Oral history interviews with Hans Bethe conducted by Charles Weiner and Jagdish Mehra on Oct. 27-28, 1966, Nov. 17, 1967, and May 8-9, 1972. Subjects include natural radioactivity; ideas of nuclear constitution, size in 1920s; Gamow-Condon-Gurney theory of alpha decay, 1928; discovery of the neutron, 1932; Cambridge as a center of research, 1933; early theories of nuclear forces; analysis of short-range nuclear forces, 1935-1940; reasons for writing Reviews of Modern Physics review articles, 1936-1937, and detailed review of articles' contents; beta decay and the neutrino hypothesis; application of group-theoretic methods to nuclear physics, 1936-1937; compound nucleus model, 1936; nuclear models in general (compound nucleus, evaporation, liquid drop, direct interaction, statistical); contemporary knowledge of nuclear physics, 1938-1939; stellar energy production; energy limit on the cyclotron; accelerators and theoreticians; nuclear physics at Los Alamos; post-war conferences; origins and development of the shell model of the nucleus; many-body theory in nuclear physics; current algebras in particle physics; origins and development of the optical model and of the collective model; autobiographical comments on political, social, and scientific conditions in Germany and England in the early 1930s; nuclear studies at Cornell after the war; building the H-bomb; the Oppenheimer hearings; work as a consultant, 1950-1970; involvement with PSAC, 1956; views on disarmament; and receipt of 1967 Nobel Prize.

Also, oral history interview with Hans Bethe conducted by Lillian Hoddeson, April 29, 1981. Subjects include Bethe's research in solid state physics from the period of Sommerfeld's institute through his thesis; his work in Frankfort and Stuttgart; and the writing of Sommerfeld and Bethe's article, "Elektronentheorie der Metalle" for the Handbuch der Physik 24/2 (Springer, 1933).