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DIFFICULT CHOICES
(1942)
Events
By early 1942, as the United States suffered a series of
military defeats in the Pacific, top officials in Washington
tentatively had decided to proceed with the construction of an
atomic bomb. Two paths seemed possible. A
uranium bomb
could be achieved if sufficient uranium-235 could be produced
by one or more of the three isotope separation methods under
consideration: gaseous diffusion, centrifuge, and
electromagnetic. A
plutonium bomb
might provide a quicker route, but it required demonstration
that plutonium could be produced in a uranium pile and then be
separated in usable quantities. To this end, Arthur
Compton consolidated most plutonium research at the new
Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of
Chicago.
A program review conducted in May 1942 determined that no
front runner in the race for the bomb existed and recommended
that the three isotope separation methods and the pile project
be pushed as fast as possible to full production
planning. Construction and security needs suggested
placing the program in the
Army Corps of Engineers. In August, the Corps set up the
Manhattan Engineer District (MED)
to manage the project. A month later, Colonel Leslie R.
Groves was promoted to brigadier general and appointed to head
the effort. Groves moved quickly to
narrow the field and move the project along, selecting a site in east Tennessee (Oak Ridge) for the
construction of production plants, dropping the centrifuge
process from consideration, and choosing J. Robert Oppenheimer
to head the bomb research and design laboratory to be built at
Los Alamos, New Mexico. In December, President Franklin
Roosevelt gave his
final authorization to proceed with construction of the
atomic bomb.
To learn more about any of these difficult choices that had to
be made in 1942, choose a web page from the menu below.
To continue with a quick overview of the Manhattan Project,
jump ahead to the description of the
"Uranium Path to the Bomb, 1942-1944."
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Sources and notes for this page.
The text for this page is original to the Department of
Energy's
Office of History and Heritage Resources.
The photograph of Leslie Groves at his
desk is reprinted in the inside front cover of Vincent C.
Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb,
United States Army in World War II (Washington: Center of
Military History, United States Army, 1988). Click
here for more information on the photograph of "Met
Lab" alumni.
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