Printing History of ‘Atomic Energy for Military Purposes’

I believe the Smyth report on the atomic bomb to be the most important book printed in the 20th century. This can be debated, of course, but it will be interesting to see what others think and what they would propose.

In any event, I would like to briefly describe the printing history of the report.

Smyth prepared the report over several months before the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. Truman wanted the report for several reasons, which are not relevant to the printing history.

The first report as such was in mimeograph form, where parts were delivered, under guard, to the several senior scientists involved in its development, read by the scientist, and returned with comments if any to the guard delivering it. No copies were permitted to be kept. Two copies are extant. One (complete?) in the Smyth papers at Princeton, the other at the British Atomic Group at Harwell.

After the report was accepted by Smyth, two editions were printed. A “ditto” edition and a lithoprint edition. The ditto edition is extremely rare. I never saw a copy nor has any other dealer or collector seen one. A copy was recently found in the Smyth papers but I am not certain it is complete.

The lithoprint edition is the defining “first” edition. Arnold Kramish said it was printed in three tranches of 2,000 copies each. There was never a 1,000 copy edition. In speaking with Kramish, he said that Earle E. Coleman, who wrote checklist of editions published by The Princeton University Library Chronicle (Spring 1976), offered the 1,000 number as a guess, but it has entered the lexicon as valid.

Coleman did say that at least three copies were specially bound and given to the major players. In fact there were four, possibly five. One was given to Henry Tolman, the chief adviser to Truman, which is in my collection. The others are all in institution libraries.