The lack of plants, and the tiny amount of water. But over the years that came to be the favorite place of all the places i have ever lived. Time,back from time to more to santa fe and unless than los alamos, and we had our children and grandchildren join us in santa fe for our 50th wedding anniversary. But it took me time to warm up , and shall i tell you about where we live . Interviewer sure. Tell us how old you were and what brought your family to los alamos. Peggy i was eight when we moved there, just short of 11 when we left after the war. On theer had worked proximity fuse, although he was a regular navy officer he had worked in science from the beginning of world war ii on. And he groves picked him meshed with oppenheimer so he became the head of ordinance at los alamos. Interviewer i dont think you have mentioned his name. Captaine was navy William Stirling parsons. Later, after the bomb was dropped, he became common or and then rearmmodore and admiral. Interviewer and he has a nickname. What was that . Peggy deke. At the Naval Academy where he was classed in 1922 they gave everybody nicknames. Shortedand deacon was which which can be deac. D deke or and tell us about your mother a little bit. Peggy her father and grandfather had both been admirals, and she was used to , andg and taking charge she was a national athlete. Natural athlete, she loved anything to do with athletics. Skiing, writing, you name it. Interviewer what was her maiden name . Injector her first name . Martha cluverius. Was adamdfather sampson who was a big deal in the spanishamerican war. So she was a take charge type. And my father was a more quiet intellectual type. Mother was a doer, he was a thinker. I had a younger sister who was all spunk. I was shy, painfully shy, but i remember eavesdropping and remembering what i heard. Interviewer ok. , when did you arrive. What time of year . Peggy june of 1943. Thattchback road switchback road at the mesa was terrifying because it was under construction. Gear than had a lower the cars, so they would go further and further down and the car would start to stall, and you were on the edge of this drop. But my mother, she could handle that. Think got up there and i this has been written about, but when we got to the first gate to the guards thought they had us by because my father announced that he was captain parsons, which was true, a navy captain, but it was an army base as they expected someone who was a captain to be wearing the appropriate staff. Stuff. They were very excited that they had caught this spy. We had a very nice house. I think it was probably the biggest house on that row. Los alamos and the boys school. Four lodges in the center and then i cant remember the number of houses. We were down at the end. We had the distinction of having two bathtubs. That got us in a bit of trouble once because there were only showers in all of the army , and there was a soldier being released from the hospital but the nurse told him that he would need to to take bats and he said, where . And he said she said oh, business parsons wont mind, the trouble is she did not tell my mother. My mother arrived home to find this poor soldier in the bathtub , which i am sure embarrassed him more than an embarrassed her. We lived next door to the ipenheimers, and at times guess there were times of great security, and we would have somebody patrolling our house or the oppenheimers house, or to twoing around together Walking Around together. But that was kind of hit and miss depending on something that was going on, but my mother forgot her past want and the guard would not let her in the house. It was a magical place to live. You had no fear. Thought thatarmy patrolling it with horses would do, but the forces that they got were from kentucky. The terrain and kentucky horses did not match. So they were left with all of these of stables. The horses left but the stables remained, and the stable help remained, so they opened the stables to anybody who wanted to keep a horse there. That was great. My mother had a horse. They bought me, my sister and me, a small horse. My mother thought she seemed a little sway back and they said oh, she has a pay belly. She was carrying a full. Foal. That was very exciting. After school several days a week my mother would ride over and my horse would be with her and i would hop on and off we would go. She wrote a lot with mrs. Oppenheimer, they were a good pair. Quite different, but they both loved riding and i think they liked the fact that my mother was a tape take a charge type and willing to give parties. There were a lot of visiting firemen that came, and often i would be passing hors doeuvres at cocktail parties, and i remember that one night i was someone named Nicholas Baker is here. But that was a code name for boehr. I daresay i passed him and cheese and crackers but i dont for member anything about that. After some party, probably a dinner party, somebody gave me a liquer,out the care orange curacao. I was alone one sunday, i opted out of a picnic at mandalay. I wanted to read. I was a studious little kid. Gee, i would like some more of that orange curacao. I did not know where the key was but i saw there were two Silver Silver silver drawers below it, so i simply removed the drawers and reached in. My parents got home my mother was appalled that i have been drinking at age nine. My father was delighted because it showed i had figured out how to get in. Another time that it was apparent that my father favored , thes over Good Behavior famous english physicist mr. James chadwick without los alamos. Aged 21 whoghters had been evacuated from england. It turned out that my father, who went to washington fairly often, would be taking the same train west as these two british twins. So sir james asked dad to watch out for them. Well, british twins of 21 dont watch some wants some old guy watching out for them. But the last morning as they were getting up towards the station for santa fe he sat with them at breakfast. Boiled,ered two eggs, cicely three minutes each. My father explained that the physics of the fact that threeminute eggs at that altitude would be practically raw. They listened to his explanation, turned to the said to eggs, boiled, precisely three minutes. Waiter translated that into softboiled eggs. , iwhen dad told us the story was appalled that people would be so rude. What upset my father was that sir james would have two stupid daughters who could not understand a physics lecture. There were a lot of interesting people. I best friend at los alamos was named joanna jorgenson. She was, i believe, from nebraska. A couple years older than i was, but we had a great time going around together. Our object would be to find courting couples somewhere in the woodland area, and by night we would just be out walking. But i think there is some connection between math, physics, science, and music, because practically every night you would hear a quartet playing four scientists scientists getting together in a Chamber Group and having a marvelous time. It really was a bit fascinating place to grow up. 40s,er, who is in his early 40s, was about the oldest person there. Ones cap having babies, so there were a great many babies born at los alamos. I think the birthplace record was a po box. The school was very good. Comeant get scientists and have a junkie school. It was fun. But i do remember there were iq , andgiven at the school this was something i picked up at a Cocktail Party. Everybody was shocked at the child who tested highest on the the daughter of the man who shoveled coal in the morning. Laurence gonzales. Go figure. I have often wondered what happened to lawrence e death l laurencita. I told you about the horses. Each day after the hired crew, we called them indians then, from the local play blow pueblo would be carefully checked out, the daily help that would clean would be carefully checked off at 4 30 or 5 00 and ssed down to the pueblos. Moviest we had first run for . 50 each. Here in the front row of the movies were the indians who had been checked out. Upy would ride their ponies just to see the movies. They werent buying, a spy under our very rude, with our babysitter. He would come and take care of my sister and me since we are five and eight, we did not need much looking after. But we had a piano in the house and he loves to play the piano. That was our babysitter. Then when i got a little older i was actually peter oppenheimers babysitter. You should not really trust a 10yearold to babysit, but with the guard Walking Around outside what can go wrong . Interviewer what do you remember of that . You know, with peter . I never had any trouble with him. I dont remember his sister tony, maybe later. We were pretty close to the oppenheimers. The thing that impressed me, chickenpox is going around. Oppy had been so carefully brought out that he never got chickenpox. He got it as an adult and was very sick, but even though he felt like nothing he would still go to work as long as he was no longer contagious. I reveled in the fact that i could stay out of school with , and about the first day i had chickenpox i was lying in bed listening to the radio. , andther was out riding they broke into the radio programming to say that president roosevelt had died. Then they immediately went back to their previously scheduled program. Which seems odd under the circumstances, but i am pretty sure that is what happened. Hen my mother walked in i said mother, mother, i heard on the radio that roosevelt has died. She said nonsense, you have a fever. You probably imagined it. I kept trying to tell people that roosevelt had died but nobody believed me. The next day she had an allday ride plant with katie Kitty Oppenheimer and she said, are you sure i should go . I had planned the whole day listening to soap operas. When absolutely infuriated all the programming was about roosevelt and no soap operas. When i finally went back to school, having gotten hooked on mothereras, i asked my if she would listen and tell me what happened. Look as if that was beneath contempt. That was not her thing. Oh, we had two dogs while we were there. One tomkat. Tomcat. In those days i think nobody thought of neutering and spain. That came later. Marmalade diedd and he appeared to be the father litter andtter one day we got a telephone call from a woman who said, we had a and litter of kittens happy could not have taffy could not have been the father. Theyre not the same color. Wanteder went over and to see the kittens and one of them had an orange stomach. Rap. T a wrap after the war we certainly continued our friendship with and went up tos princeton. It is hard to remember how often, but the friendship continued and it was fun to go and visit them. I remember i was struggling with kittyometry homework and oppenheimer was the one who helps me. And in december of 1953 my father heard at a Cocktail Party that he had been separated. He was so upset when he came home. He checked with the encyclopaedia britannica, which was his idea of where you go, and it did not sound as if he had had a heart attack. A mother took him to Bethesda Hospital and he died. Week after his 52nd birthday py did lose his security clearance. Years later when he was reinstated by being given the award just after 50 years ago, just after jfk was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson chose to prevent present him with the award. Mother went to the gathering. Of course there were many many scientists, and all of a sudden secret a secret service man with 100 ore room so people and said, is mrs. Parsons here . She thought, oh god, what have i done. Theyse of the friendship wanted her to come in and be with them when the family came in, and then they took her in for the award presentation. Backgrounds in the with the oppenheimers as he got the award. I had three little kids then and we were watching on television and there was their grandfather up there in the limelight. She continued to go and visit the oppenheimers after my father died, and one day they said we are going over to the george school. Placeas the family where peter was a student. I guess he was a border. I suppose everybody who was at this picnic was aware that oppenheimer was somebody special and were kind of looking at him. Mother said she was really embarrassed because he got up from the table and he said, martha, ive got your very favorite thing. Mother looked surprised and he said heineken beer. At a Quaker School picnic that is not exactly the drink of choice. But it was a lovely thing to do. Any questions . Followups . Interviewer these are great stories. I wants to ask about everybody and everything. With what itack was like to live there. Were you one of the only children their . There . Peggy no. Its hard for me to remember, the bradburys were just up the way. Marcus bradbury, when i first knew her, had two boys. James and john. Childen when the third came, one of the scientists said you have to keep with the jays js, so how about jesus . It turned out to be dated. Id. Rybody had dav everybody had young children. The younger, unmarried ones were in prettyewhere miserable housing. , ahad an asparagus red fenced in vegetable garden. We had quite a nice place. Interviewer what special occasions the remember . If i had been as far as i can remember a really wellbehaved child for a year i told be taken to santa fe las anda for lunch. That was the big deal. Interviewer did it never happened . Were you a good girl for a whole year . Peggy i was a nerd. I was boringly good. I dont think my sister ever got taken because she was more adventurous and naughty. Interviewer what kind of adventures . Peggy oh god. All you had to say was dont jump off that and she would do it. She fell off our porch early on, ider and the writer r she was not. But our member we were going to ate kind of potluck supper school and my mother had made deviled eggs. So of course my sister, and im sure this is an accident, she stepped in the double dates. Eggs. The deviled that made life a little difficult for her. I did try to cook. Our mother was not a cook. I got a cookbook and my sister would be the lookout. Notother came home, she did want to cut just messing up the kitchen. It i would try to make cant remember, brownies or fudge. Probably brownies because they had to rise. Following the joy of cooking, which was not written for that. Ltitude, i made the worst mess even my sister and i could not eat it. When she would call out that mother was coming i would the pan of ditch failed brownies on a lie look bush outside the back door. Then i would quickly clean it up so that mother didnt say. Years later when i went back to the house, i think it was 12 years later, i checked the health of the lilas lilac. Apparently it like my cooking. It was inedible. Fairly often, and it is hard for me to rub her how often, rationing,ere was you could go to full or large and have fuller lodge and have a very big dinner. Roast beef. We did not suffer. I think they wanted the scientist to be well fed. Remember if the lodge was open to everybody or not. Generalgrowth would groves would show up now and then. He was a terrific administrator. He got the pentagon built and then he was head of the manhattan project, but he was would describe his personality as bullying. Colonel, an army whitney ashford, who was a graduate of west point and a very nice fellow. Regular and as bridge was maybe on engineering duty. So groves looks down on him. And one morning at inspection time he and groves were marked marching along. The soldiers were coming by. Trashoves saw a piece of blowing and order bridge to pick up the troops, which was really good meeting. Demeaning. Ing im rubber my father talking about what a nasty thing that was. After the war my parents would , and see growth groves they would play tennis with him and his daughter. He was the kind of tennis player who did cuts and nasty shots. His daughter was a good player. But i remember general groves said would you like me to send your father back to los alamos . I love it. Oh yes, yes, yes. He was just fooling. The bullying type, taking advantage of a kids enthusiasm. I dontng to see think i have anything more. Tell me about the relationship between your father and groves. They had worked together before the war . Peggy i dont think so. Asked for hisoves suggestion. First, of course, being an army base they wanted an army ordinance, but bush said, the guy you need is parsons. Well, groves was more interested in 70 who could do the job then somebody my father ended up with quite a few people from a navy base because he knew their capabilities. Ashworth was navy. Radbury was the army and the navy dont match up, so my father, when he went off the base, was required to have a driver with security clearance. Call for a driver and he would say, this is captain parsons. The guy at the other end of the motor pool would say no cars were captains. Eventually that would get worked out. Tripember one hairraising. There was a secure driver. He had the right clearance, but he did not know how to drive properly. So we got through the guardhouse , and the minute we were out of sight my father said you said here. I will drive. Familyce my fathers lived in new mexico, we would go , with permission, to albuquerque for thanksgiving once or twice. Was a lot of social life. There was square dancing. Broodk bernice brewed was behind some of the arrangements. They would invite the indians to come up and observe the square dances and then we would be invited to go down there and see their dances. Lot was going on one night i came home from a ,ance and got violently ill apparently i had been bitten by a black widow spider playing outside. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. When you are 10 that is a big deal. Of course my parents fear for my life, but i just bought hay, hey, this isting exciting. I recovered in a day or two. There was a pool at los alamos, a pond. A child about my age drowned in the pond, so they built a wonderful Swimming Pool and we had lessons. But mostly, for me, it was ridi ng and i just lived at the stable. Waiting for the horse to produce but given the nerd i was when it was 8 00 i had to go home. And the foal was born at night so i missed it. Judgments were skewed because there was a and he had aist very nasty horse. So i assumed he was a nasty man. That is probably not so. It the people who rode have gotten whether you paid nine dollars or 18 a month to keep a horse there. Practically every horse had its own stable. Horseshorse path wel turned out to be male named him for our stable boy, charlie. He was a delightful guy. Interviewer where did they come from . Peggy they were army. Fromnk maybe they had come kentucky but they had adjusted better to los alamos. I guess i just did not know what was going on, nor did my mother. My father came and went. He went to washington quite often. I dont know whether he was nervous for some reason he was nervous about air transport, so he always traveled by train. That was considered safe and of course the trains were pretty nice. I never got to leave los alamos except to go to albuquerque or santa fe, but who cared to leave . It was paradise. There i never saw a rattlesnake. I understand they are from there , but i guess interviewer did you feel that you are living in a highly secured military run place . Were you aware as a child of this . Peggy since we moved there from dalgrin, where there was a guardhouse, it seemed normal to me. There was the inner sanctum called the technical area, where of worked, and my sister course i had a sense of superiority when she could not say it properly. She called it the technique malaria. You just felt safe. I felt safe. And when my father left for the test and then to go drop the , it was just another absence. Days re many false dj vj days. The rumors would go around that the japanese had surrendered. Not so. Im vaguely remember hearing my mission,d been on the and so . Can i ride today . And because he died so young i never really talked to him much about it. The one thing i learned later, there was a physics lab named for him at johns hopkins. I got a tape of the dedications, and he described the hiroshima run as a typical parsons job. Possible,was every worstcase scenario planning. Everything went like clockwork, partly because of the planning and partly because of the work. Then i realized that that must be, in some way, a genetic trait, because what im going someplace i plan it all scenario, worstcase and i think well, he was dropping the first atomic bomb. I am just going to do errands. But if you are genetically made up that way that is the way you behave. Was fairlyppenheimer late in his life. I was working at harvard after i graduated from college, and he came to give lectures. I think it must of been 1957. And of course he was mobbed. It toad to broadcast other buildings, but my mother said i had to go speak to him afterwards. But, being shy i was being a nerd you do with your mother tells you. After this jampacked lecture i went up and he was surrounded by the top physicists in the inner circle, and many concentric circles. Stood on the outside i look exactly like my mother and he looked through all these people and said is that peggy . And we multitudes parted had a sort of cryptic conversation about los alamos. Physics students follow me out of the lecture. Who is this woman . That was fun. And i could call my mother and tell her i had spoken to operate oppy. That was the last time i saw him. He was a god to physicists and to people who knew him. Just casually like me. Arerviewer the stories kitty was not disposed to be the host of a party that your mother would host. What were those parties like . Peggy as long as i did not spill the hors doeuvres i was passing, i think my parents parties were more staid. Those were the parties for visiting firemen like niels bohr and everybody behaved. I think the scientists worked so hard all week. You work saturdays. , if thereday night were visiting firemen which were not held at our house, were pretty heavy drinking. Fun. A way to relax. Of anybody being described as an alcoholic, but there were present plenty of heavy tackle drinkers. That was just maybe saturday night. I was not passing any hors doeuvres at those parties. Interviewer were you a loud to be part of it . Allowed to be part of it . Peggy just when the parties were at our house. I was 10 years old. After the war was over we moved to washington, and the hardest part of leaving los alamos was a told i had to take my beloved dolly, out and show off her paces to prospective buyers. That is pretty tough on a 10yearold. There is no way you can take a horse to washington. My mother had a rule. You travel with your dog. She found homes for cats and horses. That was the way it was. Its impossible to imagine what a beautiful place it was once i got used to the of vines and that sort of thing. Every time we go to santa fe we take back roads through the giant have you ever been to buy a grande a . Grande . That has to be one of the most spectacular places. Fanw years ago, i am a pbs and i just automatically turn on public television. There was a wonderful i would say it was no more than half an documentary called sky island about by a grounded. And maybe a little bit about bandolier. It was there itd by meryl and a native american, and it was beautifully done. I think part of the reason why that is such a special spot is that it is probably the highest point in the land and it somehow catches precipitation as the air rises, because, being a horticulture teacher, that is one of the few places where there was truly a three layered vegetation. Trees, shrubs, and grasses. Not close together the way they are in the east, but much more so than other places out there. That to me made it very special. We went over there once. Now they have cattle grazing there. When i was a kid i am certain it was sheep, because we went once and it was during sheep shearing. They horrified because would share the sheep and the wall would be bloody. For a 10yearold you dont forget that. But it would be an allday ride to get over there, and that would be something special. Interviewer on horseback . Peggy yes. Would sometimes see mountain lions over there. Festivalso to various , indian things. I was always terrified. There were some indians who had obviously had a little too much to drink and would come up. My mother, she could handle anything. My father was always working so he was not part of that. But it is hard to imagine a better place to grow up than los alamos. Moving to washington later with a big come down. City, schools were not as good, that kind of thing. T about interviewer what about the Hispanic Community that losounds the thalamus alamos . Did many of them work on the lab . Laurencita gonzalez, who i mentioned as having the highest iq score in the school, and a guide named roberto sandoval. Or his motherd, was, when he was referred to as a mexican. Spanishamerican was the preferred designation. I caught on to that. And boys. I was a pretty good student and boys now girls grow up faster. Han boys i could not believe some of the stupid things boys did. Somebody invited me i cant for member, one of the scientists friends invited me to come over for glassblowing. It was boring. He ended up cutting a little place in his wrist by putting a piece of glass under it. I thought boys were next to subhuman. Why did they do these dumb things . Sister. Rt of like my always putting their foot in the build d the eviled eggs. Some of them are nice. The bradbury boys were nice. And joanna. A nice group of kids. Writing and doing schoolwork were my chief a little gardening. Riding in ambulances. Mentioned later on in your life you met oppenheimer when he was speaking at harvard. How much did you interact with him when you were a child, other than serving hors doeuvres . Peggy oh you know. He would come over to our house, we would go there. Much more memorable are the times we went to princeton, because then it would just be the oppys and us. And me trying to do might geometry homework. Came down. Kitty and they came down to washington once. And i went outy to lunch. And then she said she had to do some shopping so we went with her. I was absolutely astounded. Remember, she would only by buy size five underwear. That stuck in my mind. Of thes the beginning sort of mccarthy era. Felt guiltyy because she had been a communist. She said to my mother, the you think they are down on robert because he is jewish doctor well, i dont think that could possibly have been the case, but the fact that his brother was communist and kitty had been a communist. She wanted to find some other reason, which is perfectly human. I once asked lois bradbury, when i was in adults, in fact we had a child who had graduated from college in new mexico. And we went down there and we went to call on the bradburys. Lois, why is she always portrayed as such an unpleasant person . That was not my memory of kitty at all. Lois said, that is easy. She respected your mother. She liked your mother. She was a completely different person with your mother then she was with other women. Although i understand from reading the book, she would have brief friendships with people and then drop them. But that was not the case with my mother. She was a natural mother, and i gather she drank too much. But it was hard on wives because husbands worked so hard. Riding. Kitty had interviewer it sounds like your mother was also very energetic. She took well to it. Peggy oh yeah. From the timeo she was a kid she had grown up on navy bases, having a husband or a father who was away a lot of the time. It was natural. I do remember, and i cant be sure just to this suspect that since ashworth was the weapon near nagasaki on the flight, it had to have been his wife. She heard that my father had decided he would be the weaponeer on the first ashworth on the second. Not woman who i knew but well came over one night and she burst into tears, asking my father to change his mind and not the center husband on this dangerous mission. Well, and adult bursting into tears, i did not know adults cry. That made a big impression on me. Of course that flight was fraught with peril for various reasons. Ellen bradbury was even thinking of making a movie on that flight because it was so interesting. It did not go like clockwork. They barely made it back. Really the one that you would like to see a movie about because so much happened. Planes, as of the ellen said, one of the planes that was supposed to rendezvous at a certain altitude got the altitude wrong and circled, circled. Meantime the other planes were using up fuel circling at the stated altitude, and finally the plane that had gotten it wrong figured the others had not made it. Turned, headed home. Eventually broke radio silence and said the other planes had never arrived, therefore it was assumed that they had gone down at sea. Did ellen tell you this . No. Interviewer no. Peggy i thought that was an interesting story because they landed practically on fumes and were not expected back. Interviewer did your father weaponlk about being a eer . Peggy the thing that amused me, he armed the bomb in flight. My father literally could not fix a leakys leaky faucet. So the irony of his doing that. And then he brought home to fuses. A great one at a red one and then generald growth came to take my mother out to dinner when she was a widow. He said oh, i want to take those and have them catalog. That was the last we ever saw those. I daresay that was right, they belonged in a museum. But when i went to see it at the smithsonian, sure enough, there were things like that. I wrote a little note saying those matched up with my recollection. I slipped it in the suggestion box, which probably went in a circular file because i never heard anything more about it. Out at thatwent huge museum outside washington afraid i always ort of poohpoohed tidbits tippits role because he spent the rest of his career on the basis of being the pilot. On the other hand, when i saw the enola gay, that was one impressive plane and he mustve been the best of the best. But i always thought they were the delivery crew, not the bomb people. He was speaking in philadelphia once and i certainly was not going to go and pay to hear him. Scientists i certainly respected. Once i saw the enola gay i had more respect. I guess b29s were not that safe either, so it really was something. Last, give him his due at now that he is dead. I wonder if there were any of the people who are still alive . Interviewer one. Dutch van kirk. Peggy he was a navigator . What was he . Interviewer i think so. Took a your father also small plane to be the scientific observer of the trinity test . Peggy yes. He never talked about that. It was the old loose lips shake sink ships. , i went to theg post office one day. Posterse taking down and replacing them with some , and i asked if i could have won. I put it over my bed. I can still rub her what it said. Jap offat wipe that the map. Prophetic. Days, all youse cared about was ending the war. I have heard japanese people saying that it was a good thing that we dropped the atomic bombs because that saved japanese lives, and certainly american, but i dont know. I have mixed feelings about that. We are the only country in the world that ever used atomic weapons. Reporter did you have a sense of how your father felt . Peggy i dont think he regretted it. I once told him when i was 11 years old, how does the atomic bomb work. It went over my head pretty quickly. Another time, i asked him how to play chess. Andidnt want to sit down do something elementary her. He got out the encyclopaedia britannica, and they had all the moves of the world chess championship of the latest year of the Encyclopedia Britannica have been published, the one we had. He said, you do this, and i do this, and i was infuriated at the end. I won. , i thought he could at least given me the win. Kill a kids interest. He took everything we asked a seriously. Tomother was forever trying teach us how to play games. My sister was a better athlete than i was. Horseback riding was about all i mastered, and then flower shows in later life. Reporter you mentioned on the picnics at the National Monument . Lunch andwould pack a go off, not always to band earlier bandolier. Up my sister and i would be sent to find some small sticks. The trouble was my father, although we had already read the New York Times, before she burned it, he would have to reread it. We would have hot dogs and hamburgers and Something Like that. Was that thehings two things that were his bibles, the encyclopedia botanic and the encyclopaedia britannica, and the New York Times, after the drop on hiroshima, the New York Times published his picture, only they andd the navy for a picture it was the wrong william s parsons. My mother found that highly amusing. Reporter and he . Peggy i dont really remember. Days, mothers have the responsibility of raising and with so hardworking fathers, that was a natural and i daresay there were a fair number of working women, but most i knew were housewives. They were the mothers of my friends. Orter with lois bradberry was lois bradberry a friend of your family . Peggy they had known each other in virginia, and my father had gotten miles bradberry to come, but i would say her closest friend was kitty. If my mother wasnt hitting a ball or skiing, she wanted to be on a horse. Luckily, i was good at riding. Reporter did peter ride or was he too little . Peggy he was too little. Stayed kids statement babysitters and she would go off , and i daresay my mother was perfectly intelligent, but no intellectual. I think kitty was more intellectual than mother, but when youot a barrier are on lets see, anything else i can remember about well, going to see my friends in the army apartments. Those apartments were not very nice places to live. It must have been a struggle to but i wasntthat, aware of that. Who worries about that at the age of 10 . Reporter how many children when the school at your age . You are a little older. Peggy yeah, i was in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, and all i remember were these boers who were not paying attention. Who were not paying attention. They did not study for the spelling test or anything. One classertainly had i believe there was a high school, but i dont know. I left and sixth grade, and because there were no houses in worcester,ived massachusetts, three months in los alamos, three months in , worcester massachusetts, and then three months in washington at the end of sixth grade, and that leaves great gaps in your education when you keep changing schools. I have yet to study grammar anyplace. It was either the thing that they had just finished studying when i arrived or about to study when i left. Think get an i education living in different parts of the world. Hearing that you are not worth much if you cant understand why eggs arent cooked after boiling three at 7000 feet altitude. Reporter you had mentioned something no. Anymore comments on peggy all are remember was that he came and played the piano all evening. My sister and i got into all sorts of stuff upstairs. I really have very little recollection of him except that he was there, and my parents felt comfortable going off within playing the piano. Reporter who played the piano and your family . Peggy i did a bit, but the piano came with the house. We would not have moved a piano out from virginia. Reporter i was reading the you and other children. ,he talked about John Bradberry the pressure, the urgency, the project was passed down to the kids and you get a sense of the, did you . Peggy i never felt that. Reporter maybe you could say. Peggy he may have been more in tune with things. I certainly was much more in , and myh daily life father came and went so much. Hat i just accepted that i think the closest i came to sensing stress was when he had to go to work despite the fact that he was just starting to recover from chickenpox. It seemed a little strange, when i had a long time listening to soap operas. This poor man had to go to work the injusticerk. Work, the injustice of the thing. I didnt even know why they were called soap operas. It was because they were for housewives and the advertisements were for soaps, so thats whether called the soaps. So that is why they are called the soaps. I dont do series. Reporter actually, i think we have done a great job. Oppenheimer major father respect him so much . I think the fact that he was such a serious scientist, and also a good administrator, which nobody knew when he was hired. Who knew who would be a good administrator. Model also a good role and inspiration for the other scientists, would certainly help with things. It was hard to know my father was a rather quiet person and never shared emotions. I guess i am relatively clueless, as my children would say, and even my grandchildren. But your father and oppenheimer had a very close relationship, is that correct . Guess myah, and i father in some ways was oppenheimers deputy, so they talk a lot. Im sure there were disagreements about how to this, that, and the other, and they probably talked over things. For years, every time a famous scientists name appeared, i would think that i know him. You have any recollection . Peggy i dont think they lived on bathtub row for some reason. Bathtub row went to people who came first. And was at the university of chicago, so maybe he came later. Certainly he was a very highly respected scientists. It just seemed that mostly you knew the people on bathtub row and the people who had children your age, that was the natural friends. Ur parents as i say, the only social life i saw among adults was the Cocktail Party circuit for the visiting firemen that my mother would do. She wasnt much of a cook. I can imagine what she sure, but i think drink was more important than food at those things, and of course i dont know whether this has been written about, but the effect of alcohol at that altitude it hits you much faster if you are not used to drinking there, so visiting firemen would be disarmed quickly with a few drinks. When you talk about visiting firemen, what do you its hard for me to remember why we gave his cocktail parties. Sticks out in one my mind, and figuring out the liquor closet kind of thing, but my mother having this military background, she was a natural to organize things. Reporter how did she communicate with folks when there is time for a Cocktail Party. Did they send notes . Peggy i have no idea. Reporter over the telephone . Peggy oh, yes. Reporter was there a partyline where you could peggy i dont remember there was. Butad party lines in maine, i think that was my First Experience with a partyline. Once my mother was permitted to go and visit her father back in massachusetts, and my sister and i both wore braids, and she said can you raid the girls hair, and my father said, yes. , i laughed, and he said guess it was knitting that i knew, not breeding. Braiding. Pigtails were the way to go. We had some really nice teachers at i think the school was set up i dont know whether it was a private school, lab school, but they sent a whole batch of teachers and they had built a nice instead of the junkie apartments and kwanzaa huts, we had a nice school. Reporter where was the school located . Peggy well, i dont know. Just walked there every day school. Y rode after sometimes dogs would come with us on the rides. And i hung around the stables a lot. The stable boys were extremely friendly and pleasant, and the horses were friendly and pleasant. Was the horse different from other horses . Peggy the explanation given was that he had been castrated late in life. He was either angry about it or still have those you stayed away from him. Ors or foals, he would not res or foals, he would be not nice to them. So ed him, reporter are there any questions you would like to ask . Could you maybe talk a little how your father became such an expert in ordinance . Do you know anything about that . A linewell, he was officer in the navy and eventually had a cruiser veryion, but he was a bright guy, and the science over heerature, and i think taught out at the Postgraduate School in annapolis when he and my mother first met. They neededen someone to work on the proximity at the navalas , you were ordered to go up, and he drove to washington every day, which was no mean feat in those days, so i saw very little of him. And then because of that he was picked for loss almost los alamos, and when he died he was the deputy chief of ordinance. It all came together. Reporter do you think we have covered everything . Peggy certainly everything i can think of. Anecdotes. Reporter yes, this is nice. And i was a month or s 11th birthday when we left, swiping my memories are skewed a bit, but i remember a lot. I asked my sister if she would be interested. She said it was too early in her life. She wouldnt remember stepping on the deviled eggs. She blocked that out. Said that was a big thing. Of what youre dads involvement was . How long after . Guess my mother told me, but it was matteroffactly, first, all these false vj days, and finally the real one, fireworks, that was it. Had wipe thatl jap on the wall behind my bed. When you are a kid you are so involved in your own life. What your mother says goes, and your father comes and goes. Remember when he went bikini aftert world war ii was over. I have forgotten when the bikini test were. We were in maine that summer. And we didnt have a telephone. Store thatthe little was a short walk away, and there was telegram and the poor man at the store new family well knew our family well, and the ranking officer at the bikini , andwas admiral blandly the telegraph operator who sent a telegram that the poor man had to hand to my mother. It said flying east with blondie. My mother thought nothing of it, but the poor man was so embarrassed. He thought my father who was flying east with a bimbo. Embarrassment. He had to deliver this awful news. With live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan and the senate on cspan2, huron cspan3 we show you the most relevant congressional hearings and Public Affairs events, and then on weekends, cspan3 is the home to American History tv, including six unique series, the civil wars 150th anniversary, historyartifacts presidency,he lectures in history with top College Professors delving into past, and reel america. The tableeated by industry and funded by your local table cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. Looking on q a, Brooking Institution senior fellow talks about counter and surgery insurgency and state building efforts in afghanistan. Security. Improve i hesitate, but i increasingly interrogate and question myself. We dont know how it will end. Things may collapse, but it is also possible that five years down the road we will be back in a civil war in afghanistan. ,sis is now slowly emerging terrifying prospect that it is. The taliban is deeply entrenched and hardly defeated. And if we end up in a new civil war in afghanistan five years down the road and a new safe haven for the taliban and isis, then i would say it was not worth the price. At 8 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Coming up on American History tv, up and love of women journalists speak about the challenges of covering the vietnam war when women were not widely viewed or accepted as war reporters. The discussed the shift in 1960s from traditional roles for women journalists, such as writing about parties or gardening, to being war correspondence. Newseum posted this event. [applause] good evening to everybody. Stufffor bringing all my out here, but i was trying to stay organized. It is delightful to see everyone here this evening for this conversation. I had a whole plan of how to start. This conversation, and i had a whole plan of how to start until i was talking to edith letter backsta backstage. Shes going back new york tonight yeah, i have to share. Shes going back to new york tonight to cover the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Hell be at the u. N. Tomorrow. The pentagon said to me, no, no, no press. Edith got her way into it. I think thats where we start tonight. But if it makes news, youre got to give me a full. Absolutely. I expect that we will have an absolutely fascinating conversation tonight. I want to start by saying one thing. I am not