Major Jordan’s Diaries – How Lend-Lease diverted Atomic Materials to the USSR

Max Grant · Sep 29, 2012

Major George Lacey Jordan started a diary in 1942 when, as liaison to Soviet officials receiving materiel via lend-lease, he grew suspicious about the nature of these airborne shipments from the US over the Arctic to the USSR.

Stationed at Great Falls, Montana, Major Jordan documented evidence that Americans high up within the FDR administration were providing the USSR with the raw materials, technology, equipment, and know-how to make atomic bombs. And this at a time when our own were still under development in supposed secrecy.

As catalogued in the diaries, all the materiel required for the creation of an atomic pile was transferred to the USSR as early as 1942. The materiel included ‘bomb powder’ (uranium oxide), graphite in numerous forms, cadmium, cobalt, thorium, and $13,000,000 worth of aluminum tubes.

Major Jordan did not get very far pressing his concerns with the powers that be. However, by 1944 his boss General Groves had learned of the plot and managed to put a stop to further shipments of atomic materials.

The full significance of these Lend-Lease shipments was not made clear to Major Jordan until February 1950 when he picked up a copy of Life magazine. Inside was an illustrated article on the atom bomb:

‘I learned for the first time that a plutonium pile consists of giant blocks of graphite, surrounded by heavy walls of concrete and honeycombed with aluminum tubes. In these tubes, it was related, are inserted slugs of natural uranium, containing one per cent of U-235. The intensity of the operation was declared to be governed by means of cadmium rods.’

So illuminating was this information that he carried this article with him during one of his appearances before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Major Jordan’s observations were later published in the book:
From Major Jordan's Diaries
© 1952 by George Racey Jordan, USAF (Ret.)
with Richard L. Stokes
Originally published in 1952 by
Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York
Reprinted by American Opinion, 1961

They can be read today at:
http://www.whale.to/b/jordan.html#"MR BROWN" AND THE START OF A DIARY

RusEvo · Sep 29, 2012

Is it possible that the nuclear program was so secret, and nuclear technology so unknown that most people would not know the nature of what the Russians were asking for?

Why on earth would FDR knowingly give the Russians nuclear anything when they would even refuse to share with Britain after the war.

asnys · Sep 29, 2012

RusEvo said:
Is it possible that the nuclear program was so secret, and nuclear technology so unknown that most people would not know the nature of what the Russians were asking for?

Absolutely. And if you just deny all atomic material shipments entirely, the Russians will be able to figure out we're building a bomb. They knew that anyway, but we didn't know they knew. And a lot of this stuff has uses besides nuclear technology: aluminum tubes have all sorts of purposes. Cobalt isn't actually useful for building a nuclear weapon, it's for making radioisotopes for tracers and the like. Thorium is worse than useless to a nuclear program at this stage. Graphite has numerous industrial uses, such as as electrodes in metallurgy. Also, commercial-grade graphite isn't pure enough to be used in a plutonium production reactor; the Manhattan Project had to contract for special high-purity graphites.

I haven't read the link, as it's long and I have other stuff to do. But I skimmed it looking for the amount of material transferred, and this is what I found:

Was one kilogram of heavy water and were mere hundreds of pounds of uranium chemicals too insignificant for important use?

Specialists agree that the quantities delivered were inadequate for producing one A-bomb or even one experimental pile. They point out, however, that scarcely any fraction of a substance can be too small for laboratory research. The head of a pin could not have been formed with the first plutonium ever made. From 500 micrograms were determined most of the properties and the chemical behavior of an element which 18 months earlier had been entirely unknown.

Let me further point out a fairly significant error:

On the presumption that 1,465 pounds of uranium salts were contributed to the Soviet Union, metallurgists estimate that they were reducible in theory to 875 pounds of natural uranium, which in turn would yield 6.25 pounds of fissionable U-235. But 4.4 pounds of the latter, or nearly two pounds less, are capable of producing an atomic explosion. Authority for this assertion may be found in the celebrated report which Dr Henry De-Wolf Smyth of Princeton University wrote at the request of General Groves and published in 1945.

Using the technology available to the Manhattan Project and the Russians, 4.4 lbs. of HEU is nowhere near enough material to make a bomb. The Little Boy bomb used about 135 lbs. of highly enriched uranium, not 4.4 lbs. Even using a more advanced levitated implosion design, you still need (IIRC) at least 30 lbs. of material.

Edit to Add: That also assumes your enrichment process is perfectly efficient, which it won't be.

Max Grant · Oct 2, 2012

Stalin was in the loop early on

The Manhattan Project was pretty much of a sieve thanks to the likes of Klaus Fuchs and other idealogues who believed the USSR was entitled to the same kind of weaponry we were developing. In all fairness to them, the USSR was an ally against one of the most powerful terror regimes the world had ever witnessed, one that was indiscriminately pummeling his native UK into rubble.

This perhaps unintentional treachery might have had some influence later on our reduced cooperation with Britain's nuclear program.

Nevertheless even during World War II fellow travelers and dupes high in the US government were pushing Lend-Lease with the USSR at the expense of Great Britain. Major Jordan documents how Harry Hopkins ran interference for the Russians, from the White House, to ensure they got the atomic materials they requested and that they got delivered with priority. I've seen no evidence to suggest Harry Hopkins was anything more than a dupe. It is doubtful he was even a fellow traveler, let alone a USSR asset.

Stalin knew about the atomic bomb before it was used, and his knowledge was likely more than general as his GRU had the US State Department's Alger Hiss in its pocket as an agent. The USSR used Lend-Lease to stockpile a wealth of materiel for use after the war and this included much more than atomic materials. However, the atomic materials provided in response to their requests, during the war, were intended to advance their nuclear program to the point where they could fabricate a bomb as soon as possible and, of course, by 1949 they had succeeded. The particular stuff that was transferred by air via Great Falls, Montana was not requested and acquired for non-nuclear applications.

asnys · Oct 2, 2012

Max Grant said:
The Manhattan Project was pretty much of a sieve thanks to the likes of Klaus Fuchs and other idealogues who believed the USSR was entitled to the same kind of weaponry we were developing. In all fairness to them, the USSR was an ally against one of the most powerful terror regimes the world had ever witnessed, one that was indiscriminately pummeling his native UK into rubble.

This perhaps unintentional treachery might have had some influence later on our reduced cooperation with Britain's nuclear program.

No argument there.

Max Grant said:
Nevertheless even during World War II fellow travelers and dupes high in the US government were pushing Lend-Lease with the USSR at the expense of Great Britain. Major Jordan documents how Harry Hopkins ran interference for the Russians, from the White House, to ensure they got the atomic materials they requested and that they got delivered with priority. I've seen no evidence to suggest Harry Hopkins was anything more than a dupe. It is doubtful he was even a fellow traveler, let alone a USSR asset.

And my point is that, while I'm sure every bit helps, the material they got would not make a significant difference in their development of the bomb. The USSR definitely had supplies of uranium adequate for material property testing; I can dig up the source if you want. Even the CP-1 pile, the US' first pile, which was built purely to test whether it would even go critical or not, required 40 tons of mixed uranium metal and oxide. 875 lbs. is nowhere near enough to make a real difference. The sample of heavy water might make some difference for nuclear properties testing, but that's it.

The USSR got plenty of information about the bomb out of the Manhattan Project, and there's no denying that helped them a lot. I'm sure 875 pounds of uranium didn't exactly hurt the program. And I don't have the knowledge to comment on the political aspects of this, whether or not Harry Hopkins was a dupe as you say. But, on a purely technical level, the date of the USSR's first atomic explosion likely would not have changed by a day even if the material had been withheld.

Max Grant · Oct 3, 2012

But, on a purely technical level, the date of the USSR's first atomic explosion likely would not have changed by a day even if the material had been withheld.

I'm going to have to agree with you on this, and thanks for commenting.

The technical knowledge gained through espionage was probably of much greater significance to the progress of their program than were the dubious transfers of materiel under Lend-Lease. Their scientists were good, and the knowledge supplied by the moles, traitors and dupes probably saved them some time and money in their efforts. Major Jordan did document that a raft of technical material was transferred along with the actual atomic supplies. In the long run, the only ones who seem to have actually paid for this treachery were the Rosenbergs.

I haven't completed my research on the Venona transcripts for my second book, but I recall finding no evidence from Venona or the substantiating KGB files that implicated Harry Hopkins as a spy under discipline. It is reported that it was through his efforts that the USSR was included in Lend-Lease, but this would have had lots to do with the fact they were in hot contact with the Nazis and this course was supported even by Churchill. Hopkins was also FDR's primary contact with Stalin, and it is likely for this reason his name popped up in Venona at all. Rather it appears Hopkins was a very enthusiastic enabler of some very wily crooks as he pursued his duties with respect to Lend-Lease, a dupe mostly as it applies to the atomic stuff but possibly in his impressions of Stalin. Hopkins was at Yalta, but it is doubtful he was aware his State Dept counterpart Hiss was an agent of Stalin's GRU.

It is interesting to read of the arrogance and extreme sense of entitlement exhibited by the Soviets with whom Major Jordan was placed into contact. Their behavior sounds like that of a child pushing the boundaries for the sake of seeing what it can get away with. They may well have been playing such a psychological game as a means to maximize their accumulation of supplies for post-war use off the backs of the US taxpayer.

Spartacuss · Oct 3, 2012

Max Grant said:
I'm going to have to agree with you on this, and thanks for commenting.

The technical knowledge gained through espionage was probably of much greater significance to the progress of their program than were the dubious transfers of materiel under Lend-Lease. Their scientists were good, and the knowledge supplied by the moles, traitors and dupes probably saved them some time and money in their efforts. Major Jordan did document that a raft of technical material was transferred along with the actual atomic supplies. In the long run, the only ones who seem to have actually paid for this treachery were the Rosenbergs.

I haven't completed my research on the Venona transcripts for my second book, but I recall finding no evidence from Venona or the substantiating KGB files that implicated Harry Hopkins as a spy under discipline. It is reported that it was through his efforts that the USSR was included in Lend-Lease, but this would have had lots to do with the fact they were in hot contact with the Nazis and this course was supported even by Churchill. Hopkins was also FDR's primary contact with Stalin, and it is likely for this reason his name popped up in Venona at all. Rather it appears Hopkins was a very enthusiastic enabler of some very wily crooks as he pursued his duties with respect to Lend-Lease, a dupe mostly as it applies to the atomic stuff but possibly in his impressions of Stalin. Hopkins was at Yalta, but it is doubtful he was aware his State Dept counterpart Hiss was an agent of Stalin's GRU.

It is interesting to read of the arrogance and extreme sense of entitlement exhibited by the Soviets with whom Major Jordan was placed into contact. Their behavior sounds like that of a child pushing the boundaries for the sake of seeing what it can get away with. They may well have been playing such a psychological game as a means to maximize their accumulation of supplies for post-war use off the backs of the US taxpayer.

May I ask what Secretary of War Stimson's, who oversaw the Manhattan Project and to whom General Groves directly reported to, knowledge of these alleged incidents was? What was his reaction? Was he ever called to testify before any commission or committee, before his death in 1950, on activities regarding the Project and lend-lease?

Spartacuss · Oct 4, 2012

Spartacuss said:
May I ask what Secretary of War Stimson's, who oversaw the Manhattan Project and to whom General Groves directly reported to, knowledge of these alleged incidents was? What was his reaction? Was he ever called to testify before any commission or committee, before his death in 1950, on activities regarding the Project and lend-lease?

umm... or is Stimson poison to Birchers?

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Major Jordan’s Diaries – How Lend-Lease diverted Atomic Materials to the USSR

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