University Involvement in the Manhattan Project

Alexandra Levy: Okay. We’re here in Virginia on March 25, 2015 with Isabella Karle. Our first question is to please state your name and spell it. Isabella Karle: My name is Isabella Karle, I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A, and the last name, K-A-R-L-E. Levy: Great. If you could tell us a little bit about where you were born and […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation. This is Monday, February 16, 2015. We are in Pompano Beach, Florida with Dieter Gruen. I’m going to ask him to please say his name and spell it. Dieter Gruen: I am Dieter Martin Gruen. D-I-E-T-E-R, M-A-R-T-I-N, G-R-U-E-N. Kelly: Very good. Anyway, this is an interview about […]

Kowarski: So born in Leningrad, February, 1907. Father, businessman. Mother had a little career of her own as a singer, but [inaudible]. Father, his business started to be paper, pulp and paper, and then from that he branched off to supplying paper to newspapers and magazines, and from there he branched off into participation in magazines. […]

Stephane Groueff: Hello, Dr. Wigner? Eugene Wigner: Yes. Groueff: Good morning sir. I am calling from New York. I am the correspondent of “Paris Match” magazine. My name is Groueff. Wigner: Groueff? Groueff: Groueff, G-R-O-U-E-F-F. Wigner: I see, Mr. Groueff. Groueff: Groueff. I will tell you what it is about. I am doing the research […]

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from New York University, Hal Behl registered with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel and was drafted into the Army. Although he was first placed in an infantry training unit, he was ultimately assigned to the Army Special Engineering Detachment and stationed at Oak Ridge. […]

Freeman Dyson: I’m Freeman Dyson, F-R-E-E-M-A-N D-Y-S-O-N, retired professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Cynthia Kelly: Why don’t we start with your experience in World War II? Maybe you could tell us what your role was. Dyson:  In World War II, I was given the job of operations research, which […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. Louis Turner: My name is Louis Turner.  L-O-U-I-S T-U-R-N-E-R. I’m a metallurgical engineer. Graduated in 1941 from the Colorado School of Mines. I was working in Denver Ordnance Plant when I was asked if I would go to Chicago by DuPont. They wouldn’t tell […]

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 […]

Groueff: Hello? Hello? Recording, San Francisco, Berkeley, February 9, 1965. Robert Thornton: Well my first connection with the radiation laboratory was in about 1933 when I came here on a post-doctoral fellowship because it was not long before then. And I then was working with Professor [Ernest] Lawrence and others on the development on the […]

Stephane Groueff: Berkeley, California. Recording, 1, 2, 3. Harold Fidler: I remember when I first heard about the project was the middle of August of 1942. We knew that Colonel [James C.] Marshall, who was a district engineer at the Syracuse District of the Army Corps of Engineers, was being asked to set up a […]