Remembering the Trinity Bomb, 60 Years Later

Editor's note: Further information about the July 14 symposium is available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cisac/An oral history of Johnston is posted at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/johnston.html

Photos of Johnston suitable for publication with captions are available at: http://www.today.uidaho.edu/PhotoList.aspx

Newswise — Lawrence Johnston, a University of Idaho physics professor emeritus, will join other scientists invited by the National Academy of Sciences to Washington, D.C., July 14 to recall the 1945 detonation of the first nuclear weapon.

The symposium will mark the 60th anniversary of Trinity, the first manmade nuclear explosion. The event will feature 11 scientists and veterans who participated in the test at the Trinity site on New Mexico's Alamogordo Bombing Range.

Johnston witnessed the successful early morning test July 16, 1945, and the later use of nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. He is believed to be the only person to witness all three.

Johnston was part of the Manhattan Project team in Los Alamos, N.M. from 1944 to 1945. He will join other Trinity veterans who will speak about the role each played then and their thoughts now.

The National Academy of Sciences symposium is sponsored by the academy's Committee on International Security and Arms Control. Other topics will include "From Trinity to Today's 30,000 Nuclear Weapons" and "The Future Role of Nuclear Weapons in International Relations."

Johnston has lived in Moscow with his wife, Millie, since he accepted a UI teaching position in 1967. He said he has been asked many times by interviewers about his immediate thought when the bomb went off.

In remarks prepared for the Thursday's roundtable, Johnston recalled, "No problem remembering. I exulted, 'Praise the Lord, my detonators worked!' I'm sure there were a number of people there who had been responsible for some essential component of the bomb who felt the same elation. If the bomb had fizzled, we each would have had dark thoughts that maybe it was our fault.

"President Truman at Potsdam would have gotten the news of the failure, and would not have had the nuclear card to play with Stalin. There would have been a big investigation," Johnston said.

Johnston led a team responsible for the ultra-fast detonators needed for implosion bombs. He holds US Patent 3,040,660 for the exploding bridgewire detonators for the coordinated timing of the implosion of "Fat Man" type of bombs.

Johnston witnessed the Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions from aboard B-29 bombers. For the bombs detonated in Japan, he was part of the team tasked with measuring bomb energy yields.

Johnston also helped develop microwave radar during work at the MIT Radiation Laboratory in Massachusetts from 1940 to 1943. He was part of the team that invented Ground Controlled Approach radar, which made it possible for people on the ground to talk pilots in for a safe landing, even on the darkest or foggiest of nights. That radar helped the Allies win World War II, and made possible the Berlin Airlift.

Johnston taught nuclear physics at the University of Idaho from 1967 until his retirement in 1988. His specialties involved lasers and spectroscopy

Since his retirement Johnston has pursued his interest in Biblical archaeology. Israeli archaeologists now use a geophysical tomography technique that Johnston advocated. It uses acoustic waves to look below the surface before they dig.

Johnston also has pursued an interest in studies about the origin of life.