Interview with Victor Weisskopf, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Victor Weisskopf, 1986
Description:
Victor Weisskopf was a theoretical physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project from 1943-1946. He begins by relating how he became involved in physics in Germany in the late 1920s and describing the state of the field at that time, including the deeply inhibiting impact of Hitler's rise to power on international scientific cooperation. He recalls events at the time of his arrival in the United States in 1937, pointing out that he and several of his colleagues had enemy alien status, which created certain temporary difficulties. He remembers the moment he came to understand -- through Niels Bohr -- the significance of the discovery of fission and particularly its implications for military uses. Another phase of his career discussed is his transfer to Los Alamos in the early 1940s at the behest of Robert Oppenheimer, a move he made out of a desire to help his adopted country in the war even though it meant developing a weapon capable of "mass killings". Understandably, the experience left powerful impressions on him, punctuated by his election as "Mayor of Los Alamos" -- the civilian scientists' representative in certain interactions with the U.S. military. Another memorable moment was the visit of Bohr to the laboratory, as part of his effort to win support for internationalizing atomic energy. He describes similar efforts by scientists after the war to educate the public about the bomb and work toward its internationalization, including backing the Baruch plan. In his view, nationalism and the recent experience of a world war made such ideas difficult to sustain. In closing, he says that the biggest surprise of the nuclear age has been that the arms race and the attendant improvements in weaponry still have not led to another nuclear conflict.
Interviewee:
Weisskopf, Victor Frederick, 1908-2002
Date:
February 26, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Physicists
Nuclear weapons--Testing
Soviet Union
World War II
Nuclear energy
Manhattan Project (Organization)
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
Nuclear fission
Nuclear weapons
Great Britain
Groves, Leslie Richard
Communism
Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954
Baruch, Bernard M. (Bernard Mannes), 1870-1965
Bohr, Niels, 1885-1962
Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953
Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967
Fuchs, Klaus Emil Julius, 1911-1988
Heisenberg, Werner, 1901-1976
Lilienthal, David Eli, 1899-1981
Places:
Massachusetts > Middlesex (county) > Cambridge
Germany
Austria
Italy
France
Denmark
Extent:
01:50:11:09
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_08860EB7F0BC44CD8696044DA1AA31F5
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_08860EB7F0BC44CD8696044DA1AA31F5