Edgar Sengier Edgar Sengier KBE ( 19 October 1879 – 26 July 1963 ) was the director of the Belgian Union Minière du Haut Katanga during World War II . Sengier is credited with giving the American government access to much of the uranium necessary for the Manhattan Project . He was the first non - American civilian to be awarded the Medal for Merit by the United States government . After World War II an American report revealed that Sengier not only sold uranium to America and Great Britain but also to Nazi Germany . The " Union Minière du Haut Katanga " . Born in Kortrijk , Sengier graduated in 1903 as a mining engineer from the University of Leuven and joined the Belgian Union Minière du Haut Katanga ( UMHK ) as it was beginning to exploit mines in the Congolese province of Katanga . The " UMHK " was a subsidiary of the " Union " , which was itself part of the " Société Générale de Belgique " . The " Société " ' s activity was , among other things , to mine copper deposits in Katanga . Shinkolobwe ' s uranium . Uranium was discovered as early as 1915 in Shinkolobwe , and extraction began in 1921 . Uranium ore from Shinkolobwe was very rich ( it contained up to 65 % of uranium ) ; in comparison , Canadian ore contained only 0 . 02 % . In May 1939 , Edgar Sengier , then director of both the " Société Générale " and the " UMHK " , learned about the potential of uranium from European scientists . British scientists had warned him that should the material he possessed fall into the enemy ' s hands , the consequences would be catastrophic . Sengier understood that uranium , a by - product that had until then been stored without being used , could become a crucial resource in times of war . In September 1940 , he ordered that half of the uranium stock available in Africa ( about 1 , 250 tons ) be secretly dispatched to New York , arriving on November 10 and December 19 , 1940 . At the start of the war , Sengier himself travelled to New York to conduct the " Union Minière " ' s worldwide operations from there . At first , the " UMHK " s uranium stockpile remained in a Staten Island warehouse . Manhattan Project . In September 1942 , Colonel Kenneth Nichols met Sengier in his New York office . Nichols had been ordered to find uranium by the head of the Manhattan Project , General Leslie Groves . He asked if the Union Minière could supply uranium ore , and Sengier ' s answer became history : " " You can have the ore now . It is in New York , a thousand tons of it . I was waiting for your visit . " " Nichols had heard of the ore from the State Department and Rosen of Standard Oil , but was surprised at the amount : 1200 tons , of which 100 tons was to go to Canada immediately for refining by Eldorado in Ontario . Nichols and Sengier negotiated a contract , and the Staten Island stockpile was transferred to the US Army . The Army also secured the remaining ore ( 3000 tons ) in Shinkolobwe , which was shipped to America . Nichols wrote : " Our best source , the Shinkolobwe mine , represented a freak occurrence in nature . It contained a tremendously rich lode of uranium pitchblende . Nothing like it has ever again been found . The ore already in the United States contained 65 percent UO , while the pitchblende aboveground in the Congo amounted to a thousand tons of 65 percent ore , and the waste piles of ore contained two thousand tons of 20 percent UO . To illustrate the uniqueness of Sengier ’ s stockpile , after the war the MED and the AEC considered ore containing three - tenths of 1 percent as a good find . Without Sengier ’ s foresight in stockpiling ore in the United States and aboveground in Africa , we simply would not have had the amounts of uranium needed to justify building the large separation plants and the plutonium reactors . " The exploitation of Shinkolobwe . The Shinkolobwe mine had been closed since 1939 and flooded . The American Army sent a squad from its Corps of Engineers to restore the mine , expand the aerodromes in Léopoldville and Elizabethville , and build a port in Matadi , on the Congo River . Between 1942 and 1944 , about 30 , 000 tons of uranium ore were sold to the US Army . The American government wanted exclusivity on the Shinkolobwe uranium ore , but Sengier initially refused . With support from the British government , the United States obtained exclusive rights on the Shinkolobwe ore in negotiations with the Belgian government ( which was then in exile in London ) . However , it seems that Sengier alone was at least partially aware of the Manhattan Project , as he got an assurance from Nichols that the ore would be used for war purposes , saying " You don ' t need to tell me how you ' ll use it . I think I know . " The agreement between the United States , Great Britain , and Belgium lasted 10 years and continued after the war . The uranium agreements in part explain Belgium ' s relative ease in rebuilding its economy after the war , as the country had no debt with the major financial powers . Awards and recognition . In 1946 , Sengier returned to the United States , where general Groves handed him the Medal for Merit for his contribution to Allied victory . He was the first non - American civilian to receive this distinction . His citation merely mentioned " services in supplying material " , as there were still restrictions on wartime information at the time he was awarded his medal . Sengier was also awarded the titles of Knight of the Order of the British Empire , Commander of the French Légion d ' honneur and Officer of the Order of Léopold and the Belgian Order of the Crown ( " kroonorde - ordre de la couronne " ) . In 1948 , a radioactive mineral discovered in Congo , sengierite , was named in his honor . Later life . Edgar Sengier remained director of the " Société Générale " and the " Union Minière " until 1949 . He remained on the company ' s administrative board until 1960 , before retiring in Cannes , where he died in 1963 .