# How much did Truman know about the Manhattan project before he became President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615 "2015-07-19T16:01:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/21 "2015-07-20T01:29:26Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Like so many questions, this one can be answered in isolation but the overall context is critical. I have to wave the flag again for _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_, Richard Rhodes, 1986. > > Essential reading for anyone interested in almost any aspect of nuclear weapons, and one of the most lucid and readable technical histories I know of. For good or bad, you’ll never misunderstand how the bomb was developed and first used again. Thank you for the cite. I will look for this. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/22 "2015-07-20T03:04:19Z")
I read somewhere that Canaris, head of the Abwehr, had some photos in his possession of the Oak Ridge facility. His man, Gehlen, got them from agents/assets he had in Moscow. Karl Fuchs, of course, was passing info to the Soviets. Canaris was a loyal German, but he drew a line between Germany and Hitler’s Regime so he sat on the information. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/23 "2015-07-20T03:58:15Z")
So how much did Henry Wallace know when he was Vice President? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/24 "2015-07-20T04:33:32Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > I read somewhere that Canaris, head of the Abwehr, had some photos in his possession of the Oak Ridge facility. His man, Gehlen, got them from agents/assets he had in Moscow. Karl Fuchs, of course, was passing info to the Soviets. Canaris was a loyal German, but he drew a line between Germany and Hitler’s Regime so he sat on the information. I wonder if he didn’t “sit on it” because he didn’t know what it was. Photos (especially aerial photos) would only show that it was a massive industrial complex. German photo analysts could identify a US ammunition plant, or an aircraft factory, because they had ones of their own, and knew the basics of how they worked. Germany had almost no practical knowledge of how a uranium extraction & enrichment plant worked (heck, it sounds like we were sort of doing it trial-and-error at Oak Ridge). so I think they would have had a hard time identifying what it was. And Hitler wasn’t the kind of guy to take kindly to a report like “we’ve identified a massive American industrial plant, hidden in a remote location, but we don’t have any idea what it does”. I’d have been tempted to skip making such a report. Besides, what could Germany have done about it, even had they known what it was? German production facilities were stretched so far that the country was running out of ball bearings to use in machinery; no way would they have been able to match the resources that the USA was putting into the Manhattan Project. ---
**Author:** ![SeniorCitizen007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@SeniorCitizen007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeniorCitizen007)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/25 "2015-07-20T07:15:45Z")
> [@SeniorCitizen007](#): > > Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s vice-president up until 1945, leaked information that reached Hitler. Interception of the Japanese ambassador to German’s radio reports back to Japan found that Hitler knew the exact words used in private conversations between Roosevelt and Churchill. Roosevelt would tell Wallace snippets of what was said at the meetings. Wallace told his brother-in-law. The info was passed to Switzerland and picked up by German agents. Htiler boasted to the Jap ambassador about it. Here’s something else: Trueman once suggested that America should assist Nazi Germany in their war against Russia (he, at the same time, also said that America should assist Russia in their war against Germany) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/26 "2015-07-20T10:36:10Z")
I’m not saying you’re wrong about either of these, but do you have a cite for either? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/27 "2015-07-20T13:25:31Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m not saying you’re wrong about either of these, but do you have a cite for either? Apparently the Truman statement about help Germany is Russia is winning and help Russia if Germany is winning is from a June 1941 speech in the Senate and mentioned in the David McCullough biography > **[Bait and bleed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_bleed#cite_note-4)** > > Bait and bleed is a military strategy described by international relations theorist John J. Mearsheimer in his book on offensive realism, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). The aim is to induce rival states to engage in a protracted war of attrition against each other "so that they bleed each other white", while the baiter who encouraged the conflict remains on the sidelines and maintains its military strength. > Mearsheimer cites as an example Russia's efforts to provoke Austria and Prus... ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/28 "2015-07-21T00:00:12Z")
Germany had people working on their own atom bomb so the knew some of how it worked. A lot of their best scientists left Germany before the war but not all. They discovered nuclear fission before the war. [German nuclear weapons program - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapon_project) ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/29 "2015-07-21T11:15:55Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Like so many questions, this one can be answered in isolation but the overall context is critical. I have to wave the flag again for _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_, Richard Rhodes, 1986. > > Essential reading for anyone interested in almost any aspect of nuclear weapons, and one of the most lucid and readable technical histories I know of. For good or bad, you’ll never misunderstand how the bomb was developed and first used again. I downloaded and started reading this the other day and am looking forward to it. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/30 "2015-09-06T05:27:25Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > So how much did Henry Wallace know when he was Vice President? Quite [a bit it seems.](https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1939-1942/tentative_decision_build.htm) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615/31 "2015-09-06T11:16:51Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Like so many questions, this one can be answered in isolation but the overall context is critical. I have to wave the flag again for _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_, Richard Rhodes, 1986. > > Essential reading for anyone interested in almost any aspect of nuclear weapons, and one of the most lucid and readable technical histories I know of. For good or bad, you’ll never misunderstand how the bomb was developed and first used again. I will pipe in to add that The Making of the Atomic Bomb is pretty much the ‘best’ non-fiction book I’ve ever read. A brilliant combination of history, physics, biography, political science, and character study. > [@Ranger Jeff](#): > > . . . His man, Gehlen, got them from agents/assets he had in Moscow. Karl Fuchs, of course, was passing info to the Soviets. . . That’s Klaus Fuchs.[/nitpick] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-truman-know-about-the-manhattan-project-before-he-became-president/725615.md?page=1)