John Dunning

Alfred Nier’s Interview – Part 2

Alfred Nier: By the summer of 1943, the question came up, what I should do next? And I had a chance to – [J. Robert] Oppenheimer had gotten a hold of me and suggested I might come out to Los Alamos. Stephane Groueff: And you knew him? Nier: I knew him, yes. I had met […]

Alfred Nier’s Interview – Part 1

Stephane Groueff: Now, we could start with a letter of [Enrico] Fermi and a letter of [John] Dunning, because the way Dunning explained the thing that he had the idea that uranium-235 was— Alfred Nier: The one that was responsible, yes. Groueff: And that Fermi on the contrary, that’s the opposite. And [Niels] Bohr was […]

General Kenneth Nichols’s Interview – Part 1

November 12, 2014

Stephane Groueff: We could start now with your biography and where you were born. I see that you were born in Cleveland. General Kenneth Nichols: Well, I was born in a little suburb of Cleveland called West Park, Ohio [on November 13, 1907]. Groueff: West Park, Ohio. Nichols: Later became a part of Cleveland. Groueff: […]

General Leslie Groves’s Interview – Part 7

October 20, 2014

[We would like to thank Robert S. Norris, author of the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, for taking the time to read over these transcripts for misspellings and other errors.] General Leslie R. Groves: I had seen Dr. Urey in the S-1 […]

Harold Urey’s Interview

September 3, 2014

Stephane Groueff: It is recording, Dr. Urey. Dr. Harold Urey: Yes. Groueff: So where shall we start? Urey: Suppose I tell you about my background before the war? Well, my interest in isotope separation started with the discovery of heavy hydrogen, which I made at Columbia with the aid of Ferdinand Brickwedde in Washington and […]

John Manley’s Interview (1965) – Part 2

[We would like to thank Robert S. Norris, author of the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, for taking the time to read over these transcripts for mispellings and other errors.] Groueff: So, Dr. Manley, we talked about [J. Robert] Oppenheimer. So, […]

General Leslie Groves’s Interview – Part 4

[We would like to thank Robert S. Norris, author of the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, for taking the time to read over these transcripts for misspellings and other errors.] Stephane Groueff: Now, I wanted to ask you one thing that […]

General Leslie Groves’s Interview – Part 3

[We would like to thank Robert S. Norris, author of the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, for taking the time to read over these transcripts for misspellings and other errors.] General Leslie Groves: It was the fact that I had been […]

William E. Tewes’ Interview (April 2013)

Susan Gawarecki: My name is Susan Gawarecki, spelled G-A-W-A-R-E-C-K-I, and today is April 3, 2013. I am at the home of Bill Tewes. And Bill, thank you for taking time to tell us about your life. To get started, would you please say your name and spell it. William E. Tewes: My name is William Edward […]

George Cowan’s Interview (2006)

November 7, 2012

George Cowan: It’s weighted so heavily in favor—not in favor of—but the emphasis on number one Los Alamos, and then Oak Ridge, and then Hanford, as the three secret cities or something. But the fact is the Met Lab at Chicago was enormously important. The Stagg Field reactor was historic in ’42, and its sort of […]