Hydrogen Bomb

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 […]

Richard Rhodes: You said [Richard] Courant’s work added realism? Ted Taylor: Yeah. Rhodes: How so? Taylor: By going over various tricks for dealing with the discontinuities, the singularities in the hydrodynamics. I had the impression that he was very helpful to people like Bob Richtmyer. I don’t know that Richard himself came up with anything […]

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 […]

Charles Critchfield: Is that your book, by the way? Richard Rhodes: Yes. Critchfield: Making of the Atomic Bomb? Rhodes: Yes. Critchfield: I’ve always heard it, Making of the Bomb. No, I didn’t know it was your book. Rubby Sherr sent me that, and he also sent me excerpts from two or three other books on the bomb. Rubby was […]

Ted Taylor: I think Carson Mark is the most valuable resource to talk to about what happened in those days at Los Alamos. At Livermore, [Edward] Teller, certainly. Richard Rhodes: Teller won’t talk to me, I’m afraid. He’s decided I’m the enemy. Taylor: Herb York I think is anxious for the story to be told correctly. […]

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 […]

Rosen: Well, my name is Louis Rosen. I was born in New York City, not the best part of the city. I’m now almost eighty-five years old. My parents were immigrants from Poland.  They were escaping from the pogroms, which were taking place with the Russian Cossacks coming in and raiding villages, especially where Jews […]

Robert Serber: Ernest [Lawrence] got overexcited about the Russian bomb. I imagine that [Edward] Teller called him and got him worked up. I warned him about Edward’s Super, that it wasn’t a practical idea at the moment. I told him if he wanted to really find out he should talk to [Hans] Bethe, but he […]

Richard Rhodes: An interview with Dr. Stanislaw Ulam in Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 6, 1983. Rhodes: Well I have some questions for you. Ulam: Yes, of course. How long are you staying? Rhodes: I am going to be in the area for until Saturday morning. It would be pleasant to see more of you. […]