Includes interviews with some of the key Manhattan Project scientists and technicians. Things change in time. In 1945,nt in time everything changed. The desert of central new mexico, in area called the journey of death, named by spanish can keep the doors because if you ran out of water here, you did not survive. This place is now known as trinity site. In a moment in time at the spot in july, 1945, things changed. In the instant of what happened here, the length of a war changed, along with the course of history. It began years before, and thousands of miles away. [drum procession] hitler hadrs, adolf forced the influence of nzi nazi rule on europe. Populations were sent in motion. I came from hungary and germany. I have seen many things firsthand. I was deathly afraid about my family and all my friends. And i do not believe that people tremendousze how those dangers had been. Because hitler, indeed, could have taken over the world. Breath, do so. St those of us who came from europe, it came in stages. On, jewsvery early were arrested and put in concentration camps. Jobs was, the loss of and kept getting worse. So i think there was no question that i should emigrate. There were other scientists from the best universities and scientific institutions in europe seeking to also get away. When they fled, they Brought International relationship of friendships and acquaintances, along with research they had been doing on relatively new fields, that of nuclear fission. It had been discovered in germany in 1938 and was in emerging field that promised massive an emerging field that promised massive amounts of energy. But there was also the thought that it could deliver that energy as a bomb. Knew that there were a competent physicist physicists and chemists. That made is really concerned that we might [indiscernible] the world war just began four months earlier, so we knew it was going to develop into a terrible world war. And this coming at that time seemed to the fitful proof that it was. We immediately sought no ones mind was on anything except this. It was this concern that led refugee german physicist leo to reveal that possibility to the u. S. Government. Together with Albert Einstein and edward teller, he composed a letter to president Franklin Roosevelt. It told of a terrible possibility germany had the research and the knowledge to design a nuclear weapon. Delivering the letter was alexander sachs, a friend and Economic Advisor to the president. Roosevelt said, alex, what you are after is to see that the nazis do not blow us up. Precisely, he said, this require action. Intelligence reports from europe indicated the nazis were working on such a weapon, but knowing you how much effort they were devoting to it. The one certainty was that if hitler developed the bomb, he would win the war. The letter to roosevelt paved the way for the creation of a Top Secret Military project, one that would have the highest priority and titus security. It would be named, the manhattan military engineering district. When finally we began to do something, in participating in the war effort, it was a relief. The project was massive. To design and build a device that existed only in theory from material that didnt exist in any quantity under unprecedented secrecy by people, many of whom were not even u. S. Citizens, it was known that the new kilis of one form of uranium, isotope 235, which split when it absorbed a neutron. When this happened, energy was released and more neutrons were crated that struck and split other nuclei. When it happens continuously, it is known as a Chain Reaction. Knowing new at the start how much material was needed to support an explosive Chain Reaction. That volume would be known as the Critical Mass. Another element, only discovered in late 1841 by a particular nuclear chemist, also had the properties to explode in a Chain Reaction under the right conditions. He named it for the ninth planet from the sun, plutonium. The isotope we produced was plutonium 238. Produced by the above apartment of uranium. Then a month later, we identified in this room the isotope of importance, plutonium 239. And isolated it so that it could be have its Vision Properties measured fision properties measured. General Leslie Groves had just completed a major project, the construction of the pentagon. It had been his desire to accept a combat excitement assignment overseas. The secretary of war has selected him for an important assignment in washington. He was appointed at the head of the Manhattan Project. He is a very difficult man to some up, but the same thing appealed to him that i think is a norm is devotion, determination to get the war over, to do what he could. And italian physicist working with him in a space underneath university of chicago stadium assembled a large pile of graphite blocks with lumps of natural uranium in it. In december 1942, he succeeded in bringing about the first manmade controlled nuclear Chain Reaction. Havehat controlled fision been accomplished, it could be studied. Robert hoffenheim are was a respected theoretical physicist in 1942. He had been closely examining the development of fision science. He was at the university of chicago when growth came through on his first inspection tour. Groves, hetions with discussed the need for a central facility and other details. Grow saw something in him, in leadership, and it understanding of what was needed to be done. When i became a graduate student at berkeley, his aptitude for brilliant and clear explanation was very strong. And easily able to crush a question or objection. Hoffenheim are was a difficult human being. He was extremely intelligent. Extremely quick. Everything when i had just reached of what was being talked about. Groves gross selected him groves selected him to be the project leader. With anto the project immediate concern. And the time before the war, he had been very leftish. Grove overrode all objections and stayed with it. No one thought he would undertake such a task. It is amazing that grove would have done that. Intenseh had determination, and that is what i think what over won over grove. Once you could see he was determined to get it as best he could. Grove wanted to compartmentalize each of the distant divisions. Hoffenheim he held he held weekly colloquiums to exchange colloquiums to exchange information. At times, he insisted that everybody should be present. The new lab would be devoted to experiment and engineering. He was a theorist. To me, the theory is the explanation of the observations. Putting them in a framework that convinces us, yes, we do know how a star works. We do know how a supernova explodes. But every single bit of physics that goes into understanding our universe has first been tested out right here on planet earth. Whatthat is what makes an experimentalist does. They are not laws that congress can repeal, i assure you. Talent int scientific the country, and even from outside the country, would be working at what is known as site y. But where . It would have to be in a remote and sparsely populated locale. At least 200 miles from a coastline or International Boundary for safety from attack. Room for explosive testing. Weather good enough for construction to proceed yearround. John of the manhattan engineering district found an ideal location in oak city in southcentral utah. But there were too many residents and too much farmland that would be evicted. Oppenheimer was no stranger to the southwest. Has family had a vacation cabin in northern new mexico. The next prospect was springs, new mexico. Oppenheimer and gross drove there to have a look groves drove there to have a look. They both have the same opinion. Oppenheimer remembered a place he had been by while on a pack trip and had returned often as a visitor. It was a boys school at a place called los alamos. In the late afternoon, they drove there. The students and their masters were out on the Playing Field and a light snow was falling. This is it, groves said. Located on the eastern slope of the mountains, los alamos had some homesteaders and the Los Alamos Ranch school. It was the dream of an extra roosevelt rough rider named ashley pond. It was a school for the sons of wealthy families that was based on a vigorous life. Students wore shorts yearround and slept in on heated sleeping porches. Each student was assigned a horse to care for and pack trips into the mountains were comments. Were common. Now, its time was coming to an end. School officials started noticing lowflying planes studying the area. Cars and military vehicles appeared on the crest of the road. On december 4, 1942, the School Received a notice from henry stenson, secretary of war, that the school was being taken over. Proceedings were used and it was decreed all records of the acquisition be sealed from public view. Almost 54,000 acres were acresed, almost a 9000 were public land. After pearl harbor, we all knew that we were kind of playing it and game an end game. We get out of school, we are off to war. So in the beginning of the fall of 1942, where with already surveyors around here from the government, then they took it over. Absolutely fantastic construction in a very short length of time. When youre the school would be taken over. We didnt know just when. Startedruction crews throwing up buildings for administrations, laboratories, housing, schools, and every thing as a community needed. It looked more like a boom town than a wartime army camp. So towards the end of this, just before christmas, these two dudes show up in a calling themselves mr. Smith and mr. Jones. Pork pie one wearing a and the second one a fedora. No way i am mr. Smith and mr. Jones. Who were they . It took just two hours to know that this was oppenheimer and lawrence. And recall them by those names among us kids because we knew them so well from our physics courses and things like that. We recognize their pictures. Classwork was exhilarated and interpreting 1943, the last graduation was held. Streetss of unpaved started to define the new community. In january of 1943, the university of california was selected to operate a new laboratory. Recruiting scientists was difficult because prospective employees were already doing important work and needed good reason to change their jobs. Because of security, only scientific personnel could be told anything about the nature of the work. But today were to tell no one about what they did, not even their families. 15 miles southeast of santa fe. In the spring of 1943, this data to arrive at the small railroad station they started to arrive at a small railroad station that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Arriving from all parts of the country and europe with the best Scientific Minds in the world. Teller, ottodward fish, richard simon, edward mcmillan. Some came as consultants and the rest as permanent staff. Santa fe, new mexico. To those who came into town on route from across the country, it was hard to see the small town as the states capital. First up was in office at 109 east palace avenue, run by dorothy, it was the welcome and chicken for all those who came to disappear on the plateau. Transportation, housing, and hundreds of other Little Things that took away some of the apprehension of things to come. Felt akin to, i the pioneer women accompany their women husbands across the uncharted plains westward, alert to dangers, resigned to the fact that they journeyed into the unknown. After leaving santa fe, the dirt road up to the site was rough, even for that day. Once they crossed the bridge across the rio grande, they climbed up a steep road to the stop of the to the top of the mersa. Once they made it in, it was a different world. It was a pretty desolate place. The living quarters were just being built and the one thing that was beautiful was the view on the other side. Everything on the los alamos plateau was in the midst. And my wife and son came to her three weeks later. I stayed in the big house. But apart from that, of course, the surroundings i knew they were magnificent. It was wartime and it struck me as being a military camp. I felt right at home. Of course, famous europeans who i had never met were quite, and walked about. The british were part of the project. They arrived as part of a mission to help work on the about. For family apartment houses spread to the west and north. Barracks and dormitories, huts and trailers, everyone was a transplant from somewhere else. Because of the mission, because of Everything Else on the hill, it became a tightknit community of scientists, spouses, children, and military personnel. Most people were in the 20s or 30s. The average age was 25. They were healthy and middle class. There was no unemployment. What you did at the lab dictated your social standing, as well as the quality of your housing. From our point of view, it was wonderful. We never had a better place to live. The first place, there were plenty of food, meat. These were the days of rationing. A lot of people there had really miserable times in their apartments, which were cheap and rather shoddy. To the disappointment of many of the europeans, they also did not have laptops. Bathtubs. You always knew when your neighbors were having a party. Some senior lab officials lived in homes previously used by the schoolmasters. Row,came known as bathtub since they were the only places that had them. In april 1943, oppenheimer assembled the staff, than about 30, for a series of introductory lectors lectures to some of the studies of the weapons from the previous summer in berkeley. It also Incorporated Research done on fision over the past year. It was determined that explosive means would do the job. Have had do that been devised. It was discovered the gun method would work with uranium, but not with plutonium. With plutonium, there was thataneous fision and reduced neutrons all the time. If you had a gun assembly in shooting two pieces together, before they got together begin up to have a big explosion, they would socalled predetonate. [indiscernible] which we often made fun of. Theave us the idea of explosion, which in the and turned end turned out to be the way to do it. Said in the, the top priority really shifted over to the plutonium. Thehe gun method was easiest, but the science of implosion would have to be developed. It are quite science and engineering that would enable sign simultaneous compression of plutonium. The plutonium weapon would also have to be tested. It would be months before the first significant amount of Nuclear Material would be delivered. Before that could happen, there were many questions which came down to the central problem, how to make the material, the uranium 235 or plutonium 239, release their Energy Efficiently at the right time in a casing and airplane could deliver . One of the biggest problems with. Xtracting u235 from u238 used diffusion method was with thousands of miles of piping and hundreds of acres of berries used to produce the metal. Also used were an electromagnetic separation and thermal diffusion method to reduce and refine their material. 18 had also been assembled in chicago to devise a method for extracting plutonium. Washington was elected as the location to build reactors or its extraction. But they depended as much on chemical separation as it did on the reactors. The chemistry was glenn haas massively glenn s. We had been working with what we had been working with what you call trace amounts detected by its radioactivity. But we could introduce the Chemical Properties with certainty that way. We needed to work with actual ighablemounts we amounts. That meant we had to work i say, we, the chemists working with me on what we call an ultra micro chemical scale. In september 1944, the materials started coming to los alamos. For those in los alamos who were not part of the project, life continued in continued. Babies born at the labs had the same address as their place of birth. It was the address on drivers rations, bank accounts, coupons, and insurance policies. Los alamos was an army post. One that had more civilians than military personnel. In the first year, 80 babies were born. By 1945, there were over 300 infants at the site. The births got to be so much of a concern to general groves, he almost ordered oppenheimer to stop the populations motion. The population doubled every nine months. Short, would always be water skiers, and electricity intermittent. The threat of structure fire was always in the back of everyones mind. Then there was security. Residents could not travel more than 100 miles from los alamos. If you ran into a friend on the outside, you had to give a detailed report to security. Famous names were disguised. Occupations were never mentioned. Everyone was an engineer. The word physicist was for bid in. All mail was censored. All longdistance calls were monitored. Which was easy, since there was only one phone line in 1943. In 1945, there were three. Days, 12 tore six 14 hour days were normal. Saturday nights, they party. They were big and small and an integral part of life on the mesa. We would tend to go to a dinner with six people. What you do in any university town. Single men and women scheduled for parties that were fueled by next years of next the liquors and grain helge hall. The furniture was pushed back for dancing and parties often lasted well into the night. [indiscernible] they had a square dance, i dont know, once every maybe once a month or twice a month. Picnics, went to the mountains, went to the ruins, sometimes even went to santa fe if we could afford the gas. And so on. It was a good time. It was an intense time. We all worked 60 hour weeks and we worked on saturday. By rule, so to speak. Sunday was the only day off. The work, governed by the urgency of events waged on the battlefield in europe and in the pacific, never got easier. But those working on the bomb thought they had the science. It was the engineering that created the problems. I think that this arose partly due to the circumstances, it is how difficult it was. What a feat it was. Some of that is selfserving. The scientists like to say it was difficult, and it looked difficult, but it wasnt very difficult. Thisentirely agree on point. It was engineering. Work on the gun type weapon moved ahead, but work on the implosion weapon was slow, frustrating, and seemingly hop