Jaw-dropping find: Manhattan Project autographed book signed by Oppenheimer and 23 others

There really is gold in them thar hills.

Bill Panagopulos was recently at the Chesapeake, Maryland, farm he was buying when one of the two home inspectors reviewing it asked what he does for a living.

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Panagopulos, the president of Alexander Historical Auctions, explained he collects and sells relics, autographs, and artifacts dating back to the Civil War but especially from the World War II era, currently a hot market. Some of his most notable sales have been featured in Secrets.

“I told him about some of the great things that had come out of the woodwork during my career, including the top hat worn by FDR at his inauguration, Vito Genovese’s 1920s tax returns, a written bet between Eisenhower and Montgomery as to when World War II would end,” Panagopulos said.

(Photo courtesy of Alexander Historical Auctions)

That prompted the home inspector to tell of his own find.

“He mentioned that he had a friend whose grandmother had been a secretary on the Manhattan Project headed by Robert Oppenheimer, which developed the first atomic bomb. Of course, I scoffed. There were hundreds of secretaries working on that epic project, but I suggested the lady send me some photos of what she had regardless,” Panagopulos said.

When he opened her package, his jaw dropped.

“Here was a publication on the creation of ‘the Bomb,’ printed literally days after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, signed by most of the top physicists and other key players in the project: Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Ernesto Lawrence, James Chadwick, Harold Urey, Richard Tolman, James Conant, and 17 other key players,” he told us of the 200-page package that included the signatures of four Nobel Prize winners.

(Photo courtesy of Alexander Historical Auctions)

“It turns out the original owner had been the personal secretary of Gen. Leslie Groves himself, the military head of the entire project. The consignor, a local school teacher at Bohemia Manor High School, used to take this piece and pass it around class for her students to look at every so often,” Panagopulos said. “I was flabbergasted.”

The package included a copy of Atomic Bombs: A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government 1940-1945. It was written by Manhattan Project physicist Henry Smyth for Groves, who ran the Manhattan Project.

Copies were distributed after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, but only one was signed by the 24 creators of the first atomic bomb, a story that was reintroduced to the public recently with the award-winning movie Oppenheimer.

That’s because Groves’s secretary at the Pentagon, Nellie Sanderson, asked those who were part of the Manhattan Project to sign the book’s cover when they met with Groves, Panagopulos said.

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The auctioneer said the package will be offered in a sale set for Jan. 11-12 and that he expects it to sell for $20,000 or more.

“There really is treasure in them thar hills!” Panagopulos said.