FRONT PAGE OF NEW YORK TIMES
AUGUST 7, 1945
MID PAGE 6TH
COLUMN | Atom
Bombs Made in 3 Hidden 'Cities': Secrecy
on Weapon So Great That Not Even Workers Knew of Their Product By Jay Wale .(EXCERPT) The War Department revealed today how three "hidden cities"
with a total population of 100,000 inhabitants sprang into being as the result of the $3,000,000,000 atomic bomb project,
how they did their work without knowing what it was all about, and how they kept the biggest secret of the war. One of these, Oak Ridge, situated where only oak
and pine trees had dotted small farms before, is now the 5th largest city in Tennessee. Its population of 70,000 has 13 supermarkets,
9 drug stores, and 7 theatres.
A
second town of 7,000 was built for reasons and security on a New Mexico mesa. The third, named Rockland Village, houses 17,000
men, women, and children on the remote banks of the Columbia River in the State of Washington. None of the people, who came to these developments from homes
all the way from Maine to California, had the slightest idea of what they were making in the gigantic government plants. |