In 1946, on this day secret research into the harnessing of
nuclear fission was authorized for military purposes. Manhattan
Project Part 1 - The Einstein-Szilard Letter by Eric Lipps &
EdExecutive action was prompted by a letter of concern from
those ex-Nazi scientists who had been liberated by American
forces during the fall of Germany. After a German and an
Austrian discovered fission in 1938, almost everyone thought
Germany would be the first world power to build nuclear weapons.
Yet an Allied mission code-named Alsos, following on the heels
of troops liberating Europe, found only a primitive program. No
working nuclear reactor. No large quantities of separated
Uranium-235, a basic bomb ingredient. No credible bomb design.
"Sometimes we wondered if our government had not spent more
money on our intelligence mission than the Germans spent on
their whole project," wrote Alsos scientific director Samuel
Goudsmit. Yet the danger of Soviet scientists developing an
atomic bomb based on the newly-discovered pheno