Atomic bomb secrecy

The discovery of uranium fission by Enrico Fermi and L. Szilard at Columbia University opened the way for further advances. This work was done under the cloak of wartime secrecy and led directly to the atomic bomb, but its significance for the discovery of new elements was very great. 

During the Chernobyl disaster thirty to forty times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were released. The main radioactive isotopes from the Chernobyl accident were Cs, Cs, Sr, and Sr. The details of zeolite applications at Chernobyl remain rather obscure because of a secrecy problem still remaining after disintegration of the former Soviet Union. About 500,000 tons of zeolite rocks, mainly containing clinoptilolite, were processed at various deposits in Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia specifically for use at Chernobyl [65]. The majority of the zeolites was used for the construction of protective barriers and for agricultural applications in polluted areas. 

Nor was the urge to suspicious secrecy unique to the Soviets the Americans and the British were even then risking an arms race by keeping their work on the atomic bomb secret from their Soviet allies. Oppenheimer elaborates ... 

The veil of secrecy that had hidden the atomic bomb project was lifted on August 6 when President Truman announced the Hiroshima raid to the American people. The release of the Smyth Report on August 12, which contained general technical in-... 

Louis N. Ridenour, "Military Secrecy and the Atomic Bomb," Fortune, November 1945, 218-23. Franklin, Countdown to Midnight, 14-17. 

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