Security & Secrecy

Michele Gerber: My name is Michele Gerber, M-I-C-H-E-L-E G-E-R-B-E-R. Why should people today care about the Manhattan Project? Gerber: I think there are three reasons why people today should care about the Manhattan Project today, even in the 21St century. One reason has to do with money. The events set in motion by the Manhattan […]

Paul Wilkinson: My name is Paul Wilkinson, spelled P-a-u-l W-i-l-k-i-n-s-o-n. Cindy Kelly: Great, and we will start the same way, by your telling us where you are from and how you ended up at Oak Ridge. Wilkinson: I am from New Jersey. I graduated from Williams College in November of ’43. Eastman Kodak was the […]

Paul Wilkinson got a job at the Y-12 Plant Oak Ridge after graduating college. He supervised calutron work and some of the “calutron girls,” including his future wife, Dorothy. Wilkinson.

Interviewer 1: Why did your family come to Oak Ridge? When did that happen? Rowan: Well, we actually came to Oak Ridge in 1945. We left Nashville in early 1945. Because there was no housing available onsite in Oak Ridge, we had to stay in South Harriman, which is about twenty miles away. In the […]

After her brother was drafted, Jo-Ellen Iacovino and her family moved to Happy Valley, Tennessee to support the war effort. Although Iacovino and her sister, Sheila Rowan, were too young to participate in the construction of the K-25, gaseous diffusion plant, their older sister, Colleen Black, and their parents worked to support the Manhattan Project. When the […]

After her brother was drafted, Sheila Rowan’s family moved to Happy Valley, Tennessee to support the war effort. Although Rowan and her sister, Jo-Ellen Iacovino, were too young to participate in the construction of the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, their older sister, Colleen Black, and their parents worked to support the Manhattan Project. When the […]

Robert Serber: Ernest [Lawrence] got overexcited about the Russian bomb. I imagine that [Edward] Teller called him and got him worked up. I warned him about Edward’s Super, that it wasn’t a practical idea at the moment. I told him if he wanted to really find out he should talk to [Hans] Bethe, but he […]

Tell us your name. Roger Rohrbacher: I’m Roger Rohrbacher. That’s R-O-H-R-B-A-C-H-E-R. How did you come to Hanford? Rohrbacher: In 1942 and ’43, I was working for DuPont in an acid plant in Illinois and my buddies were disappearing. They ended up in Richland, so I got the map out and Richland, Pasco weren’t even recorded […]

Roger Rohrbacher was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 11, 1920. He graduated from Macalester College in 1942 with a degree in chemistry and physics. Rohrbacher joined the Manhattan Project and was sent to Hanford in early 1944. He worked as an instrument engineer at the B Reactor. Rohrbacher was tasked with measurign neutron […]

Alexandra Levy: All right. We are here on April 23, 2015 with Mr. Rex Edward Keller. So first, can you please say your name and spell it. Rex Keller: Oh, Rex Edward Keller, R-E-X E-D-W-A-R-D, Keller, K-E-L-L-E-R. Levy: Can you tell me where and when you were born? Keller: I was born in Saxton, Missouri, […]