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Show A The Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, July IS, 1971 1 Dawn of an Era: I t .Miles to the north, a TKIMTV, N.M. on the door of Jose soldiers of pounded group Mieras bar in the tiny town of San Antonio, N.JL It was before dawn. If jou come out," they told the sleepy Miera, youll see something the world has never seen before. Miera walked outside. Suddenly, as he recalled It, "There was a big mushroom cloud. It sounded like thunder, or an earth quake. It was the worlds first atom bomb detonated In a New Mexico desert called Journey of Death. l fc ? i- - The it Atomic At T minus 45 secCARRIZOZ, MI. scientist Robert J. Oppenheim- -' onds, one of Joe McKlbben, threw the ers colleagues, switch that activated an automatic timer. At T minus 10 seconds, McKibbens colr, league, Kenneth Grieson, lying with Enrico Fermi and others on a bunker floor, eyes covered, shouted: Im scared. Then, McKibbens voice: "Now! The bomb dropped and the world changed. Age Oppen-heime- f i , ... i ' ' LOS ALAMOS, N.M. The late J. Rob- ert Oppenheimers colleague, Dr. John Man-le- y, who still works here, said all the scientists knew the implications of the bomb they developed. "We knew what we were working on, he said. "We knew the bomb was going to change the whole course of human history. "I hope the coming quarter century will be noted in history for even greater advances in international scientific cooperation and in nuclear disarmament. By Bill Stockton Associated Press Writer I Jv, . ' --- ' v. ! V.1 a.. . - I "W Mwmiten'in I i ii tTh I Am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds 9 It was dawn. Dawn, Dawn at th nuci.tr first fait at in atemlc an bolatsd alts In Naw wnat old It maan ta ttw built and datonattd ltd years la tar, wnat did that blast moan tor th war Id? Nat; Editor's July I, 1945. '9 f I JBINGHAM, N.M. - ? , Post-tast- er - V j, ,i,V A i f : E&nlined ' - , . . 5 '' two-lin- 600,000 Deaths (in the Pacific, troop movements had begun for the inva-sf- n of Japan four months igvay. Military experts pre-tMct- 500,000 Americans x&ight die. And 20 miles south of the Bingham post office, at a e ace called Trinity Site, a steel cab atop a tjwer, a strange contraption of jriutonlum, explosives and detonators awaited an electrical in-d- 100-fo- . gnal. Scattered about the secret 4te in the desert 210 miles uth of Albuquerque, N.M., 5$so waiting for the signal, some of the finest !ere and engineers the allies $uld find. They had come to test the theory that atoms of $rtain heavy elements could be split that many atoms &uld be split at once releasing vast quantities of energy and creating an im- explosion. tense bomb. Blinding Flasu Zero hour came in a blinding flash of light never seen tfefore at 5:29:45 a.m. Moun- War Time. light brightened the rjesert and the Sierra Oscuras 5 if it were noon. A great glass of flame, unbelievable te size, hurled rocks and high intq the air, sending git a shockwave and deafen- tin de-fr- is ing roar. 2 soldiers were to evaucate isolated ranches if need be. "It rained on and off through the night and tha rain hittln the window put me into a deep sleep, he said. "Then all ot a sudden came the loudest bang Ive ever heard. The first thing I remember is standing at the foot of the bed saying, Was that thunder? But I knew it wasnt thunder. "Saw the Cloud was so tired I went back "I to bed. But I couldnt sleep. By then, it was light, as I got up and looked out Thats when when I saw the cloud. Four weeks later, two Japanese cities lay in rubble and World War II had ended. World politics would never be the same again. The alumni of Trinity are scattered now, but their legacy lives on. It glides beneath the oceans in a submarine powered by a silent reactor and carrying missiles. It beats in the breast of a women in France, whose life depends on a tiny atomic gennuclear-tippe- d erator regulating her heart beat. It beckons a power-hungr- y world as the only salvation conventional when energy sources are dead. Complex Struggle And it is inexorably entwined in a complex struggle to preserve earths envi-- r o n m e n t for generations hence. The Trinity legacy can be told by eight men who lived it: Vannevar Bush. Norris Bradbury, James Tuck, Frank DiLuzzio, Stanislaw Clam. Stafford McMillan. Edwin Warren and Glenn Seaborg. Vannevar Bush was at Trinity base camp 10 miles southwest of the tower, lying on a canvas spread over the wet y. 4 tM, - ',' u I!s irft - - ?; M, ' - Ground Zero: 23 Years After the Blast, a Fence and a Few Shrubs Mark the Site The steel tower vanished wporized by heat Harold Dean was asleep in tie rear of.his store. He had pound. hipt It open late two nights y A distinguished electrical a row to accommodate engineer from tne Massachubivouacked setts Institute of Tec nolo-gneiy soldiers the Bush was head of the Of to Unknown Dean, rjarby. j t '' "$? I t A' iuwrii w Mexico desert "Has it really been 25 wars? he mused, rubbing a fathered hand across his j V-- 4 . ,V4C I fdce. e To the south, across U.S. 380, the Sierra Oscu-m- s baked in the summer sun. 4 turkey buzzard drifted over the mesquite and greasewood. jAtop its pole by the door, the. tattered flag flapped in tfe incessant wind that ieeps the Jorado del Meur-t- t, punctuating the silence as ijean marshalled his memories of July 16, 1945. July 16, 1945. JA Monday. Germany had surrendered t the allies two months earlier and President Truman was in Potsdam for a meeting With Churchill and Stalin. ' .. ,4 be-d- desalinization processes heat and electricity. The nucelar reactor produces both, he said in Las Vegas, where he is now a business executive. But the scheme works economically only if all reactor heat is used what DiLuzzio calls an energy farm. And he admits sadly that that is still a thing of the future, partly because industry can't manufacture the necessary' equipment cheaply enough as yet and partly because water planners are concentrating on transcontinental diversions to solve water shortages. Stanislaw Ulam didnt ride the buses to Trinity. Didn't Watch ' , Harold Dean stood e the gaa pump outside jfnghams solitary building, combination post office abd store, and gazed down the 1 aely ribbon of asphalt s etching across the bleak plans to desalt water with nuclear energy. "There are two basic forms of energy requirement for fice of Scientific Research and Development. He oversaw an army of 30.000 working on radar, the proximity fuse and a flock of defense projects, including the $2 billion Man- hattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. Inevitable Now 80, widowed, he lives in retirement at a spacious home atop a wooded hill in Belmont. Mass. "The advent of the atom bomb was inevitable, the state of science being what it was then," he said, sipping ice water and reclining in a blue smoking jacket. "Our fear was that Hitler Would get it first. If Hitler had gotten the bomb into production before we did, he would have conquered the world. Bush is convinced the bomb a more stable produced world, a view many of his contemporaries share. I think its a damn good thing we have the bomb and the Russians have it. Because now, no ruling group will commit suicide, knowing theyre A small, wiry man, now 61, Bradbury left Stanford University in 1941 for a Naval Reserve Commission. He was ordered in 1944 to Los Alamos, the secret laboratory in the mountains west of Santa Fe, N.M. Under the direction of physicist J. Robert Oppenheirner, a team of scientists and engineers gathered at Los Alamos in 1943-4- 4 to design and build the bomb. They chose the isolated desert area on the north edge of the Alamogordo, N.M., Army Air Base bombing range as a test site. Oppenheirner resigned after the war and Bradbury succeeded him, directing develof the hydrogen opment bomb. Bradbury retires as Los Alamos director Sept. 1. One of the most significant things done after Trinity was development of the hydrogen bomb, Bradbury believes. Someone Would Have You might think, Oh, my God, thats terrible. But nevertheless, if we hadnt done it. somebody else would have. IVe would have been on the receiving end of that sort of system rather than where we are. Jim Tuck is a Los Alamos pioneer. If he and others around the world can tame the hydrogen bomb, man will be assured for centuries of cheap, pollution - and radiation-freelectrical power generated froth the heavy hydrogen in sea water. Born 60 years ago in England, Tuck was scientific advisor to Churchill and came to Los Alamos in 1944. The night before Trinity, Tuck and several colleagues not involved directly in the test rode three old Army buses from Los Alamos down to the desert. They waited through the night on a hill 20 miles from ground zero. Solemn Return e The return bus ride was solemn. We realized what we bad done. And w e wondered what would have happened to the if we hadn't done it and someone else had." Los Alamos scientists had concentrated on a weapon based on splitting, or fisn sioning, atoms of heavy world bringing together atoms of light elements to create heavier elements. This reaction, which liberates far more energy than fission, is the basis of the hydrogen bomb. Tuck went back to England after the war, but returned to Los Alamos in 1950 to help with the hydrogen bomb. He worked on controlled fusion on the side, then full time. Lesser Danger A fusion power reactor would be devoid of most dangers inherent in fission reactors. There would be no danger oi an explosion; only a small radiation danger. Tuck wout predict how long until fusion reactors become reality. But he considers fission reactors only an interim solution to mans insatiable demand for power. You could tell at once they had had a strange experience. You could see it on their faces. I saw that something very grave and strong had happened to their whole outlook on the future." Ulam is a mathematician, but his colleagues at Los See Page 7, Column 1 about religion. It makes you feel about the size thinking of an ant. Desalination Plan As director of the Interior Departments Office of Saline Water in the Johnson administration, DiLuzzio developed SPECIAL PM ! ! DtpJC Color Enlargements from r2 2 yewr nagativ Until five minutes before the detonation, Norris Bradbury, exhausted, had huddled in a sleeping bag. Responsible for assembly of Fat Man, as the bomb was dubbed, he had battled sand and stiffling heat readying the device in the final, frustrating week. They moved all of us who had nothing to do w ith control 51 id 5X7 lag.Pri $1.25 34 8 (tg.Pric $3.35 149 Rtg.Priia $7.7S 3,75 X 10 11 X 14 limit S at aoth tii par upsn Color Reprints i JUMBO PRINTS ragotiv,jf From JUMBO PRINTS slid III; 22 Rtg.prU 45& 12 19 . limit 39 par coupon 120 of 1 - txpirr sleep. impressed m- - particularly, that was outside the realm of any prior human experience, was the brightness ot the light It was beyond belief in terms of any other thing Id seen. return. v IP'Ttr. doing so. "Fat Mail point off about 10 miles to a hillside. It was drizzling and we kind of huddled in the sleeping bags and I went to Thank goodness someone woke me up. After the detonation, Bradbury recalls. The tn.ng that Somehow, he remembers, I didnt feel like going. It w as purely nervous or psychological A sort of block, if you want to call it that. Born and educated in Poland, Ulam came to Princeton in 1936, then Los Alamos in 1944, remaining there until 1967 when he accepted a mathematics professorship at the University of Colorado. He remembers the buses Frank DiLuzzio, a short, man of Italain energetic extraction, was ordered to Los Alamos in 1944 by the Army Engineers. I didnt know wi.at meant," he said. I thought it was a code or something. But when that damn thing went off, I knew it wasn't just other weapon. I thought, My God, weve ignited the atmosphere. If I hadnt been a religious man, I know I'd have been Cash Valua !! wvvwvwvwwwwww iMEC UTAH-IDAH- Moll : 0 PHOTO P.O. lox It Kelt, !doho t1707 |