The Smyth Report is the common name of an administrative history written by physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic bombs during World War II. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Smyth was commissioned to write the report by Major General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report was the first official account of the development of the atomic bombs and the basic physical processes behind them. Since anything in the declassified Smyth Report could be discussed openly, it focused heavily on basic nuclear physics and other information which was either already widely known in the scientific community or easily deducible by a competent scientist. It omitted details about chemistry, metallurgy, and ordnance, ultimately giving a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics. The Smyth Report sold almost 127,000 copies in its first eight printings, and was on the New York Times best-seller list from mid-October 1945 until late January 1946. It has been translated into over 40 languages. (Full article...)
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