Joyce C. Stearns
Joyce Clennam Stearns (23 June 1893 – 11 June 1948) was an American physicist and an administrator on the Manhattan Project.[1] He served as the Director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago from November 1944 through July 1945.[2]
Joyce Stearns has frequently been identified as a member of the Target Committee that selected the Japanese cities onto which the first atomic bombs were dropped.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] However, the oft cited Target Committee memos omit the given names or initials of “Dr. Stearns.” [11][12][13] General Leslie Groves' memoirs identify his appointee "J.C. Stearns" as coming "from [General Henry H.] Arnold’s office.”[3] Scholars including Gene Dannen [citation needed] and Sean Malloy have noted that an error must have been introduced in Groves' memoir, perhaps by a copy editor, as Dr. Robert L. Stearns was indeed affiliated with Arnold's office [citation needed] as a civilian who conducted operational research for the air force during the war,[14] while Joyce Stearns was then Director of the Met Lab. It therefore seems probable that Robert, and not Joyce, was the Dr. Stearns who served on the Target Committee.[15]
Joyce Stearns was one of the seven prominent physicists who signed the Franck Report in June 1945, urging that the atomic bombs not be dropped in a populated area.[16][17]
Stearns’ other duties at the Met Lab included training personnel who would be sent to the plutonium enrichment facility in Hanford, Washington.[18] Stearns was also responsible for recruiting numerous other scientists into the Manhattan Project, including his former student Harold Agnew, who went on to become the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory,[19] and Darol Froman, who became the Deputy Director of LANL in the postwar years.[20]
Stearns resigned from the Manhattan Project in July 1945 to become Dean of Faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, following his friend, colleague, and former mentor Arthur Compton, who became Chancellor.[21] Stearns held this position for only three years, before he died of cancer on June 11, 1948.[1]
Compton wrote Stearns' obituary for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded by members of the Franck Committee immediately following the war. In it, Compton acknowledged Stearns' contributions to the Manhattan Project, but emphasized his accomplishments before it and outside of it.[21] He noted: Stearns grew up in the vicinity of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and he earned his bachelor's degree at the now defunct Kingfisher College. After earning his master's and doctoral degrees in physics at the University of Chicago under Compton, Stearns went on to become a professor and later chairman of the department of physics at the University of Denver. His research there included investigation of cosmic rays at a high altitude laboratory atop Mount Evans. In the course of establishing his laboratory there, Stearns worked with Denver City Parks to have a road to the summit built.[citation needed][22] The scenic byway remains the highest paved road in the United States.[23]
References
- ^ a b "Dr. J. C. Stearns". Physics Today. 1 (4): 30. August 1948. doi:10.1063/1.3066128. ISSN 0031-9228.
- ^ "The Manhattan Project and predecessor organizations". Array of Contemporary American Physicists. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ a b Groves, Leslie (1962). Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper. p. 268. ISBN 0-306-70738-1. OCLC 537684.
- ^ Bernstein, Barton (Spring 1991). "Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons". International Security 15.4: 153.
- ^ Kunetka, James (2015). The General and the Genius. Washington: Regnery History. p. 342. ISBN 978-1621573388.
- ^ Thorpe, Charles (2008). Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect. University of Chicago Press. p. 151.
- ^ Jones, Vincent (1985). Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb. Washington: Center of Military History. p. 528.
- ^ Ham, Paul (6 August 2015). "The Atlantic". The Bureaucrats Who Singled Out Hiroshima for Destruction. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
- ^ "Joyce Stearns". Atomic Heritage Foundation.
- ^ "Nagasaki Atomic Bombings: Established USA As The Military Arm Of The New World Order". The Millenium Report. 7 August 2015.
- ^ "Notes on Initial Meeting of Target Committee" (PDF). National Security Archive. George Washington University. 27 April 1945.
- ^ "Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945". Dannen.com.
- ^ "Minutes of the Third Target Committee Meeting" (PDF). National Security Archives. George Washington University. 28 May 1945.
- ^ Davis, Wiliam E. "President Robert L. Stearns". CU Heritage Center.
- ^ Malloy, Sean (4 April 2009). "Four Days in May: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" (PDF). The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. 7 (14). ISSN 1557-4660. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
- ^ "The Franck Report, June 11, 1945". Dannen.com.
- ^ Smith, Alison Kimball (October 1958). "Behind the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: Chicago 1944-1945". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
- ^ Compton, Arthur (August 1948). "In Memoriam: Joyce Clennam Stearns". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ "Harold Agnew's Interview (1992)". Manhattan Project Voices. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
- ^ Froman, Darol. Oral History Interview given on 7 June 1976. Transcript from American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library. TS. p26.
- ^ a b Compton, Arthur (August 1948). "In Memoriam: Joyce Clennam Stearns". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 4 (8): 235. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ Stearns, Joyce (March 1938). "The Mount Evans Laboratory". The Scientific Monthly XLVI: 242–248.
- ^ Snyder, Karl. "Mount Evans Scenic Byway and Wilderness". Retrieved 7 April 2016.
