Ne
ea
3
technical analysis of the Government’s guidebook. This analysis appeared as a series of articles in The
New York Times on August 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 21, and 22. These ar-
weee cee et 4.
ticles are reprinted in full in this
booklet.
William L. Laurence, who wrote
these articles, is one of the country’s outstanding science reporters,
and undoubtedly its foremost newspaper writer on atomic energy. A
member of The New York Times
staff since 1930, he has twice won
the Pulitzer Prize, the highest
award in American journalism.
In 1945, the War Department
“borrowed” Mr. Laurence for a
secret mission. It turned out to be
the mission of reporting the birth
of the atomic age for all the world,
and for history. He was theonly reporter to visit the secret war plants
and see the production of the atomic
bomb. He was the only reporter to
witness the first test of the bomb,
was the only reporter to witness the
articles and the man
saki, on August 9, 1945. The following day, the Japanese sued for
peace.
Mr. Laurence, much earlier, had
written the first widely circulated
who wrote them
In August, 1950, the Government
published an official guidebook to
help in the preparation of civilian
defense against atomic attack. This
book, “The Effects of Atomic Weapons,” is intended as a source of
scientific information for technical
personnel. Unfortunately, however
much he is interested and concerned,
the average reader finds it some-
what beyond his depth.
Accordingly, The New York
Times, in keeping with its policy of
giving readers all the news they
haveto know, and in terms they can
.Copyright 1950 by The New York Times Company
in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. He
A note about these
readily understand, assigned Wil-
liam L. Laurence to write a non-
actual use of the bomb, over Naga-
newspaper story about the possi-
bilities of atomic energy, in The
New York Times of May 5, 1940.
His official stories of the development of the atomic bomb were released by the War Department, and
were the source from which all
news of the atomic bomb and its
development was first published to
the world.
In 1946, Mr. Laurence published
a book, “Dawn Over Zero,” which
has been acclaimed as the most authoritative and comprehensible account of the development of the
atomic bomb.