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Manhattan Project

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    1/25/2022

    Tularosa Downwinders: a 75 Year Wait for Justice

    Residents of New Mexico's Tularosa basin received no advance warning of the 1945 atomic bomb tests nor of the risks to their health. They've been excluded from relief legislation that has benefitted residents near the Nevada test sites and workers in uranium mines. 

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    9/15/2021

    On the Eve of Destruction: Breaking the Double-Bind of the Nuclear Arms Race

    by Richard Rhodes

    Politicians and defense contractors who wanted American nuclear supremacy won out over scientists seeking international effort to contain the extinction-level threat posed by thermonuclear weapons, even to the point of denying the planet-destroying power of the H-bomb. 

  • SOURCE: Associated Press
    9/2/2020

    Cancer Cases Likely in Those Exposed to New Mexico Atomic Test

    National Cancer Institute findings suggest that it is likely that some people exposed to fallout from the Trinity atomic bomb tests got cancer as a result. However, the incomplete data available make it unclear if the findings will help advance legislation to compensate "downwinders" for health damage.   

  • 8/16/2020

    Was there a Third A-Bomb? A Fourth? A Fifth?

    by Don Farrell

    Japan's surrender makes the question a matter of speculation, but the history of military facilties built on Tinian in the Mariana Islands suggests that American military leadership was preparing to assemble many more atomic bombs should the Pacific war have continued. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    7/15/2020

    ‘Now I Am Become Death’: The Legacy of the First Nuclear Bomb Test

    “They took some effort” to protect the public, Science Historian Alex Wellerstein said. “Would we consider it adequate today? No, not at all. It’s not considered adequate to set off a nuclear bomb, not tell anyone about it and set up a pregnant scientist in a motel with a Geiger counter to monitor radiation.”

  • SOURCE: Knoxville News
    7-1-13

    Manhattan Project park clears hurdle

    The campaign to create a national park dedicated to the once-top-secret Manhattan Project is moving through Congress, but supporters aren’t ready to declare victory just yet.“It is by no means a fait accompli,” says Nancy Tinker, senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.Still it’s the closest the park has come yet to being a done deal.The U.S. House approved in June the $552.1 billion defense authorization bill, which included funds to establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which would include sites in Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash....

  • SOURCE: LA Times
    6-7-13

    Stephanie Meeks: Preserving the History of the Manhattan Project

    Stephanie Meeks is the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.The Manhattan Project, the secret research mission to develop an atomic weapon ahead of Germany and bring an end to World War II, was one of the 20th century's most ambitious feats of science and engineering. And one of its darkest moments.In many respects, the Manhattan Project ushered in the modern era. The creation and use of these early weapons of mass destruction raised profound ethical questions, which remain just as challenging and urgent today as in 1945. As a nation, we have a responsibility to grapple openly and objectively with the Manhattan Project's complex legacy.To do that, we need a place for reflection. Legislation before Congress would establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, an assembly of three locations central to the development of the atomic bomb: Hanford, Wash., site of the first full-scale nuclear reactor; Oak Ridge, Tenn., home to the first uranium enrichment plant; and the laboratory and related sites at Los Alamos, N.M....

  • SOURCE: FoxNews
    03-07-13

    Nathan Safferstein, counterintelligence agent on World War II Manhattan Project, dies in NYC

    Nathan Safferstein, a counterintelligence agent on the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II, died Tuesday night at his home in the Bronx after a long illness, his family said. He was 92. The genial native of Bridgeport, Conn., was barely 21 when circumstances suddenly propelled him from his job as a supermarket manager into the stealth world of a special agent....  

  • SOURCE: WSJ
    3-7-13

    Manhattan Project agent Safferstein dies

    NEW YORK — Nathan Safferstein, a counterintelligence agent on the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II, has died after a long illness. He was 92.He died Tuesday night at his home in the Bronx, his family said.The genial native of Bridgeport, Conn., was barely 21 when circumstances suddenly propelled him from his job as a supermarket manager into the stealth world of a special agent.Wartime security of the atomic bomb project being paramount, he eavesdropped on phone calls of scientists and engineers in Los Alamos, N.M., to make sure no secrets were leaked, and delivered bomb-making uranium and top-secret messages. He also scrawled his signature on the first A-bomb, called "Little Boy," that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945....