As the gears of his new factories came to life, creating blueprints and models on the blue paper he worked on for nothing else, the thoughts of Ezra turned to the other type of war that would occur, not with rivets and aluminum, but with equations and chalk. The papers were read by him with greater attention than any man on earth. On the back pages of The New York Times, beyond the headlines regarding the unemployed and the Dust Bowl, were the small, seemingly minute pieces he was looking for.
"Physicist Flees Berlin, Accepts Post at Princeton."
"Italian Laureate to Lecture at Columbia."
"Noted Hungarian Theorist Decries New German Policies."
To the world it was a modest scholarly realignment, a footnote to the growing political ferment of Europe. To Ezra it was the greatest intellectual exodus the world had ever seen. It was the loss of men of unimaginable brilliance. With the rise of Hitler and the consequent spread of anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual poison, the very men whose names he had catalogued to his father-in-law were forsaking the continent. Enrico Fermi. Leo Szilard. Edward Teller. Albert Einstein. The men of the atomic age were abandoning the old world and washing up on his doorstep, like seeds with an awful and wondrous potential.
He could not simply go up to men like these and bribe them to build him a super-weapon. There were scholars, men of peace, driven solely by the love of knowledge. The concept would have disgusted them, the attempt would have marked him as mad. He needed something more refined. Something more subtle.
He elected to turn the dearest weapon of his opponent against him: charity.
He requested to meet with Junior not in the adversarial space but through the holy, sacred halls of the Rockefeller Foundation office in Manhattan. He came not as the corporate raider but as the worried humanitarian, serious and respectful in voice.
"Junior," he began, indicating an article from the paper about the dismissal of Jewish professors from the universities of Germany. "You've lived your whole life on missions for humanity, on elevating the downtrodden and maintaining the good of the human race. And, today, the best minds of our era are being forced out, their life and work threatened by the encroachment of barbarism on the continent of Europe."
Junior nodded seriously. "That is a tragedy. We have already given support to several relief organizations."
"It is more than a tragedy; it is an opportunity," replied Ezra gently. "A moral opportunity. What if we were to save more than just get them out of there? What if we were to give them the new home they so greatly deserve, the new outlet for their brilliance right here in America?"
He leaned forward, making his case with calculated fervor. "I urge us to forge that new, common groundwork. It might bear the name like the 'Rockefeller Endowment for Advanced Scientific Inquiry.' We would grant lavish grants, secure sought-after professorships, and build first-rate laboratories for these remarkable refugee scientists leaving European despotism behind. Just take into account the assertion it would make to the world about the ideals of America; take into account the tremendous, lasting good it would do for American science and invention. It would be our moral imperative, but, at the same time, it would be our national one."
The concept was one of brilliance. It was perfectly fitting for all of Junior's core ideals. It was philanthropic; It was anti-Nazi; It was exclusive. It was a demonstration of grand "good works."
Even though there remained a latent distrust of the motives of Ezra himself, Junior could not possibly say no. To say no would betray all he publicly believed in. The concept was too grandiose, the publicity potential too great.
"That," he stated slowly, a spark of true enthusiasm flashing through his formality, "is a marvelous idea, Ezra. The most admirable cause."
He'd consented. He'd just unknowingly provided the right open visage for Ezra's most private and sinister undertaking.
And, with the name of Junior and the entire bulk of the Rockefeller Foundation behind it to lend impeccable legitimacy, the new Endowment was formed in record speed. Junior personally took care of public announcements and the university partnerships. But Ezra, with the claim of having "an interest in the sciences," secretly took over one tiny subcommittee: the one to actually award the grantees.
This is where his serious work began. In the seclusion of his office, he put the work of renowned, proven scientists of the safe field of biology or chemistry to one side. He sought highly specific bounty. With his knowledge of the future, he was searching for the names of the men—many of them then unknown to the year 1933—whose research he knew must have been completely imperative to the theoretical and practical success of the Manhattan Project.
He brought Enrico Fermi to Columbia from Italy and provided him with the latest equipment with which to work on bombardments with neutrons. He found the erratic Hungarian prodigy Leo Szilard and provided him with the unsupervised research grant he asked for, understanding that the true talent of Szilard lay as organizer and prophet who originally conceived the nucleus chain reaction. He made subtle overtures to a problematic but precocious young theorist out at Berkeley by the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer and provided his department with all the money it desired.
To the scientists themselves, it was a miracle. They were refugees and yet some benevolent American foundations were giving them unprecedented resources, freedom of intellect, and, most importantly, security. They believed they were working on pure abstract physics, breaking the frontiers of knowledge at the expense of the elevated philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller Jr. They hadn't the smallest idea that they were being carefully groomed like the pieces of some grand and dangerous machine. They were the board pieces of Ezra and they didn't know it.
The final moment of this act of creation took place one late evening in the private study of Kykuit where Ezra kept. The fire burned down to smoldering embers. He was not reading company reports or stock tickers; he had two ledgers open on his desk in front of him.
The first was a roomy, presentable, company book. It had the exact, proper accounting. It itemized the possessions of his new industrial empire: the rapidly expanding airplane firm, the profit-generating tool firm, the research and development facility for chemicals whose new patents were worth a fortune already. It was the book of meteoric expansion and profitability, the outward sign of his power, the bulwark. The second ledger was a small black book with an unmarked cover. There were no dollar signs in the book. He wrote it down by hand with his personal code. It just consisted of lists of names and places.
Fermi - Columbia Univ. Grant: $XXX,XXX. Research: Neutron bombardment of uranium.
Szilard - Columbia Univ. Grant: $XX,XXX. Research: Theoretical chain reaction.
Oppenheimer - UC Berkeley. Grant: $XXX,XXX. Research: Quantum mechanics, neutron stars.
Beside each name, he took meticulous records of their latest research papers, their progress, and their requirements. He was watching his most important investment.
He created his own secret, off-the-books fund. Its assets were not bonds nor stock, but the intellectual property that would harness the power of the atom. It would pay no quarterly dividends. Its final terrible dividend would pay all at once, as one blinding flash across a city he already knew would bear the name of Hiroshima.
He closed the black book and put it away inside a small safe hidden behind one set of legal books. His kingdom of industry was mighty. It brought him into the ranks of the money world's power brokers. But this book, this secret book of his, brought him something else. He was creating his own shadow kingdom, one where the high stakes were beyond the comprehension of the great John D. Rockefeller Sr., the man who had given him the keys to the kingdom. The potential for horror it contained he feared the titan might not quite comprehend.