the nuclear weapons project should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply, the Minister of Supply, John Wilmot, was added. Activity International relations As reports came in of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Attlee considered how nuclear weapons had changed the nature of warfare and international relations. He raised the matter with the Gen 75 Committee, and Bevin suggested that a first step should be a letter to Truman suggesting a review of policy. The letter was sent to Truman on 20 September 1945. A response was slow in coming; Truman was concerned about the effect that Anglo-American and Canadian talks might have on the Soviet Union. At Attlee's insistence, talks were scheduled for 9 November 1945. The Gen 75 Committee meeting discussed what should be said at the meeting, in particular what British policy towards the Soviet Union should be. Bevin took a conciliatory line at the Gen 75 Committee meeting on 11 October 1945, only to take a harder one at the meeting a week later. Unusually, the matter was placed before the full cabinet. Hopes were expressed that Britain might be able to broker a deal that would head off a schism between the United States and the Soviet Union. Ultimately, though, it endorsed Attlee's preference that practical knowledge of nuclear weapons design not be shared with the Soviet Union. Research establishment During the war, Chadwick, Cockcroft, Oliphant, Peierls, Harrie Massey and Herbert Skinner had met in Washington, DC, in November 1944, and drawn up a proposal for a British atomic energy research establishment, which they had calculated would cost around £1.5 million. The Tube Alloys Committee endorsed their recommendation in April 1945, and Anderson, in his capacity as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy, submitted the memorandum advocating it to the Gen 75 Committee. It endorsed the creation of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in September, Attlee announced the decision in the House of Commons on 29 October 1945. Organisation of production In October 1945, the Gen 75 Committee considered the issue of ministerial responsibility for atomic energy. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Edward Bridges, and the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy both recommended that it be placed within the Ministry of Supply. Developing atomic energy would require an enormous construction effort, which the Ministry of Supply was best equipped to undertake. The Tube Alloys Directorate was transferred