Monday, December 28, 2015

CHAPTER SIX "Don't Make a Big Production" : From Major Jordan's Diaries from archive.org

CHAPTER SIX 

"Don't Make a Big Production" 

Colonel Kotikov's first concern, each morning, was to visit the chart room in 
the Operations Office. A huge map, showing the route from Great Falls to 
Fairbanks, had been mounted on the magnetized steel wall which held in 
position small metal markers, on each of which hung a tag bearing the 
number of each plane en route. The markers were moved forward by a WAC 
assistant, on a ladder, in accordance with teletype advice coming in. Colonel 
Kotikov could read the situation at a glance. 

Toward the end of April, 1943, there was an unusual congestion of 
Airacobra pursuit planes at our field. We usually handled about 400 a month, 
in comparison with 80 medium bombers and 15 cargo ships in the same 



period; the Airacobras were used as anti-tank weapons by the Russians. 
There was always a chronic shortage of American pilots, but in 1943 the 
demand was ravenous - in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, in Europe, in Asia, and 
in the American system of global air transport which was a wonder of the war. 

Now, to Kotikov's disgust and fury, as many as 200 Airacobras were 
stacked up on the field. The markers clustered on the map as thick as bees. 
When he criticized us for allowing the situation to develop, I pointed out that 
the Russians had troubles, too; this he took as an insult. "Never, never," he 
shouted, "does Russia have shortage of pilots!" He said he could order 10,000 
Russian pilots to Great Falls in a matter of days. "And you'll have to feed 
them!" he said with satisfaction. 

He made life miserable for Colonel L. Ponton d'Arce, commander of Gore 
Field. "We've got to have more pilots," he yelled. Colonel d'Arce assured him 
that the problem had been taken personally in hand by Major General Harold 
L. George, chief of the Air Transport Command; and the head of his Alaskan 
Wing, Brigadier General William H. Tunner. The Russian's contempt was 
supreme. "Bah, promises!" he snarled. 

And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Two days later, out of 
inbound craft tumbled strange new fliers, bewildered and annoyed. Some had 
been snatched from well-earned rest between trips to Ireland. Others hailed 
from bases in Puerto Rico, Long Beach, Boca Raton, Oklahoma City. Test 
Pilots had been plucked from Wright Field. There were even a few prodigies 
with instrument certificates; such defiers of storm and darkness were rare as 
hen's teeth. The group totaled about twenty, in contrast to the mere three 
General Tunner had scraped together. 



Few of the pilots had ever heard of Great Falls, and all were dumfounded 
by its extensive facilities and operations. "What the hell's going on here?" they 
muttered. Some were disturbed at finding they were to pilot Airacobras to 
Alaska, almost a synonym for the North Pole. Scarcely one had driven a 
pursuit plane since flight training days, so we set up a refresher course in 
take-offs and landing. After a short time the emergency squad vanished as if it 
had never been. 

Word was prompt to arrive at headquarters of the Air Transport Command, 
and there was an uproar. It was absolutely forbidden to procure pilots except 
through ATC which alone could judge the whole situation and decide which 
emergency was most critical in the entire war effort. Colonel d'Arce informed 
me had had been reproved for "going outside channels," and asked whether I 
was the one who called in the extra pilots. 

Colonel Kotikov, to whom I appealed, promptly stated that he was 
responsible. He had simply got tired of waiting and gone "straight to Mr. 
Hopkins." 

"So that's how it was," Colonel d'Arce scowled bitterly. 

One morning a few weeks later, I was standing at my usual post beside 
Colonel Kotikov's desk. At his elbow lay a stack of folders with which I had 
long been acquainted. They were held together with elastics. On the outside 
binder was pasted a typewritten label in English, "Re: Experimental 
Chemicals." While telephoning to Washington, the Colonel would often cry 
out: "Chemicals!" I would fetch the sheaf of documents from his wife, who as 
his secretary kept them in a locked drawer. 



This portfolio was the apple of his eye. Mrs. Kotikov took it home every 
night. I sometimes stopped by the Pennsylvania Apartments in the morning 
and drove them to work. I once saw Mrs. Kotikov drag the dossier from a 
hiding-place under the mattress, while her husband was pulling on his 
handsome boots of black leather. 

When the chemical dossiers were complete and ready for Moscow, 
together with kindred folders on "Metals," Kotikov refused to trust them to an 
ordinary messenger. His courier was a luminary of the Soviet Purchasing 
Commission, Semen Vasilenko, who was known in this country as an expert 
chemist but turned out to be Russia's authority on pipes and tubes. (The 
gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge and the Hanford Plutonium Works use 
many miles of pipes.) 

My diary later showed * that Vasilenko flew from Great Falls in a special 
plane carrying about 4,000 pounds of "diplomatic mail." He and the cargo 
were protected by three Russian guards, whom I recorded as Leonid 
Rykounin, Engeny Kojevnicov and Georges Nicolaiev. 

* see pages 158, 159 (Chapter 15 - Conclusion) 

After Vasilenko's arrival from Washington, Colonel Kotikov led him to an 
Airacobra standing about one city block's distance from the nearest building, 
with an open view on every side. They spread the papers out on one of the 
wings of the plane, and the two men discussed them for an hour. 

This precaution was due to the Colonel's pet bogy, dictagraphs. There 
were no dictagraphs in the field, but that did not stop him and his aides from 
searching for them every day in lamp fixtures and telephone books, and 



behind calendars and pictures. They even sounded the walls. I gathered it 
was not American spies that he feared but Soviet police agents. 

One morning in April 1943, Colonel Kotikov asked whether I could find 
space for an important consignment of nearly 2,000 pounds. I said: "No, we 
have a quarter of a million pounds' backlog already." He directed me to put 
through a call to Washington for him, and spoke for a while in his own tongue. 
Then he put a hand over the mouthpiece and confided to me in English: "Very 
special shipment - experimental chemicals - going though soon." 

There was an interval of Slavic gutturals, and he turned to me again. "Mr. 
Hopkins - coming on now," he reported. Then he gave me the surprise of my 
life. He handed me the phone and announced: "Big boss, Mr. Hopkins, wants 
you." 

It was quite a moment, I was about to speak for the first time with a 
legendary figure of the day, the top man in the world of Lend-Lease in which I 
lived. I have been careful to keep the following account as accurate in 
substance and language as I can. My memory, normally good, was stimulated 
by the thrill of the occasion. Moreover, the incident was stamped on my mind 
because it was unique in my experience of almost 25 months at Newark and 
Great Falls. 

A bit in awe, I stammered: "Jordan speaking." A male voice began at once: 
"This is Mr. Hopkins. Are you my expediter out there?" I answered that I was 
the United Nations Representative at Great Falls, working with Colonel 
Kotikov. 



Under the circumstances, who could have doubted that the speaker was 
Harry Hopkins? Friends have since asked me whether it might not have been 
a Soviet agent who was an American. I doubt this, because his next remark 
brought up a subject which only Mr. Hopkins and myself could have known. 
He asked: "Did you get those pilots I sent you?" 

"Oh yes, sir," I responded. "They were very much appreciated, and helped 
us in unblocking the jam in the Pipeline. We were accused of going out of 
channels, and got the dickens for it." 

Mr. Hopkins let that one go by, and moved on to the heart of things. 

"Now, Jordan," he said, "there's a certain shipment of chemicals going 
through that I want you to expedite. This is something very special." 

"Shall I take it up," I asked, "with the Commanding Colonel?" 

"I don't want you to discuss this with anyone," Mr. Hopkins ordered, "and it 
is not to go on the records. Don't make a big production of it, but just send it 
through quietly, in a hurry." 

I asked how I was to identify the shipment when it arrived. He turned from 
the phone, and I could hear his voice: "How will Mr. Jordan know the shipment 
when it gets there?" He came back on the line and said: "The Russian Colonel 
out there will designate it for you. Now send this through as speedily as 
possible, and be sure you leave it off the records!" 

Then a Russian voice broke in with a demand for Colonel Kotikov. I was 
full of curiosity when Kotikov had finished, and I wanted to know what it was 



all about and where the shipment was coming from. He said there would be 
more chemicals and that they would arrive from Canada. 

"I show you," he announced. Presumably, after the talk with Mr. Hopkins, I 
had been accepted as a member of the "lodge." From his bundle on war 
chemicals the Colonel took the folder called "Bomb Powder." He drew out a 
paper sheet and set a finger against one entry. For a second time my eyes 
encountered the word "uranium." I repeat that in 1943 it meant as little to me 
as to most Americans, which was nothing. 

This shipment was the one and only cash item to pass through my hands, 
except for private Russian purchases of clothing and liquor. It was the only 
one, out of a tremendous multitude of consignments, that I was ordered not to 
enter on my tally sheets. It was the only one I was forbidden to discuss with 
my superiors, and the only one I was directed to keep secret from everybody. 

Despite Mr. Hopkins' urgency, there was a delay of five weeks. On the 
morning of June 10th, I caught sight of a loaded C-47 which was idling on the 
runway. I went over and asked the pilot what was holding him up. He said he 
understood some kind of special shipment was still to come. Seven years 
afterward the pilot identified himself to the press as Air Forces Lieutenant Ben 
L. Brown of Cincinnati. 

I asked Colonel Kotikov about the plane, and he told me the shipment Mr. 
Hopkins was interested in had just arrived at the railroad yards, and I should 
send a truck to pick it up. The consignment was escorted by a Russian guard 
from Toronto. I set down his name, and copied it later in my diary. It was 
Vladimir Anoufriev. I identified him with the initials "C.C." for "Canadian 
Courier." 



Fifteen wooden cases were put aboard the transport, which took off for 
Moscow by way of Alaska. At Fairbanks, Lieutenant Brown has related, one 
box fell from the plane, smashing a corner and spilling a small quantity of 
chocolate-brown powder. Out of curiosity, he picked up a handful of the 
unfamiliar grains, with a notion of asking somebody what they were. A Soviet 
officer slapped the crystals from his palm and explained nervously: "No, no - 
burn hands!" 

Not until the latter part of 1949 was it definitely proved, from responsible 
records, that during the war Federal agencies delivered to Russia at least 
three consignments of uranium chemicals, totaling 1,465 pounds, or nearly 
three-quarters of a ton. Confirmed also was the shipment of one kilogram, or 
2.2 pounds, of uranium metal at a time when the total American stock was 4.5 
pounds. 

Implicated by name were the Lend-Lease Administration, the Department 
of Commerce, the Procurement Division of the Treasury, and the Board of 
Economic Warfare. The State Department became involved to the extent of 
refusing access to files of Lend-Lease and its successor, the Foreign 
Economic Administration. 

The first two uranium shipments traveled through Great Falls, by air. The 
third was dispatched by truck and railway from Rochester, N.Y., to Portland, 
Ore., and then by ship to Vladivostok. The dates were March and June 1943, 
and July, 1944. No doubt was left that the transaction discussed by Mr. 
Hopkins and myself was the one of June, 1 943. 

This was not merely the largest of our known uranium deals with the Soviet 
Union, it was also the most shocking. There seemed to be no lengths to which 



some American officials would not go in aiding Russia to master the secret of 
nuclear fission. For four years monopoly of the A-bomb was the cornerstone 
of our military and overseas policy, yet on September 23, 1 949, long in 
advance of Washington estimates, President Truman announced that an 
atomic explosion had occurred in the Soviet Union. 

In behalf of national security, the Manhattan Project during the spring of 
1943 clapped an embargo on America exports of uranium compounds. But 
zealots in Washington appear to have resolved that Russia must have at all 
costs the ingredients for atomic experiment. The intensely pro-Soviet mood of 
that time may be judged from the echoes in later years. 

For example, there was Joseph E. Davies, Ambassador to the Soviet Union 
in 1936-39, and author of a book and movie of flagrant propaganda, Mission 
to Moscow. In an interview with the Times-Herald of Washington for Feb. 18, 
1946, he was quoted as saying: 

"Russia, in self-defense, has every moral right to seek atomic bomb 
secrets through military espionage if excluded from such information by 
her former fighting allies!" 

There also was Professor Harold C. Urey, American scientist, who sat in 
the innermost circle of the Manhattan Project. Yet on Dec. 14, 1949, in a 
report of the Atlantic Action Committee, Dr. Urey said that Major Jordan 
should be court-marshalled if he had removed anything from planes bound for 
Russia. 

When American supplies were cut off, the device of outmaneuvering 
General Groves was to procure the materials clandestinely from Canada. * 
Not until 1946 did the commander of the Manhattan Project learn from the Un- 
American Activities Committee that his stockade had been undermined. 



* The government of Canada frowned on uranium sales, but thought the U.S. 
has the right to determine whether Russia should have the precious product. 
In fact, it would appear that Canada's alertness rather than ours prevented 
further shipments. 

My share in the revelation was testimony under oath leading to one 
conclusion only - that the Canadian by-pass was aided by Mr. Hopkins. At his 
direction, Lend-Lease issued a certificate of release without which the 
consignment could not have moved. Lend-Lease channels of transportation 
and Lend-Lease personnel, such as myself, were used. Traces of the scheme 
were kept off Lend-Lease books by making it a "cash" transaction. The 
shipment was paid for with a check of the Amtorg Trading Corporation. 

Because the initial branch of the airlift to Moscow was under American 
control, passage of the chemicals across the United States territory could not 
be avoided, in Alaska if not Montana. On account of that fact, the cash nature 
of the project, it was necessary to obtain an export license from the Board of 
Economic Warfare. 

Such a document, covering a shipment of American origin, was first 
prepared. It was altered, to comply with the Canadian maneuver, by some 
BEW official whose identity has been concealed by the State Department. As 
amended, the license was issued on April 29, 1943. Its serial number was C- 
1643180. 

But two facts were forgotten: (a) public carriers use invoices, and (b) the 
Air Force kept tallies not only at Great Falls but Fairbanks. 

By diligent searching, freight and airway bills yielded incontestable proof 
that 15 boxes of uranium chemicals were delivered at Great Falls on June 9, 
1943, and were dispatched immediately, in a Lend-Lease plane, to the Soviet 
Union. 



The shipment originated at Eldorado Mining & Refining Ltd. Of Great Bear 
Lake, and was sent through Port Hope, Ontario. It was authorized by a 
Canadian arms export permit, No. OF1666. The carrier was the Chicago, 
Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railway. Listed as consignee was Colonel A. N. 
Kotikov, resident agent of the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission at 
Gore Field, Great Falls. 

The story behind the story is as follows: On Feb. 1, 1943, Hermann H. 
Rosenberg of Chematar, Inc. New York City, received the first inquiry about 
uranium ever to reach his office. The applicant was the Soviet Purchasing 
Commission which desired 220 pounds of uranium oxide, 220 pounds of 
uranium nitrate, and 25 pounds of uranium metal. At that date Oak Ridge was 
under construction, but would not be in operation for another year. 

Six days earlier the war Production Board had issued General Reference 
Order M-285, controlling the distribution of uranium compounds among 
domestic industries like glass, pottery and ceramics. A loophole was left by 
overlooking the export of such materials for war purposes. The Russians 
claimed that they had urgent military need for uranium nitrate in medicinal 
research and for uranium oxide and metal alloys in hardening gunbarrel steel. 
There was nothing for the U.S. to do but grant an OK, since we did not want to 
imply that we were suspicious of Russia's request. 

Uranium metal was unavailable. On March 23, at Rosenberg's instance, 
the S. W. Shuttuck Chemical Co. of Denver shipped four crates, weighing 691 
pounds, to Colonel Kotikov at Great Falls. The Burlington railroad's bill of 
lading described the contents merely as "chemicals," but it was accompanied 
by a letter from Rosenberg to Kotikov designating the contents as 220 pounds 
of uranium nitrate and 200 (not 220) pounds of uranium oxide. Since it was a 



Lend-Lease transaction, defrayed with American funds, no export license was 
required. The cargo was dispatched without friction along the Pipeline. 

But the War Production Board, from which clearance had been sought, 
alerted the Manhattan Project. It was too late to halt the Shattuck sale. 
General Groves reluctantly approved it on the ground that it would be unwise 
to "tip off" Russia as to the importance of uranium chemicals - a fact with 
which Moscow was only too familiar. 

During the investigation, I was embarrassed by the questions as to why 
tables of exports to the Soviet Union contained no mention of uranium. The 
Shattuck consignment was legitimate. It had been authorized by Lend-Lease, 
the War Production Board, and the Manhattan Project. 

Some months later I ran into John F. Moynihan, formerly of the Newark 
News editorial staff. A Second Lieutenant at the Newark Airport when I was 
there, he had risen to Colonel as a sort of "reverse press-agent" for General 
Groves. His duty was not to foster publicity but prevent it. 

"I heard you floundering about," he said, "and wished I could tell you 
something you didn't know. I was sent to Denver to hush up the records in the 
Shattuck matter. It was hidden under the phrase, 'salts and compounds,' in an 
entry covering a different metal." 

General Groves moved rapidly to stop the leak through which the Shattuck 
boxes had slipped. By early April he had formed a nationwide embargo by 
means of voluntary contracts with chemical brokers. They promised to grant 
the United States first right to purchase all uranium oxide, uranium nitrate and 
sodium uranate received by the contractors. 

The uranium black-out was discovered by Rosenberg when he tried to fill 
another order from the Soviet Purchasing Commission, for 500 pounds each 
of uranium nitrate and uranium oxide. On April 23, 1943, Rosenberg was in 



touch with the Canadian Radium & Uranium Corp. of New York, which was 
exclusive sales agent for Eldorado Mining & Refining, Ltd., a producer of 
uranium at Great Bear Lake. 

An agreement to fill the Soviet order was negotiated with such dispatch that 
in four days Rosenberg was able to report victory to the Purchasing 
Commission. The shipment from Ontario to Great Falls and Moscow followed 
in due course. 

The Port hope machination had the advantage, among other things, of by- 
passing the War Production Board, which was sure to warn the Manhattan 
Project if it knew the facts, but could only be kept in ignorance because its 
jurisdiction ran only south of the border. 

General Groves was advised at once of the Soviet application for 1 ,000 
pounds of uranium salts. He was not disturbed, being confident the embargo 
would stand. After declining to endorse the application, he approved it later in 
the hope of detecting whether the Russians would unearth uranium stocks 
which the Manhattan Project had overlooked. American industries were 
consuming annually, before the war, upwards of 200 tons of uranium 
chemicals. 

"We had no expectations," General Groves testified December 7, 1949, "of 
permitting that material to go out of this country. It would have been stopped." 
[1] So far as the United States was concerned, the embargo held fast. The 
truth that it had been side-stepped by means of resort to Canadian sources 
did not come to the General's knowledge until three years later. 

Another violation of atomic security was represented by the third known 
delivery to Russia, in 1944. It proved to be uranium nitrate. During May of that 
year, Colonel Kotikov showed me a warning from the Soviet Purchasing 
Commission to look out for a shipment of uranium, weighing 500 pounds, 



which was to have travel priority. The Colonel was soon returning home. As 
the climax of his American mission, he proposed to fly the precious stuff to 
Moscow with his own funds. 

Disguised as a "commercial transaction" within American territory, the deal 
was managed by Lend-Lease. Chematar and Canadian Radium & Uranium 
abandoned in favor of the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department, 
although the Treasury, under regulations, had no authority to make uranium 
products available to the Soviet Union. 

Contractors were asked to bid, and the winner was Eastman Kodak 
Company. Somewhere in this process, the expected 500 pounds shrank to 
45. Eastman Kodak reported the order to the War Production Board as a 
domestic commercial item. 

Whatever the motive, it was determined not to send the compound by air. 
After a Treasury inspection in Rochester, the MacDaniel Trucking Company 
drove it to the Army Ordnance Depot at Terre Haute, Ind., arriving July 24. * 

The shipment turned up in freight car No. 97352 of the Erie Railroad, and 
got to North Portland, Ore., on Aug. 1 1 . By means of shifts not yet divulged, 
the uranium nitrate found itself aboard a Russian steamship, Kushirstroi, 
which left for Vladivostok on Oct. 3. Colonel Kotikov, who had planned a 
triumphal entry into Moscow with a quarter-ton of "bomb powder" as a trophy, 
gave up the project in disgust on learning that the shipment would be only 45 
pounds. 

*From the hearings of the Un-American Activities Committee, Dec. 5, 1949, p. 
932: "MR. TAVENNER: Were there shipments of uranium passing through 
your field which originated at places other than Canada after you received the 
Canadian shipments? MR. JORDAN: I believe the other shipments came from 
Army Ordnance." 



In charge of uranium purchases for the Manhattan Project in 1944 was Dr. 
Phillip L. Merritt. Appearing January 24, 1950, before the Un-American 
Activities Committee, Dr. Merritt swore he was taken by surprise, a day 
earlier, on discovering for the first time that the Eastman Kodak order had 
been shipped to Russian by way of Army Ordnance. 

General Groves was likewise uninformed. Asked as a witness whether it 
was possible for uranium shipments to have been made in 1944, he 
answered: "Not if we could have helped it, and not with our knowledge of any 
kind. They would have had to be entirely secret, and not discovered." [2] He 
declared that there was no way for the Russians to get uranium products in 
this country "without the support of U.S. authorities in one way or another." [3] 
The Soviet Purchasing Commission appears to have had instructions to 
acquire without fail 25 pounds of uranium metal, which can be extracted from 
uranium salts by a difficult process requiring specialized equipment. 
Supported or advised by Lend-Lease, the commission for a whole year 
knocked at every available door, from the Chemical Warfare Service up to 
Secretary Stimson. 

As a matter of fact, uranium metal was then non-existent in America, and 
for that reason had not been specified in the Manhattan Project's embargo or 
named as a "strategic" material. 

Stimson closed a series of polite rebuffs with a letter of April 17, 1944, to 
the chairman of the Purchasing Commission, Lt. General Leonid G. Rudenko. 
But Moscow was stubborn. Under Soviet pressure, the commission or its 
American friends had an inspiration. Why not have the uranium made to order 
by some private concern? 

As usual, a roundabout course was taken. The commission first 
approached the Manufacturer's Chemical Co., 527 Fifth Avenue, New York, 



which passed the order along to A.D. Mackay, Inc., 198 Broadway. By the 
latter it was farmed out to the Cooper Metallurgical Laboratory in Cleveland. 
According to Mr. McKay, neither he nor the Cooper concern suspected that 
their customer was the Soviet Union. 

But McKay reported the deal to the War Production Board, which warned 
the Manhattan Project. The latter's expert on rare metals, Lawrence C. 
Burman, went to Cleveland, it is related, and urged the Cooper firm to make 
sure that its product was of "poor quality." He did not explain why. But the 
metal, of which 4.5 pounds was made, turned out to be 87.5 per cent pure as 
against the stipulated 99 per cent. 

Delivery to the Soviet Union was then authorized of a small sample of this 
defective metal, to represent "what was available in the United States." 
Actually shipped was one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. The Purchasing 
Commission abruptly silenced its demands for pure uranium. But the powers 
that be found it suitable to omit this item, as well as the Rochester sale, from 
the 1944 schedule of exports to Russia. 

From the start, in contrast to the atmosphere prevailing in Washington, the 
Manhattan Project was declared by General Groves to have been "the only 
spot I know that was distinctly anti-Russian. [4] Attempts at espionage in New 
York, Chicago and Berkeley, California, were traced back to the Soviet 
Embassy. 

They convinced General Groves in October, 1942, that the enemies of our 
atomic safeguards were not Germans of Japanese, but Russians. "Suspicion 
of Russia was not very popular in some circles (in Washington)," he stated. "It 
was popular at Oak Ridge, and from one month of the time I took over we 
never trusted them one iota. From that time on, our whole security was based 
on not letting the Russians find out anything." [5] 



That the Russians found out everything from alpha to omega, has been 
established by volumes of proof. Through trials in Canada, England and the 
United States there has been revealed the existence of an espionage network 
so enormously effective that Russia, scientists calculated, "should have been 
able to make a bomb considerably before September, 1949." The network 
chief was the former Soviet Vice Consul in New York, Anatoli A. Yakovlev, 
who fled in 1946. 

In light of these disclosures, there stands in plain view the answer to a 
mystery that troubled James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, at the Potsdam 
Conference. Following a session of the "Big Three," on the afternoon of July 
24, 1945, Harry S. Truman walked round the large circular table to Joseph 
Stalin's chair. We had perfected a new bomb, he said, more powerful than 
anything known. Unless there was an early surrender, we would use it against 
Japan. 

Stalin's only reply [writes Mr. Byrnes] was to say that he was glad to 
hear of the bomb and he hoped we would use it. I was surprised at 
Stalin's lack of interest. I concluded that he had not grasped the 
importance of the discovery. I thought that the following day he would 
ask for more information about it. He did not. . . [6] 

On the contrary, Stalin probably knew more about the bomb than Truman 
and Byrnes together. Perhaps he was struck speechless by the simplicity of 
his American guests. What did they take him for, he may have been thinking, 
not to have informed himself to the last particular regarding a weapon bound 
to revolutionize war? 

As someone remarked bitterly: If we ever hear of Stalin's death, we know 
that he died laughing. 
SOURCES 
CHAPTER SIX 



"Don't Make a Big Production" 
CHAPTER SIX 



"Don't Make a Big Production" 

1. Hearings, General Groves, p. 941. 

2. Ibid., p. 945. 

3. Ibid., p. 900. 

4. Ibid., p. 948. 

5. Ibid., p. 947. 

6. Speaking Frankly, James F. Byrnes (Harper, 1947), p. 263 
 

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