‘Oppenheimer' underplays Chicago’s role in atomic history

You don’t see a whole lot of Chicago in Oppenheimer, the Oscar-nominated movie about the scientists who designed the first atomic bomb during World War II.

As far as locations go, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has the starring role. But pay close attention to the three-hour Christopher Nolan epic, and you’ll see the University of Chicago — and some key historical figures who worked there — in cameos.

The university played a critical role in the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government’s top-secret initiative to develop nuclear weapons. The university’s Hyde Park campus is where scientists led by Enrico Fermi built the world’s first nuclear reactor in 1942, generating just a tiny amount of energy — half a watt — but proving that it could be done.

Fermi and his team operated under a cloak of secrecy, but this was in the middle of a busy city, in contrast with Los Alamos, a self-contained desert town where scientists worked surrounded by Army guards.

“They all were living openly in the community,” said John Mark Hansen, a University of Chicago political science professor who found the scientists listed in 1940s Chicago telephone books.

Visit Chicago’s Manhattan Project sites

With its 13 Academy Award nominations, Oppenheimer has audiences revisiting America’s nuclear race. Hansen, who has researched the era, suggests visiting the following spots to learn more about Chicago’s part in the story.

Eckhart Hall (1), 1118 E. 58th St.

The atomic scientists worked under the moniker of the Metallurgical Laboratory and took over the University of Chicago’s Eckhart Hall. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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John Mark Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, says the scientists who developed nuclear weapons operated under a cloak of secrecy, but they also lived openly in the Chicago community. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. was a math prodigy who entered the University of Chicago when he was only 13. He would stay behind in Chicago as colleagues moved in 1944 to another Manhattan Project site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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The George Herbert Jones Laboratory is where chemist Glenn Seaborg isolated and measured plutonium, the world’s first artificially created element, in 1942. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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John Mark Hansen points out production designs from chemist Glenn Seaborg’s laboratory. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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Jones Laboratory houses a small atomic history exhibition. | Mendy Kong/WBEZ

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Facing the university’s Main Quadrangle’s northeast corner, this building was constructed in 1930 to house the mathematics department, which still occupies it today. The atomic scientists — known as the Metallurgical Laboratory — took over the building in 1942. Fermi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who had fled fascist Italy in 1937, had an office in Eckhart.

Just inside the main entrance, check out the historical photos on display. Then, head to the second floor. With windows looking out on the quad, the wood-paneled conference Room 209 that hosted regular meetings of the Metallurgical Laboratory leaders “looks pretty similar to what it did at the time,” Hansen said.

Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves (played by Matt Damon in “Oppenheimer”) visited in October 1942 with Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy).

“They talked about what was going on in Fermi’s project to split the atom,” Hansen said. “And Fermi … mentioned that it was going to take them a good bit of time actually to move the materials that they needed for this first test into place — several tons worth of materials that they would need. Gen. Groves said, ‘What’s the problem? In the Army Corps of Engineers, we can do that in a day.’ And Fermi said, ‘Offer accepted.’ ”

According to Richard Rhodes’s 1986 book “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” Groves called the Chicago scientists “crackpots” but was impressed by their work.

A photo of J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. hangs in Room 209. The Chicago-born math prodigy entered the University of Chicago when he was only 13, making him the youngest student ever admitted. He was among more than a dozen Black scientists working here on the Manhattan Project.

“This was the greatest assembly of scientific talent from the African American community up to its time,” Hansen said.

Wilkins (played by Ronald Auguste in one brief scene) would stay behind in Chicago as colleagues moved in 1944 to another Manhattan Project site, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. As scientist Edward Teller noted in a letter, Wilkins was doing “excellent work,” but Tennessee’s segregationist laws would have prevented him from working there.

George Herbert Jones Laboratory (2), 5747 S. Ellis Ave.

The George Herbert Jones Laboratory in this South Ellis Avenue Building at the University of Chicago is designated as a National Historic Landmark. It's where Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn Seaborg conducted plutonium experiments. — The George Herbert Jones Laboratory in this South Ellis Avenue Building at the University of Chicago is designated as a National Historic Landmark. It’s where Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn Seaborg conducted plutonium experiments.

Facing the quad’s northwest corner, this is where, in August 1942, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn Seaborg isolated and measured plutonium, the world’s first artificially created element.

Plutonium would serve as the nuclear material for two of the first three atomic bombs: the Trinity test in New Mexico, dramatically depicted in “Oppenheimer,” and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima used uranium rather than plutonium.

Look over the historical display near the building’s main entrance, then take the elevator to Room 405, where Seaborg and his team conducted experiments. Designated as a National Historic Landmark, this utilitarian-looking room is barely bigger than a closet. It’s locked, but you can look in through a window in the door.

“It has a concrete bench over on the right-hand side,” Hansen said. “That is to make it a less reactive surface — therefore less likely to accumulate contaminants. People didn’t know how dangerous plutonium was. It was so new.”

Return to the ground floor, and exit Jones Laboratory. Leave the quad, heading west, then turn north on Ellis Avenue.

Ellis Avenue and 57th Street (3)

The Joseph Regenstein Library now occupies the lot where Stagg Field stood until 1956. The Manhattan Project’s scientists conducted experiments under the west stands of the stadium.

You’ll see the Joseph Regenstein Library. This is where Stagg Field stood until it was demolished in 1956. Stagg was the Maroons’ football stadium until 1939, when university president Robert Maynard Hutchins decreed the University of Chicago would no longer take part in the sport.

The Manhattan Project’s scientists conducted experiments under the stadium’s west stands, along Ellis Avenue.

“It’s oftentimes said that the reaction occurred in a squash court,” Hansen said. “It was not a squash court. It was a court that was built for a game called rackets,” which required a wider and higher court.

The scientists had planned to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction in a forest preserve near Willow Springs, but a strike halted the construction of that facility. Fermi went to Arthur Compton, the physicist in charge of the Manhattan Project’s Chicago portion, and suggested using the rackets court instead.

“Compton thinks for a moment,” Hansen said. “He knows it’s in the middle of a populated area. It has never been done before. … He says, ‘OK, go ahead.’ ”

Other top officials in the project, including Groves, were concerned when they found out about this decision. “But they also knew that if they said no to having the test on the campus, that would mean months of delay,” Hansen said.

Nuclear Energy (4)

The statue 'Nuclear Energy' is by sculptor Henry Moore. — The statue ‘Nuclear Energy’ is by sculptor Henry Moore.

Walk half a block north to this bronze sculpture by Henry Moore, which marks the spot where Fermi and his fellow scientists achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on Dec. 2, 1942.

Fermi called his crude nuclear reactor a “pile.” Each layer of it had quantities of uranium surrounded by graphite, a crystalline form of carbon. The graphite would serve as a “moderator,” slowing down neutrons as they broke free from uranium atoms.

The workers who assembled Fermi’s 20-foot-high pile included a group of young, blue-collar Chicagoans. One scientist called them “the Back of the Yards kids.” They included Ted Petry, who remembered the events in a 2017 interview a year before he died: “A lot of people worked there and left without any knowledge of what was going on. You didn’t question too much.”

Ted Petry dies; last known witness to historic 1942 U. of C. nuclear reaction

The reactor was ready to be tested on Dec. 2, 1942, a frigid day with a low of zero and a high of 15 degrees. “Everybody … talks about how freaking cold it was,” Hansen said. “And this space underneath the grandstand wasn’t heated.”

Cadmium control rods were pulled from the pile, creating a condition in which uranium atoms would absorb neutrons, causing those atoms to break apart, releasing more neutrons. That would cause even more uranium atoms to break apart: a chain reaction.

Fermi kept an eye on the radiation levels.

“Then, all of a sudden — boom! One of the automatic control rods dropped back into the pile and shut off the reaction,” Hansen said. It was a minor mechanical mishap, and Fermi didn’t seem especially alarmed. “He basically says, ‘I’m hungry. Let’s go to lunch.’ ”

Hutchinson Commons (5), 1131 E. 57th St.

Enrico Fermi, shown in this 1946 photo at the University of Chicago, led the team of scientists who built the world’s first nuclear reactor in 1942.

After the scientists ate at Hutchinson Commons, which is still used as a dining hall, they resumed the test.

“At 3:25, Fermi orders George Weil, who is a young physicist, … to remove that last of the three control rods,” Hansen said. “And then, as [Fermi] watches the various instruments, he’s putting calculations through a slide rule.”

Rhodes’s book quotes Weil: “I had to watch Fermi every second, waiting for orders. His face was motionless. His eyes darted from one dial to another. His expression was so calm it was hard. But suddenly his whole face broke into a broad smile.”

Fermi calmly announced: “The reaction is self-sustaining. The curve is exponential.”

He shut down the chain reaction 28 minutes later, ordering the safety rods to be reinserted into the pile.

Most of the scientists celebrated their accomplishment. But Leo Szilard, one of the Hungarian emigres known colloquially as “The Martians,” felt regret. Szilard (played by Máté Haumann in the movie) had come up with the idea of a nuclear chain reaction in 1933. In 1939, he had written a confidential letter — which he persuaded Albert Einstein to sign — urging President Franklin Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb before German scientists did.

Now, after Szilard watched Fermi’s successful experiment, he lingered on the rackets court.

“I shook hands with Fermi, and I said I thought this day would go down as a black day in the history of mankind,” Szilard said later, according to a book of his recollections.

Chicago Pile-1 was later moved to Red Gate Woods (8), a Cook County forest preserve along Archer Avenue northeast of 107th Street where further experiments were conducted. After radioactive fuel and heavy water coolants were removed in the 1950s, the nuclear reactors’ other parts were buried at this site. Following cleanup work in the 1990s, officials declared that the site — marked by a commemorative boulder — poses no health risk.

Enrico Fermi’s home (6), 5537 S. Woodlawn Ave.

Enrico Fermi’s home on South Woodlawn Avenue is where he lived with his wife, Laura, and their children, Nella and Giulio. Laura was in the dark about what they were working on.

A few blocks to the northeast sits the home where Fermi lived with his wife Laura and their children Nella and Giulio. It’s a private home, so respect the current residents.

Like other family members of Manhattan Project scientists, Laura Fermi was in the dark about what they were working on.

“I was told one secret: There were no metallurgists at the Metallurgical Laboratory,” she later said. “Even this piece of information was not to be divulged. As a matter of fact, the less I talked, the better; the fewer people I saw outside the group working at the Met. Lab, the wiser I would be.”

After the nuclear reaction on Dec. 2, 1942, the scientists gathered at the Fermis’ house for a cocktail party.

“As the guests entered for this party, Laura Fermi overheard her husband being congratulated,” Hansen said. “And she was very, very confused by this. And so she turned to Leona Woods [the only female scientist on Fermi’s team] and said, ‘What has Enrico done?’ And of course, Leona Woods is completely flustered. What can she possibly say? And so she says … ‘He has sunk a Japanese admiral.’ ”

That was her coded way of suggesting that Enrico Fermi had accomplished something important for the war effort. But Laura Fermi wouldn’t find out exactly what her husband had done until the war was over, three years later.

The Quadrangle Club (7), 1155 E. 57th St.

The Quadrangle Club was a meeting place for Manhattan Project scientists.

Hansen said this faculty club was a frequent meeting place for Manhattan Project scientists. Two of them, Szilard and James Franck, lived at the Quadrangle Club as boarders.

“Oppenheimer” shows Szilard urging Robert Oppenheimer to tell President Harry Truman not to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. “History will judge us, Robert,” he says in the movie.

“Szilard and Franck … were really, really anxious about the moral implications of actually using this technology as a weapon that would kill lots and lots of people,” Hansen said, with Franck, in particular, having sounded alarms starting in the spring of 1944 with higher-ups with the Manhattan Project and in Washington.

Hansen praised the movie for sticking close to the historical facts but said it misses some of the big drama in Chicago.

“The film focuses on the moral agony of Robert Oppenheimer,” he said, “when, in lots of ways, the real leadership in conscience within the Manhattan Project was here at the University of Chicago.”