HISTORY83 - J. Robert Oppenheimer
My last blog was about the history of the super-secret Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. J. Robert Oppenheimer was chief scientist of that effort; the Manhattan Project cannot be fully understood without knowing details of the life of this man. So, this blog will be a summary of Oppenheimer’s life and his contributions to nuclear science.
After a short introduction, I
will cover Oppenheimer’s early life and education, his studies in Europe, his
early career in California, his private and political life, his work on the
Manhattan Project, his post-war activities, his security hearing, his final
years, and end with a discussion of his legacy.
My principal sources include: American
Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, 2005; “J. Robert
Oppenheimer,” Wikipedia.com; “J. Robert Oppenheimer - American Physicist,”
Britannica.com; “The True Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Life,” time.com; “J.
Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), atomicarchive.com; “The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
nps.gov; “J. Robert Oppenheimer, - Nuclear Museum,” ahf.nuclearmuseum.org; plus,
numerous other online sources.
Introduction
Julius Robert
Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967) was a brilliant American theoretical
physicist and director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos
Laboratory that developed and tested the first atomic bomb
during World War II. He is often
credited as being the "father of the atomic bomb.”
Born in New York City to
Jewish immigrants from Germany, Oppenheimer earned a bachelor's
degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1925 and
a PhD in physics from the University of Göttingen in
Germany in 1927. After research at other
institutions, he joined the physics department at the University of
California, Berkeley, where he became a full professor in 1936.
Oppenheimer made
significant contributions to theoretical physics, including quantum mechanics
and nuclear
physics. With his
students, he also made contributions to the theory of neutron stars, black holes, quantum
field theory, and the interactions of cosmic rays.
In 1942, Oppenheimer was
recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, and in 1943 was appointed
director of the project's Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, tasked with
developing the first nuclear weapons. His leadership and scientific expertise were
instrumental in the project's success.
On July 16, 1945, he was
present at the first test of an atomic bomb.
In August 1945, atomic weapons were used against Japan in
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing the Japanese to surrender
and ending World War II.
In 1947, Oppenheimer
became the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,
New Jersey, and chaired the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly
created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He lobbied for international control
of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and
a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. During a 1949 - 1950 government debate, he
opposed the development of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb, and
subsequently took perceived dovish positions on defense-related issues that
provoked the ire of some U.S. government and military factions.
Following a secret,
highly politicized 1954 security hearing, accused of disloyalty, Oppenheimer's
expressed opinions, together with his past associations with Communist Party
members, led to the revocation of his security clearance. This effectively ended his access to the
government's atomic secrets and thus his career as a nuclear
physicist. Stripped also of his direct
political influence, Oppenheimer nonetheless continued to lecture, write, and
work in physics.
In 1963, he was awarded
the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political
rehabilitation. On December 16,
2022, Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, ordered that
the 1954 decision to revoke Oppenheimer's security clearance be vacated,
based on the “bias and unfairness” of a “flawed
process” that led to his exile from the nuclear establishment.
Early
Life and Education 1904 - 1925
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was born in
New York City on April 22, 1904, to a wealthy German immigrant textile importer
Julius Oppenheimer and his wife painter Ella Friedman Oppenheimer. He had a brother, eight years younger, Frank,
who also became a physicist.
Robert Oppenheimer as a child with his father. |
Robert Oppenheimer’s academic prowess
was apparent very early on, and by the age of 10, Oppenheimer was studying
minerals, physics, and chemistry. His
correspondence with the New York Mineralogical Club was so advanced that the
Society invited him to deliver a lecture - not realizing that Robert was a
twelve-year-old boy.
For ten
years he attended the Ethical Culture School in New York City. The school epitomized liberalism, concerned
with the plight of the poor, guided by ideals of social justice, relentlessly
hopeful, earnest, and progressive. The
sheltered atmosphere of the school was ideal for a socially awkward adolescent
polymath (wide-ranging knowledge).
Oppenheimer graduated as valedictorian
from the Ethical Culture School in 1921, but fell ill with a near-fatal case of
dysentery and was forced to postpone enrolling at Harvard. After being bedridden for months, his parents
arranged for him to spend the summer of 1922 in New Mexico, a haven for health-seekers. It was during this time that Oppenheimer
learned to ride horses and developed a life-long love of New Mexico.
In the fall of 1922, Oppenheimer
entered Harvard University, and after briefly studying chemistry, switched to
“his true passion” physics. Introverted
and at times socially uncomfortable, Oppenheimer continued to write poetry
while taking a heavy courseload. Recalling this time, Oppenheimer later said,
“My feeling about myself was always one of extreme discontent.” Oppenheimer
finished his degree in just three years, excelling in Latin,
Greek, physics, and chemistry. He
also published poetry, and studied Eastern philosophy. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, summa
cum laude, in 1925.
Oppenheimer’s Harvard graduation picture. |
Studies in Europe: 1925 - 1927
In 1925, Oppenheimer was accepted to
study physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, under British physicist J. J. Thomson, who had been
awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for detecting the electron. Oppenheimer proved poor at conducting
experiments in the laboratory and came close to being expelled for misbehavior.
Oppenheimer was very unhappy at
Cambridge and wrote to a friend: "I am having a pretty bad time. The lab
work is a terrible bore, and I am so bad at it that it is impossible to feel
that I am learning anything.”
Oppenheimer was a tall,
thin chain smoker, who often neglected to eat during periods of intense
concentration. Many friends said he
could be self-destructive. Oppenheimer
saw three psychoanalysts in four months, but ultimately credited reading Marcel
Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time and a bicycle tour of Corsica with
lifting his depression.
Note:
Oppenheimer was plagued by periods of depression throughout his life,
and once told his brother Frank, "I need physics more than friends.”
In 1926, Oppenheimer accepted an
invitation from Max Born, director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at
the University of Göttingen, to study under him in Germany. Göttingen was one of the world's leading
centers for theoretical physics, and in particularly the rising field of
quantum mechanics (the study of very small-scale molecules and atoms). Thriving at Göttingen, Oppenheimer learned
that his talent was for theoretical physics, not experimental physics, and
collaborated with Born to work toward mastery of the new quantum mechanics.
Oppenheimer had the good fortune to be
in Europe during a pivotal time in the world of physics, as European physicists
were then developing the groundbreaking theory of quantum mechanics.
During his time in
Germany, he studied with a number of prominent physicists, including Max Born,
Neils Bohr, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, and Edward Teller. Oppenheimer attended Göttingen alongside
Werner Heisenberg, who would go on to be a main contributor to the German
effort to develop an atomic bomb.
1926 gathering of physicists in Europe. In the second row, Oppenheimer is second from left, with Paul Dirac to his right. |
At Göttingen, Oppenheimer published
many important contributions to the then newly developed quantum theory, most
notably a famous paper on the so-called Born-Oppenheimer approximation, that
was a breakthrough in using quantum mechanics to understand the behavior of
molecules.
Oppenheimer was awarded a doctorate in
physics in May of 1927 at the age 22.
Research
and Teaching in California: 1927 - 1942
In 1927,
Oppenheimer returned to Harvard to study mathematical physics as a National
Research Council Fellow.
But in early 1928, he left Harvard and moved to Pasadena,
California and the California Institute of Technology to do research and teach.
Note: In the autumn of
1928, Oppenheimer visited the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands,
where he impressed his audience by giving lectures in Dutch, despite having
little experience with the language.
There, he was given the nickname of Opje, later anglicized by his
students as "Oppie.”
In 1929, Oppenheimer
accepted an assistant professorship in physics at the University of California,
Berkeley, and maintained a joint appointment with California Institute of
Technology. For the next 13 years, he
"commuted" between the two universities, and many of his associates
and students commuted with him.
Before he
began his Berkeley professorship, Oppenheimer was diagnosed with a mild case
of tuberculosis and spent some weeks with his brother Frank at a New
Mexico ranch, which he leased and eventually purchased. He recovered from tuberculosis and returned
to Berkeley, where he prospered as an advisor and collaborator to a generation
of physicists who admired him for his intellectual virtuosity and broad interests.
At
Berkeley, Oppenheimer gathered a dedicated following of student admirers that
coalesced around his genius. Berkeley
gained a reputation as the premier place to study physics in the United States
because of Oppenheimer’s work and the work of experimental physicist Ernest
Lawrence.
In 1931,
Lawrence created his first particle accelerator, a groundbreaking device he
called a “cyclotron” and was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 1939. Oppenheimer worked closely with and became
good friends with Lawrence and his cyclotron pioneers,
helping them understand the data that their machines were producing at
Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory, which eventually developed into
today's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In 1936,
Berkeley promoted Oppenheimer to full professor. In return, he was asked to curtail his
teaching at Caltech, so a compromise was reached whereby Berkeley released him
for six weeks each year, enough to teach one term at Caltech.
Oppenheimer
is credited with being a founding father of the American school of theoretical
physics. His early research was devoted
in particular to energy processes of subatomic particles, including electrons,
positrons, and cosmic rays. He also did
groundbreaking work on neutron stars.
In the 1930s, he was the first to write papers suggesting the existence
of what we today call black holes.
Since quantum theory had been proposed only a few years
before, the university posts provided him an excellent opportunity to devote
his entire career to the exploration and development of its full
significance. In addition, he trained a
whole generation of U.S. physicists, who were greatly affected by his qualities
of leadership and intellectual independence.
Oppenheimer did not have the
patience to stick with any one problem very long. As a result, it was frequently he who opened
the door through which others then walked to make major discoveries.
Note: Oppenheimer's diverse interests
sometimes interrupted his focus on science.
He liked things that were difficult and since much of the scientific
work appeared easy for him, he developed an interest in the mystical and the
cryptic. After leaving
Harvard, he began to acquaint himself with the classical Hindu
texts through their English translations. He also had an interest in learning languages
and learned Sanskrit in 1933. He eventually read literary works such as
the Bhagavad Gita and Meghaduta in the original Sanskrit,
and deeply pondered them.
In December 1938, scientists in
Germany discovered nuclear fission of uranium (the process of breaking large atomic nuclei into smaller
atomic nuclei to release a large amount of energy). Hungarian-born American physicist Leo Szilard
realized that nuclear chain reactions could be used to create new and extremely
powerful atomic weapons.
After the
invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939, physicists Albert
Einstein and Leo Szilard warned the U.S. government of the danger
threatening all of humanity if the Nazis should be the first to make a
nuclear bomb.
Oppenheimer
realized the potential of nuclear fission immediately, and he and his students
began to sketch out rudimentary atomic bomb concepts. On his own, Oppenheimer began to seek a
process for the separation of uranium-235 from
natural uranium, and to determine the critical mass of uranium
required to make such a bomb
Private and Political Life
During the 1920s, Oppenheimer remained
uninformed on worldly matters.
But after January 1933, when Adolf
Hitler came to power in Germany, politics began to intrude into Oppenheimer’s consciousness. In 1934, he earmarked three percent of his
annual salary for two years to support German physicists fleeing Nazi
Germany. As Oppenheimer engaged with
politics further, he developed a “smoldering fury” for the oppression his
Jewish relatives were suffering in Nazi Germany.
In 1936, Oppenheimer entered a
turbulent relationship with Jean Tatlock, a Stand-ford Medical School student
and Communist Party member who brought left-wing politics into Oppenheimer’
life. Tatlock introduced Oppenheimer to
West coast left-wing figures like Thomas Addis, who would later be investigated
by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Jean Tatlock’s relationship with Robert Oppenheimer, began in 1936.. |
Like many young intellectuals in the
1930s, Oppenheimer supported social reforms that were later categorized
as communist ideas. He donated
to many progressive causes considered left-wing during the later
McCarthy era. Most of his allegedly
radical work consisted of hosting fundraisers
for anti-fascist activities.
Oppenheimer did give money to leftist causes.
His father’s death in 1937 left
Oppenheimer a fortune that allowed him to spend freely.
While Oppenheimer never officially
joined the Communist Party, many of his
closest friends and family members were active in the Communist Party in
the 1930s or 1940s, including his brother Frank, Frank's wife Jackie, Tatlock,
and several of his graduate students at Berkeley.
Note: Despite Stalinist purges in
Russia, many people in the 1930s thought Communism was the only viable
alternative to the rise of Fascism in Europe.
Tatlock ended her relationship with
Oppenheimer in early 1939, and later that same year, he met his future wife,
Katherine “Kitty” Puening, a German American biologist and botanist, also a member of the Communist
Party. On November 1, 1940, Oppenheimer
married Katherine. The Oppenheimer’s
first child, Peter, was born in May of 1941.
Robert Oppenheimer married Katherine “Kitty” Puening in 1940. |
The FBI opened a file on Oppenheimer in March 1941, and
began to track his associations with known Communist Party members and
organizations. Oppenheimer's party
membership, or lack thereof, has been debated. Almost all historians agree he had strong
left-wing views during this time and interacted with party members, but there
is no evidence that he was officially a member of the party.
Manhattan Project: 1941 - 1945
Note: Details of the Manhattan Project can be found
in my previous blog (August
5, 2023) on that subject. This is the
story of Robert Oppenheimer and this section will focus on his role in the
development and testing of the first atomic bomb.
In early
1941, Robert Oppenheimer began collaborating with Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley on
questions of atomic bomb development.
Lawrence used his Cyclotron particle accelerator to develop a method of
uranium isotope separation for bomb making.
In the
spring of 1941, the Roosevelt Administration received a British report on their
work on atomic bombs, prompting the U.S. to create a high-level Advisory
Committee, a team of military, academic, and scientific personnel to focus on
planning for an atomic bomb building project.
Based on
Oppenheimer’s head start in calculating the amount of U-235 for an effective
weapon, and his general brilliance, Ernest Lawrence, lobbied for Oppenheimer to
be included in a secret meeting of the Committee on October 21, 1941. As a result, in May 1942, Oppenheimer was directed
to organize a secret seminar of theoretical physicists to make the basic
outline for atomic bomb design.
Prominent theoretical physicist Hans Bethe who participated said, “I
could see the tremendous intellectual power of Oppenheimer who was the
unquestioned leader of the group.”
By the
fall of 1942, leading Advisory Committee members Vannevar Bush, Director of the
new created Office of Scientific Research and Development, and James Conant,
President of Harvard University and Chairman of the National Defense Research
Committee, wanted Oppenheimer to direct an atomic bomb development laboratory. Bush and Conant pressured the War Department
to approve security clearances for Oppenheimer and other scientists with left
wing political views.
On
September 18, 1942, Army General Leslie Groves took charge of the Advisory
Committee’s work, with a transfer or responsibility from the Office of
Scientific Research and Development to the military. The Manhattan Engineer District, later known
as the Manhattan Project, was established.
With
Groves’ support, at the end of October 1942, Oppenheimer was appointed to lead
the atom bomb production laboratory at a TBD remote secret site. Oppenheimer immediately began to recruit
scientists for the project - efforts that continued relentlessly throughout the
time of the program.
Note: There is no question that Oppenheimer wanted
the assignment to design, construct, and use the atomic bomb. He felt strongly that Germany needed to be
defeated!
The choice
of Oppenheimer to lead the laboratory surprised many, because Oppenheimer had
left-wing political views and no record as a leader of large projects. Groves
was concerned by the fact that Oppenheimer did not have a Nobel Prize, and
might not have had the prestige to direct fellow scientists.
But
Groves was impressed by Oppenheimer's singular grasp of the practical aspects
of designing and constructing an atomic bomb, and by the breadth of his
knowledge. As a military engineer,
Groves knew that this would be vital in an interdisciplinary project that would
involve not just physics but also chemistry, metallurgy, ordnance,
and engineering. Groves also
detected in Oppenheimer something that many others did not, an
"overweening ambition" that Groves reckoned would supply the drive
necessary to push the project to a successful conclusion.
Since
Oppenheimer was familiar with the New Mexico landscape, Groves asked
Oppenheimer if there was somewhere appropriate for the secret laboratory. Oppenheimer suggested a site he knew well, the
Los Alamos Ranch School, an isolated area in northern New Mexico, 34 miles
north of Santa Fe. After visiting the
site, Groves approved it and the army began purchasing the land two days later.
The Los
Alamos Laboratory was built on the site of the school, taking over some of
its buildings, while many new buildings were erected in great haste.
The main gate at Los Alamos Laboratory at the start of the Manhattan Project. |
Starting
in the spring of 1943, Oppenheimer assembled
a group of the top scientists of the time to live and work at Los Alamos until
the bomb had been completed. Oppenheimer
convinced Groves that Los Alamos should be turned into a town where scientists
could live with their families, since many might refuse to relocate otherwise.
It soon
turned out that Oppenheimer had hugely underestimated the magnitude of the
project: Los Alamos grew from a few hundred people in 1943 to over 6,000 in 1945.
All personnel at Los Alamos Laboratory required photo IDs. |
Oppenheimer
had never managed anything larger than a graduate seminar, but molded himself
into an efficient and persuasive administrator.
At first, he had difficulty with the organizational division of large
groups, but rapidly learned the art of large-scale administration after he took
up permanent residence on the mesa. He
was noted for his mastery of all scientific aspects of the project and for his
efforts to control the inevitable cultural conflicts between scientists and the
military. He was an iconic figure to his
fellow scientists, as much a symbol of what they were working toward as a
scientific director.
Prominent
resident theoretical physicist Victor Weisskopf put it: “Oppenheimer
directed these studies, theoretical and experimental, in the real sense of the
words. Here his uncanny speed in
grasping the main points of any subject was a decisive factor; he could
acquaint himself with the essential details of every part of the work.”
Weisskopf
continued: “He did not direct from the
head office. He was intellectually and
physically present at each decisive step. He was present in the laboratory or
in the seminar rooms, when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was
conceived. It was not that he
contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main
influence came from something else. It
was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct
participation in all of us; it created that unique atmosphere of enthusiasm and
challenge that pervaded the place throughout its time.”
Oppenheimer
wore jeans or khaki pants and a blue work shirt in Los Alamos and the civilian
workforce followed his casual lead. The
lab was open day and night with scientists setting their own schedules. Everyone worked six days a week and took
Sundays off. Oppenheimer “completely
changed to fit his new role” colleague Hans Bethe said, “he brought out the
best in us.”
General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer conferring at Los Alamos Laboratory. |
Balancing
the contrasting needs of secrecy and scientific collaboration, while trying to
maintain harmony between civilian and military workers fell to
Oppenheimer. Huge responsibilities,
constant surveillance, and a fear of failure took a toll on Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer
chain smoked four to five packs of cigarettes a day, along with a pipe and had
a persistent cough. At five feet, ten
inches tall, he only weighed 115 pounds during his time directing the atom bomb
development. Many workers, including
Oppenheimer, drank as “alcohol flowed freely on the mesa.” Louis Hempelmann, director of the Health
Group, said, “as things wore on and everybody got tired and tense and
irritable, it wasn’t so good.” Oppenheimer relieved stress by riding his horse
on mountain trails.
Throughout
the development of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer was under investigation by both
the FBI and the Manhattan Project's internal security arm for his past
left-wing associations. He was followed
by Army security agents during a trip to San Francisco, California in June 1943
to visit Jean Tatlock, where she was working
as a pediatric psychiatrist at Mount Zion Hospital, and suffering depression. While Tatlock had broken off their official
relationship in 1939, Oppenheimer remained in contact with her. Nearly seven months after Tatlock and Oppenheimer’s
final June 1943 meeting, Tatlock, suffering from clinical depression, committed
suicide on January 4, 1944, leaving Oppenheimer deeply grieved.
Ironically,
Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty, gave birth to a
daughter, Katherine Toni, in December 1944, while living with Oppenheimer at
Los Alamos.
By late 1944, a number of scientists
at Los Alamos began to voice their growing ethical qualms about the continued
development of the atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer stated his belief that scientists had no right to a louder
voice in determining the bomb’s fate than any other citizen. He argued although that they were all
destined to live in perpetual fear, the bomb might also end all war.
On May 8, 1945, Germany
unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. With Germany out of the war, the Allies
turned their full attention to the war in the Pacific.
By the
summer of 1945, two types of atom bombs had been developed and were ready for
testing: a uranium-based weapon called “Little Boy” and a plutonium-based
weapon called “Fat Man.”
Oppenheimer,
physicist Kenneth Bainbridge, and a few army officers chose an 18 by 25-mile
area in central New Mexico, at the newly named White Sands Proving Grounds, for
the first atomic bomb test; the site was code named by Oppenheimer “Trinity” in
reference to one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets
As the date
of the test approached, Oppenheimer alone climbed the 100-foot tower holding
the “Gadget” test device for a final inspection of what the laboratory had made
under his directorship. General Groves
then took Oppenheimer to a bunker six miles south of ground zero where they
decided on an early morning test of the Gadget
Less than
three years after the laboratory’s founding,
the first atomic bomb was exploded at 5:30 am on July 16, 1945.
Oppenheimer (in white hat) at center, and General Groves to his immediate left, inspect the damage around the test tower after the Trinity atom bomb test. |
Brigadier
General Thomas Farrell, who was present in the control bunker with
Oppenheimer, recalled: “Dr. Oppenheimer, on whom had rested a very heavy
burden, grew tenser as the last seconds ticked off. He scarcely breathed. He held on to a post to steady himself. For the last few seconds, he stared directly
ahead and then when the announcer shouted "Now!" and there came this
tremendous burst of light followed shortly thereafter by the deep growling roar
of the explosion, his face relaxed into an expression of tremendous relief.”
After the
successful detonation of the first atomic test bomb at Trinity, Oppenheimer
told his brother Frank simply “it worked.”
Twenty years later in 1965, Oppenheimer claimed seeing the successful
test detonation reminded him of lines from the Hindu holy book the Bhagavad
Gita, “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds...”
In the
weeks following the Trinity test, Oppenheimer became “very still and
ruminative” as he consulted with air force officers on potential Japanese
targets.
After the
Little Boy atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th,
Oppenheimer talked to assembled workers and said he was “proud” and his only
regret was not getting the bomb fast enough to use against the Germans. Charlotte Serber, librarian at Los Alamos,
said that after the Fat Man atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th,
“a sense of gloom settled over the lab.”
An FBI informant reported that Oppenheimer was a “nervous wreck” the day
Nagasaki was bombed.
The
bombings together killed between an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people, most
of whom were civilians.
On August
10th, the Japanese informed Washington, of their intention to
surrender, and formally surrendered on August 14, 1945, officially ending the
most deadly and destructive war in human history.
The
enormity of what had happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki affected Oppenheimer
profoundly. On August 17th, Oppenheimer
traveled to Washington to hand-deliver a letter to Secretary of War Henry
L. Stimson expressing his revulsion and his wish to see nuclear weapons
banned. In
October he met with President Harry S. Truman. The meeting went badly after Oppenheimer said
he felt he had "blood on my hands;” this remark infuriated Truman, who
later told his Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, "I don't want to
see that son-of-a-bitch in this office ever again.”
Oppenheimer
became famous because of his role in the Manhattan Project. In a speech before leaving the Manhattan
Project, he warned of the dangers of wars fought with atomic bombs, which he
called “a most terrible weapon.”
Riding
the crest of his newfound fame, Oppenheimer considered offers to teach at many
universities before deciding on Caltech.
Oppenheimer resigned his position at Los Alamos on October 16, 1945, and
in November, the Oppenheimer family left Los Alamos and moved to Pasadena.
Post War Activities: 1946 -
1952
Following the war, public opinion
about the use of the atomic bomb wavered. However, Oppenheimer was hailed as a
national hero by many and, in 1946, was awarded a Medal for Merit by President
Truman.
Institute for Advanced Study.
Oppenheimer soon found that his heart was no longer in teaching. In 1947, he accepted the directorship of
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. For almost 20 years, at Princeton,
Oppenheimer brought together intellectuals at the height of their powers and
from a variety of disciplines to discuss the most pertinent questions of the
age. He directed and encouraged the
research of many well-known scientists.
He stimulated discussion and research on quantum and relativistic
physics. He also instituted temporary
memberships for scholars from the humanities.
Oppenheimer retired from the Institute in 1966.
Albert Einstein’s 70th birthday party at Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study, 1949. Einstein at right center; Oppenheimer two positions to his left. |
Note:
Between 1946 and 1950, Oppenheimer co-authored a paper with Hans Bethe,
published three additional short physics papers, and one paper on
biophysics. After 1950 (age 46), he
never published another scientific paper.
Atomic Energy Commission / General
Advisory Committee. In 1946, a civilian agency, the newly formed Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC), took over the responsibility for overseeing nuclear
weapons development and the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Oppenheimer was appointed Chairman of the
General Advisory Committee (GAC) to the AEC, serving from 1947 to 1952. It was in this role that he voiced strong
opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb - that was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic
bomb. From this position, he
advised on a number of nuclear-related issues, including project funding,
laboratory construction, and even international policy. As chairman of the GAC, Oppenheimer lobbied
vigorously for funding for basic science, and attempted to influence policy
away from a heated arms race and toward international arms control.
The first atomic bomb test by the
Soviet Union in August 1949 came earlier than Americans expected, and over
the next several months, there was an intense debate within the U.S.
government, military, and scientific communities over whether to proceed with
the development of the far more powerful, nuclear
fusion-based hydrogen bomb.
In October 1949, Oppenheimer and the
GAC recommended against the development of the hydrogen bomb. He and the other GAC members were motivated
partly by ethical concerns, feeling that such a weapon if used could only
result in millions of deaths. They also
had practical qualms, as there was no workable design for a hydrogen bomb at
the time. Regarding the
possibility of the Soviet Union developing a thermonuclear weapon, the GAC felt
that the United States could have an adequate stockpile of atomic weapons to
retaliate against any thermonuclear attack
Oppenheimer vigorously opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. |
A majority of the AEC subsequently
endorsed the GAC recommendation, and Oppenheimer thought that the fight against
the hydrogen bomb would triumph, but proponents of the weapon lobbied the White
House strongly. On January 31,
1950, President Truman, who was predisposed to proceed with the development of
the weapon anyway, made the formal decision to do so. Oppenheimer and
other GAC opponents of the project felt disheartened and considered resigning
from the committee. They stayed on,
though their views on the hydrogen bomb were well known.
In 1951, Edward Teller and
mathematician Stanislaw Ulam developed what became known as
the Teller-Ulam design for a hydrogen bomb. This new design seemed
technically feasible and Oppenheimer officially acceded to the weapon's
development, while still looking for ways in which its testing or deployment or
use could be questioned.
Oppenheimer and other members of GAC
who had opposed the H-bomb decision, left the GAC when their terms expired in
August 1952. Truman had declined
to reappoint them, as he wanted new voices on the committee who were more in
support of H-bomb development. In addition, various opponents of Oppenheimer
had communicated to Truman their desire that Oppenheimer leave the committee.
One of the issues that Oppenheimer
felt was especially important was that the U.S. government practice less
secrecy and more openness toward the American people about the realities of the
nuclear balance and the dangers of nuclear warfare. Oppenheimer presented his view on the lack of
utility of ever-larger nuclear arsenals to the American public in a June 1953
article in Foreign Affairs, and it received attention in major
American newspapers.
Oppenheimer Security Hearing:
1953 - 1954
The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had
been following Oppenheimer since before the war, when he showed Communist
sympathies as a professor at Berkeley and had been close to members of the
Communist Party, including his wife and brother. He had been under close surveillance since
the early 1940s, his home and office bugged, his phone tapped, and his mail
opened.
The FBI furnished Oppenheimer's
political enemies with evidence that intimated communist ties. These enemies
included Lewis Strauss, an AEC commissioner who had long harbored resentment
against Oppenheimer for his activity in opposing the hydrogen bomb, stifling
Lewis’s participation in Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study, and for his
humiliation of Strauss before Congress some years earlier. Strauss had expressed opposition to exporting
radioactive isotopes to other nations, and Oppenheimer had called them
"less important than electronic devices, but more important than, let us
say, vitamins.”
In
January 1953, President Eisenhower named Strauss as presidential atomic energy
advisor. Then in July 1953, Eisenhower
named Strauss as chairman of the AEC.
The triggering event for Oppenheimer’s
AEC security hearing happened on November 7, 1953, at the height of U.S.
anticommunist feeling, when William Liscum Borden, a close confidant of Strauss and former executive director of Congress’s
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, sent Hoover a letter accusing
Oppenheimer of having communist sympathies, saying that "more probably
than not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.
The letter was
passed on to President Eisenhower who didn’t necessarily believe the
accusations, but felt compelled to move forward with an
investigation, and on December 3, he ordered that a "blank wall" be
placed between Oppenheimer and any government or military secrets.
On December 21, 1953, Strauss told
Oppenheimer that his security clearance had been suspended, pending resolution
of a series of charges outlined in a letter, and discussed his resigning by way
of requesting termination of his consulting contract with the AEC. Oppenheimer chose not to resign and requested
a hearing instead.
On April 12, 1954, a
monthlong secret security hearing began during which Oppenheimer’s previous
communist leanings and associations, views on U.S. nuclear policy, particularly his
opposition to the H-bomb, and other personal
transgressions were used to discredit him in a kangaroo court-style proceeding
led by AEC lawyer Roger Robb.
The proceeding included a review of
Oppenheimer testimony at a June 7, 1949 session of the House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that he had associations with the
Communist Party USA in the 1930s. He testified then that some of his students
had been communists at the time they had worked with him at Berkeley. Frank Oppenheimer and his wife Jackie
testified before the HUAC that they had been members of the Communist Party
USA.
Note: Frank Oppenheimer was
subsequently fired from his University of Minnesota position. Unable to find work in physics for many years,
he became a cattle rancher in Colorado. He later taught high school physics and was
the founder of the San Francisco Exploratorium.
At his 1954 security clearance
hearings, Robert Oppenheimer denied being a member of the Communist Party, but
identified himself as a fellow traveler, which he defined as someone who
agrees with many of communism's goals, but is not willing to blindly follow
orders from any Communist Party apparatus.
Several high-level contemporaries of
Oppenheimer were called to testify at the hearing, including Edward Teller,
Ernest Lawrence, and General Leslie Groves - all offered opinion that
Oppenheimer’s was loyal to the U.S government, but were aware of his past
associations with Communist Party members.
There was no information presented to support a charge of treason. In Teller’s case, there was obviously strong
disagreement with Oppenheimer about the need for the hydrogen bomb, and Teller
stated that he would be “more comfortable” with someone else advising U.S.
nuclear weapon policy - a statement for which Teller was reviled by the
scientific community for the rest of his life.
J. Robert Oppenheimer appearing before the AEC Security Hearing in 1954. |
Many top scientists, as well as
government and military figures, testified on Oppenheimer's behalf. But inconsistencies in his testimony and his
erratic behavior on the stand - at one point saying he had given a
"cock and bull story" and that this was because he "was an
idiot" - convinced some that he was unstable and a possible security
risk. Oppenheimer's clearance was
revoked one day before it was due to lapse anyway,
Most in the scientific community were
outraged at the treatment of Oppenheimer, and saw him as a martyr
to McCarthyism, an eclectic liberal unjustly attacked by warmongering
enemies, symbolic of the shift of scientific work from academia into the
military.
As a result, his contract as adviser
to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was canceled. The Federation of
American Scientists immediately came to his defense with a protest against the
trial. Oppenheimer was made the
worldwide symbol of the scientist who, while trying to resolve the moral problems
that arise from scientific discovery, becomes the victim of a witch hunt.
Final Years: 1954 - 1967
The result of the security hearing
came to define Oppenheimer for the rest of his life, with Oppenheimer’s close
friend and fellow physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi later saying that,
“[Oppenheimer] was a man of peace and they destroyed him. He was a man of science and they destroyed
this man. A small, mean group.”
In the long run, Lewis Strauss’s
vendetta against Oppenheimer backfired; the unclassified transcript of the
hearing revealed the inquisitional character of the hearing, and the corruption
of justice during the McCarthy period.
Within four years, the transcript would destroy the reputation and
government career of Lewis Strauss.
Beginning in 1954, Robert Oppenheimer
and his family spent several months each year living on the tiny island of St.
John in the Virgin Islands, where they relished this self-imposed exile.
Revoking his clearance stripped
Oppenheimer of political power and influence.
He stayed on as director of the
Institute for Advanced Study until 1966, spending the last years of his
life working out ideas on the relationship between science and society.
Oppenheimer's first public appearance
following the stripping of his security clearance was a lecture titled "Prospects
in the Arts and Sciences" for the Columbia University
Bicentennial radio show Man's Right to Knowledge, in which he
outlined his philosophy and his thoughts on the role of science in the modern
world.
Oppenheimer was increasingly concerned
about the potential danger that scientific inventions could pose to
humanity. He joined with Albert
Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and other eminent scientists and academics to
establish what would eventually, in 1960, become the World Academy of Art
and Science. Significantly, after his
public humiliation, he did not sign the major open protests against nuclear
weapons of the 1950s, nor attend scientific protest conferences.
In his speeches and public writings,
Oppenheimer continually stressed the difficulty of managing the power of
knowledge in a world in which the freedom of science to exchange ideas was more
and more hobbled by political concerns.
In 1955, Oppenheimer published The
Open Mind, a collection of eight lectures that he had given since 1946 on
the subject of nuclear weapons and popular culture. Oppenheimer rejected the idea of
nuclear gunboat diplomacy. "The purposes of this country in the
field of foreign policy,” he wrote, "cannot in any real or enduring way be
achieved by coercion.”
Oppenheimer continued to lecture,
write, and work on physics. He toured
Europe and Japan, giving talks about the history of science, the role of
science in society, and the nature of the universe.
In 1963, President John Kennedy
intended to present Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award, as a gesture
of political rehabilitation, "for contributions to theoretical physics as
a teacher and originator of ideas, and for leadership of the Los Alamos
Laboratory and the atomic energy program during critical years.” Kennedy was assassinated before he could
present the award; new President Lyndon Johnson followed through with the
presentation of the award.
Oppenheimer receives the Enrico Fermi award from President Lyndon Johnson in 1963. |
Oppenheimer, who was a chain smoker,
was diagnosed with throat cancer in late 1965. After inconclusive surgery, he underwent
unsuccessful radiation treatment and chemotherapy late in 1966. On February 18, 1967, three days after falling
into a coma, Oppenheimer died at his home in Princeton, aged 62.
Note:
Katherine and Robert Oppenheimer
remained married until Oppenheimer’s death in 1967 - despite his relationship
with Jean Tatlock and rumored romantic entanglements with other women. Though she was a volatile person of difficult
moods, Katherine loved and loyally supported her husband through thick
and thin. She remained by his side
throughout the 1954 AEC hearing, and was one of his steadfast defenders.
A memorial service for Oppenheimer was
held at Alexander Hall on the campus of Princeton University. The
service was attended by 600 of his scientific, political, and military
associates. His brother Frank and the
rest of his family were there.
Oppenheimers body was cremated, and
his wife Katherine, as Oppenheimer had wanted, took his remains to St. John
Island, and dropped the urn into Hawksnest Bay.
In 2014, 60 years after the
proceedings that effectively ended Oppenheimer’s career, the U.S.
Department of Energy released the full, declassified transcript of the
1954 hearing. While many of the details were
already known, the newly released material bolstered Oppenheimer’s
assertions of loyalty and reinforced the perception that a brilliant scientist
had been brought low by a bureaucratic cocktail of professional
jealousy and McCarthyism.
On December 16, 2022, United
States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm formally
vacated the 1954 revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance. Her statement said, "In 1954, the Atomic
Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer's security clearance through a flawed
process that violated the Commission's own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to
light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was
subjected to, while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only
been further affirmed.”
Oppenheimer was nominated for the
Nobel Prize for physics three times, in 1946, 1951, and 1967, but never
won. Observers such as Nobel
Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez have suggested that if he had
lived long enough to see his predictions substantiated by experiment,
Oppenheimer might have won a Nobel Prize for his work on gravitational collapse, concerning neutron stars and black
holes. In retrospect, some physicists and historians
consider this his most important contribution, though it was not taken up by
other scientists in his lifetime. The physicist and historian Abraham
Pais once asked Oppenheimer what he considered his most important
scientific contributions; Oppenheimer cited his work on electrons and
positrons, not his work on gravitational contraction.
Legacy
J. Robert Oppenheimer is the subject
of many biographies, including American Prometheus (2005)
by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, which won the
2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The 1980 BBC TV serial Oppenheimer,
starring Sam Waterston, won three BAFTA Television Awards. The Day After Trinity, a
1980 documentary about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb, was nominated for
an Academy Award and received a Peabody Award. Oppenheimer's life is explored in Tom
Morton-Smith's 2015 play Oppenheimer, and the 1989 film Fat
Man and Little Boy, where he was portrayed by Dwight Schultz. In the same year, David
Strathairn played Oppenheimer in the TV movie Day One. In the 2023 American film Oppenheimer,
directed by Christopher Nolan and
based on American Prometheus, Oppenheimer is portrayed by
actor Cillian Murphy.
On July21, 2023, the new movie Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy, was released. |
A centennial conference about Oppenheimer's
legacy was held in 2004 at the University of California, Berkeley, alongside a
digital exhibition on his life, with the conference proceedings published in
2005 as Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections. His papers are in the Library of
Congress.
As a scientist, Oppenheimer was
remembered by his students and colleagues as a brilliant researcher and
engaging teacher who founded modern theoretical physics in the United States.
"More than any other man", Nobel
Prize winning theoretical physicist Han Bethe wrote, "he was responsible
for raising American theoretical physics from a provincial adjunct of Europe to
world leadership".
Because his scientific attentions
often changed rapidly, he never worked long enough on any one topic and carried
it to fruition to merit the Nobel Prize, though his investigations
contributing to the theory of black holes might have warranted the prize had he
lived long enough to see them brought to fruition by later astrophysicists. An asteroid, 67085 Oppenheimer, was named
in his honor on January 4, 2000, as was the lunar
crater Oppenheimer in 1970.
As a military and public policy
advisor, Oppenheimer was a technocratic leader in a shift in the
interactions between science and the military, and in the emergence of
"big science.” During World War II,
scientists became involved in military research to an unprecedented
degree. Because of the threat fascism posed
to Western civilization, they volunteered in great numbers for technological,
and organizational, assistance to the Allied effort, resulting in powerful
tools such as radar, the proximity fuse, and operations
research. As a cultured, intellectual, theoretical physicist who became a
disciplined military organizer, Oppenheimer represented the shift away from the
idea that scientists had their "heads in the clouds" and that
knowledge of esoteric subjects like the composition of the atomic nucleus had
no "real-world" applications.
Two days before the Trinity test,
Oppenheimer expressed his hopes and fears in a quotation from Bhartṛhari's Śatakatraya:
In battle, in the forest, at the
precipice in the mountains,
On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,
In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,
The good deeds a man has done before defend him.
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