system to ceate a chain reaction, something Szilard had
‘been working on as early es 2933.27 Both men, worried about the world
situation, wondered what ‘would happen if Germany shut off uranium
expottation by the Belgians, who were tmining in the Aftican Congo region.

2%Quoted in Daniel J. Kevles, The Piysicisis: The History of a Scientific Community in
Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 324.

27gpencet R. Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szitard, ads,, Leo Szilerd: His Version of the
Facts: Selectad Recollections and Correspondence, Vol. H (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), 27-
18; 80-82. As early as 1933, Szilard had the idea if an elernent could be found that emitted
6vo neutrons and absorbed one, and if it could be obtained in large enough quantity, a self-
sustaining chain reaction could be created. In 1934, he applied for 2 patent that described the
Jaws governing a chain reaction. Beceuse he did not want the patent to become public at that
time, be assigned it to the British Admiralty and went on to other experiments. ‘The chain.
teaction idea ‘appeared agin after the discovery of fission by Hahn and Strassmann., He
teamed up with Fermi at Princeton trying to work out a uranium-water systera that might be

capable of sustaining a chain reaction. By the summer of 1939, Szilard decided that
because Fermi was fukewarm to his idea and because of the world political sitnation he
would lake maiters into his own hands and approach the United States government directly
4 warn it of the dangers of world domination by Germany.



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2B

A large portion of this dissertation will rely on interviews with
participants from the Ames Project. Because some of the material in this
dissertation cannot be verified by the documentary history, every effort has
been made to use several interviews as source materials rather than to rely
upon one person’s memory of events. However, there still may be ertors. in
some cases, for example, dates cannot be substantiated for personnel becoming
a part of the project, the role of military personnel on the Ames campus during
the time under Manhattan District authority cannot be substantiated from
existing sources, and sometimes it is unclear about the organizational
relationships between Ames and other laboratories. What these interviews do
provide though is a complement to the official records, which consist most
often of scattered correspondence. scientific and administrative reports, and
documentary history for events at the national and regional levels of the

Manhattan Project



INTRODUCTION

About 10:08 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945—a typical summer day on
the Iowa State College campus—a radio bulletin broke into the placid daily
activities. President Hairy S, Truman announced suddenly:

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on

Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base, That bomb had

more power than 20,000 tons of INT. It had more than two

thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam”
which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare,

According to Harley A. Wilhelm, a young metallurgist and associate
director of a secret laboratory at lowa State College, the word spread qitickly that
a more detailed announcement would come that afternoon from Secretary of
War Henry A. Stimson? By 3:00 p.m. a small group of scientists, primarily
chemists from a sectet project headed by the soon-to-be-well-known Frank H.

‘ Spedding; had gathered in the Chemistry Building to lista to Henry Stimson's
remarks, Those gathered in Room 113, drinking coffee and waiting for the
announcement included the Fotnefeldts, Jim Warf, Adrian Daane, Artie

Quoted in The Manhattan Project: Official Bifory ond Documents, Book 1, Volume 4,
Chapter 8, Part I, No. 1, 1, Record Group 77, National Archives, Washington, DC (microfitm,
Robert W, Parks and Eilen Sorge Parks Library), (hereafter cited as MED. History). This
statement and the one by Stimson were made available as press releases by General Leslie
Groves and his office, the Manhattan Engineer District, which served as the administrator
for production of the Atomic Bomb. They were published in entirety in the official history of
the atomic bomb, commissioned by General Grove, referred to as the Manhatten Distric!
History. compiled by a staff member, Gavin Hadden, The Manhattan District } which is
cater

in the National Archives, was made available in a microfilmed version in 1977
called The Manhattan Project Official History and Documents. That edition is the one cited in
this paper throughout as MED History. The press releases were published in every major
newspaper on August 7 after Truman and Stimson had initially broadcast them om the radio.

Harley A. Wilhelm, interview with author, Ames, Iowa, August 1990,



18

They wanted to warn Belgium of the dangers but had no idea of the state
protocols involved. A friend, Albert Einstein, another émigré living in a
summer house on Long Island knew the Queen of Belgium, so they decided to
solicit his assistance, On July 16, 1939, Wigner and Szilard drove to Long Island.
to visit Einstein and inform him of recent discoveries, After a lengthy
discussion, the group decided not to contact Belgium directly with a letter but
to somehow get the U.S. government involved .28

Through a friend, Szilard found Alexander Sachs, an economist and
investment banker, whe had been an informal advisor of several government
officials, including President Roosevelt himself. Sailard visited him in New
York, and Sachs suggested that Einstein compose a letter to President Roosevelt
on the concerns of the immigrants. Sachs volunteered to take the letter to
Roosevelt personally and argue the scientists’ case for increased research and
the German dangers of world domination if, as they all guessed, German
atomic research could deliver a bomb first. :

The letter was written, signed by Einstein on August 2, 1939, and given
to Alexander Sachs for delivery to the President2° Sachs did not encounter
President Roosevelt immediately because World War I broke out in
September 1939.8! On October 11, he finally got an audience to present the

25Rhodes, 303-805. This vistt to Einstein is also recounted in detail in Weart and
Szilard, 82-83; Anderson and Hewlett, 16-17; and Wyden, 32-34,
2Weart and Szilard. 84.

30 There is some debate about who wrote the letter (see the letler in Appendix A). It
appears to have been a collaborative effort between Sziiard and Einstein, Sce Weart, 83-84
and Rhodes, 305-308 for details of the coltaboration,

SlWydeo, 35, Poland was invaded by Germany on September 1, 1939. On September 3,
1988, Brita ond France restated ty decay war on Germany and on September 8



xvii

research on these papers while she was busily engaged in her own family
activities. Her hospitality was most gracious.

Finally, E must thank the two important men in my life, my husband,
Don and my son, Austin for their patience during this long period of ime. I
thank them for their encouragement and for never once pressuring me to
hurry up and finish. To them go a special thanks for meals not prepared and
for clothes not washed by me, so that I could finish this dissertation in a timely

fashion.



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USA 012576



December 18, 1941
January 19, 1942
January 1942
January/February 1942
February 21, 1942

February 1942

May 23, 1942

Jane 1942,

Fane 1942

June 17, 1942

June 18, 1942

August 13, 1942
August/September 1942

viii

The S-1 Executive Committee replaced the Uranium
Committee and gave Ermest Lawrence $400,000 for
research on electromagnetic research.

Roosevelt responded to Bush's +t from the
National Academy of Sciences and officially
approved atomic bomb research.

Metallurgical Laboratory established at the
‘University of Chicago. Columbia and Princeton
groups move to Chicago.

Frank Howard Spedding invited by Arthur Compton
to become leader of Chemistry Diesen in Chicago at
the Metallurgical Laboratory.

Ames Project established to back up Chicago
metallurgical studies, with Harley Wilhelm joining
and signing oath on February 24.

lowa State College signed first sub-contract for
$30,000 with Metallurgical Laboratory to conduct
metallurgical and chemical studies in support of the
Chicago group:

The S-1 Executive Committee recommended that the
project move to the pilot stage and build one or two
reactors or piles to produce plutonium and planis for
the electromagnetic, centrifuge, and gaseous
diffusion separation methods of uranium.

Bush recommended that Roosevelt continue four

“matheds of uratiiin separation. “Also suggested that

the Army be brought into the project.
Designs for the pile developed at the Metallurgical
Laboratory. °
Roosevelt approved the commercial plants
suggesting that the Army Corps of Engineers take
over this construction stage.
Creation of a new district under the control of J.C.
Canta within the Amy Corps of Engincers.

e DSM Project (Development of Substitute
Materials).
Manhattan District formally established in New York
City under Colonel James C. Marshall.
At Iowa State College, Wayne Keller, with help from
Spedding, Wilhelm, and others successfully *
produced uranium metal from a reduction
experiment with calcium and uranium tetrafiuoride



8
department at Princeton, to write the zeport in April 1944. Smyth was given
access to all security protected materials. He submitted the first draft to Conant
and Groves in May 1945 at which time Groves appointed several scientisis as
reviewers and editors. A mimeographed version reached Conant, Groves, and
Truman's inner citcle of advisors for final review in July 1945. Because the
group had to wait for Truman’s return from overseas. the edition was not
ready at the time of the bomb explosions, One thousand copies were printed
though, kept by Groves’ staff, and finally released after an announcement
appeared in the Sunday newspapers on August 12, 1945. The first one
thousand copies quickly sold; another press run of two thousand copies was
ordered and printed. Other editions were released in September 1945. The
report provided the Hterate or technical-oriented public an explanation of the
activities that took place in the various laboratories, companies, and agencies
within the government, Later, the report was published with pictures, an
index, and some material added from Britain and Canada. Somewhat later, a
government document version was published with the original title displayed.
This official history of the project mentioned the Ames laboratory in less than
ten Hines af text in over 400 pages of material.

The release of the official manuscript history in the late 1970s, simply
called The Manhatian District History, dispels the notion that the Manhattan
Project did not produce a lengthy written record. General Leslie Groves,
commander-in-chief of the project, commissioned the work, not so much a
single book as it was a collection of reports, charts, pictures, memos, and other
materials about the Manhattan Engineer District. The collection of materials,
now housed in the National Archives, serves as the complete and definitive



9

work about every aspect of the massive project. Kowa State rated one single
chapter of approximately fifty pages in this massive document, a reprint of a
post-war report that was published in an Ames Laboratory scientific series by E.
1 Fulmer.!t Compiled with summary accounts from the division heads and
project leaders, this shoxt work is the only published account of Iowa State's
role in the Manhattan Project. It does provide a short summary of Jowa State's
participation and is particularly useful as a scientific guide to the various
projects undertaker in Ames’ wartime laboratory.

Several other archival collections include documents about the
Manhattan Project. Most of the old Argonne Laboratory! documents have
been moved to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and though they
detail administrative, financial, and scientific information, Iowa State College
information is very scant. The collections of archives that are scattered
throughout the present U.S. Department of Energy files include scientific
reports, fiscal information about the individual academic laboratories, and
some general commercial contractor information. The Oak Ridge National
Laboratory housed most of the information related to Iowa State since much of
the Ames laboratory correspondence was sent to the Manhattan Engineer
District, which moved its headquarters to Oak Ridge in 1943, Much of that
decumeniation about the project is still classified and what information is
housed there is also located at Iowa State or elsewhere.

445, I. Fulmer, “History of the Ames Project Under the Manhatten District to
December 31, 1946,” ISC Report No. 10 (Ames: Iowa State College, 1947), typescript.

15 Argonne Laboratory was the successor to the Metallurgical Laboratory of the
University of Chicago. : om



Seaborg, Glenn

Smyth, Henry D.

Irvin Stewart

Spedding, Frank H.

Stimson, Henry L.
Strassmann, Fritz
Styer, Withelm

Szilard. Leo

Tolman, Richard

Wallace, Henry W.

Wilhelm, Harley A.

xiv

uranium. Took the famous Einstein Letter to
President Roosevelt in 1939.

-(b, 1912) Chemist from University of California and

co-discoverer of plutonium in 1943.

(1898-1986) Employed by the Manhattan District to
write the documentary history of the Atomic Bomb
Project. The book was the first public disclosure of
the secret project, although it was primarily aimed at
the scientist and technician.

{b. 1899 }’ Business and contracting officer for OSRD,
he developed the contract for research during World
War 0.

(1902-1984) Head of the physical chemistry division
at Iowa State College, he was the first head of the
Chemistry Division for the Metallurgical Laboratory
and eventually the Director of the Ames Project.
(1867-1950) Secretary of War, 1940-1945.

(b, 1902} With Otto Hahn discovered fission in 2939.
(1893-1975) Lieutenant genera? who was Groves’ first
supervisor in the Construction Division of the Army
Corps of Engineers and served as the Army
representative on the Top Military Policy
Committee.

(1898-1964) Hungarian-born physicist who helped

- -@orvince Einstein to write to President-Roosevelt- ~

Eventually in charge of materials procurement at
Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory :
(1881-1948) Physical chemist, chairman of a Groves-
appointed committee to investigate declassifying
documents after World War Il.

oo Vice President of the United States (1941-
1945).

&. 1900) Metallurgist and professor of chemistry at
Towa State College who was Associate Director of the

Ames Project.



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Meitner were replicating an experiment that the French scientists reported
when Meitner decided to flee from the country because her homeland Austria
kad come under Nazi rule. Fritz Strassmann then teamed with Hahn, helping
him precipitate the Joilel-Curie radioactive products with barium. Amazingly,
the radioactive materials precipitated, leading the men to consider the
impossible: they had split the atom, Ihey repeated the experiment certain that
the materials must be some form of radium (no. 88 on the periodic chart, not
barium which was 56). The same result occuzred. The men, believing that this
was impossible, tried to sepatate the “radium’” isotopes from the carrier
barium. That failed proving again that they had indeed precipitated barium.
Hahn immediately wrote to Meitner about their discovery. Shortly after this
encounter, Bohr left for America and repeated the news of the experiment to
the American selentific community 23

The famous paper by Hahn and Strassmann appeared in Die
Naturwissenschaften January 6, 1939. However, many people did not hear about
it until the Fifth Conference on Theoretical Physics held in Washington
January 26-28, 1939, when Bohr and Fermi announced the news to the
audience even before a single paper had been presented. Papers by Risch,
Fermi, Szilard and Bohr followed rapidly in Nature and The Physical Review 25

23 Moote, 222-223; Roger H. Stuewer, "Bringing the News of Fission to America,”
Physics Today (Octoher 1985); 49-56; Otto R. Frisch, “How Jt All Began,” Physice Today
(November 1967): 272-277, Sce also Peter Wyden, Day One: Before Hiroshima and After (New
‘York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 22; Rhodes, 253-275; and Anderson and Hewlett, 10-11 for
other accounts of bringing the news to America. .

*Stuewer, 54,
Louis A. Turner, wha published an article in the January 1940 Reviews of Modert
ics summarizing the research appearing only after the Hahn and Srassmarm work, found
nearly 100 articles published to that date {p. 2).



4

PART 4, CREATION, ORGANIZATION, AND PURPOSES
OF THE AMES PROJECT



The Ames Project: Administeting classified research as a part of the
Manhattan Project at Iowa State College, 1942-45

y
Carolyn Stilts Payne

A Dissertation Submitted to the
Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department: Professional Studies in Bducation
Major: Education (Historical, Philosophical, and.

Comparative Studies in Ectucation)
Approved:
"For the ‘Major Department

fe the Education Major
For the zens College

Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa

1992,

Copyright © Carolyn Stilts Payne, 1992. All rights reserved.



ili

PART 2. ISSUES OF ADMINISTRATION.
INTRODUCIION: THE ACADEMIC VS. THE MILITARY STYLE OF

MANAGING RESEARCH )
Background 98
The Academic Management Styl IS
The Establishment of the Manhattan Engineer Disttict...umssem 96
Towa State College and the Manhattan District... westerns sel O2
SECURITY REGULATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS....vmson :

Introduction. eeremenntbaninnecn donnie ©

The OSRD and NDRC Security Policies: A Summary. eerneeelO&

Specific Security Procedures: An Overview... om omen

Personnel and Security Clearances...

Document Protection Regulations...

Materials Shipping Security Regulations........

Plant Security’. sccnmnreentevsn tutions

_ Connpartmentalization Of InfOreMAGOO « neoe——

Effect of Security on the Academic Laboratory, 1942-1945 ...1.04

CONTRACTING—-FINANCIAL CONTROL OF THE AMES PROJECT...144

Introduction... ante
Batly Dniversity/Governmental Research Relationships.
Cementing the Relationship—Bush’s NDRC and OSRD.
The Contract As Developed By NDRC and OSRD..

Contracting at Iowa State College.. 54
Patents and the Contracting Process es)

The Impact of the Contract on Research Management Styles.......161



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the academic and military styles of management and revealing how security,
governmental and military relationships, financial methods of operating a
contract research factlity, and health regulations contributed to the final
research funding apparatus.

A Review of the Sonrees

The story of the Ames Project appeared for some time in bulletins from
the College, in newspaper accounts as information was declassified, and in
other local College reports. But the story of Frank H. Spedding and his
contingent of graduate students and young Ph.Ds did not appear in any detail
in the national printed accounts after the war,

The Siyth Report,!2 the first officially sanctioned report to surface after
the war, traces the administrative and technical history of the Manhattan
Project, the official name for the secret project that led to the development of
the atomic bomb, This book-length report was published in three editions.!9 _
The first, called A General Account of the Development of Methads of Using Atontie
Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government
1940-1945, appeared only days after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.
General Leslie Groves hired Henry DeWolf Smyth, chair of the physics

WeHenry D. Smyth, Atomic E Military Purposes: The Official Repart on fhe
Development of the Atomic Bomb under pits a the United States Pooniat 1940-1945
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1

73there is a full account of the publishing activities of the Smyth Report in MED
History, Book 1, General Volume 4: Auxillary Activities, Chapter 13, 1-18. Also, the
Princeton University Library Chronicle published in its Spring 1976 issue (vol, $7, 173-218)
Soe ean eae fing history of the Smyth Report Svayth himself reprinted a
report he had written on the history of the Smyth Report dated January 1947, a memorandum
that had remained buried in his files until its publication in this journal.



PARTICIPANTS IN ATOMIC RESEARCH

Bohr, Niels

Briggs, Lyman J.
Bush, Vanneyar
Chadwick, Sir James
Compton, Arthur H.
Conant, James B
Doan, Richard L.
Einstein, Albert

Fermi, Enzico

Franck. James

Frisch, Otto R.

(1885-1962) Danish physicist, Director of the Institute
for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. Was one of
early pioneers in fission experimentts during the
thirties, During World War IL, he was a consultant
for Los Alamos.

(1874-1963) Director of the National Bureau of
Standards and the chaixman of the first uranium
committee,

(1890-1974) A former en; he was Director of
the NDRC (1940-1941), OSRD (1941-1946), and
member of the Top Military Policy to direct the
Atomic Bomb Project.

(1891-1974) British pliysicist and discoverer of the
neutron in 1932,

(1892-1962) Nobel prize-winning physicist (1927}
who directed the Metallurgical Project at the
University of Chicago.

(1893-1978) Chemist, assistant to Vannevar Bush,
nan of the NDRC, Deputy director of OSRD,
mt of Harvard.

(b, 1894) A manager in industrial research, he was
appoinied Director of the Metallurgical Laboratory in
Chicage in January 1942,

(1879-1955) Former German Nobel prize-winning
physicist (1921) whose theories were proven with the
successful splitting of uranium.
(1901-1954) Former Italian icist, Nobel prize-
winner (1938) whe went pa eich shortly before
the war and then to the Metallurgical Laboratory. He
successftilly demonstrated the first sustaining
nuclear chain reaction.

(1882-1964) Former German Nobel laureate who
became head of Chemistry at the Metallurgical
Laboratory after Frank Spedding.

1904-1979} Nephew and collaborator with his aunt
Lise Meier, he publicized the early fission work of
the German scientists.



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scientists’ case. Knowing that Roosevelt was a busy man, Sachs prepared a
reading file for the President containing the two Setters, his own paraphrase of
the letters, and a copy of a book of lectures by F. W. Aston of Cambridge, Oxfard
in honor of Lord Ernest Rutherford, an early British atomic physicist 22
interestingly, to open the meeting Sachs read his own paraphrase to Roosevelt
rather than the Kinsteix Letter:

Briefly, the experimentation that has been going on for half a
dozen ‘years on atomic disintegration has culminated this year (a)
in the discovery by Dr. Leo Szilard and Professor Fermt that the
element uraniim could be split by neutrons and (5) in the
opening up of the probability of chain reactions—that is that in
this nuclear process uranium itself may emit neutrons, This new
development in physics holds out the following prospects:

1, The creation of a new course of energy which might be utilized
for purposes of power production—

2. The liberation from such chain reactions of new radio-active
elements, so that tons rather than grams of radium could be
made available in the medical field.

3. The construction, as an eventual probability, of bombs of
hitherto wnenyis: Scape. .. .

y pre portance of this work—
for power, healing, and national defense purpases—it needs to be
borne in mind that our supplies of uranium are limited and poor
in qualiy compared with the large sources of excellent uranium
in the Belgian Congo, and, next in line, Canada and former
Czechoslovakia 3

Roosevelt had proclaimed a National Emergency and wes tying to get Congress to lift the
arms embargo.

S2Alexander Sachs, Testimony before the United States Senate, Spacial Committee in
Atomic Energy on Senate Resolution 179, presday November 27, 1965, 74 , Sachs revised fis
statement a bil Placed it as an ib ceedings, leposited a copy

Mace he eee oe ea deposited a copy f

the MED History in the Nationat
Rhodes, 313-315; Wyden, 35.38.

8sachs, 7.



3

oqipment iateials and proces for We tke ee

At the mention of “Iowa State College,” a cheer erupted from the small
group gathered around the radio” The secret was finally out—lowa State
College had been a major player with institutions like the University of
California, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago in a substantial
research effort for the war.

As the news spread, reporters came to the College, and for awhile the
campus was a whirlwind of activity Reports in several local newspapers
revealed that Iowa State College discovered a method for the production of
uranium metal and then at its own pilot plant produced over 1,000 tons of the
metal until industzy took over the process.? On Friday, October 12, 1945,
General Leslie R. Groves, the leader of the Manhattan Engineer District, came
to Ames to present Iowa State College the Army/Navy Flag for Excellence in
Production with Four Stars, demonstrating excellence in industrial production

‘five times for over a period of two-and-one-half yeas, making the College the
only educational institution to ever receive the honoz.?

SQuoted from “Statement of the Secretary of War,” August 6, 1945, in MED History,
Book j ye 4, Chapter 8, Part I, No. 2, press release no.2 Also appeared in New York Times,
gust 7, 1945, 7,

7Wilhelm. interview with author, 1990.

8see “Atomic Bomb Opens New Era in Scientific History: Dr. Spedding Heads ISC
Research on Atomic Bomb and Worries about Weeds in Victory Garden in Spase Time,” Ames
Daily Trifune (August 7, 1943): 1; “ISC Resoarch Speeded Development of World’s Most
Destructive Weapon,” Ames Daily Tribune (An; 8, 1945): 1; “Tatricate System of Passes for
‘Bomb Project at College,” Armes Tribune (August 10, 2945): 8; "I, 5, C. Experts
Work on Atom Bomb,” The Des Moines Register (August 8, 1945): 1; and “College Does Secret
Atomic Power Work,” ioum State Daily Student (Augast 8, 1945): 1 for a sampling of area
newspaper articles that appeared on the Ames Project.

The Ames Laboratory: How it Started, ” n.d. 1; “The United States Army-Navy
Production Award for Excellence to Towa State Callege Men and Women of Chemistry Annex 1



2

charge of the Manhattan Engineer Disizict, wrote his memoirs in order to tell
the story of the Army's rofe in the Manhattan Project from his own unique
perspective. A man called tyrant, czar, and other more derogatory names by
the scientists under him, Groves was an imposing figure in the development
of the atomic bomb. ‘The book is certainly a reflection of the Generals
personality. It also displays his support for military action in the development
of sensitive, secret projects but gives no insight into Iowa State contributions.

Arthur H. Compton! who headed the Metallurgical Project at
University of Chicago, wrote Atomic Quest, a personal account of his
involvement with the Manhattan Project. The book is important because the
Ames Project constituted a part of Compton's laboratory. The value of a study
like this is more in its personal accounting of impressions and perceptions, but
its major disadvantages are the lack of referenced notes and bibliography to
prove the validity of its text Even though Frank Spedding served under
Compton as his chief chemistry officer for a time, Compton provides only
scattered information about the Ames Project and Spedding.

Today, more than forty years after the events of Warld War II, no book-
Jength history of the Ames Project exists. Only one public account of the work
is available as a manuscript at the National Archives and also as an Ames
Laboratory scientific report. Documents, papers, correspondence, research
notebooks, and declassified materials remain in the lowa State University
Library, to date unpublished by scholars.

21 Arthur H. Compton, Alomic Quest: A Persoual Narrative (New Yorke Oxford
University Press, 1956).



x¥

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project could not have been undertaken without the assistance of
many individuals, almost too numerous to name, I must first thank my
major professor, Charles R. Kniker, for interesting me in the whole field of
qualitative research, and particularly in the area of oral histories. Had he not
allowed me the latitude in a class to conduct an oral history, it is possible that
this dissertation could never occurred. One of the interviews that I conducted
introduced me to Little Ankeny and the secret war-time project that no one
talked about. 1 must also thank him for his assistance and guidance in the
development of this dissertation, and I look forward to fature collaborations.

Thanks must also go to the other members of my committee. To
Frofessors Owen and Xizer, thanks to both of them for introducing me to Plato,
Rousseau, and the other philosophers of education. [heir classes were most
interesting-and thought-provoking: Io Professor Marcus, f thank for making
me persevere in his challenging classes. He taught me that pethaps I could
produce a dissertation; he certainly helped me improve my writing skills. I
respect his scholarship as a teacher, and, just as importantly, his advice as a
friend. To Dr. George Karas, I thank for his patience and guidance in teaching
me first-hand about graduate education, because I think no one knows more
about the field at Iowa State University than he. Thanks must also go to him
for giving me some additional incentive to finish this project by hiring me in
the Graduate College. :



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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..sssesssscssssssssterinesiatsssnese inate came sesqessae su amma

INTRODUCTION wees. o sane wtsncecrersescr tii taninsannissingins aut nie ttnesetieannony
The Significance of the Ames Project... ......
An Explanation of the Format of the Dissertation

A Review of the Sources...

PART 1. CREATION, SRCANIZATION, A AND PURPOSES 8 OF
THE AMES PROJECT .. Seaerteyy weld

THE GENESIS AND ORGANIZAIION OF THE AMES PROJECT. + rece dS
Pre-1941 Uranium Research Activities. _.rsinmm ses merit

Science and National Security recs se remen
The Metallurgica! Project and Laboratory
The Ames Project.,

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE AMES PROJECT, 1942-45.
Ozganizing Research and Technology Development........
The Raw Materials Crisis in 1942. eon. etm
The Discovery and Development of the Ames Process nis-.ssi 66
The Building of a Pilot Plant. ..cn-tecrsrenorscseneeny seuamasnen semen]
‘The Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1)—December 2, 1942.....cveceesssie mmr entinniT
The Production Project at the Ames Laboratory 194345 .0cssss0c—79

Chemical and Metallurgical Research at Ames Project 1943-45._.... 89
careeen:, 0)

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