Interview with Philip Morrison, 1986 [2]

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Philip Morrison, 1986 [2]
Description:
Philip Morrison is a physicist who joined the Manhattan Project in 1942, and went on to advocate nuclear nonproliferation. Asked why he left Los Alamos after returning from Japan after the war, he responds: “One nuclear war was enough.” He recalls that the 1949 Soviet test confirmed the view of many scientists that in the absence of an international agreement an arms race will ensue. He charges that espionage had little to do with the Soviet success, and that it had real meaning only in the political sphere, allowing for “contrived justification[s]” for moving ahead with advances in nuclear weaponry – although he believes the hydrogen bomb was under development before the exposure of the first spy cases.
Interviewee:
Morrison, Philip
Date:
February 26, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
World War II
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
Korean War, 1950-1953
Hydrogen bomb
Soviet Union
Espionage
Physicists
Nuclear weapons
Nuclear energy
McCarthy, Joseph, 1908-1957
Places:
Massachusetts > Middlesex (county) > Cambridge
Japan
Extent:
00:07:43:23
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_A7F4E72C32D249BE8996C818B9548DA6
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_A7F4E72C32D249BE8996C818B9548DA6