European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 14, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The first atomic bomb mounted on a trailer in 1945 at the Trinity base Camp right near los a self contained Community that housed 300 military police and construction by Tad Bartimus associated press it was the quest for the Gadget that United hundreds of Ordinary men and women and a few a cruises on a Mountaintop in the Middle of nowhere 40 years at Dawn on july the Gadget nobody referred to it As a bomb was detonated in the Southern new Mexico desert known As Tornado Del the journey of the code name was there the makers of mans first ultimate weapon gawked at the strange mushroom none of them had been sure the thing would even let alone turn the Earth at ground Zero into Green Glass and change the course of it was less than a month before Hiroshi Robert director of the Manhattan pro was reminded of a sentence from sanskrit literature i am become the destroyer of four decades Robert a key member of the team that developed the atom recalls some of the Guys working there knew at the time it was a tremendous in a sort of a single minded i thought if this is such a big weapon then everybody will Stop building More More planes i thought it would completely change the Way people thought about War and that it would simply Stop the use of All i was Duffield was Only 26 when Oppenheimer asked him to go to los Alamos from the University of California at where Oppenheimer had lectured in physics and Duffield was getting his in when Oppenheimer began recruiting men like los Alamos was merely a spot on a map full of the los Alamos ranch an exclusive boys school that trained youngsters in rugged outdoor life As Well As top was the Only habitation on the mesas that spread out like the fingers of a hand above the Rio Grande the isolation of the Pajarito 35 Miles Northwest of Santa suited Oppenheimer plans for he also fervently believed the scientists needed to labor in an environment of Pristine with a wartime mandate from president Franklin Oppie crisscrossed the country by wooing the Best scientific minds of a generation to help him solve a technically Sweet problem How to build a nuclear bomb that would quickly end world War there was a Little bit of the old boy said whom do we get whom do we know youve Only got a finite number of people in the United states whore and Oppenheimer knew most of i was doing research on the properties of plutonium and my Boss asked me and other Guys to go to los Alamos to Clear up some metallurgy it was a great Opportunity for the place was full of very Bright most team members were in their 20s and the old men in their Oppenheimer was 39 in when the project started in Earnest on the Many of the top recruits were refugees who had fled Europe ahead of hitlers advancing Enrico Fermi did not return to Italy after picking up his Nobel prize because his wife was jewish Nobel laureate Niels discoverer of the Structure of the was smuggled out of Denmark in a fishing boat Isidor also a Nobel was born in Russia Edward later called the father of the Hydrogen was from Hun others came from and american problem solvers included Ernest Law the 1939 Nobel prize Winner who headed the Ber Keley Laboratory where initial atomic work with cyclotrons and his Edwin the co discoverer of who was awarded a Nobel prize in the scientists were at the top of the Manhattan project their efforts were supported by a Large army of even latrine diggers recruited from every state in the everyone at los Alamos lived under stringent restrictions All incoming and outgoing mail was censored guards patrolled the barbed wire ringed compound with dogs family and friends on the outside were kept in the dark about their loved ones whereabouts fraternization with people off the Hill was prohibited living conditions were working conditions tense and but we All Felt in our Bones that we were really contributing to the War and that what we were doing was says Sara Dowson she and Harriet Petey Peterson were footloose nurses from Louis when James Nolan recruited them to vanish into Box Santa in they were the first nurses at los Ala mos and even set up the first cots in the it was a six bed Hospital in a makeshift army bar recalls there was a crude Wood stove we could never Stoke so we got All the patients meals across the Street at Fuller the old log building left Over from the ranch school which became the unofficial Headquarters and mess Hall for no matter How fast wed run with the sometimes the food was Frozen by the time we got it Back to the who married her scientist husband Rene on in Santa helped deliver the first of thousands of children ultimately born at los the baby was Katherine Toni daughter of Robert and the nearest big Hospital was in Santa so the los Ala mos clinic was the first line of defense when trouble we had some bad accidents in those Early says one of the big trucks piled up on that terrible Road and we had Many we also had several Radia Tion on Only one week after Vij Day and two weeks after Young scientist Harry Dagh Lian received a lethal radiation dose when a los Alamos uranium Experiment went he died 28 Days the first known american fatality of the nuclear i wish id kept Little although that was forbid says my husband and i feel it was the most exhilarating of people had the impression it was a very Tempo Rary that our Mission would be accomplished and the place would become a ghost town after the but it i wish i could relive it nurse Peterson also met her future husband at los Ralph Carlysle Smith arrived in May 1943 to protect classified information and write up patents on All new i was a chemical Engineer and a Patent a rare says there were about 10 of us in the army at the i was assigned to Oppenheimer to record everything that was and Oppie gave me Access to but As the Only lawyer on the Hill for Many it also fell to Smith to make out wills and Power of help with citizenship exams for the refugee scientists and their and prosecute As a Bachelor throughout the Smith commandeered a room in Fuller Lodge and claimed the old head masters chair As his own at the dining he and nurse Peterson were wed in Hawaii in when he was in route Back to los Alamos from the Bikini Island atomic Smith served As Deputy director of the lab for 15 before becoming a College professor and administrator in new Elsie Mcmillan was always glad that her Nobel prizewinning was an not a Hes the Type of person who lives in another world and sometimes you cant get but when you do he can fix the drains in the says once we were coming Back up that tortuous Road at night after a fiesta and the headlights gave out on the de fixed them with one of my Bobby Mcmillan arrived with a new baby and a she and Kitty Oppenheimer were the first women on the throughout the the archives the two items in shortest Supply were women and it was a Young Community immersed in an intellectual says at first i had to Cook Over a then i got a stove we All called Black which i  i washed diapers by it took Ivi hours to bake a potato at and we were always worried about our who worked until 3 Oclock in the we eventually got used to the Distant but we got mad when they accidentally blew up the water Mcmillan was Lucky she lived on Bathtub it was the Cluster of Cabins left Over from the ranch All new housing had Only if you  find it at the pm you  get a photos Dorothy Mckibblin above was part of los Alamos team photo at right shows her with Robert Oppenheimer Center and Victor Weisskopf in a photo the indians at san Ildefonso Pueblo in the Valley sold us fresh vegetables and but there was never enough to go it didst we worked we played and we were Mcmillan was with Oppenheimer in november 1942 when Oppenheimer decided the isolated ranch school would become the site for the to Peggy Pond the arrival of Oppen Heimers team meant the end of her world As she had always known Church father had founded the los Alamos ranch her husband was its acting head master and her three sons All attended it in the churches had just exchanged their Han built log Home for free education of their Church was to write one morning i watched thunderhead build up in the North Over the sacred Mountain but roughly upon the Edge of peace that Day an air plane circling Back and Forth among the from the River to the Mountain it flew methodically it was then i first knew without doubt that a time was end not even Here on these mesas was isolation we too were vulnerable to the narrow trails Cut into the ancient Rock could not be defended against the invading four decades later Church remembers the disruption of her family life with sadness and a Trace of in february the family was evicted from the Mesa forever when the army bought acres for the establishment of a demolition Range and paid Only for los Alamos National Laborati Rys new we played the game and hid the soreness in our hearts As Best we but we were displaced persons just like the refugees in says now an 82yearold widow living in Santa we didst know what to where to my husband had lost his lifes this Man with an engineering degree from Harvard wound up building Power lines All Over new never to teach All three of my sons have subsequently worked on i try not to sit in judgement on the but i dont go Back to los Alamos now because its so ugly i cant stand 1 Long after fat that first plutonium was detonated under the code name project scientists at los Alamos Are still devising nuclear two thirds of the nations current Arsenal were designed at the los Alamos National its Public affairs office says that among those devised in the past few years have been Trident minuteman i and the air launched cruise there Are citizens in los Alamos county of Are employed at the los Alamos which is still run by the University of Cali of the labs technical More than on third have and a Quarter More have masters according to the chamber of three fourths of the county residents hold Library the local High school annually turns out a Large number of National Merit unemployment is below 2 Only 200 Homes Are sold with an average Price for a new three bedroom dwelling put at nearly los Alamos is the ultimate company in the 1984 fiscal it Cost million to run the of which million came from the department of nearly million was spent on defense another million on investigation of passive solar in up photo How to Deal with nuclear medical and Basic testing of nuclear fusion and Robert the Berkeley scientist who was there at today believes its absolutely ludicrous that we have so Many All of us who Are nuclear in this Priscilla Greene who was Oppenheimer Secre tary at Berkeley and then los and is now Robert Duffield remembers the Early Days on the Hill As compressed it All had such a Small the Duffield left los Alamos after the War because making bombs want what i was looking to do for the rest of my Duffield they now live in sem retirement on a Small ranch in where Duffield grows some Hay in be tween commutes to san Diego where he works with a Branch of the Salk just to keep my hand the Mcmillan live in where they returned after the despite physical one keeps you says we do spend time with our we live a very quiet life and were for a nuclear at the last reunion in los 90 percent of us were in favor of the and Ralph Carlysle Smith Are retired in san where there Active As volunteers following a Long stint in the Sara and Are still at los Ala where Treyve both recently retired from the Labo two Soninlaw and one daughter still work Many of the scientists Are dead Oppenheimer died in at age his brother Frank died this fewer veterans return for the there is no longer the sweeping View of the Sangre de Cristo mountains from the Lawn of Fuller a Large Rock Andream Structure that was once the Center of a scientific today it is used mostly for the birth of the bomb is commemorated by Trinity drive and Oppenheimer two main arteries that get throttled by daily traffic the horizon is dominated by shopping sub Divi fast food there Are museums with audio visual aids to Tell new generations what happened in los but when the old timers look they can still see traces of their own thick ranked Lilac Bushes testify to the legacy left by the women of the Manhattan who softened the hard edges carved out of the plateau by the army corps of Peggy Pond now a poet and writer who draws on her memory for has no plans to return to Frijoles Canyon to dig up the childhood treasurers she buried but it comforts her to know there still still concealed from interlopers by ageless Robert Oppenheimer also understood such after the he wrote we know Little of the deep new knowledge which has altered the face of the which has changed and increasingly and Ever More profoundly must change mans views of the resulted from the quest for practical ends or an interest in exercising the Power that knowledge for most of in most of those moments when we were most free of it has been the Beauty of world of nature and the strange and compelling har Mony of its that has and led Page 14 the stars and stripes the stars and stripes Page 15