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Men often do a better job at keeping a secret I have observed over the years. Yours is a great story ..esp about your step dad's closed mouth even after you talking about FIL.. amazing.

I cant help wonder if it had to do with secrecy (it was well after declassification, I would guess) or maybe rather embarrassment that so many were killed from bomb...etc. Not all say "war is war" as we well know. They may have thought it better to say nothing than chance the assault/scrutiny they might receive from others

Here is Wikipedia's INFO on the Manhattan Project,

I think these men just set their minds to the fact that this project was secret, and that was it. Even when we told my FIL that books had been published and it was all in the open he wouldn't say a word. The sad part is I don't know what they did, other than in general terms.

My FIL was a ceramic engineer, and I believe was in NY doing research, perhaps with GE. I think his research was in how to keep glass bonded with wires even when the temperature differences wanted to make them separate.

My step dad was in telecommunications his whole career (started with Western Electric and at the end it was AT&T) so I don't have a clue what he did. I only know he was in New Mexico for a long period of time, and had a PO box for mail and got to call his wife at a specific time every week. That I know because his brother told us.

I wish they would have told us so we could have some history recorded. Even if they hadn't told us the work they were doing, at least they could have told us the conditions they lived in and the mood of the country then.