In his autobiography, Physics and Beyond (1971), German physicist Werner Heisenberg suggests that, although scientific practice is dictated by experimentation, ‘science is rooted in conversations’ (Heisenberg, 1971, p.xvii). While researching a new biography of the Australian physicist, Sir Mark Oliphant, I was able to utilise interviews held at the National Library conducted by Oliphant’s former biographers’ Stewart Cockburn and David Ellyard for their 1981 biography, Oliphant. What is fascinating about these player scientists’ recollections is the often-contradictory accounts of events. Tensions concerning international rivalries between laboratories also surfaced in other oral history interviews held at the American Institute of Physics Niels Bohr Library and Archive. Rather than attempting to decide which account was the most truthful, I wanted to find a way to incorporate both sides. The juxtaposition of scientists’ recollections with the running historical narrative gives space for the reader to question what he/she is being told and perhaps to recognise human agency—individual jealousies and international rivalries—operating within the oral record. My objective is the same as Heisenberg’s, a ‘wish to reconstruct … the broader picture’ and to show that ‘science is quite inseparable’ from all-encompassing ‘[h]uman, philosophical and political problems’ (1971, p.xvii).