Innovations

Richard Rhodes: There are two particular themes that I am interested in that I know you were involved with very much. Anything else that you remember that you would want to talk about would be wonderful. One is the developing of computing. Los Alamos made a major contribution to the development of computing in the […]

Stephane Groueff: Dr. Anderson? Herbert Anderson: Yes. Groueff: Now we can talk? Anderson: I guess so. Groueff: Terrific. You see, I have the details of the night of December 1st, and the day of December 2nd, as given by Dr. [Arthur] Compton and Mrs. [Laura] Fermi, etc. I talked to some of their colleagues there. I would like, if possible, […]

Stephane Groueff: Where did you come from? Probably we’ll start chronologically and then— Dr. Samuel K. Allison: I was born here in Chicago, just half a kilometer from where we’re sitting at this moment. I went to school at the public schools in the city of Chicago and entered the University of Chicago in 1917. […]

Charney: Where shall I start? Groueff: Tell me how you got involved in the whole project and your first meeting with all those people and where you came from. Start from the beginning.  Charney: I had actually just graduated from college and I was prepared to go into the Army or to look for a […]

Philip Abelson: I went to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the fall of 1935 as a graduate student in the Radiation Laboratory. I had had some background in chemistry. I hadn’t been there more than about six months before [Ernest] Lawrence, one day, suggested to me that I should look into the phenomena accompanying neutron […]

Stephane Groueff:  Interview with Dr. James Conant. Dr. James Conant, New York, October 11, 1965.  Dr. James Conant:  I don’t remember anything about it, frankly. And I’m amazed at what people are writing about it [referring to “The New World, 1939-1946: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission,” Vol. I, by Richard G. […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly from the Atomic Heritage Foundation. It is Friday, April 11, 2014, and I have with me William Lanouette who is going to be talking about Leo Szilard. Why don’t you start by actually saying your full name and spelling it?  Bill Lanouette: I’m William Lanouette, L-A-N-O-U-E-T-T-E.  Kelly: Tell us about […]

[Many thanks to Bill Curtis for recording and donating this interview to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.] Mary Lou Curtis: When I got out of college, it was 1932 and a big Depression was on. Miami University, where I graduated from, only placed one teacher that year because jobs were so hard to find. I didn’t […]

[We would like to thank Robert S. Norris, author of the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, for taking the time to read over these transcripts for misspellings and other errors.] General Leslie R. Groves: No, but was entirely different type. He […]

S. L. Sanger: Hello. Dr. Teller? Edward Teller:  Yes. Sanger:  This is Steve Sanger. I am a reporter at Post Intelligencer in Seattle. We are doing a section, probably not until July, a commemoration of the Trinity test and first bombs, partly because of the presence of the Hanford reservation over in eastern Washington where […]