Another fascinating topic given scant attention in my book is the uranium mining industry and its history. I just couldn’t fit it in and there are plenty of books to peruse if you’re interested. As background, of course, I knew that the United States sought to corner every last morsel of this precious ore after World War II, as this wonderful summary attests:
Those, then, were the goals of Groves and the Combined Development Trust: procurement and pre-emption. Though the initial concern in the establishment of the survey was procurement of supplies to fuel the nascent atomic research and production program, the tone of the report and its recommendations shows that by the close of 1944 the emphasis was on preemptive control. The aim was to have under the jurisdiction of the Trust 97.5 percent of the world’s supply of uranium and over 90 percent of the supply of thorium (the possibility of reserves in Japan and Russia unknown to the researchers was acknowledged). The Americans’ program was expanding so rapidly, however, that within a year the prime concern would again be procurement of supplies. Nevertheless, for the first part of 1945 preemption still took first place.
Helmreich, Jonathan E. 1986. Gathering Rare Ores: The Diplomacy of Uranium Acquisition, 1943–1954. Princeton University Press, 48-49
