An unflinching examination of the moral and professional dilemmas faced by physicians who took part in the Manhattan Project.

After his father died, James L. Nolan, Jr., took possession of a box of private family materials. To his surprise, the small secret archive contained a treasure trove of information about his grandfather’s role as a doctor in the Manhattan Project. Dr. Nolan, it turned out, had been a significant figure. A talented ob-gyn radiologist, he cared for the scientists on the project, organized safety and evacuation plans for the Trinity test at Alamogordo, escorted the “Little Boy” bomb from Los Alamos to the Pacific Islands, and was one of the first Americans to enter the irradiated ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Participation on the project challenged Dr. Nolan’s instincts as a healer. He and his medical colleagues were often conflicted, torn between their duty and desire to win the war and their oaths to protect life. Atomic Doctors follows these physicians as they sought to maximize the health and safety of those exposed to nuclear radiation, all the while serving leaders determined to minimize delays and maintain secrecy. Called upon both to guard against the harmful effects of radiation and to downplay its hazards, doctors struggled with the ethics of ending the deadliest of all wars using the most lethal of all weapons. Their work became a very human drama of ideals, co-optation, and complicity.

A vital and vivid account of a largely unknown chapter in atomic history, Atomic Doctors is a profound meditation on the moral dilemmas that ordinary people face in extraordinary times.

"Usually histories of the nuclear project at Los Alamos, N.M., during World War II dwell on tensions between the military officers overseeing the project and the physicists doing the necessary research. In this striking study, James L. Nolan Jr. looks at the disquieting participation of members of a third profession, medicine…[A] powerful and readable book." - New York Times Book Review

"An admirable account of the central role of physicians in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath…Nolan’s skillful weaving of his grandfather’s story into an account of the pressures exerted on medical ethics by time, place, and circumstance makes for compelling reading." - American Scientist

"Describe[s] how American doctors became connected to troubling events during World War II that raised thorny moral issues around medicine and war." - Foreign Affairs

"A disturbing account of the early years of the atomic bomb, when safety took second place to winning World War II…Haunting…A solid narrative of America’s painful introduction to atomic radiation." - Kirkus Reviews

"This fine-grained and lucidly written account illuminates a little-known aspect of America’s nuclear history." - Publishers Weekly

"James L. Nolan’s Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age focuses on the role of his grandfather James F. Nolan (1915–83) as a research physician in the unfolding drama of developing a nuclear bomb…[Nolan] clarifies important historical facts and opens an interdisciplinary academic discourse about the role of nuclear technology in American society. This approach makes the meticulously researched publication, perfectly placed seventy-five years after the Trinity test, a very readable book, despite its tragic subject. It gives a truthful insight into the complexity of a physician’s conscience and complicity at the dawn of the nuclear age." - H-Net Reviews

"Nolan's Atomic Doctors is a splendid, valuable, and necessary book." - Medicine, Conflict and Survival

"That the military acted to deal with the medical concerns about radiation only when faced with legal pressure or loss of face is also an all too modern concept for not just the military but society…There is much for a reader to take away from the book regarding history and ethics." - Air & Space Power Journal

"As the grandson of the protagonist of the book, James L. Nolan, Jr. crafts a stunning narrative, in which personal accounts and family experiences are successfully amalgamated with academic rigor, situated within a large historical framework…Offer[s] counter-narratives that shed new insight into the dominant narrative of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." - Western Historical Quarterly

"Illuminates how Dr. Nolan at Los Alamos and two physician colleagues, Louis Hempelmann and Stafford Warren, dealt with the frightening human effects of nuclear radiation from the bomb. Combining an effective analysis of their efforts with a compelling telling of Dr. Nolan’s own story, the book enlarges America’s atomic bomb experience as a case study of truly disruptive technology in war and society." - Science Sketches

"Carefully researched and engagingly written…As Nolan concludes, the willingness of health professionals—including physicians—to do the military’s bidding, and to condone experiments that were ‘technically sweet’ but ethically dubious, means that ‘the long shadow of the Manhattan Project…is still with us." - California History

"This story, full of both poignant family life and the challenges of working at remote U.S. military locations, is a tale worth reading not only for the historical value, but also to illustrate the dilemma that radiation posed to US leadership and downward through the ranks to the medical personnel…Highly recommended." - Journal of Nuclear Materials Management

"It is hard to imagine a more appropriate author for this impressive work of scholarship and interpretation than [Nolan]…It is an eminently readable history of the early years of the atomic age, presented as a case study that raises broader questions about the relationship between technological determinism and human freedom." - Technology and Society

"In this gripping book, James L. Nolan Jr. narrates…a compelling commentary on not only the ethics of atomic warfare but also the technological experiments of our own age, including artificial intelligence and genetic engineering." - Technology and Culture