Interview with John Manley, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with John Manley, 1986
Description:
John Manley was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, later becoming General Secretary of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission after the end of World War II, and serving as Associate Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1946-1951. He returned to the laboratory as a research advisor from 1957-1972. Recalling his views after the war, he considered the military role of atomic weapons to be important, in part as a way to maintain security and support diplomacy in light of large-scale demobilization. He discusses the Atomic Energy Commission and the early obstacles it faced, including a diffuse "empire" of facilities and low morale. The GAC's role was to provide expertise on policies, procedures and personnel to the commission. The military, he notes, was a hindrance to the AEC. The question of custody of weapons was one particular problem. He recalls the political atmosphere around 1948 when attitudes in certain circles, including the military, became excessively hawkish, in his view. After a discussion of the Soviet nuclear test and U.S. reactions to it, he mentions his own "aghast" reaction to the alarmed response in Washington, which created an opening for Edward Teller to press for development of the hydrogen bomb. He then relates the GAC's opposition to the H-bomb and his own distaste for it, as well as the reasons in both cases. Among these was that it resulted in a missed opportunity for halting the arms race. Robert Oppenheimer shared these views, and in the course of the interview Dr. Manley recalls the Oppenheimer hearings, calling them a traumatic experience.
Interviewee:
Manley, John Henry, 1907-1990
Date:
March 17, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Groves, Leslie Richard
Manhattan Project (Organization)
LeMay, Curtis E.
Soviet Union
United Nations
Nuclear energy
Nuclear weapons
Hydrogen bomb
Strauss, Lewis
Physicists
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. General Advisory Committee
Lilienthal, David Eli, 1899-1981
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967
Lawrence, Ernest Orlando, 1901-1958
McMahon, Brien, 1903-1952
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971
Johnson, Louis Arthur, 1891-1966
LeBaron, Robert, 1892-1983
Bradbury, Norris, 1909-1997
Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972
Teller, Edward, 1908-2003
Places:
United States
Extent:
01:08:27:26
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_54EEDC3877F743D0815FE7794B649442
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_54EEDC3877F743D0815FE7794B649442