Learning About the Manhattan Project

Tom: Funny thing about it, Jim is in civilian clothes, I’m in uniform. And we’re taking information back and forth and got to be real, real good friends. And Martha had total access to what was going on at Oak Ridge. I did too. He said you can’t protect anything unless you know what you’re protecting. So they sent me down into another building where they’re splitting atoms.

So I watched them, what they called splitting atoms, and these little buzz machines, and buzz machines. They gave me two scientists to explain what was going on. Well, they were ‘brains.’ They couldn’t talk in just ordinary English. And so they explained all this stuff to me, and it was just so far over my head — if the Russians had captured me the next day I couldn’t have helped them one bit.

Let me put it this way. I don’t know what was in their mind, but they explained to me what it would do, and I’ve always heard — you know of the blockbuster bomb? Well, it won’t tear up a block, it’ll tear up a hole in the block. So when they told me the magnitude of what it would do, I said “it’s kind of like a blockbuster but it’ll just do more.” And it didn’t dawn on me it would tear up a whole city.

And the things that I knew, I didn’t put them in the size — I couldn’t even imagine the size of the impact.