Art imitating life: No room for Brits in Hollywood blockbuster

OPPENHEIMER, the muchanticipated $100 million Hollywood blockbuster, about the scientific genius who headed the Manhattan Project, is set to hit the cinema screens on July 21. But as in real life, the Americans are making sure that the British contribution to the building of the atomic bomb doesn't even get a bit part. For the first time in almost 80 years a new audience will be introduced to the momentous events of August, 1945 that proved the most decisive in the history of humankind

By Alan Rimmer

Canadians

A weapon culled from the pages of Flash Gordon and Dan Dare exploded in the earthshattering events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki culminating in the ending of World War II. They combined to leave the world breathless and jubilant at the same time. A new world of awe and wonder, a world full of limitless possibilities, had opened up. This new bomb, that could destroy whole cities in the blink of an eye had seemingly brought about a new world order, one in which America stood at the pinnacle of human endeavour And standing shoulder and shoulder with this mighty new giant was Britain and Canada whose endeavours were widely recognised as being on equal terms with it. President Truman was even said to be toying with the idea of calling it the ABC bomb to recognise the American, British, Canadian effort and cementing the 'special relationship' forged by Roosevelt and Churchill.

This, however, was a short-lived notion. The Anglophobe General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project, saw to that He commissioned a report into the making of the atomic bomb which all but rediculed the British effort

It's author, Princeton physics professor Henry D Smyth produced the semi-technical report without consultations with the British or the

The "Smyth Report" , or to give it its proper title: Atomic Energy for Military Purposes was rushed into print and soon became a bestseller. To the dismay of the British the report gave the clear impression that the development of the atomic bomb had been primarily an American enterprise. To counter this misconception, the UK government quickly rushed out its own version of events in a 40-page pamphlet, Statements Relating to the Atomic Bomb, which the Americans reluctantly inserted into their own version as an appendix But it made very little difference: Hollywood became involved and its hastily shot 1946 film version of the atomic story The Beginning of the End left audiences in no doubt that almost all of th i i i h d b A i

Despite protests, American scholars continued to downplay the Brtish efforts. James Phinney Baxter III's Scientists Against Time, which won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize in History, praised the British scientists for their accomplishments in the creation of radar and other areas of technical expertise

But when it came to the atomic bomb, he concentrated almost exclusively on American effort

In 1949 Gerneral Groves downplayed the British role even further in a scathing statement arguing against sharing atomic secrets with the UK: "I cannot recall any direct British contribution to our success in achieving the bomb." And when he wrote his memoirs in 1962, Now It Can Be Told, Groves termed the British contribution "helpful but not vital."

But perhaps the most damning criticism appeared in the US Government's official 35 volume Off History of the Manhattan Project, written in 1946/47. This assessment, kept secret until 1977, stated that the British scientists involved were of "moderate attainments" and that they crossed the Atlantic primarily to obtain nuclear information from the Americans The British effort, the report concluded, "was in no sense vital and actually not even important. To evaluate it quantitively at one per cent total would be to overestimate it. The technical and and engineering contribution was practically nil. Certainly it is true that without any contribution at all from the British, the date of our final success need not have been delayed by a single day " Historians since have blasted these statements as "absurd." Distinguished academic Margaret Gowing said that had the members of the British Mission at Los Aloamos not done what they did when they did it, the atomic bomb would not have been available to end the

war in August 1945

Of course the programme to build an atomic weapon could not have been achieved without American industrial muscle. It was, after all, the biggest organised effort since the pyramids and the cost was far beyond what Britain could afford.

It employed over 200,000 workers and cost a bill largely stood by the Americans And there is no doubt that it could never have been built in the time that it was without the burly bulldozing driving force of General Leslie Groves or the elegant, slight figure of J Robert Oppenheimer, the genius who kept all the intricate parts of the atomic bomb within his head. Boy', the Hiroshima bomb, and 'Fat Man', the Nagasaki weapon, were named after Presendent Roosevelt nd Winston Churchill But you only have to ook at the pictures of Groves and Oppenheimer standing ogeher to realise that he two weapons were amed after them. They certainly deserve heir places in history nd Hollywood's ionisation of their chievements is nderstandable

We wait to see if the British effort is featured in the film On past form it seems doubtful But it should never be forgotten that without the foresight and expertise of British scientists, the atomic bomb could never have been built when it was.