The following podcast contains some graphic descriptions which some listeners might find upsetting.

On New Year's Eve, 1942, some people are out drinking and dancing.

Others are celebrating by having a nice meal with loved ones, but still hasn't unpacked.

Since fleeing Berlin nearly a decade ago, he's always ready to leave at a moment's notice.

It has been less than a month since the resounding success of the Chicago Pile One,

where he'd achieved the world's first nuclear chain reaction.

The first time in the world's history a nuclear reactor had successfully gone critical. But already he can feel his influence slipping. Part of him would love to just walk away from it all. The bomb has

consumed his life for a decade and he's tired. But he can't

leave the bomb in the hands of men who seem to have given no thought to the

consequences of using it. How can he influence these politicians and military men?

This is their project now and it looks nearly certain that they're going to be

able to build a bomb. It's what comes next that has him worried.

Salard wanted to get the bomb before the Nazis, but he didn't want to see it used. The destruction

an atomic bomb would unleash, particularly on civilians, is unconscionable.

The morsel lot had seen of the American military machine, the more concerned he has become. Who is stopping to think about the morality? Who is stopping to think

about the dangers of what awaits in the nuclear age? It seems that these people

only care about winning, not the costs.

If no one else will speak up, Salard knows he has to be the one to stop them.

He can't imagine the destruction the bomb might bring if he doesn't.

My name is Emily Strasser.

From the BBC World Service, this is the bomb.

Episode 5, Enemy Alien.

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