The Oppenheimer Alternative

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Oppie’s heart was racing. “I’m not looking to defect.”

  “Surely ‘emigrate’ is a less-problematic word? And surely, as you yourself have often said, the world would be a safer place if atomic secrets were more evenly distributed. Right now, not only is America the sole country to have the bomb, it’s proven that it’ll use it, too. There need to be checks and balances. The threat of retaliation is what will keep the bomb from ever being used again. And no one would want a repeat of the horrors of the past, would they?”

  When Oppie thought of Russia, he thought of ballet, of careful choreography, of performers hitting their marks. And this lithe Russian certainly knew how to hit his. The path turned, and there, in front of them, was one of Golden Gate Park’s great attractions: the Oriental Tea Garden, or, as it had been known until the war, the Japanese Tea Garden. Created for the 1894 World’s Fair, the garden had transitioned from temporary exhibit to permanent installation. A Japanese horticulturalist named Makoto Hagiwara had moved into the house here with his family to serve as custodians. Makoto-san died in 1925, but his daughter Takano took over the work. Kitty, who had often visited here when they lived in Berkeley, had admired Takano’s arrangements—until she and her children were evicted in 1942 and forced into one of General Groves’s internment camps.

  Oppie had never been to Japan. Bob Serber and Phil Morrison had gone shortly after the destruction of Hiroshima, after the annihilation of Nagasaki, to glean what knowledge they could from the devastation, but Oppie had stayed home. He couldn’t face the aftermath, but here, suddenly, in front of him, risen ghosts: a five-tiered pagoda, a meticulous rock garden, bonsai trees, and Buddhist and Shinto sculptures. Fountains and little waterfalls mocked him with aqueous laughter.

  Those poor little people.

  “We can offer you a lot,” said Apresyan. “A beautiful home in Moscow. The best laboratories. The best equipment. Unlimited funds. And you’d work right alongside Kurchatov.”

  “I’ve no interest in making bombs anymore,” said Oppie. “Even my interest in controlling their use is secondary now. I want to talk to Kurchatov, and to others—others who he will know but I’m not even aware of. Your best minds in physics, especially ...” He paused as a young couple holding hands came down the garden steps, waiting until they were out of earshot; Dutch and English weren’t that different when it came to technical terms: “... de fysica van fusie.” The physics of fusion.

  “Ah, then America is proceeding with a hydrogen bomb,” said Apresyan, as calmly as if remarking on the weather.

  “I didn’t say that. You’ve researched my past; you know that before the war my field was stellar physics—the fusion that powers stars and what happens at the ends of their lives. There are ... problems ... in that realm that we—that I—need help with.”

  They passed the arching Drum Bridge, a wooden semi-circle over a stream with climbing slats instead of stairs, and continued through the elegant landscaping, scarlet and salmon-pink flowers punctuating the green. A serene Buddha, eyes closed, ignored them.

  “Well,” said Apresyan, “Dr. Kurchatov’s energies remain focused, naturally, until the current imbalance of power can be resolved. If you could help him with that, I’m sure the Academy would welcome him turning to more arcane matters.” Oppie said nothing, and after a time, the Russian went on: “And, speaking of power imbalances, the West really does owe us a first-rate physicist since Gamow left.”

  At the last Solvay Conference, in 1933, George Gamow had defected from the Soviet Union. A year later, he was teaching at George Washington University; it was he who had recruited Edward Teller to the United States from London. Although Gamow had declined to work on the Manhattan Project, his areas of interest of late were astrophysics and cosmology; Oppie hoped to bring him on to the Arbor Project’s Patient Power solar-research team.

  “I simply want to open a conduit,” said Oppie. “A channel of communication between those of us working on ... on certain problems here in the United States and those in Russia who might have valuable insights. A two-way street, as it were.”

  They were well out of the Oriental Garden now; indeed, they were past Crossover Drive. “We’ve held receptions at the consulate before with visiting Soviet scientists,” Apresyan said. “But, although I assure you that Dr. Kurchatov is most happy in Russia, after the unfortunate loss of Gamow, you can surely understand that our top minds cannot be brought to the very shadow of the Presidio.”

  A large striped ball about the size of a desktop globe went bouncing across their path, and a trio of boys chased after it. Oppie lit his pipe and smoked it in silence. As they got farther west, he could smell dung from the bison paddock and, soon, salt air as seagulls wheeled overhead.

  And then they came to the end of the park, and, Oppie had assumed, the end of their business. The Dutch Windmill, no longer used for park irrigation and falling into disrepair, was to their right, and in front of them was the road that separated the park from the sands of Ocean Beach. Beyond that, the Pacific—“the peaceful,” earth’s own sea of tranquility—stretched to the horizon, azure meeting cerulean.

  Oppie was about to quip something along the lines of them likely being the only ones to pass by the Dutch windmill today who were actually speaking Dutch when Stepan Zakharovich Apresyan pointed just past the shoreline. “See that small boat? The red one?”

  Oppie tilted his head down a bit so his porkpie brim would better shield against the afternoon sun. “Ja.”

  “It’s a speedboat, manned and ready to go. There’s a Russian trawler, the Krylov, in international waters. Just cross the road, board the boat, and ...”

  Oppie waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, Oppie said, “I have a wife.”

  “A wife who has run off on you repeatedly,” replied the vice consul. “A wife who, to be honest, wasn’t the woman you really wanted to marry. But if you wish, she can easily be collected, too.”

  “And two children.”

  “Yes, including a daughter you offered up for adoption.”

  Oppie’s eyes went wide, and Apresyan shrugged amiably. “We were only searching for certain information, but you know the saying: a wide net catches many fish. He gestured out at the ocean. “That boat has an anchor, but do you? New York, Cambridge, Göttingen, Leiden, Berkeley, Los Alamos, Princeton.” He turned to Oppie. “Jij bent niet het type dat een band vormt.”

  The most direct translation was, “You’re not the type to form bonds,” but ...

  His heart fluttered.

  But, yes, it could also be rendered as, “You’re not the ‘attached’ kind.”

  Oh, Robert. Robert, Robert.

  “There’s a new life waiting,” Apresyan said. “A rewarding one, a wealthy one.”

  If only ..., Oppie thought. Somewhere fresh; a place where no one would care, anymore at least, about what had happened with Haakon Chevalier. Somewhere far from Jean’s ghost; far from Trinity’s ashes.

  But he couldn’t go. There was work to be done. There was a world to be saved.

  “I’m sorry,” said Oppie and he could hear the wistful regret in his own voice. “I can’t. But, please, I implore you, let Kurchatov contact me; let him and me talk.” He switched at last back to English. “Good day, Mr. Vice Consul.” Robert turned and headed back into Golden Gate Park.

  From behind him, fading into the distance, over the sounds of traffic and gently crashing waves, he heard Apresyan say, “Dosvedanya, comrade,” but Oppie didn’t turn around.

  Chapter 36

  1947

  Not included among the dossiers is one for rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. It was never transferred to N.A.R.A.

  —U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

  Dick Feynman had the old itch again.

  He’d been trying to keep it in check, leafing through the Institute’s copy of the June 1947 Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists. They’d dropped the of Chicago from the name since he’d last looked at an issue. More interestingly, this issue debuted something called “the doomsday clock,” a stylized and stark black-and-white clock face—or, to be precise, the upper-left quarter of one—sprawled across a solid flame-orange cover. The clock was set at seven minutes to midnight, an indication of the editorial board’s assessment of how close the world was to nuclear Armageddon; the plan was to move the minute hand closer to or farther from the vertical in subsequent issues as conditions warranted.

  Dick put the journal down. It was late and the library was empty; heck, most of Fuld Hall was empty. He could amble back to his guest room, but ...

  But.

  That damned itch.

  Oh, things weren’t as bad here at the Institute for Advanced Study as they’d been at Los Alamos. There were no military police, no barbed wire, and no sworn security oaths.

  But, still, there were locks on doors.

  And combinations to safes.

  And things being kept secret.

  Dick didn’t like that the people of the world weren’t being told about the impending disaster, but he’d agreed to abide by the will of the majority. Still, there were other things being kept under wraps not to avoid panic or to protect American interests but merely because, for some self-important types, secrecy was an obsessive kink. And, well, such folk really did need to have their noses tweaked now and then.

  Dick had gotten along well enough with the other Dick, General Leslie R. Groves, at Los Alamos, but he could understand Leo Szilard’s perspective on the man. Physically, Groves was a Zeppelin, but instead of hydrogen or helium he was pumped up by swagger and bluster.

  The general had annexed room 212 on the second floor of Fuld Hall as his office here, next to Gödel’s and directly above the one for von Neumann’s secretary, but he spent most of his time in Washington. Groves was off-site tonight, and Feynman amused himself by picking the lock to the general’s door. The I.A.S. had been built without any particular regard for security, and Dick found the mechanism disappointingly easy to defeat; he was inside in a matter of seconds.

  But then it was a different story. Groves had a standalone safe about the size of a refrigerator; he’d likely have preferred a built-in one, lest those Commies he suspected were lurking around every corner haul it away. It was a type Feynman had never seen before, with a brass combination dial set in the middle of its burgundy door. Perfect: a challenge.

  Of course, Dick first looked in the obvious places where people frequently wrote down combinations, and he tried a few numbers he’d dug up associated with Groves, including birth date, anniversary, and phone numbers. No success—and no problem, either. Dick rubbed the tips of his thumbs against each of his other fingers. You could crack a safe by carefully listening but it took more expertise to do it entirely by feel. Being unfamiliar with the model, Feynman didn’t know how many tumblers would have to fall into place, but the usual count was three. He looked at his watch—half the fun was seeing how long it took—then got to work. At first he just spun the dial at various speeds, getting used to its clicking and the ever-so-slight changes in resistance as the pointer passed over various numbers. Then, once he had the feel of the mechanism, he gave the dial a big spin to reset everything so he could start clean.

  In the end, it took him twenty-three minutes and eighteen seconds to get the safe’s door open, a quite respectable time. His intention had been just to leave a gift for Groves—a little something to surprise the general the next time he opened this vault. Feynman collected Walking Liberty fifty-cent pieces from 1918, the year he’d been born, to leave as calling cards—after all, who could be angry at getting a free half buck?—and he fished one out of the front pocket of his beige slacks. But as he went to place it on the top file folder, the words on the tab caught his eye. In block letters, someone had written “Project Overcast.”

  Feynman had enjoyed many conversations with Johnny von Neumann when visiting here and knew about his plan to use his computer to accurately predict the weather months or even years in advance. Dick wasn’t sure that would ever be possible. At Los Alamos, much of his own work had been on the gaseous diffusion method of separating Uranium-235 from U-238, work that was vexed by the drunken-walk meandering of particles known as Brownian motion. He suspected that such randomness would always befuddle meteorological soothsayers as they tried to read cirrus entrails. Still, he was intrigued—he liked to describe himself as a curious character in both senses of the word—and so he picked up the manila folder. It was thick; he almost spilled the contents onto the floor as he hefted it.

  He decided he might as well just leaf through it here, rather than take it back to the library. Groves was fat but he wasn’t slovenly: his desk was tidy and there was plenty of room to spread out papers. Dick lowered himself into the padded chair, wondering if it was relieved to be taking a much lighter burden for a change, and he began to read.

  And read.

  And read.

  Despite the name, Project Overcast had nothing to do with the weather. The first document in the file was a memo stamped “Classified” and dated just over two years ago—July 6, 1945—with the subject heading “Exploitation of German Specialists in Science and Technology in the United States.” It outlined “principles and procedures” under which Overcast was to operate, one of which was set off in its own paragraph:

  No known or alleged war criminals should be brought to the United States. If any specialists who are brought to this country are subsequently found to be listed as alleged war criminals, they should be returned to Europe for trial.

  The second sentence had been underlined in blue ink, and the letters “WVB” had been jotted in the margin.

  WVB. Dick’s first thought was “women’s volleyball,” a game he always enjoyed watching.

  But his second thought was Wernher von Braun.

  He started riffling through the rest of the documents in the folder. As with so much in his approach to problem solving, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for—but he was confident he’d recognize it when he found it.

  And find it he did, although it was couched in the usual military alphabet soup. The deputy director of “JIOA” said that “negative OMGUS reports” were preventing “SD” from approving immigration for key “OPC” assets. Dick had to hunt around in other documents to find out what the initials stood for. “JIOA” turned out to be the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, which had put together more than a thousand dossiers on Nazi medical doctors, scientists, engineers, and technicians who might be useful to the American military. “OPC”—Operation Paperclip—was the new name for what had originally been called Operation Overcast, apparently because those Nazis desired by the U.S. military had their dossiers flagged with a paperclip. “OMGUS” was the Office of the Military Government, United States—the U.S. authority in the American-occupied part of Germany. And “SD,” it eventually dawned on Dick, was the U.S. Department of State.

  The memo concluded, “It is not considered advisable to submit any of the enclosed dossiers to the Departments of State and Justice at this time.”

  Presumably there had originally been several dossiers included, but Groves had brought only one of them here to the I.A.S. The cover note on it said, “OMGUS indicates that he is regarded as a potential security threat to the United States and he will be wanted for denazification trial in view of his party membership.” And the dossier itself was that of Herr Doktor Professor Wernher von Braun.

  Dick imagined von Braun was considered a war criminal simply because he was the father of the V-2 rocket, explosions of which had killed 2,700 civilians in London and injured another 6,500; by the same standards, as Leo Szilard had observed, Dick himself would have been named a war criminal had the Japanese won.

  But, as Feynman worked his way through the papers about von Braun, he found his stomach
knotting. There was no easy way to make a copy of the relevant pages, and so he read them over and over again, committing every word to memory.

  When he at last departed Groves’s office, he left no fifty-cent piece or any other sign that he’d been there. It was after 3:00 a.m. as he exited Fuld Hall to walk in the chill to his visitor’s quarters. There was no moon, just a vaulting canopy of stars; Dick figured there had to be at least six million of them.

  Chapter 37

  I aim at the stars.

  —Wernher von Braun

  But sometimes he hits London.

  —Mort Sahl

  “You know what they’re calling me and my staff in Washington?” Wernher von Braun asked in his thick accent as he and Oppenheimer walked along the dirt road through the Texas heat. He didn’t wait for Oppie’s guess. “‘Intellectual reparations,’” von Braun declared and then he bellowed a laugh. “I like that.” The cloudless summer sky was the silver of sardine scales; the sun shimmered against it. “Better than what we’d dubbed ourselves: ‘Prisoners of peace.’” He looked around the desolate grounds. “Speaking of names, this has to be a euphemism, right? Fort Bliss? Fort Piss is more like it.” They were speaking German, but von Braun had switched to English for the last few words.

  “Actually,” said Oppie, as a Jeep passed them heading the other way, “it’s named for William Bliss. He was the son-in-law of an American president.” Oppie normally paid little attention to military history, but the story of Bliss had caught his eye: he’d been a child math prodigy who’d grown up to be a decorated soldier as well as a mathematics professor.

  “Ha!” barked von Braun. “The new world and the old—not so different, eh? Nepotism everywhere!”