Smyth Report
The Smyth Report treats the American nuclear weapons project under the title "Atomic Energy for Military Purposes" as the official report of the US government .
The report, prepared by Henry De Wolf Smyth at the suggestion of Leslie R. Groves from the spring of 1944 onwards , deals exhaustively with the technical principles of American nuclear weapons research. In addition to the construction history of the atomic bombs, the organizational structure of the Manhattan project, the individual work progress, the historical development of nuclear technology and its physical basis are discussed. On the instructions of the American President Harry Truman , the publication of the Smyth Report was released for distribution on the radio from August 11, 1945 at 9 p.m. and for publication in the newspapers from August 12, 1945. It has about 200 pages and was published in eight editions by the publishing house Princeton University Press until 1948, in addition to the editions of the American and British governments . After book reviews in newspapers such as the New York Times , New Yorker , Nation or The Republic , the first edition of 60,000 copies from Princeton University Press was sold out within a day; the publisher had this issue within three weeks of receipt, despite wartime restrictions such as a lack of paper of the manuscript in September 1945. In October 1945 the report was republished in a special issue of Reviews of Modern Physics . The revealing report was in stark contrast to the strict confidentiality policy of the US authorities. Safety officer Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer , Ernest O. Lawrence and others reviewed the Smyth report before it was published to ensure that it did not contain any safety-critical information that would provide guidance on how to build an atomic bomb.
literature
- Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government , by Henry De Wolf Smyth , 1945 ( online at atomicarchive.com, excerpts from nuclearweaponarchive.org, all in English)
- The "Smyth Report" by Henry D. Smyth from pp. 173-190, The Publishing History of the Smyth Report by Datus C. Smith, pp. 191-203, The "Smyth Report:" A descriptive check list by Earle L. Coleman, pp. 204-218 , Historical Background on Publication in The Princeton University Library Chronicle , Volume 37, Spring 1976, No. 3, on libweb5.princeton.edu, viewed December 13, 2009 (PDF, English; 14.3 MB )
swell
- The Uranium Machine , page 194, author Mark Walker, 1992
Web links
- Smyth Report , scanned version in the Internet Archive (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Excerpt from a publication by Princeton University Press, on press.princeton.edu, viewed December 15, 2009 (PDF, English; 209 kB)
- ↑ The Princeton University Library Chronicle , Volume 37, p. 173 (see literature)
- ↑ One in a Million, An Exhibition of Eleven Landmark Acquisitions of the University of Illinois ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 6/7, on illinois.edu, accessed December 15, 2009 (PDF)
- ↑ The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Background information on the Smyth report in the US Department of Energy on doe.gov, as viewed December 12, 2009 (English)
