On August 8, CBS aired an excellent segment on the proposed Manhattan Project National Historical Park during its show, CBS This Morning. Lee Cowan, a CBS National Correspondent, traveled to Los Alamos, NM to view the sites. Ellen McGehee, Los Alamos National Laboratory Historic Buildings Manager, led Cowan around the restored V-Site, where the “Gadget,” the first plutonium-based atomic explosive, was assembled by Manhattan Project scientists. The Atomic Heritage Foundation was instrumental in raising support and funds for its preservation, completed in 2006.
McGehee led CBS crews to the Gun Site, where the “Little Boy” bomb was assembled, and the Quonset Hut, where assembly work on the “Fat Man” bomb was done before it was shipped to Tinian.
Cowan also interviewed Helene Suydam, 92, the current owner of the house where J. Robert Oppenheimer and his family lived during the Manhattan Project. Mrs. Suydam has agreed to leave the house to the Los Alamos Historical Society when she is gone. Meanwhile, she “has not changed a thing” since the Oppenheimers lived there. Located in the center of Los Alamos, the house could become “the jewel in the crown” of the Manhattan Project Park.
In addition to Los Alamos, two other Manhattan Project sites will be included in the new park: Hanford, WA, and Oak Ridge, TN. The segment shows footage of the B Reactor at Hanford and the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge.
The CBS anchors acknowledge that this will be a different kind of National Park, a “sobering” one reflecting on the history and legacy of the development of nuclear weapons. But, as McGehee eloquently explains, “History isn’t always pretty, and I think it’s important that we don’t lose this history, or lose the ability to reflect on the history.”