American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

For advice, he turned to two conservative bankers, Ferdinand Eberstadt and John Hancock (a senior partner at Lehman Brothers), and Fred Searls, Jr., a mining engineer and close personal friend. Both Baruch and Secretary of State Byrnes happened to be board members and investors in Newmont Mining Corporation, a major company with a large stake in uranium mines. Searls was Newmont’s chief executive officer. Not surprisingly, they were alarmed by the idea that privately owned mines might be taken over by an international Atomic Development Authority. None of these men seriously contemplated internationalizing the newly emerging nuclear industry. And, as far as atomic weapons were concerned, Baruch thought of the American bomb as the “winning weapon.”