Document list

I often post archival documents on this site. Below is a list of all documents currently available for download, along with the link back to their original post (which contains the citation information).

You are welcome to use any documents posted here without any fanfare; just credit “courtesy of Alex Wellerstein” somewhere and I’m happy. No document listed here should have any copyright restrictions on it.

DateTitlePDFPost
1942-09-07Norman Hilberry to Harry T. Wensel (draft deferments)[pdf][link]
1942-12-14James B. Conant to Vannevar Bush, "US-British Relations on S-1 Project"[pdf][link]
1943-02-15Henry D. Smyth to Irving Stewart, [on Princeton wives][pdf][link]
1943-03-11J. Robert Oppenheimer to Enrico Fermi (inviting to Los Alamos)[pdf][link]
1943-04-25J. Robert Oppenheimer to Enrico Fermi ("radioactively poisoned foods")[pdf][link]
1943-05-05Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (includes first discussion of targets)[pdf][link]
1943-06-30Report of Counter Intelligence Corps Special Agent Charles N. Ronan, "Subject; Dr. Leo Szilard."[pdf][link]
1944-01Teletype from Leslie R. Groves to J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Hazards at the Site."[pdf][link]
1944-02-05John Lansdale to Richard Tolman, "Subject: Nicholas Baker"[pdf][link]
1944-03[pdf][link]
1944-03-13John W. Raper, "Forbidden City," Cleveland Press (major Los Alamos leak)[pdf][link]
1944-06-22Arthur Compton to Vannevar Bush, on fears of a German atomic bomb[pdf][link]
1944-10-24Vannevar Bush to James B. Conant [on biological warfare][pdf][link]
1944-11-29William A. Shurcliff to Richard C. Tolman, "'Fission' vocabulary"[pdf][link]
1944-12-08William A. Shurcliff to Richard C. Tolman [on scientific secrecy][pdf][link]
1944-12-13William G. Penney, "The Height of Burst of the Gadget"[pdf][link]
1944-12-30Hans Bethe and Robert Christy, "Memorandum on the Immediate After Effects of the Gadget"[pdf][link]
1945"Restricted Information," poem about Hanford working conditions and secrecy[pdf][link]
1945-02-09J. Edgar Hoover to Harry Hopkins (on German attempts to spy on Manhattan Project)[pdf][link]
1945-04-14Henry D. Smyth to J. Robert Oppenheimer (draft of Smyth Report)[pdf][link]
1945-04-25Joseph O. Hirschfelder to J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Strategic Possibilities Arising if a Thunderstorm is Induced by Gadget Explosion."[pdf][link]
1945-05-14William L. Laurence's Trinity draft press releases[pdf][link]
1945-05-17Draft of Truman's (not used) press release about the use of the atomic bomb, by William L. Laurence[pdf][link]
1945-06-11"Report of the Committee on Political and Social Problems" (Franck Report)[pdf][link]
1945-06-16Report of the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee[pdf][link]
1945-06-19William A. Consodine to Arthur W. Page (Editing Truman's announcement of Hiroshima)[pdf][link]
1945-07-23J. Robert Oppenheimer to General. Thomas Farrell, on the reliability of the atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan[pdf][link]
1945-08-06Leslie R. Groves and Curtis LeMay teletype transcript on the bombing of Hiroshima[pdf][link]
1945-08-06Transcript of a telephone conversation between Leslie R. Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer[pdf][link]
1945-08-12George Gamow to Vannevar Bush[pdf][link]
1945-08-13Telephone transcript, J.E. Hull and L.E. Seeman, on the "third shot"[pdf][link]
1945-08-30C.S. Garner, "49 Interim Processing Program No. 24" (total plutonium-239 inventories at Los Alamos)[pdf][link]
1945-09-15Lauris Norstad to Leslie Groves, "Atomic Bomb Production"[pdf][link]
1945-09-29Transcript, "Press Conference — Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson — Clinton Engineer Works" (with Groves)[pdf][link]
1945-10-30William S. Parsons to Norris E. Bradbury, "Declassification of Implosion."[pdf][link]
1946-05-23Lt. Col. J.F. Moynahan to General Leslie R. Groves, "History Psychological Warfare, Manhattan Project"[pdf][link]
1946-06Chapter 11 (uncensored) from Nuclear Fission and Atomic Energy[pdf][link]
1946-08-16Emil Konopinski, Cloyd Marvin, and Edward Teller, "Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bombs" (LA-602)[pdf][link]
1946-09Los Alamos History, Exhibit 14, "Fatal Accidents."[pdf][link]
1946-10-04Richard C. Tolman to John M. Hancock, "Immediate cessation of bomb manufacture"[pdf][link]
1946-11-06Leslie R. Groves to Harvey H. Bundy, drafts of "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb"[pdf][link]
1946-11-14Leslie R. Groves to David E. Lilienthal (on "doubts" in the Manhattan Project personnel)[pdf][link]
1947Undated, untitled list of nuclear classification categories[pdf][link]
1948Accounts of R.C. Wilson and Stafford Warren of Hiroshima and Nagasaki[pdf][link]
1948Manhattan District History — tens of thousands of once-classified pages about the history of the atomic bomb[pdf][link]
1948-08-30Edward Teller to Norris Bradbury (doubts about "loyalty")[pdf][link]
1948-09-18[pdf][link]
1949-11-01[pdf][link]
1950-02-02J. Edgar Hoover to Clyde Tolson, et al. [Re: David Lilienthal and Klaus Fuchs][pdf][link]
1950-02-02Excerpt from Minutes of AEC Meetings No. 363 (2 February 1950) and No. 367 (8 February 1950), [Foreign travel of Frank Oppenheimer].[pdf][link]
1951-02-12FBI, "Summary Brief on Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs" (Excerpt)[pdf][link]
1951-03-09Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, "On Heterocatalytic Detonations I. Hydrodynamic Lenses and Radiation Mirrors (LAMS-1225)."[pdf][link]
1952-02-21John Walker to Bill Borden, "Second Laboratory"[pdf][link]
1952-09-09Hans Bethe to Gordon Dean (on postponing Ivy MIKE)[pdf][link]
1952-11-18Roy B. Snapp, "Note by the Secretary – Letter to J. Edgar Hoover, Operation Ivy, AEC 483/33"[pdf][link]
1953-01-01[pdf][link]
1953-01-13John Walker, "Memorandum for the File," [H-bomb discussion with Edward Teller][pdf][link]
1953-05"Secret" song and poem about Operation Upshot-Knothole[pdf][link]
1953-10-02J. Kenneth Mansfield to Stirling Cole, "Possible steps to be taken in the thermonuclear field"[pdf][link]
1954-01Samuel Glasstone, "Weapons Activities of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Part I," LA-1632[pdf][link]
1954-09-07Frank Cotter to Corbin Allardice, "Second Fuchs," [Ted Hall][pdf][link]
1956-04-01Federal Civil Defense Administration, Mortuary Services in Civil Defense (TM-11-12)[pdf][link]
1957-01-24"The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages"[pdf][link]
1958-06-18"Operation Teapot, Project 35.5 (February-May 1955): Effects of a Nuclear Explosion on Records and Records Storage Equipment (WT-1191),"[pdf][link]
1958-08-08Derogatory letter written to J. Edgar Hoover about Richard Feynman[pdf][link]
1959-02-21James Van Allen to James R. Killian (declassifying ARGUS)[pdf][link]
1963-01-02Norris Bradbury TWX to A.W. Betts (refiring the Hiroshima bomb)[pdf][link]
1963-04-18Charles L. Marshall to Max F. Roy, [stockpile data classification][pdf][link]
1964-05-23Robert S. McNamara to Glenn T. Seaborg[pdf][link]
1967-03JASON report, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia"[pdf][link]
1967-03-01Summary Report of the Nth Country Experiment[pdf][link]
1978-02-01Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 through September 1977."[pdf][link]
1997-03Joint DOE/DoD Topical Classification Guide for Nuclear Assembly Systems (TCG-NAS-2)[pdf][link]
2013-01Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore (DTRIAC SR-12-001)[pdf][link]

Note that this is a terribly idiosyncratic group of documents. If you are interested in doing research on nuclear topics with online resources, see my post on “Web-Based Primary Sources for Nuclear History.”