Seaborg Glenn


Glenn Seaborg Discovered Plutonium and a New History of Atomic Energy Commission





GLENN T. SEABORG, Typed Letter Signed, to Leslie R. Groves Jr., April 20, 1962, Washington, DC. 1 p., 8" x 10.5". Very good.





Excerpts


“My plans to present you a copy of The New World, 1939/1946 have been frustrated by a series of unavoidable delays. By the time I obtained a book for this purpose I was pleased to learn that you already had received an inscribed volume from the AEC historians themselves. This first volume of the AEC History brings vividly to mind your essential role in the wartime program and your continuing interest in the implications of scientific achievement for national security. I am confident you welcome this book as a companion to your own interesting and significant contribution to the literature of atomic energy.”





Historical Background


In 1962, the Pennsylvania State University Press published Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson Jr.’s The New World, 1939/1946 as the first volume in A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. At the time, Seaborg was both the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and a member of its Historical Advisory Committee. Hewlett (1923-2015) was the official historian of the AEC from 1957 to 1974, and of successor organizations the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Department of Energy, until his retirement in 1980. Anderson was a professional historian and member of the AEC’s historical staff.





In introducing Groves to their readers, Hewlett and Anderson wrote, “Although the Colonel’s contentious spirit, heavy humor, and sharp tongue sometimes annoyed his fellow officers, Somervell was impressed by Groves’s intelligence and ability to get jobs done.” It was the first of hundreds of references to Groves in the 655-page volume, whose mentions merit more than a page in the forty-page index.








Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999) was born in Michigan but grew up in California and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1933. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. He became a pioneer in nuclear medicine and was a prolific discoverer of isotopes. He and fellow researchers first identified plutonium in February 1941, and Seaborg alone or with collaborators discovered another nine elements. In 1951, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with mentor Edwin McMillan for the discovery of the first transuranium elements. In 1942, he worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory with Enrico Fermi. After the war, he led nuclear chemistry research at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California on behalf of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. President Truman appointed Seaborg a member of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, a position he held until 1960. From 1961 to 1971, Seaborg served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1971, he returned to the University of California, Berkeley as a university professor and later chancellor.





Leslie R. Groves Jr. (1896-1970) was a United States Army General with the Corps of Engineers who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Born in New York to a Protestant pastor who became an army chaplain, Groves graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1918 in a course shortened because of World War I. He entered the Corps of Engineers and gained promotions to major by 1940. In 1941, he was charged with overseeing the construction of the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world, with more than five million square feet. Disappointed that he had not received a combat assignment, Groves instead took charge of the Manhattan Project, designed to develop an atomic bomb. He continued nominally to supervise the Pentagon project to avoid suspicion, gained promotion to brigadier general, and began his work in September 1942. The project headquarters was initially in the War Department building in Washington, but in August 1943, moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer selected the site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for a laboratory, and Groves pushed successfully for Oppenheimer to be placed in charge. Groves was in charge of obtaining critical uranium ores internationally and collecting military intelligence on Axis atomic research. Promoted to major general in March 1944, Groves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Manhattan Project after the war. In 1947, Groves became chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. He received a promotion to lieutenant general in January 1948, just days before meeting with Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower, who reviewed a long list of complaints against Groves. Assured that he would not become Chief of Engineers, Groves retired in February 1948. From 1948 to 1961, he was a vice president of Sperry Rand, an equipment and electronics firm. After retirement, he served as president of the West Point alumni association and wrote a book on the Manhattan Project, published in 1962.








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