What was it like working in secrecy?
Very interesting. There were a number of fascinating people down there: [J. Robert] Oppenheimer, top of the list. And many other scientists that were fantastic. Each week I had top security clearance and each week we had a forum where everybody with top clearance could go to, and one of the scientists, usually one of the scientists in charge of one of the different divisions or groups down there, would give a speech as to what they were doing, where the progress was, and their prospects. And that was fascinating.
So you met Oppenheimer?
Oh yeah, I met him. And he gave many of the weekly talks there. And in fact, he introduced most of the members that were going to give talks. Wonderful guy, brilliant. He was very friendly. To my knowledge he never wasted any time, so if you had any business with him and were finished, he’d say "thank you very much and good luck on the projects you’re working on." But he was just a brilliant man. I've never met anybody anywhere near as brilliant. And [General Leslie] Groves, he gave some talks. But he had nowhere near the mentality of Oppie.
How did you feel after the bombs were dropped on Japan?
Very happy. Because we if we had to invade we would have had hundreds of thousands of casualties. The number of Japanese killed were tiny in comparison to the number of American lives that were killed and wounded.
So are you actually Doctor Doom?
Nope, I just have a state mechanical engineering degree. In fact, at that time, people did not have the luxury of going on to higher degrees, we had to either join the Navy, Army, or Air Force, or work in a defense industry. And I had tried to join the Navy but I was colorblind, and they said "nope, we don’t want any colorblind officers in the Navy."
When I went down into New York to take the test for going into the officer’s training school for the Navy, the first thing they did was show me a chart. You know, one of the colorblind charts with the numbers on it. And I didn’t see any of the numbers, I just saw dots. And the Navy man who was giving the test would turn a page, and I’d say "5-4-8" at random. And he looked at me after I looked at half a dozen and said "did you see any of those?" And I said "nope," and he said "you flunked." So that washed out my Navy career.
Did you ever get any Dr. Doom jokes while you were working on the bomb?
(Laughs.) Many. There were so many of them that I can’t remember half of them. And in fact, early in life, I thought I would become a doctor.
As an aside, my original name was Garth. And my father died when I was a year and a half. He had appendicitis and he owned a lot of race horses, that was his business. About five days after he got appendicitis he had a big race coming up, and he said to his doctor "I want to go," and his doctor said "absolutely not," and he argued, and argued, and argued, and finally the doctor said "well okay, if you don’t get too excited. Two conditions: take your nurses, and don’t get too excited." And my father said okay. And his horse and another were coming down in the finale of the meet, and they were coming down neck and neck, and he started jumping up and down, and opened up all of the incisions.
About four or five days later mother got a call that said "come pick up the body." And he was gone, and four years later mother remarried, and his name was Doom. D-o-o-m. His ancestors were Dutch, and it was originally Dume. And they didn't think that was Americanized enough so they change it to Doom.
Source Article from http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/11/7529111/doom-of-los-alamos
A man named Doom helped create the first atomic bomb and we spoke to him
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