Character Analysis
Korechika Anami
A Japanese war minister, Anami voted not to accept the Potsdam Declaration.
General Seizo Arisue
Arisue was the Japanese army's chief of intelligence who inspected Hiroshima and reported total destruction.
Moe Berg
An ex-ballplayer, Berg was tapped to kill Heisenberg at a physics conference in Switzerland but decided not to kill him because he was so resigned to losing the war.
Lavrenti Beria
As the head of Stalin's secret police, Beria was a seriously scary dude. He was known for cruelly assassinating anyone who let him down (even if it wasn't really their fault).
Col. Ned Buxton
Buxton was the OSS officer who helped with the Heisenberg kidnapping plot.
Winston Churchill
The prime minister of Great Britain during World War II, for our purposes in this book (since we could literally write a book about the guy), he was Roosevelt's most important ally and confidant when it comes to discussing the potential use of atomic weapons
Derek Curtis-Bennett
This guy was Fuchs's trial lawyer who reminded Fuchs that under British law he wasn't up for the electric chair, just fourteen years for giving secret information to an ally.
General William Donovan
As the director of OSS, the kidnapping of Heisenberg fell under his jurisdiction.
Colonel Carl Eifler
"The thirty-seven-year-old Eifler already had a reputation for reckless bravery. Wounded by flying metal scraps earlier in the war, he'd pulled out his pocketknife and dug the steel from his thigh. His idea of fun was to shoot cigarettes out of his friends' mouths" (Dirty Work.(20).18). This absolute gem of a man got chosen (because of his derring-do) to try to kidnap Heisenberg, but in the end he was removed from the mission because they couldn't trust his instincts.
Uzal Ent
Ent was the Air Force General who briefed Tibbets on his mission to drop the first atomic bomb.
General Thomas Farrell
This was one of the generals with Oppie at the Trinity test.
Thomas Ferebee
Ferebee was Tibbet's bombardier (the guy who has to aim the bomb) on the Enola Gay.
Major Robert Furman
Gen. Groves's top intelligence officer, he accompanied the shipment of U-235 out to the Pacific island where Tibbets was waiting with his crew.
David Greenglass
Greenglass was the army sergeant at Los Alamos who gave Gold information for the Soviets that corroborated what Fuchs was giving them. Later, his testimony led to one of the most infamous espionage trials of the century with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Adolf Hitler
One of the biggest villains in history, some of the scientists at Los Alamos were almost disappointed that they didn't get a chance to use their bomb on Hitler.
General Torashiro Kawabe
Kawabe was the Japanese General during the end of the war (and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Col. John Lansdale
Along with Gen. Ent, Lansdale vetted Tibbets for Army Counter-Intelligence.
David Lilienthal
Lilienthal was an advisor to Truman who thought they had no other course than to use a second atomic bomb on Japan.
General George Marshall
Army Chief of Staff, this guy told Groves to "do his own dirty work."
Lt. Colonel Boris Pash
Pash was a top army intelligence officer on the West Coast for the CIC who worked on the Alsos mission.
Capt. William Parsons
Parsons was a naval captain who attended the Tibbets briefing.
Roger Robb
Robb was Lewis Strauss's crooked lawyer.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
As the President of the United States, Roosevelt was in charge during much of World War II until his death led to the succession of Harry Truman. He formed the Uranium Committee in response to Einstein's letter and eventually offered his full support in the anxious race to build the first atomic bomb.
Alexander Sachs
An economist, and a friend of Roosevelt's, he Sachs was asked to deliver Einstein's letter to the President as a favor.
William Skardon
Skardon was an MI-5 investigator who questioned Fuchs after the war.
General Brehon Somervell
Somervell was the officer who got to tell Col. Groves that he'd been assigned to oversee the building of a "super-bomb," much to Groves's disappointment.
Joe Stevenson
Joe was the guy who, in a suspicious manner, offered McKibbin the job as the secretary for Los Alamos.
Harlan Fiske Stone
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Stone swore Truman into Presidential office after the death of FDR.
Lewis Strauss
Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Strauss started a witch-hunt against Oppenheimer. He used illegal means and underhanded strategy to strip Oppie of his government clearance and basically ruined his life.
Colonel Paul Tibbets
The fighter pilot who was selected to drop the first atomic bomb:
"At the age of twenty-nine, I had been entrusted with the successful delivery of the most frightful weapon ever devised," Tibbets recalled. "Although the weapon was beyond my comprehension, there was nothing about flying an airplane that I did not understand. If this bomb could be carried in an airplane, I could do the job." (The Pilot.(25).27)
Yikes.
Shigenori Togo
Togo was Japan's foreign minister who voted "yes" to accept the unconditional surrender conditions of the Potsdam Declaration.
Theodore Van Kirk
Van Kirk was the navigator on the Enola Gay.
Colonel John Wilson
A British colonel who briefed Jans Poulsson on the Vemork power plant mission, Wilson was also in charge of Operation Gunnerside with Knut Haukelid.