Dear Cha-Wel-Dor-Sue:

Since neither Pat nor I had ever been in New Mexico, we decided that we would like to spend a week in this most interesting state, and chose Santa Fe to be our headquarters for the week.

New Mexico is the 47th state in our Union, having been granted statehood in 1912. Apparently, prior to this time, it had been administered as a "territory". The earliest history of this area is associated with the travels of the Spaniards, who came north from Mexico City, and who established in Santa Fe, in the year 1610, a capital, from which they administered the surrounding areas. Since the establishment of Santa Fe occurred in the year 1610, or ten years before our Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, it makes Santa Fe the oldest capital in continuous operation in the entire United States. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of our visit was that it introduced me to the history of our early southwest area and I found myself grossly ignorant of much of this history.

Our visit to the northwest corner of New Mexico began with our arrival in Albuquerque, the largest city in the state, with a population of 335,000. It is the site of the Kirtland Air Force, and of both the University of Albuquerque and University of New Mexico. While there, we enjoyed our visit to "Old Town", an area that is preserved as a National Trust Historic Site, and we enjoyed shopping in it's many shops, which sell all sorts of Indian and Spanish crafts of both the past and the present day. The high point of our brief visit to Albuquerque was a visit to the "Atomic Museum", where we witnessed a 53 minute film entitled "Ten Seconds That Shook the World". After seeing this film, I thought it might be one that could very well be seen by every human being on earth, as it details the actual bombing of Hiroshima, and you experience the strange feeling of actually being in the plane that bombed the city. You are there as it takes off with its atomic bomb for Hiroshima and you are actually along side the bombardier as he sights the target. In fact, you actually see the descent of the bomb, the hurried turn away of the plane, which only had some 43 seconds to get out of any danger zone, and you will actually see the bomb burst in the air as it explodes over the city ! No words can express the magnitude of the explosion, the effects of the thermal and air blast, and the widespread destruction caused by the enormous fire ball. Simply seeing this first atomic explosion is more than enough to convince anyone living today that a nuclear exchange or holocaust is absolutely unthinkable and would lead to the inevitable eradication of the human race from the earth.

Our headquarters in Santa Fe was at the Fort Marcy Condominiums, a complex of some 150 or more apartments situated on a high hill overlooking the city, yet close enough to the"Plaza" to enable us to walk to the very heart of the city. We had exchanged one week of our two weeks "Interval Ownership Unit" or "Time-Sharing Unit" at Delray Beach, Florida, for one week in Santa Fe. It proved to be a wonderful exchange, and next year, perhaps, we will be doing the same in New Orleans, as Pat has never seen the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Santa Fe is a picturesque and charming town of only 50,000 people and is at an elevation of 7,000 feet. The site of the oldest Government building in the United States is in Santa Fe, and is remarkably well-preserved today (Palace of the Governor), and also, of the oldest church (San Miguel Mission). Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico and while it is a relatively small city to be the capital of the state, it nonetheless is known as an art colony and art center and houses many art shops, museums, as well as being the home of a Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera Society. The architectural style is usually Spanish colonial or Indian adobe, as is so frequently seen in both Mexico and Spain. At this point, I should add that one cannot gauge the beauty of the interior of the residences and government buildings by the rather plain appearance of the exteriors. While there, we dropped in to see Jerry and Frankie Greene, an orthopedist who formerly practiced in Hartford and who retired to Santa Fe some four years ago. They have a beautiful typical Santa Fe home and both are busy with several volunteer activities. Just north of the city is the "National Cemetery", which was formerly the "Post Cemetery", in which soldiers of the battles of Valverde and Pigeon's Ranch are buried. It is interesting that even after I had returned home and searched through my history books, I had difficulty finding any record of these battles, and I am still at a loss to know where to look for this information. In the year 1680, the Indians in the pueblos and probably inspired by those in the Taos Pueblo, rebelled against the Spanish priests and friars and drove them back into Mexico. In so doing, they recaptured Santa Fe and held onto it until some 12 years later, when the Spaniards returned and in the bloodless reentry, recaptured the city for the Spanish Crown. Still later, in the year 1846, General Stephen Kearney marched into Las Vegas, New Mexico, and annexed New Mexico as a "Territory" for the United States. A few years prior to this, in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail had opened up this area and wagon trails had rolled in with traders, cattlemen, gold-seekers, rustlers, gun-fighters, and even black "Buffalo-fighters", who fought the Apaches and Navajos in guerrilla warfare. Later, still, when the railroad came through, the lawlessness became under control and, as I said, New Mexico finally gained its statehood in 1912.

After seeing Santa Fe, we elected to take one day trips to several different sites, beginning with Taos (population 3,400), a small town in the high country at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Taos is the home of the Kit Carson Museum, our legendary Indian scout, who was so helpful in opening up this area for the pioneers. It is also the home of the multistoried Taos Indian Pueblo, the oldest pueblo of this kind in this area. Taos also has a well-preserved and restored Central Plaza, and many, many art shops. In fact, it is known as an artist colony. While there, we visited the Martinez Hacienda, which is the last remaining colonial Spanish house in New Mexico, and also the Ernest Blumenschein Home of the famous western artist, the famous Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, which is one of the highest in our country. Unfortunately, time did not permit a visit to the Taos ski areas, which are located only 15 miles north of the town and which I believe have some of the most challenging ski runs in the United States.

On another day, we drove to Las Vegas, New Mexico, a town that has certainly seen its best days, and which was formerly the largest and wildest town in New Mexico. William "Billy the Kid" Bonney, Pat Garrett, Jesse James, "Doc" Holliday, and other frontier gun-slingers walked it's streets in the period immediately after our Civil War. Today, an effort is being made to restore its old buildings, particularly those situated around the Plaza, and, while we were there, the MGM Film Company was making a movie based upon a Russian attack upon an American city. They had built many facades downtown and in effect to transform the city, had even gone to the extent of changing the name on the railroad station. We did not, however, see any of the film crews in operation.

Perhaps our chief reason in visiting Las Vegas was that it was only a few miles from Montezuma, the home of the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West. Theodore Lockwood, formerly President of Trinity College in Hartford, is its first and present President. The college is only in its second year of operation and is housed in buildings located on some 804 acres of land, which had been originally acquired by eastern promoters, who built a castle-like hotel on the site, as an attraction to stimulate railroad tourism. The hotel is no longer occupied and would need extensive restoration if it is ever to be rehabilitated. This school is the sixth in the world-wide chain of United World Colleges, a concept originally conceived in the mind of Dr. Kurt Hahn. Colleges were opened in Wales, Singapore, Swaziland, Victoria, British Columbia, and in Trieste, Italy. The sixth college, or the American School, represents the culmination of Lord Mountbatten's dream of seeing a similar type of institution built in the United States. All these schools are designed to promote international understanding by bringing together students from all over the world to live and to study together. In the American College, some 60 countries are presently enrolled, and the students undertake a two year course leading to an International Baccalaureate Degree. When they leave this College, they are prepared to enter the second year of our college programs.

Las Vegas is also the home of the "Rough Riders Museum", which is dedicated to Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, who captured San Juan Hill and won the Spanish-American War for our country. It is interesting that most of his soldiers were cowboys of Mexican origin and, therefore, of an anti-Spanish disposition . Furthermore, they felt that with their ability to handle themselves on horseback, they could help drive the Spaniards out of the western hemisphere.

Of all the side trips that we made, there was none that was more interesting nor exciting than our visit to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and specifically, to the Bradbury Museum of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The whole history of the development of the atomic bomb is beautifully presented in both the Los Alamos Historical Museum and in the Bradbury Museum, and the film entitled "The City That Never Was" will simply hold you spellbound. In 1943, a prep school known as the Los Alamos Ranch School for Boys was taken over by the "Manhattan Engineer District of the War Department", under the direction of General Leslie Groves, and the scientist, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. It was to become a super, super-secret nationwide research laboratory designed specifically to build an atomic bomb, if this were possible. It was known at this time that the atom could be split and that the Germans were well aware of this fact, as the original work had been done in one of their laboratories. A group of concerned American scientists, including Albert Einstein, finally persuaded President Roosevelt to undertake this project, and Los Alamos was considered to be the ideal site for this historic undertaking. At this time in our history, our Naval power had not yet recovered from Pearl Harbor and the Japanese ruled the entire Pacific area. Our troops were still engaged in North Africa and we were fighting a two front war. Time and history have shown us how successful this project was and how the original scientists were able to do all the fundamental research work that was necessary in order to create the fissionable material that would serve as the heart of the atomic bomb. One is impressed with the exhibits at both of the museums, with the magnitude of the task, the intense and cooperative dedication of the most brilliant and foremost scientists in America. The records of their activities are well preserved for the world to see. There are also pictures and legends which reveal the preparations for the test, and the test was known as "Trinity". One is shown the erection of the tower holding the first nuclear device and one can sense and feel the excitement of the count-down and the detonation of the first bomb, which occurred on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico. As you know, all of the rest is history - Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the surrendering of the Japanese.

The decision by President Harry Truman to drop the bomb was made after Secretary of War Stimpson gave him four options:

1) Do not drop the bomb and face the prospects of at least one million American casualties and probably five million or more Japanese casualties.

2) Announce a trial drop on an isolated atoll, in order to convince the Japanese that we had indeed had a super-bomb and that for them to resist any longer would be catastrophic for them. President Truman ruled against this humanitarian gesture because of the possibility that the bomb might indeed not go off and that our creditability would be undermined.

3) Announce a specific city in Japan to be bombed. This was ruled out by our President because it was felt that the Japanese might transfer their American prisoners of war to the site of the bombing.

4) Drop the bomb unannounced and hope for the best, that it would not only work but that the world would understand it was the lesser of two evils.

The town of Los Alamos is beautifully situated on one of the mesas on the Pajarito Plateau, in the shadow of the Jemez Mountains. Here, the sun shines more than 300 days each year and the weather is considered almost ideal. Today, it is a modern city in every respect and one can readily understand why the people who have chosen to work there with further research projects of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory are indeed happy to live in this area. While the Laboratory still works on research in weapons, it is also concerned with research into the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Lastly, I might add that a visit to this attractive area should be an absolute must.

No one can return from Santa Fe without some samples of the beautiful Indian jewelry that is created in this area, whether it be the Zuni, or the Hopi, or the Navajo. All are distinctive and can be readily recognized by even a novice after they have been introduced to each type of jewelry. Naturally, we brought a few samples of their artistry home with us.

DAD

CEJ/ngb