COMMITTEE ON URANIUM

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

The President's Advisory Committee on Uranium was the first administrative step taken by the federal government toward the development of the atomic bomb. When the discovery of fission in December 1938 raised the possibility of an atomic bomb, scientists initially approached the Army and Navy to elicit government support for research, but the military was somewhat less than enthusiastic and no funding was forthcoming. Not until October 1939 did the foreign-born scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard and the Wall Street economist Alexander Sachs persuade President Franklin Roosevelt to set up the new Committee on Uranium. Roosevelt chose Lyman J. Briggs, a physicist and director of the National Bureau of Standards, to chair the new committee. Colonel Keith F. Adamson and Commander Gilbert C. Hoover, represented the Army and the Navy, respectively. The uranium committee convened on October 21, with Sachs and Szilard, and his fellow Hungarian émigré scientists, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, in attendance. On November 1, the committee recommended to the White House that the government fund the acquisition of four metric tons of pure graphite and, if initial experiments warranted continuing the program, additional funds to obtain 50 tons of uranium oxide. With the Army and Navy providing equal parts, Briggs in February 1940 allocated the first funding, $6,000 to Columbia University to support Enrico Fermi and his colleagues doing chain reaction research. The committee, meeting a second time on April 27, agreed on the need for further investigation, but it was ready to proceed, despite the enthusiasm of Sachs and Szilard, on only a small scale and a step or two at a time.

On June 15, Roosevelt directed that the Committee on Uranium be subsumed under the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), created by the President, at the urging of Vannevar Bush, to organize American science for war. The uranium committee would report directly to Bush, who was appointed chairman of the NDRC. Bush reorganized the uranium committee. Guided by instructions from Roosevelt, he retained Briggs as chairman but dropped the Army and Navy representatives because the NDRC was now the proper channel for liaison with the military. Bush added five scientists-Merle Tuve, George Pegram, Jesse Beams, Ross Gunn, and Harold Urey--to strengthen the scientific resources of the group. The NDRC now controlled the funds, but it remained the duty of the revamped committee to formulate the program. The committee also placed increased emphasis on security. Foreign-born scientists, which formed the core scientific support for the initial committee, were excluded from committee membership, a policy adopted in deference to Army and Navy views. Arrangements, in addition, were made, largely at the initiative of the scientists themselves, for blocking the publication of reports on uranium research. The move to the NDRC freed the committee from exclusive dependence on the military for funds. In addition, it rescued the novel field of research from the jurisdiction of an informal, ad hoc committee. By providing a place within the organizational framework of the defense effort of American science, the NDRC made it easier for nuclear scientists to advance their claims. And, perhaps of equal importance, supporters of uranium research now had in Bush a forceful advocate with personal access to the President.

A year's experience, however, revealed certain imperfections with the NDRC. Although it had a strong focus on research, the NDRC lacked the necessary authority to take the next step in developing and procuring new technologies. In June 1941, Bush attempted to overcome the relative weaknesses of the NDRC by obtaining Roosevelt's authorization of a new Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) with Bush as the director personally responsible to the president. The NDRC, now headed by James Conant, became an advisory body responsible for making recommendations on research and development to the OSRD. The uranium committee remained within the NDRC but was renamed the Section on Uranium and somewhat enlarged by Bush and Conant. They added Samuel Allison, Gregory Breit, Edward Condon, Lloyd Smith, and Henry Smyth, while Gunn and Tuve left the committee. They retained Briggs as chairman and Pegram as vice-chairman. They established a subsection on power production under Pegram and one on theoretical aspects under Fermi, while they put Urey at the head of groups devoted to isotope separation and heavy water. They assigned panels of consultants to the subsections. As a result, the uranium work had more representative leadership and broader participation.

In December 1941, Bush, looking for a quick decision on production plants, reorganized the atomic energy program, placing it under his immediate supervision. Conant, acting as Bush's representative, had oversight of the entire program. Bush set up a Planning Board, headed by Eger V. Murphree, and appointed Urey, Ernest Lawrence, and Arthur Compton as program chiefs directing research. The Section on Uranium became the OSRD S-1 Section, dropping the word uranium for security reasons. The research program chiefs, along with Murphree and Conant, now sat with the S-1 Section. In accordance with the instructions he received from Roosevelt, Bush removed all uranium work from the NDRC.

As the atomic energy program evolved into the production stage, the role of the OSRD continued to change. In June 1942, arrangements were made for a division of the work between the OSRD and the War Department. The OSRD would continue with research, and all large aspects of the program would be placed directly under the Army. Conant, at the same time, sought to reorganize the S-1 Section. Although most work was transferred to the Army, a vitally important segment remained with the S-1 Section. In addition to general supervision of research at universities, the committee would supervise the pilot-plant studies of centrifuge, gaseous-diffusion, and electromagnetic methods. The S-1 Section, both from an organizational and security standpoint, was nonetheless too large for action as a group. Conant had found that when he needed expert advice he called not on the S-1 Section but on a smaller group representing the program chiefs and the Planning Board. Conant recommended to Bush that this group become a new S-1 Executive Committee, which would supervise all future OSRD work. On June 19, Bush authorized the appointment of Conant as chairman, and Briggs, Compton, Lawrence, Murphree, and Urey as members. The group would meet regularly and survey the technical outlook. The Army would take over process development, engineering design, procurement of materials, and site selection.

By December 1942, the atomic energy program had progressed to the point where it was possible to transfer the entire responsibility to the Army Corps of Engineers' Manhattan Engineer District (MED). Ongoing OSRD contracts were terminated and picked up as MED contracts. The OSRD later entered into several contracts where the MED sought to conceal its interest in a subject, but for all practical purposes the OSRD role, by May 1, 1943, had ended. The last meeting of the S-1 Executive Committee was held on September 10-11, 1943.

• 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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