himself not knowing whether lightning would hit him with the gadget and be gone or not. >> how can people find these interviews? how do they search the online database? cindy: you can get on by typing in manhattan project voices, then there will be the website and it will have a search category. you can search by name, category, across all of the interviews, to find a person, place, subject matter you are most interested in. >> how should people approach these interviews? they are part of the historical record of the atomic age. what should people keep in mind as they watch these recollections? cindy: people should remember that these are personal memories, and most of the people talking about events that happened 20 years, or in some cases, 60 or 70 years earlier, and memories are fallible.

you'll find a kaleidoscope of voices which makes this a very rich tapestry. each of us experience the same event in a different way, so each of these individuals experienced the manhattan project in their own, unique way. >> cynthia kelly with the atomic heritage foundation. thank you for joining us on american history tv. cindy: thank you very much. >> something about your background, where you're born, education? benjamin: my parents who were russian-jewish immigrants who came to america just before world war i and just after world war i. they met at night school, a very romantic setting.

they lived in the lower east side. they were very poor. my father worked as a restaurant worker all of his life. i grew up mainly in the bronx and partly in brighton beach in brooklyn. one of the great things about new york is that it had city college. city college was a defining event in my life because he gave me a completely free education, the exact subject that i wanted, which is physics. that is basically my early background. we were raised, not insignificant, we were raised --

my parents were leftists, as were most everybody i knew in the bronx. we lived in a sort of communist neighborhood. i was brought up as a young pioneer of america, the communist equivalent of the boy scouts. so until i was in city college for a year or two, i would say was pretty radical. my radicalism slowly changed. i became much more interested in science and physics. i graduated and ended up being hostile to the whole idea by the time i left city college. that was fortunate, because

otherwise i never would have lasted at los alamos. after two and half years at city college, i decided to take a job with the signal corps. i moved to philadelphia from where i was drafted in 1942. for the next year and a half or so, i moved around. i had almost no basic training. i was shipped immediately to radio school to become a tailgunner on a b-17. that was the intent of my army career. the tailgunner in a b-17, not very long life expectancy of in the air force. i was also a radio operator in chicago, but they get me there as an instructor. from there i went to a new army

program, army specialized training program, i took a course in electrical engineering at ohio state university. in late 1943, during the battle of the bulge when fighting was fears in europe, the army decided to give up on educating its draftees and shipping them off to battle the combat. once again, there was an interview board that came to ohio state, my commanding officer told me it was something called the manhattan project, knowing that i love new york,

said here is a good opportunity for you to get back to new york. i grab the opportunity. i was interviewed. they asked me some strange questions about science in my career, and the next thing i knew i was on a train going to knoxville, tennessee, from which i shipped nearby to town called oak ridge, tennessee, and that's how i got into the manhattan project. >> that's great. aren't you glad that you were not a tailgunner? benjamin: yes, i was supposed to be a tailgunner. some of my friends ended up a still gunners. >> did they survive? >> some didn't send it in. -- benjamin: some did and some didn't. it was clear there was a major effort in 1943 that many famous scientists were being assembled at los alamos and elsewhere, and low and behold, they discovered that you can't do anything

without assistance. they realized they needed an infrastructure of machinists and engineers and the young budding scientists to assist in the development of the bomb. so they developed something called the special engineering detachment, and they went around the country interviewing people who they thought might fit into the project. sure enough at los alamos, there were many hundreds, almost thousands, sed's ended up there. many others were machinists and engineers. the sed among other things become a breeding ground.

i guess historians of the war maybe don't understand as much as they should that this was a breeding ground for many physicists and chemists and other scientists who after the war went on to have great careers in science partly because of the start they got in the manhattan project. that was a really unintended consequence of the manhattan project. for example, of course i wanted to be a physicists before i got into the matin hatton project -- the manhattan project or the experience i got it los alamos was essential to help have a career. >> i know people are going to want to know about your career.

tell us about oak ridge. benjamin: when i got to oak ridge, the first thing i noticed were that my feet were almost ankle deep in mud. it was a muddy place. it had this characteristic orange-red color, and you really knew you were somewhere in the mountains of tennessee. oak ridge was really thriving. there were construction machines everywhere, activity everywhere. there was clearly something going on. i said in my memoir that the most interesting things that i saw were these huge buildings with towers that look like distillation plants. they were all over the place. my first impression of them was

that they are distilling sour mash whiskey to drop on the germans and get them to disable them. now i realize that that couldn't possibly be true. it was only many months later that i found out that the real purpose of the distillation was to distill u235 from the principal isotope of uranium u238. we were housed in barracks like soldiers always are. the barracks were cleaned by local, young girls, so again it was very clear to me that this was something going on that was very unusual, but of course we had no idea what it was. also, some of my buddies that

showed up with me, they were all science majors from various college all over the country. so it had something to do with signs, that was clear, but what it was i did not know. at oak ridge, we were given tests. a was there for about a week. they were trying to find out where i would fit in the manhattan project. some of the people, particularly chemists, stayed at oak ridge.

the physicists types tended to go to loss alamosa. i finally got shipping orders to go to loss alamosa long with several of my friends, who were also physics majors. we traveled in civilian trains, which was the first time i had use a civilian trains since i was in the army, and ended up in new mexico, the place where people go to when they want to get to santa fe. >> described laney, new mexico? benjamin: it was just a junction as far as i could tell. apparently the train never gets to santa fe, even today. it was simply a junction on the railroad line. it was a one horse town. that's it. now i was met thereby an army sedan driven by a wac, a lady soldier, who drove me to santa fe, to the central square in santa fe, the plaza. she let me off in front of the

famous building 109, where -- it was just a storefront. i went in with my papers and handed it to a lady and said, here i am. i guess the is the same as what happened to everybody who came to los alamos. she look at them and said, fine. she said, sit down we will be with you in a little while. i waited for about half an hour just sitting in the storefront and chatted with this lady, turned out to be dorothy mckenna. >> mckibbin. benjamin: yes, dorothy mckibben. yeah. the lady i spoke to was dorothy mckibben. she was very nice and try to make me feel comfortable.

of course, i had no clue of what was going on, and i had no clue where i was going to end up. but she just chatted and made me feel comfortable and finally introduce me to a wac. we got into a car. i believe -- i can't rarely remember -- really remember exactly -- if i was in the car alone. it was another drab olive army sedan. that was my experience in santa fe. of course later on i found out that this is exactly the place were all of the famous

physicists and scientists came and we were greeted the same way by dorothy mckibben. they ended up at los alamos the same way i did. i probably was the lowest ranking scientists in the entire project. but i was treated pretty well, nonetheless. i should say that it got pretty scary, because after we drove for a while, we started driving up the side of a cliff. it was just a road with no guard rails. we drove along this cliff up and up and up until finally we reach

the plant to -- plateau which is where los alamos was planted. it was scary, but we finally got there. we passed a bunch of guards and i reported to somebody. i don't remember to whom i reported, but they sent me to the barracks and that my gear in the barracks and i believe i went to sleep. >> tell us about your roommates. you recall who was living in the barracks with you? >> yes, the barracks was a very typical army barracks. i said in my memoir that there were 50 kids -- soldiers. i do know that there were three coal stoves place in the barracks to keep us from freezing. the beds were double bunks lined in a row -- in two rows actually -- with the coal stoves in

between. there may have been 15 bunks on each side. i took a bunk just at random and stayed there for a couple of days until finally somebody came up to me and introduce themselves as a friend of a friend. that was williams spindel. he was from brooklyn and had a similar background from mine in new some people that i knew. we decided to become bunkmates. we shared a double bunk for the entire time that i was at los alamos, almost two years.

i don't know exactly why, but i got the bottom bunk. that was considered quite a coup to get the bottom bunk. next to us were to new yorkers. it was very enjoyable to have new yorkers next to us. one was a machinist -- no, they were both machinists. they came from the lower east side. it turned out later that one of them happen to be david greenglass. he was in the lower bunk too and we happen to be next to each other. there was norman greenspan, who became a very good friend of

mine, trained in mathematics at brooklyn college. unfortunately he died recently. later there was richard bellman, who became a famous mathematician and system analyst working for the rand corporation. he is a legend there now. he also died some years ago. there was peter, who became a highly distinguished mathematician working in new york. yuri peshkin, val fitch, who wanted nobel prize. these were all my buddies, somebodies, strange.

richard davison was unique at los alamos. he became a legend when he ended up at the university of washington. he became famous after the war at the university of washington because he never finished his phd, but nevertheless was an invaluable member of the physics department because he was so smart. he happened to be the son of a man who won a nobel prize for discovering the wavelike nature of the electron. he was the son of a nobel prize winner. he and i spent a lot of our time trying to avoid army duties and saluting -- we hated saluting. it didn't make any sense. here we were working on this fantastic project and we still had to salute, still had to go

in formation, still had to undergo saturday morning inspection, things of that sort. his way of dealing with it was he made his bed and he never slept in it. he slept on top of his bed for the entire two years that he was at los alamos. he was able to brag that he had never made his bed in the army. anyway, davison also passed away. he was an unusually brilliant special guy, a friend of mine. of course people like that i never would have met in the regular army if i had ended up as a tail gunner. i haven't talked about my work yet.

shortly after i arrived there, they assigned me to a project. the project was called jumbo. there was a huge container, steel container, huge in size, 15-20 feet high, maybe eight-10 feet in diameter. seds always had senior scientists assigned to some project. there were always senior physicists and chemists who they work with. the particular person i was assigned to was philip b moon. he was british.

he had apparently arrived at almost the same time i did. we came in together. his assignment, and therefore my assignment, was to study the ability of jumbo to contain an atomic bomb. if the atomic bomb did not actually work properly, the radioactive material would still all over the landscape. it would've been a disaster of enormous proportions, so the idea was to put the bomb inside this container if it fizzled, then the container would hold it and prevented from spreading around and destroying los alamos. so that was what was called jumbo.

he had had some experience -- i should say a few words about the british. the british of course were also working on the atomic bomb. sometime in late 1942, their project, called the maud project, by arrangements to winston churchill decided to join forces with the americans. so the british were shipped to los alamos is a group. there were maybe 6-8 of the same scientists, the most famous physicists in england at the time, including -- i have a list here. george thompson, marcus oliphant, philip moon -- now, it

turned out that p.b. was a student of rutherford's, not chadwicks. he did his work at cambridge and did his work with rutherford, and then ended up at birmingham with marcus oliphant, who is another nuclear physicist. he was assigned jumbo too. i worked for him. i started my actual research. my research consisted of blowing

up containers to see how strong they were. so i became an expert in explosives for two reasons, we did not do the work on the los alamos pace. the first reason was that they did not want us going up anything at los alamos because it was pretty dangerous. the second reason was that it was too disruptive, too many wires and electrical sparks all over the place, so we were really destroying some delicate work going on at los alamos, so

they put us on two-mile mesa. i worked at two-mile mesa with philip moon and one or two other seds blowing up things. we used gauges to study the actual distortion of the metal by the explosive. we would install small explosives inside small containers, put gauges on the outside of the containers, blow them up, and measure the distortion of the steel by the explosions. i wasn't given the job of actually deciding how strong they were. philip moon was doing that. i was giving him the data. i was basically his hands, along with another sed, who incidentally did have an accident right next to me.

he blew up one of these explosive caps by accident and he was badly injured by that, but he recovered. so we worked on that. i should have mentioned that i was not allowed to work in the main part of los alamos because i have not been cleared yet. so i was given a second class clearance, a tentative badge called a blue badge. i did not know at the time they were investigating me back in new york. this clearance in new york city, apparently i passed and was given a white badge, which was an entrée into the actual

technical area of los alamos where all the important work was going on. so at that point, that was two or three months after i started on jumbo, i got the white badge and just at that time they decided to forget about jumbo because at that time their confidence was such that they were pretty sure that the bomb would work and decided that jumbo was a waste of time. now perhaps you know cindy kelley, jumbo is still there, isn't it? is right at trinity. -- it is right at trinity. they going to keep it there? >> yeah. benjamin: have you been inside? >> yeah. benjamin: that's wonderful.

so that is the end of my jumbo adventure. >> that's interesting, because we found out at two-mile mesa a little jumbo. benjamin: that was made. -- that was me. >> maybe a little artifact. good. benjamin: so philip moon and i were reassigned. however, we remained good friends. i loved philip moon. he was highly entertaining, cultured, very british, had a very british wife. the two of them were just like

out of the arthur rank movies i watched all the time. i love them very much. we remained in touch for a number of years after the war. >> so after work with him -- maybe you could tell us about the mushroom society? benjamin: that was a little later. >> what was next? benjamin: what was next as i got a new assignment. i met my new boss donald horning. i think he is still alive. he is almost hitting 100. no, he was only two years older

than me. he is in his 90's now. he was a professor of chemistry at princeton university. long after the war, he became a science advisor to lyndon b. johnson. when i knew him, his assignment at los alamos was to design the ignition switches which operated the explosives, which in turn caused an implosion. so you have switches, the igniters on top of the cones of the explosive lenses, and then you have the implosion. our job at the beginning was to build switches. the important thing to know is that the bomb consisted of a

circle, and the whole purpose of the implosion was to compress the plutonium metal so that its density caused it to become critical and to cause a nuclear chain reaction. in order to cause this explosion, implosion, you need to have the entire sphere compress at the same time. if the left side explodes before the right side, then it will abort. so you need to know that these lenses ignited at precisely the same time.

there were 32 such lenses around -- on the sphere. each lens had an explosive igniter on top, and then there were 32 switches is somewhere else. the 32 switches, that was what i was supposed to help him with. to get the switches to ignite at precisely the same time. well, that's not a trivial thing to do. the timing -- the requirements on timing were microseconds. these switches needed to close within a few microseconds of each other. in 1944, when i was doing this, a microsecond was a very short time. it is not a short time anymore. everybody who uses computers,

they were a much shorter times these days. but in those days, a microsecond was a very short time and so we had to develop the switches and test them to make sure that they were igniting within a few microseconds of each other, so that's what we did. we had a laboratory. we didn't have the switches because the switches hadn't been designed yet, but we had a testing system to test the switches when they were designed. so, horning, what he did is figure out how to test the switches to within a microsecond of each other. now i am not sure i got this exactly right, but i think what

he did was is he remembered that michelson at caltech had a camera to measure the speed of light, and that was a pretty good way to start, because we know the speed of light is very high, and therefore you are making measurements of the speed of light, they have to be precise within a short time. the action got the camera, or something like that camera, he brought it to los alamos and gave it to me. he said, here is your camera, go to it. the camera was conceptually very simple, a rotating six sided mirror which was rotated by a stream of air going on it with

propellers. it went very fast. light would come in on the mirrors and the light would be scattered by the mirrors like this and then there would be a film that was maybe five feet in length that would be stretched along the circle. then the signal from the light would hit somewhere -- you wouldn't know where -- but one of the sides of the mirror would surely hit the film. somewhere along the five feet of length. so what we would do -- i take about the switches in a minute -- we would line up eight switches and ignite them. the light from the sparks would hit a bunch of lenses, go to the camera, the spinning wheel would scatter the light around the

film and then i would take the film, go to the darkroom, develop it and see how simultaneous the eight sparks were of these switches. the sparks -- that was interesting -- the sparks were developed by -- i forget exactly home, maybe me, margaret ramsey, my coworker at the laboratory back in the lab -- it was just simply to pins and the spark would go between the two pins. it was a mockup for the real switches that would occur later. so that was my job, put in all the wiring, expose the film, run to the darkroom, and show the final result to horning, and he

would decide how the switches would be and make recommendations from that. so that was my job. it was an interesting job it involved a lot of physics, and for a kid with only two and a half years of college, i was thrilled with the idea of being there. i was working in a laboratory doing real science. it was a wonderful experience. >> can you talk about -- and since there aren't that many women scientists -- a little introduction about margaret? benjamin: margaret had a bachelor's degree in chemistry from boston. she is from boston. we work together as a team.

we wired these little pins and soldered them with classics, made forms to press them together, and so we work together very happily for -- i forget -- it must've been 4-5 months. margaret was a really fine scientist, and she was the first person i work with is a colleague. she ended up marrying james keck. they still live in the boston area. he was another fine fellow. the two of them have been married ever since. >> ok. that was great.

when did you -- [inaudible] benjamin: while i was still on jumbo, they didn't let me know anything, but i got my white badge and shortly thereafter -- he couldn't have been more than a week or 2 -- i was told that we would have a little meeting with the head of what was called the explosives division, of which i was now part of. so i heard there was a meeting and was invited to the meeting. there were maybe half a dozen seds and a couple of civilians, and since i had my white badge,

i was cleared. it was perfectly legitimate to get the information. he simply told us what we were doing. that was probably three months after i got to los alamos, 2-3 months afterwards. that was a memorable moment in my life, of course, because he laid out the whole history of the atomic bomb, nuclear fission, and the entire history of the manhattan project and of the entire goal of los alamos. he told it to us. you have to understand -- i know people have mixed feelings about the use of the atomic bomb, many people do not feel good about the use of the atomic bomb -- you have to understand about when and where i came from.

i came from a jewish family. my jewish relatives and russia were being killed. i knew about that already. the world in 1944 was a horrible place. there were thousands of americans being killed every day. the only thing we could think of was the war and to end the war as in this possible the killing in both europe and the far east. when i heard that we were working on something to end the war, it was really hard to describe how i felt. how happy, thrilled, and honored i was to be working on something that would into the war, and i knew it would into the war. we all knew it would into the war if it works. the way history works. history never follows your script, so the war in europe

ended before the atomic bomb was implemented, but it did play a role in ending the war in japan. >> can you just give the name -- [indiscernible] benjamin: he was a thin looking man and he spoke with a heavy russian accent. i thought, my god, what is he doing here. he was a professor chemistry at harvard university. he was so honest and so giving that it is hard to describe. i don't know whether he was authorized to do all that. we here are the stories about

need to know and everything at loss almost, that was nonsense. -- at los alamos, that was nonsense. within three months of getting my clearance as a pfc. in the army of the time, a private in the army. i was told it was an immense secret without any hesitation. of course, i can never forget the feeling, but he was a very interesting guy. he certainly put across to these low level individuals that he spoke to. >> why don't you talk about being invited to attend the tuesday -- benjamin: yeah.

so once i got into the tech area, you had to show your badge -- by today's criteria, it was not very much. it was just a white badge. anybody could have made it. i guess people didn't think of those kind of subtleties those days. i went into the tech area guarded by mps and immediately found out that there were these tuesday evening seminars that met in the hall in the tech area, and of course i went to them. why wouldn't i go? the first one i went to, there was this physicist named in enrico -- here i was thinking about the atomic bomb. he did not talk about the atomic

bomb. he talked about the hydrogen bomb, really mind-boggling. it must've been the spring of 1944, yes, 1944, and here he was talking about a bomb whose predecessor had not yet been built. the idea of nuclear fusion was on his mind and he was thinking ahead. he had already realized that the -- nuclear fission was going to work and it would somehow or other produce an atomic weapon. then he realized that using the fission bombs, you could actually create attempt are high enough to cause nuclear fusion,

to form helium, the way the sun does it, so he was thinking of a means of producing a controlled reaction with a -- a fusion reaction into helium. in 1944 -- and he was very interested -- he had an italian accent. i told you the international nature of this. the good fortune of america in getting these notable scientists away from hitler and getting them into the united states, i mean hitler could not have been dumber to let people like him go.

he came here with this italian accent. the italians i knew, and i knew plenty of italians from the bronx, but they were physicists -- were not physicists. here he was giving this lecture and it was quite an experience. many notables gave lectures there too. >> it must've been fun. benjamin: to take you the truth, i had mixed feelings. it was fun. the daylight time part was good. the army part i did not like. i have to admit it. i never could -- i didn't like

sleeping in the same room with 50 or 60 men all snoring, a single bathroom with no booths. it was undignified. >> i want to ask you something about -- oh, everybody is interested in spies. one of the things you noted in your memoirs is that -- benjamin: david greenglass was very political. here he was talking about russia and how wonderful russia was and all that, and he really was a communist, quite interesting. it had even crossed my mind -- i have to honestly say this -- there was something wrong with a

communist being of this project. russia was an ally. the war in russia was going on very heavily. it was so bad that eventually greenglass stayed where they were. we remained friends -- friendly. he was a communist. i don't even think he would deny it if you asked him. >> did he feel comfortable talking about his views with you? benjamin: yes. there was never any constraints about that.

we never talked about work, except for i noticed, i did read the testimony during the trial, during the greenglass trial, i read the testimony, and he mentioned my name in the trial. he once asked me innocently -- of course, the parts where the bomb. he was machining lenses. he says he asked me what they were for, and he says that i said something about a bomb, but i don't think -- i don't remember that. he did get into a heap of trouble because he said i was a friend of his, and the fbi actually called me in, and we had a couple of sessions, and it

worked out fine. the fbi was very fair, they listened. they asked hard questions. it turned out that i was an innocent victim, just like many other people were of his friendship. >> tell me about ted hall. benjamin: he was another one, very young one, 19? for some reason or another, i met him, and he got interested in me because a friend and i gustav maure. still do. i just heard the philharmonic play him just last week.

greenglass, who was an electronics expert, had constructed an amplifier using, forgive me, parts from the electronics store. he built the, an amplifier, it was a really good amplifier. we had a speaker somewhere, so we placed it in an office of a theorist. he had an office because he was a theorist. we had the amplifier, the loudspeaker, and the record player set up in the office, and norman greenspan and i decided to form a society where we could listen to classical music. we called it the "mushroom

society," because it go only be a night when there was nobody there. we would play music very loud. beethoven, wagner, all of the classics. ted hall heard about it, i guess. he invited himself to become a member. we were glad to have him as a member. he would come to hear the classical music, and he became a member of the mushroom society. that is how i knew ted hall. i didn't know him outside of the russian society, and we didn't talk much because he was a very taciturn person, never really spoke much at all.

we also invited phil and his wife to the conference. that was interesting. the room could not have been more than seven feet square, and the three of us, plus the professor and the mrs. listening to what we were listening to. it was quite an experience. a little embarrassing, but nonetheless, great. >> did you know -- benjamin: no, i did not know him. >> one thing i thought was very charming was when you forgot to remove the shutter. benjamin: [laughter] we have the final test when

these mockup switches were going to be -- no, i'm sorry. they were not the switches, the mockup, they were the real switches. the real switches had arrived. they were kind of bulky. they were nothing like the little pins we were using. they were professionally manufactured. we have the mind up, and donald was there because it was a very important test. we lined them up. it's took me probably five hours to wire everything up properly. it was probably 3:00 in the morning when the thing went off. don said to me, would it be funny if you forgot to remove the shutter, very much like any camera, it had a shutter in front of the film. the shutter was five feet long. he said, wouldn't it be funny if

you forgot to remove the shutter. at that point, i remember that i forgot to move the shutter. i almost crawled away. i told him that i forgot to remove the shutter, and he laughed. he was very reassuring and said, we will do it over again. we did it again the next night, and i will always have a soft spot in my heart for him for not killing me for having ruined the first experiment. >> let's go to wendover. tell us about wendover. benjamin: wendover, of course,

was the staging area field for the 509 bombarding squadron that was to drop the bomb. a few of the people from los alamos were told to work with the bomb crews to show them how to throw the switches, and prepare to trigger it. the bomb was not armed while they were not over a target. they had two arm it. i was one of the people who was chosen to instruct them on how to throw the switches and arm it. they were all caps on,

lieutenants, and majors -- captains, lieutenants, and majors. i was supposed to instruct them. you know the army is a very hierarchal organization. you can not instruct the captain to do anything. they realized it would never do. some genius decided to make me a civilian artificially. they gave me $200. that was an experience in itself. the set, go to santa fe, and by civilian clothes. sure enough, i bought some civilian clothes. i buy a sharp jacket, some pants, a shirt, a tie. i went back to the barracks, i wore them, and everybody was really thrilled. everybody was making enormous jokes.

but, i couldn't buy shoes because shoes were rationed. i only had on me shoes, which are inside out, so you see the rough part of the shoe, and they go up into the ankle. i needed issue russian certificate -- a shoe ration certificate. i went to the security officer to explain to him, and i had to get a note from my commanding officer, who, by the way, my commanding officer didn't know anything about the atomic bomb, so they were all very -- there was always a certain tension. of course, we knew. we felt very important. we were probably pretty snarky about it, and they didn't care for our attitude, i'm sure. anyway, i got written permission, which i have in my records.

i got written permission, probably the only secret document in the army which permits a person to buy a pair shoes. i got permission, and it bought -- i bought a pair of civilian shoes. i masqueraded as a civilian in my periodic trips to wendover. we would go to albuquerque, take a flights to wendover, flying over the desert, and lands. there, i would stay in a motel. a civilian in a motel, that was a luxury, a private room.

i would work with them during the daytime, and at night. it was right near nevada, i would gamble at night in the gambling casinos, having a ball, playing blackjack. then, fight back -- fly back. i would become a g.i. for a while. the next time i would do it as a civilian. a really schizophrenic life i was living there for a while. >> can you describe the jacket? benjamin: it was a very sharp jacket. i thought about that for a long time -- this is my only chance to have a sharp -- i'm not going to buy a conservative tweet d jacket. i can't remember to this day if it was blue or green. i think it was green. it may have been read. it was a very sharp jacket. that is what caused hilarity in the barracks. i realize there was no reason why i couldn't do it. no one can stop me.

that was my way of showing my independence from the army. >> let's see. then, should we go to taking -- benjamin: it was clear -- i think that must have been june. you probably know better than i do. late may or early june. i was given orders to go to the assembly place for the very

reason that i knew how to wire the switches. along with a few dozen others, probably for your 50 -- 40 or 50, took this military plane. it was not a very comfortable plane, very much like most military passenger planes called the green hornet. the green hornet flew me plus another civilian, and stevenson, who is professor at the university of virginia, and a few others. we flew to l.a. and then hawaii.

we stayed in l.a. overnight, and then flew finally to guam, and from guam to tinian. they were part of the group of japanese protectorates, and were captured not far beyond that by the americans. there were hundreds of ballmer between nine -- bombers shuttling back and forth between there. that is where we set up shop. we had a living hut.

the thing i loved about being overseas was that once you got away from the u.s., this artificial barrier between officers, enlisted men, and civilians was completely gone. civilians and officers were living exactly how the work. that made me feel a lot better. i never liked the idea of the officers have better quarters than i did. >> let's see. i'm interested in the books --

you can't get up. benjamin: i'm not giving up. there is a loosely notebook there on my desk. it says the army on it. this is my various materials, if you want to find when you want to look at later. here is my pocketbook of verse. can you see that? this is a cover from the pocketbook of verse, which i covered everywhere -- carried everywhere. i was standing on my much of my daylight hours, and i would read poems for months at a time. i learned to love some of these poems. this is the cover. the original cover broke off early on, and i made an unofficial cover. it says "the pocketbook of verse," or idling away the hours on tinian.

in the general's autobiography, he doesn't really mention the sed. we were invisible to a lot of these big brass, but he decided it was time for him to meet some. he called us together, it was probably early december 1945, and 1944. he gave us a lecture. the lecture had nothing to do with atomic bombs. it was a lecture telling us to bring home to our parents on christmas because they need to hear from us because they are very worried about us, so please write home to your parents. interestingly enough, looking at some information that i saw on the kelly's website, the atomic

heritage foundation, i saw some sort of note from somebody at oak ridge. he talked about having met general gross. he mentioned it. the general told him to be sure to write home to his parents. so, i realized that he is going run all the sites telling everyone to write home to their parents. that was my interaction with the general. since i was a good voice, i wrote home to my parents anyway. i didn't need him to tell me that. one of the true ironies of history, who could have ever imagined this. the island of tianen was laid out something like the island of manhattan.

there was sort of a front island -- flat island, looking roughly like manhattan. they laid it out with these streets names like 42nd street, fifth avenue, broadway, 19th avenue. tianen was laid out like manhattan. to think of is of the: nation of the manhattan project was something that no one could have ever invented. it happened by. chance. who would believe it? unless there is some guiding light of their that is really telling us what to do. it makes you think about that. >> people have no idea. benjamin: no. that was long before we got there.

we had two resident huts, and a laboratory hut that was air-conditioned, much fancier than our living quarters. it had a dark room because it was necessary to test -- use the street camera, which i should mention was shipped over. the camera we used at los alamos was shipped over to test the switches, the real switches. i was in the hut when i was told that someone was going to give us a visit. i was dressed in my usual tianen way. i had my boots on and shorts,

and that was all. i didn't have assured. the people in charge said, this will not do because curtis levay, a big shot general, would not like to see a g.i. dressed like you are. so, it was too late to bring me back to my barracks, so they shove me into the dark room, close the door, and turned on the light. i stay there for about half an hour, and they finally knocked on my door and said, ok, he is finally gone. they were saying what a funny visit it was because they kept telling curtis levay how important the bomb was, and he was very skeptical about the whole thing. he had been sending hundreds of these incendiary missions over

tokyo and other cities day in and day out over months. to think that one bomb, one plane could do the work of his entire force was too much to take. he just didn't believe it. later on, he realized -- when he became head of the strategic air command, he didn't particularly take the use of atom bombs off the table in a possible cold war. he was very much of a hook all of his life. where were you? how did you learn about the dropping of the bomb? benjamin: the night before, august 5, we knew the bomb would

be dropped that night, that it would take off that evening. i wasn't invited to see the take off. i didn't ask to see the take off. i think i was beginning to feel a little funny about it. we stayed in our barracks. there were photographers who were told to take pictures of the take off he was the distinguished u.s. times writer, and he was interviewing us about it. we knew the secrecy was about to be lost. we were a little more open than usual, but we couldn't say exactly when it was. we talked a little encircles a

bit about what was going to happen. i went to bed, it must've been 12:00. i wake up the next morning, and we have a radio. i turned on the radio, and that is when we heard about the bomb. it had already been dropped. announcers were already announcing it. los alamos was already being spoken about. the secret was out. everything was done. nagasaki was changed. the world had changed, i knew it would change, and sure enough, it changed. of course, i forgot to mention -- we all knew how important it

was all along. >> you kept a diary? benjamin: yes, it is right there. i bought a notebook, and started writing in it the day i took off from los alamos. let me see if i can find august 5. i will just read the first paragraph from august 5. "there are 18 campus cots, to a them are being temporarily occupied by baby photographers, who have just flown from guam to fill our set up and take off. most of the fellows are gathered

in one corner of the hut, and there's much excited talk. the navy men are completely confused by the hints, and their wildest speculations. i go on and on about that. let's see. let's see if i can find august 6. i spend a lot of time at that. i talk about my job, my ignition expert.

then, after you back to left out most -- back to los alamos, i said, my god, what have i said? may is that something that i should have said in my diaries. i was a two pack a day smoker. isn't that amazing? what i did was i destroyed evidence. [laughter] just to make sure. the thing i said about the x-unit, i destroyed. i try to make it look like an accident, by don't think it was. wait a minute. then, my next and she was august 10 -- my next entry was august 10.

i was so excited, i don't think i wrote for three days afterwards. i finally wrote and said, on august 10, "today, there are farmers in wisconsin talking about atomic bombs over the dinner table. there must be callous streetcorner arguments about atomic bombs in every city in the country. people around the world must be feeling the soberest with the knowledge that this thing is bigger than it appears, and though it will help in this war -- end this more, it might very well mean other important things.

a few days ago, the best cap secret of the war is now being talked about and written about more than even i thought it would be. it is funny that all along i knew what this weapon meant, that there is no overestimating its importance, yet i know that the news is out, and i'm still amazed by the treatment it is getting, though i know it's destructive power, i was still awestruck and by the after photographs of hiroshima." i said nagasaki before, but i meant hiroshima. is that enough? do you want more? with a gadget, there was no

possibility of an anti-climax. the day after we dropped the first one, i divided my predicted duration of the war, which was one year originally, by two. i divided the quotient by two, and the next day when russia entered the war -- now, i say three months, and i'm a pessimist about these things. we are now listening to the hourly news conference. this is the one where some publicity searcher named jacobson, who none of us have heard of, claimed a bomb area an habitable for at least 70 years. that is not true. that is enough of that.

i spent a lot of time in my diary after that writing about the consequences. i don't think you want to read about my pontificating about international control. i was thinking about control. i said, there is no other way. it has to be international because sooner or later, someone else will get the bomb. then what will you do? there will be two countries with the bomb, then there might be for countries with the bomb, and there is no end to it. how can you live in a world filled with international -- with nuclear weapons. it has to be under international control. at the end of my pontificating, i said, i am probably all wets. the bomb is proliferated and not under international control. who knows if it ever will be.

it is still with us and a bigger threat than ever. it was august 10 or 11th wendy war ended. when the armistice was announced. >> 14th. benjamin: wasn't the 14th? that night, i got so excited. i had heard about it. i was listening to the radio. i went over to the officers tend, which was exactly the same as ours, and i said, wake up, the war is over. the adjusting part of that is that was an expression that all the guys, especially when we

were playing handball or stickball, or whatever we were doing, and somebody was half asleep, we would say, wake up, the war is over. i said, in my life, i will be able to use his expression once. so, i said, wake up, the war is over. that was a: nation of a long dream of mine. he was sort of drowsy. it took him a while to realize what had happened. then of course, there was the aftermath. it was probably an outgrowth of my experience at los alamos and elsewhere. it addressed science related issues.

of course, one of the most important issues was the atomic bomb. i would spend part of the course talking about the atomic bomb, and the students always raise the question of did truman make a mistake in dropping the bomb. many people think it was a mistake to drop the bomb. i did not think it was a mistake. usually i would look at the students in the class, all young people, 19-21 years old, and i would say, you know, many of your parents would have been killed if there had been an invasion of japan, and it would have been an invasion is the japanese had not surrendered. you would not be here, of course, there is no way of knowing that, but you have to realize that dropping the bomb saved american lives. it killed a lot of people, and

you can never understand the horror of that, no doubt about that, but war is horrible. war was going on, people were getting killed all the time, and americans were getting killed. i guess the first thought was to save american lives. who can tell how many japanese lives would have been lost if there was an invasion of japan. probably a lot. i think it was an argument that was very telling. the students, many of the students, understood that. it was a tough decision, but truman made the right decision. not many years after the atomic bomb was dropped, and a few years after there was a lot of testing of atomic weapons, the

russians succeeded in developing a bomb. the hydrogen bomb had a destructive power many times larger than the atomic bomb. now, the world is filled with hydrogen bombs in the russian arsenal, the american arsenal, and who knows. the hydrogen bomb, if it was dropped in manhattan, we destroy the entire city -- the entire island. that means that 2-3,000,000 people would have been killed and the entire culture of america would have been destroyed. it is unthinkable, and yet, it could happen. i still think that what i wrote here is still true.

the only way to solve this problem is to have an international control of atomic weapons and their destruction. in the distant future, if we still exists, the world will come to its senses, we will form a truly well policed, organized organization, part of the united nations, hopefully, and atomic weapons will be destroyed. god if i will live to see it, but maybe people in the audience will see it. it is worth looking forward to. if it happens, it won't happen for a long time, but it might happen. look continue now with our at to the august 1945 atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki, japan. >> each week, american history