1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:07,120 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff. 2 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: Laurin Vogel bomb here. In September of nine two, US 3 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,960 Speaker 1: Army Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project, 4 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:17,880 Speaker 1: the secret US crash effort to develop the atomic bomb, 5 00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:22,040 Speaker 1: faced a critical decision. The project needed to produce uranium 6 00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:25,720 Speaker 1: two thirty five, an isotope of uranium whose unstable nucleus 7 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:28,400 Speaker 1: could be easily split to trigger a fission chain reaction 8 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:31,920 Speaker 1: and release an enormous amount of destructive energy. But that 9 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:36,120 Speaker 1: would require a massive, complex manufacturing process involving tens of 10 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:38,760 Speaker 1: thousands of workers, which needed to be kept secret to 11 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:43,080 Speaker 1: thwart interference from spies and sabotaurs. But the question was 12 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,320 Speaker 1: where could those facilities possibly be hidden. The U S 13 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:50,360 Speaker 1: officials had already identified potential sites in several parts of 14 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,640 Speaker 1: the country, but all of them had drawbacks. Shasta Dam 15 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:56,640 Speaker 1: in California, for example, was too close to the Pacific coast, 16 00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: and this vulnerable to air attack. In several locations in 17 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,920 Speaker 1: Washington State would have required construction of long power lines 18 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,640 Speaker 1: to provide the massive amounts of electricity needed for the work. 19 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:09,640 Speaker 1: A site in Illinois, near Chicago was also out officials 20 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:11,839 Speaker 1: didn't want to be close to a big population center, 21 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:14,520 Speaker 1: since the potential health risks of the work were not clear, 22 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:17,080 Speaker 1: and it would have been easier for enemy agents to 23 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:22,000 Speaker 1: blend in around a city. So instead, Groves quickly settled 24 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:25,000 Speaker 1: upon a fifty two tho acre that's twenty one hector 25 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:30,000 Speaker 1: site in rural eastern Tennessee, later expanded slightly. Not only 26 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,640 Speaker 1: would it be inconspicuous to anyone outside of the sparsely 27 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:35,880 Speaker 1: populated area, but it was also close to hydroelectric plans 28 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:38,959 Speaker 1: operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which could supply the 29 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:42,399 Speaker 1: enormous amounts of electricity that the plants would require. It 30 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:45,119 Speaker 1: was the perfect place to build both the Clinton Engineer Works, 31 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:48,120 Speaker 1: which would be the atomic complex, and a secret city 32 00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:51,000 Speaker 1: to house the workers. The government decided to call the 33 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,640 Speaker 1: secret city oak Ridge because it sounded quote sufficiently bucolic 34 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:57,440 Speaker 1: and general, according to an article in a nineteen sixty 35 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:01,520 Speaker 1: nine government review of the project. Not long after choosing 36 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:04,360 Speaker 1: the area, the U. S Government quietly started moving small 37 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:07,360 Speaker 1: farmers who had land on the site, paying them compensation 38 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:10,919 Speaker 1: but not telling them why. Then came trainloads full of 39 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:15,000 Speaker 1: construction equipment and building materials. Construction crews quickly erected the 40 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:18,680 Speaker 1: buildings that would comprise the nondescriptly named campus, as well 41 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:21,880 Speaker 1: as thousands of houses for scientists and workers. Many of 42 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:24,600 Speaker 1: the homes were B one flat tops, a design fashion 43 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:27,840 Speaker 1: from pre fabricated panels and roofing to save construction time. 44 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:32,440 Speaker 1: Building the secret industrial facilities and housing for workers cost 45 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:36,000 Speaker 1: around one point three two billion dollars that's about eighteen 46 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:39,239 Speaker 1: point five billion in today's money. That amounted to sixty 47 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:42,280 Speaker 1: percent of the Manhattan Project's total budget. Over the next 48 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:45,040 Speaker 1: few years, Oakridge grew into a community of seventy five 49 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:49,520 Speaker 1: thousand people. We spoke with d Ray Smith, a retired 50 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:52,919 Speaker 1: historian for the Y twelve National Security Complex who also 51 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:55,200 Speaker 1: is the historian for the city of oak Ridge and 52 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,080 Speaker 1: a calumnist for the oak Ridger, a local newspaper. Smith 53 00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:02,239 Speaker 1: explained people came from all over the world. Many of 54 00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:04,800 Speaker 1: the scientists were Hungarians, a lot came out of Germany 55 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 1: and Great Britain. He explains that others were recruited for 56 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:11,079 Speaker 1: the Clinton engineering works by big US companies working on 57 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,320 Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project, who scoured campuses of US colleges and 58 00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:17,560 Speaker 1: universities for bright students with needed scigence and technical skills. 59 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:21,320 Speaker 1: For example, a young chemist named Bill Wilcox, who was 60 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:25,400 Speaker 1: approached by an Eastman Kodak recruiter in three later recalled 61 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:27,160 Speaker 1: that he was only told that the job was some 62 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:30,359 Speaker 1: sort of secret war work. He said, I asked where 63 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:32,920 Speaker 1: I'd be working, He wouldn't say it was secret. I 64 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,120 Speaker 1: asked what sort of work I'd be doing. He wouldn't 65 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:38,680 Speaker 1: say it was secret. Wilcox eventually ended up at the 66 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:42,040 Speaker 1: Clinton Engineer Works. According to Smith, those who turned down 67 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:44,920 Speaker 1: jobs might end up being drafted into a special engineering 68 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:48,600 Speaker 1: detachment of the U. S. Army and sent to Tennessee. Anyway, 69 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,920 Speaker 1: those atomic workers arrived at a place shrouded in secrecy. 70 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:54,839 Speaker 1: Locals knew something mysterious was going on at the site, 71 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 1: but only those who were part of the mission were 72 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:00,119 Speaker 1: allowed inside, passed the guarded gates on the access roads. 73 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:04,000 Speaker 1: The atomic facilities themselves were surrounded by additional security. The 74 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:07,360 Speaker 1: work itself was highly compartmentalized, so that most people knew 75 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,440 Speaker 1: only about the small portion of the effort that they 76 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:12,280 Speaker 1: themselves were working on, and only a select few knew 77 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,080 Speaker 1: that the overarching mission was to help make the atomic bomb. 78 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:17,560 Speaker 1: Access to buildings other than the one you were working 79 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,440 Speaker 1: in was highly restricted to keep information from getting out, 80 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:24,320 Speaker 1: oak Ridge became a self contained community with most everything 81 00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:27,920 Speaker 1: that its workers needed. The secret city had stores, movie houses, 82 00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:31,040 Speaker 1: a high school, a bank, a three bed hospital, tennis 83 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:33,479 Speaker 1: and handball courts, and even in its own symphony orchestra 84 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:37,279 Speaker 1: led by a Manhattan Project scientist. People who lived their 85 00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:40,359 Speaker 1: tended victory gardens, raised families, and led what was pretty 86 00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:43,320 Speaker 1: much in normal American existence, that is, except for the 87 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:47,200 Speaker 1: secrecy that surrounded them and their work. A billboard reminded workers, 88 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:50,240 Speaker 1: let's keep our trap shut. They knew they had to 89 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:52,760 Speaker 1: be cautious not to say anything about their jobs to anyone, 90 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:56,240 Speaker 1: even their own spouses. A young scientist told one of 91 00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:58,479 Speaker 1: the first reporters to write about the subject, when Louis 92 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:01,640 Speaker 1: Felstein would sit around the dinner table, and the strain 93 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 1: was terrible, but it was all in the difficult effort 94 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:09,640 Speaker 1: of producing uranium two thirty five. There's only a tiny 95 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,800 Speaker 1: amount of the stuff zero point seven percent in uranium, 96 00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,760 Speaker 1: or most of which is uranium two thirty eight, which 97 00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:19,159 Speaker 1: doesn't fission, is easily and a bomb such as Little Boy, 98 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:22,159 Speaker 1: the one dropped on Hiroshima required one d and forty 99 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,279 Speaker 1: one pounds. That's sixty of uranium two thirty five. You 100 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:28,400 Speaker 1: have to separate a lot of material to get that 101 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:32,000 Speaker 1: much two thirty five. To solve that problem, the Clinton 102 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,560 Speaker 1: Engineer Works Y twelve plant used special devices called calutrons, 103 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 1: which utilized the electromagnetic separation process developed by Nobel winning 104 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,280 Speaker 1: physicist ernest O. Lawrence at the University of California, Berkeley. 105 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,520 Speaker 1: The calutrons used heat and powerful magnets to separate the 106 00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:49,560 Speaker 1: two isotopes and then to collect just the uranium two 107 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:52,200 Speaker 1: thirty five isotope because it's so much lighter in weight. 108 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: To gather enough uranium two thirty five for the project's purposes, 109 00:05:55,720 --> 00:05:58,760 Speaker 1: the Y twelve facility employed twenty two thousand workers to 110 00:05:58,880 --> 00:06:02,000 Speaker 1: run one thousand, one hundred and fifty two calcutrons literally 111 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,920 Speaker 1: around the clock. Meanwhile, another part of the works, the 112 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,520 Speaker 1: X ten graphite reactor, used neutrons committed from uranium two 113 00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:12,480 Speaker 1: thirty five to convert uranium two thirty eight into an 114 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:15,839 Speaker 1: isotope of a different element, plutonium two thirty nine, another 115 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:20,760 Speaker 1: easily fissionable material suitable for making atomic bombs. As Smith explains, 116 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:23,800 Speaker 1: after X ten demonstrated that the process could work, the 117 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:26,760 Speaker 1: actual plutonium used to make Fatman the bomb dropped in 118 00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:29,839 Speaker 1: Nangasaki was produced in the B reactor at the Hanford 119 00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:36,120 Speaker 1: Engineer Works near Richmond, Washington. Finally, on August six, the 120 00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:38,520 Speaker 1: world witnessed to the results of the secret City's labors 121 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:41,360 Speaker 1: when the United States dropped an atomic bomb containing uranium 122 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:45,039 Speaker 1: two thirty five produced there on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. 123 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:48,960 Speaker 1: The Knoxville, Tennessee New Sentinels front page headline proudly proclaimed 124 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:53,080 Speaker 1: atomic super bomb made at oak Ridge strikes Japan. That 125 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:56,320 Speaker 1: wasn't completely correct. Though the uranium two thirty five came 126 00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:58,520 Speaker 1: from Tennessee, parts of the bomb were made at three 127 00:06:58,520 --> 00:07:00,599 Speaker 1: different plants, so that none of the would have the 128 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: complete design. The destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrific, 129 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,080 Speaker 1: and it was a or perhaps the turning point of 130 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:11,960 Speaker 1: the war. After the war, the various parts of the 131 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:15,960 Speaker 1: once secret Tennessee atomic complex were split up. Part eventually 132 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: was reborn as the oak Ridge National Laboratory, which helped 133 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: pioneer the field of nuclear medicine, producing ice topes for 134 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:25,160 Speaker 1: use in treating cancer. And as diagnostic tools, in addition 135 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:28,119 Speaker 1: to doing cutting edge research in areas ranging from nanotechnology 136 00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:32,040 Speaker 1: to wireless charging of electric vehicles. Another portion became the 137 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:35,600 Speaker 1: Y twelve National Security Complex, which produced components for tens 138 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:38,400 Speaker 1: of thousands of thermonuclear weapons in the U s Arsenal 139 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:41,440 Speaker 1: during the Cold War and later helped disassemble US and 140 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:44,760 Speaker 1: former Soviet nuclear weapons. A third part is now the 141 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,480 Speaker 1: site of the East Tennessee Technology Park. Though there's no 142 00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:51,440 Speaker 1: evidence that German or Japanese spies ever managed to infiltrate 143 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,560 Speaker 1: the Clinton Engineer Works, a Soviet spy named George Coval 144 00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:57,080 Speaker 1: did manage to get a job there and apparently passed 145 00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:00,120 Speaker 1: along information about the atomic work to the Soviets. In 146 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:02,920 Speaker 1: two thousand seven, he was honored posthumously with a Hero 147 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:05,960 Speaker 1: of the Russian Federation Medal, the nation's highest honor, by 148 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:14,160 Speaker 1: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. 149 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,880 Speaker 1: Kaiger and produced by Tyler CLAYG. Brain Stuff is a 150 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,240 Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more 151 00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:21,680 Speaker 1: on this and lots of other historical topics, including lots 152 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:23,760 Speaker 1: of further reading on Oak City and the atomic age, 153 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:26,800 Speaker 1: visit our home Planet, how Stuff works dot com and 154 00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:29,320 Speaker 1: for more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the iHeart 155 00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,079 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 156 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:32,760 Speaker 1: favorite shows.