Ernest Tremmel: I'm Ernie Tremmel.
I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in civil engineering, and I went to work for the Corps of Engineers in St. Louis. One of my bosses was a Captain Powell who, after I was in St. Louis two years, got transferred to a secret project he was going to work on called the Manhattan Project Corps of Engineers.
Nancy Greenewalt Frederick: My father, Crawford Greenewalt, was the only child of Dr. Frank Lindsay Greenewalt and Mary Hallock Greenewalt. Dr. Greenewalt was a physician at Gerard College in Philadelphia, and my father grew up there most of his young life. He went to a German school, what we would call a preschool, run by German monks when he was a child. He says he spoke German before he spoke English. But when he was grown up he could do some German, but he couldn’t speak it.
Harry Allen: Mr. Wilson and company set us up a purchase request for a barber chair, because they couldn’t get off work in time to get their hair done.
Robert Van Gemert: There was only one man cutting hair, I think, up there.
Allen: The barber service was extremely limited, and we just happen to know where there was an old barber chair down in the old engineers’ warehouse. So we sent the truck driver down, and we delivered one barber chair down to the cyclotron building.
Martin Sherwin: This morning I am making arrangements to interview Norris Bradbury in Los Alamos, New Mexico. January 10, 1985.
How would you characterize the major problems that [J. Robert] Oppenheimer had when he first got the job as the administrator for Los Alamos? Or at least, when you came on?
General Kenneth Nichols: —found we did not have the authority to satisfy DuPont.
Stephane Groueff: But why did DuPont challenge your authority?
Nichols: Because they had trouble, in World War I, being called munitions makers and investigated after World War I, so they are more conservative than most companies. And they wanted to have in their files copies of our authorities. And what we had, which I have shown you, and that is satisfactory to them.
Groueff: I see.
Cindy Kelly: My name is Cindy Kelly with the Atomic Heritage Foundation. It is January 8, 2016, and I am in New York City with Peter Lax. My first question for him is to say his name and spell it.
Peter Lax: Peter Lax, spelled L-A-X.
Kelly: Great, thank you. So I would love to have you talk, just a little bit anyway, about your childhood and your parents.
Stephane Groueff: [Enrico] Fermi had the characteristics of a real genius.
Colonel Franklin Matthias: Almost every time you would get in contact with him, something would come up that was impressive. Physically, he was a small man, unimpressive person, but he grew real large when he started talking about things he knew.
Groueff: Was he a friendly person?
Matthias: Yes, warm; very warm, very friendly, a real nice person.
Walt Grisham: Okay, what you’re looking at is our old family well. It’s a little different than it used to be, because it’s sitting kind of up on the top of a bank here. After the project was built, they did a little roadwork out here and cut it way down. But where I am at the present time is the meadow of our front yard. The old dead trees off to this side were cherry trees. We used them not only to produce the cherries, but also as shade trees in the front lawn. The house sat back in this direction.
Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly. It is October 14, 2015. We’re in in Los Alamos, New Mexico and my first question for the gentleman with me is to tell me your name and spell it.
Bill Hudgins: William G. Hudgins. W-I-L-L-I-A-M. G stands for Gordon. Hudgins. H-U-D-G-I-N-S.
Kelly: First, could you start by telling us when you were born and where, and something about your childhood?
Jerome Karle: My name is Jerome Karle. And it is J-E-R-O-M-E K-A-R-L-E.
Cindy Kelly: Great. Dr. Karle, can you tell me about what you were doing in the early 1940s and how you happened to become part of the Manhattan Project?
Karle: Well, I had just finished my work in 1943, for my graduation on my degree.
Isabella Karle: Your PhD.
