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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Remembering Ted Rockwell

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Ted Rockwell

Ted Rockwell was a true pioneer of the nuclear age.  His biographical book, Creating the New World, opens with a scene in the Nevada desert on March 23, 1953. Months earlier his boss, Admiral Hyman Rickover, asked him if he wanted to see an atomic bomb test.  Now with some alarm, Rockwell found himself 4,000 yards away from ground zero wearing just a red-and-black plaid shirt and grey pants—no protective gear or gas mask—and wondering why he had ever accepted Rickover’s offer.

Characteristically, Ted fretted even more about the long six-hour waiting period. The Army had woken everyone up at 11:15 PM for a 5:10 AM test shot. The wait was unbearable:  “I’m the kind of person who just doesn’t wait well. All my life I’ve crammed activity into every waking minute.” Indeed he did.

Ted Rockwell, who died in his sleep on early Sunday morning, March 31, 2013, remained as ambitious and productive at the end of his life as ever. On Saturday, when a minister asked if he had any trouble with God, he replied, “No, but I need to do some negotiating with Him. I have a lot more things I want to do.”

In 1943, Ted was a graduate student in chemical engineering at Princeton when he was interviewed for a “very important war project.”  As he recalls in an oral history taken by the Atomic Heritage Foundation in 2002, Ted asked, “Oh, what’s it all about?” The recruiter replied, “We can’t tell you what it’s all about.”

In typical fashion, Ted was not satisfied.  At the suggestion of some friends, he started searching through chemistry journals that night and came across the story of the discovery of atomic fission. Ted came tearing back to the recruiter and said, “Hey, I know what you’re doing. It’s atomic energy.  Isn’t that right?”  The recruiter curtly responded, “It is the policy of the US Government neither to confirm nor deny…” Ted said, “OK.  That’s good enough for me.  Sign me up.”  That night the FBI called him and said, “Keep your damn trap shut, kid.”

With that warning, Ted was on his way to Oak Ridge, TN to work on the Manhattan Project, the top-secret project to create an atomic bomb. At Oak Ridge, Ted worked at the plants at the Y-12 “Calutrons,” machines designed at the University of California to separate the two nearly identical isotopes of uranium.  As Ted recalled, “To the surprise of the scientists, the women operators did extraordinarily well…While they had no idea what they were doing, they understood how to optimize this mechanism and make it sing.”

It was at Oak Ridge that he met the love of his life, Mary Compton, who also worked at the Y-12 plant. After they met, Ted recalled, “It was just a matter of time before we were married in the Chapel on the Hill.”

After the Manhattan Project, a highlight of his career was helping to launch the nuclear Navy, working as technical director to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover from 1949 to 1964. Rickover’s program succeeded in launching the USS Nautilus in 1954 and peaceful uses of atomic energy with the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in 1957.  Rockwell captured this history in his book, The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference (1992).

In the last couple of years, Ted succeeded in having a documentary film made about his experience with Rickover. Produced by Michael Pack, “Rickover” is in the final phase of production. The film has some wonderful recreations of scenes of young Rockwell standing up to a most demanding Rickover.

Another ambitious pursuit that Ted recently undertook is “Learning About Energy,” a website subtitled, “Much of what you know simply isn’t so.” With his characteristic wit and humor, Ted dispels commonly held assumptions about radioactivity and nuclear reactors.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation (AHF) has lost an invaluable friend and advisor. When AHF’s anthology, The Manhattan Project, was published in 2007, Ted joined me at a book signing at the Smithsonian serving as the “real McCoy” as well as signing his own books.  Ted and his daughter Juanita joined us in New York City for a program and production of the opera, “Doctor Atomic,” in 2008. Boundless in his energy, he took the last train back to Washington, DC after dinner.

As Ted wrote in my copy of Creating the New World, “We were all proud to be making the bomb that would end the war. But most of us were even prouder to be giving humanity unlimited energy.” We are grateful for having known Ted who helped usher in the atomic age with his own unlimited energy and enthusiasm.

~Cynthia C. Kelly

President, Atomic Heritage Foundation