Artist's sketch of Glenn T. Seaborg 80th birthday celebration at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Artwork by Fiavio Robles, Jr. LBL--I_'B---.704 Introduction DE93 004680 In recent years I have often augmented my scientific talks and general lectures to students with a brief description of my national service under the past ten presidents of the United States. I usually show slides, and share a few reminiscences of particular meetings with the presidents, and how these contacts reflected the differences between the presidents in individual character and style of administration. This has proved to be immensely popular, and many people have urged me to record these experiences in written form. In doing so now, I rely heavily on my daily journal, which I first began keeping as a boy of 14 (during the administration of Calvin Coolidge!), and which I continue to keep in a meticulous manner. You will note many detailed entries drawn directly from these journals, which are in the process of being printed in a report form by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and which will total close to 80 volumes, averaging nearly 600 pages each. A complete set of these will be available in the Library of Congress. Already deposited there (in 1992) are 57 volumes covering the years 1927-1975. (The entire collection to be deposited there will total more than one million items, including correspondence, administrative files, drafts of publications, photographs, audiotapes, videotapes, films, minutes of meetings, hand-written notebooks, etc.) Beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I have served, in one capacity or another, the last ten presidents. I knew each president (with the exception of Roosevelt) personally, most on a first-name basis. My wife Helen met eight of these presidents (all except Roosevelt and Truman). I have also known each of the last twelve vice presidents, beginning with Henry Wallace (who served during the third presidential term of Roosevelt), and all ten of the first ladies, including Eleanor Roosevelt. Helen also met the last eight First Ladies and most of the vice presidents. (I might add that I have met Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt's predecessor, on a number of occasions during the years following his presidency.) It has been very exciting to play some role in the making of national policy under different administrations, and to have the opportunity to learn something of how priorities are established and goals accomplished in the national government. I believe my visits to some 60 countries have also made some contributions to the improvement of international relations of our country. I consider myself privileged to have had the opportunity to become acquainted with these men, who have so much shaped history--most of whom I arn pleased to say I also liked as individuals. I hope that the reader will enjoy this "cruise down memory lane," with its many firsthand accounts of things as they happened, drawn from my journal. 1. Fr.,pnklinDelanoRoosevelt My indirect contacts with President Franklin D. Roosevelt began in connection with my work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. The discovery of fission by the two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, in December, 1938, soon led to the recognition that uranium might be developed as the explosive ingredient for a bomb of unprecedented explosive capacity. The Hungarian-born American physicist Leo Szilard became very concerned about this possibility and believed that he should give some direct advice to the president in order to get the United States started on such a project. With the help of Albert Einstein, Szilard's recommendation reached Roosevelt and resulted in the immediate appointment of an Advisory Committee on Uranium (chaired by Lyman J. Briggs, Director of the Bureau of Standards) to investigate the problem. In June, 1941, Roosevelt established, by executive order, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), with Vannevar Bush as director, in order to better coordinate the scientific activities for the war. The OSRD was located within the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President. The OSRD oversaw the atomic bomb development and the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), under the chairmanship of James B. Conant. The Committee on Uranium became the OSRD's Section on Uranium, soon designated cryptically as the S-1 Section. By the end of the summer of 1941, Bush, initially somewhat skeptical, became convinced that the possibility of producing an atomic bomb before the end of the war was so strong that every effort must be made as fast as possible. On October 9, 1941, he met with President Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace to seek authority to proceed at a greatly increased level of intensity with commitments to spend millions of dollars, an increase in orders of magnitude. The president, in an historic decision, agreed both immediately and completely. From this point on, the effort proceeded at an accelerated rate. One approach was to produce enriched uranium-235 (the fissionable isotope of uranium). The other approach was to produce 94239, the fissionable isotope of the newly-discovered synthetic element with the atomic number 94-- this element and its fissionable isotope had been discovered in early 1941, by my co-workers and me at the University of California, Berkeley (and was soon given the name "plutonium"). Quoting from my journal for Saturday, December 20, 1941: "Arthur Compton wrote _ memorandum (addressed to Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, and Lym._n J. Briggs) outlining a theoretical and experimental program to be centered at the University of Chicago and carried on with the cooperation of the groups at Columbia, Princeton, and Berkeley for the production of 94239,for use in a nuclear explosive, through the operation of a nuclear chain reaction with natural uranium. Spurred on by Pearl Harbor, he suggested a speeded-up time schedule for obtaining knowledge of the conditions for a chain reaction by June 1, 1942, --2-- production of a chain reaction by October 1, 1942, a pilot plant for use of the chain reaction to produce 94 by October 1, 1943, and the production of usable quantities of 94 by December 31, 1944." Arthur Compton, director of what became known as the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, asked me to join him there and to take charge of the development of the chemical process for the reparation of the plutonium to be produced in the chain reaction. I arrived in Chicago on April 19, 1942 (my thirtieth birthday). It became apparent that more supervisory strength for the atomic bomb project was needed. After some attempts at arrangements that I will not attempt to describe here, the Army was placed in charge. On September 23, 1942, newly- promoted General Leslie R. Groves, chosen by General Brehon B. Somervell and General Whilhelm D. Styer, was assigned to run the project as part of the Manhattan Engineer District (established on August 13) which became known as the Manhattan Project. Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth B. Nichols became his chief aide. Bush and Conant and members of the S-1 Executive Committee continued in positions of responsibility. On June 29, 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote the following letter to General Groves, which was read to the members of our laboratory: "My dear General Groves: I have recently reviewed with Dr. Bush the highly important and secret program of research, development and manufacture with which you are familiar. I was very glad to hear of the excellent work which is being done in a number of places in this country under your immediate supervision and the general direction of the Committee of which Dr. Bush is Chairman. The successful solution of the problem is of the utmost importance to the national safety, and I am confident that the work will be completed in as short a time as possible as the result of the wholehearted cooperation of all concerned. I am writing to you as the one who has charge of ali the development and manufacturing aspects of this work. I know that there. are several groups of scientists working under your direction on various phases of the program. The fact that the outcome of their labors is of such great significance to the nation requires that this project be even more drastically guarded than other highly secret war developments. As you know, I have therefore given directions that every precaution be taken to insure the safety of your project. I am sure the scientists are fully aware of the reasons why their endeavors must be circumscribed by very special restrictions. Nevertheless, I wish you would express to them my appreciation of their willingness to undertake the tasks which lie before them in spite of the possible dangers and personal sacrifice involved. In particular, I should be glad to have you communicate the contents of this letter to the leaders of each important group. I am sure we can rely on the continued wholehearted and unselfish labors of those now engaged. Whatever the enemy may be planning, American Science will be equal to _3_ the challenge. With this thought in mind, I send this note of confidence and appreciation. Very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt" Much of the early incentive for proceeding with the atomic bomb project came from the United Kingdom. As a result, President Roosevelt included discussions of this project in early meetings with U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Canadian leaders. This cooperation diminished during the later days of the war. As the project progressed, and in view of the potential applications of plutonium as a source of energy for peacetime applications, Vannevar Bush approached the discoverers of plutonium and its fissionable isotope (Joseph W.