The Smyth Report — Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (1945)

The official history of the Manhattan Project, released to the public just days after the war ended.

Written by the Princeton physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth at the government’s request, the report explained to the public, for the first time, how the United States had developed the atomic bomb and who had done the work.

It became a bestseller in 1945 and remains the standard official account of the project’s organization, from university laboratories to the secret cities of Oak Ridge, Hanford and Los Alamos, where J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the scientists.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.