109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer And The Secret City Of Los Alamos, Jennet Conant, c. 2005

Jennet Conant is the granddaughter of James B. Conant, administrator of Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.


Main characters, as they are introduced.

Chapter 1

J. Robert Oppenheimer; 37 years old
Dorothy McKibben -- found herself in Los Alamos sort of by accident; around 45 years old
La Fonda, Los Alamos; Harvey Houses hotel chain
William Chick Scarritt - Dorothy's father; wealthy, New Englander
Smith College
Joseph Chambers McKibben
Sunmount Sanitarium
Taos
Taos Society of Artists
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
Alice Corbin Henderson and the art scene, many names
Kevin, Dorothy's son
Spanish and Indian Trading Company: Norman McGee and Jim McMillan
Katherine Stinson

Chapter 2

Priscilla Greene, 23 years old; secretary to Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley;
General Leslie R. Groves, 46 years old
Arthur Compton, director of the new Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of Chicago
Oppenheimer commuting between Berkeley and Chicago
Le Conte Hall (Berkeley; where the cyclotron was housed)
Robert Serber
Edward Teller -- side-tracked on the Super (fusion)
flashback: June, 1941 -- FDR established the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
OSRD run by Vannevar Bush; former head of MIT and the Carnegie Institution
OSRD deputy: Harvard president, James B. Conant
new committee, code-named S-1
S-1 delegated the bomb project to Groves -- September 23, 1942
Colonel Nichols, Groves lackey
Compton and Groves choose Oppenheimer

Chapter 3

Site Y
November 16, 1942
Dudley, Oppenheimer, Ed McMillan, Groves
Conant and Oppenheimer become close allies
I. I. Rabi -- working on radar at Cambridge
huge competition between Rad Lab and Site Y
many physicists but on top: Oppenheimer, Rabi (at Rad Lab), Bethe
organization: divisions and groups
Rose Bethe: ran the housing office
Charlotte Serber
Anne Wilson: Groves' bright young assistant

Chapter 4

Begins with Dorothy McKibben reporting to work at 109 East Palace, March 27, 1943
Oppenheimer's two-year-old son: Peter
University of California was administering the project
the Ranch School
Dorothy: close friend of Peggy Pond Church, a fellow Smith alum and well-known Santa Fe writer; daughter of the (ranch) school's founder and was married to Fermor S. Church, a Harvard graduate who was a former headmaster
Ranch School had been the dream of Ashley Pond, an idealistic businessman who established the school in 1917; for affluent east coast city boys
Pajarito ("little bird") Plateau
summer of 1932, Dorothy and Peter went with Peggy Pond up to Los Alamos for a two-week holiday
Fuller Lodge; three stories; designed by Dorothy's friend John Gaw Meem in 1928
Dakota Stetsons, jaunty bandannas, khaki uniforms
Priscilla Greene had never been to Santa Fe before; relied on Dorothy for help
wow, Dorothy knew everything about the area due to her involvement with the Spanish and Indian Trading Company: Norman McGee and Jim McMillan
Nambe Valley
Hugh Bradner, Oppenheimer's right hand man/gopher
Railroad station in Lamy
Ancon and Del MOnte ranches
Cable and Schuyler ranches
marries Kitty Harrison

Chapter 5: gatekeeper

G-2: intelligence
Dorothy's house
Q badge
Richard Feynman, page 84
again, Lamy -- train station -- on way to Clines Corners -- May and I must have filled up with gasoline at Lamy on way home from winter skiing trip, January, 2019
lares et penates (personal belongings)
Site Y or Zia Project; began at 109 East Palace Avenue
Harold Agnew, age 22, page 89
pueblos of San Ildefonso; Santa Clara;, and Tesuque (pueblos = village)
Fuller Lodge, page 93
Ranch School headmaster's house, end of a quiet road; Oppenheimer's lodgings
Capt William ("Deke") S. Parsons, administrator but also in charge of dropping the bomb
McMillans next door to Oppenheimer
"Bathtub Row" -- page 94
109 East Palace: mid-March to May; then up to the hill after that, although Dorothy would remain behind with her son Kevin to run the "housing office" out of 109 East Palace
she became the gatekeeper in Los Alamos

Chapter 6: the professor and the general

April 15, 1943 -- Los Alamos laboratory formally opened for business