The Manhattan Project

Paper Summary:

The paper describes the United States' rush to build an atomic bomb during World War II. The paper details the bomb's inception and shows how it was used on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki, forcing Japan to surrender. The paper explains that the long-term push for the bomb set the United States on a course of creating and stockpiling nuclear weapons that shaped the nature of the Cold War. The paper discusses how although the atomic bomb ended World War II, the controversy surrounding its use continues because of the enormous consequences of using nuclear warfare.

From the Paper:

"The Los Alamos site was chosen for two main reasons: First, a special weapons laboratory was needed to put the bomb together. Second, the massive security regulations were becoming a problem, with the compartmentalization of tasks so that the people involved with the various aspects of the Manhattan Project would know only enough to carry out their own jobs effectively. This approach worked well and was one reason why no information ever reached German hands. However, at the scientific level, such compartmentalization was a problem."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Alperovitz, Gar. "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess." Foreign Policy (Summer 1995), 15-34.The author discusses the controversy about the Hiroshima bomb at the time of a Smithsonian exhibit on the controversy. That exhibit brought out many of the old arguments about whether or not the bomb should have been dropped, and the author discusses the views of various historians on that subject. Some state that the bomb was not needed to end the war, while others recognize that many believed it was needed and so did what they felt was necessary. The issue is likely to continue to be controversial.
• Atkins, Stephen E. Historical Encyclopedia of Atomic Energy. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000.The author analyzes many topics related to the use of atomic energy and atomic research, with the Manhattan Project being a central issue addressed by the author. This book offers a lot of information on the development of theories that would apply to the atomic bomb and to the development of nuclear energy. Various scientists who contributed are profiled as well. The Manhattan Project has a section, as do many of the individuals who worked on the project. The author includes a good deal of detail about the project itself and the various sites used for it.
• Cohen, Daniel. The Manhattan Project. Brookfield, Connecticut: The Millbrook Press, 1999.The author provides a good narrative about the Manhattan Project, the personnel involved, and the various actions taken in furtherance of the project. The narrative is novelistic rather than the sort of factual description that would be seen in most non-fiction accounts, but the author makes the situation clear and makes the people involved come alive. The information matches other accounts and so can be considered accurate. The book gives a good overview of the Manhattan Project and how it came about as well as what it achieved.
• "The Costs of the Manhattan Project." The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project (2006). http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/MANHATTN.HTM.This website is one of several that reports on the costs as reported by the government. The data covers the various aspects of the project, including pay for workers, costs of the administration of the project, materials, the building of the various sites involved, testing, and so on. The site shows the total costs and also divides them per bomb for the first four detonated, the two test bombs and the two used in Japan. Some of the extra costs are also indicated, though they are not always included in the total.
• Gosling, F.G. The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department of Energy, January 1999. http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/mp/index.shtml.This site provides documentation on the Manhattan Project from government sources. This site offers an official account of the building of the bomb and some of the letters and memoranda sent by different people involved in the project. Reading through this material gives some sense of the number of people involved in the project and of the way the resources of the country were turned to this project. The information is related to other historical documents on the development of atomic energy and on later bomb research.

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