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    "title": "Transcript of Lansing Lamont Interview with Dr. Raemer Schreiber, Deputy Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory (Tape IX)",
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    "ocrText": "-4-\nby a sensitive metal shell. And if this shell should break, it represents\na personnel hazard, in the first place. And then if a very large amount of\nit can get out, it will react with other materials and produce a background\nwhich could have an effect on the nuclear explosion. This would be really\na very drastic sort of thing.\nLAMONT: Was there a sort of aluminum shell about cord here\nDR. SCHREIBER: It wasn't aluminum. Of course, it was completely\nenclosed as far as the plutonium was concerned.\nLAMONT: Is it possible to tell in layman terms very briefly how\nyou assembled this material, what it involved?\nDR. SCHREIBER: Well I should have done my homework on the\npresent\nprogram.\nTRUMAN\nNATIONAL\nLIMITED\nARCHAVES\nAND\nLAMONT: I don't me an to get too detailed on this.\nRECORDS\nSERVICE\nDR. SCHREIBER: No, generally speaking, the explosive system\nconsists of taking an amount of fissionable material, which is normally sub- -\ncritical - - that is to say, the neutron fission interaction will not propagate(?)\nbecause the neutrons leak out too rapidly. And then you simply squeeze that\nW ith the enorm ous forces which can be produced by high explosives. Well you\ncan, of course, guess that what you require then is a very fine symmetrical\nsystem, which will not split out. I mean that is somewhat the situation where\nyou are trying to squeeze a rubber balloon with your hands, and if you let a little\nbit of the balloon protrude between your fingers, it's all going to split out. So\nyou need a nice, smooth procedure for doing this. Well, it also follows that if\nyou have any cracks or dissemytries (?) of the other sort, in the material itself,"
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