TRUMAN BRIEFED ON MANHATTAN PROJECT
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On April 24, 1945, President Harry S Truman was briefed on the Manhattan Project*. When Mr. Truman assumed the presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945, he was informed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson** that work was in progress on a "new, terrible weapon."
After the briefing on the 24th, President Truman authorized the continuation of the Manhattan Project and agreed to form a committee to advise the POTUS on the use of the atomic bomb.
*Manhattan Project...In 1942, the US government authorized a concerted attack on the atom to produce an atomic bomb. The Manhattan Engineer District of the Corps of Engineers, a.k.a. Manhattan Project, was organized to accomplish this goal.
The first experimental explosion of an atomic bomb took place at Alamogordo, NM on July 16 1945 & the 1st atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug 6 1945.
**Henry Lewis Stimson (1867-1950) was born in NYC & educated at Yale & Harvard. HLS served as Secretary of War under Presidents Taft, Hoover, FDR & Truman. He called the atomic bomb the "most terrible weapon ever known in human history."
SOURCE
"Atomic Bomb," The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, Chicago, 1967.
