National Museum of Nuclear Science & HistoryJack 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 was a little kid.
Rhodes: What was his name?
Keen: His name was Lester Orlan, O-R-L-A-N, Keen, K-E-E-N.
Rhodes: And what was your mother’s name?
Stephane Groueff: [Enrico] Fermi was not considered as a foreigner?
William Sturm: Oh, no.
Groueff: There was no jealousy by the American top scientists?
Sturm: No, no, no, no. Science at this level is absolutely international. There is an international aspect.
Groueff: Did he speak good English?
Sturm: No, a heavy accent.
Groueff: Heavy accent but—
Russ Fabre: Tell us a little bit about your family history, from where and when did you come to Washington State, and why settle here in White Bluffs?
Robert S. Norris: The first thing we should do is to identify yourself.
Mary Rockwell: My name is Mary Rockwell. Spell it? M-a-r-y R-o-c-k-w-e-l-l.
Cindy Kelly: Very good. What was your maiden name?
Rockwell: Compton.
Kelly: And how is that spelled?
Rockwell: C-o-m-p-t-o-n.
Kelly: Okay. Is there a funny story attached with that?
Richard Rhodes: Would you say your name and then spell it to start with?
Jane Yantis: It’s Jane Yantis, J-A-N-E, Y-A-N-T-I-S.
Rhodes: Good, thank you. Where were you born and when, if you want to tell me?
Yantis: I was born in Center, Texas.
Rhodes: When?
Yantis: In 1920.
Rhodes: Good.
Yantis: March the 23rd, 1920.
Harold Hoover: My name is Harold E. Hoover, that’s H-O-O-V-E-R, commonly known as Hal, H-A-L.
Cindy Kelly: Why don’t you start by telling me how you got into the SED [Special Engineer Detachment]? How you happened to get into the SED, and then what you found when you got to Oak Ridge?
Stephane Groueff: Start from the beginning and if you can give me in a few words the history of how it started, who actually came into contract, and how?
Stephane Groueff: Now it is recording Dr. Langsdorf. If you can tell me in a few words how you got connected with the project and where you came from.
Alexander Langsdorf: Oh, in the first place, as soon as I got my PhD at MIT, I went out to Berkeley as a national research fellow and started to work in Ernest Lawrence’s lab doing nuclear physics, which was a brand new field then, just opening up in 1938.
Groueff: ’38.
Robert JS Brown: I'm Robert JS Brown.
Robert S. Norris: You are recording this oral history for the Atomic Heritage Foundation on June third, two thousand fifteen in Washington, DC.
Brown: Yes, right.
Robert S. Norris: How did you become involved in the Manhattan Project? Can you tell us about that?
