Espionage

Stephane Groueff: It is working. Mr. Stapleton, you were with security during the Hanford period, or you were already here with security in DuPont in Wilmington? Newton Stapleton: I was in the security prior to Hanford. At the beginning of the war, DuPont got involved in building a plant for the French and British down […]

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 Dorothy McKibbin in Santa Fe, July 20, 1979. Dorothy McKibbin: Santa Fe? Sherwin: It sure is, but it’s not going to be my last. I’m enjoying it thoroughly. McKibbin: Great country. Sherwin: It is. It’s just beautiful, and, of course, we’re having such fantastic weather now. If I could put this— McKibbin: The most […]

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 […]

Kai Bird: Let us begin at the beginning and I think the viewers of this will want to know first about your own background. What year were you born? Bob Carter: I was born in 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bird: On what day? Carter: February 3, 1920. Bird: 1920. Carter: Yes. Bird: Okay, 1920, what was sort of before modern physics, quantum […]

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 […]

Carson Mark: We shouldn’t have been making this damn bomb without trying to keep it secret from [Joseph] Stalin. We should’ve been talking to him like [Niels] Bohr said. [Klaus] Fuchs believed and took it into his own hands to make sure that the conversation went on. Of course, he didn’t need to because Stalin knew […]