November 1942. Life in a remote private school for boys deep in the middle of the New Mexican desert in Los Alamos was going on as usual. World War II was a distant reality for them. Until one day, the quick, impatient footsteps of army boots echoed through the school corridors. They belonged to Leslie Groves. The bulky brigadier-general, who exuded strength and authority, was accompanied by a tall, pepper-thin man with a pipe, an unusual hat and trousers pulled high over his waist. This was the famous physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The sight of the unusual couple immediately started a buzz around the school about the purpose of their visit.
And indeed, the two men had an important mission. They were looking for a location where the US could undertake its most massive scientific-industrial-military undertaking to date, the development of the first nuclear bomb, away from the public eye.
The boys’ school campus had many advantages: it was in a sufficiently secluded location, with access to water and existing buildings, and most of the land around it already belonged to the federal government. It was also on a level hill which could be defended from all sides. In January 1943, the last diplomas were awarded, and then the army took over the area.
The top-secret project, initially called the Y, created a nuclear science centre and a laboratory, around which the town of Los Alamos grew. While the Manhattan Project took place in several locations across the US, Los Alamos was the most important and critical part of the project, as it was the site of the atomic bombs that later leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The military director of Los Alamos was Groves, a relentless, rude, arrogant but efficient operator with a flair for talent scouting and managing complex assignments. For example, he had previously been in charge of building the Pentagon.
Groves initially took to the Manhattan Project reluctantly, wanting to be part of a real theatre of war, but soon realised that he was becoming part of something unique, unparalleled. For some years it had been clear that physicists were on the verge of successfully developing nuclear weapons that could bring the US a quick victory in the war.
Ever since the first successful fission of an atomic nucleus in 1938 in Germany, scientific efforts in this direction had been intensifying, and with the outbreak of the Second World War, and especially the American entry into it, a real race against time had begun. Scientific research and work with nuclear energy involved many scientists across the country from all its most elite universities. Many of them had been in forced or voluntary exile because of their Jewish roots and enriched American academia with skills and knowledge acquired in European universities. Europe was the driving force behind the development of quantum physics.
So when Groves set out to find a scientific director for his nascent secret military empire, there were many candidates. Robert Oppenheimer was not even shortlisted at first, for many reasons, not least because of his left-wing past.
But Groves was adamant and he got what he wanted. Oppenheimer was a multi-disciplinarian, known for his brilliance in tackling the most complex problems, explaining them, suggesting solutions and involving a wide range of experts in their implementation. The result was a tandem that, within two years, had the US military nuclear programme on its feet.
The bomb, which began production in the spring of 1943, was almost affectionately called ‘the gadget’, because for security reasons, the true purpose of the Manhattan Project was to be known to as few people as possible, including most of those who were not employed by it. There were thousands of them.
But a venture that was supposed to have the noble purpose of defeating the Nazis – the bomb was designed to be used in the war against Hitler – soon turned out to be anything but. When it became clear that the Nazis were going to be defeated and that, despite their initial fears, they were not close to developing nuclear weapons themselves, the American leadership decided to use the bomb against Japan. Many of the scientists involved were disappointed by the decision. But two years of over-intensive work were behind them, and they wanted to see the fruits of it.
During the hot summer of 1945, the atmosphere at Los Alamos was more tense than ever. As Japan delayed its surrender, the decision to use the atomic bomb was dropped. Before that, of course, it had to be tested, and Groves, under pressure from the administration, grew more demanding by the day. The bomb was to be tested before the start of the Potsdam conference (17 July), which would have given the Americans an advantage in the negotiations. And indeed, the test, codenamed Trinity, was set for 16 July. The test succeeded.
On 6 August 1945, at exactly 8.14 a.m., a B-29, named Enola Gay after the pilot’s mother, dropped a uranium bomb over Hiroshima. After a delay of several hours due to communication problems, Groves called Oppenheimer to congratulate him. “Appointing you as scientific director of the project was one of the smartest things I have ever done in my life,” he told him. “I doubt it,” replied the physicist.
When a second plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the initial jubilee atmosphere at Los Alamos turned into widespread despondency and doubts about the correctness of the decision. And when the terrible consequences of the bombings for the Japanese civilian population became clear to all, the doubt-filled Oppenheimer fell into despondency and depression.
He felt personally responsible for what happened at Los Alamos, and he never let go of that feeling. He devoted the rest of his life to trying to stop the use of nuclear energy for military purposes. He was often prepared to stand up to both the administration and influential individuals who, in the face of the escalation of the Cold War, advocated total militarisation. As the second most famous physicist in the country, if not the world, after Einstein, and as scientists were considered the epitome of wisdom at the time, his voice counted for a great deal.
But although he was a household name in Washington, he also made a lot of enemies because of his haughty and belittling behaviour and treatment of people. Among them was one who made it his life’s goal to destroy the reputation and career of a distinguished scientist. That was the ambitious and despicable Lewis Strauss.
He subjected Oppenheimer to a humiliating and extrajudicial interrogation in 1954, exposing his entire life in the process, as the FBI illegally tracked and bugged him for years. He succeeded in removing him from Washington and Oppenheimer was transformed from a political insider into a pariah and a martyr. But his defeat was also a defeat for American liberalism.
The artificial city of scientists
General Groves, a staunch conservative who, unlike Oppenheimer, despised the New Deal, was used to being listened to, respected and obeyed, like Robert, his new and soon to be closest colleague. In contrast, the confident, demanding and aloof Groves exuded authoritarianism even in his physical appearance, being large and bulky.
He had no time for diplomacy and was described as “a shameless scoundrel, but direct and outspoken”. That is why nobody really liked him, but everybody respected him. He was extremely talented, having studied at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), already one of the best technical universities, and later at West Point. Known for always finishing whatever he set out to do, whatever the cost, and for having no problem making difficult and controversial decisions, he also became the driving force behind the Manhattan Project.
Within days of his appointment, he had already managed to order 1 200 tonnes of uranium ore, bought land to process it and was looking for another site to separate the uranium isotopes. When he met Oppenheimer, he was impressed not only by his ambition, but also by the proposal to set up a new laboratory on land as isolated and remote from the public as possible, bringing together scientists and experts from all over the country.
Until now, many laboratories had been duplicating work, often unaware of the new developments and breakthroughs of others. Now we would bring everyone together in one place – physicists, chemists, metallurgists, engineers, technicians and so on.
But on paper, Oppenheimer was a weak candidate. He was accused, above all, of not having sufficient administrative experience to enable him to manage and direct hundreds of people. He was also a theoretician, whereas building the bomb required an experimentalist and an engineer, and he often proved to be impractical. He was also tainted by his well-known left-wing activism and the many friendships he cultivated with communists (after all, his wife and brother were former members of the Communist Party), and by the fact that he did not win a Nobel Prize.
Years later, many wondered why he never won it, despite the fact that perhaps only Wolfgang Pauli knew more about physics worldwide than he did. But the Nobel Prize is not only about ability, it is also about luck, good timing and, above all, dedication to a very specific subject. Oppenheimer’s genius was that he was able to summarise and integrate the whole of physics and to approach each problem in an original way.
As soon as he grasped the essence of it and the possible solution, he lost patience and could no longer be bothered with it. He handed it over for further consideration and to work out a solution, while he himself was already working on another. This was often the tragedy of his success, because he opened the door to many new discoveries which were then claimed by others.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1946, but in the light of the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the committee did not want to award the prize to a man so closely associated with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
In any case, for Groves, Oppenheimer was irreplaceable, and he was given a security clearance solely because of the General’s intervention. Oppie immediately began to recruit the best scientists in the country. Since he had a wide network of acquaintances, this was no problem. Moreover, most of them wanted to take part in such a revolutionary venture.
But even then, some of his long-time friends had moral reservations: “The bomb will fall on everyone, guilty and innocent alike.” They did not want to see the culmination of three centuries of physics in the construction of weapons of mass murder, because science was supposed to be noble and to advance, not destroy, mankind.
Los Alamos was first settled in mid-March 1943 by a bunch of scientists, soon to be a hundred, half a year later a thousand, a year after that 3 500, and in the summer of 1945 4 000 civilians and 2 000 uniformed men. So it was necessary to get a real small town on its feet, to build roads, buildings, shops, a school, a library, a hospital, a post office, electricity, to organise rubbish collection, and to provide for the short term. So they organised film screenings, trips to the nearby hills, opened a bar for married and unmarried people.
The wives of scientists were also encouraged to take up jobs as lab assistants or secretaries, and local housekeepers were brought into town every day by bus to help with the housework. The average age of those staying there was 25 and almost no one was over 50.
A self-sufficient community of scientists was formed and the sense of belonging that they soon developed among themselves is due to Oppenheimer. He encouraged participatory democracy. He appointed a town council and decisions about daily life were taken together. His boundless drive and energy were infectious, despite the Spartan conditions.
Oppenheimer – a security risk?
But all was not idyllic, as security measures were extremely strict. The city was surrounded by barbed wire. There were no telephones, exits were restricted and security agents were constantly checking passes. Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty was more furious every day when she had to show her papers all the time at the entrance to her own house.
Oppenheimer was under 24-hour surveillance because of his activist past, and of course all his conversations were tapped before he even arrived in Los Alamos. The constant surveillance was so burdensome that he almost resigned. They couldn’t prove anything, but they removed anyone who said anything suspicious, even if they were key to the job. Most of them were sent to the front.
But all these measures were still not enough to prevent information from dripping into the wrong hands. The Soviets, who were America’s allies at the time, managed to smuggle spies into Los Alamos. Among the scientists, for example, it was Klaus Fuchs, who came as part of the British delegation and managed to elude the FBI, which was in principle a bully. He was a real fanatic, but he pretended so well that Oppie thought he was a right-winger.
At the same time, the Soviets were trying to get close to Oppenheimer himself, hoping that his left-wing leanings would make him willing to share information. Even one of his best friends, Haakon Chevalier, suggested this to him. Oppenheimer, horrified, nipped the suggestion in the bud, saying it would be high treason. Nevertheless, after the war, the so-called Chevalier affair became an important part of the deliberate political persecution against him.
Encouraging cooperation between scientists from different countries was nothing new, and many were keen to see the Americans and the British become more involved with the Soviets during the war. Moreover, they were the ones most exposed to the Nazis and in need of help, even if their confidence in them and Stalin was rapidly eroding. But still, the Allies’ main objective was to destroy the Nazis.
In June 1943, Oppenheimer made another security lapse in the eyes of the FBI, which he himself could not have been aware of. Despite his apparently happy marriage to Kitty, he spent the night with his former great love, Jean Tatlock. This was not the first time they had remained closely attached and, in all probability, had occasionally made love. She is still said to regret not marrying him.
At times, the then highly respected psychiatrist was so depressed that only Robert was able and allowed to stand by her side. In early 1944 she committed suicide – she took a sleeping pill and drowned herself in a bathtub. She was found by her father, who, before calling the police, carefully combed the apartment and destroyed all her correspondence, pictures and other personal belongings.
This later contributed to conspiracy theories about her communist involvement, but it also damaged Oppenheimer, because the FBI saw Jean not as a tragically unhappy and misunderstood individual who was essentially struggling with doubts about her sexual identity, but as a traitor. There were even rumours that Oppenheimer was passing information from Los Alamos to the Soviets through her, although there was never any evidence of this.
Oppenheimer was thus harassed by the security services for the rest of his life, and for many he was and remained a traitor. Even most of General Groves’ colleagues did not share his unwavering confidence in the scientist. But he had to put such concerns aside at Los Alamos, where he was faced with too many challenges of running a bomb development laboratory and balancing work and life.
Patriotism and work at Los Alamos
As director, he had to spend a lot of time on administration and logistics, and he had little time for science. He had never been used to supervising more than a few dozen students, but now he had hundreds of scientists, engineers and technicians under his supervision at any one time, which required a calm and patient manager, qualities he had never possessed before. At thirty-nine, under otherwise unbearable pressure, he was able to quickly adopt a new lifestyle and develop new skills.
His acquaintances and colleagues were at first amazed, then delighted, at his transformation, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He was no longer a scatterbrained, eccentric scientist with a shock of tousled hair, but a carefully groomed, organised and respected by all. He had always exuded a special aura and, over the years, a calm authority that made his fan base in Los Alamos grow even faster than it once had among the budding students. He never had to raise his voice, yet everyone automatically followed him. At the same time, he also learned to listen to and follow the advice of others.
He himself was most pleased that he had managed to bring all the scientists needed to develop the bomb together in one place – the fragmentation of knowledge was over, information and ideas were shared. Soon, all the theory was completed and it was time for production.
Producing sufficient quantities of enriched uranium and plutonium required massive industrial input, and they had to work out the appropriate design to allow an explosion, or to find the critical mass of uranium and plutonium that would trigger a chain reaction. For several weeks, they worked on the challenge of how to build a bomb small enough to be transported by plane but powerful enough to trigger a chain reaction explosion. After many calculations and experiments, they did just that.
Their schedule was impossible, driven by the desire to build the bomb before the Germans and before the end of the war. For a long time it was believed that the Germans were ahead of them in development, since their nuclear programme was led by the brilliant Werner Heisenberg, a colleague of Oppenheimer’s from his days at Göttingen. Groves even sent an assassin after him, but the plan floated away.
Since they worked non-stop six days a week, they also desperately needed time to disconnect. This was usually on Saturday nights, when the parties were one after another and the alcohol flowed without limit. Oppie was often the soul of the party and the women adored him for his wit and charisma. He also liked to look in the glass, but unlike his wife, never too deeply or to the point of embarrassment.
He was known for his masterful martini mixing and initially invited his colleagues to his home. But because Kitty did not want to play the traditional role of the manager’s wife and because she was considered bossy, haughty and tiresome, they invited fewer and fewer guests.
Their married life was complicated, but they were still very attached to each other. Robert listened to his temperamental and brilliant wife and was not bothered by her extreme reactions or by her constant interruptions of his company. Throughout his life, he accepted her exactly as she was and spoke of her with respect and affection.
She, on the other hand, felt trapped in Los Alamos as a housewife, unable to fulfil her professional ambitions in the field of botany. Soon she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and she drank more and more, even though this was quite a habit in Los Alamos. She was also unable to relate to her two children, was impatient and often left them with friends and babysitters. Perhaps she was too unhappy to commit to motherhood.
While his wife’s morale was at an all-time low, Robert was ecstatic and full of energy, despite his unbearable pace. Painfully thin, he smoked up to five packs of cigarettes a day and soon developed a smoker’s cough, but he was virtually never ill. He could not afford to do so in the course of fulfilling his life’s mission. Convinced that his work would help to win, he was an inspiration to others and the atmosphere was electrifying.
The illusion of an ‘open society’
But they could not avoid thinking about the unforeseeable consequences of the most powerful weapon ever used, and potentially the most powerful weapon in history. While sceptics doubted that it would work at all, others wondered what if it blew up the world? Oppenheimer, on the other hand, thought anything was better than it falling into the hands of the Nazis.
In December 1943, the Dane Niels Bohr, then the world’s most revered physicist next to Einstein and, like Oppenheimer, a humanist and philosopher, arrived in Los Alamos. As the Germans tried to assassinate him, he fled to London to learn about advances in the development of nuclear weapons. It was he who first began to warn loudly of its implications for the international order and to call for immediate talks at the highest inter-state levels. He was aware of the dangers of the coming nuclear arms race between East and West and was anxious to begin openly consulting and sharing information as soon as possible, not only with the British but also with the Soviets.
In his worldview, international relations needed to be rethought, otherwise humanity would never be safe again. Secrecy should be ended and no country should have any reason to question another’s secret stockpile of nuclear weapons. The Americans, the British, the French, the Soviets, the Chinese and other smaller nations should all contribute to a better international order. This was the doctrine of the so-called ‘open society’, which many became adherents of only after the bomb was used on Japan. Oppenheimer was one of them, but it cost him dearly.
The US security-intelligence services, with Groves at their head, were horrified. In their view, such thinking was not only naive but also dangerous. Although Bohr managed to present his ideas in person even to Churchill and Roosevelt, they were nipped in the bud, especially by the British Prime Minister, who was increasingly suspicious of Stalin.
And, although it soon became clear that the Germans were nowhere near an atomic bomb of their own, that their military strength was waning and that defeat was imminent, work continued feverishly at Los Alamos. But why destroy so many lives when victory was at hand, some wondered more and more loudly.
On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide and eight days later Germany surrendered. It was too late to use the bomb against the Nazis. Many people breathed a sigh of relief. But there had been talk in government circles for some time of a possible attack on Japan if it continued to resist surrender. The Americans clearly wanted to demonstrate their newfound military superiority to the world in any way they could, and thus to chart the post-war order to their own advantage.
Scientists, who were not up to date with what was happening in Japan and did not know that the Japanese could be forced to surrender in other ways or that they were on the verge of surrendering, nevertheless massively resisted the use of the bomb by signing the petition. But it was too late.
The decision to use it had already been taken, and Oppenheimer could hardly convince Groves that it should be tested first, as there were still too many unknowns. Deep in the middle of the New Mexico desert, a suitable place was found and Oppenheimer named the test Trinity. As he said years later, he was inspired by a poem by the late Jean Tatlock’s favourite poet John Donne, who wrote about the three-person Hindu god of the Bhagavad-Gita – Brahma was the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.
The test was successful. All those who watched the detonation in the early hours of 26 July 1945, more than thirty kilometres away, felt a warmth on their faces, night turned to day and a huge blinding mushroom cloud rose above them. Oppenheimer said simply: “It worked.” Many breathed a sigh of relief, shook hands and celebrated. Others cried, “We did a terrible thing.”
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Tragic celebrity
Just a day later, the Potsdam Conference began, at which Truman gave Stalin a glimpse of the new weapon that would finally bring the Japanese to their knees. Stalin was pleased with the superficial information, but also promised a declaration of war against Japan by the Soviet Union. He kept his promise and declared war on Japan on 8 August, two days after Hiroshima and one day before Nagasaki. A week later, the Japanese government surrendered.
In Los Alamos, after the initial and spontaneous relief immediately after Nagasaki, concerns intensified. As the first eyewitness reports came in, witnessing the devastation with their own eyes and reporting people still wandering around like living corpses, half-burnt, for days and weeks, many fell into a severe depression. Despondency and despondency reigned, and Oppenheimer, riddled with doubts, was a nervous wreck. What he feared most had happened. Physics had become a tool of politics and the military, and had lost its reputation as a noble science in the service of progress.
But the ‘father of the atom bomb’ became a household name overnight, and photographs of his chiselled face graced headlines around the world. He became an iconic scientist and a byword for all scientific achievements, and even if he had wanted to, he could not have avoided fame.
He became accustomed to and even began to enjoy the role that history had given him, and used it to support his newfound activism against the further use of nuclear weapons. Only a few days after his victory, he was already speaking in public about the futility of developing and using such deadly weapons. He tried to explain that it was impossible to defend against it, and that therefore, despite the current advantage, the very existence of the United States was at stake. It would not be able to maintain its monopoly on weapons. The use of the bomb would therefore have to be made illegal, just like poison gas after the First World War.
Although audiences were always thrilled by his brilliant public appearances, he fell on deaf ears in Washington.
Oppenheimer resigned in Los Alamos, eager to return to academia while remaining active in post-war nuclear policy-making. His sudden exposure and fame attempted to influence decision-makers in Washington and he became a fixture there. He spoke for most of the scientists at Los Alamos who, because of moral reservations, never wanted to be involved in a similar project again.
By the end of August 1945, 500 of them had already decided to set up an organisation to combat and control nuclear weapons internationally. They signed a document which Robert handed to the Secretary of State for War. But the Truman administration classified it with a promise to address concerns through new legislation.
Oppenheimer was satisfied with the explanation, which many of his colleagues resented. He naively trusted a government that had announced the creation of a commission to oversee and regulate the development of atomic energy. But the final proposal was not as promised. It was a victory for the military, as its representatives were to sit on the committee, and scientists could be fined up to ten years if they breached safety measures.
The majority of scientists opposed the proposal and mobilised quickly and effectively against its adoption. Interestingly, however, Oppenheimer defended it, believing that even small steps count and that it was better to be there and contribute to incremental change than to be left out without any influence.
In the end, the opponents of the law succeeded and Truman had to propose a new one, whereby the Atomic Energy Commission would be composed exclusively of civilians.
Negotiations on the creation of an Atomic Energy Commission had also been going on within the United Nations since 1946, and the Truman administration invited Oppenheimer to help it draw up a concrete proposal for international supervision. All agreed that he was the most crucial to the deliberations and he convinced all involved of the importance of a comprehensive and ambitious plan.
He proposed the creation of an international agency that would monopolise all aspects of nuclear energy use, technology and development, and direct it towards purely civilian purposes. He believed that “/…/ without a world government there will never be world peace, but sooner or later there will be atomic war.”
All countries would give up partial sovereignty in this area, would be forbidden to make weapons, and the Agency would own the uranium mines, nuclear plants and laboratories. This was perfectly in the spirit of Bohr’s views, but sounded utopian at a time when the Cold War was intensifying.
But something similar succeeded in Europe at the time, where the foundations of today’s European Union were being laid. At the initiative of France, six countries, including the defeated West Germany, set up the European Coal and Steel Community, and the signatories, among other things, transferred the management of these two key arms-producing sectors to a supranational authority. This made war between them “inconceivable and realistically impossible”.
But the Soviets did not accept the Oppenheimer Report’s proposals, instead proposing simply to ban the production of atomic weapons. The Truman administration could not accept this and, after months of negotiations, they fell through. It was only with the Cuban Missile Crisis, fifteen years later, when the Soviets also had a huge nuclear arsenal, that the Americans were ready to negotiate without a fig in their pocket. But by then there were already tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in the world.
Oppenheimer had become a true Washington insider, befriending many influential people and hoping that the administration would be receptive to his efforts. He told everyone about the dangers of the bomb and scared them about the possibility of destroying the human species. He also claimed that the Soviet Union could also produce hundreds of atomic bombs very quickly, which it soon did.
But when Oppenheimer met the President, at Truman’s express wish to meet the famous physicist, everything went wrong. Truman stubbornly insisted that the Soviets were incapable of developing nuclear weapons, which Oppenheimer saw as proof of the President’s narrow-mindedness and narrow-mindedness. There was no chemistry between them and Oppenheimer was unable to use his characteristic charm for a change.
Then he awkwardly added: “I feel as if I had blood on my hands.” This was a drop in the ocean for Truman. If anyone, he had blood on his hands and he had no intention of listening to recriminations for his actions from scientists who did not know politics. “I never want to see that son of a bitch in my office again,” Truman said later, and Oppenheimer squandered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put the genie of atomic energy back in the bottle.
Truman had a reputation for not being able to communicate with scientists. He was not respected because, particularly on the issues surrounding nuclear energy, he was not up to the challenges of his time.
Anti-Communist post-war hysteria
Oppenheimer’s persistent knocking on the conscience of Washington statesmen attracted the attention of FBI Director Edgar Hoover. As early as November 1945, he had sent a scornful memorandum to the White House about his Communist past, even claiming to have been a Party member, which they had never been able to prove. Hoover’s sources were all problematic, including the decision to have permanent wiretaps, but he never hesitated to use them, and no one was bothered.
For the next eight years, the FBI, with the sole purpose of discrediting Oppenheimer, put together a thousand pages of notes on him every year. A national hero not so long ago, he was now a Soviet sympathiser in their eyes, and they even reproached him for his intention to defect to the Soviet Union. And when information began to come to light about Soviet spies active in Los Alamos during the war – most famously the Klaus Fuchs affair – Oppenheimer was blamed for that too. But Fuchs came as part of the British delegation and Oppenheimer had nothing to do with his appointment.
His persistent opposition to the development of the new, even more powerful hydrogen or H bomb, also known as the Super, also contributed to the criticism. Its development was enthusiastically led by Oppenheimer’s former colleague Edward Teller, and most others at Los Alamos, like Robert, opposed it on moral grounds. Teller later even had the audacity to claim to the FBI that Oppenheimer opposed the H-bomb because of instructions from Moscow. The fabrications, which were taken seriously by the security agency, apparently knew no bounds.
Of course, the physicist was not Hoover’s only target; virtually everyone who had anything to do with atomic energy was under surveillance. This was an overture to the infamous American anti-communist drive of the post-war years. Robert was protected, at least for a while, by fame. Most, with the exception of the intelligence services, worshipped and flattered him. He did not even manage to read all the invitations to speeches and conferences, let alone respond to them. Yet he remained omnipresent in public.
He was not ashamed of his leftist past and spoke publicly about the reasons for it – above all, what was happening in Germany in the 1930s. But after the war, he no longer wanted to be associated with his former left-wing friends and students, and many noticed his shift to the right. He probably did so to avoid being deprived in Washington of membership of the consultative bodies within which he was trying to formulate nuclear policy.
Robert’s brother Frank was much more under attack and, because he was less politically compliant than his brother, his career was over at the age of 36. He was the subject of an investigation by the notorious Un-American Activities Committee. A former active member of the Communist Party, he did not divulge a single name of Communist acquaintances.
This backfired on him and his promising academic career was ended. He and his wife spent the next decade on a remote ranch, devoting themselves entirely to farming and cattle breeding. Although he was offered professorships in many countries, he could not accept the offers because he was not allowed to leave the USA.
However, it was not only Western policy that was rapidly losing confidence in the Soviet Union, but Oppenheimer as well. The ideological differences between the Western and Eastern poles were becoming increasingly insurmountable. When he realised that nothing would move for a long time within the United Nations, his initial internationalist pacifist enthusiasm left him. It was clear that the Soviets, fearing encirclement, would continue to produce arms, and so, against his will, Oppenheimer reluctantly admitted that the USA must also continue to arm itself. But he still believed that nuclear weapons should be kept as far as possible out of the military industry.
Torn between science, politics and family
Of course, Oppenheimer was not only involved in politics, he also continued his career as a professor, although he was not as passionate about it as he had been before the war. Shortly afterwards, he was approached by Lewis Strauss, a self-made millionaire, banker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, military officer, high-ranking government official, but also a painfully ambitious, untutored scientist and one of the most dangerous and vindictive influencers of the time. Strauss was a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission since its creation in 1946 and later its Chairman.
Among other things, he was a trustee of the famous Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, and in the search for a new director, Robert Oppenheimer was the first to appear on the shortlist. The Institute was best known as an intellectual retreat for world-famous, often eccentric and reclusive scholars who found peace from the outside world and time to think. Its most famous occupant was Albert Einstein, who often wandered aimlessly around the pleasant lawns of the campus, debating loudly with himself.
Oppenheimer was hesitant at first, which the proud Strauss resented, and the relationship between them was on shaky legs before it got off to a good start. But Oppenheimer accepted the position, where he was able to use his administrative talents and had time for government duties. The location was perfect because of the short distance to New York and Washington.
Although he did not have a high opinion of Strauss and looked down on him, he did not think that he would get in the way of him running the Institute. And at first it was true. Oppie was glowing with the enthusiasm of his power – he was constantly being called important, and while the dishevelled Einstein walked around in a billowing jacket, the Director was in tailor-made suits from expensive boutiques. He had ambitious plans for the development of the Institute, wanting to turn it into a stimulating international venue for interdisciplinary studies.
He had already done something similar with Berkeley in the mid-1930s, turning it into a world centre for theoretical physics. In keeping with his world view and general outlook, he insisted on a mix of social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. He and Princeton’s most famous resident, Einstein, got on famously well as humanists, but a little less well as scientists, Einstein still stubbornly rejecting the theory of quantum physics.
Oppenheimer, of course, could not concentrate fully on physics and science, with the Institute’s management and constant trips to Washington. Friends urged him to leave politics, but the travels were often an escape from his wife and family life. At first sight, this looked idyllic and people knew Robert, Kitty, Peter, Toni and their German Shepherd from newspaper articles and photographs. But between four walls they were a dysfunctional family.
Kitty was indeed Robert’s great confidante and he often brought problems home from work for them to sort out together. But she was an alcoholic. He tolerated her because she was witty and clever, but she drained the others with her unforgiving energy and anger. She had a circle of similarly frustrated women around her, and they were already drinking happily during the day. Sometimes she was so guilty that she would fall to the floor, knock herself unconscious and even hurt herself. Almost every night she fell asleep with a cigarette in her bed, and once she managed to put out a fire at the last moment before disaster struck.
Oppenheimer did not restrict her alcohol intake and they often drank together. As if he understood her pain, he showed his gratitude for everything she had had to give up for his career.
But he was no saint. He liked to look after other women, and for many years he had a mistress, Ruth Tolman, a clinical psychologist eleven years his senior. Judging by their correspondence, they were very much in love but did not want to jeopardise their marriage. Moreover, Ruth was the wife of Oppenheimer’s close friend and scientific colleague from Los Alamos. Both he and Kitty, however, would have known about the affair.
Dark clouds
Strauss and Oppenheimer were initially respectful of each other. But when Oppenheimer made it clear that he would not tolerate interference in the running of the institute, their relationship deteriorated rapidly. Both had a need to show their superiority and a reputation for wanton verbal humiliation.
Oppenheimer unwittingly earned Strauss’s ultimate revenge during a rather technical discussion of the Atomic Energy Commission, of which Strauss was a member and Oppenheimer its expert adviser. Oppenheimer denied Strauss’s claims and even made fun of them in front of everyone, which caused the proud Strauss a real holy rage.
On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union secretly detonated its first atomic bomb in the middle of Kazakhstan. Nine days later, the radioactive aftermath of the explosion was detected by an American warplane. Oppenheimer was not surprised, as he had been warning about the Soviet nuclear programme for years.
Again, he had naively hoped that Truman would renew efforts at international control, but the President’s reaction was to increase the production of nuclear weapons. In 1948 they had about 50 bombs, and by 1950 they had 300. And that was just the beginning of the emerging arms race. Over the next five decades, production skyrocketed to almost 18,000 nuclear weapons.
In parallel, the US was developing weapons even more lethal than nuclear weapons. The so-called hydrogen-based H-bomb, potentially a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb, had for years shortened the slumber of Edward Teller and his supporters in military circles. Finally, the moment came when Soviet nuclear advances made it even more relevant, and to Oppenheimer’s horror, Truman was delighted. The US had to show and prove to the Soviets that it was always one step ahead.
Two camps emerged. On the one side were those who wanted to escalate the arms race and on the other those who wanted to limit arms. This was mainly the scientific community – which did not think that such decisions should be taken in a moral vacuum. New weapons would also not contribute to greater security, but the opposite.
Other countries, especially the Soviet Union, should also be encouraged to think in this way. It should also be persuaded by clever diplomacy, since it was economically weakened and a new war was not in its interest.
The first option prevailed, of course, and the decision to develop the H bomb was a decisive turning point in the Cold War, which many people have never forgiven President Truman for. Strauss was, of course, his great ally, and Oppenheimer publicly attacked the decision.
Because Truman never listened to him, Washington began to sit too close to him and slowly began to wriggle out of his clutches. But it was not so easy, and he was persuaded to remain a contractor to the Atomic Energy Commission. When Truman was succeeded by Eisenhower, he temporarily saw the light at the end of the tunnel again, because Ike, as a former general, was sceptical about nuclear and thermonuclear weapons and even proposed a new Atoms for Peace programme, under which the US and the Soviet Union would direct their capabilities towards an international effort to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. But the Soviets were uninterested and the militarised nuclear doctrine prevailed.
Oppenheimer – victim of a witch-hunt
Strauss, a generous supporter of Eisenhower’s presidential election campaign, finally came into his own. In 1953, he was appointed his nuclear energy adviser, and was soon promoted to chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission – a position he actually bought.
The net around Oppenheimer was tightening. For some time, especially since his public opposition to the hydrogen bomb, he has felt persecuted and watched at every turn. Strauss has mounted a veritable fake media campaign against him for his alleged communist sympathies. When Oppenheimer’s security clearance expired in 1954, he proposed an inquiry that would have led to its definitive withdrawal.
At first this did not seem unusual to Robert, but he and his lawyers worked feverishly for weeks to prepare a defence. The news caused outrage among scientists and liberals. The proceedings virtually turned from an innocent investigation into a trial and the complete destruction of Oppenheimer’s reputation. Within four weeks, countless witnesses had appeared on both sides and Oppie’s entire private and professional life was at stake.
The Strauss coterie had in their hands hundreds of pages of transcripts of wiretaps, most of them obtained illegally. Oppenheimer’s lawyers never saw them. The whole show, totally unconstitutional and extrajudicial, was reminiscent of a crusade, and Strauss claimed that the future of America was at stake. He said it was necessary to prevent atomic energy from falling into the hands of the left and thus, indirectly, into the hands of the Soviets.
Robert, always a proud American citizen, had never seen anything like it. He entered the room as a proud, confident and eminent scientist, and he left humiliated and trampled. He became a different man, often brooding and passive, although it was clear that this was a manifestation of anti-communist hysteria on the one hand and the revenge of a sociopath on the other. Within a few months he had aged and greyed, and at the age of fifty, for the first time, he looked older than he really was.
The jury concluded that Robert was a loyal citizen who had not broken any laws or security measures, but who nevertheless posed a security risk. Therefore, his licence was not renewed.
Strauss also ensured that the most damaging parts of the secret dossier were leaked to the public. But this was his revenge, as the full vile and corrupt nature of the process by which he had destroyed a national hero came to light. His career was destroyed.
Oppenheimer became one of the most prominent victims of the post-war witch-hunt, which added to his fame. He stayed at Princeton because, despite Strauss, everyone there was on his side. But he and his family were scarred forever. From then on, they increasingly sought respite from society on the isolated island of St John in the middle of the Virgin Islands. But even there, the FBI was constantly on his heels.
With the return of the Democrats to the White House in the early 1960s, Kennedy sought to symbolically rehabilitate Oppenheimer by awarding him the prestigious Public Service Award. Just before the award, Kennedy was shot by an assassin and later received the award from his widow Jackie.
Robert Oppenheimer died of throat cancer on 18 February 1967. He was active right up to his last day. The man who gave the world a weapon of self-destruction should nevertheless be remembered as a man who stood on the right side of history.
(End)
