Bomb by Steve Sheinkin Read Free Book Online Page B

all, he was a famously absent-minded scientist, living in an abstract world of ideas and numbers. Could he really be a disciplined, focused team leader? Probably not, said most who knew him.
    â€œHe had, after all, no experience in directing a large group of people,” said the German-born physicist Hans Bethe. A Berkeley colleague put it more bluntly: “He couldn’t run a hamburger stand.”
    Groves had a gut feeling Oppenheimer could rise to the challenge. The more he thought about it—and the more potential candidates he met—the more convinced he became that he wanted Oppenheimer. But there was a bigger problem.
    Oppenheimer couldn’t work on the Manhattan Project until he got security clearance from the army. Thanks to a report from the FBI, army intelligence officers knew all about Oppenheimer’s past associations with Communists. Oppenheimer shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the most dangerous secret in the world, argued the FBI, because he might leak the information to his Communist friends, and from there, to the Soviet Union.
    Oppenheimer insisted he was a loyal American. He swore he’d never actually joined the Communist Party and that, in any case, his interest in Communism was a thing of the past.
    Groves believed him. FBI agents and army intelligence officers did not.
    Groves made the call. “It is desired that clearance be issued for the employment of Robert Oppenheimer without delay,” ordered Groves. “He is absolutely essential to the project.”
    Oppenheimer was given an army physical—and failed. Nearly six feet tall, he weighed just 128 pounds. His chain smoking gave him a chronic cough, causing army doctors to declare him “permanently incapacitated for active service.” Again, Groves pulled rank. He ordered the doctors to make Oppenheimer eligible for active duty.
    Oppenheimer wasn’t fit to be a soldier, Groves acknowledged. But he just might be able to win the war.

INTERNATIONAL GANGSTER SCHOOL
    WHEN KNUT HAUKELID stepped off the train in London, he was met immediately by two British officers. They knew Haukelid had been battling the Germans in Norway and had barely gotten out alive. They had special orders for him.
    Haukelid climbed into a car with the British officers, and they drove though a city battered by German bombs. “Ruined houses and bombed blocks of flats made gaps in the vista,” remembered Haukelid. “One area in the heart of the city was just a desert of ruins. Only the street remained, running empty and purposeless between heaps of fallen masonry.”
    Haukelid was taken to meet with an officer of the Special Operations Executive. The S.O.E. was a secret British organization tasked with carrying out acts of sabotage behind enemy lines all over Europe.
    The S.O.E. officer suggested that perhaps Haukelid would be interested in returning to Norway on a secret mission.
    â€œCan I have more instruction in the use of weapons?” Haukelid asked.
    â€œYes,” said the officer. “There’s a section which is just the thing for you.”
    Haukelid was sent to a remote spot in the south of England and enrolled in Special Training School No. 3. The Germans, who’d heard rumors about the place, called it “International Gangster School.”
    â€œFrom a purely practical standpoint,” Haukelid conceded, “they were undoubtedly right.”
    *   *   *
    â€œH ERE I FOUND nearly thirty Norwegian boys from all parts of the country,” Haukelid said of Special Training School No. 3. The men all had one goal in mind: to get back home and liberate their country from the Germans.
    â€œThis is the only friend you can rely on,” said their instructor, holding up a pistol. “Treat him properly, and he’ll take care of you.”
    The men were taught to pick locks, crack safes, set booby traps, and use poison. They were taught to kill with their hands