S-1 Uranium Committee - S-1 Project

S-1 Project

On December 6, 1941, Vannevar Bush held a meeting to organize an accelerated uranium-235 research project managed by Arthur Compton, with Harold Urey researching gaseous diffusion for uranium enrichment and Ernest Lawrence to research electromagnetic enrichment techniques.

The next day, the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor led to the United States entry into the war. Four days later, Germany declared war on the United States. At a meeting on December 18 the S-1 project was dedicated to development of a uranium bomb.

As a result of the MAUD Report, the British had started a uranium bomb program referred to by the codename Tube Alloys. Perceived slowness on the part of the United States had become a contentious issue between American and British scientists. Upon entry into the war, the U.S. placed increasing importance on working cooperatively with the British program. Roosevelt wrote a note to Winston Churchill outlining increased U.S.–UK cooperation, but was rebuffed by Churchill. Apparently the British felt the U.S. could add little to the effort at that point. This rebuff turned out to be a major blunder as the U.S. effort quickly caught up with the British effort, and the British realised that their pioneering effort would have no value if it were not quickly capitalized. Leadership of the American atomic (uranium) bomb project was transferred to U.S. Army General Leslie Groves from September 1942; Groves (in his own words) had never trusted the British, or anyone else.

On June 17, 1942, Roosevelt approved a proposal by Bush to dissolve the original S-1 Section and created the S-1 Executive Committee, chaired by James B. Conant, with the membership of Briggs, Compton, Urey, Lawrence, and Eger Murphree. The program entered into increased cooperation between the OSRD and the U.S. Army.

On August 13, 1942, the Manhattan Project was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and on September 23, 1942, command of the district was given to Groves. The S-1 Executive Committee created two more secret sites: "Site X" in Tennessee (Oak Ridge, Tennessee), where uranium-235 isotope separation was carried out at the Y-12, K-25, and S-50 sites, and "Site Y," a secret laboratory at Los Alamos in northern New Mexico (later Los Alamos National Laboratory), where the bomb design was developed.

As the Army role in the project grew larger, the role of the OSRD became more advisory. Eventually, in May 1943, the Army took full control over the OSRD's research and development contracts, and as such the S-1 Executive Committee became essentially inactive though never formally dissolved. Bush, Conant, and other OSRD insiders continued their influence in the Manhattan Project through their participation in the Military Policy Committee.