Security & Secrecy

Philip Abelson: My name is Philip Abelson. I was the son of two Norwegian immigrants. My father was born north of the Arctic Circle, and my mother was born in middle Norway. I visited the birthplaces of both of them. They were very wonderful parents. I couldn’t have had better parents. My father got his […]

Walter Goodman: My name is Walter Goodman and I was born in 1922, which is a very long time ago. I was particularly interested in engineering and in the military from the time I was a young boy. When I did get into the service, I ended up continuing in school, and finished electrical engineering. […]

Jack Keen: My father was an engineering draftsman at Hanford. I was—depending on what the months were—probably three or four years old. Richard Rhodes: When you went there? Keen: Right, when I lived there in one of those big, duplex houses. My mother, father and I lived in those duplexes for a time when I […]

Ruth Kerr Jakoby: My name is Dr. Ruth Kerr Jakoby. J-A-K-O-B-Y. I was born September 2, 1929. I am eighty-five years old. On September 2, I will be eighty-six. Alex Wellerstein: My birthday is September 5, so we can both be Virgos together. Where were you born? Jakoby: Palo Alto, California. Wellerstein: You said you […]

Robert Lamphere: They said that he [Klaus Fuchs] annoyed some of the people because he wanted to keep certain [inaudible]. That’s a little point of irony.  Richard Rhodes: Although, again, there was one guy who later thought, “Well, maybe he was pushing to find out what was the most valuable information.” Which I hadn’t thought […]

Martin Sherwin: This is an interview with Dorothy McKibbin in Santa Fe, July 20, 1979. Dorothy McKibbin: Santa Fe? Sherwin: It sure is, but it’s not going to be my last. I’m enjoying it thoroughly. McKibbin: Great country. Sherwin: It is. It’s just beautiful, and, of course, we’re having such fantastic weather now. If I could put this— McKibbin: The most […]

Martin Sherwin: This is an interview with Hans Bethe in his office at Newman Hall, Cornell University, May 5, 1982. This is Martin Sherwin. Sherwin: I’m glad I caught this. Basically, you were surprised that Kyoto had been selected and at these meetings, that the Target Committee had been held in the Oppenheimer’s office. Hans […]

Richard Rhodes: You said [Richard] Courant’s work added realism? Ted Taylor: Yeah. Rhodes: How so? Taylor: By going over various tricks for dealing with the discontinuities, the singularities in the hydrodynamics. I had the impression that he was very helpful to people like Bob Richtmyer. I don’t know that Richard himself came up with anything […]

[Thanks to Ronald K. Smeltzer for donating the record “To Fermi with Love” to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.] Narrator: Only thirty-one months had passed since Stagg Field. What followed the Trinity event is now history. Within forty-eight days of its demonstration near Alamogordo, the atomic bomb formally brought World War II to an abrupt end on […]

Richard Rhodes: How did you get involved in the program? Marshall Rosenbluth: Well, you can probably guess. I’ve already told you that I was a student of [Edward] Teller’s. I was in the Navy during the war and then went back to the University of Chicago where my parents were living, to graduate school, and […]