The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency

by Annie Jacobsen

Ernest Lawrence met with David E. Lilienthal, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. “If we don’t get this super [i.e., the hydrogen bomb] first,” Lawrence warned, “we are sunk, the U.S. would surrender without a struggle.” Lawrence considered the atomic bomb “one of mankind’s greatest blessings,” and felt that the hydrogen bomb was “a technical means of taking profit out of war.” He met with Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee. Lawrence took umbrage at the idea of anyone’s bringing moral principles into the mix. Their conversation inspired Strauss to appeal directly to the president. “A government of atheists is not likely to be dissuaded from producing the weapon on ‘moral’ grounds,” Strauss wrote. The “super” must be built. “If we let the Russians get the super first, catastrophe becomes all but certain,” Brien McMahon told the president and his national security advisors. “It’s either we make it or we wait until the Russians drop one on us without warning,” said National Security Committee member Admiral Sidney Souers.