National Museum of Nuclear Science & HistoryHunt: I started working for DuPont in 1937 at Old Hickory [in Tennessee] in the power department. I was very anxious to do the best I could, so I made a special effort to learn everything.
Where were you when you were told to return to Wilmington?
Hunt: At that point I was a power superintendent at Childersburg Ordnance.
That was in Alabama?
Hunt: In Alabama.
When did you find out about Hanford?
Kai 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.
Joseph Katz: Now it was recognized that plutonium would have a chemistry that would be quite similar to that of uranium. And developing procedures for the separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium. The assumption that was most commonly made was that the chemistry of plutonium would be similar, if not identical to that of uranium and this, of course was an entirely reasonable assumption to make.
Stephane Groueff: You personally you were in what department or building? You were directly working with Doctor [Arthur H.] Compton?
Raymond Gallagher: My name is Ray Gallagher. I am from Chicago, Illinois. The purpose in making this tape is because of an event that took a part of my life, and also of the lives of a group of men of which I was associated in 1945, during World War II.
Stephane Groueff: One thing I don’t understand, and it’s a very ignorant question, but what was actually the difference between [Enrico] Fermi’s experiment in ’34 and [Otto] Hahn’s? Because, why do we say that Hahn was the first one, while Fermi also bombarded uranium?
Lew Kowarski: I don’t it’s true to say that Hahn was the first one.
Groueff: It’s not true.
Kowarski: I think it’s one of those simplifications—there are people who find them all right. I don’t.
Alfred Nier: By the summer of 1943, the question came up, what I should do next? And I had a chance to – [J. Robert] Oppenheimer had gotten a hold of me and suggested I might come out to Los Alamos.
Stephane Groueff: And you knew him?
Announcer: You are listening to Extension 720. Here once again is your host, Milt Rosenberg.
Announcer: Here is your host and moderator, Milton Rosenberg.
Milton Rosenberg: Our guests tonight all know a great deal about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but from different vantage points, two of them from the vantage point of being up in the air and helping to drop the bombs. They are Fred Olivi, who was the co-pilot of Bockscar. That was the plane that actually delivered the bomb to Nagasaki.
Ross Simpson: All right, here’s the promo for Part One of the Nuclear War Series. I’m Ross Simpson on a bus, heading into Cheyenne Mountain, outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is the home of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. This is also where my five part series on the nightmare of nuclear war begins this morning.
