Doesn’t sound so noble that way, huh?
Something that strikes me about this piece about the idiot reporter who nearly revealed the Manhattan Project to the Axis – and the commentary to that piece in the Atlantic: neither account takes the time to say, Oh, by the way, this was a hideously irresponsible thing to write and publish while we were in the middle of a world-wide conflict against nigh-literal Forces of Evil. I will give Restricted Data (the original site to tell the story) a provisional pass on that: narrating stories about this stuff is apparently what that site is about, so they may have a legitimately detached view on the subject. But the Atlantic doesn’t get off that easily:
Before Woodward and Bernstein, before Glenn Greenwald, there was John W. Raper, a columnist for the Cleveland Press, who stumbled across something very odd while on vacation in New Mexico.
Given that Woodward, Bernstein, and Greenwald are heroes to a certain strain of the Left*, I think that it’s safe to say that at least one Atlantic columnist is ready to give Raper the same status for nearly leaking the Manhattan Project story. Which, by the way, might have ended up with us not having the atomic bombs early enough to forestall invading Japan. Which would have ensured a butcher’s bill of vastly more American AND Japanese death. Which means, essentially, that at least one Atlantic columnist might be kind of… unthinking… about this sort of thing.
Lesley Groves apparently came really, really close to having Raper sent off to the Pacific Theater as a draftee. I do not disagree with his decision not to do so – the guy was old, and from the article a bit of a crank about it – but I very much understand the temptation. Sometimes you really do need to learn when to keep your bleeping mouth shut.
(Via Instapundit)
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*I’m not going to fight any wars over Woodward & Bernstein. But Glenn Greenwald should be extradited for his participation in Ed Snowden’s espionage scheme. And if Greenwald truly believed in civil disobedience he’d surrender himself to the American authorities and dared them to prosecute him. Which he won’t. Because Glenn Greenwald hates my country, and wants it to die in a grease fire.
Then there was the case of the story “Deadline” by Cleve Cartmill, published in Astounding Science Fiction in early 1944, that described the development of an atomic bomb (on another planet). Convinced that there had been a leak of atomic secrets, FBI agents paid a visit to Astounding editor John W. Campbell, but he was able to convince them that all of the details in the story had been gleaned from unclassified sources. Nevertheless, Campbell agreed not to publish any stories about atomic energy until after the war was over.
Campbell was very relieved when the FBI agents left. In the next room was a map of the United States with pushpins to mark the locations of Astounding subscribers. He’d been wondering why there suddenly were so many subscribers living in an obscure town in northern New Mexico …