Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Oral Histories

Kathy McCarthy’s Interview

Kathy McCarthy served as the Director of Nuclear Science and Engineering responsible for research in the area of advanced nuclear energy at Idaho National Laboratory. In this interview, she discusses the role of nuclear power in establishing secure sources of energy as well as the challenges of promoting nuclear power as safe and environmentally beneficial. She also explains the evolving technologies of nuclear reactors, and how the U.S. compares to other countries in terms of nuclear power development.

Lew Kowarski’s Interview – Part 2

Lew Kowarski was a Russian-born French physicist who worked as part of the team that discovered that neutrons were emitted in the fission of uranium-235 in the late 1930s, setting the groundwork for the use of nuclear chain reactions in the design of the atomic bomb. After the Second World War, Kowarski went on to supervise the first French nuclear reactors and became a staff member in the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in 1953. In this interview Kowarski recounts his experience secretly transporting the French supply of heavy water to England to keep it out of Nazi hands. He also discusses his time working in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University with James Chadwick and other esteemed physicist. He also explains the Manhattan Project from a European perspective, including the increasing secrecy of the project.

Kay Manley’s Interview

Kay Manley’s husband was personally called by Leo Szilard and asked to move from the Met Lab at Chicago to Los Alamos. She herself worked on calculations at Los Alamos, although she left after six months to focus on raising her children. She talks about how Pearl Harbor galvanized the nation and the responses she and her husband received after the war from soldiers who would have been involved in the invasion of Japan if the atomic bombs had not been dropped.