Here is a roundup of some of the most interesting articles published on the history of the Manhattan Project and World War II this month.
– American Science and the Nazis: In this opinion piece for NPR, astrophysicist and author Adam Frank explains how refugee scientists who fled fascism in Europe, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, contributed to American science. Many of these scientists would participate in the Manhattan Project.
– ‘Atomic Bill’ and the Birth of the Bomb: An excellent article in Undark Magazine about William Laurence, the controversial New York Timesscience journalist who was allowed exclusive access to the Manhattan Project.
– Behind a WWII internment camp’s barbed wire, two Scouts forged a bond: Powerful Washington Poststory about the friendship between former Senator Alan Simpson and former Congressman and Cabinet secretary Norman Mineta. The two first met as Boy Scouts after Mineta and his family were incarcerated at the Heart Mountain Japanese American internment camp during World War II.
– Will Nagasaki’s story be told at Washington state’s new national park?: Hal Bernton of The Seattle Times explores different perspectives on how the Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford, WA, Oak Ridge, TN and Los Alamos, NM should interpret the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 was fueled by plutonium produced at Hanford.