Nonfiction | February 12, 2013
Under the Cloud
Susan E. Detweiler
On October 19, 1942, nearly eleven months after the United States declared war on Japan, Major General Leslie Groves, the military head of what came to be known as the Manhattan Project, sat with Robert Oppenheimer on the Twentieth Century Limited. They must have appeared an odd pair—Groves with his bulldog face and elephantine body sitting across from Oppenheimer, his frame nearly skeletal in its thinness as he fidgeted and chain-smoked Chesterfields. At an undefined point as the train sped between Chicago and New York, Groves made his decision about the scientific leadership for the bomb, “the Gadget,” as some subsequent combination of secrecy and perversity named it.
This essay is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
Aug 19 2021
On Defeat and Diego
On Defeat and Diego Alexander Ramirez Once, while I was training at the Police Athletic League in Oak Park, Diego “Chico” Corrales walked into the gym holding a trophy half… read more
Nonfiction
Aug 19 2021
Oil Town Overture
Town Overture Dave Zoby At five AM I smell coffee through the floorboards. Carter only drinks organic. He set up his own kitchenette down there. I hear the clink of… read more
Editors' Prize Winner
Jun 02 2021
Opera House
Opera House By Robert Stothart Everything seemed married to everything else. —Gustave Baumann, printmaker, Santa Fe Overture A mere 7,918 miles in diameter, Earth, our home together, travels a minuscule… read more