Assembler of first atomic bomb dies

[swjones@lanl.gov (Sherry Jones)]

Assembler of first atomic bomb dies

August 21, 1997


LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (Reuter) -- Norris Bradbury, the physicist who
assembled the first atomic bomb and then headed the key Los Alamos nuclear
laboratory for 25 years during the Cold War, has died at the age of 88.

His family said that Bradbury died at his Los Alamos home on Wednesday night.

Bradbury joined Los Alamos' top-secret Manhattan Project in 1944 and led
the team charged with assembling the non-nuclear components for the world's
first atomic bomb explosion. That successful explosion, on July 16, 1945,
at Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, was a precursor to the bombing of
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following month.


********************************
Sherry W. Jones
Los Alamos National Laboratory
P. O. Box 1663, MS E524
Los Alamos, NM 87545
Phone (505) 665-2712
Fax: (505) 665-8997
E-Mail: swjones@lanl.gov
********************************

IF PEOPLE FROM OUTER SPACE ARE REALLY WATCHING US, SHOULDN'T WE BE ABLE TO
HEAR THEM GIGGLING?