Page Fifteen Thursday, November 30, 1961 THE JEWISH POST deli\·ery from him of thl' epochal A death was cal1cell'd hy the ril'cUl1lstances TH1I' Jl"WTSH POST Thursday, November 30, 1961 and the crowding c\'('nts of \'iclory Page Fourteen The road to success and death bomb core, the 11rst mle, tested at Ala mogordo. For Slutin's ,io!', along with ,~xcept. for Slotin. who as a physicist some others, was to nm Jlnal tests on IH'lped the dodo!'s estimate Daghlian's l'adiation do,;e and as a friend sat with ,, the active core uf each precious A-bomb THE NUCLEAR DEATH OF A NUCLEAR SCIENTIST to make sure it would produce the ex him for man,l" hour,; dUl'ing the twenty plicit nuclear OUl'st it wa" supposed to. foul' da~'s it took him to die, Louis Siolin: A Tiny Slip, A Terrible Dealh The way it was done was dangerous, It was an ulliqUl' seminar-for at By r/Je,,.bara moon but in wartime one takes shortcuts and lliroshima and Nagasaki 8ul'\'i\'ors had believes them justified. not u.nderstood what I)('oph~ around REPUBLISHED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION OF At the time of his death, of course, them were dying nf and opside's wel'(~ MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE the wal' was over. The core he was too busy tn analy7,c the proc<'ss, 01' be testing was part uf a one-sided arms able precisely to recall it later. . • In Muscow Nikita Khrushchov threatens that race, and was destined for Bikini Atoll. So it came about that on May 21, 1 \116, Slot in was a man specially Hnd his country can build and dispatch a monster Slotin himself intended to go idong to the Bikini tests as an obscl'ver but singularly aware of what happenfl to thermonuclear bomb equal to one hundred mil then, as many of his fellows had already the human body when ionizing radiation lion tons of TNT and· capable of wiping out all done, he \vas going to divorce himself deranges its fl'agile and miraculolls life ovcr hundreds of square miles • In Wash from Los Alamos and return to his real chemistry. ing·ton the latest corridor talk is of a conjectural work. II,! the fall he would go back to That day, lilH' most days at Los Alamos, was clem' and sunllY, Slotin neutron bomb, relined of old-fashioned heat and the University of Chicago and in fact he had already packed and shipped kft his hachelor's rooms on thl' centl'al blast into a simple death ray'- instantaneous, ahead eleven crates of books and be mesa in his l'ustomary expensive SPO!·t invisible, [Jiercing the honeycombs of civilization longings. shirt anrl llaiTOW khaki pants tucked to destroy humankind while leaving his foyers There is one other thing that it is into cowhoy boots. At noon h0 lunched and chambers intact. • In the Sahara Desert necessary to know aoout Siotin. Just at on chili con cal'l1e at the Technical Area PX, with his friend and colleague Philip fused quartz moHles the wastes of sand to mark the end of the war a young technician named Harry Daghlinn had gone back Morrison, 11 hrilliant young theoretical the place where the wilful French set oil' their to a Los Alamos Inooratory one night, physicist with It bright impudent face fourth A-bomb this summer, while 011' the Aus against all regulations, to try an ex and a criJlpled leg, AftcnV;ln\ he at tralian coast ships are warned that the Monte periment with fissionable materials. A tended a g-roUJl lpader;;' meeting. Bello Islands. contaminated nine years ago by a moment of clumsiness had condemned It was held at Slotin'fl own home base, Pajnrito Site, on the 11001' of near British, A.Jbomb explosion. remain too hort to him, and he was actually the first ~orth American to die of acute radiation sick oy Pajarito Canyon, and when it was permit theil' approach .• In Geneva the discus ness. over the visiting leadet·s were conducted sions about a permanent suspension of nuclear Any special signifIcance to this al'Ound the premises. The tour included tests drag on .• Enormity is a strong inocula tion, and hreeds strong antibodies. So, though Early Frontier Days of Atom-Bomb Age we are only sixteen years into the atomic age, there is a curious nonchalance in the way men speak of such things these days, and in their • debates about "ultimate weapons" and "limited wad'are" and "banning the bomb" and "fallout shelters" and "the nuclear arms race." • Per haps it is merciful that minds can be immunized agaim,t dread. But ill the circumstances it is also dangerous. And so it seems well, from time to time, to recall sut:h events as may serve to keep comprehcnsion fresh and exquisitl'. Among these eventH may be counted the last days of Dr. Louis A. Biotin, physicist and biochemist, who was born in Winnipeg in HIlO and who died fifteen yearS The road still winds its way precariously up to the 7,30()-foot mesa and Los Alamos. From 1937 to 194~, Slo~in, above, worked without pay at the University of Chicago. Begging copper wire, ago in the secret atomic city of Los Alamos at blowmg his own glass, he helped bUlld a plOneer atom-smashing cyclotron there.· that he had fought with the Loyalists the age of thirty-five. to?" he asked, and answered himself. "You don't know .. I don't know. But in Spain and flown with the RAF, and HE atomic age was ten months old tacled little boy and at the University my son Louis knows. That's the kind this seemed to please some strain of Where Louis Siolin Spenl his Lasl Days T when he died, and World War II was of Manitoba grew into a brilliant stu of doctor he is." . romance in him. over. Occupation-army observers had dent of chemistry, with a particular By now Slotin was nearly thirty. In 1942, when the crash program to long since made their· first sketchy, knack for designing the swift, imagina In the laboratory with his colleagues invent an A"bomb was launched and secret reports on the ruins of Hiro tive experiment that would test a he was a leader. At lunch with them the Manhattan Engineer District of the shima and Nagasaki and on the hun theory and for improvising the neces he would neglect his food while he U.S. Army began casting its dragnet dred and fifty thousand Japanese who sary apparatus. He also grew into a talked, reaching among the flatware for qualified people, Slotin was recruited had thel'e been blasted or grilled or seemly youth, reserved and quiet but with his finely shaped, expressive from Chicago. irradicated. Behind closed doors the with a quizzical air that lent him poise, hands, smoothing out a paper 'napkin, In 1944 he came to Los Alamos, the bittel' debates had started: on military and also what a friend later called "a covering it with diagrams to illustrate bomb assembly-point hidden away on versus civilian control of atomic en romantic and elaborate view of himself a point, glancing up at his companions the five-fingered mesa in the ancient ergy; on scientific freemasonry versus and the world." For example, it was through his glasses with what one of pir:e-clad lIplands of New Mexico. After national security; on the morality of a t this time that in response to some them called, "a certain shy, eager ex a time there he became, in effect, chief racing to make and test still more private need for style he arbitrarily pression." . armorer of the United States. ,IJI'''! 'liI!t,!,'/!lIMHJ#Hi,,~#i:: '" bombs. The scientists-turned-artificers adopted the middle initial, "A." A way from his work he was re In the Fall He Would Go Back East ." ~/fJ,'_d". ,,-ij had indeed begun 'to know whereto they Later he earned his doctorate at the served, and Hcklom said much, though In the glove compartment of his had given their soul's consent. University of London and at the same he rp~ularly amused himself with the cream Dodge convertiole Slotin kept ,.. In time of sick aftermath-of guilt, time turned himself into a crack ban gullible by planting false clues to an ,comething that looked like a hydro At Los Alamos the first ways of handling J·adjoactivc sources were reappraisal, foreboding - there were tamweight boxer, imaginary and stylish past. Many of electric oill. It was the receipt made crude and makeshift. facts about Slot in and circumstances On his return from England he ap his friem13 came to believe, for example, out by the U,S. Army when it took about hiB death that seemed, and still plied unsllccessfully for a job with the thr, outlying Illhol'a\ol'Y, ,~ollt.h of the main huild seem, most memorable to his fellowB. National Research Council and then was ing, where Shlin'.-; gl'OUp, :lnd a )!:I'OUp le(\ hy a It waB as though it were a ritual death .. captured by the fascinations of a pio Thousands Attend Funeral in Winnipeg I Dr. lta('mrr Schl'l"lwl', did their experiment.;, It In one sense Louis Slotin may be neer atom-smashing cyclotron at the was a barc, whit(,-painl(,d I'oom, forty I'e('t by considered interchangeable with all the University of Chicago. With others of t w(,ntv-six, llnilll·ni.-;hl,d excepl for a metal talJle other bright, disciplined, idealistic a sm;:ll ardent group he helped build near the centre of the room, a COLintcl' a~;ail1st the young scientists who helped the army it, begging copper wire from business East wall neal'an ('X it ramp, and the spllrse, unim make a bomb. firms and blowing glass components [JOsing equipment of critkal llHscmbly tests. He was born to prosperous and gen himself, 'and from 1937 to 1940 he Though the sun shone obliquely through one tle Russian-Jewish parents living in the worked there for nothing'. "What have window, the Plectrk liglJts were on. polyglot north end of Winnipeg. He I'" his father asked fondly. "A student The visiting group-leaders finisherl their in grew up and webt to school there and prince on my hands?" But he was spection and moved along. But one of them, Dr. it was early obvious that he was not proud of his educated son, the doctor. Alvin GravcR-a sandy, thick-set physicist from cut out for the traditional eldest-son's When a friend asked what kind of doc Washington, D.C.-stayed behind with Slotin. succession to the family business, which tor Louis was, Mr. Slotin reached out Since Siotin was leaving; Graves was being trans was a livestock commission agency. He for a light switch and turned it off and fel'l'ed to take over his work. They chatted about was a studious, self-possessed, bespec- 011. "Do you know where the light went one experimental configuration in particular With the body of their son, Mr. and Mrs. Slotin flew home to Winnipeg, More than two thousand mourned the which Graves had never seen tested. Siotin said, scientist at the funeral and police were called to control the crowds, (Cen tinued on page 32) .. ATOMIC POISONING KILLED THE CANADIAN PHYSICIST On the ninth day, May 30, 1946, in this now-demolished hospital, Louis Slotin died. WHO DELIVERED THE HIROSHIMA BOMB TO THE USAF.
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