When the atomic age dawned in July 1945 on the New Mexican desert, William L. Laurence of the New York Times was the only reporter therealthough security prevented him from printing a word for a month. On Aug. 9, 1945, he rode with the B-29 bomber that obliterated Nagasaki. He once talked Harry Truman into sending a clandestine Government expedition to Africa, in quest of a rare plant from which cortisone could be produced. Leading scientists were more than his informants; they were also his friends, who respected his ability to translate...
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