Atomic Heritage Foundation

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly. It is January 27, 2015. I am in Santa Fe with Richard Yalman, and the first question I have for you is to say your name and spell it. Richard Yalman: My name is Richard George Yalman, that’s Y-A-L-M-A-N. Kelly: Perfect. Very good. Richard has a very interesting story to […]

Mench: I am John Mench and sixty years ago I was a young man with a wife and a baby girl, a good job in industrial deferment, a brand new home and a mortgage. Inside of a week or two, I had in my hand a ticket to a camp, an Army camp, an industrial […]

Seth Wheatley: My name is Seth Wheatley, and it’s S-E-T-H W-H-E-A-T-L-E-Y. Kelly: Okay. Now, can we start with your telling us where you’re from and how you happened to get involved in the Manhattan Project? Wheatley: Well, I was at Purdue University. I got married in my junior year, and I tried to join the […]

Cindy Kelly: This is Cindy Kelly. It is July 31, 2013, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and with me is Nancy Bartlit. I want her to say her full name and spell it. Nancy Bartlit: My full name is Nancy Reynolds Bartlit, N-A-N-C-Y R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S.  Bartlit is B-A-R-T-L-I-T. Kelly: Excellent. Bartlit: And I use the name Reynolds […]

Freeman Dyson: I’m Freeman Dyson, F-R-E-E-M-A-N D-Y-S-O-N, retired professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Cynthia Kelly: Why don’t we start with your experience in World War II? Maybe you could tell us what your role was. Dyson:  In World War II, I was given the job of operations research, which […]

Richard Groves: I’m Richard Hulbert Groves, G-R-O-V-E-S. Paul Williams: What memories do you have of family life, at least when you were at home? Groves: I came home from Princeton occasionally. But then I went to West Point and we didn’t get out of West Point for a year and a half. I came home […]

Val Fitch: My name is Val Logsdon Fitch. It’s V-A-L L-O-G-S-D-O-N F-I-T-C-H. And the Logsdon is my mother’s maiden name. Where Val comes from, I have no idea. Except it was a favorite name of my mother’s. Cindy Kelly: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you happened to end up at Los Alamos […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy, and I’m in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, today. It is January 21, 2015, and I have with me Martin J. Skinner, Sr. The first question I’m going to ask him, though, is to say his name and spell it. Martin Skinner: Oh, really. Martin Skinner, M-A-R-T-I-N. Last name Skinner, S-K-I-N-N-E-R. Kelly: Terrific. […]

Everett Weakley: My name is Everett Weakley. E-v-e-r-e-t-t, W-e-a-k-l-e-y. Where did you go to school and how did you get to Hanford? Weakley: I was hired by General Electric in 1950, right out of University of Idaho, which isn’t very far from here, Moscow, to come down here at the height the Cold War. Things […]

Richard Malenfant: I go by Richard Malenfant. That’s M-A-L-E-N-F, as in Frank-A-N-T, as in Tom, although I’m more comfortable going by my nickname Dick. Cindy Kelly: Great, terrific. Now I wish I could ask you about Tahiti. Just remembered that you just got back from there! But let’s stick to the topic and ask you […]