Scientific Discoveries

Everett Weakley: My name is Everett Weakley. E-v-e-r-e-t-t, W-e-a-k-l-e-y. Where did you go to school and how did you get to Hanford? Weakley: I was hired by General Electric in 1950, right out of University of Idaho, which isn’t very far from here, Moscow, to come down here at the height the Cold War. Things […]

Stephane Groueff: Yes, now we’re recording, Dr. Hilberry. Norman Hilberry: I think Dale Babcock’s paper is a real addition to the overall literature on the subject, because that period which led up to the discovery of the Xenon had never really been gotten down on paper before. The things that happened in Wilmington, John A. […]

Richard Malenfant: I go by Richard Malenfant. That’s M-A-L-E-N-F, as in Frank-A-N-T, as in Tom, although I’m more comfortable going by my nickname Dick. Cindy Kelly: Great, terrific. Now I wish I could ask you about Tahiti. Just remembered that you just got back from there! But let’s stick to the topic and ask you […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation from Washington, D.C. and it is Tuesday, January 14, 2014 and I am here with Adrienne Lowry, who was married to Joseph Kennedy, a radio chemist with the Manhattan Project. Adrienne, let us start with you. Can you tell us your name, say your name and […]

Michael Lewis: Julius, tell us a little more about some of the personalities at Los Alamos. First, I know that you were very close with Enrico Fermi. Give us a feeling for what he was like as a person. Julius Tabin: When I knew Enrico he was in his early forties. Unfortunately he died at […]

Stephane Groueff: Yes, Dr. Manley, from the beginning. Then I’ll start asking questions. John Manley: Alright, fine. I guess the first relevant business is the fact that I went to Columbia in ‘34. I was sort of on the fringe. I worked mostly with [Isidor] Rabi for the first couple of years. Groueff: You are […]

Arthur Squires: Keith is a personality. Stephane Groueff: He is kind of a personality. Squires: Keith is a personality and I worked with this man seventeen years, shy two weeks. Groueff: So you know him very well.                    Squires: I know him very well. Groueff: Would you […]

Arthur Squires: And I probably did not appreciate, during the war itself, the extent to which this was such a remarkable effort. Kellex – I am sure some of this you have already heard. Kellex was put together by M.W. Kellogg Company pretty much on a command basis. They just went to the top people […]

Raemer Schreiber: Yes, there was at least one [bomb core], and people back here worked furiously taking the plutonium as it arrived and converting it into another core. I don’t know the answer to it. I have heard stories another core was on its way out at the time of the surrender. Richard Rhodes: Groves […]

Stephane Groueff: So Mr. Friel, you were with the optical side in Chicago project? Dan Friel: Yes. My interest and activity was in the optical end. The job was to make it possible to see through walls and to see into equipment where otherwise the radioactive level was too high to operator or to work. We knew, […]