Nexus - 0402 - New Times Magazine-pages

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It was quite a moment. I was about to speak for the first time On the morning of June 10th, I caught sight of a loaded C-47 with a legendary figure of the day, the top man in the world of which was idling on the runway. I went over and asked the pilot Lend-Lease in which I lived. I have been careful to keep the fol- what was holding him up. He said he understood some kind of lowing account as accurate in substance and language as I can. special shipment was still to come. Seven years afterward, the My memory, normally good, was stimulated by the thrill of the pilot identified himself to the press as Air Forces Lieutenant Ben occasion. Moreover, the incident was stamped on my mind L. Brown, of Cincinnati. because it was unique in my experience of almost 25 months at I asked Colonel Kotikov about the plane, and he told me the Newark and Great Falls. shipment Mr Hopkins was interested in had just arrived at the rail- A bit in awe, I stammered, "Jordan speaking." road yards, and that I should send a truck to pick it up. The con- The male voice began at once. "This is Mr Hopkins. Are you signment was escorted by a Russian guard from Toronto. I set my expediter out there?" down his name, and copied it later in my diary. It was Vladimir I answered that I was the United Nations Representative at Anoufriev. I identified him with the initials "C.C." for "Canadian Great Falls, working with Colonel Kotikov. Courier". Under the circumstances, who could have doubted that the Fifteen wooden cases were put aboard the transport, which took speaker was Harry Hopkins? Friends have since asked me off for Moscow by way of Alaska. At Fairbanks, Lieutenant whether it might not have been a Soviet agent who was an Brown has related, one box fell from the plane, smashing a corner American. I doubt this, because his next remark brought up a and spilling a small quantity of chocolate-brown powder. Out of subject which only Mr Hopkins and myself could have known. curiosity, he picked up a handful of the unfamiliar grains, with a He asked, "Did you get those pilots I sent you?" notion of asking somebody what they were. A Soviet officer "Oh yes, sir," I responded. "They were very much appreciated, slapped the crystals from his palm and explained nervously, "No, and helped us in unblocking the jam no—burn hands!" in the Pipeline. We were accused of Not until the latter part of going out of channels, and got the 1949 was it definitely proved, dickens for it." This shipment was the only one, out from responsible records, that Mr Hopkins let that one go by, and . during the war Federal agen- moved on to the heart of things. of a tremendous multitude of cies delivered to Russia at least "Now, Jordan," he said, "there's a cer- consignments, that | was ordered not three consignments of uranium tain shipment of chemicals going chemicals, totaling 1,465 through that I want you to expedite. to enter on my tally sheets. pounds, or nearly three-quar- This is something very special." a It was the only one | was forbidden to ters of a ton. Confirmed also Shall I take it up," I asked, "with . . . was the shipment of one kilo- the Commanding Colonel?" discuss with my superiors, and the gram, or 2.2 pounds, of urani- "I don't want you to discuss this i um metal at a time when the with anyone," Mr Hopkins ordered, only one I was directed to keep secret total American stock was 4.5 "and it is not to go on the records. from everybody. pounds. Don't make a big production of it, but Implicated by name were the just send it through quietly, in a Lend-Lease Administration, hurry." the Department of Commerce, I asked how I was to identify the shipment when it arrived. He — the Procurement Division of the Treasury and the Board of turned from the phone, and I could hear his voice: "How will Economic Warfare. The State Department became involved to Jordan know the shipment when it gets there?" He came back on the extent of refusing access to files of Lend-Lease and its succes- the line and said, "The Russian Colonel out there will designate it sor, the Foreign Economic Administration. for you. Now send this through as speedily as possible, and be The first two uranium shipments traveled through Great Falls sure you leave it off the records!" by air. The third was dispatched by truck and railway from Then a Russian voice broke in with a demand for Colonel Rochester, NY, to Portland, Oregon, and then by ship to Kotikov. I was full of curiosity when Kotikov had finished, and I Vladivostok. The dates were March and June 1943, and July wanted to know what it was all about and where the shipment was 1944. No doubt was left that the transaction discussed by Mr coming from. He said there would be more chemicals and that Hopkins and myself was the one of June 1943. they would arrive from Canada. This was not merely the largest of our known uranium deals "I show you," he announced. with the Soviet Union, it was also the most shocking. There Presumably, after the talk with Mr Hopkins, I had been accept- seemed to be no lengths to which some American officials would ed as a member of the ‘lodge’. From his bundle on war chemicals not go in aiding Russia to master the secret of nuclear fission. For the Colonel took the folder called "Bomb Powder". He drew out a four years, monopoly of the A-bomb was the cornerstone of our paper sheet and set a finger against one entry. For a second time military and overseas policy, yet on September 23, 1949, long in my eyes encountered the word "Uranium". I repeat that in 1943 it advance of Washington estimates, President Truman announced meant as little to me as to most Americans, which was nothing. that an atomic explosion had occurred in the Soviet Union. This shipment was the one and only cash item to pass through In behalf of national security, the Manhattan Project during the my hands, except for private Russian purchases of clothing and spring of 1943 clapped an embargo on American exports of urani- liquor. It was the only one, out of a tremendous multitude of con- um compounds. But zealots in Washington appear to have signments, that I was ordered not to enter on my tally sheets. It resolved that Russia must have at all costs the ingredients for was the only one I was forbidden to discuss with my superiors, atomic experiment. The intensely pro-Soviet mood of that time and the only one I was directed to keep secret from everybody. may be judged from echoes in later years. Despite Mr Hopkins' urgency, there was a delay of five weeks. For example, there was Joseph E. Davies, Ambassador to the 26 - NEXUS from everybody. FEBRUARY - MARCH 1997