Okla-homey
4/24/2007, 07:49 AM
April 24, 1945 Truman is briefed on the "Manhattan Project"
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2157/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz52.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
On this day 62 years ago, President Harry Truman learns the full details of the Manhattan Project, in which scientists are attempting to create the first atomic bomb. The information thrust upon Truman a momentous decision: whether or not to use the world’s first nuclear weapon.
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9954/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz20.png (http://imageshack.us)
Principle Manhattan Project facilities
America’s secret development of the atomic bomb began in 1939 with then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s support. The project was so secret that FDR did not even inform his fourth-term vice president, Harry Truman, that it existed.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7316/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz5.gif (http://imageshack.us)
As an aside, two years earlier when then Senator Truman’s 1943 senatorial committee investigations into war-production expenditures led Truman to seriously question a suspicious and very costly plant in Minneapolis -- which was secretly connected with the Manhattan Project, Truman received a stern phone call from FDR’s secretary of war, Henry Stimson, warning Truman and everyone else on the committee, to STFU and not to inquire further. Truman complied. methinks this sort of thing would not have gone down that way nowadays...but I digress.
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/5664/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz30.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Secretary of War Stimson.
When President Roosevelt died on April 14, 1945, Truman was immediately sworn in and, soon after, was informed by Stimson of a new and terrible weapon being developed by physicists in New Mexico. In his diary that night, Truman noted that he had been informed that the U.S. was “perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the whole world.”
On April 24, Stimson and Leslie Groves, the army Corps of Engineers general in charge of the project, brought Truman a file full of reports and details on the Manhattan Project.
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/839/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzh06.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
MG Leslie Groves. The hard-charging Corps of Engineers general had earned his spurs by supervision of the building of the world's largest office buildiing (the Pentagon) in only about year on a bit of swampland across the Potomac from downtown DC.
Stimson and Groves told Truman that although the U.S. was the only country with the resources to develop the bomb -- eliminating fears that Germany was close to developing the weapon -- but the Soviets could possibly have atomic weapons of their own within four years. This was attributed primarily to the fact there were known communist sympathizers within the large group of scientists working on the project and leaks were practically inevitable.
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/9528/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz29.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
K.U. Fuchs, a expatriot Brit scientist assigned to the Manhattan Project who had volunteered to spy for the Soviets in 1941.
They discussed if, and with which allies, they should share the information and how the new weapon would affect U.S. foreign-policy decisions. Truman authorized the continuation of the project and agreed to form an “interim committee” that would advise the president on using the weapon.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2100/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz4.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Project hierarchy. No one in Congress was included...mainly because all involved acknowledged Congress "couldn't keep a secret."
Although the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Stimson advised Truman that the bomb might be useful in intimidating Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into curtailing post-war communist expansion into Eastern Europe. Truman agreed and said that if the weapon proved feasible “I’ll certainly have a hammer on those [@3!%X] Russians.”
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4904/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz53.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Robert Oppenheimer...chief Manhattan scientist
Meanwhile the war with Japan dragged on and it looked to many as if the Japanese would never surrender. On July 16, the team of scientists at the Alamogordo, New Mexico, research station successfully exploded the first atomic bomb. Truman gave Stimson the handwritten order to “release when ready but not sooner than August 2” on July 31, 1945.
Less than one week later, the first bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and a second was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. The Japanese quickly surrendered. Although other nations have developed atomic weapons and nuclear technology since 1945, Truman remains the only world leader to have ever used an atomic bomb against an enemy.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/4805/insane7zo7yo.jpg
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2157/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz52.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
On this day 62 years ago, President Harry Truman learns the full details of the Manhattan Project, in which scientists are attempting to create the first atomic bomb. The information thrust upon Truman a momentous decision: whether or not to use the world’s first nuclear weapon.
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9954/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz20.png (http://imageshack.us)
Principle Manhattan Project facilities
America’s secret development of the atomic bomb began in 1939 with then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s support. The project was so secret that FDR did not even inform his fourth-term vice president, Harry Truman, that it existed.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7316/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz5.gif (http://imageshack.us)
As an aside, two years earlier when then Senator Truman’s 1943 senatorial committee investigations into war-production expenditures led Truman to seriously question a suspicious and very costly plant in Minneapolis -- which was secretly connected with the Manhattan Project, Truman received a stern phone call from FDR’s secretary of war, Henry Stimson, warning Truman and everyone else on the committee, to STFU and not to inquire further. Truman complied. methinks this sort of thing would not have gone down that way nowadays...but I digress.
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/5664/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz30.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Secretary of War Stimson.
When President Roosevelt died on April 14, 1945, Truman was immediately sworn in and, soon after, was informed by Stimson of a new and terrible weapon being developed by physicists in New Mexico. In his diary that night, Truman noted that he had been informed that the U.S. was “perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the whole world.”
On April 24, Stimson and Leslie Groves, the army Corps of Engineers general in charge of the project, brought Truman a file full of reports and details on the Manhattan Project.
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/839/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzh06.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
MG Leslie Groves. The hard-charging Corps of Engineers general had earned his spurs by supervision of the building of the world's largest office buildiing (the Pentagon) in only about year on a bit of swampland across the Potomac from downtown DC.
Stimson and Groves told Truman that although the U.S. was the only country with the resources to develop the bomb -- eliminating fears that Germany was close to developing the weapon -- but the Soviets could possibly have atomic weapons of their own within four years. This was attributed primarily to the fact there were known communist sympathizers within the large group of scientists working on the project and leaks were practically inevitable.
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/9528/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz29.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
K.U. Fuchs, a expatriot Brit scientist assigned to the Manhattan Project who had volunteered to spy for the Soviets in 1941.
They discussed if, and with which allies, they should share the information and how the new weapon would affect U.S. foreign-policy decisions. Truman authorized the continuation of the project and agreed to form an “interim committee” that would advise the president on using the weapon.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2100/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz4.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Project hierarchy. No one in Congress was included...mainly because all involved acknowledged Congress "couldn't keep a secret."
Although the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Stimson advised Truman that the bomb might be useful in intimidating Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into curtailing post-war communist expansion into Eastern Europe. Truman agreed and said that if the weapon proved feasible “I’ll certainly have a hammer on those [@3!%X] Russians.”
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4904/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz53.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Robert Oppenheimer...chief Manhattan scientist
Meanwhile the war with Japan dragged on and it looked to many as if the Japanese would never surrender. On July 16, the team of scientists at the Alamogordo, New Mexico, research station successfully exploded the first atomic bomb. Truman gave Stimson the handwritten order to “release when ready but not sooner than August 2” on July 31, 1945.
Less than one week later, the first bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and a second was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. The Japanese quickly surrendered. Although other nations have developed atomic weapons and nuclear technology since 1945, Truman remains the only world leader to have ever used an atomic bomb against an enemy.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/4805/insane7zo7yo.jpg