In contrast, in the immediate aftermath of the war Meitner and Frisch were hailed as the discoverers of fission in English-speaking countries. Japan was seen as a puppet state of Germany and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as poetic justice for the persecution of the Jewish people. In January 1946, Meitner toured the United States, where she gave lectures and received honorary degrees. She attended a cocktail party for Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project (who gave her sole credit for the discovery of fission in his 1962 memoirs), and was named Woman of the Year by the Women's National Press Club. At the reception for this award, she sat next to the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. But Meitner did not enjoy public speaking, especially in English, nor did she relish the role of a celebrity, and she declined the offer of a visiting professorship at Wellesley College. Hahn nominated Meitner and Frisch for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948. He and Meitner remained close friends after the war.