The Manhattan Project: The Controversial Story Behind America’s Atomic Bomb – clip

Allen Pietrobon / Trinity Washington University

The creation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 fundamentally changed the very nature of American life and international relations. Since that fateful August day when Hiroshima was bombed, every single U.S. president has referenced nuclear weapons in public speeches, with President John F. Kennedy famously telling the United Nations in 1961: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” But Kennedy’s view that we needed to get rid of nuclear weapons is very different from President Franklin Roosevelt’s concern back in 1941. With the Second World War raging, the U.S. feared that Hitler’s Germany was working on developing an atomic weapon. To head off the devastating possibility of the Nazis creating such a game-changing weapon, Roosevelt approved “The Manhattan Project” — the Top-Secret program to develop the most powerful weapon the world has ever known.