Newly discovered archival footage of the construction of Oak Ridge

Here.

Colour, no sound. Just lots of slow pans across a top-secret building site for the Manhattan Project. It's likely that none of the workers shown in these clips had any idea what they were building.

 

It is without doubt that none of the people engaged in the construction, nor those who were eventually involved in running the Oak Ridge system (below the top.01%) had any idea what they were involved in. The MED planners even went so far as to make sure that the janitors who serviced the offices as the plant was up and "running" were illiterate so they wouldn't be tempted to read the garbage in the trash cans before they took it to the incinerators, and they were timed.

The workers in the plant had a saying "what are we doing? Tons of stuff goes in, noting goes out?". When the entire production goal is to enrich an 0.7% isotope out of U-238, to a weapons grade (90%) level, it would be amazing they ever saw or cared about anything but a job that paid the bills after the depression days they had just endured.

Great footage none the less, thanks for sharing your find!

 

Whats the difference between private companies and the public service? People still don't know the secret ingrediant of Coca-Cola but everyone knows how to build a nuclear bomb!

Actually i think we have JUST found out the secret ingrediant of coke...think they were forced to lable it...but you get my jist.

I think it highly likely that a bunch of people knew what was going on, but were just trustworthy...Too many people together too many bright (and inquisitive) minds not to put two and two together...Put it this way...It'd be a first!