wow you're retarded. let me guess, are you american
edit: it's thanks to my country that you were before the commies to have an atomic bomb.
if it were my choice, i'd have given it to the russians.
- http://www.nuclearno.com/text.asp?8815
U.S. secretly agreed to buy Belgium uranium for Hiroshima bomb
BRUSSELS -- A Belgian historian has found documents showing that the United States reached a secret agreement with Belgium during World War II to obtain the right to purchase uranium ore that was later used in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Jacques Vanderlinden, a professor of history at the Free University of Brussels, uncovered the documents at the British Public Record Office in London.
It is already known that uranium from Congo, which was under Belgium`s colonial rule, was used in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, but it is the first time that details of the secret agreement between Belgium and the United States have emerged.
During World War II, the United States purchased about 30,000 tons of uranium ore that had been mined in Congo from Belgium for close to 100 million dollars. It continued to purchase uranium under this agreement after World War II during the Cold War.
Vanderlinden said a Belgian firm driven by national policy began mining uranium ore from the south of Congo, which was under its colonial rule, before World War II.
In 1939 the company began searching for a market to sell the uranium in North America, and began transporting it to the United States and Canada. It was sold for the purpose of coloring ceramics and to produce radium for medical use.
But in September 1942 officials participating in the United States` Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb visited the New York office of this firm and formed a purchase agreement to buy the uranium. By 1944 the firm had sold about 30,000 tons of uranium.
The United States also engaged in consultations with England to stabilize its supply of uranium, and in August 1944, it entered into a secret agreement with the Belgian government in exile in London for the right to buy the uranium. At the time Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany.
The agreement documents stated the reason for supplying the uranium as the protection of civilization. They said that the United States and England had the exclusive right to purchase uranium for military use, and that both countries would fund the extraction of the uranium.
In addition, the documents stated that the countries would supply Belgium with technology for the peaceful use of uranium in the future.
The documents gave code names to the radioactive substances. Uranium oxide was "Q-11," and radium was "K-65." It was decided that these terms would be used in import and export documents.
Between 1945 and 1960, when the agreement was deemed to expire, uranium imports totaled about 15,000 tons.
The Belgian government set up a secret account, and it collected part of the sales of the uranium from the company as tax. The amount it collected totaled more than 14 million dollars.
Vanderlinden said at least 75 percent of the uranium used in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs was obtained through the Congo route. He said the firm that sold the uranium knew that it was being put to military use, but did not know that it was the material for an atomic bomb until after the bombing of Hiroshima.
The Belgian government in exile at first did not know about the U.S. atomic bomb project.
He said that the Belgian government supported its ally the United States at the time and did not react against the bombing of Hiroshima. It was not until after the war, he said, that Europe began to debate over the tragedy of the bombing. He said leaders at the time believed the U.S. nuclear umbrella was offering the protection of "freedom" under the threat of the Soviet Union. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, August 4, 2004).