109 East Palace: Lessons from Los Alamos
WWII is mainly associated with the Nazis in Germany, and indeed they were an evil force that had to be taken on and dealt with. However, amongst the Axis forces, Japan was also a major power. Japan invaded China before Germany invaded Poland, and Japan had still not surrendered after Germany and Italy fell to Allied forces. In this context, the Los Alamos or the Manhattan project that led to the development of the atomic bomb was one of the major events of WWII. 109 East Palace was the office in Santa Fe of the Los Alamos project.
A number of big names were associated with the development of the atomic bomb — Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe and Edward Teller. Yet, the name that is most associated with the development of the weapon is J. Robert Oppenheimer. His quote from the Bhagavad Gita — “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” is often mentioned in the context of the Manhattan project.
It always seemed to me that the development of the A-bomb would have been a well orchestrated, smooth project, given the big names associated with it. However, that was not the case. Oppenheimer, of Oppie as he was fondly called, picked the Santa Fe site in New Mexico, and it had to be built out from scratch including the labs, housing for the scientists and everything else that was needed. The military was responsible for this, although the project was initially under the control of UC Berkeley as a civilian project. Just like technology projects today, both the cost and the personnel requirements were underestimated. The top heavy talent pool required the unique personality of Oppie to manage the egos of the big names, the demands of the military and the day-to-day operations of the project.
One of the key moments in the project was the test explosion — the Trinity test. It was a critical event in the development of the bomb, and in today’s terms, can be likened to a make-or-break pilot. One striking fact is that despite so many world class physicists working on the project, many of whom were already Nobel laureates, many basic things were not clear about the bomb. For e.g. whether an explosion or an implosion method should be used to trigger the chain reaction, the choice of Uranium vs Plutonium, even the power of the blast as measured in TNT equivalent differed wildly in the estimates of scientists. Some estimated as much as 45K TNT whereas others had extremely low estimates of a few hundred TNT. In the end, the explosion on July 16th, 1945 produced stellar results and soon Little Boy and Fat Man were on their way to the Pacific Theater.
Often, in projects that are big in scope, there is a lot of anxiety, speculation and general uncertainty. Success or failure is often the result of the resolve by key leaders, in this case Oppie, that stems from confidence in the team, belief in their mission and the by-the-book execution of the work. In the end, success is never guaranteed, but there is no better way to do it.
It is somewhat sad that the man who led this seminal work was brought down in the ’50s wave of McCarthyism, mainly due to the personal and professional jealousy of fellow scientist, Edward Teller. Oppenheimer was an erudite, fluent in many languages including Sanskrit, and eloquent speaker and had a striking personality. Less ordinary people, even today in our workplaces and lives, find ways to bring down those they can’t touch. What is the way around this pettiness then? Should one try to appear ordinary, not bring undue attention to oneself? Maybe. Yet, a few, those that possess a certain wildness of spirit will always live life on their terms, dazzling those around them, intimidating some but inspiring many in their wake.
