The Embedded 'New York Times' Reporter Who Brought Us the 'Atomic Age'

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Even if secrecy held, the frightening new weapon would have to be sold to the public after it was used, both to justify dropping it over heavily populated cities, and to build more of them after the war. In an internal memo, Groves warned that once the secret was out, "the project will be subject to harassing investigation, official inquiries ... and all the miscellany of crackpots, columnists, commentators, political aspirants, would-be authors and worldsavers."

To combat this, Groves proposed that officials "control the situation by the issuance of carefully written press releases." Indeed, from that moment on, control of nuclear commentary would be the government's goal for decades.

The Manhattan Project already had a public-relations staff, but Groves sought a respected journalist who would supply a "more objective touch" and add authority to the press releases. An associate recommended a brilliant choice: William L. Laurence, the Harvard-educated, Putlizer Prize-winning science reporter for The New York Times.

Meeting secretly at the Times, Groves found Laurence eager to take what could be called the ultimate “embedded reporter" job.
.....
Laurence even wrote an early draft of President Truman's announcement to the American public of the first atomic attack. But it was toned down radically, as Laurence had promised "a new Promised Land of wealth, health and happiness for all mankind" because of the bomb.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980524

[glitch]

1. It must be overcrowded in hell. nt