DUPONT COMPANY

• Committee on Uranium (S-1 Section)
• DuPont Company
• National Defense Research Committee (NDRC)
• Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
• University of California

The DuPont Company, at the outbreak of World War II, was one of the nation's largest and most experienced industrial organizations. From its inception in Wilmington, Delaware, 1802, the company's prime line of business was the production of explosives. DuPont was the largest supplier of munitions to the union's cause during the Civil War and produced forty percent of the smokeless powder used by the allies during World War I. In the early twentieth century, the company began to diversify into the broader chemical industry, establishing its first research laboratory in 1902 and inventing and producing innovative products such as synthetic rubber neoprene and nylon. At the same time, DuPont early on developed a pervasive "engineering culture." The company not only designed and made its various products but also built its own plants and facilities. As Henry du Pont, president of the company, proudly noted in the 1880s, "We build our own machinery, draw our own plans, make our own patterns and have never employed anyone to design or construct our mills and machinery, dams or races, roads or anything else." In World War I, the federal government tasked DuPont with building and operating five major facilities for making explosives. The most challenging was the Old Hickory plant and townsite on the Cumberland River east of Nashville, Tennessee. By the end of the war, DuPont had built a plant capable of producing 900,000 pounds of smokeless powder per day and a town for 30,000 workers with 3,867 buildings.

DuPont's unique engineering, construction, and administrative capacities made it an ideal potential industrial partner for the Manhattan Project. Arthur Compton, director of the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab), initially suggested in August 1942 that the company be brought in to assist in the design, construction, and operation of the proposed pilot plutonium separation plant. When General Leslie Groves took over the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) the following month he immediately seized on the idea and within three weeks had brought DuPont on board. Groves soon began courting the company to take over as the primary industrial contractor for the entire plutonium production effort, including the building and operation of plutonium production piles (reactors) as well as separation facilities. In a meeting with company officials on October 31, Groves emphasized the importance of the plutonium production project to the war effort. He said that he was convinced the DuPont could do the job better than any other company and that the task was beyond the capacity of any other company. The outcome of the war, Groves concluded, might well depend upon DuPont's willingness to take over the design, construction, and operation of the full-scale pile project.

DuPont was hesitant to accept the responsibility. The process, particularly the chain reaction in the pile, went far beyond the company's experience. In addition, the project would cause a heavy drain on DuPont's already short supply of technical personnel. The company needed more information and put together a group of some of its best engineering talent for a week-long review of the research in progress at the Met Lab. On November 10, Groves and Compton met with DuPont executives in Wilmington. Groves assured Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., president of the company, that President Franklin Roosevelt and other top officials considered the project of utmost importance to the war effort. DuPont officials emphasized that their evaluation of the project found no positive assurances that it would be successful. By making all favorable assumptions, they estimated that it might be possible to attain regular production in 1945 but the odds for doing so were poor. Groves, nonetheless, was encouraged that DuPont did not withdraw. He thought the company would probably accept the assignment if offered.

Groves's confidence was not misplaced. On December 1, Groves issued a letter of intent to DuPont that was later superseded by a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The "merchants of death" label had been slapped on the company following World War I, and, fearing renewed accusations of war profiteering, DuPont leadership refused to take any profit. The fixed fee was limited to one dollar. Any profits would be returned to the government. Carpenter disavowed not only profits but also any intention of staying in the atomic weapons business after the war. The contract provided that any patent rights arising from the project would lie solely with the government. In return, the company was indemnified against any losses or liabilities it might incur.

DuPont from the first insisted upon complete control. This approach appealed to both Groves and Compton. DuPont's hand at the helm not only assured rapid progress toward the bomb but also relieved the two leaders from the many headaches of co-ordination and administration that plagued most joint enterprises between university research groups and industry. The Met Lab would play a subordinate, albeit still necessary, role. Although tensions initially were high between DuPont and the Met Lab scientists, relations between the two eventually eased with a growing sense of mutual respect.

DuPont placed the plutonium project within its Explosives Department, which directed the construction and operation of the many explosives plants assigned to the company during the war. As general manager, E. B. Yancey had general responsibility. Roger Williams exercised direct authority as assistant general manager and director of the TNX Division, in which all project activities were isolated for security and administrative reasons. As director of the research division in the Explosives Department, Crawford H. Greenwalt was responsible for liaison with the Met Lab. In accordance with DuPont practice, construction activities were managed by the Engineering Department.

DuPont designed and built the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and designed, built, and operated the production reactors and separation plants at Hanford, Washington. DuPont and the Army also set up a temporary central construction camp accommodating up to 51,000 people and built permanent housing for a community of up to 17,500 people at nearby Richland. The Hanford facilities represented the largest single construction project of the war. DuPont, at its plant in Deepwater, New Jersey, also operated one of the three parallel production lines set up by the MED for processing uranium ore into metal.

When the war was over, DuPont, true to its word, already in September 1945 was asking Groves to find a replacement for it as operating contractor at Hanford. DuPont promised to stay on until October 31, 1946, but it was determined to withdraw at that time. Groves noted that this was "most unfortunate from the government's standpoint," and President Harry Truman's Secretary of War, Robert Patterson, made a strong plea to Carpenter, but the president of DuPont politely declined to continue. In May 1950, however, the Atomic Energy Commission, civilian successor to the MED, asked Greenwalt, now president of DuPont, to consider a role in constructing the proposed next generation of production reactors at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. Greenwalt said the company would consider the project if it were given full responsibility for the new reactor facilities, including design, construction, and at least initial operation. Greenwalt also insisted upon a letter from Truman confirming the importance of the project for national security. On June 12, DuPont was formally requested to take the assignment. The company built and then operated the facility until April 1989.

• Committee on Uranium (S-1 Section)
• DuPont Company
• National Defense Research Committee (NDRC)
• Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
• University of California

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