The Department of War first drafted the May-Johnson bill, which would have given the government (and possibly the military) complete control over further development of atomic energy with limited nonprofit research. The failure of the Acheson-Lilienthal report marked a turning point towards the Cold War. Discoveries of Soviet espionage were a contributing factor to the breakdown in negotiations, and in the end all United States atomic secrets were classified. But the UN commission would have required the United States to turn over its atomic secrets, a sticking point in negotiations that many in the U.S. This organization would take over worldwide responsibility for atomic energy. policy committee issued the Acheson-Lilienthal report, which recommended the creation of a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC). The 1943 Quebec Agreement created a wartime partnership with the United Kingdom to work together on atomic research, and efforts were made to explore the expansion of this collaboration. Unless research is free and outside of control, the United States will lose its superiority in scientific pursuit” (Hewlett and Anderson 422).Īnother proposition during this time was for increased international cooperation and control of nuclear weapons. As Enrico Fermi asserted, “It is not that we will not work for the government but rather that we cannot work for the government. In November 1945, they formed the Federation of Atomic Scientists and began to push for civilian control of nuclear research and production. Many officials believed that the hastily constructed plants would be shut down at the end of the war, their missions accomplished.Īmidst this uncertainty came the increasingly unified voice of many atomic scientists who, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, could speak more freely about the dangers of and problems with nuclear development. Employment levels dropped precipitously at Manhattan Project sites. At the end of World War II, the future of the wartime Manhattan Project complex with production plants, laboratories, and administrative offices scattered across thirteen states was unclear. The Atomic Age began on July 16, 1945, with the successful detonation of the “Gadget” at the Trinity Test in New Mexico.
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