Harold Agnew, Physicist, Atomic Bomb Everyman William H

RETROSPECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE Harold Agnew, physicist, atomic bomb Everyman William H. Press1 Departments of Computer Science and Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712

Harold Agnew (1921–2013) was etched into ous and—as in the Oppenheimer case—vin- history at 8:16 AM on August 6, 1945, by the dictive, Agnew was transparent and gener- actinic flash of the Hiroshima explosion. He ous. Where Teller hobnobbed with generals was a scientific observer in The Great Artiste, and Presidents, Agnew mixed with everyone, aB-29flying immediately behind the Enola the guys in the machine shop included. Gay. Smuggling aboard a contraband movie Agnew hunted and fished with, among others, camera, Agnew recorded the only known the son of San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM potter motion picture of the event. One might argue and artist Maria Martinez. In imitation of Jack that his destiny, or at any rate the course Benny’s radio character, Agnew was proud of of his professional life, was also fixed by being a cheapskate. He was elected as a New Agnew and a large barracuda, caught at fi the flash. Mexico state senator in 1957, the first from Eniwetok during the 1954 Paci c nuclear Agnew, born and raised in a working-class the newly civilian Los Alamos County. test campaign. Photo credit: Los Alamos family in Denver, Colorado, managed to ItwasasiftheHiroshimaflash had National Laboratory archives. attend and graduate from Denver University credentialed Agnew as Everyman, and he before the war intervened. Agnew and his loved assuming that role. When a 2005 in- that deterrence would someday fail. When it new bride Beverly were dissuaded from tervieweraskedhimwhatitfeltliketobe did, he wanted the United States to be posi- enlisting in the Army Air Corps; both were at the first multimegaton H-bomb test in the tioned well. Similarly, he could be willfully instead swept into the Manhattan Project’s Pacific, Agnew replied, “Well, fine. Good obtuse about the role that arms-control trea- Chicago “Met Lab.” Harold supplied grunt food. Steak whenever you wanted and ice ties might play in achieving strategic stability. labor in building the first “atomic pile.” cream and strawberries. Cheap booze. Cheap Although he was by any reckoning a pillar He was then assigned (with Beverly) to Roquefort cheese. Crackers.” Crackers! When of the Cold War establishment, Agnew hated Los Alamos, and in 1945 was with the 509th the interviewer persisted in probing for bureaucratic structure and arbitrary author- Composite Group on North Tinian Island. something more philosophical, Agnew said, ity. “Theworstthingyoucouldbeinhis After the war, Agnew entered Chicago’sdoc- “It [the bomb] worked. People ask, don’tyou vocabulary,” recalled physicist Dick Garwin, toral program in terrifying competition with worry about the sociological impact? I never his Chicago classmate and friend for 66 years, (as it turned out) four future Nobel Prize have worried about it, never thought about “was a manager.” During and after the war, winners. Enrico Fermi, who knew him from any of those things” (1). And he meant this, Agnew played cat and mouse with the Fed- the Met Lab and Los Alamos, took him on as although he often enough thought about eral Bureau of Investigation to retain copies a student, and Agnew received his physics his not worrying about it. Agnew once vol- of his photographs and documents from doctorate in 1949. Agnew then returned to unteered that all of his close friends from Tinian and the atomic bombing runs. In for- Los Alamos. By 1964, Agnew was head of Denver died in the Pacific war. mal portraits, Agnew is often seen wearing weapons engineering, and by 1970 he was the Agnew saw many such issues with a clarity a stern and static expression. This is Harold Laboratory Director, its third after Oppen- that eluded academics and intellectuals. Agnew the nuclear warrior. However, behind heimer and Norris Bradbury. He had seen—literally—nuclear weapons thefaceofthiswillingestablishmentleader When Agnew was Director of the Los bring victory in a just war. Agnew never dwelt an observing ego that was merciless in Alamos Scientific Laboratory from 1970 to doubted for a moment that his country its criticism of pomposity or stupidity. It is 1979, Edward Teller, although not officially would be on the just side of any future war, likely that within seconds of the camera click, Director, held sway at Los Alamos Scientific nor did he doubt that a future United States this other Harold Agnew would drop some Laboratory’s younger and feistier sister labo- President would use nuclear weapons only in deadpan wry remark, or launch into some ratory in Livermore, California. Although extremis. That being the case, Agnew wanted baleful anecdote about the shortcomings of Harold was half a generation younger, he the United States arsenal to comprise mili- a powerful person or institution. Sometimes and Edward were not far apart politically tarily effective weapons. His patience for the the impetuous boy would take control: In on most issues. However, Teller was widely abstract arguments of deterrence based on 1979, University of California President Da- disliked (if simultaneously adored by a small mutually assured destruction was limited. It vid Saxon refused to give Agnew the author- group), whereas Agnew was loved univer- is not that Agnew disbelieved in deterrence; itytopaysomekeylaboratorypeoplemore sally, even by his most fervent intellectual his positions in favor of continued nuclear opponents. It was a Cold War triumph of testing presupposed belief. Rather, Agnew Author contributions: W.H.P. wrote the paper. style over substance. Where Teller was devi- seems to have had an almost visceral feeling 1E-mail: [email protected].

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1319623110 PNAS Early Edition | 1of2 Downloaded by guest on September 24, 2021 than Agnew himself was paid. Saxon, as Agnew. In a 2005 BBC interview, he said, a courtesy, telephoned Agnew personally “About three-quarters of the US nuclear ar- with the news. As Agnew recounted, “Isaid, senal was designed under my tutelage at Los ‘Fine, I quit.’ So I quit” (1). Within months Alamos. That is my legacy” (2). Doubtless, he he had left Los Alamos permanently. meant this statement. However, also doubt- Agnew was a man capable of great ten- less, behind those twinkling eyes, Agnew was derness. At the time of Beverly’s death in toying with his interviewer’s preconceptions 2011, Agnew and Beverly had been mar- about him. Agnew believed that nuclear ried nearly 70 years. Beverly’sdecline,as weapons were just that: weapons, not abstrac- both were approaching age 90, was more tions of strategic statecraft. In 1993 he said, rapid than her husband’s. Still spry, Agnew “There is no question that the world ahead is would meticulously disassemble, pack in the going to be one of proliferation. More and car, and then reassemble Beverly’s wheel morelittlenationswillacquiresomenuclear- chair so that she could accompany him to weapons capability—maybe for terrorism, or social events, where he would never leave to make themselves feel good, or to blow up her side. Hollywood, when next in need of a city or something. We’re going to have new scripts about old love, should option to cope with that fact” (3). Two decades later, the story of the Agnews. his prognostication is more worrisome and There are few, if any, hawkish right-wing closer to true than ever. patriots who will be missed by progressive Harold Agnew died in his chair at age 92 academic scientists as much as Harold while watching a football game.

1 Palevsky M (2005) “Interview with Harold M. Agnew, October 10, 3 Agnew H, et al. (1993) Taking on the future: Harold Agnew and 2005, Solana Beach, California.” Nevada Test Site Oral History Los Alamos scientists discuss the potential of the Laboratory. Los Project, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Available at http://digital. Alamos Sci (21):4–29. library.unlv.edu/api/1/objects/nts/1115/bitstream. Accessed November 5, 2013. 2 Davis M (2005) “The men who bombed Hiroshima.” BBC News, August 4, 2005, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/ 4718579.stm (retrieved October 6, 2013).

Harold Agnew in 1945 holding the plutonium core of the Nagasaki bomb, Tinian Island.

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