National Museum of Nuclear Science & HistoryKai Bird: This is Kai Bird off camera, interviewing Charles Oppenheimer and Dorothy Vanderford. Just for the record, I will ask you to state your names and your date of birth and where you were born.
Dorothy Vanderford: My name is Dorothy Vanderford. I was born as Dorothy Oppenheimer August 18th, 1973. I was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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 never did. He was all gung ho for the Super and he immediately went with more or less the action before he thought of what he could do, and the thing to do was to build these reactors to make tritium.
Richard Rhodes: This will be a tape of an interview with Doctor Segrè. That's E-m-i-l-i-o, S-e-g-r-e at his home in Lafayette, California on the 29th of June 1983.
I have been, for example, through the Oppenheimer Papers, I’ve been through the [Leo] Szilard Papers in La Jolla. All of the books, most of the books have errors of one kind or the other.
Segrè: The Oppenheimer Papers, I have never gone through, but you have seen the letters of Oppenheimer?
Richard Rhodes: Interview with Dr. Kistiakowsky in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 15, 1982.
I have done a great deal of reading into the literature; there are probably two hundred books that are built around the subject that I’ve looked at, including yours, which I enjoyed. Can I go back to some very early things?
George Kistiakowsky: Sure.
Richard Rhodes: Did David Holloway show you the documents that the Russians published?
Hans Bethe: Not the documents, but I got recent documents like [Yulii] Khariton.
Rhodes: Ah. They also published what [Klaus] Fuchs gave them. And, I have some of it here. I wanted to show you. You may not be able to comment. I think it is probably classified material in the United States.
Bethe: I do not know.
Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly from the Atomic Heritage Foundation. It is Friday, April 11, 2014, and I have with me William Lanouette who is going to be talking about Leo Szilard. Why don’t you start by actually saying your full name and spelling it?
Bill Lanouette: I’m William Lanouette, L-A-N-O-U-E-T-T-E.
Kelly: Tell us about Szilard. Who was he? What’s his background?
Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and today is Thursday, November 7, 2013, and I have with me Margaret Parsons Bowditch. And my first question to her is to tell me her name and spell it.
Peggy Bowditch: Peggy Bowditch, that is B-o-w-d-i-t-c-h.
Kelly: Thank you. And can you tell me something about who you are, when you were born and where you were born?
Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and today’s date is June 6, 2013. And we’re in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Priscilla McMillan. And I have a very easy question to begin with, which is, could you say your name, and spell it?
Priscilla McMillan: My name is Priscilla, P-R-I-S-C-I-L-L-A McMillan, M-C-M-I-L-L-A-N.
Priscilla McMillan: Roy, you knew Oppenheimer at Los Alamos and you knew him again when you were a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Had he changed? Did he lead those two institutions differently and behave differently or the same?
Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly with Atomic Heritage Foundation and it is Wednesday, July 31, 2013 and I am with Ellen Bradbury Reid. My first question for Ellen is to please tell us your name and spell it.
Ellen Bradbury Reid: Ellen Bradbury Reid. Actually I was Ellen Wilder, and then I married John Bradbury and then eventually married Ed Reid so it is E-l-l-e-n, B-r-a-d-b-u-r-y, R-e-i-d.
