Thanks to a generous grant from Crystal Trust, we are working on digitizing and transcribing some 200 interviews with Manhattan Project veterans from three outstanding collections: the Stephane Groueff Collection (1965), the S. L. Sanger Collection (1985), and the Richard Rhodes Collection (early 1990s). We hope to get the first batch of interviews up on our "Voices of the Manhattan Project" this summer.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

"He had a wide experience in theoretical physics and it showed in everything he said. Oppenheimer's great mental capacity impressed me when he told me that he had learned Sanskrit just for the fun of it.  Every contact I had with Oppenheimer increased my respect for his intelligence. The only way that we were alike was mentally in our ability to grasp things quickly. While his mental capacity was in other lines than mine, you might say, still we were equally astute." 

J. Robert Oppenheimer:

Klaus Fuchs

Nicholas Metropolis:

Edward Teller:

Edward Teller

Elliott Charney:

It's been a big month for nuclear history in film. The Washington Times gave a very positive review of Michael Pack's documentary, "Rickover: Father of the Nuclear Navy." The review explains, "Mr. Pack uses a mix of on-camera interviews, newsreels and dramatizations to capture the uniquely combative bantamweight." The documentary will appear on PBS this fall.

"Godzilla" got nuclear historians and scientists talking about the monster's relationship to nuclear testing and radiation. In the original 1954 movie, nuclear tests in the Pacific turned the giant lizard radioactive. In the 2014 movie, the 1950s nuclear tests were meant to kill Godzilla - but they failed. The 2014 remake's opening credits use scenes from nuclear history, from the Bikini Atoll tests to an image of the Trinity test plaque. Paul Guinnessy of Physics Today examines the 1954 and 2014 movies, their historical contexts, and their scientific accuracy.

May was also the 50 year anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's black humor "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." The New Yorker discusses Kubrick's motivations in making the movie and why he chose to make the movie a satire: "My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question.... The things you laugh at were really the heart of the paradoxical practices that make a nuclear war possible." 50 years later, "Dr. Strangelove" and its message still resonates. 

WGN America has announced that its new miniseries, "Manhattan," will premier on July 27 at 10 PM.  Jónsi, frontman of Icelandic art-pop band Sigur Rós, and partner Alex Somers will score the show. According to a USA Today article on the show, "The characters are fictional, but combine elements of real people. Historical figures are referenced, but the series isn't trying to be a docudrama," says executive producer Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing), who is directing three of the 13 episodes. Be sure to tune into the "Manhattan" series!