T 198 JAMES FINDLEY NOLAN 31 ln _Feb 45 Nolan a handsome bu tton-downed chap no r a physici8 'll in the Los Angeles Tumor Institute ras in charge of the Base Hospital JY at LASL Be later took charge of protecting Base Camp at TR from radioactivity We tried to guess what would happen radioactively Interested in rbat would happen if the explosionpccurred at various levels Joe Hirschfelder Joe McGee and Jae v Hubbard all helped Nolan had 2 problems essentially 1 protecting the scientists at Base Camp and 2 proteeting people in nearby towns o emotional was a __ _ a i _inv ohed-_1ritlL bJ- 1 e 'r _ ul - y eriment woul - _____ that _- they ___ -·· __ cJ JJle _to N o lan and in _ t ru Ro 1'- l _r j - ·U o» t ye go h1g to let me take - The a t alMlanl l imi t or tolerance then But no one knew really how much rad ______ - - -- dose ·----- -· s 1 J O_of a _roen • iation a human could stand So N turned the question around and a•ked the scien ists V Ho r much do you vantt__ - ' _wa l - e_ l l 011ed 25 ar e Y lt _5 9 g __rtnal ly they s _ 1- - for_ 5 BQt11tgens_ v llo ranc - - lt I•l- Cl Af i ered 2 ------dangerous says N We then consi der 5 1 t he maximum dose These days the max i _ - • - - - -- • • r- - • J J ' •• -p • -- - imam safe dose is 6 miliroentgens or 6 one-thousandths of a roentgen although - --- - - ' - - -· doctors like Nuse up to 25 Bs in treating lukemia patients Ns We were looked -' P n - s_c_c ps 11 1 or the May '1 HE shot N went to TR Be had about a i id When Stafford Warren reached TR and began worrying with hisrpeople about what would J1 happen if the fireball reached 12 00 feet it was felt that at lev l tt he contamin✓ ation would be widespread Actually the fireball reached 20 000 feet At the BE test it was obvious that the to1fDS of Three Rivers on the east side Oscuro and Y Carrizozo would have been inundated 'l§o Nolan bad to take his calculations and evacuation plans to Oak Ridge for approval by Gen Groves in late June Groves was at OR on biz N then a Captain in Medical Corps took Yith him a briefcase and his 45 revolver Da Silva allowed N to put the 45 in briefcase and carry the ammo clip in his pocket because i t was so hot lugging the 45 on his hip His papers were marked Top Secret N took a TWA DC-3 to Chicago 1 hen changed planes for Knoxville Tenn N personally presented the p pers to Cols Nichols and Lansdale He i hen sat for hours in a waiting room while Groves held court with his aides Groves didn't believe in Medical Corpsmen and spit on them He was al rays on a diet Everytime he came to LASL l he inspected the messhall and the menus Be didn't approve of fatty foods Bat he kept j a Hershey bar in his safe N was finally admitted to Groves' office Groves looked V at N's papers and sniffed What's the matter with you are you a Hearst propagandist1 Groves meant by that crack that if he had to send alot of MPs and trucks into these towns for evacuation security might be compromised and ne rs of the test might reach the newspapers Groves seemed genuinely sore at N for bringing up the prospects og radioactive contamination He had rifle-barrel vision He was thinking only of the security aspect All of which made him a great soldier o 1 c - R -t L - ' -1 L °' sf _J t - ___ 199 Jl f Stafford Warren finally •onvinced Groves of the necessit r_for eva m ation p lans An A rmy' MP Capt Palmer a soutthern boy who'd been fighting Germans abroad ya s put in charge of the evacuation vehicles Plan 'WB S to station various scientists and monitors y ith geiger counters in motels in the vicinity the Graveses were one pair Diz Graves had been with Fermi at the 42 Chicago squash court experiment Diz vas present at this time a nd N was her obstetrecian Diz raised hel 1 to get in on the TR test She ras finally al lowed to perch in the 1 ' motel in Ce rizozo with husband Al Some months after TR the Slotin accident at LASL caused Al Graves to lose most of bis hair and become temproarily sterile Had N lmo1Pl of this prospect at time of TR - fact that that could happen and maybe account for the last Graves baby - he'd never have alloYed Diz out of LASL Also it we s learned later a mother and son who lived on a rancij near Soccoro where infected cows were found after test Yould have been terribly burned had tthey been outside at their ranch at time af test I Week before T shot Peer Da Silva warned N he was going to Tinian as a courier N was to be a scientific liaison man On Sunday July 15 N left LASL vith package of U-235 enroute for Tinian See No High Ground p 129 N ras aboardthe illfated Indianapolis when tt pulled out July 16 at daYD for Tinian from Hunter's Point San Francisco When he finally reached Tinian N asked an Arury colonel HoY did the Trinity test go The Colonel shook his head stuffily1 Sorry secuity But Deke Parsons later told N about the test the yield and height of fireball Anecodte At HE shot N h dangled several score test mice from telephone poles to see what blast effeG t on them would be The mice got e _ bit dizzy but yere not badly hurt The shoc ve simply tYirled tbetp around the wires a bit but didn't damage them Wright Langham later suggested to N that they build a special I rrack for stabilizing the miceh to better gauge the blast effect on them It was promptly dubbed Wright's Micerack Plaque on wall of Nolan's Office Uniited States of America War Department Army Service Forces - Corps of Engineers Manhattan District This is to certify that J F Nolan Has paiticipated in work essential to the production of the atomic bomb thereby contributing to the successful • 200 Conclusion of World War II This certificate is Awa rded in appreciation of effective service Henry L Stimson Secretary of War LOUIS JACOT seeond interview Talk about security precautions - fS'EttJ 1'f1 anyone with two good eyes could have found where Los Alamos was just by following the beer Ti bottles from Santa Fe 11 Plutonium came donw frm Hanford to LASL in two panel trucks that had been converted from Red Cross ambulances A radio-equipped security sedan led the procession They v drove iritfPI- ight fff - stopover in a Utah town Known as the fireball express • So arid in Jornada that a single cow was g'tven a I-square-mile grazing area Hans Staub was part of Anderson's post test experiment to recover fallout from 'lL @ the crater ne of the lead-lined tanks was nicknamed S•aub' s Fuq in paint on v-'t• Bruno Rossi and Enrico Fermi didn't like to give lectures at LASL because they were self-conscious about their thick Italian accents Rossi very precise 5 shy and finicky in bis manner Great dubonnet man Oppie alone with help from J 51-- I Fermi was able to pacify all the jealous prima donnas at LASL many of them froeign celebritiess Russians Britis Hungarians Germans Italians _e There as Dr Richard Feynman who played the bongos and Dr Edward Teller wllo C -aj · played atrocious piano Fermi was the only man who control Teller at LASL 11 Noir F dwa rd Fermi would temonstrate whenever Teller began _one of his farout theories Ashley Pond at LASL was named after the founder of the Ranch School Loe Almos f Yacht Club used pond asga pretext It was the ponl on which Fuchs used to feed the ducks belonging to Ralph Carlisle Smith c July 15 Night Marian Jacot a pretty young WAC with chestnut brown hair and and a beatific smile n tL 4rli_ engag ad _ is 1 was on a dat e with a GI The 2 J I ' pl 1 i had gone bowling but the GI had to leave on a bivouac early nert morning so Marian retired early that night ouis Jacot __ ' _a _l mustache and blue ey_es ind riinle glasses wa s sitting in one_of th t YJUl miles east of Saa Antonio i JPn yehi clu some 3