Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945.

SMYTH, Henry DeWolf. [J. Robert Oppenheimer].

Item Number: 126119

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.

Early printing of the full text of Smyth’s official report on the development of the atomic bomb by the U.S. Government, from the library of the “father of the atomic bomb”, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Signed by J. Robert Oppenheimer on the front free endpaper. American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war ended, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb during a 1949–1950 governmental debate on the question and subsequently took stances on defense-related issues that provoked the ire of some factions in the U.S. government and military. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Books from Oppenheimer’s library regarding the use of the atomic bomb are rare.

Written as a "report to the nation" by Henry D. Smyth, chairman of the Princeton physics department, at the direction of Major General Groves, in charge of the Atomic Bomb Project, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes begins with a brief survey of the advances in nuclear physics made between 1896 and 1940, and then proceeds to tell the incredible story of the scientific and engineering teamwork that culminated in the manufacturing of the atomic bomb.