Manhattan Project History

Office for Emergency ManagementOffice of Scientific Research and Development1530 P Street NW.Washington, D. C. Vannevar BushDirector February 25, 1943 Dr. J. R. OppenheimerUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley, California Dear Dr. Oppenheimer: We are addressing this letter to you as the Scientific Director of the special laboratory in New Mexico in order to confirm our many conversations on […]

1. The suggestion that the world should be informed regarding tube alloys, with a view to an international agreement regarding its control and use, is not accepted. The matter should continue to be regarded as of the utmost secrecy; but when a “bomb” is finally available, it might perhaps, after mature consideration, be used against […]

From Los Alamos From Below by Richard Feynman I was working in my office one day, when Bob Wilson came in. I was working—[laughter] what the hell, I’ve got lots funnier yet; what are you laughing at?—Bob Wilson came in and said that he had been funded to do a job that was a secret and he […]

On Wednesday afternoon, 12/2/42, Compton took me over to West Stands to see the crucial experiment on Pile #1. When we got there, the control rod had been pulled out to within 3 inch of the point where K would be 1.0. The rod had been pulled out about 12 inch to reach this point. […]

From Fermi’s Own Story by Enrico Fermi The year was 1939. A world war was about to start. The new possibilities appeared likely to be important, not only for peace, but also for war. A group of physicists in the United States—including Leo Szilard, Walter Zinn, now director of Argonne National Laboratory, Herbert Anderson, and myself—agreed […]

1. General Statement Work to investigate the possibilities of utilizing the atomic energy of uranium for military purposes has been in progress since 1939, and a stage has now been reached when it seems desirable to report progress. We should like to emphasize at the beginning of this report that we entered the project with […]

From “Voices of the Manhattan Project,” 2003 Interview with Jay Wechsler The Ws are pretty far down the alphabet, and I became a little concerned that all the good jobs might disappear. But they finally got to me and I went inside. The person who was interviewing me had a pretty heavy Austrian accent. He asked me […]

The attached detailed report concerns the possibility of constructing a “super-bomb” which utilizes the energy stored in atomic nuclei as a source of energy. The energy liberated in the explosion of such a super-bomb is about the same as that produced by the explosion of 1000 tons of dynamite. This energy is liberated in a […]

From Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics by Edward Teller As 1939 began, I was looking forward to seeing Fermi at the fifth theoretical conference at George Washington University, scheduled for January 19–20. Much to Geo’s [George Gamow’s] and my pleasure, Niels Bohr, who had just arrived from Copenhagen to work for a few weeks […]

OFFICE FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENTOFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT1530 P STREET NW.WASHINGTON, D.C. Vannevar BushDirectorMarch 9, 1942 The President,The White House,Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: On October 9, 1941, Mr. [Henry] Wallace and I presented to you the status of research in this country and Great Britain on a possible powerful explosive. In accordance with […]