The Quebec Agreement was a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States outlining the terms for the coordinated development of the science and engineering related to

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity * Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy ...

and specifically

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

s. It was signed by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

and

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

on 19 August 1943, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, at the

First Quebec Conference The First Quebec Conference, codenamed "Quadrant", was a highly secret military conference held during World War II by the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It took place in Quebec City on August 17–24, 1943, at ...

in Quebec City,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada. The Quebec Agreement stipulated that the US and UK would pool their resources to develop nuclear weapons, and that neither country would use them against the other, or against other countries without mutual consent, or pass information about them to other countries. It also gave the United States a veto over post-war British commercial or industrial uses of nuclear energy. The agreement merged the British

Tube Alloys Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the Bri ...

project with the American

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

, and created the Combined Policy Committee to control the joint project. Although Canada was not a signatory, the Agreement provided for a Canadian representative on the Combined Policy Committee in view of Canada's contribution to the effort. British scientists performed important work as part of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, and in July 1945 British permission required by the agreement was given for the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. The September 1944 Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire extended Anglo-American co-operation into the post-war period, but after the war ended, American enthusiasm for the alliance with Britain waned. The

McMahon Act The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. Most significantly, the Act ruled ...

(1946) ended technical co-operation through its control of "restricted data". On 7 January 1948, the Quebec Agreement was superseded by a '' modus vivendi'', an agreement which allowed for limited sharing of technical information between the United States, Britain and Canada.

Background

Tube Alloys

The

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...

was discovered by

James Chadwick Sir James Chadwick, (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspi ...

at the Cavendish Laboratory at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in February 1932. In April 1932, his Cavendish colleagues

John Cockcroft Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, (27 May 1897 – 18 September 1967) was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclea ...

and

Ernest Walton Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate. He is best known for his work with John Cockcroft to construct one of the earliest types of particle accelerator, the Cockcroft–Walton ...

split

lithium Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid el ...

atoms with accelerated

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

s. Then, in December 1938,

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...

and

Fritz Strassmann Friedrich Wilhelm Strassmann (; 22 February 1902 – 22 April 1980) was a German chemist who, with Otto Hahn in December 1938, identified the element barium as a product of the bombardment of uranium with neutrons. Their observation was the ke ...

at Hahn's laboratory in

Berlin-Dahlem Dahlem ( or ) is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in southwestern Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a part of the former borough of Zehlendorf. It is located between the mansion settlements of Grunewald and L ...

bombarded

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

with slowed neutrons, and discovered that

barium Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. Th ...

had been produced. Hahn wrote to his colleague

Lise Meitner Elise Meitner ( , ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who was one of those responsible for the discovery of the element protactinium and nuclear fission. While working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute on rad ...

, who, with her nephew Otto Frisch, explained that the uranium

nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucle ...

had been split. By analogy with the division of biological cells, they named the process " fission". British Political Personalities 1936-1945 HU59483

British Political Personalities 1936-1945 HU59483

The discovery of fission raised the possibility that an extremely powerful

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

could be created. The term was already familiar to the British public through the writings of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

The World Set Free ''The World Set Free'' is a novel written in 1913 and published in 1914 by H. G. Wells. The book is based on a prediction of a more destructive and uncontrollable sort of weapon than the world has yet seen. It had appeared first in serialised ...

''. Sir

Henry Tizard Sir Henry Thomas Tizard (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the fir ...

's Committee on the Scientific Survey of Air Defence was originally formed to study the needs of anti-aircraft warfare, but branched out to study air warfare generally. In May 1939, a few months before the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in Europe in September 1939, it was directed to conduct research into the feasibility of atomic bombs. Tizard tasked

George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. Education and early life Thomson ...

, the professor of physics at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, and

Mark Oliphant Sir Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant, (8 October 1901 – 14 July 2000) was an Australian physicist and humanitarian who played an important role in the first experimental demonstration of nuclear fusion and in the development of nuclear weapon ...

, an Australian physicist at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, with carrying out a series of experiments on uranium. By February 1940, Thomson's team had failed to create a chain reaction in natural uranium, and he had decided that it was not worth pursuing. Oliphant's team reached a strikingly different conclusion. He had delegated the task to two German refugee scientists,

Rudolf Peierls Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied ...

and Frisch, who could not work on the university's secret projects like

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

because they were

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and ...

s, and therefore lacked the necessary security clearance. They calculated the

critical mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fissi ...

of a metallic sphere of pure

uranium-235 Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exis ...

, and found that instead of tons, as everyone had assumed, as little as would suffice, and would explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite. Oliphant took the Frisch–Peierls memorandum to Tizard. As a result, the

MAUD Committee The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram fro ...

was established to investigate further. It directed an intensive research effort. Four universities provided the locations where the experiments were taking place. The University of Birmingham undertook theoretical work, such as determining what size of critical mass was needed for an explosion. This group was run by Peierls, with the help of fellow German refugee scientist Klaus Fuchs. The laboratories at the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

experimented with different types of

isotope separation Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research (e.g. in chemistry where atoms of "marker" n ...

. Chadwick's group at Liverpool dealt with thermal diffusion, a phenomenon observed in mixtures of mobile particles where the different particle types exhibit different responses to the force of a

temperature gradient A temperature gradient is a physical quantity that describes in which direction and at what rate the temperature changes the most rapidly around a particular location. The temperature gradient is a dimensional quantity expressed in units of degree ...

Francis Simon Sir Francis Simon (2 July 1893 – 31 October 1956), was a German and later British physical chemist and physicist who devised the gaseous diffusion method, and confirmed its feasibility, of separating the isotope Uranium-235 and thus made a m ...

's group at Oxford investigated the

gaseous diffusion Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through semipermeable membranes. This produces a slight separation between the molecules containing uranium-235 (235U) and uranium-2 ...

, which works on the principle that at differing pressures uranium 235 would diffuse through a barrier faster than uranium 238. This was determined to be the most promising method.

Egon Bretscher Egon Bretscher CBE (1901–1973) was a Swiss-born British chemist and nuclear physicist and Head of the Nuclear Physics Division from 1948 to 1966 at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, also known as Harwell Laboratory, in Harwell, United ...

and

Norman Feather Norman Feather FRS FRSE PRSE (16 November 1904 – 14 August 1978), was an English nuclear physicist. Feather and Egon Bretscher were working at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1940, when they proposed that the 239 isotope of element ...

's group at Cambridge investigated whether another element, now called

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

, could be used as a

fissile In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction. By definition, fissile material can sustain a chain reaction with neutrons of thermal energy. The predominant neutron energy may be typ ...

material. Because of the presence of a team of refugee French scientists led by

Hans von Halban Hans Heinrich von Halban (24 January 1908 – 28 November 1964) was a French physicist, of Austrian- Jewish descent. Family He was descended on his father's side from Polish Jews, who left Kraków for Vienna in the 1850s. His grandfather, Hei ...

, Oxford also had the world's main supply of heavy water, which helped them theorise how uranium could be used for power. In July 1941, the MAUD Committee produced two comprehensive reports that concluded that an atomic bomb was not only technically feasible, but could be produced before the war ended, perhaps in as little as two years. The MAUD Committee unanimously recommended pursuing its development as a matter of urgency, although it recognised that the resources required might be beyond those available to Britain. But even before its report was completed, the Prime Minister,

, had been briefed on its findings by his scientific advisor,

Frederick Lindemann Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, ( ; 5 April 18863 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II. Lindemann was a brilliant intellectual, who cut through bureauc ...

, and had decided on a course of action. A new directorate known by the deliberately misleading name of

was created to co-ordinate this effort. Sir

John Anderson John Anderson may refer to: Business *John Anderson (Scottish businessman) (1747–1820), Scottish merchant and founder of Fermoy, Ireland * John Byers Anderson (1817–1897), American educator, military officer and railroad executive, mentor of ...

, the

Lord President of the Council The lord president of the Council is the presiding officer of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and the fourth of the Great Officers of State (United Kingdom), Great Officers of State, ranking below the Lord High Treasurer but above the ...

, became the minister responsible, and

Wallace Akers Sir Wallace Alan Akers (9 September 1888 – 1 November 1954) was a British chemist and industrialist. Beginning his academic career at Oxford he specialized in physical chemistry. During the Second World War, he was the director of the Tube Al ...

from

Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. It was formed by the merger of four leading British chemical companies in 1926. Its headquarters were at M ...

(ICI) was appointed its director.

Early American efforts

The prospect of Germany developing an atomic bomb was also of great concern to scientists in the United States, particularly those who were refugees from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and other

fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...

countries. In July 1939,

Leo Szilard Leo Szilard (; hu, Szilárd Leó, pronounced ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a Hungarian-German-American physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear ...

and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

had written a letter warning the President of the United States,

, of the danger. In response, Roosevelt created an

Advisory Committee on Uranium The S-1 Executive Committee laid the groundwork for the Manhattan Project by initiating and coordinating the early research efforts in the United States, and liaising with the Tube Alloys Project in Britain. In the wake of the discovery of nucl ...

in October 1939, chaired by

Lyman Briggs Lyman James Briggs (May 7, 1874 – March 25, 1963) was an American engineer, physicist and administrator. He was a director of the National Bureau of Standards during the Great Depression and chairman of the Uranium Committee before America e ...

of the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

. Research concentrated on slow fission for power production, but with a growing interest in isotope separation. On 12 June 1940,

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...

, the president of the

Carnegie Institution of Washington The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. Th ...

, and Harry Hopkins, a key advisor to the president, went to the president with a proposal to create a

National Defense Research Committee The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the Un ...

(NDRC) to co-ordinate defence-related research. The NDRC was formally created on 27 June 1940, with Bush as its chairman. It absorbed the Advisory Committee on Uranium which had gone beyond its original role and was now directing research. It became the Uranium Committee of the NDRC. Vannevar Bush portrait

One of Bush's first actions as the chairman of the NDRC was to arrange a clandestine meeting with Air Commodore George Pirie, the British air attaché in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, and

Brigadier Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. In ...

Charles Lindemann, the British Army attaché (and Frederick Lindemann's brother), to discuss a British offer of a full exchange of technical information. Bush was strongly in favour of this proposal, and at their meeting on 8 July 1940, he offered advice on how it should be presented. It was endorsed at a

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

meeting on 11 July, and an official acceptance was conveyed to Lord Lothian, the

British Ambassador to the United States The British Ambassador to the United States is in charge of the British Embassy, Washington, D.C., the United Kingdom's diplomatic mission to the United States. The official title is His Majesty's Ambassador to the United States of America. T ...

, on 29 July. Among the wealth of information that the

Tizard Mission The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a British delegation that visited the United States during WWII to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the research and development ( ...

, a scientific mission sent to the United States to promote the exchange of military science and technology, brought to America were details about the MAUD Committee's deliberations and activities. Some information from the MAUD Committee had already been conveyed to the United States by Ralph H. Fowler, the British scientific attaché to Canada. Cockcroft, a member of the Tizard Mission, brought more. Cockcroft and Fowler met with the Uranium Committee, but the information flow was largely one-way. Cockcroft reported that the American atomic bomb project lagged behind the British, and was not proceeding as fast. Work conducted in America included research by Szilard and

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

into the possibility of a controlled

nuclear chain reaction In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...

; preliminary investigations into

using

centrifugation Centrifugation is a mechanical process which involves the use of the centrifugal force to separate particles from a solution according to their size, shape, density, medium viscosity and rotor speed. The denser components of the mixture migrate ...

and thermal diffusion processes; and efforts to produce plutonium in the

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Janu ...

at the

Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...

at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

Kenneth Bainbridge Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge (July 27, 1904 – July 14, 1996) was an American physicist at Harvard University who did work on cyclotron research. His precise measurements of mass differences between nuclear isotopes allowed him to confirm Albert ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

attended a MAUD Committee meeting on 9 April 1941, and was surprised to discover that the British were convinced that an atomic bomb was technically feasible. The Uranium Committee met at Harvard on 5 May, and Bainbridge presented his report. Bush engaged a group headed by

Arthur Compton Arthur Holly Compton (September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radia ...

, a

Nobel laureate in physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

and chairman of the Department of Physics at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, to investigate further. Compton's report, issued on 17 May 1941, did not address the design or manufacture of a bomb in detail. Instead it endorsed a post-war project concentrating on atomic energy for power production. On 28 June 1941, Roosevelt created the

Office of Scientific Research and Development The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May 1 ...

(OSRD), with Bush as its director, personally responsible to the president. The new organisation subsumed the NDRC, now chaired by

James B. Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. ...

, the

President of Harvard University The president of Harvard University is the chief academic administration, administrator of Harvard University and the ''Ex officio member, ex officio'' president of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, Harvard Corporation. Each is appoi ...

. The Uranium Committee became the Uranium Section of the OSRD, but was soon renamed the S-1 Section for security reasons. Britain was at war, but the US was not. Oliphant flew to the United States in late August 1941, ostensibly to discuss the radar programme, but actually to find out why the United States was ignoring the MAUD Committee's findings. He discovered to his dismay that the reports and other documents sent directly to Briggs had not been shared with all members of the committee; Briggs had locked them in a safe. Oliphant then met with

William D. Coolidge William David Coolidge (; October 23, 1873 – February 3, 1975) was an American physicist and engineer, who made major contributions to X-ray machines. He was the director of the General Electric Research Laboratory and a vice-president of t ...

, who was acting in Compton's place while the latter was in South America;

Samuel K. Allison Samuel King Allison (November 13, 1900 – September 15, 1965) was an American physicist, most notable for his role in the Manhattan Project, for which he was awarded the Medal for Merit. He was director of the Metallurgical Laboratory from 1943 ...

, a colleague of Compton's at the University of Chicago;

Ernest O. Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation f ...

, the director of the Radiation Laboratory; Fermi and Conant to explain the urgency. In these meetings he spoke of an atomic bomb with forcefulness and certainty. Allison recalled that when Oliphant met with the S-1 Section, he "came to a meeting, and said 'bomb' in no uncertain terms. He told us we must concentrate every effort on the bomb and said we had no right to work on power plants or anything but the bomb. The bomb would cost $25 million, he said, and Britain did not have the money or the manpower, so it was up to us." Bush and Conant received the final MAUD Report from Thomson on 3 October 1941. With this in hand, Bush met with Roosevelt and Vice-President Henry A. Wallace at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

on 9 October 1941, and obtained a commitment to an expanded and expedited American atomic bomb project. Two days later, Roosevelt sent a letter to Churchill in which he proposed that they exchange views "in order that any extended efforts may be coordinated or even jointly conducted."

Collaboration

Roosevelt regarded this offer of a joint project as sufficiently important to have the letter personally delivered by

Frederick L. Hovde Frederick Lawson Hovde (7 February 1908 – 1 March 1983) was an American chemical engineer, researcher, educator and president of Purdue University. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Hovde received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the Unive ...

, the head of the NDRC mission in London, but Churchill did not respond until December. He assured Roosevelt of his willingness to collaborate, and informed him that Hovde had discussed the matter with Sir John Anderson and Lord Cherwell, as Frederick Lindemann was now known. The

had considered the issue of collaboration with the United States, and had concluded that while pilot isotope separation plants could be established in the United Kingdom, full-scale production facilities would have to be built in the United States. The British expressed concerns about the security of the American project. Ironically, it was the British project that had already been penetrated by

atomic spies Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early ...

John Cairncross John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influ ...

had given the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

a copy of the MAUD Committee report. Although not conveyed to the Americans, the British had other concerns about what might happen after the war if the Americans embraced

isolationism Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entang ...

, as had occurred after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and Britain had to fight the Soviet Union alone. The opportunity for a joint project was therefore missed. British and American exchange of information continued but their programmes remained separate. Radar and Electronic Warfare 1939-1945 H10786

Radar and Electronic Warfare 1939-1945 H10786

The Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

on 7 December 1941 led to the United States' entry into the war. Funding now became available in amounts undreamt of the year before. OSRD contracts were due to expire at the end of June 1942, and there was intense wartime competition for raw materials. It was agreed that in 1942–1943, the United States Army would fund $53 million of an $85 million programme. On 18 June 1942,

Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

James C. Marshall Brigadier General James Creel Marshall (15 October 1897 – 19 July 1977) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who was initially in charge of the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during World War II. A member of the Ju ...

was ordered to organise the Army component. He established his headquarters on the 18th floor of 270 Broadway in New York City, with the innocuous name of the

Manhattan Engineer District The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

, following the usual practice of naming engineer districts after the city in which its headquarters was located. The project soon adopted the name "Manhattan" as well. By September 1942, Bush and Conant felt that the time had come for the Army to take over, something already approved by the president on 17 June 1942, and

Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

Leslie R. Groves, Jr. became the director of the Manhattan Project on 23 September 1942. Groves attempted to tighten security through a policy of strict compartmentalisation similar to the one that the British had imposed on radar. The American effort soon overtook the British. British scientists who visited the United States in 1942 were astounded at the progress and momentum the Manhattan Project had assumed. On 30 July 1942, Anderson advised Churchill that: "We must face the fact that ... urpioneering work ... is a dwindling asset and that, unless we capitalise it quickly, we shall be outstripped. We now have a real contribution to make to a 'merger'. Soon we shall have little or none". But Bush and Conant had already decided that British help was no longer needed. In October 1942, they convinced Roosevelt that the United States should independently develop the atomic bomb, despite the agreement of unrestricted scientific interchange between the US and Britain. The positions of the two countries were the reverse of what they had been in 1941. American officials were concerned that Akers and other people from ICI involved in the Tube Alloys project were trying to exploit American nuclear scientific knowledge to create a profitable post-war industry. The

Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...

Henry L. Stimson Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and D ...

, felt that since the United States was doing "ninety percent of the work" on the bomb, it would be "better for us to go along for the present without sharing anything more than we could help". In December 1942, Roosevelt agreed to restricting the flow of information to what Britain could use during the war, even if doing so impeded the American project. The Americans stopped sharing any information on heavy water production, the method of electromagnetic separation, the physical or chemical properties of plutonium, the details of atomic bomb design, or the facts about

fast neutron The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...

reactions. This adversely impacted the work of the

Montreal Laboratory The Montreal Laboratory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was established by the National Research Council of Canada during World War II to undertake nuclear research in collaboration with the United Kingdom, and to absorb some of the scientists and ...

, the joint British and Canadian project that was investigating

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

design. In retaliation, the British stopped sending scientists to America, slowing the pace of work there, which had relied on British scientists. The Americans then ceased all information sharing. Hanford Site Selection Team

The Tube Alloys Directorate considered whether Britain could produce a bomb without American help. A gaseous diffusion plant to produce 1 kg of

weapons-grade Weapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon or has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nucle ...

uranium per day was estimated to cost up to £3 million in research and development, and anything up to £50 million to build in wartime Britain. A nuclear reactor to produce 1 kg of plutonium per day would have to be built in Canada. It would take up to five years to build and cost £5 million. The project would also require facilities for producing the required heavy water for the reactor costing between £5 million and £10 million, and for producing uranium metal, which would cost another £1.5 million. The project would need overwhelming priority, as it was estimated to require 20,000 workers, many of them highly skilled, 500,000 tons of steel, and 500,000 kW of electricity. Disruption to other wartime projects would be inevitable, and it was unlikely to be ready in time to affect the outcome of the war in Europe. The unanimous response was that before embarking on this, another effort should be made to obtain American co-operation. By March 1943 Bush and Conant had decided that British help would benefit some areas of the Manhattan Project. In particular, it could benefit enough from assistance from Chadwick and one or two other British scientists to warrant the risk of revealing weapon design secrets. Bush, Conant and Groves wanted Chadwick and Peierls to discuss bomb design with

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

, and the construction company Kellogg wanted British comments on the design of the gaseous diffusion plant it was building.

Negotiations

Churchill took up the matter with Roosevelt when they met at the Washington Conference on 25 May 1943. A meeting was arranged that afternoon between Cherwell and Bush in Hopkins's office in the White House, with Hopkins looking on. Both stated their respective positions, and Cherwell explained that Britain's post-war interest was in nuclear weapons, and not commercial opportunities. Hopkins reported back to Roosevelt, and Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that information interchange should be reviewed, and that the atomic bomb project should be a joint one. Hopkins sent Churchill a telegram confirming this on 17 June, but American policy did not change, largely because Roosevelt did not inform Bush when they next met on 24 June. When Churchill pressed for action in a telegram on 9 July, Hopkins counselled Roosevelt that "you made a firm commitment to Churchill in regard to this when he was here and there is nothing to do but go through with it." Bush was in London on 15 July 1943 to attend a meeting of the British

War Cabinet A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senior ...

's Anti-U-Boat Committee. Sir

Stafford Cripps Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in 1931, and was one of a handful of La ...

took him to see Churchill who told Bush that the President had given him his word of honour on full co-operation, and that he was incensed at obstruction by American bureaucrats. Bush suggested that he take up the matter with Stimson, who was also in London. Churchill did so on 17 July, and Stimson promised to submit the matter to Roosevelt. On 20 July, Roosevelt wrote to Bush with instructions to "renew, in an inclusive manner, the full exchange with the British Government regarding Tube Alloys", but since Bush was in London, he did not see this letter for another ten days. Stimson, Bush and Stimson's special assistant,

Harvey Bundy Harvey Hollister Bundy Sr. (March 30, 1888 – October 7, 1963) was an American attorney who served as a special assistant to the Secretary of War during World War II. He was the father of William Bundy and McGeorge Bundy, who both served at hig ...

, met Churchill, Cherwell and Anderson at

10 Downing Street 10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...

in London on 22 July. None of them was aware that Roosevelt had already made his decision. Stimson had just finished a series of arguments with the British about the need for an

invasion of France France has been invaded on numerous occasions, by foreign powers or rival French governments; there have also been unimplemented invasion plans. * the 1746 War of the Austrian Succession, Austria-Italian forces supported by the British navy attemp ...

. He was reluctant to appear to disagree with them about everything, and, unlike Bush, sensitive to insinuations that Britain was being unfairly treated. He spoke in conciliatory terms about the need for good post-war relations between the two countries. For his part, Churchill disavowed interest in the commercial applications of nuclear technology. The reason for British concern about the post-war co-operation, they explained, was not commercial concerns, but so that Britain would have nuclear weapons after the war. Bush then proposed a five-point plan, which Stimson promised to put before the president for approval. Anderson drafted an agreement for full interchange, which Churchill re-worded "in more majestic language". Anderson feared that Groves might tell Stimson and Bush that "like all Americans who come to our misty island, they have been taken in by our hypocritical cunning and carried away by our brilliant Prime Minister". When Conant found out about the agreement, he expressed the opinion that he would feel more at home on the staff of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', a newspaper renowned for its anti-British views. Anderson arrived in Washington with the draft on 5 August, and went over it with Conant and Bush. From the American point of view, nothing made it into the final draft that contradicted the existing policy on interchange of information. Anderson extracted one important concession: the creation of the Combined Policy Committee to oversee the joint project with representation from the United States, Britain and Canada. Conant's objections to Anderson's proposed arrangements for information interchange were met by assigning the task to the Combined Policy Committee. Stimson,

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

George Marshall George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry ...

and

Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...

William R. Purnell Rear Admiral William Reynolds Purnell (6 September 1886 – 3 March 1955) was an officer in the United States Navy who served in World War I and World War II. A 1908 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he captained destroyers during Wo ...

reviewed the document and made minor changes, and it was then sent to the British Embassy for approval.

Agreement

American and Allied leaders at international conferences - NARA - 292626

A speedy drafting process was required because Roosevelt, Churchill and their political and military advisors converged for the Quadrant Conference at the

Citadelle of Quebec The Citadelle of Quebec (french: Citadelle de Québec), also known as ''La Citadelle'', is an active military installation and the secondary official residence of both the Canadian monarch and the governor general of Canada. It is located atop Cap ...

on 17 August, hosted by the

Prime Minister of Canada The prime minister of Canada (french: premier ministre du Canada, link=no) is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the Confidence and supply, confidence of a majority the elected Hou ...

, Mackenzie King. Most of the discussions were about the invasion of France. Although the Quebec Agreement was a bilateral one to which Canada was not a signatory, the British felt that Canada's contribution to Tube Alloys was significant enough that high-level representation was appropriate. King was therefore asked to nominate a Canadian member of the Combined Policy Committee, and he selected

C. D. Howe Clarence Decatur Howe, (15 January 1886 – 31 December 1960) was an American-born Canadian engineer, businessman and Liberal Party politician. Howe served as a cabinet minister in the governments of prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie ...

, the Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply. Stimson, Bush and Conant would be the American members, while

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

Sir

John Dill Sir John Greer Dill, (25 December 1881 – 4 November 1944) was a senior British Army officer with service in both the First World War and the Second World War. From May 1940 to December 1941 he was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS ...

and Colonel J. J. Llewellin would be the British members. On 19 August Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Quebec Agreement, which was typed on four pages of Citadelle notepaper, and formally titled "Articles of Agreement governing collaboration between the authorities of the USA and UK in the matter of Tube Alloys". The United Kingdom and the United States agreed that "it is vital to our common safety in the present War to bring the Tube Alloys project to fruition at the earliest moment", and that this was best accomplished by pooling their resources. The Quebec Agreement stipulated that: # The US and UK would pool their resources to develop nuclear weapons with a free exchange of information; # Neither country would use them against the other; # Neither country would use them against other countries without consent; # Neither country would pass information about them to other countries without consent; # That "in view of the heavy burden of production falling, upon the United States", the President might limit post-war British commercial or industrial uses of atomic energy. The only part of the Quebec Agreement that troubled Stimson was the requirement for mutual consent before atomic bombs could be used. Had Congress known about it, they would never have supported it. The American veto over post-war British commercial and industrial uses made it clear that Britain was the junior partner in the Grand Alliance. Churchill in particular considered the Quebec Agreement to be the best deal he could have struck under the circumstances, and the restrictions were the price he had to pay to obtain the technical information needed for a successful post-war nuclear weapons project.

Margaret Gowing Margaret Mary Gowing (), (26 April 1921 – 7 November 1998) was an English historian. She was involved with the production of several volumes of the officially sponsored ''History of the Second World War'', but was better known for her books ...

noted that the "idea of the independent deterrent was already well entrenched." The Quebec Agreement was a secret agreement. Its terms were known to but a few insiders, and its very existence was not revealed to the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

. The

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) was a United States congressional committee that was tasked with exclusive jurisdiction over "all bills, resolutions, and other matters" related to civilian and military aspects of nuclear power from 1946 ...

was given an oral summary on 12 May 1947. On 12 February 1951, Churchill wrote to President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

for permission to publish it, but Truman declined. Churchill therefore omitted it from his memoir, ''

Closing the Ring ''Closing the Ring'' is a 2007 romantic drama film directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton, Stephen Amell, Neve Campbell, Pete Postlethwaite, and Brenda Fricker. It was the final fil ...

'' (1951). It remained a secret until Churchill read it out in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

on 5 April 1954. However, on 4 September 1943 the Soviet

atomic spy Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold W ...

Ursula Kuczynski Ursula Kuczynski (15 May 1907 – 7 July 2000), also known as Ruth Werner, Ursula Beurton and Ursula Hamburger, was a German Communist activist who spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s, most famously as the handler of nuclear sc ...

("Sonia") reported details of the agreement to the

GRU The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...

in Moscow, which she had probably obtained from Fuchs.

Implementation

Even before the Quebec Agreement was signed, Akers had already cabled London with instructions that Chadwick, Peierls, Oliphant and Simon should leave immediately for North America. They arrived on 19 August, the day it was signed, expecting to be able to talk to American scientists, but were unable to do so. Two weeks passed before American officials learned of the contents of the Quebec Agreement. Bush told Akers that his action was premature, and that the Combined Policy Committee would first have to agree on the rules governing the employment of British scientists. With nothing to do, the scientists returned to the UK. Groves briefed the OSRD

S-1 Executive Committee The S-1 Executive Committee laid the groundwork for the Manhattan Project by initiating and coordinating the early research efforts in the United States, and liaising with the Tube Alloys Project in Britain. In the wake of the discovery of nucl ...

, which had replaced the S-1 Committee on 19 June 1942, at a special meeting on 10 September 1943. The text of the Quebec Agreement was vague in places, with loopholes that Groves could exploit to enforce compartmentalisation. Negotiations on the terms of technical interchange dragged on until December 1943. The new procedures went into effect on 14 December with the approval of the Military Policy Committee (which governed the Manhattan Project) and the Combined Policy Committee. By this time British scientists had already commenced working in the United States. Chadwick, Groves and Tolman

Over the next two years, the Combined Policy Committee met only eight times. The first occasion was on the afternoon of 8 September 1943; Stimson discovered that he was the chairman only that morning. This first meeting established a Technical Subcommittee chaired by American

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Wilhelm D. Styer. The Americans did not want Akers on the Technical Subcommittee due to his ICI background, so Llewellin nominated Chadwick, whom he also wanted to be Head of the British Mission to the Manhattan Project. The other members of the Technical Committee were Richard C. Tolman, who was Groves's scientific advisor, and C. J. Mackenzie, the president of the Canadian

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

. It was agreed that the Technical Committee could act without consulting the Combined Policy Committee whenever its decision was unanimous. It held its first meeting at

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

on 10 September 1943. There remained the issue of co-operation between the Manhattan Project's

Metallurgical Laboratory The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...

in Chicago and the Montreal Laboratory. At the Combined Policy Committee meeting on 17 February 1944, Chadwick pressed for resources to build a nuclear reactor at what is now known as the

Chalk River Laboratories Chalk River Laboratories (french: Laboratoires de Chalk River; also known as CRL, Chalk River Labs and formerly Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, CRNL) is a Canadian nuclear research facility in Deep River, about north-west of Ottawa. CRL is a ...

. Britain and Canada agreed to pay the cost of this project, but the United States had to supply the heavy water. Because it was unlikely to have any impact on the war, Conant in particular was cool about the proposal, but heavy water reactors were still of great interest. Groves was willing to support the effort and supply the heavy water required, but with certain restrictions. The Montreal Laboratory would have access to data from the Metallurgical Laboratory's research reactors at Argonne and the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, but not from the production reactors at the

Hanford Site The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW a ...

; nor would they be given any information about the chemistry of plutonium, or of methods for separating it from other elements. This arrangement was formally approved by the Combined Policy Committee meeting on 19 September 1944. Chadwick supported the British contribution to the Manhattan Project to the fullest extent, abandoning any hopes of a British project during the war. With Churchill's backing, he attempted to ensure that every request from Groves for assistance was honoured. While the pace of research eased as the war entered its final phase, scientists were still in great demand, and it fell to Anderson, Cherwell and Sir Edward Appleton, the

Permanent Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...

of the

Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, abbreviated DSIR was the name of several British Empire organisations founded after the 1923 Imperial Conference to foster intra-Empire trade and development. * Department of Scientific and Industria ...

, which was responsible for Tube Alloys, to prise them away from the wartime projects in which they were invariably engaged. A British Mission led by Akers assisted in the development of gaseous diffusion technology in New York. Another, led by Oliphant, who acted as deputy director at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, assisted with the

electromagnetic separation Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research (e.g. in chemistry where atoms of "marker" n ...

process. As head of the British Mission to the

Los Alamos Laboratory The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and operated by the University of California during World War II. Its mission was to design and build the first atomic bombs. Ro ...

, Chadwick, and later Peierls, led a multinational team of distinguished scientists that included Sir Geoffrey Taylor, James Tuck,

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...

William Penney William George Penney, Baron Penney, (24 June 19093 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London and later the rector of Imperial College London. He had a leading role in the d ...

, Frisch, and Fuchs. Four members of the British Mission became group leaders at Los Alamos. Penney observed the

bombing of Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...

on 9 August 1945 and participated in the

Operation Crossroads Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the ...

nuclear tests in 1946. A major strain on the Agreement came up in 1944, when it was revealed to the United States that the United Kingdom had made a secret agreement with

to share nuclear information with France after the war in exchange for free use of patents related to nuclear reactors filed by French physicist

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French physicist and husband of Irène Joliot-Curie, with whom he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of Induced radioactivity. T ...

and his

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

team. Upon this revelation, the United States and Canada objected, stating that the Halban agreement violated the terms of the Quebec Agreement, namely the section about third-party information-sharing without prior mutual consent. The United Kingdom broke its obligations to France in order to satisfy the United States. Anderson was extremely concerned about alienating the French, and he and the

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

Anthony Eden Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957. Achieving rapid promo ...

, suggested that the French be offered an undertaking that France would subsequently be included in the Manhattan Project, but Churchill did not agree, and remained adamantly opposed to any disclosures to France or the Soviet Union. After the war, the French government repudiated the Halban agreement. The issue of patent rights was a complex one, and attempts to negotiate deals between Britain and the United States in 1942, and between Britain and Canada in 1943, had failed. After the Quebec Agreement was signed, British and American experts sat down together again and hammered out an agreement, which was endorsed by the Combined Policy Committee in September 1944. This agreement, which also covered Canada, was

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

to the signing of the Quebec Agreement in August 1943, but owing to necessary secrecy, was not finalised until 1956, and covered all patents held in November 1955. Each of the three countries agreed to transfer to the others any rights it held in the others' countries, and waive any claims for compensation against them. Llewellin returned to the United Kingdom at the end of 1943 and was replaced on the committee by Sir

Ronald Ian Campbell Sir Ronald Ian Campbell (7 June 1890 – 22 April 1983) was a British diplomat. Campbell was the second son of Sir Guy Campbell, 3rd Baronet (see Campbell baronets), and Nina, daughter of Frederick Lehmann. He was educated at Eton and graduat ...

, the deputy head of the British Mission to the United States, who in turn was replaced by the British Ambassador to the United States,

Lord Halifax Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 19 ...

, in early 1945. Dill died in Washington on 4 November 1944, and was replaced both as Chief of the

British Joint Staff Mission British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and as a member of the Combined Policy Committee by Field Marshal Sir

Henry Maitland Wilson Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, (5 September 1881 – 31 December 1964), also known as Jumbo Wilson, was a senior British Army officer of the 20th century. He saw active service in the Second Boer War and then during the ...

. It was therefore Wilson who, on 4 July 1945, under the clause of the Quebec Agreement that specified that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without mutual consent, agreed that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan would be recorded as a decision of the Combined Policy Committee.

Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire

In September 1944, a second wartime conference was held in Quebec known as the Octagon Conference. In the wake of a string of Allied victories, thoughts turned to post-war planning. Afterwards, Roosevelt and Churchill spent some time together at Roosevelt's

Springwood estate The Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site preserves the Springwood estate in Hyde Park, New York. Springwood was the birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Th ...

Hyde Park, New York Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland. Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Frankl ...

. They discussed post-war collaboration on nuclear weapons, and on 19 September signed the Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire, detailing the agreement resulting from what they discussed. Most of this dealt with Bohr's thoughts on international control, but it also provided that " ll collaboration between the United States and the British Government in developing Tube Alloys for military and commercial purposes should continue after the defeat of Japan unless and until terminated by joint agreement." Of Roosevelt's advisors, only Hopkins and Admiral

William D. Leahy William Daniel Leahy () (May 6, 1875 – July 20, 1959) was an American naval officer who served as the most senior United States military officer on active duty during World War II. He held multiple titles and was at the center of all major ...

knew of this secret wartime agreement, and Leahy, possibly because he never believed that the atomic bomb would work, and was therefore perhaps not paying much attention, had only a muddled recollection of what had been said. When Wilson raised the Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire in a Combined Policy Committee meeting in June 1945, the American copy could not be found. The British sent Stimson a photocopy on 18 July. Even then, Groves questioned the document's authenticity until the American copy was located many years later in the papers of Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, Jr., Roosevelt's naval aide, apparently misfiled in Roosevelt's Hyde Park papers by someone unaware of what Tube Alloys was, and who thought it had something to do with naval guns or boiler tubes.

End of the Quebec Agreement

Truman, who had succeeded Roosevelt on the latter's death on 12 April 1945,

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

, who had replaced Churchill as prime minister in July 1945, Anderson and

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

James F. Byrnes James Francis Byrnes ( ; May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, ...

conferred while on a boat cruise on the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

, and agreed to revise the Quebec Agreement, with a view to replacing it with a looser form of co-operation on nuclear matters between the three governments. Groves, Secretary of War

Robert P. Patterson Robert Porter Patterson Sr. (February 12, 1891 – January 22, 1952) was an American judge who served as United States Under Secretary of War, Under Secretary of War under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and US Secretary of War, U.S. Secretary of ...

and Patterson's advisor

George L. Harrison George Leslie Harrison (January 26, 1887 – March 5, 1958) was an American banker, insurance executive and advisor to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson during World War II. Early life and education Harrison was born in San Francisco, California o ...

met with a British delegation consisting of Anderson, Wilson,

Malcolm MacDonald Malcolm Ian Macdonald (born 7 January 1950) is an English former professional footballer, manager and media figure. Nicknamed 'Supermac', Macdonald was a quick, powerfully built prolific goalscorer. He played for Fulham, Luton Town, Newcastle U ...

, the High Commissioner to Canada,

Roger Makins Roger Mellor Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield, (3 February 1904 – 9 November 1996), was a British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1953 to 1956. Background and early life Makins was the son of Brigadier-General S ...

from the British Embassy in Washington, and Denis Rickett, Anderson's assistant, on 15 November 1945 to draw up a communiqué. They agreed to retain the Combined Policy Committee. The Quebec Agreement's requirement for "mutual consent" before using nuclear weapons was replaced with one for "prior consultation", and there was to be "full and effective cooperation in the field of atomic energy", but in the longer Memorandum of Intention, signed by Groves and Anderson, this was only "in the field of basic scientific research". Patterson took the communiqué to the White House, where Truman and Attlee signed it on 16 November 1945. A draft agreement was approved by the Combined Policy Committee on 4 December 1945 as the basis for the revocation of the Quebec Agreement. TrumanAttleeKing1945

The next meeting of the Combined Policy Committee on 15 April 1946 produced no accord on collaboration, and resulted in an exchange of cables between Truman and Attlee. Truman cabled on 20 April that he did not see the communiqué he had signed as obligating the United States to assist Britain in designing, constructing and operating an atomic energy plant. Attlee's response on 6 June 1946 "did not mince words nor conceal his displeasure behind the nuances of diplomatic language." At issue was not just technical co-operation, which was fast disappearing, but the allocation of uranium ore. During the war this was of little concern, as Britain had not needed any ore, so all the production of the Congo mines and all the ore seized by the

Alsos Mission The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was on the German nuclear energy pro ...

had gone to the United States, but now it was also required by the British atomic project. Chadwick and Groves reached an agreement by which ore would be shared equally. The defection of

Igor Gouzenko Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (russian: Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко ; January 26, 1919 – June 25, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the GRU (Main Intelligence Direc ...

and the resulting espionage conviction of

Alan Nunn May Alan Nunn May (sometimes Allan) (2 May 1911 – 12 January 2003) was a British physicist and a confessed and convicted Soviet spy who supplied secrets of British and American atomic research to the Soviet Union during World War II. Early li ...

, a British physicist who had worked at the Montreal Laboratory, made it politically impossible for US officials to exchange information with the UK. Congress, unaware of the Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire because of the loss of the American copy, enacted the

. Signed by Truman on 1 August 1946, and in effect from midnight on 1 January 1947, this law ended technical co-operation. Its control of "restricted data" prevented the United States' allies from receiving any information. The remaining scientists were denied access to papers that they had written just days before. The McMahon Act fuelled resentment from British scientists and officials alike, and led directly to the British decision in January 1947 to develop its own nuclear weapons. In the United States, there was a furore over the British veto over the use of nuclear weapons when the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was informed of the Quebec Agreement (but not the November 1945 agreement) on 12 May 1947, resulting in intense pressure on Truman to drop the provision. On 7 January 1948, Bush, James Fisk, Cockcroft and Mackenzie concluded an agreement known as the '' modus vivendi'', that allowed for limited sharing of technical information between the United States, Britain and Canada, which officially repealed the Quebec Agreement. Like the Quebec Agreement it replaced, the ''modus vivendi'' was classified "Top Secret". As the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

set in, enthusiasm in the United States for an alliance with Britain cooled as well. A September 1949 poll found that 72 per cent of Americans agreed that the United States should not "share our atomic energy secrets with England". The reputation of the British was further tarnished by the 1950 revelation that Fuchs was a Soviet atomic spy. British wartime participation in the Manhattan Project provided a substantial body of expertise that was crucial to the success of

High Explosive Research High Explosive Research (HER) was the British project to develop atomic bombs independently after the Second World War. This decision was taken by a cabinet sub-committee on 8 January 1947, in response to apprehension of an American retur ...

, the United Kingdom's post-war nuclear weapons programme, although it was not without important gaps, such as in the field of plutonium metallurgy. The development of the independent British nuclear deterrent led to the McMahon Act being amended in 1958, and to a resumption of the nuclear

Special Relationship The Special Relationship is a term that is often used to describe the politics, political, social, diplomacy, diplomatic, culture, cultural, economics, economic, law, legal, Biophysical environment, environmental, religion, religious, military ...

between America and Britain under the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement.

Footnotes

Notes

References

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External links

Quebec Agreement on Yale Law School site

Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire on US State Department site
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