A Biography of Dr. John M. Googin - Y-12 National Security ...

FYI
The extension of 9202 was being finished in the
fall of ’44 and the crew was being trained. There was
a pleasant new shift supervisor on the evening shift.
He would drop over to the laboratory in the old BT
to discuss how the improved processes were coming
along, and would want to gossip about how the
overall project was going, and was wondering what
an atomic bomb might really look like. He was
interested in having “part” of the crew over to his
house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, with drinks
(illegal in town) and conversation. His name was Al
Slack and he, after the war was over, was found to be
a Soviet spy and got thirty years.
There is an interesting story about the head of
the chemistry department from Brown University.
He was developing new ethers that would extract
uranium as the nitrate, and also have high boiling
points, one being the Dibutyl Carbitol that we still
use. On his first visit to the area he came with his
brief case that doubled as a bar. In the search at the
gate, he was told that he could not come into the
military reservation with his brief case bar. He called
the commanding officer of the area and set down a
rule - no brief case, no visit. He and his brief case
visited. [Ed. note - this is reminiscent of the story
about Charles Steinmetz and his cigar (“No smoke,
no Steinmetz”)]
There were a lot of people from all parts of the
project in the dormitories. The usual conversations
gave continued information about scattered details of
the project which could be put together. Before long
the nature of the progress being made was obvious
to many of those who worked at the technical level
of the project.
FYI 48
At the dormitory there was an interesting engineer
in the next room named Joe. He was short and
round and sixtyish and liked to stay up late to talk.
He was interested in things technical, especially the
technology of filtration systems. It seems that he had
been a representative of the Oliver United Co in
filter sales and technical service to the sugar industry
involving both beets in North America and cane in
South and Central America. He was full of the tales
of how, in the course of his activities, he got involved
in dealing with complex technical problems in the
industry and even got involved in helping solve a
Central American revolution or two. Most of what
he said made technical and historical sense. A lot
about filtration technology was learned. A lot was
learned about the Alpha Calutron units and their
vacuum- tank face-plate problems along the way.
It was also obvious that Joe was angry at his old
company for some reason and did not want them to
know where he was. A secret city seemed to fit the
bill for him to hide in. After the war he was going to
retire to his cabin in the Rocky Mountains above
Trinidad, Colorado.
There was a need for a filter, and one of those
contacted was a sales person for Oliver United.
During the conversation he was asked if an interesting
person named Joseph Valentine Zentherfer might
mean something to him. He was visibly taken aback
and said that the man was a legend and the things
that he had done often seemed to have been the
impossible. The sales person wanted to know where
Joe was, and was told that it was not possible to say.
A few weeks later a personal letter from the president
of Oliver United was received for delivery to
Joe. The content and effect of the letter were never
revealed.