The Atomic Heritage Foundation (AHF), founded by Cynthia Kelly in 2002,
is a nonprofit organization in Washington, DC, dedicated to the
preservation and interpretation of the Manhattan Project and the Atomic
Age and its legacy. The Foundation's goal is to provide the public not
only a better understanding of the past but also a basis for addressing
scientific, technical, political, social and ethical issues of the 21st
century.
Manhattan Project Veterans Commemorate the End of WWII
The official Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945 marked the end of WWII. For many Manhattan Project and war veterans, this was a moving and momentous day in American history. Sixty-five years later in different cities across the country, veterans and their families gathered to remember the history , share their personal experiences, and celebrate the end of WWII.
Atomic
Heritage Foundation President Cindy Kelly appeared on C-SPAN's
Washington Journal Saturday
morning, August 14, 2010 on the anniversary of Japanese surrender and
the official end of WWII. During
the 45-minute program, Cindy spoke about Truman’s decision to drop the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well
as the environmental and health effects of the bomb. C-SPAN showed
footage from the Army's long-classified documentary films of the
aftermath of the bombs and clips of President Truman and J. Robert
Oppenheimer. A national audience commented and asked questions about
the
Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb and its impact. To see the footage
from the
program, please visit C-SPAN’s video archive .
The Atomic Heritage Foundation
910 17th Street, NW
Suite 408
Washington, DC 20006
202-293-0045 info@atomicheritage.org
Atomic Story of the Week
Before any of the important visitors arrived, we knew that the decision had been made that this would be a laboratory. About a month or two earlier, a “mega-bulldozer” came through the place and set about redoing things—roads and everything else. The construction work was being done at a tremendous rate.
There were four of us who were seniors at the Los Alamos Boys Ranch School. To fill in for one of the faculty, I was teaching the math class. We knew the school was going to be closed because of the war. I mean you just felt it. But we were all wondering why the government would put anything up here on the mesa. It was so hard to get water and there was no good transportation or railroads nearby and so on. It was just a crazy place to do any war thing. Secrecy? You would do so much better, if secrecy is what you want, to locate it in the middle of a military compound. Just anything else.
So we used to kid from the very beginning about what kind of science-fiction laboratory they might have here with white-coated scientists. Then these two guys show up, one wearing a porkpie hat and the other wearing a fedora, a hat that we thought was uniquely E. O. Lawrence. Of course the porkpie, there was just no question that this was Oppenheimer.
We knew enough from physics class and publications of the current physics issues that fission could be used to make a chain reaction. So when those two showed up after this place had already been run over by the mega-bulldozer, there was absolutely no question in the mind of a couple of us smart ass kids that this meant that they would be making a nuclear bomb.
STIRLING COLGATE, LOS ALAMOS
Did You Know?
"Talk softly please. I have been engaged in experiments which suggest that the atom can be artificially disintegrated. If it is true, it is of far greater importance than a war." (Ernest Rutherford, Physicist, 1919)
According to Robert Jungk in "Brighter than a Thousand Suns," Rutherford made this comment upon being censured for his absence from a top level meeting to discuss new anti-submarine defense systems.
