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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Race for the Atomic Bomb

Oral History
Ray Gallagher’s Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions
July 9, 2015
Raymond Gallagher: My name is Ray Gallagher. I am from Chicago, Illinois. The purpose in making this tape is because of an event that took a part of my life, and also of the lives of a group of men of which I was associated in 1945, during World War II. I was assigned to a […]
Oral History
Alfred Nier’s Interview – Part 2
July 7, 2015
Alfred Nier: By the summer of 1943, the question came up, what I should do next? And I had a chance to – [J. Robert] Oppenheimer had gotten a hold of me and suggested I might come out to Los Alamos. Stephane Groueff: And you knew him? Nier: I knew him, yes. I had met […]
Oral History
Ray Gallagher and Fred Olivi’s Interview – Part 2
July 1, 2015
Announcer: You are listening to Extension 720. Here once again is your host, Milt Rosenberg. Milton Rosenberg: As we are tonight talking about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions, whose 43rd anniversary comes this weekend, we are talking with Robert Messer, Professor of History at the University of Illinois Chicago and with two participants in those […]
Oral History
Ray Gallagher and Fred Olivi’s Interview – Part 1
June 25, 2015
Announcer: Here is your host and moderator, Milton Rosenberg. Milton Rosenberg: Our guests tonight all know a great deal about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but from different vantage points, two of them from the vantage point of being up in the air and helping to drop the bombs. They are Fred Olivi, who […]
Oral History
J. Carson Mark’s Interview
June 17, 2015
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 […]
Oral History
Louis Rosen’s Interview
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 […]
Oral History Interviewee
Louis Rosen
Louis Rosen, a native New Yorker and the son of Polish immigrants, was personally selected to work on the Manhattan project in Los Alamos while a graduate student in physics. Once in Los Alamos, Rosen was assigned to Edwin McMillan’s group, where he worked on implosion technology. Rosen remained in Los Alamos after the war […]
Oral History
Ralph Gates’s Interview
June 15, 2015
Wendy Steinle: Good morning, Ralph. I’m Wendy Steinle, as you know, and I am really pleased to be your friend and to have the opportunity to interview you this morning. Just for the record, will you start by stating and spelling your name, and then tell us the date? Ralph Gates:  Well, thanks, Wendy. My […]
Oral History Interviewee
Ralph Gates
Ralph Gates is a chemical and electrical engineer who worked on the Manhattan Project as a part of the Special Engineer Detachment. His primary job was casting shape charges for the plutonium bombs.
Oral History
Irwin P. Sharpe’s Interview
June 12, 2015
Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and it’s Friday, May 15, 2015, and I’m in Middlebury, Vermont, with Irwin P. Sharpe. And, my first question for him is to tell us your name and spell it. Irwin Sharpe: Oh, I know that. Okay. It’s Irwin, I-r-w-i-n, initial P, Sharpe, S-h-a-r-p-e. Kelly:  Terrific. Very […]