Race for the Atomic Bomb

[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: All right now what else is there? […]

Stephane Groueff: Now it is recording Dr. Langsdorf. If you can tell me in a few words how you got connected with the project and where you came from. Alexander Langsdorf: Oh, in the first place, as soon as I got my PhD at MIT, I went out to Berkeley as a national research fellow […]

Groueff: General Nichols, Part 2. Nichols: But Dobie [Percival Keith] came back immediately, or shortly thereafter, with the suggestion we build more gaseous diffusion base plants, and that was why we built the K-27 plant. Groueff: A base? Nichols: Yeah, a base. See, more base, to where he then optimized. How do you optimize the K-25 system with the […]

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 […]

Jacob Beser:  The story which we could tell. And one point that Dr. Wittman, though, which I wish you would please keep in mind—and this is true not only in this situation, but any historical event  should be evaluated in the context in which it took place, the context and the times in which it […]

Hunt: I started working for DuPont in 1937 at Old Hickory [in Tennessee] in the power department. I was very anxious to do the best I could, so I made a special effort to learn everything. Where were you when you were told to return to Wilmington? Hunt: At that point I was a power […]

Bob Caron: Oh, now for comments on Bob Lewis. I do not know what the hell to say about that, Joe. Bob calls me fairly frequently on his WATS [Wide Area Telephone Service] line, and I kind of feel like I am in the middle of something. He is very bitter, and very bitter towards [Paul] […]

Joseph Katz: Now it was recognized that plutonium would have a chemistry that would be quite similar to that of uranium. And developing procedures for the separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium. The assumption that was most commonly made was that the chemistry of plutonium would be similar, if not identical to that of uranium […]

Stephane Groueff: You remember this visit now? Norman Hilberry: Oh, boy. Groueff: Could you tell me about that part? Hilberry: This was one of the reasons why the pile got built under the West Stands. The Manhattan District had been building a building out in the Argonne Forrest out in the Park District to build […]

Stephane Groueff: Now you said that you had some opening remarks? William J. Sturm: Yes. In terms of what you would have said and what your colleagues have said you are interested in, it occurred to me to note that pretty generally insofar as the things that were done at Chicago are concerned—they were done […]