National Museum of Nuclear Science & History[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
K.W. Greager: Name is K.W. Greager, I go by Wally. Greager is spelled G-R-E-A-G-E-R, slightly different than the earlier Greager.
Tell us about when you started with Hanford.
Greager: I started working at Hanford after college in late 1951 on a rotational training program. I spent four years in the 300 Area—fuel preparation, slug preparation. I wound up out in the 100 Areas, the reactor areas, in 1956-57 time period.
[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Hank Kosmata: My name is Hank Kosmata, K-O-S-M-A-T-A.
Cindy Kelly: My name is Cindy Kelly, it is Wednesday, July 31st, 2013, and I’m here with Haskell Sheinberg. And the first question to him is, please tell us your name and spell it.
Haskell Sheinberg: My name is Haskell Sheinberg. And the first name is H-A-S-K-E-L-L, last name S-H-E-I-N-B-E-R-G.
Kelly: Perfect.
Sheinberg: I haven’t lost that much memory anyway.
Cindy Kelly: I'm Cindy Kelly. It is Friday, February 7th, 2014. We are in Alexandria, Virginia and we are here today to interview and talk about Colonel Heflin. And this is his son-in-law. Would you please introduce yourself? Say your name and spell it?
Darrell Dvorak: My name is Darrell Dvorak.
Kelly: Could you spell Darrell?
Cindy Kelly: It is January 14, 2014, and we are in St. Louis, Missouri. And I want to ask the first question of you, which is to tell us your name and spell it.
Dunell Cohn: My complete name is Dunell Edlin Cohn, D-U-N-E-L-L. Edlin is E-D-L-I-N. And the last name is Cohn, C-O-H-N.
Kelly: Very good.
Cindy Kelly: Okay, let us get started. Cindy Kelly with Atomic Heritage Foundation, September 6, 2013. I am here with Smith. The first question is please say your name and spell it.
Ray Smith: My name is Smith. That is R-A-Y S-M-I-T-H. I am the historian at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation. I am here today with a special Manhattan Project veteran. My first question is for you to say your name and spell it.
Fred Vaslow: Fred, F – R – E – D, Vaslow, V – A – S – L – O – W.
Kelly: The next question is, when is your birthday?
Vaslow: November 17, 1919.
Kelly: Where were you born?
Vaslow: Chicago.
Cindy Kelly: Okay I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation and we are in Mesa, Arizona on June 26, 2013 and with me is Robert or Bob Cantrell. And the first question I have for him is to tell me his name and spell it.
Bob Cantrell: My name as I remember it is Robert Cantrell, R-O-B-E-R-T C-A-N-T-R-E-L-L.
Kelly: And Robert, what year were you born or what was your birth date and where were you born?
Cantrell: I was born January 27, 1921 in Gainesville Texas.
Kelly: This is Cindy Kelly, and I am in Boulder, Colorado. It is June 25, 2013, and I am going to be interviewing Bert Mills Tolbert. And the first question for Bert is to say his name, and then spell it?
Tolbert: My name is Bert Mills Tolbert, spelled T-O-L-B-E-R-T.
Kelly: Why don’t you start at the very beginning, and tell us when you were born and where, and then a little bit to lead up to your education and the Manhattan Project?
I was in the SED, the Special Engineer Detachment and I worked in what was then called D-Building and with my college James Gergen I purified all the plutonium that went in the Nagasaki bomb. That’s what I did.
The purification that we used was purely in the liquid phase. We worked with solutions of plutonium nitrate and put it through a series of chemical processes to get out all the impurities. But I want to go back because I think more interesting than the chemistry of plutonium is the whole process, the procedures that we went through.
