November 10, 2023 Newsletter
Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” exceeded all expectations. The movie is now the highest-grossing biopic of all time with $945 million in global ticket sales. Even before its release, the movie galvanized the media and public worldwide.
The movie stimulated a media blitz with numerous articles and programs on Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. Among those highlighted here are C-SPAN TV’s Washington Journal featuring the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s Cindy Kelly and the American Nuclear Society’s discussion with leaders of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
This issue also provides a brief survey of the “Oppenheimer” effect. There has definitely been a surge of visitors. The number of visitors to the Los Alamos History Museum this year may be fifty percent more than 2022.
The movie also renewed questions about the effects of the fallout from the Trinity Test. This issue describes what Manhattan Project doctors knew about radiation in 1945 and the continuing struggle by area residents for compensation.
Finally, there is a photographic tour of the Oppenheimer House in Los Alamos. Unfortunately, the house is off-limits to visitors until essential remedial work is completed. The Atomic Heritage Foundation is partnering with the Los Alamos Historical Society to help raise urgently needed funds.
On Veterans Day, please join in honoring the Manhattan Project veterans and all other veterans who have served our country. We are deeply indebted to them for their service.
THE “OPPENHEIMER” EFFECT
AHF President Cindy Kelly enjoyed a lively session on C-SPAN TV’s Washington Journal on July 31, 2023 with host Bill Scanlan and a half-hour of call-in questions from the audience.
In addition, Kelly contributed to numerous articles on Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project in Scientific American, Vogue, and many other publications from Washington, DC to Athens (in Greek), Madrid, and São Paulo.
In July 2023, the Smithsonian magazine published, “What Was the Manhattan Project?”. Journalist Tom Metcalfe partnered with Minesh Bacrania, a photographer and former physicist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Bacrania’s photographs feature some original Manhattan Project properties and artifacts that are rarely seen by the public.
LANL director Thom Mason is very engaged with the laboratory’s Manhattan Project history. As he explained as part of “Oppenheimer: Behind the Scenes with Los Alamos National Laboratory,” many things from the Manhattan Project endure at Los Alamos.
Oppenheimer’s collaborative approach to science is embedded in the laboratory today, and his technical leadership style remains a model for laboratory directors. Another legacy of the Manhattan Project is Hans Bethe’s high standards for documenting research results.
In “Oppenheimer,” Kitty Oppenheimer is given short shrift, portrayed as a harassed young mother. Journalist Jonathan Silver’s in-depth piece in Pittsburgh’s Tribune Review (see photo below) reveals Kitty as smart and ambitious, an early feminist. Born in Germany in 1910, Katherine (“Kitty”) Peuning Harrison emigrated as a young child to Pittsburgh.
In 1940, Kitty and J. Robert Oppenheimer met in California at a cocktail party. After a retreat to northern New Mexico, they soon married with a baby on the way. At Los Alamos, Kitty was frustrated by her stalled career in biology and the burdens of motherhood. Miserable, Kitty sought refuge in drinking. In the movie, toddler Peter and baby Toni seem to be constantly crying.
The movie shows Kitty’s strength and intelligence in the security hearing in 1954. While Oppenheimer seemed unable to defend himself, Kitty openly protested the unfair courtroom procedures. While Kitty could be challenging for Oppenheimer, they were devoted to each other until the day he died in 1967.
VISITING MANHATTAN PROJECT SITES
In Los Alamos, NM, during the second weekend of October, Ranger Chris Pearson greeted over 300 tourists a day in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park’s visitors center at Los Alamos (below, left).
Recently, the National Park Service appointed Tom Smith (below, center) as the first permanent Site Manager for the Park at Los Alamos. Tom sees an urgent need to expand the staff and number of days the visitor center is open, now just four. In addition, the visitors center needs more knowledgeable volunteers, such as Mark Byers (below, right). Mark is one of four generations of his family to work at the lab and engages visitors in learning about the Manhattan Project and the lab today.
In Oak Ridge, TN, Mick Wiest, president of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association, attributes the increase in visitors to Oak Ridge this summer to the “Oppenheimer Effect.” Visitors often come from Los Alamos to Oak Ridge to learn “the whole story” of the Manhattan Project.
This summer City Historian D. Ray Smith led twice the number of tours in the weeks after the movie’s release as before. Katy Watt of Explore Oak Ridge reports a 10% increase in hotel occupancy starting in July.
The Oak Ridge History Museum, one of five museums in Oak Ridge, tells the human story of the Manhattan Project. Visitors to the Museum enjoy seeing the Manhattan Project era living room with its manual typewriter and encyclopedia set. Watercolors by Manhattan Project veteran Jan Myers vividly capture the housing boom in wartime Oak Ridge. (Photos below, left and center).
At Hanford, WA, visitors have increased but the impact of the “Oppenheimer Effect” is less clear. Site Manager Rebecca Burghart explained that 2023 was the first full season of tours since 2019, which could be why they had more visitors. Whatever inspired them, the return of tourists to the B Reactor (below, right) and other Hanford sites is most welcome.
DOWNWIND OF THE TRINITY TEST SITE
“Oppenheimer” generated a lot of questions about the effects of the fallout from the Trinity Test. Before World War II, little was known about the hazards of nuclear radiation. The Manhattan Project’s health experts Dr. Stafford Warren, Dr. Louis Hemplemann, and Dr. John Nolan arbitrarily set the acceptable level of radiation exposure at 5 roentgens, fifty times higher than the current limit. Later, Dr.Louis Hempelmann acknowledged, “We didn’t know what the hell we were doing…Nobody had had any experience like this before.”
General Leslie Groves, who oversaw the Manhattan Project for the Army, was preoccupied with maintaining secrecy. He refused to send in military police and trucks to evacuate people in advance of the test as “security might be compromised.”
The Trinity Test was 3 to 5 times more powerful than predicted. The mushroom cloud of radioactive debris rose much higher, to 70,000 feet rather than 12,000 feet. As a result, the radioactive materials were dispersed much more widely rather than concentrated near ground zero.
Dr. Stafford Warren wrote to Groves, “Parts of New Mexico were fairly heavily exposed, but there weren’t many people there.” There was one “hot canyon” with 230 roentgens. What Warren did not disclose was that he thought “the dust outfall from the cloud potentially was a very serious hazard for a band almost 30 miles wide and extending almost 90 miles northeast of the site.”
Nearly 80 years later, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium members are struggling with the health and environmental effects of the test. Growing up in the small town of Tulorosa, Tina Cordova watched as a bewildering number of residents suffered and died from cancer. When she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 39, it occurred to her that radiation from the Trinity Test was probably the root cause of the cancers.
Under Cordova’s leadership, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium has sought recognition and government compensation. Senators Ben Lujan (D-NM) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) introduced legislation to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to cover the New Mexican and other neglected downwinders as well as uranium miners. While the legislation passed the Senate, it still needs to be passed by the House by 2024 when the RECA program is scheduled to expire.
THE OPPENHEIMER HOUSE
The Oppenheimer House is charming but surprisingly small considering that it was the home of the leading scientist of the Manhattan Project and his family. Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty, son Peter (born May 12, 1941) and daughter Katherine (“Toni”, born December 7, 1944) lived here from early 1943 to the fall of 1945.
The house was originally built for May Connell, the sister of Los Alamos Ranch School Director A.J. Connell in 1929. An artist from New York, May loved the northern New Mexico light and used the front room with its large north facing window as her studio.
The spacious living room (below) probably attracted the Oppenheimers to the house. It was cheerful during the day and a perfect place for entertaining. After making his famous martinis, Oppenheimer would ask the military police to declare the house and its yard a “secure area” so the scientists could freely discuss their top-secret work. Universal Studios bought period furniture and generously donated it to the Los Alamos Historical Society.
Bergen “Jerry” and Helene Suydam lived in the house from 1958 while Jerry worked as a physicist at the laboratory. In 2003, the Suydams entered a living trust agreement with the Los Alamos Historical Society (LAHS) and later generously decided to donate the house. When Helene died in 2020 at the age of 100, the house became the property of LAHS.
Todd Nickols, LAHS’s current executive director, says restoration of the Oppenheimer House is their number one priority. The restoration work includes replacing the floor joists, upgrading the electrical system, installing a fire protection system, and other interior repairs. Improvements in the landscaping will link the Oppenheimer House and the cottage next door.
Thanks to the generosity of Clay and Dorothy Perkins who purchased and restored this cottage in 2016, visitors will be able to tour the two neighboring cottages.
Officially named the “Harold Agnew Cold War Gallery and Hans Bethe House,” the cottage has many interesting exhibits on the Cold War. Harold Agnew was a Manhattan Project veteran and the third director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (1970-1979). Hans Bethe was head of the Theoretical Division during the Manhattan Project and later lived in the cottage.
HELP RESTORE THE OPPENHEIMER HOUSE
The Oppenheimer House is almost 95 years old. Built by hand by stonemason Marcos Gomez without even a level, the cottage is at risk of collapsing. Universal Studios used car jacks to support the floors. In addition, the cottage urgently needs a fire protection and upgraded electrical system.
Atomic Heritage Foundation is partnering with the Los Alamos Historical Society to raise $2 million to restore the Oppenheimer House. Please click here or on the button below and give generously to restore the “jewel in the crown” of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Inspired by “Oppenheimer,” people from around the world want to see the house where it happened.