What happened to the H-bomb paper?<\/h2>\n
Forty-one-year-old John Wheeler (\u2018Johnny\u2019 as he was known to friends) had been a key figure in the wartime Manhattan Project which developed the first atom bomb, and was currently head of Project Matterhorn B, America\u2019s H-bomb project based at Princeton University, where he had been professor of physics since 1938. Wheeler had taken the overnight train to Washington DC to meet with representatives from the US Naval Research Laboratory about an unrelated project, but decided that he would also use his time in the capital to deliver his comments regarding the H-bomb paper to the JCAE by hand. Settling down in his berth, lower No 9, on the night of Tuesday 6 January, he had pulled out the document to read and make notes on before he went to sleep.<\/p>\n
- Read more | Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
In the envelope was a six-page document with details of the history of the making of the H-bomb \u2013 the new terrifying weapon of mass destruction that only America possessed \u2013 and enough up to date technical detail to hugely excite a foreign power. Had he, Wheeler, thought, been burgled by a Soviet agent? When he saw the man had finished, Wheeler darted in and grabbed the manila envelope. Greatly relieved, he returned to his berth and began packing up his suitcase to go. Everything completed, he pulled out the manila envelope for a final double-check on the H-bomb document. To his complete horror, the envelope only contained another, more mundane document \u2013 the H-bomb paper had vanished.<\/p>\n
A desperate search of his berth and the entire Pullman sleeping car, followed by a frantic tour of Washington\u2019s Union Station rooms and restaurants to try and identify any of his fellow passengers, proved fruitless. An utterly dejected Wheeler had no alternative but to report his loss to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), three of whose members rushed down to the station to add fresh eyes to the search. But eventually, soon after midday, JCAE executive director William Borden bowed to the inevitable and picked up the phone to the FBI\u2019s Washington office.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>William Borden, executive director of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, had the unenviable task of reporting Wheeler\u2019s mishap to the FBI<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n In the five weeks that followed, Special Agent Charles Lyons, leading the investigation, was able to identify and rule out as suspects five men who had taken neighbouring berths on the Pullman train Wheeler had travelled in from Philadelphia. But there remained some worrying gaps in his knowledge. Firstly, Lyons was unable to track down an \u201cordinary, plainly dressed\u201d couple, 30 to 40 years old, and their small child, who had bought a last-minute ticket from the conductor and taken up the lower and upper bunks in berth No 1. Even more tantalising was his failure to find the occupant of lower berth No 8, diagonally opposite Wheeler. Lyons had this individual\u2019s ticket \u2013 a last-minute one, bought over the counter in Philadelphia \u2013 but frustratingly, the name written on the railroad company\u2019s seating chart could not be identified, despite being pored over in the FBI laboratory in Chicago. This mystery man \u2013 or woman \u2013 was something like \u2018Magenbright\u2019, \u2018Wagenbright\u2019, or \u2018Wagenknight\u2019 \u2013 but no one could be sure which.<\/p>\n
What were the contents of the H-bomb paper?<\/h2>\n
What he read that night remains highly classified, even today. But we can glean something of what it said from Wheeler\u2019s interview with the FBI. The document confirmed that the US was on its way to a successful thermonuclear weapon (it had tested a rough and ready prototype, code-named \u2018Ivy Mike\u2019, in November 1952). It also revealed that there were several varieties of the thermonuclear weapon considered to be available for practical use. Wheeler told his inquisitors that the top-secret document also revealed technical details about the making of the \u2018super\u2019 fusion bomb \u2013 that \u201cLithium-6 was useful, that compression was useful, and that radiation heating provided a way to get that compression\u201d.<\/p>\n
The physicist believed that mention of Lithium-6 as a vital ingredient would have aroused the interest of the Kremlin. But he told FBI investigators that the \u201cqualitative idea of radiation implosion\u2026 is the most important revelation\u201d \u2013 and could be crucial information for Soviet atomic scientists. Wheeler had a record of carelessness with official documents, but no one seriously believed he was a Soviet spy. As Agent Lyons pursued the case, he first accounted for the movements of all Soviet diplomatic personnel on the morning of 7 January. He then initiated a probe into what he described as a \u201cdelegation of radicals\u201d heading for the capital on Wheeler\u2019s train. This was a group bound for the White House where they would carry placards urging the president to commute the death sentence of the Rosenbergs. FBI agents shot numerous still photographs and reels of film of this protest, and made Wheeler study it to see if he recognised any of the individuals from his train journey on 6 and 7 January. But the scientist was unable to provide a positive identification, and that trail went cold.<\/p>\n
Fear and paranoia<\/h3>\n
The loss of the H-bomb document could not have come at a more critical time in the Cold War\u00a0\u2013 and at a more febrile moment in American history. The war in Korea<\/a>, now two-and-a-half years old, showed no signs of ending. An atmosphere of worry, even paranoia about communists at the heart of the government was being stoked by the witchfinder-in-chief, Joe McCarthy. Then there were the atomic spies,\u00a0Julius and Ethel Rosenberg<\/a>, had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death.<\/p>\n
- Read more | The secrets and lies of Cold War spies<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Since the end of December 1952, the couple\u2019s supporters had been holding a continuous picket outside the White House, where they called on President Harry S Truman to grant the couple clemency before leaving office later that month. Now came this disappearance, which could have come right out of the pages of a spy thriller \u2013 perhaps from the pen of someone like Ian Fleming<\/a>, who in 1953 was about to introduce James Bond<\/a> to the world in Casino Royale<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eisenhower\u2019s burden<\/h3>\n
The H-bomb paper could simply have slid away from Wheeler\u2019s grasp as he dropped off to sleep on that Tuesday night, somehow vanishing into the structure, equipment or bedding of the Pullman. But when the newly elected President Dwight Eisenhower had the task of revealing the paper\u2019s disappearance to his National Security Council a month later, most of them were convinced it was the work of the Soviets \u2013 none more so than Vice-President Richard Nixon<\/a>, who urged the FBI to carry out a complete check on each and every member of the JCAE. Eisenhower asked his deputy to liaise with FBI director J Edgar Hoover about taking into \u2018custody\u2019 all the committee\u2019s files \u2013 before any more papers were lost. Eisenhower\u2019s mood that day was a mixture of deep anxiety and anger that such a calamity should happen so soon on his watch.<\/p>\n
Rarely had a president of the United States laid bare his feelings so starkly before his closest colleagues. He frankly confessed that he was \u201cfrightened\u201d, and had no idea how to proceed. He expressed bewilderment that the item in Wheeler\u2019s possession had been erroneously labelled as \u2018Secret\u2019 rather than \u2018Top Secret\u2019, and sent merely by registered mail to a \u2018college professor\u2019 in Princeton rather than being escorted to him by armed guard. If those responsible for this disastrous breach of security \u2013 the staff of the JCAE \u2013 had been in the army, they \u201cshould have been shot\u201d, exploded the president. The JCAE would soon have a new chairman and a new set-up, but, as Eisenhower bemoaned, that would simply be to \u201clock the barn door after the horse had been stolen\u201d.<\/p>\n
There was no serious thought given to briefing the British about the loss. As more and more evidence was coming to light about the Cambridge Spies<\/a> (the British university students recruited by the Soviets in the 1930s), and with the treachery of Klaus Fuchs<\/a> (the German-born British scientist who had passed on A-Bomb secrets) still raw, there was little collaboration on the nuclear front between Washington and London. Eisenhower had been unimpressed when he had met ageing prime minister Winston Churchill<\/a> in January, reflecting he was \u201cas charming and interesting as ever \u2013 but definitely showing the effects of the passing years\u201d.<\/p>\n
- Read more | Klaus Fuchs: the scientist who became the Soviet super spy<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Cambridge Spies Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess (clockwise from top left) had been recruited by the USSR while at university<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Has the H-bomb paper ever been found?<\/h2>\n
In the end, after FBI agents all over the eastern side of the United States had interviewed hundreds of people and supervised the search of miles and miles of railway track and dozens upon dozens of railway carriages, they were none the wiser. The hunt petered out and Eisenhower had more immediate day-to-day preoccupations, primarily trying to end the war in Korea. Maybe the H-bomb paper will turn up one day in one of Putin\u2019s files in the Kremlin. What is a fact is that only seven months later, in August 1953, the Soviet Union drew level with the US when it tested its own prototype H-bomb on the steppe in the northeast Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
As for \u2018Johnny\u2019 Wheeler, he escaped with a dressing-down from Gordon Dean, chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee: he was too valuable a member of the H-bomb project to be fired. Years later, musing about the incident in his memoirs, Wheeler wrote: \u201cIt is interesting, even now, to wonder whether my document was purloined by a Soviet agent. It could hardly have vanished into thin air.\u201d<\/p>\n
- Read more | Britain\u2019s nuclear deterrent: a brief history<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
History\u2019s most famous missing documents (and one that was found)<\/h4>\n
The stories of four other items that have proved frustratingly elusive\u2026<\/h4>\n
The \u2018Q\u2019 Gospel<\/h6>\n
Also known as the logia, the \u2018Q\u2019 Gospel is a (hypothetical) Greek-language document that many biblical scholars nevertheless believe to have been in circulation at the time of the Synoptic Gospels \u2013 Mark, Matthew and Luke \u2013 between 65 and 95 AD. The tantalising theory goes that elements of \u2018Q\u2019 surface in Mark and Luke, but a great, untapped wealth of Jesus\u2019s teachings remain to be discovered in the original document.<\/p>\n
The Maya Codices<\/h6>\n
The Maya civilisation<\/a> (which\u00a0reached its peak in the sixth century AD) featured the first complex societies, with cities, monumental architecture, writing and calendrical systems. Scribes recorded the story on codices \u2013 folding books made from tree bark. Only four of the codices survive today, with most destroyed by Spanish conquistadors and priests. But could others be hidden in tombs across southern Mexico and northern Central America?<\/p>\n
Confucius\u2019 Sixth Classic<\/h6>\n
Among the great Chinese philosopher\u2019s legacy is his \u2018Five Classics\u2019: texts covering poetry, rhetoric, ancient rites, history and divination. But Confucius allegedly wrote a sixth text, on music, which is feared to have disappeared during the \u2018Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars\u2019 \u2013\u00a0a purge of \u2018subversive\u2019 works by Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the third century BC.<\/p>\n
The Wannsee Protocol<\/h6>\n
An item that, thankfully, was found. The Wannsee Protocol<\/a> comprised the minutes of a meeting held by 15 high-ranking Nazi Party<\/a> and German government officials at a villa on Lake Wannsee, Berlin, in 1942, to draw up plans for the \u201cfinal solution of the Jewish question\u201d. Thirty copies of the document were created in total, with the majority destroyed by attendees in order to cover their tracks. However, one Nazi official \u2013 Martin Luther \u2013 kept his. It was discovered in 1947 by Robert Kempner, a US lawyer involved in the Nuremberg Trials<\/a>, and used to secure convictions against war criminals.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
- Read more | Britain\u2019s nuclear deterrent: a brief history<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
- Read more | Klaus Fuchs: the scientist who became the Soviet super spy<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
- Read more | The secrets and lies of Cold War spies<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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