Military-Civilian Relations

Albert Bartlett worked with mass spectrometers at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. He was part of the group that photographed the Operations Crossroads nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll after the war.

Anthony French: This Anthony French. I was born and raised in Brighton, England, south of London. I went to Cambridge as a student in Upping, which is more or less northeast of London in 1939, just a couple of weeks after the war was declared. I’d just finished my secondary school, and helped in the […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation and this is Friday, April 10, 2015. We’re at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. I have Hans Courant with me, and the first question for him is please tell us your name and spell it. Hans Courant: My name is Hans Courant, and it’s spelled C-o-u-r-a-n-t. […]

Stephane Groueff: Hello, Dr. Wigner? Eugene Wigner: Yes. Groueff: Good morning sir. I am calling from New York. I am the correspondent of “Paris Match” magazine. My name is Groueff. Wigner: Groueff? Groueff: Groueff, G-R-O-U-E-F-F. Wigner: I see, Mr. Groueff. Groueff: Groueff. I will tell you what it is about. I am doing the research […]

Mench: I am John Mench and sixty years ago I was a young man with a wife and a baby girl, a good job in industrial deferment, a brand new home and a mortgage. Inside of a week or two, I had in my hand a ticket to a camp, an Army camp, an industrial […]

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from New York University, Hal Behl registered with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel and was drafted into the Army. Although he was first placed in an infantry training unit, he was ultimately assigned to the Army Special Engineering Detachment and stationed at Oak Ridge. […]

*[Please note that General Groves – Part 10 could not be found in the Groueff Collection. The interview was either mislabeled, misplaced, or does not exist.] [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 […]

Richard Groves: I’m Richard Hulbert Groves, G-R-O-V-E-S. Paul Williams: What memories do you have of family life, at least when you were at home? Groves: I came home from Princeton occasionally. But then I went to West Point and we didn’t get out of West Point for a year and a half. I came home […]

Val Fitch: My name is Val Logsdon Fitch. It’s V-A-L L-O-G-S-D-O-N F-I-T-C-H. And the Logsdon is my mother’s maiden name. Where Val comes from, I have no idea. Except it was a favorite name of my mother’s. Cindy Kelly: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you happened to end up at Los Alamos […]

Stephane Groueff: Mr. James Stowers. James Stowers: We had a responsibility of procurement, which was not generally—it was not generally known. Going into this job, the Kellogg Company wanted to be well protected. They didn’t want to lose any money, it’s understandable. And they did not want to get entangled in having to defend a […]