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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Oral Histories

Victor Kumin’s Interview

Victor Kumin was a young scientist when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944. In September of that year, he was transferred to Los Alamos, where he was a member of the Special Engineer Detachment (SED). In this interview, courtesy of the Story Preservation Initiative, Kumin discusses his time as a Chemistry student at Harvard and joining the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. He recalls the secrecy of the project and how he felt about the decision to use the atomic bombs.

General Leslie Groves’s Interview – Part 8

In this interview, General Groves discusses his relationship with Vannevar Bush, the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development [OSRD], and James B. Conant, the President of Harvard and a member of the National Defense Research Committee [NDRC]. Bush and Conant both played key roles during the Manhattan Project, acting as liaisons between Groves, the physicists, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Vera Kistiakowsky’s Interview

Vera Kistiakowsky is an American physicist and the daughter of physical chemist George Kistiakowsky, who directed the Explosives Division at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and later served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s science advisor. Vera, who entered her first year of college at Mount Holyoke in 1944, visited her father at Los Alamos during the summer months in 1944 and 1945. In her interview, she discusses the sense of freedom she felt in the secret city and talks about the fun she had on horseback riding adventures with her father.