William Laurence

(1888 - 1977)

A Lithuanian immigrant who fled Russia in 1905, William Laurence worked as a science reporter for the New York Times. His article “The Atom Gives Up” was so accurate in predicting the potential of harnessing atomic energy that the director of the Manhattan Project received a notification if anyone borrowed the article from a U.S. library. Laurence helped shape postwar opinion on the atomic bomb and nuclear energy by deliberately sharing misinformation—including the claim that radiation was “a very pleasant way to die.”