Anne McKusick worked at the Y-12 Plant for Tennessee Eastman. She remembers dancing with Ernest Lawrence at one of Oak Ridge’s dances. Because of the pervasive emphasis on secrecy, she nearly got in trouble for carrying around a book on Russian. She considered becoming a physicist after the war, but decided to go to medical school.
October 6, 2011
Manhattan Project Locations:
Anne McKusick worked at the Y-12 Plant for Tennessee Eastman. She remembers dancing with Ernest Lawrence at one of Oak Ridge’s dances. Because of the pervasive emphasis on secrecy, she nearly got in trouble for carrying around a book on Russian. She considered becoming a physicist after the war, but decided to go to medical school.
Date of Interview:
October 6, 2011
Location of the Interview:
Collections:
Feynman mentions the physicist Julian Webb in « Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman » [1]. The staff at Oak Ridge were generally kept in the dark about their role in the Manhattan Project, including the fact that the stuff they were producing (purified uranium isotopes) was extremely dangerous if handled improperly. Oppenheimer tasked Feynman with ensuring the integrity of the supply chain and sent Feynman to Oak Ridge for a frank safety discussion with the « big shots, » and apparently Oppenheimer knew Webb to be technically capable enough to trust with the technical implications.Feynman doesn’t say what, if anything, he told Webb, but it’s an interesting backstory — it’s possible Webb knew more than this article suggests.
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT125&lpg=…