The Woman Who Kept a Secret Dub

You You You Feeling of all that I had when that light hit us

was remarkable and I don't think anyone has ever seen explosion even it's either 109 miles or 209 I don't remember the leaves of those green trees those green native trees were kind of shining with the gold it was different everything had changed the world was changed everything would never be the same ever again in the world Let us pray Heavenly Father Creator of Heaven and Earth Maker of all things You crowd your creation on earth when you made man and woman Lord you place them here on earth to rule and to subdue it in all of creation Please Lord we beg you to give us the grace the wisdom to use our intellect and will and all our gifts and talents for the advancement of all people Help us to be aware of the delicate balance of our environment and your

creation We pray for peace we pray for all leaders religious and civil national and worldwide that all these leaders and their people will work and pray for peace A peace based on justice and love so that someday we can turn our weapons of war and destruction into implements of peace and construction He just Lord not only to harness the atom but also nature in order to advance peace by eliminating the causes of war Lord you remind us from time to time that all power and all goodness resides in you and that you are our Father and therefore we are your sons and daughters brothers and sisters with your grace teach us to be at peace with ourselves with others and above all with you Help all nations all peoples to learn to live

in your peace with your grace Lord make us an instrument of your peace where there is hatred let us so love where there is injury pardon where there is doubt faith where there is darkness light where there is sadness joy or divine master grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as to love for it is in giving that we receive it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life Amen God bless all of you Well all that is history

now and these are replicas of its artifacts there is always more to history of course than gets told names like Oppenheimer, Fermi, I, I, Robbie, Niels Bohr, Edward Teller figure routinely and prominently into the story of the atomic age but have you ever heard of Dorothy McKibben you need to because Dorothy McKibben played a remarkable role in those dramatic events which led to the birth of the nuclear age Dorothy McKibben has been called the woman who kept a secret but that obscures in some respects rather than tells her story operating out of a little known office in Santa Fe it was through Dorothy McKibben that those now famous scientists gained access to Los Alamos beginning with the birth of the Manhattan Project in March of 1943 her duties were varied everything from security arrangements to housing accommodations but that still doesn't tell the whole story

because in time Dorothy McKibben became the trusted advisor the friend the confidant the marriage counselor the den mother to the whole bunch of them to the Oppenheimer's the Fermi's and the rest Dorothy McKibben is now 84 but her recollection of those years is vivid Dorothy one of the most interesting stories of those early years at Los Alamos involves how you became what some people call the gatekeeper at 109 how you came to accept that job could you tell that for us well I was at the time out of work and I was interested in trying the bank and they had nothing for me and I was crossing the Palace Avenue traffic running in and out when the Santa Fe and named Joe Stephenson approached me and we did our conversation in the middle of street and traffic took care of itself and he said how would you like a job as secretary

and I said secretary to what and he said secretary I said well what would I do he said you would be a secretary he said don't you know what a secretary does and I said not always and he said well think this over I give you 24 hours and so that night I picked up the telephone called several my friends and said have you heard of a new store or thing coming in town that wants a secretary nobody had heard of anything at all like that and 24 hours were about to close and I didn't know where I'd see Joe but I walked in the lobby of LaFonda and Joe was standing there talking to a man I knew was from California because he had on a round silk suit the coat matched the pants he had on a white shirt a necktie and shoes and we were speaking pleasantly I knew he was from California and as we were talking I was

glancing around as a woman always does and I saw approaching us a slender very thin man in a pork pie hat with a pipe in his hand he had on a trench coat and he walked on the balls of his feet which gave me the impression he was kind of hardly touching the ground he stopped and spoke to Joe and Dwayne Muncie and they introduced me to him and I said hello and then he said all right I'll see you all later and left and walked toward the door to leave the hotel and I turned to the two men Joe particularly would offered me this job and said I will take the job who was that man? Jay Robert Oppenheimer and I felt that a person

full of that life and personality and charm and a few other magnetic qualities that was for me and anything he did I'd like to be part of it in any capacity and there was no doubt in your mind that Jay Robert Oppenheimer whomever he might be was involved in this project in which you were about to take a position yes but I didn't know he was the director I didn't know what his position was I knew that he was being a friend of Muncie from California one of these people I didn't know he was the director of this outfit the job you accepted was originally described as this amorphous secretarial position when did it finally dawn on you the enormity the magnitude and the significance of the position you had just accepted oh yeah so later it just came out it's sort of like falling in love carry on and everything and then you're aware

of this fact that's hit you I don't compare this project the atomic bomb to love but I'm just trying to tell you I worked in there and they needed me very much so they put me in very soon with three other secretaries and we sat at 109 at desks and Oppenheimer sat at the desk in the back room and we sat in the front room and we had to take over four wrenches between Santa Fe and Los Alamos to house our personnel were coming in and they were all young people and many on were pregnant and maybe many had the average age at that time was 25 this was the middle of March in 43 the first of May they all went up to the hill the housing was completed but this getting people up was rather nerve wracking because they had to have shoe stamps and they had to have food stamps and the droggers were not really interested in what they were doing they'd sometimes

forget to stop at a ranch to pick up the Fermi somebody like that made up to send something else to imagine overlooking Enrico Fermi isn't this listen let me ask you what did the community of Santa Fe how did they how did the city itself the people the town's people react to these comments who will hear us and who's editor of the New Mexican told these staff not to come in my office she won't tell you anything and second people would call me from someplace in town and say there's a crazy man here he doesn't know where he's going I said send him over and that's how we got him and we had a fish of cars we call taxis pick them up the the years you worked with Robert Oppenheimer left an indelible impression on your mind I wonder if you'd share with us give us a word portrait of the Robin Robert Oppenheimer you remember best

well he was very natural and very active he'd come to the house he would make the best dry martinis you ever had and he would cook the steak and fresh asparagus which was a ritual menu we had and Kitty was often with him Kitty was his wife she was charming and best portrait of him I think is when I saw him about to make a speech when the Navy gave Los Alamos the E award you remember that E for excellence all right there was a grandstand which is no longer at Los Alamos erected and it looked out over the valley and toward the Sangre de Cristo and I went of course and as I was approaching the grandstand there was Robert pacing along and he was within himself and I knew that because when he's within himself

he's not conscious of anyone else and I just said hello to him he had as I described it a rather glazed look in his eye eyes and he was composing the speech that he made five minutes later and it was one of the best speeches that have ever been done at Los Alamos whether they have a copy of it or not I do not know but I think of him that way and I think of him with people so charming and so helpful especially to young people about about physics and about science and so forth the early days at Los Alamos some of the greatest names in the world of science strode that Mesa and I'd like to get your impressions of some of those people as well I know Oppenheimer Borg very great respect for Niels Borg right why why was he why did he hold Borg in

such high regard because he was the master he was older than Oppie and the two Germans that discovered this in the 1800s this use of atomic energy talked to him about that and he's a person who could get everything altogether he was sort of the the master of the scientist and he came over here and he was charming I can see him standing up with a big wide straw hat on in my office and they all called him Uncle Nick and I remember driving with Robert and Jackie the wife of Frank Oppenheimer up to Frank's ranch at Pagosa Springs and we stopped in a meadow and just stood around and looked around and everything and Robert said in

1938 was the first he had heard of this. There were others i .i. Robbie is it or Robbie? Yes he and and Robert were just like this they spent months together in Geneva talking and talking and talking and he thought the world of Robbie and I'm sure they exchanged very important ideas on this work together. All right Enrico Fermi electricity I saw him first I don't think he may have come in the office but that would have been or they may have taken him straight up have what they call a dorm party those people had no entertainment up there whatever and the young men were in a men's dorm women in the Mara dorm another for married people's dorm they would bring their liquor and refreshments to

one dorm the downstairs room the first floor and have a party and everybody would go I mean there was nothing else to do and they didn't come down here and I saw Fermi leaning against the wall he was quite relaxed he's stockily built and has these piercing eyes absolutely piercing but I saw Fermi standing there and I'll always think of him that way the road from Los Alamos of course inevitably led to Trinity what was the mood as the date for the test approach? I in my back room felt the tension and I just felt it in my bones I could hear from telephone calls that things were getting to a crescendo and so forth as some friends of mine who were young scientists

called me on Sunday and said that we're going on a picnic tonight and got in the car and we drove to the top of a Sunday of peak out of Africa that was 109 miles away from Trinity and it was raining and I could see a great plane in the sky dragging these things to take temperature and wind flow from where there's a technical name for them dragging those things and I thought porappes down there and it's raining and of course they were taking every proportion to see what the air and everything would be like and then at 530 of bang it didn't hear any noise but the sky lit up to the top of the apex of the sky for about a fourth of the horizon and we just watched it and you had a feeling of awe did you know

when you saw that explosion of what you were seeing yes feeling of awe that I had when that light hit us was remarkable and I don't think anyone has ever seen explosion even it's either 109 miles or 209 I don't remember the leaves of those green trees those green native trees were kind of shining with the gold it was different everything had changed the world was changed everything would never be the same ever again in the world after Hiroshima tell us the mood of Robert Oppenheimer as you perceive that mood well he had done his job they had done what they started out to do and he smoked constantly, constantly,

constantly and he called me up in the summer 66 from Princeton and said that he had cancer of the throat he had they used cobalt and we talked about this and it was later in February that he died of it so I just don't know he organized the AEC to go over there and see what they could do with Hiroshima and as I said before they wouldn't have hit Nagasaki unless the Japanese ruler had been so stubborn about it and they hadn't wanted to but they were doing this and so they did it all right in the aftermath the next major chapter

in the story of nuclearity was the decision to go forward with the production the research and the production of what they called the super the hydrogen bomb and here Edward Teller figures prominently into the story of course but briefly tell us about Edward Teller's early years at Los Alamos but let's tell you about the hydrogen bomb they were all against it, everybody except Teller we didn't need a hydrogen bomb we had death right there and everyone of the board who is the president of Harvard all those people were against it all twelve of them were against it and they voted against the super bomb they thought it was shocking and unnecessary and excessive and we could destroy the world easily enough with our little atomic bomb all those famous names and I'm trying to think of them they

were on this board and every one of them voted not to but Teller just thought for the sake of science we ought to do it and we call it his bomb nobody's ever called it off he the father of the hydrogen bomb but Teller wanted this and he used all his pressure and everything to do it and they made it and this was a shocking thing and we all hate the idea of it compared the ego of a Robert Oppenheimer to the ego of an Edward Teller well that's a charming question absolutely fascinating there's no link whatever between them in their point of view and as I was going to say I'll get back to this later that's one reason Edward Teller went to Livermore because he was so strong on what he wanted and you can't compare their character and

fourth and you compare an arcad to a dandelion I would assume Oppenheimer would be the orcad in his opinion well contrast of the two egos and the two characters if you can't compare them what's the difference between an orcad and a dandelion? I'm saying that arcad is more finely designed and built and delicate and subtle and aromatic and a dandelion is the thing you kick up with the heel if it's going to take over your grass after the hearing I understand which i .i. Robbie told me about in detail when Oppenheimer was sitting in a chair outside of this unattractive not very attractive building in Washington and the trial was over after I think forty days something like that and

Edward came out and said to Robert good luck and Robert said I don't know what you mean after what you have said do you think Oppenheimer understood the magnitude of the problem that was developing here that there were those who had decided for whatever reason that there was reason to be suspicious whether it's clouds, fukes or whatever of the American scientific community I don't think he thought of things like that when he wrote at the beginning and when that general attacked him and writing and he wrote that he had been naive in politics and he had done a lot for people in Germany who were hard up and he had friends there and he sent the money to get them back and to help them and he was not even politics he wasn't a sharp politician his career would have been quite different

all right it felt to President John Kennedy as it were personally in a very subtle way to apologize to Robert Oppenheimer for what the American government did and he ordered him to have the Fermi Prize well the interesting thing about that was that Edward got in there before and he got the Fermi Prize before Robert got it and this of course didn't affect Robert the way it affects me Robert had asked me to come on and stay with him and see him get the Fermi Prize and then when Kennedy was shot I just couldn't do it I just couldn't get in the plane and go there I was so sick about his being shot and they thought they'd call it off and then the Oppenheimer's comments said no they're going to have it and Johnson will give it to us and

Edward was present when Robert got the Fermi Prize he couldn't be out of the picture for anything at all and I said to Kitty later if I'd been there I would have dropped a brick on his head she said I would like to but I didn't have one and then the press came out with these TV pictures of Edward shaking hands with Robert is he without shame? Sure, he had shame he drinks him hydrogen peroxide or something Dorothy I'm having too good a time all of a sudden here but you must have published all of this but it's a tenor of my thoughts Do you believe that when Robert Oppenheimer said I have become death the shatter of world

he meant in fact that in time we would be on a collision course with our own extermination as a consequence of what he did He might have had that gently in his thought or in the back of his mind we're all so crazy and so nuts and if some maniac gets control of the country the way Hitler did and wins England was in a pretty precarious position there you know from Hitler I don't know our people get so money mad they're so interested in money that they don't think of the good of their country they're in it might be possible Dorothy McKibben this has been two of the most pleasant evenings I've spent in a very long period of time Well I regard it as a great honor and pleasure Thank you so much Thank you That's it for tonight Thanks for joining us I'm Hal Rhodes Good night I like that title A woman

who kept a secret that's very good That's much better He just Lord not only to harness the atom but also nature in order to advance peace by eliminating the causes of war Lord you remind us from time to time that all power and all goodness resides in you and that you are our father and therefore we are your sons and daughters brothers and sisters with your grace teach us to be at peace with ourselves with others and above all with you help all nations all peoples to learn to live in your peace with your grace Lord make us an instrument of your peace where there is hatred let us so love where there is where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is

hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred where there is hatred