The Pittsburgh Press – Oct 4, 1945 by Ruth Millett
It has finally been revealed that husbands of bridge playing women were rejected for work on the atomic bomb.
Why?
Because, according to Dr. Joseph C. Morris of Duane University, who aided in the recruiting of workers, it was feared, the bridge-playing wife would worm the secret of her husband’s Job from him and then inadvertently let that secret slip out over the bridge table.”
They were wise men who foresaw that potential threat to military secrecy. For if private matters that should remain private ever come out anywhere —it is over the bridge table when a bunch of women start trying to out-do each other in proving how much they know that the others don’t know.
Competition for center of the stage in a strictly feminine gathering does something to women that makes them tell things they know they haven’t any business telling.
And it isn’t hard to imagine that the wife of an atomic bomb worker —forced to listen during bridge game after bridge game to other women bragging about their husbands overseas—might one day weaken and say defiantly. “Well. George Isn’t in uniform but . . .” And then go on to impress the other women with the importance of George’s civilian job.
For women just can’t be bested at bridge-table gossip—and what a woman knows is fully as important to the enjoyment of the game as the cards she holds and how she plays them.