Posted on 12/22/2005 1:00:56 PM PST by doug from upland
"What-if" No. 1 - Navajo Code Talkers
Dateline: Chicago, Ill.
July 30. 2003
Jonathon Risen, exclusive to the NEW YORK TIMES
In a shocking discovery, exclusive to the NEW YORK TIMES, it has been learned that the United States Government has been working on a secret project to develop a new super weapon. It is called a "nuclear weapon" or an "atomic bomb."
This effort is called the "Manhattan Project." Work on the project is going on in several areas, including the University of Chicago, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington.
General Leslie R. Groves, Deputy Chief of Construction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was appointed to direct this top-secret project.
An Italian physicist named Enrico Fermi, who defected to the United States while accepting a Nobel prize in physics, has been an integral part of the project at the University of Chicago. He and his team have been conducting secret experiments in a facility located under the West stands at Stagg Field. According to an eye witness, in December of 1942, Fermi and his team succeeded in creating some sort of controlled nuclear chain reaction in his reactor called Chicago Pile 1 (CP-1).
Fermi had concluded that it was possible to sustain a chain reaction in uranium which, under the right conditions, might multiply fast enough to cause a nuclear explosion. Fermi and Columbia physicist Leo Szilard proposed placing uranium in a matrix of graphite, forming a cubical lattice of uranium with potential for inducing a self-sustaining controlled reaction.
Arthur Holly Compton, professor of physics at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate, was placed in charge of the program with work on a reactor to be concentrated in Chicago under the code name Metallurgical Laboratory. Consequently, early in 1942 groups of scientists from Princeton and Columbia arrived at Chicago to combine their efforts.
In November 1942 construction began on the reactor in the West Stands. Layers of graphite blocks containing slugs of uranium metal and uranium oxide alternated with layers of solid graphite blocks, in a roughly spherical shape supported by a wood framework. A square balloon-cloth bag encased the reactor to reduce absorption of neautrons by nitrogen in the air. Higher grades of uranium became available as work progressed, and the pile was redesigned in a reduced size with a flattened top.
Construction halted with the fifty-seventh layer on December 1, when measurements indicated the pile would become sulf-sustaining should the control rods be withdrawn. On December 2, Fermi and his colleagues gathered on the balcony of the squash court to test the reactor, slowly withdrawing the last control rod until the "critical," or self-sustaining, level was reached, then watching the reactor operate for twenty-eight minutes before reinserting the rod and stopping the reaction. Compton telephoned the news to Harvard president James B. Conant, member of the Manhattan Project Military Policy Committee, with the coded message, "The Italian navigator has just landed in the New World."
Despite the fact that this kind of weapon could ultimately destroy mankind, our witness has told the TIMES that when the experiment was successful, Fermi said in a very cavalier manner, "That's enough. Put the rods back, and let's go to lunch."
The White House has refused all comments other than to deny knowledge of the Manhattan Project. Reporters have been swarming all over the University of Chicago trying to gather information, and already the question is being asked, "What did President Roosevelt know, and when did he know it?"
A project such as is being described here costs an incredible amount of money. No senators or congressmen with whom we have spoken have any knowledge about a budget for the controversial secret project. Many are hopping mad and are demanding hearings and answers. One senator expressed outrage that funds would be spent on this type of project rather than on providing homes for the homeless and food and health care for children.
The TIMES has learned additional details of a facility being used for the project in Los Alamos. Its remote location made it the top choice for a research and development site. The owners of a school on the property were willing to sell it to the military for $440,000, since they were having problems obtaining and keeping qualified teachers during the war.
Details are still being learned about the activities at Oak Ridge and Hanford, but they seem to involve the creation of nuclear fuel for the planned weapon.
In next Sunday's special issue, the TIMES will reveal the names and addresses of all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project. It will be available at newsstands everywhere.
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.
Hehe. Pretty close to the truth if the same people running the NY slimes were around then.
Off topic.
Check out this letter from the Assistant Attorney General to Senators Durbin and Rockefeller regarding the leak and NSA spying matter.
It was in a PDF file, so the formatting is a little funky.
Solid letter.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1545567/posts?page=16#16
Another costly Pentagon boondoggle. That thing will never work. Scientists say so.
The problem as I see it is that IF those of the left acknowledge there IS a true threat present requiring the War on Terror they are out of a job forever (or close to it) as they truly have nothing to offer or argue before the American people that will give them any continued credibility, hence their unrelenting attacks on Bush and those in his administration to distract the American people. It must REALLY suck to be a dimboRAT!!
Ping
If I remember correctly there were reporters from NYT and other papers present at Trinity, sworn to secrecy until given the OK from the USG.
How times have changed.
I don't know.
Both the Germans and the Japanese were working on their own and Russia wasn't really in any shape to do so at that point in the war.....
I don't think it would have done much except confirm to our enemies what our intentions were.....
Which is, of course, just as BAD as anything else.
Roosevelt was very woried about the work Germany had already done in this area. Our enemies, of course, would have known we were working on it, particulary since Fermi defected when he came here to accept the Nobel prize in physics. But today's reporters from the NY TIMES would certainly have given every detail possible had they been there.
yep probably.....
like I said, just as bad, but maybe not from a secret part but more from an intentions part.
You rock, Doug..suggest you e-mail it to Mark Levin..He'd be better off reading this than talking to imbecilic libs..
I dont disagree with the NYT's decision to run the story.. we do have freedom of the press ...the problem i have is with the idiot who leaked this information to NYT and should be investigated throughly.
"we do have freedom of the press"
This is a right that is balanced by its grave responsibilities.
This "Manhattan Engineering District" project is a risky scheme, an expensive boondoggle that could destroy mankind. I don't know how the family of Prescott Bush convinced FDR to do this, but the Bush Family Criminal Conspiracy should be made to face the most severe of charges forthwith. For all we know, a fission reaction could run out of control and burn off our atmosphere!
FDR needs to root out the irresponsible, 'swarthy'--and probably fascist--cabal within the Pentagon that started this fiasco and get back to work helping Uncle Joe crush the hun.
And there is the problem. If we had a plan to capture Osama or Zarqawi on Saturday, you would not have a problem with the TIMES writing the story. That is just incredible. Remind me never to trust you with something important.
This is awful. What could the United States do with such a weapon? What would the world think of us if we used it against Germany or Japan? Surely it would only make the enemy fight that much harder against us, and embolden their resistance. And if the wrong administration got their hands on it, they might even use it against American citizens.
This must be stopped immediately. I have contacted the German and Japanese governments and they have assured me that any research they are carrying out on nuclear fission is purely for power generation, and not for the development of these awful weapons.
Please, Mr. Roosevelt. Stop this madness at once, before we are destroyed!
Very poor analogy.
Citing the Manhattan project where more than a dozen of the inside people working for the government were reporting to Moscow daily, hardly equates with a newspaper story.
If it is indeed an acceptable analogy, then one has to wonder just who on the inside is again working both sides of the street.
FDR needs to share the technology with our comrades, the glorius ussr. {OH, nevermind, our friends will take care of that after we know it works}.
I think this "What if" series is going to create some good mocking opportunities of those fools who unfortunately share oxygen with us.
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