A Man of Peace in Times of War: Harold C. Urey, Pacifism, and National Service in the Two World Wars

Time: 4:00 pm

Location: Director’s Conference Room at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Speaker: Matthew Shindell, Curator of Planetary Sciences, Department of Space History, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Despite his peace church upbringing and his life-long commitment to pacifism, Harold C. Urey participated as a scientist in both world wars. He spent WWI, with a BS in zoology and minimal training in chemistry, as a low-level chemist preparing explosives at the Barrett Chemical Company – an activity through which he defined himself as a patriotic American chemist with a duty to his country. This new self-definition – important to a man self-conscious about his ethnic German heritage and his “peculiar” religious upbringing – carried forward into Urey’s WWII experience. He was now a famous scientist – a Nobel Prize-winning quantum chemist who specialized in the study of isotopes and methods of separation. When asked to head up uranium separation efforts for the Manhattan Project at the Substitute Alloy Metals (SAM) Lab, Urey did not hesitate to say yes. Urey never publicly expressed feelings of regret or guilt over having participated in the development of atomic weapons; he did not question his obligation to help. But the work was difficult and stressful, and it led him to a nervous breakdown even before the demoralizing use of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emotional trauma of WWII shaped Urey’s postwar research program and public speeches. In this talk I address the factors that motivated Urey’s participation in war work, and how he negotiated his own peace position with weapons work. I also address the professional pressures and channels that led Urey to war work, and how Urey’s career benefited from his wartime work.

For further information, please contact: Tom Lassman at 202-633-2419; lassmant@si.edu.

NON-SMITHSONIAN VISITORS MUST RSVP NO LATER THAN 48 HOURS BEFORE THE SEMINAR. On the day of the seminar, please report to the South Security Desk at the Museum’s Independence Avenue entrance. Those holding SI ID badges may proceed directly to the Director’s Conference Room on the 3rd floor.