[ClearCase_guy]

Fritz Reiche, who left Germany in March 1941 for a job at the New York New School for Social Research, carried a message from Fritz Houtermans that even a morally perplexed Heisenberg would be forced into a relentless commitment to build the bomb.

"Herr Doktor Heisenberg -- der Fuhrer insists that your uncertainty on this matter must end."

[SoCal Pubbie]

Let’s be accurate here. The vast majority of those of Japanese descent were not interned, they were relocated. The practical effect was pretty much the same but legally they could live outside the camps if they had a place to go. Most did not. Some were released from camps to attend school or join the military.

[Vermont Lt]

This could be the case.

But the people working on the atomic bomb were carefully screened. People with the slightest suspected loyalties would never come close to the important stuff. That meant anyone with loyalties to a country other than the US; including our allies.

While this might have been a consideration...I think the FBI and military agencies would have had a good handle on this. It would not have required the imprisonment of run-of-the-mill Japanese men, women, and children.

I understand the reasons why it happened. I am suggesting that the atomic program would have been quite far down on the list beyond the traditional reasons given.

[coloradan]

There are reports that, through classified code-breaking efforts, US intelligence knew that there were Japanese spies among us, including who they were. But we couldn’t arrest them, only, without compromising the fact of the code-breaking. So, under the cover of clumsy and oppressive domestic policy, *all* citizens of Japanese descent were interred, thereby both neutralizing the threat as well as concealing the fact of our ability to decrypt Japan’s codes.

[Tell It Right]

I believe the sequence was like this:

Feb 19, 1942: FDR issued the execute order to analyze the Japanese population (both American citizens and immigrants) to see if they posed a threat, particularly on the west coast. Keep in mind that German spies during WW1 detonated Black Tom Island in New York Harbor in 1916. The EO specifically allowed areas to be designated "military areas" that required every possible precaution against espionage and sabotage.

Feb 23, 1942: A Japanese sub attacked Inglewood, California, a fuel refinery. No real damage was done, but folks freaked out. Particularly with the press (the drive by media wants you to forget the part they played in this) did reports of signal lights between people on land and the sub. THAT's when the major internments and relocations began.

[AlaskaErik]

Ask me what vile evil monster assumed power in 1933 and died in April 1945 and my first response will be Franklin D Roosevelt.

[Fedora]

An important source to add to your bibliography is David D. Lowman, Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during WWII. To put the information there in perspective, see Tony Matthews, Shadows Dancing: Japanese Espionage Against the West, 1939-1945.