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Road Trip to Trinity

Words: Alexandra Bell
Pictures: Alexandra Bell / Owl Café / Twin Peaks
Date:
I glanced nervously out at the parking lot, as the rental company clerk at the Albuquerque airport informed me that given the recent winter weather, the small SUV I reserved was not available. They had instead, he explained, saved me a beast of a truck. I used to drive a 1973 Chevy truck with no power steering and rusted holes in the floorboard, but it had been awhile since I’d driven anything that big. I sucked it up and motioned for the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller to follow me out to the parking lot. She saw our ride and laughed about how her car could likely fit in the bed of the truck.
We were in New Mexico for a few days of meetings and a trip to the location of the world’s first nuclear explosion — the Trinity Site.
Joining our ladies’ road trip to Trinity was Dr. Jill Hruby, Director of Sandia National Laboratories. Jill was the first female director of a nuclear weapons lab, but I got the feeling that she did not want to be defined by that. She was an expert, first and foremost. Rose has a similar attitude, but neither should be surprised to find themselves heavily referenced as role models for women in the field.
We finally arrived at the Stallion Gate and were met by another woman, an employee of White Sands. We got into her truck and drove into the wide empty expanses of the missile range. Our guide said to keep an eye out for African Oryx, which were brought to the range in the early 1970s for big-game hunting. I never saw one, but I assumed that was because they all had the good sense to stay out of the gale force winds blowing across the desert. (We did not.)
When we finally arrived at the Trinity Site, it seemed almost unreal. A fence and an obelisk in the middle of nowhere. It was cold — the kind of cold that finds its way through your protective layers of clothing, chilling you to the core. Still, it was easy to push the cold to the back of my mind, as the rest of my senses took in the strange surroundings. We walked past the tower moorings that held the Gadget (the name for the first nuke) in place above the ground. (3) We approached the obelisk, which marks the epicenter of the Trinity blast.
I put my hand on the stone pillar and thought of the magnitude of what transpired at that very spot and how it changed the world forever. My thoughts then drifted to my first trip to Hiroshima and the connection between the two places.
We were mostly silent, walking around in the bitter wind, looking at the educational signs that lined the fences. I saw Rose standing, deep in thought and gazing back at the obelisk. It made me think about the weight of her position and the grace and strength with which she carried it. I thought about how she told interns at State that if Manhattan Project scientists could figure out a way to make a nuclear weapon, then surely we could find a way to eliminate them.
As we left the blast zone, we stopped at Jumbo, the enormous containment unit built to save the Gadget’s plutonium, in case the bomb malfunctioned and failed to achieve a chain reaction.
In the end, the scientists were confident in their design and Jumbo was left in the desert, gaining a second life as an atomic photo prop.
Our last stop at White Sands was the Schmidt-McDonald Ranch House, which served as the makeshift lab and weapon construction site back in 1945. (8) It is a lonely little place — the sort of building you expect to see in a Western. The only hint of the ground-breaking science that happened inside was a small marker outside and the writing scrawled across the side door.
That door was the entrance to the “clean room.” Once inside, we all looked around the room in amazement. The simple counters, painted borders, and pine floors all stood in stark contrast to the high-tech facilities at our modern-day weapons labs. Nevertheless, it was here that the most sensitive parts of the Gadget were assembled.
The house was in some disrepair. Age, the elements, and various creatures were taking a toll. I looked out the window and contemplated about all the fears, doubts and expectations that must have been rattling Manhattan Project scientists as they prepared for the Trinity test. It made me think about all the fears, doubts, and expectations surrounding the Obama Administration’s work to reduce nuclear threats. For them and for us, the future was uncertain, but the tasks were clear. Just press on, I told myself.
As we drove away from the site, I thought about how I had now stood at the site of the first three nuclear blasts. More than 2,000 more blasts would take place over the 50 years following Trinity. It seemed overwhelmingly clear that 2,000 was more than enough. It was (and still is) time to end explosive nuclear testing once and for all. Like most things, that is easier said than done.
Before heading back north, Rose, Jill and I stopped at the Owl Café for one of their famous green chile cheeseburgers. Manhattan Project scientists often dined there back in 1945, telling patrons they were prospectors.
Endnote: If you have not seen David Lynch’s take on the Trinity explosion, have a look. (11) It is entirely at odds with my cold, quiet visit to the site and for good reason. What happened on the morning of July 17, 1945 was neither cold, nor quiet. Lynch’s visuals are jarring and the music (Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki) is even harder to bear. I imagine that in creating these works, Lynch and Penderecki wanted people to feel uncomfortable and disconcerted. In that state, it becomes hard to separate the theory of nuclear weapons use from the reality of a nuclear blast — and the two should never be separated. // Photo via Twin Peaks

Editor’s Note: This story comes to us from Alex Bell, Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation and former Director for Strategic Outreach in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the Department of State, who we profiled here. Click through the photos above to read about her road trip to the site of the first U.S. nuclear weapons test, Trinity, and explore the links below to learn more.

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11

Author bio

Alexandra Bell

Author

Alexandra (Alex) Bell is the Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the Council for a Livable World. Before that, she served as a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. A returned Peace Corps Volunteer and a UNC alumna, she is the only WMD policy expert to ever come out of Tuxedo, North Carolina… probably.

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