The Smyth Report is the common name of an administrative history written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic bombs during World War II. The subtitle of the report is A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9.
Cover of 1945 Princeton edition
Richard Tolman (left) and Henry D. Smyth (right)
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (right) and his advisors review the 2nd Armored Division in Germany in July 1945. Left to right: Major General Floyd L. Parks, General George S. Patton, Jr., Colonel William H. Kyle, John J. McCloy, Harvey H. Bundy
The original cover of the lithograph edition of the Smyth Report, with the red title stamp. This is the copy in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Project, a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Henry DeWolf Smyth (1898–1986)
Smyth was educated at Princeton University and spent much of his academic career there. Pictured is Nassau Hall.
Smyth (right) with Richard Tolman, who chaired the Postwar Policy Committee.
Smyth was a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1949 to 1954.
