The Smyth Report (officially ''Atomic Energy for Military Purposes'') is the common name of an administrative history written by American
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
Henry DeWolf Smyth
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth (; May 1, 1898September 11, 1986) was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of Nuclear power, nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Proj ...
about the
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 ...
, the
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
effort to develop
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 ...
s 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 ...
. The subtitle of the report is ''A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes''. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and 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 onl ...
on August 6 and 9.
Smyth was commissioned to write the report by
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 ...
Leslie R. Groves, Jr.
Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project ...
, the director of the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report was the first official account of the development of the atomic bombs and the basic physical processes behind them. It also served as an indication as to what information was
declassified
Declassification is the process of ceasing a protective classification, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classified as secret, and event ...
; anything in the Smyth Report could be discussed openly. For this reason, the Smyth Report focused heavily on information, such as basic
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
, which was either already widely known in the scientific community or easily deducible by a competent scientist, and omitted details about
chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
,
metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
, and
ordnance
Ordnance may refer to:
Military and defense
*Materiel in military logistics, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment.
**The military branch responsible for supplying and developing these items, e.g., the Unit ...
. This would ultimately give a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics.
The Smyth Report sold almost 127,000 copies in its first eight printings, and was on ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' best-seller list from mid-October 1945 until late January 1946. It has been translated into over 40 languages.
Background
Henry D. Smyth
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth (; May 1, 1898September 11, 1986) was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Project, a member o ...
was a professor of physics and chairman of the physics department of
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
from 1935 to 1949. 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 ...
, he was involved in the
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 ...
from early 1941, initially as a member of the
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 ...
’s
Committee on Uranium, and later as an associate director of the
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. In late 1943, the
President of Princeton University
Princeton University, founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, is a private Ivy League research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. The university is led by a president, who is selected by the board of trustees by ballot. The presi ...
,
Harold W. Dodds
Harold Willis Dodds (June 28, 1889 – October 25, 1980) was the fifteenth president of Princeton University from 1933 to 1957.
Early life and education
Dodds was born on June 28, 1889, in Utica, Pennsylvania, the son of a professor of Bibl ...
, began insisting that Smyth work part-time at Princeton, where there was a shortage of physicists because so many of them were engaged in war work. Princeton had commitments to teach army and navy personnel, and he needed physicists like Smyth to meet those commitments. Smyth therefore became a consultant at Chicago, where he was in charge of designing a
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 ...
that used
heavy water as a
neutron moderator
In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, ideally without capturing any, leaving them as thermal neutrons with only minimal (thermal) kinetic energy. These thermal neutrons are immensely mo ...
, and commuted from Princeton, working in Chicago on alternate weeks.
In early 1944, Smyth raised the possibility of producing an unclassified report for the general public on the achievements of the Manhattan Project. The director of the Metallurgical Laboratory,
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 ...
, supported the idea. He arranged a meeting with
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 ...
and one of the senior administrators of the Manhattan Project, who had similar thoughts. Conant took up the matter with the Manhattan Project's director,
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 ...
Leslie R. Groves, Jr.
Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project ...
In April, Smyth received a formal letter from Groves asking him to write such a report. Both the report and the choice of Smyth as its author were approved by the Manhattan Project's governing body, the Military Policy Committee, in May 1944.
The Report was to serve two functions. First, it was to be the public and official U.S. government account of the development of the atomic bombs, outlining the development of the then-secret laboratories and production sites at
Los Alamos, New Mexico
Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labora ...
,
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
, and
Hanford, Washington
Hanford was a small agricultural community in Benton County, Washington, United States. It and White Bluffs, Washington, White Bluffs were depopulated in 1943 in order to make room for the nuclear production facility known as the Hanford Site. The ...
, and the basic physical processes responsible for the functioning of nuclear weapons, in particular
nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radio ...
and the
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 ...
. Second, it served as a reference for other scientists as to what information was declassified—anything said in the Smyth Report could be said freely in open literature. For this reason, the Smyth Report focused heavily on information already available in declassified literature, such as much of the basic
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
used in weapons, which was either already widely known in the scientific community or could have been easily deduced by a competent scientist.
Smyth stated the purpose of the Smyth Report in the Preface:
This contrasted somewhat with what Groves wrote in the foreword:
Writing
![Richard Tolman and Henry D](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Richard_Tolman_and_Henry_D._Smyth.jpg)
Smyth possessed security clearances necessary to visit project sites, access documents and to discuss the work with the research personnel. Groves approved Smyth's request to hire another Princeton physicist, Lincoln G. Smith, as a research assistant. A letter to the Manhattan Project's senior managers,
Kenneth Nichols
Major General Kenneth David Nichols CBE (13 November 1907 – 21 February 2000), also known by Nick, was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb dur ...
,
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 ...
,
Ernest 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 ...
,
Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...
, and
Franklin Matthias
Franklin Thompson Matthias (13 March 1908 – 3 December 1993) was an American civil engineer who directed the construction of the Hanford nuclear site, a key facility of the Manhattan Project during World War II.
A graduate of the University ...
, explained:
Since Smyth still had his commitments at Princeton and Chicago, he could only work on the report part-time. He wrote the report in his office in Princeton's Palmer Laboratory. Bars were installed on the windows of Smyth's office and the one adjacent to it. The hallway door to his office was locked and blocked by a large safe so that the only access was through the adjacent office, where there was an armed guard. The guards worked in eight-hour shifts, and one was present around the clock. When Smyth sent papers to Groves in Washington, D.C., they went by military courier.
Smyth sent an outline and rough draft of the report to Groves for approval in August 1944, followed in February 1945 by drafts of the first twelve chapters, leaving only the final chapter to be completed. Groves and Conant reviewed the drafts, and made several criticisms. They felt that it was too technical for general readers, did not mention the names of enough participants, and dwelt too much on the activities at 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 ...
. Groves was particularly anxious that deserving people be mentioned, as he felt that this would lessen the danger of security breaches. After Smyth made a series of changes in response to this, Groves sent the manuscript to his scientific adviser,
Richard Tolman
Richard Chace Tolman (March 4, 1881 – September 5, 1948) was an American mathematical physicist and physical chemist who made many contributions to statistical mechanics. He also made important contributions to theoretical cosmology in ...
. Tolman was assisted by two physicists who were working in his office at the National Defense Research Committee as technical aides, Paul C. Fine from the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, and
William Shurcliff William Asahel Shurcliff (March 27, 1909 – June 20, 2006) was an American physicist.
Biography
He received his BA cum laude in 1930, a PhD in Physics in 1934, and a degree in Business Administration in 1935, all from Harvard University. In the 1 ...
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 ...
. They had the dual task of editing and censoring the manuscript.
Smyth and Tolman accepted a set of criteria, agreeing that information could be released under the conditions:
Writing to Oppenheimer in April 1945, Smyth noted that
![Dignitaries review the 2nd Armored Division during the Potsdam Conference](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Dignitaries_review_the_2nd_Armored_Division_during_the_Potsdam_Conference.jpg)
Tolman and his assistants finished making their changes in July 1945, and Groves had copies sent out by courier to selected personnel. Each submitted a written report, which was returned with the courier and the manuscript. These were busy people who sometimes only had a few days or even hours to look at the manuscript. Many, but not all, merely signed a statement saying that they were happy with it. Nichols, the commander of the Manhattan District, sent back a detailed review. He had concerns about the amount of credit being given to different people and organizations, and recommended that "full credit be given to H. D. Smyth for preparing it and that the statement be made that the Army has no responsibility for the report except for asking him to do it." Smyth was given credit, but no such statement was issued. To prepare the final draft for the printer, Groves brought typists with the required security clearances to Washington, D.C., from the Manhattan District's headquarters in Oak Ridge.
Because the Manhattan Project was an Allied endeavor, Groves had to obtain permission from the British and American governments to publish the Smyth Report. A meeting was held on August 2, 1945 in the office of 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 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 ...
. Accompanying Stimson were his two assistants,
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 ...
and
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 ...
, and his military aide, Colonel William H. Kyle. Groves, Conant, and Tolman represented the Manhattan Project.
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 ...
, the head of the
British scientific mission to the Manhattan Project, and
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 represented Britain. The meeting went on for two hours, as Groves and Conant sought to reassure Stimson that the report would not give vital secrets away to 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 ...
.
For his part, Chadwick, who had not yet read the manuscript, could not fathom why the Americans wanted to publish such a document. When he did read it, he became quite alarmed. His concerns were addressed in a meeting with Groves and Conant, and he accepted their point of view. "I am now convinced," he wrote, "that the very special circumstances arising from the nature of the project, and of its organization, demand special treatment, and a report of this kind may well be necessary to maintain security of the really essential facts of the project."
Publication
A thousand copies of the report were printed by
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
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 ...
, and deposited in Groves's office in the
New War Department Building in Washington, D.C., where they were kept securely locked away. Final approval was sought from the
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
,
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 ...
, in a meeting 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 August 9, 1945, three days after the
bombing of Hiroshima
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 ...
. Stimson, Harrison, Groves, Conant,
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 ...
, and
Fleet 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 ...
presented their views, and Truman authorized the immediate release of the report. The
War Department War Department may refer to:
* War Department (United Kingdom)
* United States Department of War (1789–1947)
See also
* War Office, a former department of the British Government
* Ministry of defence
* Ministry of War
* Ministry of Defence
* Dep ...
released the thousand copies of the report that had been kept in Groves's office to the media for use by the radio broadcasters with an embargo time of 9:00 pm on August 11, 1945, and for the newspapers of August 12.
![Smyth Report cover Atomic Bombs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Smyth_Report_cover_Atomic_Bombs.jpg)
The original title of the report, before it was published in book form, was ''Nuclear Bombs: A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Nuclear Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940–1945''. The word "nuclear" was changed to "atomic" because while the former was favored by physicists, it was not in common use by the general public at that time. This was the title used on the copyright certificate. The book was copyrighted to Smyth but issued with the statement that "reproduction in whole or in part is authorized and permitted". Groves had the report copyrighted by Smyth in order to prevent someone else from copyrighting it.
Groves was concerned about the security implications of the title, so instead of having "Atomic Bombs" on the cover, it was left blank, and a
rubber stamp
A rubber stamp is an image or pattern that has been carved, molded, laser engraved or vulcanized onto a sheet of rubber. Rubber stamping, also called stamping, is a craft in which some type of ink made of dye or pigment is applied to rubber ...
was made. The intention was for this to be used on each copy before it was distributed. This was done for the copyright deposit copies, but not those given to the press or the public. The lumbering subtitle therefore became the title. A side effect of this was that it became generally known as the "Smyth Report". Over the years, the term "nuclear" gradually gained traction, and by 1960 it had become more common than "atomic".
In mid-1945, Smyth approached Datus C. Smith, the director of
Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
, about the possibility of renting his printing plant to the government during a two-week summer shutdown so that Smyth could produce 5,000 copies of a top secret report. Smith's response was that he found it hard to imagine anyone needing to print 5,000 copies of a top secret report. He found it much easier to imagine delays due to unexpected printing problems, and his workers returning from summer vacation to find themselves locked out of a plant filled with top secret material. Under the circumstances, he felt that he could not risk this.
After the Smyth Report was officially released, Smith immediately offered to publish it. Smyth patiently explained that anyone was free to publish it, but Princeton University Press was only willing to do so on the understanding that this would be "Smyth's edition". Meanwhile, Smyth approached
McGraw-Hill
McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...
about publishing it. The editors at McGraw-Hill found the manuscript dull and somewhat technical for a general audience and suggested a rewrite. Smyth balked at this, as it would have meant going through the censorship process again. James S. Thompson, the president of McGraw-Hill, pointed out the
U.S. Government Printing Office
The United States Government Publishing Office (USGPO or GPO; formerly the United States Government Printing Office) is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States Federal government. The office produces and distributes information ...
would be putting out an edition, probably more cheaply than he could, and there would likely be little profit in a McGraw-Hill edition. Smyth then turned back to Princeton University Press. He had only one condition: that he receive no royalties. Princeton University Press agreed, but added a stipulation of its own: that Groves's approval be secured. Smyth obtained this in a letter dated August 25, 1945.
Princeton University Press received a copy of the typescript lithograph edition with hand corrections from Smyth on August 17, 1945. The
typographer
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...
s had already started work from another copy. Maple Press of
York, Pennsylvania
York ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Yarrick''), known as the White Rose City (after the symbol of the House of York), is the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the south-central region of the state. The populati ...
, was lined up to do the printing. Because of wartime shortages, one of a publisher's biggest worries was finding adequate supplies of paper. Smith approached Manny and Leonard Relles from Central Paper, told them about the Smyth Report and its significance, and asked them if they could deliver of paper to Maple Press in twelve days. They found a
carload of paper on a
siding
Siding may refer to:
* Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house
* Siding (rail)
A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch l ...
in New England and sent it to York, providing enough paper for 30,000 copies, only half what Princeton University Press wanted. The first edition of 30,000 copies was printing when word was received that paper had been found for another 30,000 copies. The presses were held for three hours while the train made its way to a siding in York, where the paper was unloaded and brought to the printing plant by trucks.
There were minor differences between the original text and the version published by Princeton. In the Princeton publication, first and middle names were added instead of the previous use of abbreviations. In response to public concerns about radioactivity, Groves had text added to paragraph 12.18 explaining how the height of the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki reduced
fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
and allowed
fission products
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
to be drawn up into the upper atmosphere. He also had a one-sentence allusion to a
poisoning effect of fission products in the production reactors redacted.
Later editions also incorporated changes. Four typographical errors were found, and the word "
photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always ...
" in paragraph 1.44 aroused so much correspondence from readers who mistakenly believed that it should be "
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 ...
" that it was decided to re-word the paragraph. The British government became concerned that the Smyth Report did not cover the British part in the project, and issued its own 40-page report, which was incorporated into the fifth printing in November 1945 as Appendix 7. A two-page report by the Canadian government was added as Appendix 8.
The Smyth Report was translated into over 40 different languages. In addition to Princeton University Press, it was also published by the Government Printing Office, the ''Infantry Journal'', and
His Majesty's Stationery Office
The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...
, and was reprinted in the October 1945 issue of ''
Reviews of Modern Physics
''Reviews of Modern Physics'' (abbreviated RMP) is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Physical Society. It was established in 1929 and the current editor-in-chief is Michael Thoennessen. The journal publishes re ...
''.
Reception
The first copies were delivered to bookstores on September 10. Many were wary of it, due to its technical nature, and feared that sales would be low. An exception was
Scribner's Bookstores, which placed large early orders. At Oak Ridge, the Manhattan Project's major production site, 8,000 copies were sold through the employee welfare organization. Similar arrangements were made for
Los Alamos and
Richland, Washington
Richland () is a city in Benton County, Washington, United States. It is located in southeastern Washington at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 60,560. Along with the nearby c ...
, which were located in areas where bookstores were scarce.
The Smyth Report was on
''The New York Times'' bestseller list from October 14, 1945, until January 20, 1946. Between 1946 and when the Smyth Report went out of print in 1973, it went through eight printings, and Princeton University Press sold 62,612 paperback and 64,129 hardback copies.
Groves did not intend the Smyth Report to be the last word on the project. It formed an addendum to the ''Manhattan District History'', the official history of the project. This eventually consisted of 35 volumes with 39 appendices or supplements. It was written in the immediate postwar years by the chemists, metallurgists, physicists, and administrators who had worked on the project. Since there were no security restrictions, it covered every aspect of the Manhattan Project, but was itself classified. Most of it was declassified in the 1960s and 1970s and became available to scholars, except for some technical details on the construction of the bombs.
In her 2008
PhD dissertation, Rebecca Schwartz argued that Smyth's academic background and the Smyth Report's security-driven focus on physics at the expense of chemistry, metallurgy, and ordnance promoted a public perception of the Manhattan Project as primarily the achievement of physics and physicists. According to Schwartz, postwar histories and popular writing tended to follow the Smyth Report in this regard, creating a lasting historiographical legacy. "Ever since", wrote Jon Agar, "the atomic bomb has been seen as an achievement of physics." In particular, the prominence given to Einstein's
mass–energy equivalence
In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame, where the two quantities differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicis ...
equation indelibly associated it with the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report, wrote
Robert P. Crease, "more than any other single document made an emblem of atomic energy and weaponry."
Groves felt that:
Russian translation
The Soviet Union, eager to make progress on
its own atomic weapon development and determined to follow the path that the Manhattan Project had found success with, commissioned a Russian translation of ''Atomic Energy for Military Purposes''. It was in typeset form by mid-November 1945, and then was published by the State Railway Transportation Publishing House on January 30, 1946. Some 30,000 copies were printed and it was widely distributed to the many scientists and engineers working in the Soviet effort.
In a number of cases, the Soviets consulted the Smyth Report to see how they might deal with certain obstacles that had arisen in their project. The deletion between the original text and the Princeton version concerning the poisoning effect was soon noticed by the Russian translators, and only served to highlight its importance to the Soviet project.
Letter from Arnold Kramish to H. A. Fidler
September 1948
As pioneering French nuclear weapons scientist Bertrand Goldschmidt
Bertrand Goldschmidt (2 November 1912 – 11 June 2002) was a French chemist. He is considered one of the fathers of the French atomic bomb, which was tested for the first time in 1960 in the nuclear test Gerboise Bleue.
Biography
Bertrand Go ...
later said,
Nonetheless, Goldschmidt believed, just as Chadwick had ultimately believed, that publication of the report was on balance wise, in that not revealing anything about the new weapon would lead to a public hunger for information and resultant leaks and unwarranted disclosures of information.
Not everyone would agree: in 1947, United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President H ...
member Lewis Strauss
Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss ( "straws"; January 31, 1896January 21, 1974) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and naval officer who served two terms on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the second as its chairman. He was a major ...
would call publication of the Smyth Report "a serious breach of security"; and in late 1952, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
would say the Smyth Report had given away too much information, including the exact locations of the atomic materials production plants.
Notes
References
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External links
The Smyth Report fully transcribed and available online
Smyth Report
fully scanned, from Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Russian translation of the Smyth Report
{{Authority control
1945 in the environment
1945 documents
History of the Manhattan Project
Nuclear secrecy
Princeton University Press books
Books about the Manhattan Project