Review: Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street tycoon and the secret palace of science that changed the course of World War II

Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street tycoon and the secret palace of science that changed the course of World War II by Jennet Conant
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The Manhattan Project became world famous. The Tizard Mission faded into obscurity. Only the Rad Lab veterans knew better, knew that if radar had not kept the Germans from defeating England, the war might have been over before America entered the contest. Everyone who had worked at the laboratory understood the decisive role their deadly devices had played in speeding the day of victory, and it was reflected in a remark by DuBridge that became something of an unofficial slogan, their badge of honor: “Radar won the war; the atom bomb ended it.”

This is the story of Alfred Loomis, Sr. who's scientific leanings and immense wealth brought about the strategic and critical application of radar to the Allied effort in WW II. Loomis also had a hand in fostering U-235 processing and other A-bomb presurors. This is also the story of nerds-meets-tycoons in Loomis' Tuxedo Park research facility. There is a lot of the intertwined personal lives and tragic turns some marriages took.

It seems the spark for this was some fictionalized writings from participants, including the author's grandfather. From the what-happened-to... listings in the Epilogue:

James Conant and Oppenheimer fought hard to prevent the building of the hydrogen bomb, and Conant’s feelings for Lawrence and Loomis were never the same after the loyalty hearings. As he said in his testimony, if opposition to the H-bomb made Oppenheimer a security risk, “it would apply to me, because I opposed it—as strongly as anybody else.” He left Harvard after twenty years as university president—as he wrote Kistiakowsky, “long enough to serve a sentence for youthful indiscretion”—to become high commissioner of Germany. He went on to become a leading educator and wrote widely on the need for better public education and testing “to break down social barriers.” Conant died in February 1978 and was cremated and buried in his wife’s family plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Bill Richards was also laid to rest. His son, Ted Conant, took custody of Richards’ roman à clef and the confiscated short story about the uranium bomb, which he eventually passed on to his daughter.

View all my reviews