Life in a Secret City
Los Alamos was not on any map. Those who moved here could not tell friends or family where they were or what they were working on. No one could enter or leave the secret city except through guarded gates. Within Los Alamos, additional security surrounded the tech area and the laboratories were off limits except to those with special badges.
Code names were given to well known scientists and code words assigned to lab work. The bomb was the gadget, Los Alamos was known as the Hill. The only address civilians shared with the outside world was PO box 1663 in Santa Fe. Military police monitored phone calls and censored mail.
For Manhattan project personnel, information was compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis, except for weekly colloquiums during which scientists could freely exchange ideas. No one was allowed to discuss their outside work, even with their families.
Growing Pains
The site was chosen partly because of its remote location, and partly because it had existing structures. Originally home to the Los Alamos Ranch School, the picturesque campus became a hectic, muddy construction site in the winter and spring of 1942-1943 as the army hastily prepared "Site Y" for the influx of scientists and soldiers. During the Manhattan Project the site was a temporary army post, not built to last and not designed for comfort.
Initial plans assumed Los Alamos would be home to 300 people- a woeful under estimate. By the end of 1945 more than 8,000 lived there. Throughout the project years and despite continued expansion, the demand for laboratory facilities, infrastructure, housing, and essential services constantly exceeded the supply. Living conditions were rough. Workers and their families dealt with cramped quarters, electrical outages, water shortages, smoking stoves, snow, mud,wind, cold, and rain.
A Unique Community
With people living and working behind guarded gates, wartime Los Alamos was not just a high pressure workplace but also a rapidly growing community with unique problems. As the constant influx of personnel overwhelmed the army's efforts to house them, a residential hierarchy developed. Scientists had priority for the better dwellings. Technicians and military officers came next. Soldiers lived in dormitories and barracks. Construction and maintenance workers made due with trailers, huts, or temporary housing.
Friction was inevitable between the civilian scientists and the military. The civilians scoffed at rules and restrictions, complained about the quantity and quality of food, and demanded better services such as schools, health care, house cleaning, and babysitting, forming a town council to have a voice in these matters.
Living in a challenging environment far from home, site residents sought a semblance of normalcy in community activities such as religious services, theater groups, holiday celebrations, and even a closed circuit radio station.
Security and Secrecy
Secrecy was of the utmost importance during the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project workers and their families who lived at the three primary sites (Los Alamos, NM, Oak Ridge, TN, and Hanford, WA) were told that the nature of their work was crucial to victory and the safety of the United States. It wasn’t until midway through the war that mail censorship became a staple of life for residents of the “secret cities.”
According to the Office of Censorship, Manhattan Project participants were forbidden to discuss: “(a) Your present location except that it is in New Mexico; (b) the names of your associates and the personnel employed on the project both military and civilian; (c) the professions of personnel employed at the project; (d) the nature or any details of your work; and (e) the number of people at the project either military or civilian.”
The process of censorship at Los Alamos was slightly different than the censorship a soldier abroad experienced, where parts of letters were blacked out or removed from the letter. Manhattan Project workers and their families were ordered to send outgoing mail unsealed, so it could be read by the censors. Incoming mail was also censored before it was delivered. The incoming mail that was censored was still not allowed to be cut, per Project Y director J. Robert Oppenheimer’s instructions.
Dick Skancke (Manhattan Project Security Guard) discusses Security Checks
Badges
Every employee that worked at one of the Manhattan Project sites had a security badge that displayed their picture, their job position, and their level of clearance. An employee's job usually determined their level of clearance.
Construction workers, low-level engineers, and metallurgical workers usually had low-level clearance, which meant their work was highly compartmentalized and they were informed on a "need-to-know" basis. These workers were generally given red or blue badges, depending on their level.
Top-level physicists, engineers, and important scientists usually had the highest clearance, and generally knew that the overall goal of the Manhattan Project was to build an atomic bomb. These workers were given white badges, which entitled them (at least those at Los Alamos) to sit in on lectures that Oppenheimer frequently delivered to discuss the project's progress and address some of the key problems scientists faced.
White level clearance badge