On June 2, 2015 Manhattan Project veterans and their families gathered at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Manhattan Project. Nearly twenty veterans from across the country participated in the reunion and shared their stories.
After opening remarks by Atomic Heritage Foundation President Cindy Kelly, veterans who worked at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, New York, Chicago, and Hanford took the stage. They explained how they joined the project and detailed their duties at the top-secret sites. Benjamin Bederson described the role of the Special Engineer Detachment at Los Alamos: “There were senior physicists…and then there were the assistants like myself and many others, who were the ‘hands’ of the senior physicists. Sort of like a graduate school!”
Video from the reunion is now available on AHF’s YouTube channel. Please note that due to acoustics in the auditorium, you may need to turn up the volume on your computer to hear the veterans.
On June 3, 2015 AHF hosted a symposium on the Manhattan Project at the Carnegie. The event included panel discussions on the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, Manhattan Project innovations, the role of women on the project, and atomic espionage. We will post video from the symposium in the coming weeks.