The Manhattan Project

In partnership with the National Museum of Nuclear Science & HistoryNational Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Toni Oppenheimer

Martin J. Sherwin's Interview

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. It is Monday, April 24, 2017. I have with me distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize-winner Martin J. Sherwin. My first question to him is to say his name and spell it for us.

Martin Sherwin: Martin J. Sherwin, M-A-R-T-I-N, middle initial J—actually, middle name Jay, J-A-Y, Sherwin, S-H-E-R-W-I-N.

Kelly:  Can you tell us when [J. Robert] Oppenheimer was born and where, and who his parents were?

Louis Hempelmann's Interview - Part 4

Louis Hempelmann:  I do not think the people who came later were ever as close as the people who were there at the beginning.

Martin Sherwin: Did most of the people who came later, were they junior people? That is, younger? [Enrico] Fermi came later.

Hempelmann: [George] Kistiakowsky came later.

Sherwin: He did? When you say “earlier” and “later,” what dates are you talking about?

Verna Hobson's Interview - Part 3

Hobson: One thing that used to happen to particularly interesting and sensitive papers was that Kitty would take them home, and then they would get lost. Lots of things went that way, including a whole batch of interesting tapes. It was very embarrassing because we had promised [Dean] Acheson that only one copy would be made, and we made two copies and we kept them. When he found out he was quite angry.

Louis Hempelmann's Interview - Part 2

Louis Hempelmann: He [J. Robert Oppenheimer] just told me what the situation was. He did not ask me, which is the same thing when he got sick because I was in the radiology department here and I knew something about it. He would call me up, tell me what he had done, and then say “What do you think of it?” By that time, the only thing I could say was, “That was fine.”

St. John, VI

Though not a Manhattan Project location, the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands played an important role in the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Soon after he was stripped of his security clearance in the infamous Atomic Energy Commission hearing, Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty began spending time on the island. They bought a strip of land in the Hawksnest area from the Gibney family, and built a house there. Robert and Kitty became fixtures of island social life, throwing parties on a regular basis.

Dorothy McKibbin's Interview (1979)

Martin Sherwin: This is an interview with Dorothy McKibbin in Santa Fe, July 20, 1979.

Dorothy McKibbin: Santa Fe?

Sherwin: It sure is, but it’s not going to be my last. I’m enjoying it thoroughly.

McKibbin: Great country.

Sherwin: It is. It’s just beautiful, and, of course, we’re having such fantastic weather now. If I could put this—

McKibbin: The most wonderful summer climate I have ever encountered, and I’ve been a lot of places.

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