Hoover looked at Roosevelt, not understanding.
‘‘What does that mean, Mr. President?’’ Hoover asked.
Roosevelt motioned for Douglass to speak.
‘‘It means the potential release of energy from matter at a rate a thousand times that possible from present energy-release methods,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘I don’t think I understand that either,’’ Hoover confessed.
‘‘I don’t want to insult your intelligence, sir, by—’’ Douglass said.
‘‘You go right ahead and insult my intelligence, Commander, ’’ Hoover said.
‘‘Sir, you understand that explosives really don’t explode? An explosion is really a process of combustion? The ‘explosive’ material burns?’’
Hoover nodded.
‘‘If the atom can be split,’’ Douglass said, ‘‘it might be possible to extract a thousand times more energy than from combustion.’’
‘‘A super bomb?’’ Hoover said.
‘‘Yes, sir,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘We don’t know that yet,’’ Roosevelt said. ‘‘After my first visit with Commander Douglass, I had Jim Conant for dinner and discussed it with him.’’
It did not surprise Hoover that Roosevelt had gone to James B. Conant, president of Harvard, for advice. The Roosevelt administration was heavily larded—far too heavily larded, in Hoover’s opinion—with members of the Harvard faculty. Roosevelt was a Harvard graduate.
‘‘And what did he say?’’ Hoover asked.
‘‘ ‘Yes,’ ’’ Roosevelt said, ‘‘and ‘no.’ ’’
He waited for a laugh that did not come.
‘‘Yes, it is possible,’’ the President said. ‘‘No, not now. Maybe fifty, a hundred years from now.’’
‘‘And you think he’s wrong?’’ Hoover asked.
‘‘I think he underestimates both his own academic community and American industry,’’ Donovan said.
‘‘In other words, you think a super bomb like this is possible? ’’ Hoover asked. ‘‘It sounds like Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth century.’’
‘‘I think so too,’’ the President said. ‘‘But I at least believe it’s worth the gamble to try and find out. If such a weapon were possible, it would considerably change the odds of our losing a war should war come to us—as I believe it must.’’
‘‘They’ve already split the atom,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘What they have to do is learn to make it a continuous process, what the scientists call a chain reaction.’’
‘‘An Italian physicist named Fermi is doing some work at the University of Chicago,’’ Roosevelt said. ‘‘He hopes for so
me positive results by the first of the year.’’
‘‘Who knows about this?’’ Hoover said.
He just thought of that, Donovan thought, somewhat unkindly.
‘‘A handful of scientists; the chief of naval intelligence; Bill; Commander Douglass; an Army colonel named Leslie Groves; and now you,’’ Roosevelt said.
‘‘What will be required from the Bureau?’’ Hoover asked formally.
‘‘Secrecy,’’ Roosevelt said. ‘‘Secrecy. Absolute secrecy. This thing, if it works, could decide the war. We have to build a wall of silence around it.’’