Besides the implications for international cooperation there is a good argument to be made that this was to avoid as much as possible damage after a nuclear accident.
And that applied to the knowledge as well. If Britain fell and the information on building a bomb fell into German hands, that was much worse than just Britain falling.
Great Britain's outrage is understandable.
Also, even if a situation ends, we'll always feel that it's decently probable it can happen again throughout our lifetimes. Ex: Anyone who lived through WWII is much more concerned (and rightfully so) that it could happen again.
The fact that Britain was nearly conquered in 1941 would be enough, with that bias considered.
>Also, even if a situation ends, we'll always feel that it's decently probable it can happen again throughout our lifetimes
Yes, and imagine how terrifying that scenario becomes if the enemy has nuclear weapons and you don't.
>The fact that Britain was nearly conquered in 1941 would be enough, with that bias considered.
Nearly conquered is a massive overstatement for a start. If you consider that too much of a risk to allow Britain to have nukes, the Business Plot was enough to forbid the US from having nukes.
Holden, however, reveals documents that indicate on one occasion he risked leaking information of such potential magnitude that the FBI might well have taken drastic action against him had he been discovered. Certainly, it imperilled the cooperative relationship between the two nations regarding weapons research – by revealing that the cooperation was, in fact, only going one way.
The researcher details a 1944 meeting at Berkeley, California, between Oliphant, Nobel laureate Ernest Lawrence and the military man in charge of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves. At the fiery meeting, Groves – usually a very discreet operator – let it slip that there were some parts of the research that were not being shared with the British.
An imminent visit to Washington DC by one of Winston Churchill’s closest advisors, Lord Cherwell, was to be an exercise in misdirection. Further, Groves revealed, after the end of World War II the US intended to ensure that nuclear weapons manufacture and the storage of nuclear material would happen only in the central portions of North America.
Secretly appalled by this, Oliphant – Holden plausibly suggests – stopped work almost immediately and then travelled, perhaps for three days on a train, to the British embassy in Washington DC, and there sent a confidential memo to the British authorities, blowing the whistle on the US intentions.
Was putting nuclear weapons manufacture and storage in the central parts of the US part of keeping the technology secret?