TUBE ALLOYS
|
|
TUBE ALLOYS was a cryptonym for nuclear weapons used during World War II, when the very possibility of nuclear weapons was kept at such a high level of secrecy that it had to be referred to by a cryptonym even in the highest circles of government. The term was most famously used in the section of the Quebec Agreement between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill of August 19, 1943, formally entitled "Articles of Agreement governing collaboration between the authorities of the U.S.A. and U.K. in the matter of Tube Alloys".
It is also known as the informal name of Britain's initial World War II atomic bomb project, which eventually folded into the American Manhattan Project.
Later in the war, tube alloy came to refer specifically to the synthetic element plutonium, whose very existence was secret until its use in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.