Summary

In Reaction Begins, Truman was aboard a ship returning to America when he got word of the successful bombing of Hiroshima. He announced it to the crew and the men erupted into cheers. The scientists at Los Alamos learned that the bomb was a success. Oppenheimer was relieved that the bomb “wasn't a dud” but then was sobered by the thought of how many people must have died in the blast. That reaction was typical with most of the scientists feeling that a celebration of their success would be “ghoulish.”

At Farm Hall, a British officer told Otto Hahn about the bomb. Hahn told the other scientists. They didn't know the rooms were bugged and talked about the implications. Heisenberg insisted that it wasn't a real atomic bomb. The scientists continued to talk about their own work and what they could...