 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.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.