December 12th, 2025
The tenth anniversary of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park was on November 15, 2025. The creation of the park benefited from a great collaboration of organizations and government officials. Above, Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz shakes hands with Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell.
This issue provides an update on the Manhattan Project National Historical Park (abbreviated as “MAPR”) and activities at the three sites.
Also included are some articles about current events such as the resumption of nuclear weapons testing and an atomic bomb survivor who recently met with Pope Leo XIV. Next are stories about Richard Feynman, a documentary film on six extraordinary Hungarian immigrants, and others.
Finally, there are short reviews of three notable books. Two are works of fiction set in the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge and Hanford. The other is about the role of movie industries in the US and Germany during the war.
Hope you enjoy this issue. Best wishes for the holidays!
Update on the National Historical Park
Celebrations for tenth anniversary of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park on November 15th were postponed because of the 43-day government shutdown. NPS staff returned to work on November 12 after passage of a continuing resolution, but Congress must provide funding by January 30, 2026, for the rest of the fiscal year.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration in 2025, roughly 24% of NPS staff have been fired, resigned, or otherwise departed. While the Manhattan Project National Historical Park has a top-notch team, they have to juggle multiple responsibilities with very few support staff. Amy Cole, the recently appointed Superintendent, is also the NPS Chief of Cultural Resources for the Intermountain Region.
All three site managers are woefully understaffed—no Rangers and few other staff. Becky Burghart is Site Manager at Hanford (since 2017), and Nick Murray at Los Alamos (2025). Niki Stephanie Nicholas, the acting Site Manager in Oak Ridge since 2017, juggles that post and two other Superintendent jobs.
NPS Site Managers make good use of volunteers and partnerships with local organizations. For example, volunteers from the B Reactor Museum Association (BRMA) partnered with NPS to offer “Atomic Explorations,” a series of talks at the visitor center in Richland, WA. In addition, the REACH Museum will host a celebration for the tenth anniversary of the park on Friday, January 26, 2026.
Los Alamos Restoration and Reunion
In Los Alamos, the Oppenheimer House restoration has begun. The Los Alamos Historical Society (LAHS) is working with the Santa Fe architectural firm MASS Design Group, as well as expert restoration professionals. Challenges include upgrading the electrical system, stabilizing the foundation, and repairing the floors and roof.
Renovations are estimated to cost $2 million.LAHS and the Enterprise Bank & Trust launched a joint fund-raising campaign on October 9, 2025, with a well-attended event at Fuller Lodge.To contribute to the Oppenheimer House restoration, click on this link.
Discussions are underway about a possible reunion of the “Children of the Manhattan Project: Los Alamos” in August 2026 in conjunction with the Oppenheimer Festival.
Joel’s father Maurice Shapiro worked at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and spoke at AHF’s Oppenheimer Centennial in Los Alamos in 2004.
Oak Ridge’s Grand Opening
On August 23, 2025, Oak Ridge held a grand opening for the William J. Wilcox, Jr. K-25 Interpretive Center. Named in honor of the late Bill Wilcox, it highlights K-25’s Manhattan Project and Cold War roles over 40 years. According to the Oak Ridger, “The K-25 Plant powered peaceful nuclear development, supplied enriched uranium to over 30 countries, and supported President Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ initiative.”
From October 20 to 24, 2025, Oak Ridge hosted National Science Week with students, educators and industry leaders. According to AMSE director Alan Lowe, “There’s more industrial development in nuclear happening in this region than anywhere else in the country. With the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other federal facilities, the region offers tremendous scientific oomph.”
On Sunday, December 6, at 2:00 PM, the American Museum of Science & Energy in Oak Ridge hosted a special 20th anniversary showing of Secret City: The Oak Ridge Story—The War Years. Produced by Keith McDaniel, Secret City is a definitive account of Oak Ridge’s role in developing the world’s first atomic bombs. As McDaniel commented, “One of the greatest joys of making this film was getting to interview more than 100 folks that lived that history.”
Immigrants from Budapest and Beyond
Six Hungarian-Jewish immigrants born in Budapest fled the totalitarian Horthy regime for the United States in the 1930s. The excellent documentary, Leo Szilard: The Man Who Made the Atomic Bomb Possible, Then Fought to Stop It, focuses on their outsized contributions to America.
Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John Von Neumann, and Edward Teller were called “the Martians” by Enrico Fermi because of their uncanny brilliance. Movie director Robert Curtiz shaped Hollywood propaganda with Casablanca and Robert Capa became a leading war photographer.
Eminent historians Richard Rhodes, Robert S. Norris, and William Lanouette and well as physicists Freeman Dyson and Richard Garwin provide insightful commentary. Click here to watch the program from Timeline, World History Documentaries.
On a related note, on December 10, 2025, New York Times’ William Broad wrote “A Scientific Pipeline to the Nobel Prize Fueled by Immigrants.” Broad writes about three immigrants who won Nobel Prizes in science for the United States this year.
”For the better part of a century, the nation’s traditional vigor and openness made it a magnet for immigrants who at some point in their careers — often decades after their arrival — won Nobels.” Experts warn that the crackdown on immigration could undermine American science and innovation.
Nuclear Weapons Testing Redux
On October 29, President Trump posted on Truth Social, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”
However, the allegation that others are resuming testing is unproven. Many experts believe that resuming testing would give other nations an opportunity to catch up with the US.
Currently, the US conducts subcritical tests at the Nevada Test Site that produce no explosions and pose little radioactive risk to the public. These tests are permitted by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which the US signed in 1996 but never ratified. CTBT’s goal was to stop the development of new nuclear weapons and prevent upgrades to existing ones.
A total of 1,032 nuclear tests have been carried out by the US since the Trinity Test in 1945. The last underground test at the Nevada Test Site was 1992. Since then, the testing equipment at the Nevada Test Site has fallen into disrepair. Many experts question how quickly nuclear testing can be resumed.
Instead of testing, US weapons laboratories rely upon sophisticated computers, lasers and other techniques to verify the lethality of stockpiled nuclear weapons.
What Trump may have in mind are hydronuclear tests which Moscow and Beijing have allegedly been conducting. The tests reach the supercritical stage but are snuffed out before producing a large detonation. President Bill Clinton prohibited hydronuclear tests because they produce some “yield” or explosive force.
As Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons lab said in an interview on October 30, 2025, “Yes, we can learn things by nuclear testing but when you look at the big picture, we have much more to lose by going back to testing than we have to gain.”
Koko Kondo’s Message to the World
For atomic bombing survivor Koko Kondo, the resumption of nuclear testing has renewed her commitment to sharing the story of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. With fewer than 100,000 survivors still alive, Koko has dedicated herself to telling the world of the catastrophic harm caused by nuclear weapons.
John Hersey’s account, Hiroshima, published by the New Yorker on the first anniversary of the bombings galvanized the American public. Koko’s father, Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, was one of the six Japanese profiled by Hersey. Later Tanimoto helped disfigured Japanese girls known as the Hiroshima Maidens get plastic surgery. In 1955, Tanimoto was invited to appear on American television show “This is Your Life.”
Ten-year-old Koko was invited to appear as a surprise guest. Growing up, she was determined to find the crew of the Enola Gay that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and take revenge. To her surprise, Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, was also a guest on the TV program.
Lewis described looking down over Hiroshima. “In front of our eyes, the city of Hiroshima disappeared.” He recounted the words he wrote in his logbook: “My God, what have we done?”
According to the Washington Post, Koko was surprised. “I never heard a monster had tears…We’re human beings.” From that moment, “I learned I should not hate the enemy. I should hate the war itself. That’s how I changed.”
Recently, Koko was part of an international meeting for peace at the Vatican and sat beside Pope Leo XIV. Shortly afterwards, President Donald Trump announced that he wanted to resume testing of nuclear weapons. Shocked that the US would resume testing, Koko redoubled her efforts to persuade the world that nuclear weapons should never be used again.
Trump and the International Order
With the stroke of a Sharpie, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America. Nothing seems to constrain him, as Harvard Kennedy School’s Graham Allison discusses in an interview in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on September 4, 2025. The following are excerpts from John Mecklin’s interview with Allison on the second Trump administration and the international security order.
“For people like us who come from the traditional foreign policy establishment, who appreciate the wonder of 80 years without great power war, 80 years without nuclear weapons being used in war, and just nine nuclear weapons states, Trump discombobulates us….
“The concept of allies that were a foundational part of this international order—NATO and Japan and South Korea and Australia and other relationships—is not central to his thinking. Rather than seeing it as a great achievement that allowed all of us to live in a world without great power war, he sees it through the lens of others taking advantage of us.”
Surviving Hiroshima and Nagasaki
David Wargowski, a retired scientist and Advisor to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, previews a major motion picture by director James Cameron about surviving both atomic bomb attacks.
“James Cameron is preparing to direct a film adaptation of Charles Pellegrino’s Ghosts of Hiroshima, an account of survivors of the atomic bombings. The movie will mark Cameron’s first major project outside the Avatar series since Titanic.
At the heart of the story is Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as having lived through both the Hiroshima bombing on August 6, 1945, and the Nagasaki bombing three days later. The narrative follows Yamaguchi’s journey from the first blast in Hiroshima, where he was injured and witnessed unimaginable destruction, to Nagasaki, where he faced the unfolding of a second nuclear attack.
Cameron has spoken publicly about his personal commitment to bringing Yamaguchi’s story to the screen. Before Yamaguchi’s passing in 2010 at 93 years old, Cameron promised him the film would honor the lived experience of survivors rather than focus on military or political spectacle.
The director has compared his intended approach to the emotional immediacy and historical candor of Saving Private Ryan, emphasizing authenticity, survivor testimony, and the human cost of nuclear warfare. While there is no confirmed release date, Cameron promises a significant cinematic engagement with the memory and legacy of the atomic age.”
Please Improve your Security!
Richard Feynman (1911 – 1988) joined the Manhattan Project after finishing his doctoral work in physics at Princeton University. Feynman was in awe of the very great men at Los Alamos not only for their individual expertise but how they worked with one another to solve problems.
“It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, and remember what the other fellow said, having paid attention. At the end the head of the committee decides which idea is the best, summing it all together, without having to say it three times. That was a shock. These were very great men indeed.” (From “Los Alamos from Below.”)
Feynman was quickly recognized for his uncanny ability to crack safes. While there were 8,000 possible combinations for each safe, Feynman learned patterns. He would casually play with a colleague’s safe, looking for scratches and listening for clicks. Once he knew the last two or three numbers of a combination, he could often deduce the other numbers.
Feynman also realized that secretaries often wrote the combinations down and would stealthily search their desks. Physicists often used mathematical constants such as pi (3.14159) or their birthdays. With these clues, he was able to unlock dozens of safes, leaving polite notes that read, “Please improve your security!” The world’s most secure laboratory was not secure at all.
In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded, and the Rogers Commission responsible for investigating the cause of the disaster asked Feynman to help. Feynman sat through days of technical explanations. Then he dipped a small piece of rubber O ring into a glass of ice water on live television. The rubber stiffened instantly. The room fell silent. Feynman looked up and said, “This is how it happened.” No politics. No spin. Just truth made visible.
Thanks to AHF Board Member D. Ray Smith for contributing to this story.
Notable New Books
Fission by Leslie R. Schover
An engaging novel that captures the social, political, and personal tensions of life in Oak Ridge during the top-secret Manhattan Project. The main character is a young woman named Doris who interrupts her education and ambitions to care for her baby and be with her husband at Oak Ridge.
But her husband’s work at the X-10 Graphite Reactor is all consuming and Doris soon falls for one her adult piano students, Dave Sokol. Sokol closely resembles George Koval, a Russian-speaking health physicist at Oak Ridge. While in the novel Dave Sokol is arrested as a spy, the actual spy, George Koval, successfully returned to Russia with a hero’s welcome.
This is an impressive debut novel that paints a detailed picture of Oak Ridge and its streets lined with prefab houses heated by coal-fired potbellied stoves. Details are drawn from the author’s parents’ experiences as well as that of Charles D. Coryell and others. Ann Hegedorn, author of Sleeper Agent about spy George Koval, Knoxville historian Jack Neely, and Oak Ridge historian D. Ray Smith are cited as advisors.
Tangles is a remarkable debut novel by Kay Steel-Blum
Kay Steel-Blum thoroughly researched Hanford’s Manhattan Project and early Cold War history. Primary sources include Michelle Gerber’s On the Home Front, Trisha Pritikin’s The Hanford Plaintiffs, and Washington State University’s Hanford History Project.
In 1961 Life magazine declared Richland, WA, an “All American City.” Hometown for the Hanford operations, the designation underscored the effectiveness of the government’s deception. The reality was that contamination by radioactive particles were found 270 miles from the plant.
The infamous “Green Run” in December 1949 dosed the region with high levels of radioactive particles such as iorine-131 associated with thyroid cancers. Citizens in Richland, Spokane and Walla Walla were not warned of the dangerous fallout despite serious environmental and health consequences.
The major hospital in Richland was Kadlec Hospital. The novel presents the hospital as staffed with doctors who were not impartial and “may and may not tell you the truth of your situation.” Experts were aligned with the Atomic Energy Commission which ran the Hanford operations for the federal government.
Tales of Militant Chemistry by Alice Lovejoy
In Tales of Militant Chemistry, Alice Lovejoy looks at the transformation of the film industry from photography and movies to weapons of war. In World War II, the US Army commandeered industrial chemical companies to produce poisonous gas, explosives, and enriched uranium for the first atomic bombs as well as film for radioactive monitoring.
In the US, Tennessee Eastman, a subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company (“Kodak”), was chosen to operate the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge. The plant used the electromagnetic separation method, developed by Ernest Lawrence at University of California-Berkeley, to separate uranium isotopes.
In Nazi Germany, Agfa Aktiengesellschaft’s film factories produced cellulose nitrate, acetate, silver halides and other chemicals for military purposes. While thousands of young women were pleased to have a well-paid job at the Y-12 plant, the forced laborers working in the Nazi factories were treated brutally.
Lovejoy’s fascinating and carefully researched account draws on factory records, interviews, and archives to present the history of the film industry from World War I to the present. The second part of the book, “Unraveling,” describes the adverse environmental and health consequences that became apparent during the Cold War.
in January 1951, Kodak Park in Rochester, NY captured evidence of “hot snow” from nuclear explosions in Nevada 2,000 miles away. The Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC’s) medical director in Nevada initially dismissed the report as “nonsense”, but later the AEC set up monitoring stations throughout the Northeast. Details like this make the book a compelling story of the chemical industry’s wartime entanglements over the last century.
Contesting an unexplained illness or mysterious death of an employee or nearby resident was a futile exercise. Insurers refused to pay, and the government fought plaintiffs in court with virtually unlimited resources, as Trisha Pritikin has documented for the Hanford downwinders.
Tangles tells a very compelling and well-crafted story. It is an important contribution to the annals of the atomic age and its legacy.