J. Robert Oppenheimer, (1904 - 1967)

PBS ^ | 2002 | PBS

[ckilmer]

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	People & Events J. Robert Oppenheimer, (1904 - 1967) Robert Oppenheimer was born on April 22, 1904, into a wealthy, New York, Jewish family. They lived in an apartment overlooking the Hudson River and vacationed in a summer home on Long Island. As a 17-year-old, Oppenheimer went to Harvard where a classmate says he "intellectually looted the place." But it was after Harvard that Oppenheimer found his intellectual passion. First at Cambridge University in England and then at Göttigen University in Germany, the young American scholar began making his mark in quantum theory. By the time he returned to America, he'd published more than a dozen articles and established a reputation as a theoretical physicist. In the 1930s, Oppenheimer became drawn into left-wing politics. In part, this may have been a reaction to the rise of Nazism in Germany where his relatives were suffering under increasingly severe anti-semitic laws, but it may also have been a reaction to the Great Depression. Many of his students were unable to get jobs and Oppenheimer would say, "I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect men's lives." He got involved with a number of left-leaning organizations and began making an annual donation of about $1,000 to various funds associated with the Communist Party. When he joined the atomic bomb project he admitted in his security questionnaire that he had been "a member of just about every Communist Front organization on the West Coast." It was an admission that cast suspicion on him and eventually played a large role in the loss of his security clearance. In 1941 Oppenheimer was brought into the atomic bomb project. His first task was to calculate the critical mass of uranium-235, i.e. the amount of uranium needed to sustain a chain reaction. The following summer he gathered together at Berkeley a small group of some of the best theoretical physicists in the country to talk about the actual bomb design. The group, which he dubbed the "luminaries," included Hans Bethe and Edward Teller. By the end of the summer they concluded that the bomb project would require a major scientific effort. General Leslie Groves, the army officer in charge of the bomb project wanted Oppenheimer to be the scientific director of the program, despite what he would call the "snag" of Oppenheimer's political past. After the war, he explained why: "He's a genius. A real genius... Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well, not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports." Together the two men picked out a site for a new laboratory for the project. It had to be isolated, but it needed to be easily accessible, it needed an adequate supply of water, and a moderate climate for year-round construction. Oppenheimer took Groves to a boys' school on a mesa in the New Mexico desert, which he had visited as a young man. The site became the location for the top secret Los Alamos weapons laboratory. By July 1945, Los Alamos was ready to test its bomb. Oppenheimer sent a cryptic telegram to scientists back at Berkeley: "Any time after the 15th would be a good time for our fishing trip...As we do not have enough sleeping bags to go around, we ask you please do not bring anyone with you." The test, code-named "Trinity," took place on July 16. It exploded with a force equivalent of 18,000 tons of TNT. Recalling the scene, Oppenheimer said: "A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. There floated through my mind a line from the "Bhagavad-Gita" in which Krishna is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty: "I am become death: the destroyer of worlds." After the war Oppenheimer achieved nation-wide recognition as the "father of the A-bomb," and he was widely quoted as the moral conscience of those who had worked on the project. "In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish," he would say, "the physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose." He also rose to prominence as a scientific advisor to the Federal Government. He pushed hard for international control of atomic energy, and was appointed Chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission. It was in this role that he voiced strong opposition to the development of the H-bomb. His political past and his resistance to the hydrogen bomb ultimately had devastating consequences for his career. In 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission suspended his security clearance. Despite testimonials from scores of witnesses during the hearings, his clearance was not reinstated. Oppenheimer returned to academic life, but as one colleague would say, the public ordeal had broken his spirit. previous | return to people & events list | next THE FILM & MORE | SPECIAL FEATURE | TIMELINE | MAPS PEOPLE & EVENTS | TEACHER'S GUIDE The American Experience | KIDS | SEARCH | FEEDBACK WGBH | PBS Online ©

[ckilmer]

The interesting question here is why did the fed's not believe Oppenheimer's disclaimers that he wasn't a spy.

The answer comes from another PBS series on the Venona papers. The national security agency had broken the Russian code partly during the 1940's. (As they had the japanese and german code.)What they found out was that the soviets had spies through out FDR's administration and also in the a bomb project. In addition to the spies apprehended like Julius Rosenburg who had worked on the a bomb project--the NSA read russian cable traffic which showed there were three more spies on the project. The feds couldn't tell who they were. However, from reading the cables they learned that the soviets recruited mostly through the communist party. Oppenheimer had been a party member at one time.

[RBroadfoot]

If you're interested in this topic enough to read an 800-page book, I hearily recommend The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It's a very interesting history of both the politics, the physics, and the people involved in the development of the Bomb.

[LarryLied]

In part, this may have been a reaction to the rise of Nazism in Germany where his relatives were suffering under increasingly severe anti-semitic laws, but it may also have been a reaction to the Great Depression.

There is no excuse. Those who wanted to know, knew about the murder of millions in the Soviet Union. Those who associated with the CPUSA knew better than anyone. But they didn't care. Christians were being murdered. Vasily Grossman participated in the Ukrainian Holocaust as a "party activist". In later life, he had some regrets (he never saw how planned out it all was however). Read his comments HERE.

[RLK]

Those who wanted to know, knew about the murder of millions in the Soviet Union.

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They interpreted it as the cleansing of the nation necessary to build the perfect socialist state.

[VOA]

The answer comes from another PBS series on the Venona papers.

"Secret, Lies and Atomic Spies"

One of the best episodes ever of NOVA.

Just about blew my mind that "at least 300" Soviet operatives were known to be in the
guvmint, and many of them "got away with it".

Tail-Gunner Joe (McCarthy) was right all along, even if he couldn't properly identify the perps.

[monkey]

Whether or not a spy, Oppenheimer was thoroughly untrustworthy, self-aggrandizing and dishonest. He lied about a friend, Chevalier, to U.S. intelligence, in order to score brownie points and get a clearance.

From Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, by Robert Jungk:

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Oppenheimer was convinced of Chevalier's innocence. But (Oppenheimer) gave in, and at last disclosed the name of the man whom he had himself, as he admitted later, so deeply incriminated...so saving himself and his career. Chevalier knew nothing of it, but shortly afterwards was dismissed from his tutorial post for unknown reasons. It was not until more than ten years later, after he had been driven into exile and was still without an appointment, that he finally learned who had informed against him and brought his academic career to an end.

In 1954, in an official hearing, Oppenheimer admitted that his stories about a mysterious intermediary, whom he subsequently named to Groves as Chevalier, had been "idiotic" and "a tissue of lies."

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This, from the man who was such a left-wing martyr for losing his own clearance.

AEC statement on Oppenheimer's clearance

[LarryLied]

They interpreted it as the cleansing of the nation necessary to build the perfect socialist state.

One Russian, refering to the famous socialist line that "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet", said he saw many eggs broken but never saw any omelet.

[ckilmer]

Tail-Gunner Joe (McCarthy) was right all along, even if he couldn't properly identify the perps.

NSA started to feed the FBI their info in 1949. With this proviso. The FBI had to develop their own leads in order to prosecute. The NSA didn't want to their sources revealed. As a result a number of people got off without being prosecuted--because they FBI was unable to develop their own leads. Likely too, I'd guess the J Edgar Hoover fed McCarthy the info on the raw numbers--that there were 300 spies indicated by code names in the venona cables of whom the feds were able to identify 100. Those numbers were the numbers that McCarthy put out. Likely the FBI was pretty frustrated about not being able to develop their own evidence and so hoped to smoke em out. When the politics went against McCarthy he was left to twist in the wind.

the terrible thing is that the russians even had a spy in the NSA who reported to them about the venona cable code breakers in 1948. After that they weren't able to read the cable traffic.

In the mean time the americans knew about the russian spying and the russians knew that the americans knew. only the american people didn't have a complete knowledge of what happened--that is they didn't know about the venona cables--until 1996.

The crack in the body politic at the time has had lasting reprecussions.

[Bush2000]

They interpreted it as the cleansing of the nation necessary to build the perfect socialist state.

And we shouldn't kid ourselves: If the libs thought they had any chance of building such a state here -- and the only cost was the death of all conservatives -- it wouldn't take long for the bodies to start dropping...

[RLK]

And we shouldn't kid ourselves: If the libs thought they had any chance of building such a state here -- and the only cost was the death of all conservatives -- it wouldn't take long for the bodies to start dropping...

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I don't kid myself at all. Ruby Ridge and Waco were tentative experiments to see what could be done without just retribution. George Bush has dealt this nation a very serious blow in not publically recognizing that fact and imposing justice.

[RLK]

In 1954, in an official hearing, Oppenheimer admitted that his stories about a mysterious intermediary, whom he subsequently named to Groves as Chevalier, had been "idiotic" and "a tissue of lies."

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If a man lies to me the first time, what reason is there to belive he is telling the truth the second?

Rule number one: Never trust the word of a leftist. In leftist ideology a lie is an honorable and legitimate tactic to be employed in obtaining the socialist goal.

[LarryLied]

In Special Tasks : The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness-A Soviet Spymaster Pavel Sudoplatov, who headed Soviet nuclear intelligence, wrote that both Fermi and Oppenheimer betrayed America.

[Irene Adler]

"In leftist ideology a lie is an honorable and legitimate tactic to be employed in obtaining the socialist goal."

Truer words were never written. That's why Alger Hiss lived well into the 90s and died without ever telling the truth about being a communist and a spy.

[RLK]

BTT

[Zack Nguyen]

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