had been completed. Now it was mostly a job of maintaining the equipment and building more of the same. Dot's reaction to the change of plans was a request for a larger house. Although we had been entitled to a ? sq. ft. "C" cottage, we had continued to live in the 770 sq. ft. "A" cottage.

I take another leap ahead to August 6, 1945. I received a call from the office of Martin Whitaker. the Director of Clinton Laboratories, summoning me to a staff meeting in the conference room. At the meeting Dr. Whitaker read a portion of a statement that had just been released by President Truman. An atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. The bomb had the destructive force of 20,000 tons of TNT. The Manhattan Project had succeeded. Before leaving the meeting we were handed a typed statement telling us exactly what to tell our people. It included excerpts from the President's release and then a statement saying that Clinton Laboratories had been a part of the project and had made important contributions to it. It congratulated each employee for his or her personal contribution and warned that security was still important. We were to say no more about the project than was included in official releases.

In a state of euphoria, I hurried back to the Instrument Shop and asked my secretary to summon all members of the group to a meeting in the machine shop, the only room large enough to accommodate the entire crew. While people were assembling. 1 called Dot and told her to turn on the radio and tell the neighbors to do the same.

When the group was assembled. I climbed up on a bench at the side of the shop and read Dr. Whitaker's statement. Those who had been cleared responded with a cheer. The others may not have understood the full significance of the announcement, but they obviously were pleased to have been a part of so important a war effort. I knew as 1 jumped down from the bench that I was experiencing a moment in history and, for what reason I don't know, a couple of tears rolled down my cheeks.

From the start of the project, I had experienced a mixture of feelings about and reactions to our work: the challenge of this amazing new science and technology, the share in making history, the fear of failure, the hope for success. I went home that night with a feeling of great pride in what had been accomplished. Mine had been one of the lesser roles, but I was proud of what I had done for the war effort. 1 was confident the bomb would bring an early end to the war and for that I was thankful.

The next day there came the sobering realization of the terrible destructive force of the new weapon. War, already horrible, had been made more so. Some of the scientists said they had been told that the bomb would be used only as a threat to Japan and would never be dropped. Some were openly critical of the President's decision to drop the bomb. The Du Pont people, those with whom I worked most closely, had never heard of any such strategy. We had been told that the military needed this ultimate weapon to bring the war to a quick end. Our concern throughout had been that the enemy might get it first. Although the euphoria of the previous day was moderated by the full realization of the effects of the bomb, we felt that we had done our work well and that President Truman had made a good decision to use it to end the war.

My last contact with the Manhattan Project was a bill I received for rent on our house. The movers had come one day later than planned and I owed $1.67 rent. I sent the check.