Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin
Page 82
Kai wishes particularly to thank his parents, Eugene and Jerine Bird for nurturing his passion for history, and his son, Joshua Kodai Bird, for patiently allowing him to read aloud large portions of the manuscript at bedtime. He also thanks Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel; Gar Alperovitz; Eric Alterman; Scott Armstrong; Wayne Biddle; Shelly Bird; Nancy Bird and Karl Becker; Norman Birnbaum; Jim Boyce and Betsy Hartmann; Frank Browning; Avner Cohen and Karen Gold; David Corn; Michael Day; Dan Ellsberg; Phil and Jan Fenty; Thomas Ferguson; Helma Bliss Goldmark; Richard Gonzalez and Tara Siler; Neil Gordon; Mimi Harrison; Paul Hewson; Congressman Rush Holt; Brennon Jones; Michael Kazin and Beth Horowitz; Jim and Elsie Klumpner; Lawrence Lifschultz and Rabia Ali; Richard Lingeman; Ed Long; Priscilla Johnson McMillan; Alice McSweeney; Christina and Rodrigo Macaya; Paul Magnuson and Cathy Trost; Emily Medine and Michael Schwartz (and their mountain sanctuary); Andrew Meier; Branco Milanovic and Michelle de Nevers; Uday Mohan; Dan Moldea; John and Rosemary Monagan (and all our friends at his writers’ group); Jacques and Val Morgan of Idle Time Books; Anna Nelson; Paula Newberg; Nancy Nickerson; Tim Noah and the late Marjorie Williams; Jeffery Paine; Jeff Parker; David Polazzo; Lance Potter (who found the epigraph on Prometheus); William Prochnau and Laura Parker; Tim Rieser; Caleb Rossister and Maya Latynski; Arthur Samuelson; Nina Shapiro; Alix Shulman; Steve Solomon; John Tirman; Nilgun Tolek; Abigail Wiebenson; Don Wilson; Adam Zagorin, and Eleanor Zelliot.
Kai is particularly indebted to Lee Hamilton, Rosemary Lyon, Lindsay Collins, Dagne Gizaw, Janet Spikes and all his other friends at the Woodrow Wilson Center for listening to his long-winded stories about Oppie.
Martin adds his thanks to his many mutual friends above and wishes particularly to acknowledge his children, Alex Sherwin and Andrea Sherwin Ripp for their love and their bemused willingness to share so many years of their lives and their living space with the enormous collection of boxes, file cabinets and bookshelves that were dedicated to “Oppie’s cocoon.” His sister Marjorie Sherwin and her partner Rose Walton did not have to live with the cocoon, but they frequently visited it and never lost hope that a butterfly would emerge. That it finally did is in no small way due to the encouragement and support of three wonderful mentors who taught and sustained him through graduate school at UCLA—and beyond: Keith Berwick, Richard Rosecrance and Robert Dallek.
Martin also thanks and acknowledges the support and intellectual encouragement—and in many cases the hospitality during research trips— of many old friends and colleagues: Hiroshima’s Mayor, Tadoshi Akiba; Sam Ballen; Joel and Sandy Barkan; Ira and Martha Berlin (and The Wisconsin Magazine of History); Richard Challener; Lawrence Cunningham; Tom and Joan Dine; Carolyn Eisenberg; Howard Ende; Hal Feiveson; Owen and Irene Fiss; Lawrence Friedman; Gary Goldstein; Ron and Mary Jean Green; Sol and Robyn Gittleman; Frank von Hippel; David and Joan Hollinger; Michele Hochman; Al and Phyllis Janklow; Mikio Kato; Nikki Keddie; Mary Kelley; Robert Kelley; Dan and Bettyann Kevles; David Kleinman; Martin and Margaret Kleinman; Barbara Kreiger; Normand and Marjorie Kurtz; Rodney Lake; Mel Leffler; Alan Lelchuk; Tom and Carol Leonard; Sandy and Cynthia Levinson; Dan Lieberfeld; Leon and Rhoda Litwack; Marlaine Lockheed; Janet Lowenthal and Jim Pines; David Lundberg; Gene Lyons; Lary and Elaine May; David Mizner; Bob and Betty Murphy; Arnie and Sue Nachmanoff; Bruce and Donna Nelson; Arnold and Ellen Offner; Gary and Judy Ostrower; Donald Pease; Dale Pescaia; Constantine Pleshakov; Phil Pochoda; Ethan Pollock; the late Leonard Rieser; Del and Joanna Ritchhardt; John Rosenberg; Michael and Leslie Rosenthal; Richard and Joan Rudders; Lars Ryden; Pavel Sarkisov; Ellen Schrecker; Sharan Schwartzberg; Edward Segel; Ken and Judy Seslowe; Saul and Sue Singer; Rob Sokolow; Christopher Stone; Cushing and Jean Strout; Natasha Tarasova; Stephen and Francine Trachtenberg; Evgeny Velikhov; Charlie and Joanne Weiner; Dorothy White; Peter Winn and Sue Gronwald; Herbert York; Vladislav Zubok.
Over the many years that this book has been in preparation many scholar-friends have sent us unsolicited Oppenheimer documents discovered while doing their own research. For these acts of generosity and fellowship we wish to thank Herbert Bix, Peter Kuznick, Lawrence Wittner, and Poland’s eminent historian and Ambassador to the United States, Przemyslaw Grudzinski. We also acknowledge the many kindnesses that Peter, Charles and Ella Oppenheimer and Brett and Dorothy Vanderford extended to us in the course of our research. We are grateful to Barbara Sonnenberg for permission to reprint some of her Oppenheimer family photographs. The current owners of One Eagle Hill in Berkeley, Dr. David and Kristin Myles, graciously gave us a tour of Oppenheimer’s lovely home overlooking San Franciso Bay.
There is also a long list of interviewees on pages 697–699 to whom we are deeply indebted. Thank you for your time, your stories and your patience with us; this book could not have been written without your help.
Scholars cannot live on documents alone and this book could not have been written without the financial support of numerous foundations. Martin is grateful for the support extended to him by Arthur Singer and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim foundation, Ruth Adams and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Tufts University and the George Washington University President’s James Madison Fund. Kai wishes to thank the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Cindy Kelly of the Atomic Heritage Foundation; and Ellen Bradbury-Reid, executive director of Recursos in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
We both wish to acknowledge the percipiency of Susan Goldmark and Ronald Steel, who independently and simultaneously suggested to us that “American Prometheus” would be an excellent title for our book.
NOTES
Our research files—including those designated in the notes as the “Bird Collection” and “Sherwin Collection”—will be distributed to appropriate archives and libraries. The details of this distribution will be posted on our websites, www.HistoryHappens.net and www.AmericanPrometheus.org.
ABBREVIATIONS
AEC Atomic Energy Commission
AIP American Institute of Physics (Niels Bohr Library)
APS American Philosophical Society
Caltech California Institute of Technology
CU Clemson University Archives
CUL Cornell University Library
DCL Dartmouth College Library
DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
ECS Ethical Culture Society archives
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation Reading Room
FDRL Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, U.S. State Department
HBSL Harvard Business School Library
HHL Herbert Hoover Presidential Library
HSTL Harry S. Truman Presidential Library
HU Harvard University archives
HUAC U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee
IAS Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton)
JFKL John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
JRO J. Robert Oppenheimer
JRO FBI File J. Robert Oppenheimer FBI file number 100-17828
JRO Hearing United States Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert
Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing before Personnel Security Board
and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters. Forward by Philip M.
Stern. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971.
JRO Papers J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, Library of Congress
LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives
LBJL Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library
LOC Library of Congress (Manuscript Reading Room)
MED Manhattan Engineer District
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology archives
NA National Archives
NBA Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen
NBL Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics
NYT New York Times
PUL Princeton University Library (Mudd Manuscript Library)
&nb
sp; SU Stanford University Libraries
UC University of Chicago Archives
UCB University of California at Berkeley (Bancroft Library)
UCSDL University of California at San Diego Library
UM University of Michigan Library
WP Washington Post
WU Washington University archives
YUL Yale University, Sterling Library
Preface
xii “We have had the bomb”: E. L. Doctorow, “The State of Mind of the Union,” The Nation, 3/22/86, p. 330.
Prologue
3 The Nobelists included: Murray Schumach, “600 at a Service for Oppenheimer,” NYT, 2/26/67.
4 “He did more than”: Ibid.
4 “Such a wrong”: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1967.
5 “In the dark days”: Schumach, NYT, 2/26/67; Abraham Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 400.
5 Oppenheimer was an enigma: Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma, pp. vii–xi.
5 “a symbol of the tragedy”: NYT, 2/20/67.
5 “very wise”: I. I. Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 11.
5 “a Faustian bargain”: Freeman Dyson, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, pp. 5, 9–10.
Chapter One: “He Received Every New Idea as Perfectly Beautiful”
10 “an almost medieval”: Oppenheimer family tree, folder 4–24, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB; JRO interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, APS, p. 3. The third brother also immigrated to New York but returned permanently to Germany after a brief stay. One of the three sisters came to the United States at some point but returned to Germany, where she died. Hedwig Oppenheimer Stern, the youngest of the three sisters, immigrated to the United States in 1937 and settled in California. (Babette Oppenheimer Langsdorf, interview by Alice Smith, 12/1/76, Sherwin Collection.) Babette, Emil Oppenheimer’s daughter, was a couple of years younger than Robert Oppenheimer. The U.S. Census of 1900 records, perhaps incorrectly, that Julius Oppenheimer was born in August 1870, and emigrated from Germany in 1888; Julius listed his occupation as traveling salesman. (1900 Census, New York, N.Y., roll 1102, vol. 149, enumeration 455, sheet 8, line 27, NA.)
10 “You have a way”: Ella Friedman to Julius Oppenheimer, undated, circa March 1903, folder 4–10, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB.
11 “an exquisitely beautiful”: Dorothy McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 21. McKibbin is quoting Katherine Chaves Page. See also Miss Frieda Altschul to JRO, 12/9/63, describing Ella’s eyes.
11 The glove covering: Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections, p. 2; Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Alice Smith, 3/17/75, p. 58.
11 “a gentle, exquisite”: Lincoln Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, 10/10/49.
11 Upon her return: Frank Oppenheimer oral history, 2/9/73, AIP, p. 2.
11 “I do so”: Ella Friedman to Julius Oppenheimer, 3/10/03, folder 4–10, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB.
11 “Julius Robert Oppenheimer”: FBI File 100–9066, 10/10/41, and File 100–17828–3, citing Oppenheimer’s birth certificate, no. 19763.
11 Sometime after Robert’s: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Alice Smith, 3/17/75, p. 34; 1920 U.S. Census.
12 Over the years: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Alice Smith, 3/17/75, p. 54; Else Uhlenbeck, interview by Alice Smith, 4/20/76, p. 2. Oppenheimer’s cousin Babette Oppenheimer Langsdorf later described Ella as a “talented painter” and a “connoisseur” (Mrs. Walter Langsdorf to Philip M. Stern, 7/10/67, Stern Papers, JFKL; George Boas to Alice Smith, 11/28/76, Smith correspondence, Sherwin Collection; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 138). Julius acquired Van Gogh’s First Steps (After Millet) in 1926, and Frank Oppenheimer inherited it in 1935. For the provenance of the Oppenheimer family’s Van Gogh collection, see “Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Works,” a CD-ROM database, copyright David Brooks (Sharon, MA: Barewalls Publications, 2002). Julius bought Picasso’s Mother and Child in 1928, and Frank Oppenheimer sold it in 1980 for $1,050,000 (see Dr. Joseph Baird, Jr., to Frank Oppenheimer, 4/12/80, folder 4–46, box 4; Jack Tanzer to Frank Oppenheimer, 5/13/80, folder 4–46, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB).
12 “My mother didn’t”: JRO, interview by T. S. Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 10. The 1920 U.S. Census listed three live-in maids in the Oppenheimer household: Nellie Connolly, age 87, of Ireland; Henrietta Rosemund, age 21, of Germany; and Signe McSorley, age 29, of Sweden (1920 Census, vol. 244, enumeration 702, sheet 13, line 37, roll 1202, NA).
12 “It was lovely”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 34; Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Alice Smith, 3/17/75, p. 26.
12 “Robert was doted”: Harold F. Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 3.
12 “He [Julius] was jolly”: Francis Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/8/79, p. 7.
13 A family friend: Julius Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, 3/11/30, folder 4–11, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB; Boas to Alice Smith, 11/28/76, Smith correspondence, Sherwin Collection.
13 Ella, by contrast: Fergusson, interview by Alice Smith, 4/23/75, p. 10.
13 “She [Ella] was a very”: Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 11.
13 Four years after: Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer, p. 6; Frank Oppenheimer, oral history, 2/9/73, p. 4, AIP.
13 Ella encouraged Robert: Frank Oppenheimer to Denise Royal, 2/25/67, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, carton 4, UCB.
13 “Julius’s articulate and”: Ruth Meyer Cherniss, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76; Herbert Smith, interview by Charles Weiner, 8/1/74, pp. 12, 16–17.
14 “Just as I do”: Oppenheimer may indeed have had a brief bout of polio. See Alice Smith to Frank Oppenheimer, 8/6/79, carton 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB; Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 4.
14 “It was clear”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, APS, pp. 1–4; Time, 11/8/48, p. 70.
14 Robert recounted that: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 1.
14 From the ages of: Denise Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 13.
15 “They adored him”: Quotes in this paragraph are taken from Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 5; JRO, interview with Kuhn, p. 3; Babette Oppenheimer Langsdorf to Philip M. Stern, 7/10/67, Stern Papers, JFKL.
15 At some point: Frank Oppenheimer, oral history, 2/9/73, AIP, p. 1.
15 “If we had”: Frank Oppenheimer, oral history, 2/9/73, AIP, p. 4.
15 “I repaid my parents’ ”: Denise Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 16.
16 He and Ella: Board of Trustees, 1912, Ethical Culture Archives, New York Society for Ethical Culture.
16 “Deed, not Creed,”: Time, 11/8/48, p. 70.
16 “Man must assume”: Richard Rhodes, “I Am Become Death . . .” American Heritage, vol. 28, no. 6 (1987).
16 The son of Rabbi: Horace L. Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, p. 194.
17 “Ethical Culture” was: Stephen Birmingham, The Rest of Us, pp. 29–30.
17 “emancipated Jews”: Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, p. 198.
17 “Zionism itself is”: Benny Kraut, From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture, pp. 190, 194, 205. Perhaps this explains why Oppenheimer himself never displayed any particular interest in Zionism.
18 “artistic gifts to”: Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, pp. 136, 122.
18 “I must square”: Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, pp. 35, 100, 153, 141.
19 “ethical imagination”: Felix Adler, “Ethics Teaching and the Philosophy of Life,” School and Home, a publication of the Ethical Culture School P.T.A., November 1921, p. 3.
19 “and after he came”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 3; Frank Oppenheimer, oral history, 4/14/76, AIP, p. 56.
19 “undivided allegiance”: Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, pp. 131, 201–2.
20 “a witty saint”: Robin Kadison Berson, Marching to a Di ferent Drummer, pp. 101–5.
20 “I did not know”: John Lovejoy Elliott to Julius Opp
enheimer, 10/23/31, archives of the New York Society of Ethical Culture.
20 “Negro problem”; “sex relations”: Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture, p. 126; Yvonne Blumenthal Pappenheim, interview by Alice Smith, 2/16/76.
20 “the ethics of loyalty”: The Course of Study in Moral Education, (New York: Ethical Culture School, 1912, 1916 [pamphlet], p. 22); Kevin Borg, “Debunking a Myth: J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Political Philosophy,” unpublished paper, University of California, Riverside, 1992.
21 “I was an unctuous”: Time, 11/8/48; Denise Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 15–16.
21 “tortured”: Herbert Smith, interview by Alice Smith, 7/9/75, p. 1; Denise Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 23; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 6; Rhodes, “I Am Become Death . . .” American Heritage, p. 73.
22 “He received every”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 4; “Remembering J. Robert Oppenheimer,” The Reporter, Ethical Culture Society, 4/28/67, p. 2.
22 “Ask me a question”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, pp. 11–12; Ruth Meyer Cherniss, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76; Cassidy, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, pp. 33–46.
22 “We were thrown”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, pp. 11–12.
22 “rather gauche”: Harold F. Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 3.
22 “It’s no fun”: Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, 10/10/49.
22 “special friend”: Jeanette Mirsky, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76.
23 “magnificent prose style”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 3; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 3.
23 “very, very kind”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 5.
23 “He was marvelous” and subsequent quotes: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 2.
23 “He blushed”: Jane Kayser, interview by Weiner, 6/4/75, p. 34; Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 6–7.
23 “He was just”: Francis Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/8/79, p. 4.
23 “He still took”: Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 9; Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 338, note 55.