Cold War

Siegfried Hecker: The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings [Act] brings back memories.    Richard Rhodes:  No, exactly. Hecker: It was very interesting. When I came into the directorship, the thing that I was really immensely concerned about was the future of this institution. I inherited this jewel and it was now in my hands; I had to make sure […]

Richard Rhodes: So what I thought we might do since you just came back from – was this work related to the Russian collaboration? Siegfried Hecker: Yes. Rhodes: Then maybe we should debrief you about that first before we go back and do the earlier part of the story. Does that make sense to you? […]

Jack Keen: My father was an engineering draftsman at Hanford. I was—depending on what the months were—probably three or four years old. Richard Rhodes: When you went there? Keen: Right, when I lived there in one of those big, duplex houses. My mother, father and I lived in those duplexes for a time when I […]

Richard Rhodes: I really am going to have to go through and revise the Perseus discussion, I think. Robert Lamphere: It’s got Lona [Cohen] and the tissue thing. I think it became a story that she told. But who’s to know? I just found that Greenglass’s information on implosion was the first news the Soviets […]

Ruth Kerr Jakoby: My name is Dr. Ruth Kerr Jakoby. J-A-K-O-B-Y. I was born September 2, 1929. I am eighty-five years old. On September 2, I will be eighty-six. Alex Wellerstein: My birthday is September 5, so we can both be Virgos together. Where were you born? Jakoby: Palo Alto, California. Wellerstein: You said you […]

Robert Lamphere: They said that he [Klaus Fuchs] annoyed some of the people because he wanted to keep certain [inaudible]. That’s a little point of irony.  Richard Rhodes: Although, again, there was one guy who later thought, “Well, maybe he was pushing to find out what was the most valuable information.” Which I hadn’t thought […]

Martin Sherwin: This is an interview with Hans Bethe in his office at Newman Hall, Cornell University, May 5, 1982. This is Martin Sherwin. Sherwin: I’m glad I caught this. Basically, you were surprised that Kyoto had been selected and at these meetings, that the Target Committee had been held in the Oppenheimer’s office. Hans […]

[Thanks to Ronald K. Smeltzer for donating the record “To Fermi with Love” to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.] Narrator: Only thirty-one months had passed since Stagg Field. What followed the Trinity event is now history. Within forty-eight days of its demonstration near Alamogordo, the atomic bomb formally brought World War II to an abrupt end on […]

Richard Rhodes: How did you get involved in the program? Marshall Rosenbluth: Well, you can probably guess. I’ve already told you that I was a student of [Edward] Teller’s. I was in the Navy during the war and then went back to the University of Chicago where my parents were living, to graduate school, and […]

Robert Lamphere: One of the British newspapers speculated about allowing the FBI into see this guy [Klaus Fuchs], because we might actually use the third degree against him – which we thought was funny as hell. But right off the bat, he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me anything, because of what we filed […]