Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-12-02

cally small amount Of material
to a layman. A fantastically diff
ficult achievement for the scien-
fist.
Then came Pearl Harbor and a
month later Compton ordered
Fermi and group that had been
working at Princeton to Chicago
to work on a pile, prove that a
chain reaction could be achieved
and see what hope 1t held for
making plutonium.
Space was at a premium at
the university. But there was one
site that might do for a pile, a
squash racquets court under the
west stands of the football field
the university had named for its
famous coach, Amos Alonzo
Stagg.
Gradually, the new players in
the squash court drama assem-
bled.
There was Gus Knuth, a middle
aged carpenter at a Chicago lum-
Der yard who was asked to do
some precise work" at the uni
verSity. Knuth's boss protested he
needed him. A prompt letter from
Washington settled the matter.
Bob Mobiles was studying at a
teachers college in Southern Mis-
souri,. His brother at Chicago Uni
versity wrote the school was look
ing for young people with a
knowledge of physics to work on
a Covenant project. Pay: $125
a month. Mobiles went.
The Journeys West
DR.. Herbert Anderson, Fermi's
assistant at Columbia, went west
with him. Prof. Samuel Allison, a
noted physicist at the university,
Joined the project. So did Dr. Nor
man Hilberry, another physicist,
and Leona Woods now Mrs.
Leona MarshalD, Herbert Kubit-
Schek and Leon Sayvetz, all
graduate physics students at the
university.
Strange faces kept bobbing up
for lunch at the Quadrangle Club
where most Of the faculty ate.
People recognizing these men
and who had been current in the
latest developments of physics be-
fore the scientists imposed vol
untary secrecy on themselves
might have put two and two to-
gether. Adams did when he saw
the uranium.
But few others knew.
Not Mrs. Fermi She didn't learn
until the rest of the world did. Not
Gus Knuth, who directed much
of the actual construction work
on the pile. CIT was just another
job to me. You know how uni
versities are, always making one
thing or another.~ Not George
Maronde, one of the guards as
signed to the project who occa-
sionally wondered what the big
black blocks we're. ("For all I
knew all those guys were build
ing a little house. II I'd have
known. I'd have run 800 miles
north without stopping.~
The families in the apartments
across the street, barely so feet
distant, never guessed. Neither
did the thousands OF students
who daily struggled over the OBJ
stacle course Of jumps, ropes. lad
ders and pipes that led around
Stagg Field. up the concrete steps
of the west stands, along its
length and down the other side.
The compus Rumos
Common rumor around the
Quadrangle Club had 1t that the
metallurgical lab. the official
name Of the atomic project, was
working on a secret incendiary
bomb. Actually II wasn't bad
guess. There was a hush-hush
group on campus doing research
on such a bomb but they didn't
know about the "metallurgists'
and vice versa.
There were six poison gas labs
operating In the middle OF the
campus. But no one ever con-
nected them 10 the crates OF an
finals that used 10 arrive regu-
larly. In wartime one might see
One might think. One didn't talk
The university hadn't welcomed
the atomic project blindfolded
Then Chancellor Robert Hutch,
ms, Dean OF Faculty Tom Filbe,
and Compton had talked II over
There was a radiation danger
There was a billionth chance thu
reactor would run away" and ex
plode, imperiling the whole soutl
side OF the city. But Compton
and Fermi were convinced tn