Book Reviews 231

see the post-Stalin USSR as anything but an aggressive totalitarian state in the
Stalinist mould. In the end, while Rubenstein rightly eschews counterfactuals, it is
clear that Eisenhower threw away his best chance to ease international tensions.

Peter Whitewood
York St John University, UK

James Kunetka, The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer. The Unlikely Partnership that
Built the Atom Bomb, Washington, DC, Regnary History, 2015; xiv + 482 pp.; US$29.95 hbk;
ISBN 9781621573388

Gino Segre and Bettina Hoerlin, The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age,
New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2016; xi + 351 pp.; US$30.00 hbk; ISBN 9781627790055
The world’s first nuclear explosion occurred in July 1945 when a bomb with a
plutonium core was tested in the New Mexico desert, at a site designated
‘Trinity’ near Alamogordo. The explosion caused an unprecedented level of
instantaneous destruction that ushered in a new understanding of warfare. The
US governmental organization that produced this weapon was called the
Manhattan Engineering District or more simply the Manhattan Project. Three
years earlier, it had been tasked with producing atomic weapons for potential
employment against the Axis powers. Undertaking this effort was a high stakes
gamble, which consumed around $2 billion of US government resources without
guaranteed success. By the end of 1945, the Manhattan Project employed around
130,000 people in multiple complexes throughout the USA to design and build
both plutonium and enriched uranium weapons and their components. The people
involved in this effort were often called upon to show tremendous dedication and
resourcefulness to complete their portions of the task. The contribution of three of
the most important of these individuals have been addressed in two recent and
valuable books.
The General and the Genius is an exploration of the partnership between US
Army General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project Director, and physicist
Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was Groves’ direct subordinate and served as
the Scientific Director of the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Los Alamos
was the crown jewel of the Manhattan Project, where the most important work
on the design of the weapon occurred. The word genius, featured in the book’s
title, was employed by Groves to describe Oppenheimer to others shortly after
they met, but it may well had been objectively true. Kunetka points out that
Groves and Oppenheimer had extremely different personalities, but both shared
an overwhelming unity of purpose and an ability to work together that ultimately
helped push the project ahead. Groves was a blunt and abrasive officer, but he
was also highly intelligent and deeply competent. Groves also understood how
the War Department functioned and made certain that the Manhattan Project
was given the War Production Board’s highest priority rating, AAA, for access to
resources.
232 Journal of Contemporary History 54(1)

Groves did not particularly enjoy working with scientists, whom he sometimes
regarded as impractical and unfocused. He realized that to get the best perform-
ance from civilians at Los Alamos, he needed someone with a more collegial
manner and a solid understanding of the scientific subculture. He chose
Oppenheimer to lead the Los Alamos effort due to his intelligence, commitment
to the project, and his strong and friendly ties to the scientific community. Groves
correctly believed that Oppenheimer would be able to motivate his scientific col-
leagues, and that he could play a vital role in recruiting the best suited scientists for
the project. He was aware that his new director had no administrative experience
but felt that problem could be overcome. In a notable departure from his usual
practices, Groves treated Oppenheimer with respect throughout their collabor-
ation, and their working relationship remained excellent throughout the war.
Ultimately, Groves approved all major decisions, and Oppenheimer accepted this
situation and may have even welcomed it.
Oppenheimer occasionally had serious problems moving the bomb efforts for-
ward despite his emerging administrative skills. His personality was such that he
often tried to persuade rather than compel scientists to move in a certain direction.
If he could not do so, he would sometimes give in, especially to group opposition.
This was a problem when managing competing constituencies, which were often
narrowly focused on their own projects regardless of the larger picture. When
Groves saw Oppenheimer struggle, he sometimes gently forced decisions or used
advisory structures to help him. He was also especially good at pressuring private
industry to supply Los Alamos with key personnel and materials to help solve
important problems. As the Trinity test approached, Groves even transferred
Oppenheimer’s brother Frank to Los Alamos to help him cope with the pressure
of his position.
Kunetka states that without the unique partnership of the two men, there would
‘almost certainly’ have been no nuclear weapons produced by 1945 and perhaps not
even until 1946. This statement is of course an informed guess that is impossible to
assess without knowing who might have replaced them. What is convincing and
accurate, however, is that Groves and Oppenheimer cooperated brilliantly and the
project did complete both the plutonium and uranium weapons in time to be used
on Japan. Kunetka speculates that without the working relationship between
Groves and Oppenheimer an invasion of Japan may have been necessary which
would have produced huge numbers of US and Japanese casualties. Kunetka also
states that in the summer of 1945, the Japanese army had 4.6 million men and was
expected to continue to create new military units throughout 1945. Later critics
would come to believe the bombing of the Japanese cities was unnecessary, but
Kunetka’s evaluation of the Japanese capacity to resist adds to the argument that
nuclear weapons were necessary to end the war as rapidly as possible.
Another scientist who was at the Trinity test in 1945 was the Italian Nobel
laureate Enrico Fermi, and he is the subject of a valuable new biography
The Pope of Physics by Gino Segre and Bettina Hoerlin. Segre is a nephew of
one of Fermi’s most brilliant younger colleagues, while Hoerlin grew up in Los
Book Reviews 233

Alamos. The biography they have produced is an affectionate and respectful

piece, which helps fill in an important gap in the literature about Fermi’s towering
role in the advancement of physics and the allied drive for nuclear weapons.
Segre is also a professor of physics, and his background has clearly helped the
authors to produce an important work that is steeped in science but does not
overwhelm a non-technical reader. The book’s title refers to a respectful, but not
ironic, nickname given to Fermi as a young scholar in Italy that followed him
throughout his life.
Segre and Hoerlin credibly maintain that Fermi was Italy’s greatest scientist in
the 1930s and that he would rise to become one of the giants of physics. His
greatest accomplishments did not occur in Italy however. Rather, Fermi and his
family immigrated to the USA following a ceremony in Sweden awarding him the
1938 Nobel Prize in physics. Fermi took this opportunity to flee Italy as he could
no longer tolerate living under Mussolini’s rule, particularly after the enactment of
the 1938 antisemitic laws which placed his wife and children in danger. After a brief
stay at Columbia University, Fermi was asked to head the Physics Division at the
Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of Chicago. This organiza-
tion was conducting nuclear research for the US government, and the organiza-
tion’s name was simply a cover.
Segre and Hoerlin note that at the Met Lab, Fermi conducted work that became
foundational to the Manhattan Project when he led a successful effort to produce
the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. This was done using what he called an
atomic pile (a very primitive nuclear reactor) placed under the stands of an aban-
doned University of Chicago football field. This atomic pile was built to test the
extensive theoretical work by Fermi and others, including Hungarian physicist Leo
Szilard, indicating that a nuclear chain reaction could be created and controlled.
Segre and Hoerlin point out that understanding a nuclear chain reaction is neces-
sary for the design of a usable nuclear weapon. Moreover, Fermi and his team
provided the basic research needed to begin designing and building nuclear reac-
tors, which are vital for producing plutonium (which is not found in nature). Fermi
also used the experiment to understand ways to control a chain reaction within a
reactor, balancing its progression so that it neither dies out nor escalates to dan-
gerous levels. The authors maintain that Fermi’s abilities as a theoretician were
essential for organizing the experiment in Chicago, while his background as an
experimentalist allowed him to identify key operational problems such as the pres-
ence of previously overlooked contaminants in the pile’s graphite.
Segre and Hoerlin note that Fermi’s success in Chicago was vital in moving
towards the development of a plutonium weapon, and funding for nuclear research
was immediately freed up following the experiment. After the success with the
atomic pile, Fermi continued his work at the newly-built Argonne laboratory,
near Chicago, but also began making more frequent trips to Hanford,
Washington to help with the design and development of the large plutonium pro-
duction reactor there. Fermi’s ingenuity and technological skills played an import-
ant part in overcoming the challenges of building the Hanford nuclear reactor. At
234 Journal of Contemporary History 54(1)

about the same time, Oppenheimer urgently pressed to have Fermi transferred to
Los Alamos, when the scientists there realized that plutonium would pre-detonate
(and hence fizzle) if used in a ‘Little Boy’ type bomb design, which had been
developed for use with highly enriched uranium. Fermi arrived at Los Alamos in
October 1944, and Oppenheimer immediately appointed him as associate director
and a senior consultant for all physics problems. At Los Alamos, the authors
maintain that Fermi was the person to consult on any physics question and
worked closely with his new colleagues to develop an implosion weapon, which
would utilize plutonium. This effort was essential to the program since even by
early 1945 the USA only had enough highly enriched uranium for a single bomb,
that was in practice used on Hiroshima. Fermi therefore became an important
collaborator in addressing the then-devilishly difficult problem of creating implo-
sion weapons. After the war, Fermi returned to the University of Chicago where he
played an important role as a teacher and mentor to the next generation of physi-
cists until his death in 1953.
This biography thus emerges a useful and scientifically precise effort to highlight
Fermi’s contributions to science and especially to the wartime effort to develop
nuclear weapons. It is also an in-depth discussion of Fermi’s personal struggles,
particularly while living in Italy, and his unswerving commitment to science. Segre
and Hoerlin have correspondingly attempted to balance a scientific biography with
a more personal understanding of Fermi’s life including accounts of his eccentri-
cities and sense of humour. This approach may not appeal to all readers, but it
makes for a readable and lively study that many will find both informative and
enjoyable.

W. Andrew Terrill
Professor Emeritus, US Army War College, USA

Ruth Ginio, The French Army and its African Soldiers: The Years of Decolonization, Lincoln, NE,
Nebraska University Press, 2017; xxvii + 250 pp.; US$60.00 hbk; ISBN 9780803253391
In January 1944, General Charles De Gaulle held a conference at Brazzaville which
seemed to demonstrate recognition of the role of France’s colonies in the Second
World War. Yet, by the end of 1944, at the Thiaroye barracks outside Dakar in
Senegal, those promising words rang hollow. African soldiers returning from
imprisonment in Nazi POW camps protested non-payment of back wages from
their internment, and were met with overwhelming force and killed as mutineers.11
This incident, in many ways, provides an insight into the core issues motivating
Ginio’s The French Army and its African Soldiers. It demonstrates the extreme
repression of colonial protest, prefiguring the decolonization struggles of the fol-
lowing decades. Yet, this was a disturbance seemingly rooted in a pay dispute, and

11 The number of those killed is widely disputed. Ginio acknowledges the generally accepted range
between 35 and 70, though it is worth noting that work by Armelle Mabon has challenged the reliability
of official documents, and argues the number could be as high as 300 owing to a deliberate state
coverup.