Comments on: Los Alamos and the Smyth Report

By: The price of the Manhattan Project | Restricted Data

The price of the Manhattan Project | Restricted Data — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:07:12 +0000

[...] scientific facts of the atomic bomb, especially the physics, were the most easily declassifiable. As discussed in a previous post (with many nods towards the work of Rebecca Press Schwartz), one of the main reasons the Smyth [...]

By: That Doomsy Time of the Year | Restricted Data

That Doomsy Time of the Year | Restricted Data — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:11:58 +0000

[...] depiction of a nuclear fission chain reaction from the Princeton University Press edition of the Smyth Report. I’ve always really liked this drawing: it is very seriously drawn (no fancy embellishments), [...]

By: Soviet drawings of an American bomb | Restricted Data

Soviet drawings of an American bomb | Restricted Data — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 13:15:25 +0000

[...] details about the weapons themselves, and so on. Why? It’s a legacy, perhaps, of the Smyth Report, Atoms for Peace, and other gestures towards the positive role that nuclear information can play in [...]

By: Alex Wellerstein

Alex Wellerstein — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:44:24 +0000

That is interesting. At least two of those folks — Compton and Spedding — ended up on the postwar Committee on Declassification, which Groves convened in November 1945. Truman ordered no knew info released; Groves was happy to oblige for awhile, since he thought the postwar legislation would be coming soon (and thus it wouldn’t be his problem). By the end of October or so he realized that wasn’t going to happen, and started a real (scientist-run) effort to come up with a real declassification scheme. Anyway, just some little context about why “Washington” was so uninterested in releasing more. Interesting to see Szilard had already formulated his anti-Smyth Report line, which he didn’t really articulate publicly until that September, primarily as a means of criticizing Groves.

By: J B

J B — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:33:29 +0000

Thought this would be of interest to others.

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2012/08/the-a-bombs-had-been-dropped-w.html

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/manhattanproject.pdf

“On this date in 1945, top scientists from the Manhattan Project gathered in Chicago for an important policy discussion, one that was bugging most of them in a big way. What could they say about the super-secret project that developed the first atomic bombs and helped win World War II? Nobody really knew, at least not for sure, outside of what had been released in the Smyth Report and other government-approved statements.”

By: Stan Norris

Stan Norris — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:49:52 +0000

Alex,
There were two reasons for releashing the Smyth Report. You cite the Preface (an informed citizenry) and Groves’ concern with security and secrecy but what the latter did in effect, as I say in my book, “was to establish a baseline of information beyond which those who had worked on the project could not go. Without a clear line of what could and could not be said, the thousands of people who were returning to normal life might divulge too much.” (p. 436)

Later Professor Smthye commented on this, “I have always found it curious that two lines of reasoning quite opposite in the abstract led in practice to the same conclusion.”

By: The End of the Nuclear Age | Restricted Data

The End of the Nuclear Age | Restricted Data — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:51:49 +0000

[...] was what was even plastered across the official government statements in 1945 — the Smyth Report was originally meant to be titled “Atomic Bombs,” as I discussed on Wednesday. An interesting wrinkle is that Smyth himself hated the use of the term [...]