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When Scientific Publishing was Withheld
karvind writes "Article in Physical Review Focus reveals the silence practiced by Physical Review during WWII to delay publishing results related to fission, the splitting of an atom's nucleus accompanied by a prodigious release of energy. From the article: Because of fears that Germany would use American research to pursue an atomic weapon, the Physical Review agreed to withhold reports of significant advances. It was not until several months after an atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, Japan, that Phys. Rev. published the paper announcing the discovery of plutonium, the material used in that bomb. Physicist Abraham Pais later called the journal's silence on the subject 'the most important nonevent in the history of the Physical Review.'"
"A Soviet scientist deduced from the Americans' silence on the topic that they were pursuing an atomic bomb. The Soviets soon followed suit."
Amateur paranoiacs cannot hope to compete with professional ones.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
That is a very excellent book. In fact, I believe the main point of this article is dealt with in that book. The import of this was that until that point, scientists had been much more isolated from these types of political interventions. As a previous poster here has pointed out, this intervention is more common now.
I think something else to consider with this was that a lot of the people pushing to keep the Germans in the dark had a good idea of what they were dealing with. Many of these scientists were former residents of Germany, Italy, and some of the other countries of Europe. They felt it to their core that Hitler would stop at nothing and would use all the means at his disposal to win. They were firm in their belief that if Hitler got the bomb, he would use it without hesitation. It seemed to them that there were two ways to defeat this.
First, keeping Hitler in the dark as much as possible. Reports after the fact on Hitler Germany's progess with a bomb show that they were pretty well in the dark. Secondly, they thought they should work towards building a bomb as quickly as possible to defeat Hitler. They were pretty succuessful on that point too.
Another good book by Rhodes that continues from where "Making the Atomic Bomb leaves off is Dark Sun: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/068Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.