Editing Smyth Report (section)

{{short description|First official account of the Manhattan Project}}
{{For|the 2003 report on corporate governance submitted to the UK government|Smith Report}}

{{featured article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox book
| name             = Atomic Energy for Military Purposes
| italic title     = no
| image            = Smyth Report.jpg
| image_size       = 200px
| caption    = Cover of 1945 Princeton edition
| author           = [[Henry DeWolf Smyth]]
| title_orig       = <!-- if not in English -->
| translator       =
| illustrator      =
| cover_artist     =
| country          = United States
| language         = English
| series           =
| subject          =
| genre            =
| publisher        = [[Princeton University Press]]
| pub_date         = 1945
| english_pub_date =
| media_type       =
| pages            = 264
| isbn             =
| oclc             = 770285
| dewey            =
| congress         = 595388938
| preceded_by      =
| followed_by      =
| external_url=https://archive.org/details/atomicenergyform00smytrich
| external_host= [[Internet Archive]]
}}

The '''Smyth Report''' (officially '''''Atomic Energy for Military Purposes''''') is the common name of an administrative history written by American [[physicist]] [[Henry DeWolf Smyth]] about the [[Manhattan Project]], the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] effort to develop [[atomic bomb]]s during [[World War II]]. The subtitle of the report is '''''A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes'''''. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] on August 6 and 9.

Smyth was commissioned to write the report by [[Major General (United States)|Major General]] [[Leslie R. Groves, Jr.]], the director of the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report was the first official account of the development of the atomic bombs and the basic physical processes behind them. It also served as an indication as to what information was [[Declassification|declassified]]; anything in the Smyth Report could be discussed openly. For this reason, the Smyth Report focused heavily on information, such as basic [[nuclear physics]], which was either already widely known in the scientific community or easily deducible by a competent scientist, and omitted details about [[chemistry]], [[metallurgy]], and [[weapon|ordnance]]. This would ultimately give a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics.

The Smyth Report sold almost 127,000 copies in its first eight printings, and was on ''[[The New York Times]]'' best-seller list from mid-October 1945 until late January 1946. It has been translated into over 40 languages.