When Science Fiction is Science Fact describes what happens when a sci-fi story predicts the future a bit too well:
The story in Astounding that had caused such uproar in the Manhattan Project was typical of science fiction yarns of the time. Written by author Cleve Cartmill it was called Deadline and described an earth-like planet, in which a commando, albeit one with a prehensile tail, was assigned to destroy a giant bomb. The story was packed with technical data describing ‘atomic isotope separation methods’ and the dangers of being able to control the explosion of a U-235 bomb. While the bomb described in the story didn’t exactly resemble that being constructed in Los Alamos, the story’s descriptions of difficulties in separating uranium into fissionable and non-fissionable isotopes did speak of one of the major problems currently under investigation at the Manhattan Project. The federal authorities believed that these references could only have come from classified research.Counter-intelligence agents were immediately sent round to Cartmill’s house in Los Angeles, but Cartmill assigned all blame to his editor, Campbell, who had provided him with the technical details. When Campbell was asked how he had come upon such classified information he explained that he was a physics graduate from MIT, and that he had come up with the idea by basing all his suppositions on information freely available to the public. He calmly showed where he had found out about Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman’s discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and how he had worked through the normal extrapolation process so common in his magazine’s stories.
The investigators were not appeased. Cartmill was placed under observation, his mail was opened and he and Campbell were subjected to days of interrogation. The Manhattan Project’s security chief wanted the Office of Censorship to shut down the magazine entirely because “such highly particularised stories on secret weapons are detrimental to national security”. But, to their credit the Office of Censorship refused, stating that “editor Campbell’s…observations on the subject matter are those that can be produced by any person with a smattering of science plus a fertile imagination, who may be in the scientific fiction publishing business”.
Indeed it was not even the first time that science fiction had trod such classified ground. In 1914 in his story The World Set Free, H.G. Wells had written of the devastating power of an atomic bomb, and had predicted the splitting of the atom to within five years. As recently as 1941 Robert Heinlein’s story Solution Unsatisfactory had talked of using U-235 in a controlled explosion “that would be a whole air raid in itself, a single explosion that would flatten out an entire industrial centre”. Ultimately Astounding was let off the hook and its suggestion of the near-term practical possibility of an atomic bomb was put down to coincidence. However Campbell was warned not to publish any more stories containing “any reference to uranium and atomic power”.
(Hat tip to Boing Boing.)