7

In the scene, an aquarium bowl filled with marbles is shown, followed by Robert and General Groves walking outside Los Alamos. Robert inquires about the progress of their work, to which General Groves responds with a rhetorical question about the two years and a billion dollars’ worth of investment:

ROBERT: Well, hard to put a price on it.

General Groves: Not really, just add up the bills. "Rural free deliveries." Eighty babies delivered the first year. This year, we've had ten a month.

Why did General Groves mention the baby delivery count here?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
16

It's just the movie's passing reference to the fact that there were lots of wives on the site of the Manhattan Project and hence also lots of deliveries. Groves might also be griping that in addition to housing and feeding the scientists, workers, and their families, they also have to birth, house, and feed newborn infants.

It's also a passing reference to the fact that Kitty Oppenheimer was pregnant during this time. (She gave birth to Katharine on December 7, 1944.)

OPPENHEIMER

Progress.

GROVES

Two years and a billion dollars’ worth?

OPPENHEIMER

Hard to put a price on it.

GROVES

Not really. Just add up the bills.

(points)

'Rural free delivery'... Eighty babies delivered the first year. This year they’ve had ten a month.

OPPENHEIMER

Birth control’s a little out of my jurisdiction, General.

Groves watches Kitty approach- she’s HEAVILY PREGNANT.

GROVES

Clearly.

"Rural free delivery" might be an official (and slightly deceptive) item in the Manhattan Project's financial accounts.

Improve this answer
4
  • Also PO Box 1663, the one address for everyone in Los Alamos - losalamoshistory.org/store/inside-box-1663
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Nov 25 at 14:04
  • 2
    Not knowing what 'rural free delivery' was, I had an 'aha' moment thinking that it meant delivering babies since those words are so close together in the general's statement. Then I clicked the wikipedia link and realized it was postal services.
    – aherocalledFrog
    Commented Nov 25 at 16:41
  • 5
    @aherocalledFrog I think the general does mean delivering babies; he's just facetiously referring to it by the name of something else, in the same way that someone today might refer to a wastebasket as File 13 or a toilet as the Oval Office.
    – Lee C.
    Commented Nov 25 at 18:31
  • 2
    @Valorum "Rural Free Delivery" also became the nickname of the no-cost Los Alamos hospital due to the large number of wives who had children there. Perhaps not official, but it apparently was common to use RFD to refer to Los Alamos births.
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Commented Nov 25 at 18:39
11

This comes directly from the source biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Groves is clearly distressed at the spiralling costs of running what almost immediately became a boom town, with a rapidly increasing population of non-scientists.

INSIDE THE BARBED WIRE, Kitty sometimes felt as if she were living under a microscope. The Army commissary often had foods and goods available on the outside only with a ration card. The theater showed two movies a week for only 15 cents a show. Medical care was free. So many young couples had babies—some eighty births were recorded the first year, and about ten a month thereafter—that the small seven-room hospital was labeled “RFD,” for “rural free delivery.” When General Groves complained about all the new babies, Oppenheimer wryly observed that the duties of a scientific director did not include birth control. And that was also true for the Oppenheimers. By then, Kitty was pregnant again. On December 7, 1944, she gave birth in the Los Alamos barracks hospital to a daughter, Katherine, whom they nicknamed “Tyke.” A sign was posted over the crib saying “Oppenheimer,” and for several days people filed by to take a peek at the boss’s baby girl.

The Rural Free Delivery service was a postal service that gave 'free delivery' to Americans living in areas away from the normal postal routes, hence the joke.

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .