TLS signed “J. R. Oppenheimer,” one page, 7.25 x 9.25, P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, New Mexico letterhead, October 1, 1945. Letter to Louis N. Handlin, in full: “This letter is to acknowledge your contribution to the work of the Los Alamos Bomb Project. Your group leader has asked me to commend you for your work in the Explosives Division of this Project. The excellent manner in which you shouldered the responsibilities of Shift Supervisor contributed in no small degree to the successful accomplishment of our task. Your ability to secure the co-operation of the men working for you even when it meant working long hours per week and much overtime at regular army pay enabled the project to maintain its tight time schedule. We regret that a description of your precise job and details of your personal accomplishments must remain a secret of the U.S. Government. However, this in itself is an indication of the importance of your contribution to the project.” Matted and framed to an overall size of 11.75 x 13.75. In fine condition, with light handling wear.
An exceptional letter from the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, dated two months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a month after the close of World War II. Oppenheimer writes a gracious letter to a worker in the Explosives Division, a group that was essential to the development and successful detonation of the first atomic bomb. He acknowledges the difficulty of the position, with its long hours and “tight time schedule,” and then regrets to reemphasize the ‘absolute secrecy’ of the work, a mandate initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and a chief concern of General Leslie R. Groves. Anyone on the grounds of Los Alamos needed a purpose and a pass, information was compartmentalized, all employees were required to sign secrecy oaths, and signs and billboards across the facility admonished workers: ‘What you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here!’ Secrecy proved a daunting task of the Manhattan Project, which, at its peak in June 1944, employed about 129,000 workers.
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