From April through December of 1945, ten of Nazi Germany's greatest nuclear physicists were detained by Allied military and intelligence services in a kind of "gilded cage" -- at Farm Hall, an English country manor near Cambridge, England. The physicists knew the Reich had failed to develop an atomic bomb, and they soon learned, from a BBC radio report on August 6, that the Allies had succeeded in their own efforts to create such a weapon. But what they did not know was that many of their meetings as well as private conversations were being monitored and recorded by British agents. Farm Hall was stately and comfortable, but it was a prison, and it was bugged.This book contains the complete collection of transcripts that were made from the secret 1945 recordings. A startling and sobering set of documents, it provides an unprecedented view into the thoughts and feelings of these scientists as they contemplated the destruction of the Reich, their failure to deliver a bomb into Hitler's hands, and the state of their own consciences. The Farm Hall transcripts, along with Bernstein's commentaries and a wide-ranging and thought-provoking introduction by historian David Cassidy, are an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to understand the history of physics and warfare. Jeremy Bernstein was a staff writer covering science for The New Yorker for more than 30 years. The author of numerous books on science and Professor Emeritus of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology, he is also the recipient of the John Case Award, the Brandeis Creative Arts Medal, the Britannica Award, and the Gemant Award. "Jeremy Bernstein's thorough understanding of the physics, and his sharp but fair-minded criticism of Heisenberg's own approach to the problems involved, makes him an essential guide to the Farm Hall transcripts, and for me illuminated a great many things I had not properly appreciated before." (Michael Frayn, author of