Finding Aid (PDF, 430.718 KB)
Bush (1890-1974) was a physicist, engineer, government official, and science administrator. The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, writings, reports, speeches, minutes, laboratory notes, articles, a book file, scientific papers, diagrams, patents, clippings, press releases, printed matter, and photographs relating primarily to Bush's role in coordinating the scientific community for defense efforts during and after World War II as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee and director of its successor, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, where he supervised the Manhattan Project and other programs. Other agencies represented include the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Joint Commission on New Weapons of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Science Foundation, National Research Council, and National Academy of Sciences. Also documented are Bush's views on the interrelationship between science and government, technological influences on postwar US-Soviet relations, international control of nuclear energy, and the loyalty controversies during the McCarthy era.

Finding Aid (PDF, 149.685 KB)
Brode (1900-1974) was an educator, scientist, and government official. His papers contain correspondence; diaries; memoranda; speeches and writings; academic, travel, and subject files; awards; patents; printed material; and photographs chiefly relating to Brode's tenure as director (1951-1960) and foreign secretary (1965-1967) of the American Chemical Society, associate director (1947-1958) of the National Bureau of Standards, and science advisor (1958-1960) to US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Also documented are Brode's World War II positions with the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and the Alsos Mission to collect information on enemy scientific research (particularly on atomic energy), and on his postwar advisory positions with rocket research laboratories at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, California. Other papers document his work as a chemist on spectroscopy and applied optics.

Finding Aid (PDF, 160.780 KB)
Eckart (1902-1973) was a physicist, oceanographer, and educator. His papers include correspondence, writings, lectures, subject files, biographical information, printed materials, and photographs relating to Eckart's career in academics, government, and private enterprise. Scientific topics include Eckart's research in physics and thermodynamics while on the faculty of the University of Chicago (1928-1946), and as professor of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1946-1971). His resignation from the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development's National Defense Research Committee in opposition to development of the atomic bomb (1941) is documented, as is his work on the underwater detection of submarines at the University of California's Division of War Research during World War II; and his contributions to oceanography as director of the Marine Physical Laboratory (1946-1952). Also included are materials relating to Eckart's participation in professional organizations such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences's Committee on Science and Public Policy; his service in the Institute for Defense Analyses (1967-1968); and as consultant for commercial firms including General Dynamics Corporation and Rand Corporation.

Finding Aid (PDF, 124.804 KB)
Gerson (1915-2002) was a research physicist. The collection includes correspondence, biographical material, drafts and offprints of scientific articles, memoranda, minutes, notes and equations, reports, research material, rosters, schematics, and other papers documenting Gerson's career as a research physicist and his service as a member of the US National Committee for the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958). Gerson provided scientific advice to the US Air Force beginning in 1946, and from 1956 to 2001 was a senior scientist at the National Security Agency. Topics include airglow and auroras, ballistics research, cosmic rays, expeditions to Antarctic and Arctic regions, geomagnetism, glaciology, gravity, ionospheric research, meteorology, oceanography, radio wave propagation, rocket exploration of the upper atmosphere, rockets and artificial satellites, scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States, seismology, and solar activity.

Finding Aid (PDF, 116.352 KB)
Glendenin (1918-2008) was a nuclear chemist. His papers contain correspondence, writings, speeches, subject files, and printed matter documenting Glendenin's work on the Manhattan Project, the Bikini Scientific Resurvey of 1947, and his career at Argonne National Laboratory. Included is material pertaining to the discovery of Promethium, and to the petition to President Harry S. Truman by Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists which would allow the laboratory to demonstrate the power of the atomic bomb and give Japan the opportunity to surrender. The collection contains a copy of the 1945 report by Henry DeWolf Smyth on the Manhattan Project, and a file on the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland (1955).

Finding Aid (PDF, 270.958 KB)
Herzfeld (1925-2017) was a physicist and technology advisor. His papers contain correspondence, memoranda, reports, notes, speeches, writings, PowerPoint presentations, photographs, and other papers in physical and digital formats relating to Herzfeld's career as a physicist, a science and technology manager, and an advisor to policymakers in the federal government and in private industry. Included are documents concerning Herzfeld’s work at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he progressed from director of the ballistic missile defense program to director of the agency; and his tenure as director of Defense Research and Engineering and later as senior consultant to the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the George H. W. Bush administration. The papers highlight Herzfeld’s work in the areas of defense and information technology, and the application of developments in the realms of national security, warfare, and intelligence. A major portion of his work took place in the context of the Cold War, while a focus in the last years covered was combating terrorism.

Finding Aid (PDF, 141.358 KB)
Loeb (1914- ) was an author, economist, and government official. His papers include research files containing correspondence, journal excerpts, reports, minutes, speeches, writings, transcripts of interviews, and printed matter compiled by Loeb relating to Glenn Theodore Seaborg's chairmanship of the US Atomic Energy Commission (1961-1971) and to Loeb's assistance to Seaborg in writing books on his chairmanship and efforts to promote arms control and peaceful uses of nuclear power. The collection includes material on the allegations that Zalman M. Shapiro, president of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, provided Israeli associates with nuclear secrets and enriched uranium in the 1960s. Also included are Loeb's correspondence and interviews with McGeorge Bundy, W. Averell Harriman, and Theodore C. Sorenson.

(No Finding Aid)
Marks (1922-2006) was secretary to physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer during World War II and an arms control activist. Her papers consist chiefly of letters to Marks from Felix Frankfurter relating to national and international events and to personal matters. Other correspondents include Hubert H. Humphrey, Herbert S. Marks, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Subjects include Oppenheimer, his receipt of the Enrico Fermi Award for contributions to theoretical physics, and the revocation of his security clearance; the John F. Kennedy presidential inauguration; the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; and Anne W. Marks's work for the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Geneva, Switzerland.

Finding Aid (PDF, 1666.235 KB)
Mead (1901-1978) was an anthropologist, author, and educator. The collection includes correspondence, writings, field notes, notebooks, teaching and office files, organizational files, appointment books, family papers, photographs, and other papers chiefly concerning anthropological and ethnological field work, and research files for various studies. Subjects include cultural issues relating to World War II, cybernetics, ekistics (study of human settlements), health, interdisciplinary studies, nutrition, overpopulation, peace, population, race, and technological change. The collection also contains files on the perception of the Sputnik launch in non-Western cultures; the “Studies in Soviet Culture” project, 1947-1974; “Studies in Soviet Communication”; and analyses of other aspects of life and culture in the Soviet Union.

Finding Aid (PDF, 330.203 KB)
Métraux (1914-2003) was an anthropologist and author. Her papers contain correspondence, lectures, interview transcripts, writings, reports, proposals, field diaries, field notes and notebooks, questionnaires, statistical analyses, projective testing materials, artwork and drawings, maps, photographs, and other papers relating to Métraux's career as an anthropologist and her professional and personal relationship with anthropologist Margaret Mead. The files document the popular reaction to the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in October 1957 through elementary school essays and drawings, and responses to interviews and questionnaires by high school and college students and adults in the United States and Canada.

Finding Aid (PDF, 94.688 KB)
Murphree (1898-1962) was a scientist, engineer, and businessman. His papers contain correspondence, memoranda, speeches, reports, newspaper clippings, biographical material, photographs, and other papers relating primarily to Murphree's activities as president of Esso Research and Engineering Company, the research and development branch of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and as an official of the fifth World Petroleum Congress. The files on the congress include correspondence relating to the admission of Soviet scientists to the United States and their restriction with regard to technical information.

Finding Aid (PDF, 394.595 KB)
Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was a physicist and director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, speeches, lectures, writings, desk books, lectures, statements, scientific notes, inventories, newspaper clippings, and photographs chiefly comprising Oppenheimer's personal papers at the Institute for Advanced Study, but reflecting only incidentally his work there. Topics include theoretical physics, the development of the atomic bomb, the relationship between government and science, organization of research on nuclear energy, control of nuclear energy, security in scientific fields, secrecy, loyalty, disarmament, the education of scientists, international intellectual exchange, the moral responsibility of the scientist, the relationship between science and culture, and the public understanding of science. Material on Oppenheimer's World War II contributions is included, particularly concerning the Los Alamos project. Also documented are his postwar work as a consultant on the technical and administrative problems of the atomic bomb, and his service on the Atomic Energy Commission (including his hearing before its personnel security board that resulted in the revocation of his clearance). The files document his association with the Federation of American Scientists, National Academy of Sciences, and other scientific organizations, and with humanitarian organizations such as the Twentieth Century Fund, UNESCO. Of interest is a group of letters and memoranda written by physicist Niels Bohr to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter relating to the role of nuclear energy in international affairs, supplemented by Oppenheimer's correspondence with Bohr.

(No Finding Aid)
The collection is composed primarily of the correspondence of Gregory Breit and John Tate as editors of the periodical Physical Review concerning the attempts of US scientists to impose voluntary restrictions on the publication of scientific papers relating to nuclear fission and other classified scientific information during Wor ld War II.

Finding Aid (PDF, 236.371 KB)
Rabi (1898-1988) was a physicist and educator. His papers contain correspondence, memoranda, reports, articles, lectures, speeches, notes, notebooks, minutes of meetings, press releases, contracts, publications, charts, graphs, calculations, newspaper clippings, printed matter, and photographs. The collection documents Rabi's research in physics, particularly in the fields of radar and nuclear energy, leading to the development of lasers, atomic clocks, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to his 1944 Nobel Prize in physics. Also documented is his work as a consultant to the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and as an advisor on science policy to the US government, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during and after World War II. The files cover his academic work in physics, chiefly at Columbia University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The collection includes material on the peaceful uses of atomic energy, the strategic use of atomic weapons, a nuclear test ban, population control, problems of underdeveloped countries, reduction of Cold War tensions, the scientific community's role in diplomatic relations with allies, and the US space program. Also reflected is Rabi's work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, the President's Science Advisory Committee, and the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.

Finding Aid (PDF, 724.753 KB)
Seaborg (1912-1999) was a scientist, public official, and educator. His papers include correspondence, memoranda, journals, minutes, speeches, writings, reports, notebooks, scientific research, patents, briefings, itineraries, travel reports, staff recollections, biographical material, scrapbooks, and photographs documenting Seaborg's work as a nuclear chemist who co-discovered numerous chemical elements, as a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and as chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971. Subjects include Seaborg's work at the US Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago during World War II, his work on the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project, his membership on the first Atomic Energy Commission's General Advisory Committee (1947-1950), his association with the Atomic Scientists of Chicago, American-Soviet scientific exchange programs from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, intellectual property rights in the nuclear science field, the social, moral, and political implications of nuclear research, US nuclear policy, nuclear arms control including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, nuclear medicine, nuclear waste disposal, civilian uses of nuclear technology, and the history of nuclear science.

Finding Aid (PDF, 910.062 KB)
Sagan (1934-1996) was an astronomer, author, and educator. Ann Marcia Druyan (1949- ) is an author and television producer. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, scripts, book drafts and resource material, articles, reports, notes, subject files, course files, organization files, biographical material, clippings, printed matter, slides and transparencies, photographs and negatives, digital files, and other papers documenting Sagan's career as an astronomer, astrobiologist, science educator, television personality, and author. The collection documents the activities of Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan, in opposition to nuclear weapons, testing at the Nevada Test Site, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. It also includes material pertaining to Sagan's participation in the 1983 Conference on the Long-Term Worldwide Biological Consequences of Nuclear War held in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and his debate before Congress in 1984 with Edward Teller, one of the inventors of the hydrogen bomb. Drafts of Sagan's books, including "Nucleus," an unpublished book about the nuclear arms race, are also among the papers.

Online highlights: Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond

Finding Aid (PDF, 174.949 KB)
Sherwin (1937- ) is an author, biographer, and educator. The collection consists of research material gathered by Sherwin, Kai Bird, Alice Kimball Smith, and others for use by Bird and Sherwin in writing American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005). Included is correspondence, interviews, oral histories, government records, topical files, printed matter, photographs, and other papers. The files document Oppenheimer's work as director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, his political views, and investigations of his Communist associations. Subjects include the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, international control of atomic energy and weaponry, national security, and the US Atomic Energy Commission.

(No Finding Aid)
Teller (1908-2003) was a nuclear physicist. The collection consists of a typescript of Teller’s book The Legacy of Hiroshima regarding the role of nuclear weapons in American defense strategy and international relations.

Finding Aid (PDF, 424.286 KB)
Townes (1915-2015) was a physicist, astrophysicist, and educator. His papers include correspondence, speeches, writings, technical memoranda and notes, patents, grants and projects, teaching files, subject files, biographical material, and photographs relating chiefly to Townes's career as a physicist, especially in the development of the maser and the laser. His years as professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, are documented, as is his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 and the Templeton Foundation Prize in 2005. In 1959 Townes began work for the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, DC, a nonprofit agency organized to assist the federal government with technical advice. Growing out of the institute and founded in 1960 was the JASON Defense Advisory Group, a part-time defense think tank for university professors that evaluated national issues involving science and technology. Townes continued with the group through the 1990s. Material for both organizations includes correspondence, contract agreements, reports, studies, and printed matter. Also recorded is Townes’s work on research grants funded by the Army Research Office and other defense-related agencies.

Finding Aid (PDF, 159.077 KB)
Von Braun (1912-1977) was an aerospace engineer and served as director and administrator of US space programs and projects. His papers contain correspondence, fan mail, speeches and writings, public relations material, subject files, scrapbooks, and printed material relating to Von Braun's career in rocketry and aerospace engineering, from his early work on the V-2 rocket in Germany during World War II to his service at the US Department of Defense, the Redstone Arsenal, and the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. The collection includes material pertaining to guided missiles, rocketry, and space exploration in general; as well as papers relating to the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. Von Braun's associations with the American Rocket Society and Gesellschaft für Weltraumsforschung are documented, as are his connections with General Dynamics, General Motors, IBM, Lockheed, Sperry-Rand, and other corporations involved in aerospace work.

Finding Aid (PDF, 188.845 KB)
John Von Neumann (1903-1957) was a mathematician, atomic energy commissioner, and educator; Klara Dan Von Neumann (1911-1963) was a computer programmer. The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, journals, speeches, article and book drafts, notes, biographical material, family papers, printed matter, newspaper clippings, charts, graphs, a patent, photographs, and other papers pertaining primarily to Von Neumann's career as professor of mathematics, scientific advisor to government and industry, and author, and to the scientific career of his wife, Klara Dan Von Neumann. The papers include files on Von Neumann's work as professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ); as director of the Electronic Computer Project; as adviser and commissioner on the US Atomic Energy Commission; and as scientific consultant to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM); and the US Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (Aberdeen, MD). There are also files concerning Von Neumann's publications on ballistic research, computers, continuous geometries, logic, operator theory, quantum mechanics, and the theory of games.