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Office of the Historian [1]

[]

Date: 2025-08

PM Files1

The Chairman of the General Advisory Committee ( Oppenheimer ) to the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission ( Lilienthal )

top secret

Dear Mr. Lilienthal: At the request of the Commission, the seventeenth meeting of the General Advisory Committee was held in Washington on October 29 and 30, 1949 to consider some aspects of the [Page 570] question of whether the Commission was making all appropriate progress in assuring the common defense and security.2 Dr. Seaborg’s3 absence in Europe prevented his attending this meeting. For purposes of background, the Committee met with the Counsellor of the State Department, with Dr. Henderson of AEC Intelligence, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chairman of the Military Liaison Committee, the Chairman of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, General Norstadt and Admiral Parsons.4 In addition, as you know, we have had intimate consultations with the Commission itself.

The report which follows falls into two parts. The first describes certain recommendations for action by the Commission directed toward the common defense and security. The second is an account of the nature of the super project and of the super as a weapon, together with certain comments on which the Committee is unanimously agreed.5 Attached to the report, but not a part of it, are recommendations with regard to action on the super project which reflect the opinions of Committee members.

The Committee plans to hold its eighteenth meeting in the city of Washington on December 1, 2 and 3, 1949. At that time we hope to return to many of the questions which we could not deal with at this meeting.

J. R[ obert ] Oppenheimer

[Enclosure 1] Statement Appended to the Report of the General Advisory Committee 6 top secret We have been asked by the Commission whether or not they should immediately initiate an “all-out” effort to develop a weapon whose [Page 571] energy release is 100 to 1000 times greater and whose destructive power in terms of area of damage is 20 to 100 times greater than those of the present atomic bomb. We recommend strongly against such action. We base our recommendation on our belief that the extreme dangers to mankind inherent in the proposal wholly outweigh any military advantage that could come from this development. Let it be clearly realized that this is a super weapon; it is in a totally different category from an atomic bomb. The reason for developing such super bombs would be to have the capacity to devastate a vast area with a single bomb. Its use would involve a decision to slaughter a vast number of civilians. We are alarmed as to the possible global effects of the radioactivity generated by the explosion of a few super bombs of conceivable magnitude. If super bombs will work at all, there is no inherent limit in the destructive power that may be attained with them. Therefore, a super bomb might become a weapon of genocide. The existence of such a weapon in our armory would have far-reaching effects on world opinion: reasonable people the world over would realize that the existence of a weapon of this type whose power of destruction is essentially unlimited represents a threat to the future of the human race which is intolerable. Thus we believe that the psychological effect of the weapon in our hands would be adverse to our interest. We believe a super bomb should never be produced. Mankind would be far better off not to have a demonstration of the feasibility of such a weapon until the present climate of world opinion changes. It is by no means certain that the weapon can be developed at all and by no means certain that the Russians will produce one within a decade. To the argument that the Russians may succeed in developing this weapon, we would reply that our undertaking it will not prove a deterrent to them. Should they use the weapon against us, reprisals by our large stock of atomic bombs would be comparably effective to the use of a super. In determining not to proceed to develop the super bomb, we see a unique opportunity of providing by example some limitations on the totality of war and thus of limiting the fear and arousing the hope of mankind. James B. Conant

B. Hartley Rowe

Cyril Stanley Smith

L[ ee ] A. DuBridge

] A. Oliver E. Buckley

E. J. R[ obert ] Oppenheimer

[END]
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[1] Url: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v01/d211

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