Tube Alloys - The Quebec Agreement

The Quebec Agreement

Winston Churchill then sought information about building Britain's own diffusion plant, a heavy water plant and an atomic reactor in Britain, despite its immense cost. However, in July 1943, in London, American officials cleared up some major misunderstandings about British motives, and after many months of negotiations the Quebec Agreement was finally signed by Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 19 August 1943. The British then handed over all of their material to the Americans and in return received the copies of all the American progress reports to the President. The British effort was then subsumed into the Manhattan Project until after the war.

In a section of the Quebec Agreement formally entitled "Articles of Agreement governing collaboration between the authorities of the USA and UK in the matter of Tube Alloys", Britain and the USA agreed to share resources "to bring the Tube Alloys project to fruition at the earliest moment."

The leaders agreed that

• "we will never use this agency against each other,
• "we will not use it against third parties without each other's consent, and
• "we will not either of us communicate any information about Tube Alloys to third parties except by mutual consent."

It was also agreed that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial nature would be decided at the discretion of the US President.

William Penney, one of the Tube Alloys scientists, was an expert in shock-waves. In June 1944 he went to America to work at Los Alamos as part of the British delegation to the Manhattan Project. His leadership qualities and his ability to work in harmony with others resulted in him being added to the core group of scientists who made all key decisions in the direction of the programme.

In 1945, US President Harry S. Truman had agreed to Churchill's request that British observers could witness the dropping of the bomb on Japan. But when Group Captain Leonard Cheshire and Professor William Penney went to Tinian, they were not allowed by Groves and/or LeMay to go on the Hiroshima flight, and only after protests went in the observation plane Big Stink on the Nagasaki flight. While Penney knew much of the theory of the Project, so did other members of Project Alberta who also flew over Japan.

The Smyth Report was issued by the US War Department on 12 August 1945, giving the story of the atomic bomb and including the technical details that could now be made public. It made few references to the British contribution to the bomb, and a White Paper, Statements Relating to the Atomic Bomb was hurriedly drafted by Michael Perrin. This account was issued just after Attlee had replaced Churchill as Prime Minister, and was the only official statement on the British contribution for fifteen years.