Birth of an Era

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U.S. scientists, too, had been at work smashing the atom (see SCIENCE). But, thanks to the commandos, they now found the Germans had been ahead of them. The race of the laboratories began.

The fact that the U.S. now has the bomb (and presumably the only facilities for producing it) was in part a result of Britain's trust of this nation.

As they did with radar, Britain, Canada and the U.S. pooled their knowledge of splitting the atom, pooled their atomic scientists. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had made the arrangement. The factors were: 1) the U.S. had the facilities and the scientific know-how; 2) the U.S. was presumably safe from enemy action.

The U.S. set to work. Three vast plants were built: at Oak Ridge, Tenn., 19 miles west of Knoxville; at Pasco, in the sagebrush country of northwest Washington, 150 miles southwest of Seattle; and at Los Alamos, N.M., 30 miles northwest of Santa Fe.

"Manhattan Project." In the War Department, the super-secret program was "Manhattan Project." It had top priority on materiél and Army specialists. But few, if any, of the 65,000 who at one time worked on materials, handled blueprints, and expedited the job, ever knew what "Manhattan Project" was. Not until this week did they know the end results of their labors. The cost was tremendous, but it was worth it. Said Harry Truman: "We have spent $2 billion on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won."

To every U.S. citizen, as well as to every statesman, the victory of peace had a solemn urgency it had never had before. In London, Winston Churchill said: "We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among nations and that, instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, they may become the perennial fountain of world prosperity."