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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Arnold Kramish was a physicist in the Manhattan Project and a member of the Special Engineering Detachment (SED) at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Los Alamos.  He was the third member of the team present during the explosion at the Philadelphia Navy Yard which killed Douglas Meigs and Peter Bragg.  Immediately following the war, Kramish was with the Atomic Energy Commission.  In 1951, he became a senior staff member of the RAND Corporation.  From 1970 to 1976, he was posted in Paris as U.S. Science & Technology Counselor for UNESCO and OECD.  He authored several books, including The Griffin, an investigation of espionage in the Second World War, before passing away in 2010. 

You can find out more about the accident in Philadelphia here.

Arnold Kramish’s Timeline
1943 Joined Manhattan Project with Special Engineering Detachment

1944 Sep 2nd Survived explosion at Philadelphia Navy Yard resulting from a clogged tube in the liquid diffusion plant.

1946 Left Manhattan Project for work with the Atomic Energy Commission.

1951 Became Senior Staff Member with RAND Corporation

1986 Published The Griffin

2010 Jun 15th Died near Washington, DC

Reference letter for Arnold Kramish from J. Robert Oppenheimer

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