and go as he pleased. His sheer brilliance would force admission to the gilded enclave: It convinced Groves, and Groves persuaded the innermost sanctum of American power.
Parsons
Into the office strode a tall, balding man with a huge, dome-like forehead. Unlike the slightly nervous Oppenheimer, Navy Captain William “Deak” Parsons, 44, exuded the inscrutable calm of the complete insider. A director of the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, Parsons was designated to command the first atomic bombing mission, should it proceed, codenamed Project Alberta.
Parsons’ studious manner and innocuous presence, like so much else about the man, belied his intimacy with the apparatus of power. Parsons had an open line to Groves, who in turn liaised with the Pentagon and the White House. Parsons worked closely with Groves and Oppenheimer, but not even they shared his complete understanding of “the gadget” – as they called the atomic bomb, then in development – to which he devoted his every waking hour. He approached his job with the care and respect of a Swiss watchmaker, his knowledge of the innards of the world’s first nuclear weapon unrivalled.
Indeed, Parsons’ absorption in his work suggests that he felt a closer kinship with machines and electronic systems than with his fellow human beings. A pioneer in the discovery of radar, and the inventor of the proximity fuse, he was a superb technician and ordnance expert – perhaps the finest the US Navy had produced. Parsons shared with Groves and senior colleagues on the Manhattan Project a disdain for human fallibility – the easy compromise that tempted the average man, the weakness and laziness that drew him along the path of least resistance.
Like most American service personnel Parsons admitted to no feeling for the Japanese people; the distinction between civilian and combatant held no sway over his mind. The Japanese cities were military centers, names on a map; the ordinary people, members of an inhuman race, unworthy of consideration. It was not that the Americans at command level bothered openly to hate the Japanese people; rather, that the fate of Japanese civilians simply did not figure in any calculation of strategic or operational imperatives. They were simply the targets of a schedule of bombing raids that would continue, on an atomic scale if necessary, to destroy Japanese cities with the aim of breaking civilian morale.
Parsons’ touchstones were Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Bataán and Pearl Harbor, but his desire for vengeance would soon become personal. In the days before the atomic mission departed, he would visit his 19-year-old half-brother, a casualty of Iwo Jima, lying in a San Diego naval hospital. A Japanese mortar had ripped off the young man’s jaw and blinded his right eye.
When the time came to deliver the gadget to Tinian Island, Parsons would accompany itacross the Pacific like an archeologist delivering priceless treasures from some ancient tomb. But that was several months ahead. For now, this exceptionally gifted man studied and restudied the structure of the bomb, thinking through the steps by which it would be delivered, dropped and detonated over a Japanese city. Today, on May 10, 1945, his role on the Target Committee would be vital in deciding which city it would be. 7
Farrell
The most senior military figure at the meeting was Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, deputy commanding general and chief of field operations on the Manhattan Project. A highly decorated veteran of five major First World War operations, Farrell was the proud recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart.
Raised on a farm near Brunswick, New York, Farrell attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he completed a degree in civil engineering. He then worked on the construction of the Panama Canal. It is a crowning irony of his life that, while best known for helping to
Parsons
Into the office strode a tall, balding man with a huge, dome-like forehead. Unlike the slightly nervous Oppenheimer, Navy Captain William “Deak” Parsons, 44, exuded the inscrutable calm of the complete insider. A director of the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, Parsons was designated to command the first atomic bombing mission, should it proceed, codenamed Project Alberta.
Parsons’ studious manner and innocuous presence, like so much else about the man, belied his intimacy with the apparatus of power. Parsons had an open line to Groves, who in turn liaised with the Pentagon and the White House. Parsons worked closely with Groves and Oppenheimer, but not even they shared his complete understanding of “the gadget” – as they called the atomic bomb, then in development – to which he devoted his every waking hour. He approached his job with the care and respect of a Swiss watchmaker, his knowledge of the innards of the world’s first nuclear weapon unrivalled.
Indeed, Parsons’ absorption in his work suggests that he felt a closer kinship with machines and electronic systems than with his fellow human beings. A pioneer in the discovery of radar, and the inventor of the proximity fuse, he was a superb technician and ordnance expert – perhaps the finest the US Navy had produced. Parsons shared with Groves and senior colleagues on the Manhattan Project a disdain for human fallibility – the easy compromise that tempted the average man, the weakness and laziness that drew him along the path of least resistance.
Like most American service personnel Parsons admitted to no feeling for the Japanese people; the distinction between civilian and combatant held no sway over his mind. The Japanese cities were military centers, names on a map; the ordinary people, members of an inhuman race, unworthy of consideration. It was not that the Americans at command level bothered openly to hate the Japanese people; rather, that the fate of Japanese civilians simply did not figure in any calculation of strategic or operational imperatives. They were simply the targets of a schedule of bombing raids that would continue, on an atomic scale if necessary, to destroy Japanese cities with the aim of breaking civilian morale.
Parsons’ touchstones were Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Bataán and Pearl Harbor, but his desire for vengeance would soon become personal. In the days before the atomic mission departed, he would visit his 19-year-old half-brother, a casualty of Iwo Jima, lying in a San Diego naval hospital. A Japanese mortar had ripped off the young man’s jaw and blinded his right eye.
When the time came to deliver the gadget to Tinian Island, Parsons would accompany itacross the Pacific like an archeologist delivering priceless treasures from some ancient tomb. But that was several months ahead. For now, this exceptionally gifted man studied and restudied the structure of the bomb, thinking through the steps by which it would be delivered, dropped and detonated over a Japanese city. Today, on May 10, 1945, his role on the Target Committee would be vital in deciding which city it would be. 7
Farrell
The most senior military figure at the meeting was Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, deputy commanding general and chief of field operations on the Manhattan Project. A highly decorated veteran of five major First World War operations, Farrell was the proud recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart.
Raised on a farm near Brunswick, New York, Farrell attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he completed a degree in civil engineering. He then worked on the construction of the Panama Canal. It is a crowning irony of his life that, while best known for helping to
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