The story told about the birth of the atomic age in Los Alamos is, at best, one of zealous overconfidence in progress and misguided dreams of global peace. At worst, it is a story of abdication of responsibility and callous indifference. Regardless of the frame of discourse, the common perception is that scientists were on a hamster wheel, unable to get off until seeing the bomb’s completion through, as depicted strikingly in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. However, not everyone stayed.

Joseph Rotblat, a Polish and British physicist whose work on fast neutron fission earned him the “privilege” of working at Los Alamos, was the most famous deserter of the Manhattan Project. He had only agreed to develop the bomb for fear that Hitler might acquire nuclear weapons. When General Leslie Groves let slip the purpose of the bomb was to “subdue the Soviets,” Rotblat seriously began to question his role at Los Alamos. Shortly afterward, upon learning that the Nazis had abandoned their nuclear program, Rotblat left the Manhattan Project, although not without the government attempting to paint him as a Soviet informant.

Rotblat’s story highlights the choice all weapons-research scientists can and should make. He identified three reasons why other conscientious physicists stayed: (1) “pure and simple” scientific curiosity; (2) trying to save American lives, coupled with the resolution to ensure the bomb would never again be used after the war; and (3) worrying about their careers. But according to Rotblat, those with a “social conscience” were a minority—most were content with others deciding how to use their research. In war, most people’s mindsets hardened, and the unthinkable during peacetime became a matter of course. But Rotblat was not the only physicist from the Manhattan Project to reject the atomic bomb. For example, Leo Szilard drafted the Szilard petition, advocating for the bomb to be demonstrated rather than detonated in an attack on a city, and I.I. Rabi, who refused to join the Manhattan Project, dedicated much of his life to promoting peace and the limitation of nuclear weapons. However, the US government was largely indifferent to their efforts, at least in part due to a lack of a unified front... (continue reading)