Alumni Magazine Issue 5

Uncovering secrets of the Australian connection to the atomic bomb Dr Darren Holden DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ARTS & SCIENCES) CLASS OF 2019 Perhaps I should have known more about the Australian physicist Mark Oliphant (1901–2000) before I started to write research on him. Other than a blocked United States entry visa in the 1950s, his life seemed like an open book and free from overt or unwritten controversy. Indeed, a 400 page biography was written on him in the 1980s. I was just hoping I could find enough new material to use him as a case-study in a Master of Philosophy thesis on political censorship of science. Knowing that Oliphant lived in Britain from 1927 to 1950 and was part of the British mission on the United States atomic bomb project during World War Two, I figured that the UK National Archives in London may have some information. I contacted an archivist to ask if he could ‘pull some boxes’ and find me any reference to this Australian. A couple of weeks passed by before I received an email that read something like, “Dear Mr Holden, there is not just one or two files on Oliphant, he is everywhere! In the atomic bomb papers, Churchill’s papers, Cabinet papers and many files marked TOP SECRET.” My heart-raced. In a file tagged “Oliphant 1941” was a letter from President Roosevelt to Prime Minister Churchill with original signature intact. I knew Oliphant had been visiting the United States in the autumn of 1941, but was it possible that action from this Australian scientist really could have prompted two world leaders to exchange correspondence? The Roosevelt letter referenced Britain’s ‘MAUD Committee’, a secret wartime gathering of British boffins that included Oliphant. MAUD was thinking about the possibility of an atomic bomb and some of Oliphant’s colleagues had worked out the formula for a uranium bomb. Oliphant, it seemed, had travelled to America and spilled the beans on one of the war’s biggest scientific secrets. Churchill was not happy. Research that matters R E S E A R C H Alumni Magazine – Page 20