| There has been a great deal written over the past 70 years about
the birth of the atomic bomb and Project Manhattan. But how
many are aware that Canada played a critical role in not only the
development of the bomb but in the decision to drop it on Hiroshima,
Japan? Until 1939, uranium was an unwanted waste product from
radium mining. There were tons of it lying around Port Hope,
Ontario, since a refinery had operated
there in the 1930s to extract radium from ores from Great Bear Lake.
Early in 1939, German scientists proved uranium atoms could be
split, or fissioned, releasing energy. If a chain reaction could be
achieved, an "atomic bomb" was possible. Within months, French
scientists were trying to provoke a chain reaction. They fled to England when Germany invaded France.
In 1940, the British figured out how to make an atomic bomb by
enriching natural uranium - a slow, difficult, expensive process.
In utmost secrecy, they asked the Americans for cooperation and the
Canadians for uranium. Following the attack on Pearl
Harbour in 1941, the Americans took over the project. Uranium for
the world's first A-Bombs was refined at Port Hope for the U.S.
Army. Some of the uranium was enriched for the Hiroshima bomb;
the rest was irradiated in the world's first nuclear reactors to
produce plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb.
In 1942, the British moved their own plutonium-production
research team to Montreal -- away from the Luftwaffe and closer to
the Americans. Canada paid all expenses, and Canadian scientists
joined the team. The Montreal Lab focussed on the best ways to
produce plutonium for bombs
So on August 6, 1945, when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima, it was thanks to the assistance of Canada. However,
the mystique does not stop with the making of the bomb.
 The
Anglo-Canadian-American Atomic Bomb Project, the largest secret
project in human history, was started in 1940. At t he
Allied Leaders Conference in August, 1943, the three major leaders,
Churchill form the UK, Roosevelt from the US and Mackenzie King, PM
of Canada, signed the Quebec Agreement which stipulated that the
Bomb would not be used "against each other," or "against third
parties without each other's consent". It also established a
Combined Policy Committee of six to deal with the Bomb: three
Americans, two Brits, and the Honourable C. D. Howe, Canada's
Minister of Everything".
Mackenzie King and Howe were both told in advance of the plan to
drop the bomb on Hiroshima and, according to the agreement, had to
consent to its use.
I am not sure that we should be proud about that or not.
I acknowledge an article written by Dr. Gordon Edwards, former
President of the CCNR.
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