 Harold Agnew, a leading figure of the nuclear age who helped design the first atomic bomb as a member of the Manhattan Project, led efforts after World War II to make the weapons more secure and championed the development of nuclear power during a prodigious career that included nearly a decade as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory has died. He was 92. This 1970 photo provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory shows Norris Bradbury, left, and Harold Agnew, right, the second and third directors of Los Alamos National Laboratory, posing for a photo.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Agnew died at his home in Solana Beach, California, while watching football and had been suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, his family said. During his nine-year tenure, Los Alamos also acquired the first Cray supercomputer, developed an underground test containment program and trained the first group of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. "It was his vision — decades ago — that recognized that national security science brings value to a broad spectrum of breakthroughs. Los Alamos and the nation will be forever in Harold's debt," Los Alamos National Laboratory director Charlie McMillan said in a statement. On Aug. 6, 1945, he was aboard a B-29 flying parallel to the Enola Gay when the bomb was unleashed over Hiroshima. Agnew completed his graduate studies under Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago following World War II and returned to Los Alamos to work in the Weapons Nuclear Engineering division, where he stayed until he became lab director. In 1979, he left Los Alamos to become president of the San Diego company General Atomics, where he steered the innovation of new reactors, including the helium-cooled reactor.
– Harold Agnew, a physicist who helped build the first atomic bomb and served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, died yesterday at his home in Solana Beach, Calif. He was 92. Agnew, who was suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, died while watching football on TV, the AP reports. A key figure in the nuclear age, Agnew also helped build the world's first reactor and many new weapons in the postwar period. "Harold was an innovator," says a Los Alamos historian, per the LA Times. "The vast majority of weapons in the nuclear stockpile were designed at Los Alamos and Harold had a hand in designing most of them—I'd say about 75%." Unlike many nuclear-era scientists, Agnew remained unapologetic for his contributions. He autographed the "Little Boy" bomb destined for Hiroshima, and flew in a plane alongside the Enola Gay, capturing the mushroom cloud on 16-mm film, the New York Times reports. "My feeling towards Hiroshima and the Japanese was, they bloody well deserved it," he said in a 1984 interview, per the LA Times. Agnew did, however, believe every world leader should be required to watch an atomic blast every five years ... while standing in their underwear. "We're approaching an era where there aren't any of us left that have ever seen a megaton bomb go off," he said. "And once you've seen one, it's rather sobering."