Stephane Groueff

Joseph Katz’s Interview

Joseph Katz: Now it was recognized that plutonium would have a chemistry that would be quite similar to that of uranium. And developing procedures for the separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium. The assumption that was most commonly made was that the chemistry of plutonium would be similar, if not identical to that of uranium […]

Norman Hilberry’s Interview (1965) – Part 3

Stephane Groueff: You remember this visit now? Norman Hilberry: Oh, boy. Groueff: Could you tell me about that part? Hilberry: This was one of the reasons why the pile got built under the West Stands. The Manhattan District had been building a building out in the Argonne Forrest out in the Park District to build […]

Robert Nobles and William Sturm’s Interview – Part 1

Stephane Groueff: Now you said that you had some opening remarks? William J. Sturm: Yes. In terms of what you would have said and what your colleagues have said you are interested in, it occurred to me to note that pretty generally insofar as the things that were done at Chicago are concerned—they were done […]

Norman Hilberry’s Interview (1965) – Part 2

Stephane Groueff: You personally you were in what department or building? You were directly working with Doctor [Arthur H.] Compton? Norman Hilberry: He called Dick Doan back in first. Dick had been one of his students. Well Mrs. H and Dick Doan had been, and Tom Johnson who is now with Raytheon, had been students […]

Lew Kowarski’s Interview – Part 2

Stephane Groueff: One thing I don’t understand, and it’s a very ignorant question, but what was actually the difference between [Enrico] Fermi’s experiment in ’34 and [Otto] Hahn’s? Because, why do we say that Hahn was the first one, while Fermi also bombarded uranium? Lew Kowarski: I don’t it’s true to say that Hahn was […]

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 […]

Lew Kowarski’s Interview – Part 1

Kowarski: So born in Leningrad, February, 1907. Father, businessman. Mother had a little career of her own as a singer, but [inaudible]. Father, his business started to be paper, pulp and paper, and then from that he branched off to supplying paper to newspapers and magazines, and from there he branched off into participation in magazines. […]

Eugene Wigner’s Interview (1964)

Stephane Groueff: Hello, Dr. Wigner? Eugene Wigner: Yes. Groueff: Good morning sir. I am calling from New York. I am the correspondent of “Paris Match” magazine. My name is Groueff. Wigner: Groueff? Groueff: Groueff, G-R-O-U-E-F-F. Wigner: I see, Mr. Groueff. Groueff: Groueff. I will tell you what it is about. I am doing the research […]

General Leslie Groves’s Interview – Part 11

February 27, 2015

*[Please note that General Groves – Part 10 could not be found in the Groueff Collection. The interview was either mislabeled, misplaced, or does not exist.] [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 […]