Wirt,
While I agree with most of your post, I think your timeline is a bit
off.  You stated that the physicists who had worked on the German atomic
bomb program convinced Einstein to write the letter to FDR, then you
provided a link that refutes it.  The narrative at that web site begins
"Six months after fission was discovered..."  At the time Dr. Einstein
wrote the letter, the physics community was becoming aware that a bomb
was theoretically possible, but Szillard, Fermi, et al had come to the
USA well before any kind of atomic weapons program was under way in
Germany.  There was certainly atomic research going on in Germany at
that time, but it wasn't aimed at weaponry.  Einstein's letter was based
on the fear that the Germans *might* try to develop a bomb.

Yes, the Germans had a program to develop a bomb, but it was never very
successful.  For one thing, they were convinced that graphite would not
work in a reactor, and they pursued heavy water as a moderator instead.
Allied attacks on the Nazi heavy water plant in Denmark repeatedly
delayed their program.  This effort was dramatized in a movie named "The
Heroes of Telemark."  For an excellent and entertaining history of the
Manhattan Project, I recommend "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by
Richard Rhodes.

John Clogg

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Wirt Atmar
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: OT: AP news about WMD or lack of

Brice writes:

> I think Bill Bennett made an interesting point.  He said FDR
>  approved the Manhattan Project under the false assumption
>  that the Nazi's had a Nuclear program.  This cost a lot of money
>  and didn't make a difference as far as the war against Germany
>  was concerned.

Ordinarily I make a point of not responding to Brice's nonsense, but I
find
this one difficult to let go.

Lordy. Where in the hell did you learn your history, Brice?

The American atomic weapons program was *derived* from the German one.
The
German/Austrian/Hungarian physicists who emigrated to the United States
before
the start of WWII, and who had worked in varying degrees in that
program, were
so worried about Germany's potential that they convinced Albert Einstein
to
write a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 outlining the dangers. The
end
result of that letter was the explosion of the world's first atomic
weapon in
July, 1945, at Trinity Site, New Mexico, just a hundred miles from where
I sit
now.

In the intervening years, the Allies did everything they could to
disrupt the
German nuclear weapons program through sabotage, air strikes and the
interruption of commercial shipping.

As a primer, please read and memorize:

     http://www.dannen.com/ae-fdr.html

Wirt Atmar

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