by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
196 “I saw George Eltenton recently”: JRO hearing, p. 130.
197 “But that would be treason!”: Verna Hobson, interview by Sherwin, 7/31/79, p. 22. Hobson, Oppenheimer’s secretary at the Institute for Advanced Study and a friend of Kitty’s, observed that the “treason” comment “sounds like Kitty and doesn’t sound like Robert.”
197 “I was not, of course”: Barbara Chevalier “diary,” 8/8/81, 2/19/83 and 7/14/84, courtesy of Gregg Herken, www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com.
197 Oppenheimer knew Eltenton: JRO hearing, p. 135.
197 a thin, Nordic-featured: Oppenheimer told Col. Pash on 8/27/43 that Eltenton was “certainly very far ‘left,’ whatever his affiliations” (JRO hearing, p. 846). There is no hard evidence that Eltenton was a member of the Communist Party although Priscilla McMillan in The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer asserts that he was; see chap. 18. Herve Voge thought Eltenton’s wife, Dolly, “was probably more radical than he was” (Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 9). In 1998, Dolly privately published a memoir, Laughter in Leningrad, of their five years in Leningrad. While working at the Leningrad Institute of Chemical Physics, Eltenton became friends with many Russian scientists, including Yuli Borisovich Khariton, a nuclear physicist who later helped to develop the Soviet Union’s first atomic and hydrogen bombs.
197 Chevalier had first met: Haakon Chevalier FBI file, part 1 of 2, SF 61-439, p. 33; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 233.
198 “I told him [Ivanov]” and subsequent quotes: FBI (Newark) synopsis of facts, 2/12/54, pp. 19–22 (Eltenton and Chevalier signed statements, 6/26/46), contained in JRO FBI file, doc. 786.
199 In 1947, when the details: Interestingly, he kept up his friendship with Chevalier, and even attended Chevalier’s eightieth birthday party in Berkeley, as did Frank Oppenheimer (Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 333). Sherwin contacted Eltenton in London in the early 1980s, but he declined to be interviewed.
200 “I would like Russia to win”: Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 3.
200 “a dupe of the Russian consulate” . . . “We were never able to convince”: Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 18. Voge read portions of this FBI document into Sherwin’s tape recorder.
201 “If he’d really been”: Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, pp. 4, 8. The historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr flatly state that Eltenton was a “concealed Communist,” but they offer no evidence of this beyond an FBI report that he met on several occasions with the GRU officer Peter Ivanov (Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 329). Voge said he doubted that Eltenton was a Communist but that “it’s conceivable” (Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 10). Eltenton’s son, Mike Eltenton, later wrote, “So far as I know, neither of my parents ever became members of the Communist party—though their views on several issues came close to the party line” (Dorothea Eltenton, Laughter in Leningrad, p. xii).
Chapter 15: “He’d Become Very Patriotic”
205 a “lovely spot”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 236.
206 “We were arguing about this”: Gen. John H. Dudley, “Ranch School to Secret City,” public lecture, 3/13/75, in Lawrence Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, 1943–45; Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 243–44; Lawren, The General and the Bomb, p. 99; Marjorie Bell Chambers and Linda K. Aldrich, Los Alamos, New Mexico, p. 27; John D. Wirth and Linda Harvey Aldrich, Los Alamos, p. 155.
206 It was already late: Founded in 1917, the Los Alamos Ranch School recruited no more than forty-four boys from wealthy families in the East and subjected them to a strenuous life. Its alumni include a Colgate (Colgate products), Burroughs (Burroughs adding machines), Hilton (Hilton hotels), and Douglas (Douglas aircraft). Each boy had his own horse and was responsible for its maintenance. Gore Vidal, who attended in the 1939–40 school year, later wrote that “reading was discouraged at Los Alamos in the interest of strenuousness” (Gore Vidal, Palimpsest, pp. 80–81).
206 “This is the place”: John H. Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” unpublished manuscript, p. 13, Sherwin Collection; Edwin McMillan, Early Days of Los Alamos, unpublished manuscript, p. 7, Sherwin Collection; Dudley, “Ranch School to Secret City,” in Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos. See also Leslie Groves to Victor Weisskopf, March 1967, Weisskopf folder, box 6, RG 200, Papers of Leslie Groves, courtesy of Robert S. Norris.
206 Within two days: The Los Alamos Ranch School probably would have closed down even if Oppenheimer had not chosen it as a site for the new laboratory. See Fred Kaplan’s description of the school in his biography Gore Vidal, pp. 99–112.
206 “Suddenly we knew the war”: Sterling Colgate, interview by Jon Else, 11/12/79, pp. 2–3; Peggy Pond Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, p. 84.
206 Soon afterwards, an armada: Edwin McMillan, Early Days of Los Alamos, p. 8.
207 “I am responsible for”: Wirth and Aldrich, Los Alamos, p. viii. JRO said this to Wirth’s grandfather in 1955.
207 “What we were trying to do”: Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” unpublished manuscript, p. 18.
207 Robert assured Hans Bethe: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 244–45; JRO to Hans and Rose Bethe, 12/28/42.
208 “He was something of an eccentric”: Raymond T. Birge, “History of the Physics Department,” vol. 4, unpublished manuscript, UCB, p. xiv; Robert R. Wilson, interview by Owen Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 3.
208 “wondering whether we”: Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 167.
208 “I was somewhat frightened”: Manley, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/85, p. 23; Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” unpublished manuscript, p. 21.
209 Stunned, Wilson and Manley: Robert R. Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, p. 45; Goodchild, Oppenheimer, p. 72.
209 “So it was quite a change”: Mary Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 128–29.
209 “He had style”: Robert R. Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 4.
209 “when I was with him”: Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 134–35; Wilson, interview by Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 4, Sherwin Collection.
209 through these early planning: Dudley, “Ranch School to Secret City,” in Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, Sherwin Collection.
210 When Los Alamos opened: For security reasons, the total population at Los Alamos was regarded as highly classified information; a census was not taken until April 1946. Different sources use different figures: See Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?” Social Studies of Science, August 2000, p. 585; Kunetka, City of Fire, pp. 89, 130; Kunetka uses a figure of 4,000 for Los Alamos’ “scientific population” (p. 65). According to Edith C. Truslow’s Manhattan District History (1991), by the end of 1944 Los Alamos had a population of 5,675. She reports a sharp increase in 1945 to a total of 8,200. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 246, uses similar figures.
210 “the above physical defects”: JRO medical physical, Presidio of San Francisco, 1/16/43, box 100, series 8, MED, NA; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 75. This medical record reported that Oppenheimer was five feet ten inches tall, that he weighed 128 pounds, and that he had a 28-inch waist. He registered a regular blood-pressure of 128 over 78. He had 20/20 vision and perfectly normal hearing—but he was missing five of his original teeth. Oppenheimer told the army doctors that he had no history of mental illness.
210 “Oppie would get”: Jane Wilson, ed., All in Our Time, 1974, p. 147; Libby, The Uranium People, p. 197; Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, pp. 42–43.
211 “he was very foolish”: Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 11.
211 By the end of that month: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 247–49.
211 “I think that you have”: Hans Bethe to JRO, 3/3/43, Bethe folder, box 20, JRO Papers, LOC.
211 “Without Rabi”: Rigden, Rabi, p. 149.
211 “I was strongly opposed”: Ibid., p. 152.
212 “I thought it over”:
Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 452.
212 “I think if I believed”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 250.
212 “I never went on the payroll”: Rigden, Rabi, p. 146.
212 “the nerve center”: JRO to Rabi, 2/26/43; Rabi to JRO, 3/8/43, and Rabi to JRO, “Suggestions for Interim Organization and Procedure,” 2/10/43, Rabi folder, box 59, JRO Papers.
213 Feynman was touched: James Gleick, Genius, p. 159.
213 “We should start now”: JRO to John H. Manley, 10/12/42, box 50, Manley folder, JRO Papers.
213 “very nearly unique”: JRO to Robert Bacher, memo, 4/28/43, box 18, Bacher folder, JRO Papers.
213 “I saw a man walking”: McKibbin was also an old friend of Luvie Pearson’s, the wife of the influential syndicated columnist, Drew Pearson (Nancy C. Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 73 of draft manuscript).
214 “gatekeeper to Los Alamos”: Dorothy McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 2, Sherwin Collection; Peggy Corbett, “Oppie’s Vitality Swayed Santa Fe,” McKibbin folder, JRO Papers; Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 3.
214 “He had the bluest eyes”: McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, pp. 21–23.
215 That first spring in 1943: Bernice Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 8.
215 “I was rather shocked”: Bethe, interview by Jon Else, 7/13/79, p. 7.
215 “We could gaze beyond”: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 15.
215 “Nobody could think straight”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 163.
215 Everyone had to change: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 37.
216 The astonished MP: Elsie McMillan, “Outside the Inner Fence,” in Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 41.
216 “refrain from flying”: Leslie Groves to JRO, 7/29/43, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers.
216 “I don’t recall”: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 33.
216 “His porkpie hat”: Eleanor Stone Roensch, Life Within Limits, p. 32. (Oppie’s phone number was 146.)
216 “several times Dr. Oppenheimer”: Ed Doty to his parents, 8/7/45 (Los Alamos Historical Museum), cited by Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” p. 575.
216 who “demanded attention”: Roensch, Life Within Limits, p. 32.
216 When the young physicist: Kunetka, City of Fire, p. 59; Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 37.
217 Oppenheimer himself had been: McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 19.
217 “The work was terribly”: Bethe, interview by Jon Else, 7/13/70, p. 7.
217 Scientists accustomed: Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” p. 546; see also Charles Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 302–3.
217 “Feynman sort of materialized”: Bernstein, Hans Bethe, p. 60.
217 “No, no, you’re crazy”: Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 109; James Gleick, Genius, p. 165.
217 “Oppenheimer at Los Alamos”: Bethe, interview by Jon Else, 7/13/79, p. 9.
218 “very easily and naturally”: Eugene Wigner, The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner, p. 245.
218 “never dictated what”: Bethe, “Oppenheimer: Where He Was There Was Always Life and Excitement,” Science, vol. 155, p. 1082.
218 “In his presence”: Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, p. 45.
218 “The power of his personality”: John Mason Brown, Through These Men, p. 286.
218 “He could read a paper”: Lee DuBridge, interview with Sherwin, 3/30/83, p. 11.
218 “One would listen”: Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” p. 574.
218 “He made you do”: McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, pp. 21–23.
219 “I think he had”: Manley, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/85, p. 24; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 263; Manley, interview by Alice Smith, 12/30/75, pp. 10–11.
219 “The background of our work”: JRO to Enrico Fermi, 3/11/43, box 33, Fermi, JRO Papers.
219 “Security was terrible”: Serber, Peace and War, p. 80.
219 “The object of the project”: Serber, The Los Alamos Primer, p. 1.
220 Some of the physics: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 460.
220 “That once plutonium”: Bethe, interview by Jon Else, 7/13/79, p. 1.
220 “the pieces might be mounted”: Serber, The Los Alamos Primer, pp. xxxii, 59; Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 466.
221 “I believe your people”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 182.
221 “In this connection”: Barton J. Bernstein, “Oppenheimer and the Radioactive-Poison Plan,” Technology Review, May–June 1985, pp. 14–17; Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 511; JRO to Fermi, 5/25/43, box 33, JRO Papers.
222 “I doubt that you will”: JRO to Weisskopf, 10/29/42, box 77, Weisskopf folder, JRO Papers; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 50.
222 Much later, Groves seriously: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 292. See also Nicholas Dawidoff, The Catcher Was a Spy, pp. 192–94.
Chapter Sixteen: “Too Much Secrecy”
223 He thought of himself: Edward Condon to Raymond Birge, 1/9/67, box 27, Condon folder, JRO Papers; Jessica Wang, “Edward Condon and the Cold War Politics of Loyalty,” Physics Today, December 2001.
223 “I join every organization”: Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam, p. 113.
223 An idealist with strong: In just a few years, the House Un-American Activities Committee would label Condon “one of the weakest links” in atomic security (New York Sun, 3/5/48, “Law to Dig Out Condon’s Files May Be Asked,” box 27, Condon folder, JRO Papers).
224 “Compartmentalization of knowledge”: Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” Social Studies of Science, August 2000, p. 562.
224 “The thing which upsets me”: Edward Condon to JRO, April 1943, reprinted in Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 429–32.
225 “Basically his way”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” p. 251.
225 “matter of policy”: Serber, Peace and War, p. 73; Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 243. Norris writes that Groves “treated Oppenheimer delicately, like a fine instrument that needed to be played just right. . . . Some men if pushed too hard will break.”
225 “He had his hair”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, pp. 26, 27.
225 “my old anxiety”: Teller to JRO, 3/6/43, box 71, Teller, JRO Papers.
226 “I know General Groves”: JRO hearing, p. 166.
226 “While I may have”: JRO hearing, p. 166.
226 In May 1943: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 229.
226 He told Groves: Ibid., pp. 233–34.
226 “My view about the whole”: JRO FBI file, doc. 159, D. M. Ladd to FBI director, 8/11/47. Ladd is quoting a statement made by Oppenheimer to Col. Boris Pash on 8/26/43. See JRO hearing, p. 849.
227 “the drive which accompanied”: Morrison to JRO, 7/29/43, with attached letter to Roosevelt, 7/29/43, box 51, JRO Papers; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 52 and ch. 2.
227 “Recent reports both through”: Bethe and Teller to JRO, memo, 8/21/43, box 20, Bethe, JRO Papers.
228 With the title of scientific director: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 245–46.
228 Security was always: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 16.
228 “Emilio, you left”: Serber, Peace and War, p. 80.
229 “If they had their way”: Serber, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/82, p. 19.
229 “Oppenheimer volunteered information”: Peer de Silva, FBI interview, 2/24/54, RG 326, entry 62, box 2, file C (FBI report), NA.
229 “center for all gossip”: Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do, pp. 65, 70.
229 “Therefore,” said Oppie: JRO to Groves, 4/30/43, Groves, box 36,
JRO Papers; Jane S. Wilson and Charlotte Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do, p. 62; Robert Serber, Peace and War, p. 79; The Day After Trinity, Jon Else.
230 His antics became: Richard P. Feynman, “Los Alamos from Below,” Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, pp. 105–32, 79; Gleick, Genius, pp. 187–89.
230 “Try to satisfy”: Kunetka, City of Fire, p. 71; Thorpe “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 201, 249.
230 “I have a complaint”: Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 19.
230 “He was profoundly”: Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 18.
230 “He complained constantly”: Robert R. Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, p. 43.
231 Walker later confirmed: G. C. Burton to Ladd, FBI memo, 3/18/43; J. Edgar Hoover to SAC San Francisco, 3/22/43, re: report from Gen. Strong that the Army now has full-time technical and physical surveillance on Oppenheimer; see also Goodchild, Oppenheimer, p. 87, for report by Andrew Walker.
231 “There isn’t anybody”: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 216; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 261.
231 “we had been very much involved”: JRO hearing, pp. 153–54; Bob Serber was driving home one night when he spotted Oppie and Jean walking in the neighborhood, deep in conversation. “It surprised me that he was still seeing her,” Serber said. “And then later on, Kitty told me that she knew all about it, that Robert would tell her that Jean was in trouble and he was going to see what he could do.” Later Serber learned that Jean had phoned Oppie “not frequently, but at least several times . . . in desperation.” (Robert Serber, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/82, p. 11.)
232 “had she not been so mixed up”: Fervent Communist Party activists, the Jenkinses had named their baby daughter Margaret Ludmilla Jenkins after Ludmilla Pavlichenko, the woman sniper who is alleged to have killed 180 Nazis during the siege of Stalingrad (see Jenkins, Against a Field Sinister, pp. 30–31).
232 She was a pediatric: Directory of Physicians and Surgeons, Naturopaths, Drugless Practitioners, Chiropodists, Midwives, 3/3/42 and 3/3/43, published by the Board of Medical Examiners of the State of California. The directory lists Dr. Jean Tatlock as having graduated in 1941 from Stanford University School of Medicine.
