PRIVACY ACT MATERIAL REMOVED. a NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND MAN The year of 1938 was not particularly auspicious, historically perhaps, with one exception. In 1938 the United States was struggling upward out of a worldwide depression which had heen triggered in 1929. notable year for movies, It was not a particularly fashions, or politics; isolationism characterized the international mood of the American people. In the Marshall Islands in 1938, sixteen-year-old qq was probably contemplating his daily chores, the possibility of going fishing, and the increasing presence of Japanese military personnel in his islands, A singular event, however, did take place that year which would affect the future lives of Japanese, Americans, and Marshallese alike--in fact, all the people of the world. It was the autumn of that year that German scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin split an atom of Uranium 235 possible, (U235) (54 pg. 9). While it had been theoretically considered this was the first time that it had been actually accomplished. Splitting of this atom meant that a chain reaction was possible and creation and control of a chain reaction meant that man had, within his grasp, control of a basic force of nature and the universe. How this power was to be used would startle the world, In May of 1942, the President of the United States of America, with a simple "OK, FDR" notation, made a decision that the United States would make an all-out, massive effort to develop the first atomic bombs before Germany could (54, p, 13), The successful operation of an atomic pile by Dr. Enrico Fermi and the "Chicago Group" on December 2, 1942, at 3:25 a.m, (54, p. 88) proved that the controlled chain reaction, necessary to produce plutonium for an atomic bomb, was possihle, 1O14bd3 Later, processes were