ATOMIC ENERGY - ACHESON

[ATOMIC ENERGY] ACHESON, Dean. Secretary of State. A report on the international control of atomic energy. Washington, D.C.: [Government Printing Office], March 16, 1946. Quarto; 76 pp. Original blue printed wrappers. Together with the following related papers.

1. Mimeographed Statement of Acheson, one page, stapled to the first page of the report.

2. Mimeographed cover to the report, one page, March 27, 1946. Numbered "198" and printed in red: CONFIDENTIAL / FUTURE RELEASE / NOTE DATE, under which is the underscored statement: "Confidential release for publication at 8:00 p.m., E.S.T., Thursday, March 28, 1946. Not to be previously published, quoted from or used in any way."

3. Typewritten Carbon Manuscript with corrections by Watson Davis, director of Science Service, three pages; with two pages of notes, handwritten on the verso of Western Union Press forms; and with an additional note, one page, March 27, 1946, stating that the report was "picked up by Ross at Acheson's press conference this morning (WAD). Ross will attend tomorrow's conference, at which the implications of this report will be discussed by the newspaper men."

The present report, given to Watson Davis, is the true first printing (the revised reports deleted the language on page 46, and was not to be released to the press until the following day, March 17, 1946. The Acheson-Lilienthal Report, created by a group of consultants at the direction of (then) Under-secretary of State Dean Acheson, dealt with the "denaturing" of the fissionable material used to produce the atomic bomb. The Report was not officially announced to the public until March 28, 1946.

Apparently, the explanations provided to the press at this initial press conference were not entirely satisfactory, as the accompanying manuscript of the article for Science Service by Watson states, "One of the scientists who wrote the report over a period of nearly three months is Dr. Charles A. Thomas, vice-president of the Monsanto Chemical Co. At a press conference yesterday paralleling the conference held at the State Department in Washington Dr. Thomas explained that the nature of the denaturant could not be revealed since a higher authority than the committee had decided that it must still be kept in the secret category."

Watson Davis, director of Science Service, along with E. W. Scripps, occupied a unique position in American science. In 1921, Scripps endowed Science Service, an institution for the popularization of science, a non-profit corporation with headquarters in Washington. This great organization, dedicated to the gathering and dissemination of accurate scientific information, supplied to the nation's press an accurate day-to-day record of scientific discoveries.

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• Science