The President's Advisory Committee on Uranium convened for its initial time not in one of the State Dining Room's grand White House conference rooms but in a drab, anonymous office of the Department of Commerce. The secrecy was essential. There were the unusual and potent pairing of some high but confused government officials, chaired by a general from the Army Ordnance Department and an admiral ill comfortable when compelled to speak on abstract physics. On the other side of the table were the scientists—the mad genius of Leo Szilard, the unobtrusive reassurance of Enrico Fermi, and the quick intelligence of Eugene Wigner.
And, at the head of the table, as committee chairman and liaison to the White House, sat the director of the National Bureau of Standards, Lyman Briggs, a distrustful bureaucrat. Ezra was present as well, but his title was deliberately vague: "private consultant and representative of the Rockefeller Foundation," the chief provider of the committee's seed money. He sat back from the table slightly, observer, listening to the others talk.
The scientists got down to business with their list of urgent requirements. Their discussion was a catalogue of technical requirements with the men from the government fumbling to keep pace.
"For a controlled, sustaining chain reaction," Fermi slowly explained it to him with the heavy Italian accent, "we will need to have a moderator. Something to slow down the neutrons but not absorb them. That appears to be the optimal material for carbon, purest form of graphite. Tons of it. Graphite of a purity that has yet to be produced commercially ."
"And," he broke off on himself with great urgency in his voice, "to simply start to envision how to separate the needed U-235 isotope from the more plentiful U-238, we will require advanced equipment. Ultra-speed centrifuges much more powerful than any existing. Or one of the gas diffusion plants, the type of facility that will need to stretch for miles and require advanced barrier material not yet invented."
Wigner added, "And the instruments, gentlemen. The entire process shall have to be monitored. Special electronic components will be needed, high-tension rectifiers, vacuum pumps of heretofore unparalleled sizes, and thousands of specially constructed Geiger counters."
The officials sat there in silence, faces empty with incredulity. The general from Ordnance finally cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, this is... thorough. I can form a subcommittee to examine the procurement of graphite. The admiral and I can pay a visit to the Navy research facility on the subject of the centrifuge problem. But asking for appropriations on this scale... it would take the approval of many congressional committees. In today's political climate, it could take months, if not years."
The scientists were downhearted. Years? The Germans were already presumably working on it right now. The project was already undoubtedly doomed from its outset, strangled by the red tape of the same government it was to rescue.
It was then that Ezra, having sat in silence through the entire debate, spoke. His voice was steady, articulate, and cut through the bureaucratic haze like the surgeon's blade.
"Gentlemen," he said, getting everyone's attention. He addressed the scientists individually, not noticing the men from the government for the moment. "You just required reactor-grade graphite. What are the exact requirements for purity?"
Fermi was surprised and dashed off the list of the things to be removed, foremost among them boron as a neutron absorber.
Ezra scribbled a hasty note on a pad. "One of the chemical subsidiaries of my family's company recently worked out the process of purifying industrial solvents. With refinement of the process on their part, they can begin to ship graphite to your specific needs within six weeks. I will have the first consignment shipped to your research laboratory at Columbia University."
The room fell into stunned silence.
He took one look down the list of equipment. "The high-speed centrifuges and the advanced vacuum pumps... I recently acquired a tool company down in Massachusetts, the Van Norman company. Their men are the best to be found anywhere in the nation. Give them your drawings. Have them re-tool and get into prototype production immediately."
He motioned to Wigner. "And the specialized electronics. The high-voltage rectifiers and the vacuum tubes. I took the liberty of purchasing some key patents in the subject some years back. There is the small research establishment working on advanced radio technology. I will have them get into production immediately."
The room was stunned. It was one of the most dramatic, chilling epiphanies for all the men present. The bureaucrats, picturing to themselves an impassable logistical horror, were struck dumb. The scientists—Szilard, Fermi, Wigner—stared at Ezra with new understanding on their faces.
This was not just a philanthropist. This was not just some millionaire benefactor and writer of checks. This was one-man supply corps. A frighteningly far-sighted man. He hadn't just underwritten their research; he'd anticipated their every practical need and constructed the entire industrial support complex required to fund the atomic bomb project secretly, systematically, ahead of time, before they knew to order it.
His precognition was more than just impressive anymore. It was disturbing. It was inhuman.
The room power equation, of the entire project, had just irreparably shifted its base. The government men were now ancillary. The committee chairman himself, Mr. Briggs, was now a figurehead. The critical path to the project, to its success or failure, no longer ran through the deliberate slumbering corridors of Washington D.C. It ran through the office of Ezra Prentice. He could act more rapidly, more covertly, more forcefully than the entire United States government. He was the man to whom one was helpless to say nay. He was the indispensable man.
That night, back in the private seclusion of his study at Kykuit, Ezra picked up the thin, plain black ledger. The flames danced with shadows across the wall as he began to put the pen to the ink.
He noted the pages recording his "investment" in the refugee scientists with his typical painstaking comments on their progress. Fermi - experimental pile progressing well. Szilard - conceptual work on production of plutonium.
He then walked over to the new, empty sheet of paper. At the top he penned with clear block lettering a new heading:
PROJECT ASSETS
Underneath it, he started yet another list. It didn't hold names of men, but of abilities, the muscles of his new shadow kingdom.
Reactor-Grade Graphite Production (ChemCo Subsidiary)
Isotope Separation R&D - Centrifuge Project (Van Norman Div.)
High-Voltage Electronics & Trigger Components (Prentice Applied Science)
Heavy Water Acquisition (via Norsk Hydro contact)
He laid down the pen and settled back into his leather chair. He looked down at the two ledgers lying open on his desk. The one open to the general public, listing his industrial conglomerates, showed the empire of unmatched wealth and old-time power that provided insulation around him and generated the funds he needed. And this one, the secret black book ledger, listed the science and technology empire, the sword that would reshape the destiny of the world.
He'd achieved the ideal, eerie synergism. His two-front war was no longer two wars. They'd become one unstoppable engine of his own creation, funded with Rockefeller money and guided by his otherworldly experience. An engine with one thing on its agenda: the heart of the future.
He was no longer just the son-in-law. He was no longer just a force within the family. He was power unto himself. His renowned father-in-law, the great John D. Rockefeller, dominated the world of oil, the lifeblood of the early industrial age. Ezra Prentice was now methodically monopolizing the very pillars of the atom, the terrifying fuel of the next.