Evening star., 1954-04-13
Academic Life of '3Os Put Him
Remote From World, He Says

me, such as Jack Manley and
Katrina Sandow. I doubt that
met Bernadette Doyle, though
recognize her name. Pinsky and
Addison I met at most casually,
as previously mentioned.
BY the time that we moved to
Los Alamos in early 1943, both
as a result of my changed views
and of the great pressure Of war
work, my participation in left
wing organizations and my asso-
citation with left-wing circles had
ceased and were never to be re-
established.
In August, 1941, I bought Eagle
Hill at Berkeley for my wife,
which was the first home we had
of our own. We settled down to
live in it with our new baby. We
had a good many friends, but
little leisure. My wife was work.
ing in biology at the university
Many of the men had known
went off to work on radar and
other aspects of military re-
search. I was not without envy
of them; but it was not until my
first connection with the rudi-
mentary atomic energy enter
prise that I began to see any way
in which I could be of direct use.
Joined War Effort in Al.
Ever since the discovery of
nuclear fission, the possibility of
powerful explosives based on it
had been very much in my mind,
as it had in that of many other
physicists. We had some under
standing of what this might do
for US in the war, and how much
it might change the course of
history.
In the autumn of 1941, a spe-
cial committee was set up by the
National Academy of Sciences
under the Craftsmanship of Ar
thur Compton to review the pros
poets and feasibility of the diff
ferent uses of atomic energy for
military purposes. I attended a
meeting of this committee; this
was my first official connection
with the atomic energy program.
After the academy meeting I
spent some time in preliminary
calculations about the conStruc-
ton and performance of atomic
bombs, and became increasingly
excited at the prospects.
At the same time I still had a
quite heavy burden of academic
work with courses and graduate
students. also began to con-
suit, more or less regularly, with
the staff of the Radiation Lab
oratory in Berkeley on their pro-
gram for the electric magnetic
separation of uranium isotopes.
I was never a member or en-
ploye of the laboratory: but
attended many of it's staff and
policy meetings.
With the help of two of my
graduate students, I developed
an invention which was en-
bodied in the production plants
at Oak Ridge. I attended the
conference in Chicago at which
the Metallurgical Laboratory (to
produce plutonium) was estab-
lished and tts initial program
projected.
Asked to Take Responsibility.
In the spring of 1912, Compton
called me to Chicago to discuss
the state of work on the bomb
itself. During this m tin g
Compton asked me to take the
responsibility of this work, which
at that time consisted of nu-
merouS scattered experimental
projects. Although had had no
administrative experience and
was not an experimental physi-
cist, I felt sufficiently informed
and challenged by the problem
to be glad to accept. At this
time I became an employee of the
Metallurgical Laboratory.
After this conference I called
together a theoretical study
group in Berkeley in which
Bethe, Konopinski, Serber, Teller,
Van Week and participated.
We had an adventurous time.
We spent much of the summer
OF 1912 in Berkeley in a Joint
study that for the first time
really came to grips with the
physical problems of atomic
bombs, atomic explosions, and
the possibility of using f1ssion
explosions to initiate thermo-
nuclear reactions.
I called this possibility to the
attention of DR.. Bush during the
late summer: the technical views
on this subject were to deyelop
and change from then until the
present day.
After these studies there was
little doubt that a potentially
world-shattering undertaking Law
ahead. We began to see the great
explosion of Alamogordo and the
greater explosions of Eniwetok
with a surer foreknowledge. We
also began to see how rough. diff
f1cult. challenging and unpre-
dictable this job might turn out
to be.
Quentin Raised at Start.
When I entered the employ OF
the Metallurgical Laboratory ]
filled out my first Personnel Sc
curity QUESTIONABLE. Later in
the summer, I had word from
Compton that there was a ques-
ton of my clearance on tile
ground that I had belonged tc
lef-wing groups; but it was indi-
Gated that this would not prove
a bar to my further work on the
program.
In late summer, after a re-
view of the experimental work,
I became convinced, as did 9TH
ers. that a major change was