In early 1945, the Canadian government learned about financial irregularities at Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited, a company that had supplied uranium to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Alerted by the Americans, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police uncovered fraud worth millions in stolen radium and corporate opportunities, yet demands for secrecy delayed justice for decades, through criminal investigations, abandoned prosecutions, and extensive civil lawsuits. In the Shadow of the Manhattan Project tells this remarkable story.
Set against the backdrop of the Second World War and high-level wartime diplomacy, this book explains why radium was worth stealing and how three well-positioned, trusted employees almost got away with it. Each had played a crucial role in the company’s success during the war, and each abused his position in a flagrant attempt to pull off what was nearly the perfect heist. Decades later, environmental contamination from the stolen radium was still being discovered, from downtown Toronto to soil in the Scarborough suburbs.
This cautionary tale explores how notions of national security, weak corporate oversight, and the lure of lucrative contracts created the perfect conditions for fraud and hobbled legal responses to brazen corporate malfeasance.
In the Shadow of the Manhattan Project spins a compelling narrative that will captivate readers who enjoy modern Canadian history, while its meticulous research offers rich resources to scholars of nuclear history, Canada-US relations, and Canadian legal history.
