344 • MAUD COMMITTEE
solved until Bohr escaped to England in October 1943 and could ex-
plain it for himself.
In the meantime, the Maud Committee submitted a lengthy report
to the War Cabinet, and it was received in October 1940 by the Minis-
ter without Portfolio Lord Hankey, whose private secretary was a
brilliant young Scot on secondment from the Foreign Office,John
Cairncross. The Maud Committee supervised research work across
the country, coordinating the activities of a handful of physicists in
just three centers, at Liverpool, Oxford, and Birmingham.
This first Maud Report was studied by Professor Lindemann, who
was persuaded to change his views, and on 27 August he wrote to
Churchill about the ‘‘super-explosive,’’ explaining:A great deal of work has been done here and in America, and probably in
Germany, and it looks as if bombs might be produced and brought into use
within, say, two years. The odds are ten to one on success within two years.
I would not bet more than two to one against, or even money. But I am
quite clear we must go forward. It would be unforgivable if we let the Ger-
mans develop a process ahead of us by means of which they could defeat
us or reverse the verdict after they had been defeated.On 16 September 1940 the Maud Committee outlined what was re-
quired to develop a working device within three years. Imperial
Chemical Industries (ICI) would have to make the project a priority,
and ‘‘the representative ofWoolwich Arsenal, Ferguson, stated that
the bomb fuse could be constructed in a matter of months.’’ On 20
September the British chiefs of staff gave their formal approval to the
plan recommended by the Maud Committee and to the decision to
build a plant to manufacture the bomb in England.
The other result of the Maud Report, which was submitted to Colo-
nel John Moore-Brabazon, MP, the minister for aircraft production,
was the creation of the Directorate ofTube Alloys. This organization
was headed by (Sir) Wallace Akers, the research director of ICI, and
his deputy, chemist Michael Perrin, who were released from the com-
pany on 18 October for the duration of the war and installed in an
office at 16 Old Queen Street, only a matter of yards from the head-
quarters of theSecret Intelligence Servicein Queen Anne’s Gate.
The cabinet minister with overall responsibility for the project was
Sir John Anderson, until recently the home secretary and now lord