O DENIED THE ATOMIC BOMB

That fission to develop the bomb by 1939. Because a resourceful Belgian mining officials, before providing them to the Allies

- 

research to make a comprehensive interpretation of the published account of their experiment in January 1939.

Later that year, Albert Einstein signed a letter to US President Franklin D Roosevelt alerting the US government to the military potential of uranium. This action led, ultimately, to the Manhattan Engineer District — the original cover name for the Anglo-American project to build a bomb.

Early in 1940, well before Manhattan had formally begun, Britain conveyed some of her atomic secrets to the US. At the time, the UK was unquestionably more advanced in atomic research. Declassified reports of the MAUD committee show all the essential physical and technical principles necessary to manufacture a working uranium fission bomb had been firmly established by the British by the first half of 1941.

One of the most significant contributions was a suggestion by John Cockcroft that neutrons captured by the commonest, and hitherto unwanted, uranium isotope, U-238, would produce plutonium - and that would be as capable of fission as U-235.

As a result, two bombs were planned, one based on uranium and the other on plutonium created from uranium by Cockcroft's method.