 On May 5, 1940, Laurence published a front-page exclusive in the "New York Times" on successful attempts in isolating uranium-235 which were reported in "Physical Review", and outlined many (somewhat hyperbolic) claims about the possible future of nuclear power.He had assembled it in part out of his own fear that Nazi Germany was attempting to develop atomic energy, and had hoped the article would galvanize a U.S. effort.Though his article had no effect on the U.S. bomb program, it was passed to the Soviet mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky by his son, a professor of history at Yale University, and motivated Vernadsky to urge Soviet authorities to embark on their own atomic program, and established one of the first commissions to formulate "a plan of measures which it would be necessary to realize in connection with the possibility of using intraatomic energy".