Smyth Report

The Smyth Report dealt with under the title "Atomic Energy for Military Purposes ", as the official report of the U.S. government, the American nuclear weapons project.

The suggestion of Leslie R. Groves of Henry De Wolf Smyth prepared from the spring 1944 report exhaustively the technical fundamentals of the U.S. nuclear weapons research. In addition to the architectural history of the atomic bomb also addresses the organizational structure of the Manhattan Project, the individual work progress, the historical development of nuclear technology and their physical bases. At the behest of U.S. President Harry Truman, the publication of the Smyth reports from August 11, 1945 was released by 21 clock for distribution via radio and from August 12, 1945 for publication in the newspapers. It comprises about 200 pages and was published in addition to the expenses of the American and the British government until 1948 alone from the publisher Princeton University Press in eight editions. After book reviews in newspapers like the New York Times, The New Yorker, Nation or The Republic, the first edition of 60,000 copies of the Publisher Princeton University Press in one day was sold out, the publisher had this issue in spite of wartime restrictions, such as lack of paper within three weeks of receipt brought the manuscript in September 1945 in the trade. In October 1945, the report was re-published in a special issue of the journal Reviews of Modern Physics. The revealing report was in stark contrast to the hitherto strict confidentiality policy of the U.S. authorities. Responsible for the security of Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest O. Lawrence and others had the Smyth Report checked as before its release, it contains no safety critical information that would provide a guide to building a nuclear bomb.