FTR#1307 Interview with Peter Vogel (Reprise of FTR#444 Because of the Attention Generated by the Movie “Oppenheimer”)

Dave Emory's "For The Record"

Following up information presented in Miscellaneous Archive Show M23 and FTRs 129, 163, this broadcast features the landmark research of Peter Vogel on the Port Chicago explosion of 7/17/1944. One of the largest man-made disasters in history, the Port Chicago explosion claimed the lives of 320 sailors, 220 of them African Americans. Subsequently, African-American sailors refused to continue loading ammunition at Port Chicago and were convicted of Mutiny. Officially the explosion of conventional munitions aboard an ammunition ship, the E.A. Bryan, the Port Chicago blast was actually the test of an early atomic weapon, the autocatalytic uranium hydride lateral implosion experimental device—named the Mark II. After relating Peter's long odyssey exploring the explosion and the official dissembling that surrounds the event, the program relates the fascinating documentary trail confirming the nature of the explosion and the chronology of this early, significant step in the development of the atomic weapons. Program Highlights Include: Peter's proof that a sufficient amount of fissionable material for testing a fission weapon was available in 1944 (despite official pronouncements to the contrary); the negative reactions of Edward Teller (father of the H-bomb) and Donald Kerr (director of Los Alamos National Laboratory) to Peter's inquiries about Port Chicago; the tremendous interest of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in this (supposedly conventional) explosion; the background of Captain William Parsons (the point man for the Los Alamos research on Port Chicago); the characteristics of the explosion that pinpoint it as being a nuclear fission blast; correspondence among some of the principals in the Manhattan Project confirming that the Port Chicago explosion was a test of the Mark II; indications that the Germans were working on a uranium hydride weapon; Soviet espionage on the Manhattan Project that indicated awareness of the test of Mark II; the possible significance of the Port Chicago explosion for the revocation of Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance; the significance of the Port Chicago explosion in the history of African-American civil liberties. Note: This description is formatted by presenting the questions that Dave asked Peter Vogel, and then a synoptic overview of Peter's response. For more detailed information about the Port Chicago explosion, see The Last Wave from Port Chicago.