Stages of Anglo-American cooperation in the framework of the first atomic projects

Ripak Il'ya Alexandrovich ORCID: 0009-0009-3856-7006 Postgraduate student, American Studies Department, Saint Petersburg University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, nab. University, 7-9 ilka-95@mail.ru

The creation of atomic weapons during the Second World War was an event that marked the beginning of a new system of approaches to international conflicts, in which a war with an enemy armed with the same weapons could lead to mutual destruction. Nevertheless, being the most destructive weapon in the history of mankind, the nuclear bomb gave incredibly wide opportunities to its owner, both from a diplomatic point of view and from a strategic military point of view, especially while the opponent did not have his own atomic response to it. For the first time, this weapon was released as a result of the activities of the American Manhattan project. In parallel with it, a British project was also developing under the encrypted name "Tube Alloys". Although the initial initiatives to create nuclear weapons in both the United States and the United Kingdom were undertaken rather because of fears related to a potential German atomic project, by the end of the war, the issues of ensuring one's own security by the power of the atom had transformed into a desire to create an unapologetic power base for the domination of the post-war world for the United States, and for the preservation of colonial empires for Great Britain. In both cases, the Soviet Union was considered the main competitor of the allied countries. The American and English nuclear projects were conducted in conditions closely corresponding to the word "cooperation", but the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States in the field of nuclear research both during the war and after it cannot be called stable – they took place in an atmosphere of competition rather than decent cooperation.

The relevance of this study consists, first of all, in the lack of knowledge by domestic researchers of the problems of foreign nuclear projects organized during World War II – the American Manhattan project and the English Tube Alloys. If foreign historiography is full of works on various aspects of the Manhattan Project (ethics and the need to use nuclear weapons during World War II ^[1-4], the consequences of the invention of the atomic bomb for the post-war world ^[5-8], the role of the army in the project ^[9], the technical part of the project ^[10], its general history ^[11-13], the role and fate of women in the framework of the project ^[14] and others) and "Tube Alloys" ^[15-21], many of which touch on the issue of Anglo-American cooperation within these projects ^[22], then there were not too many works on this topic in the USSR and Russia as a whole. In the Soviet Union, this trend was associated with the prohibition of the topic as a whole, so the number of works of this period is calculated in units ^[23-25],[31]. After the collapse of the USSR, the domestic "atomic" historiography was replenished with dozens of works, most of which were somehow connected with Soviet nuclear projects. At the same time, only a few major works on American and English projects have been published, the rest are publications in scientific journals. Those researchers who considered foreign projects mainly analyzed them in the context of comparative studies ^[26-30], diplomacy and the influence of nuclear weapons on international relations ^{[23, 31-36]}, intelligence and espionage ^{[37, 38]}. The works of V. L. Malkov stand apart, being the only full–fledged modern domestic monographs concentrating on the Manhattan project, and specifically on its diplomatic and intelligence aspects ^{[39, 40]}. The field of Anglo-American atomic interaction was touched upon both in the works of Malkov and in some works of other authors ^{[23, 31, 32]}. Nevertheless, neither domestic nor foreign researchers have established any clear periodization of cooperation between the UK and US nuclear projects. This study will fill this gap.

Thus, the object of research is the first nuclear projects of the UK and the USA "Tube Alloys" and "Manhattan". The subject of the study is Anglo–American relations in the field of atomic energy during the Second World War and the post-war period. The purpose of the study is to identify and record specific stages of Anglo-American cooperation within the framework of the first nuclear projects of Great Britain and the USA. To achieve this goal, in addition to general scientific methods, the following methods of historical research are used:

• Historical-genetic method for describing the stages of formation and change of Anglo-American relations in the field of atomic energy and fixing the cause-effect relationships of the creation, development and achievement of the goals of cooperation between the UK and the USA;
• A method of historical periodization to highlight specific stages of Anglo-American relations in the field of nuclear weapons development;
• A historical and systematic method for a comprehensive analysis of the stages of Anglo-American relations in the field of nuclear weapons development.

The main sources within the framework of this study are written historical sources related to allied atomic projects: Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt, the Frisch-Peierls Memorandum, the MAUD report, the Quebec Agreement of 1943, the Hyde Park Memorandum, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1958. In addition, of interest are memoirs of General Groves ^[41], the military-administrative head of the Manhattan project, who was directly involved in the development of conditions for cooperation with Great Britain.

Nuclear physics, born out of the accidental discovery of a certain radiation emanating from uranium salts by French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, developed throughout the first half of the XX century. By 1939, the European scientific community was coming to the idea of the possibility of using the energy released during the fission of heavy element nuclei as a basis for the creation of weapons of mass destruction. On January 26, 1939, Danish physicist Niels Bohr announced the discoveries of his colleagues at the international conference on physics at George Washington University. Initially, neither the British nor the American leadership were interested in the opportunities that opened up – they seemed too unrealistic. However, the prospect of the invention of nuclear weapons by National Socialist Germany incredibly frightened many physicists. On October 11, 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt receives Alexander Sachs, a comrade from the first years of the New Deal, who gives him a collectively compiled letter from scientists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller and Albert Einstein. The letter called for initiating research in the nuclear field in connection with the potential possibility of conducting such research by the Nazis. Already on October 12, Roosevelt signs a decree on the establishment of an Advisory Committee on Uranium ^{[40, pp. 32-35]}. At the same time, British scientists George Thomson and Mark Oliphant in the UK are conducting their own work on the "uranium problem". Oliphant's group, which included immigrant physicists Otto Robert Frisch and Rudolf Ernst Peierls, achieved some success. Following the results of the work, Frisch and Peierls in a memorandum indicated the real possibility of creating a nuclear bomb, which led to the formation in April 1940 of the Thomson committee, appointed responsible for further nuclear research. Another name of this body is the "MAUD Committee". Subsequently, on the basis of the committee, the "Tube Alloys" project will be created, which in the future will carry out British work on atomic weapons under the leadership of the Lord Chairman of the Council, a member of the war cabinet John Anderson ^{[16, p. 47]}.

The countdown of Anglo-American cooperation in the field of nuclear weapons development begins in the autumn of 1940, when British physicist John Cockcroft, Deputy Director of Scientific Research at the Ministry of Supply, and one of the leading British scientists engaged in atomic research, as part of a group of chemist Henry Tizard (rector of Imperial College London and head of the Air Defense Research Committee) visits the USA. Tizard's mission was aimed at sharing general research and technical information with Americans who had not yet entered the war, but supported Great Britain and had a more powerful industry capable of assisting an ally. Kokrfot found that the American atomic initiative was only in its infancy organizationally, and in terms of the pace of research it lagged behind the English one for several months ^{[22, p. 15-16]}. Since then, the MAUD committee has conducted a lot of research, its work was expressed in two reports that confirmed the conclusions of Frisch and Peierls ^{[15, p. 78]}. These reports were transmitted to the American side through the British Central Scientific Directorate on July 14 , 1941 .

Together with the information received during the return visit to the UK by scientists George Pegram and Harold Urey in October 1941, the "MAUD report" led to the intensification of the American atomic project, the creation of the "Uranium Section" (later turned into the "S-1 Section" and became the foundation of the Manhattan project) and a proposal from the American Administration scientific research and development (the body that controlled US defense research) and its leaders Vannevar Bush and James Conant to combine English and American projects to create nuclear weapons. However, there was no unambiguous answer from the English side ^{[22, p. 16]}. Although the country's leadership believed that cooperation in all military spheres should be encouraged, the British nuclear project should have remained an independent initiative ^{[18, p. 193-194]}, and combining it with the American one would quickly lead to the loss of independence in the conditions of other momentary military priorities and the overwhelming industrial superiority of the United States. The exchange of information continued, but no more serious steps were taken to cooperate in this area.

Meanwhile, the American project was gaining momentum. In November 1941, the report of the Review Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, established in April of the same year in order to assess the military significance of the atomic project and its costs, confirmed the data of the MAUD Committee, and on December 7, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor forced the previously hesitant United States to enter the war. The relevance of the project has increased dramatically, as well as, accordingly, the level of its funding, which has led to rapid progress in nuclear research. By the summer of 1942, the American project, taking into account the greater availability of resources, a higher level of financing and a larger industrial base, overtook the English in terms of progress ^{[22, p. 17]}. By August-September 1942, he enters the initial stage of industrial production of fissile substances that make up the main "stuffing" of the atomic bomb: the Manhattan Engineering District is established, from whose name the Manhattan project itself originates, the rude, but effective and pragmatic General Leslie Groves stands at the head of the project ^{[30, p. 52]}, nuclear developments in general are transferred into the hands (and under financing) The US Army ^{[9, pp. 41-44]}, the first facilities for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238 are beginning to be built. The progress of the Americans did not go unnoticed and proposals for combining projects have now begun to arrive from the British side ^{[22, p. 17]}, whose industry in the conditions of military operations could not independently and in an acceptable time to cope with uranium enrichment and plutonium production in sufficient quantities for an atomic bomb.

In June 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt met in Hyde Park, during which the British Prime Minister insisted on establishing an equal exchange of information in the atomic business. Roosevelt was quite willing to accept such conditions, however, when it came to implementing cooperation agreements, Bush and Conant showed a frank unwillingness to cooperate with the British ^{[22, p. 17]}. In many ways, the refusal of the curators of the Manhattan project from cooperation was due to the transfer of the project itself into the hands of the military, seriously concerned about both issues of secrecy and the post–war intentions of the British regarding the use of atomic energy, including commercial - in correspondence between Bush and John Anderson, curator of the Tube Alloys project, in the summer of 1942, the last Referring to the patents bought by Great Britain for the discoveries of French scientists Hans von Halban and Lev Kovarsky, he proposed in the future to attract a wide range of powers to control nuclear energy, "such as the British dominions or Russia." The entire volume of production of atomic weapons was taken over by the United States, the first bombs were expected by the autumn of 1944, and British assistance, moreover, in exchange for a full exchange of information and with a claim to some international control, seemed simply superfluous ^{[40, pp. 95-96]}. The military leadership offered to give the British only the information that could be used by them in practical terms during the war; nuclear secrets did not fall into this category ^{[8, p. 72]}. This idea was expressed on October 26, 1942 in the Conant memorandum, which Roosevelt accepted a few days later. Churchill's numerous attempts to persuade the American side to abandon the memorandum at the Casablanca and Washington conferences in January and May 1943, as well as in the interval between these conferences in numerous letters to the irreplaceable assistant to the President Harry Hopkins, were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the process of information exchange between nuclear projects has practically stopped. Although the measures taken gave the United States the opportunity to maintain monopoly control over the results of the Manhattan project, they cut off British scientists from the development process, and also jeopardized the supply of uranium ore, which negatively affected the pace of work, although the shift in the timing of development due to these difficulties was initially considered quite acceptable ^{[40, p. 101]}.

In July 1943, Bush and US Secretary of War Henry Stimson visited Great Britain, where, in the context of interrupted contacts on nuclear research, they expressed the concern of the American side about the post-war intentions of the British in the field of the use of atomic energy (primarily in commercial terms), which led to the severance of ties ^{[22, p. 18]}. Unable to continue their own project on their own under the circumstances, the British began to draft a treaty, including assurances that could reassure the Americans – that Britain's primary goal is to win the war, and not post-war profit-making with nuclear energy ^{[42, pp. 291-295]}. Meanwhile, in the United States itself, Roosevelt finally decides to resume cooperation with Great Britain on nuclear development – many studies within the Manhattan project could go much faster if experience and knowledge were exchanged with British scientists. John Anderson on the English side, Bush, Conant and Stimson on the American side, drafted the treaty. Although Roosevelt's instructions of July 20 stated the need to agree to the conditions of absolutely free exchange of all data requested by the British (these instructions of the American president were unknown to the British), Groves, Bush and Conant strictly opposed such requirements, considering them not adequate to the emerging volume of potential British contribution to the project. Through their efforts ^{[41, pp. 124-126]} during the Quebec Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill signed an agreement on August 19, 1943, based on much more modest principles:

1) Full exchange of information is established in cases where the work is essentially joint;

2) Both governments undertake not to use inventions against each other;

3) Both governments undertake not to transfer information to a third party without the consent of the partner;

4) Both governments undertake not to use atomic weapons against a third party without the consent of the partner;

5) Information on economic and industrial issues sent to the UK will be selected in accordance with the restrictions that the US President deems necessary and satisfying the interests of both sides, based on the fact that the bulk of the costs lies with the United States ^{[41, pp. 125-126]}.

In addition, according to the Quebec Agreement, the parties organized a Joint Political Committee working in Washington, whose task was to monitor the joint nuclear work of the United States, England and Canada. The initial composition of the committee included Stimson, Bush and Conant from the United States, Field Marshal John Dill and Colonel John Llewellyn, who was part of the British Ministry of Supply and also permanently located in Washington, from Great Britain, and Clarence Howe, head of the Department of Ammunition and Ammunition, from Canada ^{[43, p. 119]}. The Quebec Agreement formed the basis of official cooperation on nuclear programs between the United States and Great Britain until the end of the war. Groves believed that the committee was able to work without significant disagreements and complications due to well-chosen personnel and the recognition by the British of the decisive contribution of the Americans to the creation of nuclear weapons ^{[41, p. 128]}. The British gained access to American laboratories, the United States helped the Canadians with specialists, information, materials and equipment in the construction of a heavy-water reactor in Chalk River. As the head of the Manhattan project, Groves developed the rules for the joint work of English and American scientists. They, in turn, were supplemented and approved by the Joint Political Committee and served as the basis for scientific exchange on atomic issues until 1946, when the Law on Atomic Energy was adopted ^{[41, p. 129]}.

Thus, the Quebec Agreement made it possible to find a compromise between Britain's desire for nuclear cooperation and American fears that the British would receive post-war advantages disproportionate to their contribution to the project. Researcher V. L. Malkov believes that the entire text of the agreement quite clearly says that the newborn "atomic club" was a closed institution in which there was room for only two participants. The results of the Manhattan Project were planned to be used as a potential weapon to deter communism. At the same time, this idea was formulated by Churchill, and it perfectly fit into the framework of the concept of post-war competition with the USSR, which was formed in the US State Department, the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Navy ^{[39, pp. 31-32]}.

Following the signing of the Quebec Agreement, Anglo-American nuclear cooperation rapidly intensified. The main persons establishing interaction between the parties were General Groves and physicist James Chadwick, who had been part of the English project since its existence only in the form of the Thomson committee. Chadwick did everything possible to send as many English scientists as possible to work in the Manhattan project. On the part of the UK, this was necessary both for the formation of post-war scientific ties in the field of atomic energy, and for obtaining invaluable experience that could be used (and eventually will be used) in their own English research. The Americans also received additional scientific personnel, which accelerated the development of nuclear weapons ^{[22, pp. 18-19]}.

An important element of cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States was the creation in mid- June 1944 . The United Development Trust is a uranium ore mining company in the Belgian Congo. The Belgian government, after the occupation of the country by the Germans, was in London and fully supported the creation of such an intergovernmental organization that would be able, without violating the laws of the participating countries, to make all transactions with the Belgians within the framework of the proposed agreement (monopoly ownership of uranium deposits and the rapid dispatch of mined ore to the United States for the needs of the Manhattan project). This agreement was signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in mid-June 1944. The created organization was subordinate to the Joint Political Committee, and had to manage all purchases of raw materials outside the United States and England. Groves pointed out that the trust's activities were very successful, since it not only played a role in concluding agreements on the supply of uranium ore, but also contributed to the expansion of exploration work initiated with the filing of the Manhattan project, and also provided assistance in the field of enrichment of the poor with uranium-235 ores ^{[41, p. 155]}.

The continuation of cooperation in the nuclear sphere after the end of the war was a separate cause for concern for the British leadership. In September 1944, another meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill took place in Hyde Park, as a result of which a "memorandum" was drawn up expressing the further intentions of the Allies with regard to nuclear weapons: refusal to declassify it, possible use against Japan, further cooperation of Great Britain and the United States in the atomic sphere after the defeat of Japan until "until it is terminated by mutual agreement." It also indirectly emphasized the inadmissibility of information leaks in favor of the USSR. The death of President Roosevelt on April 12, 1945 destroyed plans for further cooperation within the framework of the agreements reached: the American copy of the note was mistakenly lost for some time in the papers of Roosevelt's assistant for maritime affairs, and the only person who knew about the president's plans for cooperation with the British was Bush, who opposed any secret agreements with Great Britain that could to harm relations with the Soviet Union and was a supporter of the establishment of international control over atomic weapons after the war ^{[22, p. 19]}.

The unequal participation of the parties in the nuclear project resulted in an "unequal" interpretation of the text of the Quebec Agreements. Although the use of nuclear weapons had to be agreed by both sides, and Japan had already been formally chosen as the "victim" by Roosevelt and Churchill in Hyde Park, the Americans chose the specific locations of nuclear strikes independently, only formally agreeing on the decisions taken with Great Britain. In July 1945, Churchill signed the papers drawn up at the meeting of the Joint Political Committee by Stimson and Field Marshal Henry Wilson, who replaced the deceased in 1944. John Dill both as head of the mission of the British Joint Staff in Washington, and within the committee itself ^{[22, pp. 19-20]}. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs.

After the United States achieved its goals in the framework of the Manhattan Project and the end of the war, the agreements with Great Britain began to be felt by the American side as a burden: nuclear weapons had already been created, and the monopoly on them was in the hands of the United States. The right of Great Britain, within the framework of the Quebec Agreements, to agree on targets for American nuclear bombs soon began to be seen as inadequate to the changed status of powers in the post-war world. Due to inertia from the previous spirit of cooperation, in 1946 an agreement was concluded between the allies on the equal distribution of uranium ore mined in the Congo, but almost immediately this agreement created a shortage of uranium for the expanding nuclear program of the Americans ^{[22, p. 42]}. The Manhattan project itself, according to the Atomic Energy Law signed on August 1, 1946, which limited, among other things, the transfer of technical information in this area to the British, was transferred from the hands of the military to civilian political and bureaucratic control for six months. On December 31, 1946, the project ended its existence, and the Atomic Energy Commission became its successor on January 1, 1947.

Although in the future other spheres of the Anglo-American alliance developed quite successfully, especially in the context of the outbreak of the Cold War, the sphere of nuclear weapons was an exception ^{[22, p. 41]}. British attempts to find a compromise with the increasingly distant United States were unsuccessful – even a proposal in November 1949 at a meeting of the Joint Political Committee to transfer all production of atomic weapons into the hands of the United States on the terms of a full exchange of information, the continuation of their own research by the British and their receipt of a certain number of ready-made bombs was rejected. In exchange for the regime of full nuclear cooperation and the provision of bombs, the Americans were satisfied only with the absolute rejection of independent British development of nuclear weapons, which the British no longer wanted to do ^{[22, p. 44]}. The final verdict on cooperation was pronounced by the capture in the UK of physicist Klaus Fuchs, who transmitted information on atomic weapons to the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the era of McCarthyism in the USA in 1950, although these events were rather an occasion for the Americans to reduce the remaining cases of cooperation to zero ^{[22, p. 45]}. The British will then forge their own nuclear shield on their own, having carried out the first nuclear test in October 1952. Only in 1958, cooperation in the nuclear field between the United States and Great Britain will be resumed under the Mutual Defense Treaty. It will eventually lead to the loss of British independence in matters of nuclear weapons.

Thus, it is possible to distinguish seven main stages of Anglo-American relations in the field of development, creation, storage and use of nuclear weapons:

1) September 1940 – autumn 1941: the initial stage is cooperation and exchange of information, the UK project overtakes the US project;

2) Autumn 1941 – December 1942: an increase in the pace of development of the US project, a gradual reduction in the exchange of information on the initiative of the American side;

3) December 1942 – August 1943: stopping cooperation;

4) August 1943-1946: restoration of relations, active phase of cooperation on compromise terms with the American advantage – exchange of information, participation of British scientists in the Manhattan project, development of principles of a common policy in the field of atomic weapons;

5) August 1946-1950: gradual curtailment of cooperation;

6) 1950-1958: lack of cooperation;

7) July 1958 – until today: resumption of cooperation, subordination of the British nuclear program to the United States.

As part of the first stage, from September 1940 to the autumn of 1941, while the British surpassed the Americans in the pace of nuclear research, the interaction between the parties was quite mutually beneficial, although deeper cooperation was blocked by the British side. Nevertheless, the further the research went, the clearer it became that nuclear projects would require a huge investment of funds and a powerful industrial base. The geographical position of the United States in the context of ongoing hostilities, their economic strength and the specifics of participation in the war meant that the Americans had significantly more funds to implement the invention of atomic scientists than their colleagues from Great Britain. The second stage of cooperation, from the autumn of 1941 to December 1942, was marked by a gradual decrease in the intensity of cooperation already initiated by the United States, due to the successful, in comparison with the British side, continuation of atomic research. Eventually, at the initiative of the military leadership of the Manhattan Project, cooperation with the British was terminated for almost a year and a half, which constitute the third stage of Anglo-American relations in the nuclear sphere, from December 1942 to August 1943. The resumption of cooperation, which took place following the Quebec Conference in August 1943 and marked the fourth stage, required the British to recognize, document and accept the consequences of the disproportionately greater contribution of the United States to the creation of atomic weapons. However, before that, the Americans had to recognize the real value of the British contribution to the nuclear project, quite measurable in months, if not a year as a result of the time saved. After the conclusion of the compromise Quebec Agreement, the newly formed, but no longer claiming to be equal, cooperation was able to become quite effective for both sides until 1946. The creation of nuclear bombs, the test of the first bomb at the Alamogordo test site on July 16, 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war marked both the completion of the Manhattan Project and the gradual curtailment of Anglo-American cooperation in the field of nuclear weapons within the fifth stage, which began with the adoption of the Atomic Energy Law on August 1, 1946. By 1950, Anglo-American relations in this area came to an end and were not resumed until 1958, which is the sixth stage. The longest seventh stage, which began in July 1958 and continues to this day, represents cooperation on even more unequal terms than it was before.

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