CHAPTER 1

How my family came to Los Alamos

Los Alamos is a small rural town situated high on several plateauareas of the Jemez mountain range in the northern central partof New Mexico. From the point of view of a casual observer, itmay be rather unusual to see a community seemingly thrivingwithout obvious economic or industrial bases to support thetown's prosperity. The town name Los Alamos is, however,synonymous to Los Alamos National Laboratory, and thisLaboratory has been the nation's premier defense nuclearinstitution for over six decades now. The United States federalgovernment injects funds in excess of two billion dollarsannually for the operation of the Laboratory and this Laboratoryalong with other sister national laboratories is responsible forthe maintenance and upkeep of the nation's nuclear weaponscapabilities.

As the human nature goes, places and events come intoexistence from the time when we become aware of our ownsurroundings. Things and events are rediscovered all the timeas newcomers appear on the scene. In the meantime, though,history records some of the significant events and places thatexisted before our consciousness of our immediate and faraway environment. My personal awareness and subsequentknowledge about Los Alamos came only after I finished myformal academic training and was spending a year at PurdueUniversity in Lafayette, Indiana. I was looking for a professionalcareer in a reputable research institution in about 1973 timeframe. Part of the reason for my delayed awareness of this placewas also due to the fact that Los Alamos and what it meant toordinary folks had been shrouded in heavily guarded secrecy upuntil early 1960's. Los Alamos was closed to the public up untilthat time.

It was early in the spring of 1974. I traveled to Albuquerque,New Mexico from Lafayette, Indiana where I was working as apostdoctoral fellow at Purdue for the prior one year. This wasthe first time I set my foot in New Mexico. In those days or eventoday, some people in the United States of America may havethought that New Mexico was a northern province of Mexico,and some New Mexicans made the humorous comment thatthe citizens of the US could travel to New Mexico withoutobtaining a Mexican travel visa. To that extent my own personalimpression of this place was different from all my previousexperiences.

From Albuquerque, I flew to Los Alamos in a tiny four-seatplane. I was the only passenger sitting next to the pilot. Thepilot explained that, when the desert land warmed up by thebright sun in the early afternoon, the small plane ride could bea little bumpy. Fortunately for me, though, it took only about 30minutes or so from taking off to landing and soon we arrived ata tiny airport on a mountain plateau. Walking out of the airportbuilding, there was a taxi waiting right outside the exit door andI told the driver to take me to the Los Alamos Inn in the town.

The next morning I was escorted to the Personnel Departmentof Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. There, I filled out myjob application form along with all required security-relatedpersonnel information for my background check in the eventthat I worked at the Laboratory. They informed me that anyposition offer at the Laboratory was contingent upon myobtaining a personnel security clearance. The investigation ofmy background would be conducted by the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI) and this might take several months from thetime of a job offer. At the Personnel Department, I was badgedwith a red-striped security un-cleared visitor's badge and wasescorted to the Technical Area 46 for my prearranged seminarpresentation.

Normally, I would have been much worried about what I mighthave expected to find out from this place. For reasons that Icould not explain, I was rather calm and only curious aboutwhat I might find out about this place. My initial impression wasthat this place was vast and yet it had a charming, fascinatingand attractive aspect. I believe that the place had a calmingeffect on me only one month after my Lawrence-LivermoreNational Laboratory interview trip. What I saw was so far asmall number of people and the buildings and heavily forestedmountains. It was not much of an imposing image. The overallappearance was that of a small town nestled deep inside a tallpine tree forested area. There was quite a contrast betweenthe Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory site and the Los AlamosLaboratory site. Because of my humble rural background inKorea while I was growing up, I was generally more attracted torural scenes than to a heavily built-up urban environment.

Toward the end of my postdoctoral appointment at Purdue,I decided that I would seek a position in a research laboratory.While there were a number of prominent research laboratoriesin the nation, the two most attractive places for me were theresearch laboratories in Livermore and in Los Alamos. Initiallywhen I started searching for a position, I did not know muchabout any of these scientific laboratories. Like in everythingelse, my curiosity combined with my ignorance about theseplaces fueled further interest in me. Besides, Joan was alwaysvery excited about the possibility of visiting these places, letalone of living in one of these places. I sent letters of job inquiryto both places and immediately received invitations fromboth the Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratories. I acceptedthe Livermore invitation first and went out there one monthprior to my Los Alamos trip. The head of the department atLawrence Livermore National Laboratory who invited me forthe interview informed me that they were searching for anindividual who would be interested in pursuing research intheir explosive research laboratory. Apparently, they learnedfrom my application form that I had some polymer andplastics experience and asked me if I would be interested inworking in this field again. After my industrial experience in thepetrochemical industry, all my...