A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS OF USING ATOMIC ENERGY FOR MILITARY PURPOSES UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 1940-1945. BY H.D. SMYTH CHAIRMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONSULTANT TO MANHATTAN DISTRICT U.S. CORPS OF ENGINEERS. WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF MAJOR GENERAL L.R. GROVES UNITED STATES ARMY. PUBLICATION AUTHORIZED AS OF AUGUST 1945.
[Washington DC: 1946]. Original stapled printed wrappers, with wrapper title as issued. vii, [1 blank], 182, [2 blanks] pp. Some pencil marginalia at pages 152-156, some mathematical pencil doodlings on rear wrapper. Very Good.
"The story of the development of the atomic bomb by the combined efforts of many groups in the United States is a fascinating but highly technical account of an enormous enterprise. Obviously military security prevents this story from being told in full at this time. However, there is no reason why the administrative history of the Atomic Bomb project and the basic scientific knowledge on which the several developments were based should not be available now to the general public. To this end this account by Professor H.D. Smyth is presented." [From the Foreword by General Leslie Groves, dated in type August 1945]. From the colophon on the last printed page, this copy was printed in 1946.
"There was published on 12 August 1945 (only six days after Hiroshima) the remarkably full and candid account of the development work carried out between 1940 and 1945 by the American-directed but internationally-recruited team of physicists, under the code name of 'Manhattan District', which culminated in the production of the first atomic bomb... Compiled by Professor Smyth of Princeton, a consultant to the 'Manhattan District' project at Los Alamos, whose commandant General L.R. Groves provided the foreword, 'the Smyth Report', as it is familiarly known, was published at one dollar by the U.S. Superintendent of Documents'." [Printing and the Mind of Man].
PMM 422e. Item #38488
Price: $500.00