In the Shadow of the Manhattan Project: Radium, Larceny, and Secrecy at Eldorado

Patricia I. McMahon and Robert Bothwell, In the Shadow of the Manhattan Project: Radium, Larceny, and Secrecy at Eldorado, published with the University of British Columbia Press.

This book offers a cautionary tale of how secrecy can undermine accountability. During the Second World War, a Canadian company became a crucial supplier of uranium for the Manhattan Project, the program which developed the atomic bomb during World War Two. With uranium came radium. In the name of “national security,” ordinary safeguards were ignored: auditors were excluded, directors were kept uninformed, and public scrutiny disappeared. Focusing on the Eldorado Mining and Refining Company, the book shows how prioritizing secrecy over accountability created the conditions for fraud, environmental contamination, and decades of unanswered questions. It argues that historical transparency and strong institutional memory are essential to protecting public trust and ensuring legal accountability, and features the work of well-known lawyers Arthur Slaght, Joseph Sedgwick, and John Robinette.