Courtesy photo
Los Alamos Historical Society News:
WGN MANHATTAN PROJET
Were women allowed at Trinity?
In this episode, Helen wasn’t allowed to go to the test site, probably because she is working on Little Boy and not on the gadget.
Liza has been at the Trinity site for several episodes, collecting specimens for her research on the biological effects of radioactivity.
In real life, there was only one female Division Leader, and she was the only Division Leader not permitted to attend the Trinity Test. Charlotte Serber ran the scientific library and was told there would not be “facilities” for her.
However, other women were at Trinity Site. A woman whose name is lost to history drove a five-ton truck during construction of the site. Two WACs, Myrtle Bachelder and Harryette Hunter Emmerson, were invited to the test but were unable to attend.
Theoretical physicist Mary Argo was present at Trinity, and was the only female civilian scientist to be formally invited. Many other women working on the project were able to observe the test, from the Jemez Mountains like Pat Krikorian or the closer Sandia Mountains like Lilli Hornig.
For more about women and the Manhattan Project, an excellent book is Howes and Herzenberg’s Their Day in the Sun.
Was Perseus real?
Decrypted and declassified KGB documents mention a Soviet spy inside Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project with the covername Perseus. The identity of Perseus has never been determined.
Perseus first came to light in publications in the 1990s.
Some Cold War historians argue that Perseus was actually a fictional figure, an invention of the KGB.
If he or she were a real person, Perseus was an undiscovered spy operating in Los Alamos during the 1940s and 50s. In the Venona messages, decrypted in the 1990s, the covername “Perseus” is never used, only the covername PERS, also called FOGEL.
The three known Soviet spies are also mentioned in these messages: Klaus Fuchs (CHARLES and REST), Ted Hall (YOUNGSTER [MLAD]), and David Greenglass (BUMBLEBEE and CALIBRE).