Now it can be told
by Leslie R. Groves · first published 1962
60% recommend40% neutral
Why HN recommends it
First-hand memoir by the Manhattan Project's military director, covering how the Army ran the project, its logistics, and its intelligence efforts; useful for readers interested in how the bomb was built.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
TABLE OF CONTENTS: The beginnings of the med -- First steps -- The uranium ore supply -- The plutonium project -- Los Alamos : I -- Hanford : I -- Hanford : II -- Oak Ridge -- Negotiations with the British -- Security arrangements and press censorship -- Los Alamos : II -- The combined development trust -- Military intelligence : Alsos I — Italy -- A serious military problem -- Military intelligence: Alsos II — France -- The problem of the French scientists -- Military intelligence : Alsos III — Germany -- Training the air unit -- Choosing the target -- Tinian -- Alamogordo -- Operational plan
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…and yet reading his account should benefit everyone. It explores how someone with flaws can do something extraordinary, and all the ups and downs in between. Another example is General Leslie Groves' Now It Can Be Told. https://www.amazon.com/Now-Can-Be-Told-Manhattan/dp/03068018... Groves was the manager behind the Manhattan Project and his book covers how he made The Bomb happen, organisationally. How do you create…
on “For Apollo 11 he wasn’t on the moon, but his coffee was warm (2019)” ↗There is a great part in “Now it can be told”[0] which discusses the counter intelligence efforts of the Manhattan Project - specifically when trying to figure out how far along Nazi development was. The upshot is: approximately nowhere, IIRC the…
on “New evidence shows this uranium cube is likely relic of Nazi A-bomb program” ↗You might also like Now it Can Be Told: the Story of the Manhattan Project by Leslie R. Groves I thought it did a good job at talking about how the Army made everything happen.
on “The Sad Story of Heisenberg's Doctoral Oral Exam (1998)” ↗I can't read the article but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves book "Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project" documents it well The Oppenheimer movie was a much more personal biopic, rather than about the project itself, unlike some other older movies.
on “A reporter's journey into how the U.S. funded the bomb” ↗There are. He himself wrote "Now it can be Told". The 1998 "The General and the Bomb: A Biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project" is hard to get, but good. Groves, at peak, had quite an empire - not just the bomb project,…
on “The "Eisenhower matrix" productivity hack” ↗Ah, someone read Now it Can Be Told, (1962) by Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. This is the classic, and I read it as a kid. Much was still classified then, and we now know some things in there were wrong.
on “An engineering history of the Manhattan Project” ↗Having read "Now it can be told" by Groves, I can testify to other commenters on how much the Manhattan Project was an enormous logistical problem - Elon's manufacturing prowess pales in comparison to what Groves had to grapple with.…
on “The true, dramatic story of Robert Downey Jr.'s 'Oppenheimer' villain” ↗…more, e.g. Groves was responsible for US intelligence actions WRT to Germany and Japan's nuclear projects, one of the last chapters it titled something like "Destruction of the Japanese Cyclotron", is his Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project (http://www.amazon.com/Now-It-Can-Told-Manhattan/dp/030680189...). Earlier publication date, so less could "be told", but lots of good stuff. E.g. when he first got an estimate of something major from…
on “Military's 15-year quest for perfect radio is a blueprint for failing big (2012)” ↗By the time of the bombings, what we'd recently learned about the Bataan Death March due to our very expensive liberation of the Philippines was the big motivator. I've been reading Now It Can Be Told by Leslie Groves, the Army general in charge of the Manhattan Project, and I just came to this bit in the chapter titled "Hiroshima", right after he delivered the first paper report of the bombing early…
on “Lecture from the Man Who Dropped Both Atomic Bombs” ↗A heck of a lot of people "doubted" the bomb, in the sense that they weren't sure smashing N Japanese cities would prompt them to surrender. I've just finished Now It Can Be Told, published in 1962 by General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the Manhattan Project, and from various things including how he praises one guy for his confidence that 2 would do it, it's pretty clear…
on “Did Lawrence doubt the bomb?” ↗…50 years ago. To compare, General Groves was the military leader of a whole Manhattan Project published a whole book with the comparable amount of detail not even 20 years after the project, in 1962 ''Now It Can Be Told'': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves
on “My years working on black programs” ↗…up organizationally, had not incorrectly dismissed graphite as a moderator for natural uranium reactors, they might have succeeded with the plutonium path. The fear was legitimate, and per Groves in Now It Can Be Told (he was in charge of counterintelligence), it took us a long time and quite some distance into Western Europe to be fairly confident they weren't doing it. So, no, not the last week, not even 1945, but…
on “Nuclear Forensics Shows Nazis Were Nowhere Near Making Atomic Bomb” ↗No, it's Henry Stimson saving Kyoto, not because not being a military target but because of its special cultural meaning. I've got that reading Grove's "Now it can be told." Grove's biggest fear, as he writes, was for a war to end before he can detonate a few bombs. I haven't read the full article here, but it seems it agrees: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182
on “The Radicalization of Luke Skywalker: A Jedi’s Path to Jihad” ↗> Groves could publish a memoir the Manhattan Project in 1962 He explicitly named it "Now It Can Be Told." Only 17 years after the bombs, the whole book. The rationales for the target selection -- yes, it's straight from the horse's mouth, and plausible because it is directly not something somebody would…
on “Coups, lies, dirty tricks: Stewart Copeland on his CIA agent father (2000)” ↗> Before there was any bomb there was the Chicago Pile-1 in the middle of Chicago in a space under the stands at Stagg Field originally built as a rackets court Groves's book ("Now It Can Be Told") mentions the people that worked with the graphite bricks, that it got into their skin, and even after an after-work shower, they'd still ooze graphite for hours. Firstly I wonder what their cover story…
on “An engineering history of the Manhattan Project” ↗