This Tycoon's Secret Radar Lab Helped Win WWII

Alfred Lee Loomis in his Tower House lab, Tuxedo Park, NY. Credit: Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, image # SIA2008-5428 Scientists and engineers who worked for MIT's Radiation Laboratory had a saying about World War II: The atomic bomb may have ended the war, but radar won it. A new PBS documentary makes the case for that bold statement by telling the story of Alfred Lee Loomis, a founder of the Radiation Lab and a millionaire Wall Street tycoon who directed the U.S. government's wartime effort to develop radar technologies into effective weapons. But even before the war, Loomis had built up his scientific credentials by inviting the best U.S. and foreign scientists to visit his private science laboratory in a renovated mansion that famed physicist Albert Einstein dubbed a "palace of science." The wartime story of Loomis reflects the importance of scientific community and international cooperation rather than any one genius in achieving innovation, as detailed in the PBS American Experience documentary titled "The Secret of Tuxedo Park." Having had the foresight to avoid the stock market crash of 1929, Loomis established a reputation among cash-strapped scientists during the prewar years by hosting them and using his personal wealth to fund their experiments at his private laboratory in the village of Tuxedo Park, about 40 miles away from New York City. He also helped many German scientists relocate to the United States during the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh7I09uGhJk In 1939, the pioneering physicists Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi paid a visit to Loomis at Tuxedo Park. They told Loomis about how German researchers had split the atom and were working toward development of an atomic bomb. The stakes were very high for the United States as signs of the second World War appeared on the horizon. Troubled, Loomis shared his concerns about the coming war with Carl Compton, head of MIT, and Vannevar Bush at the Carnegie Institution. Compton mentioned that an MIT group had been developing the relatively new technology of radar, but lacked funding. Loomis saw his chance to make a difference and dropped all other experiments at his private laboratory in favor of studying radar.