by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
343 “winning weapon”: Herken, The Winning Weapon, p. 366. Herken also cites a letter from Fred Searls to Byrnes, 1/17/48 (Searls folder, Byrnes manuscripts), to show that Searls wanted Byrnes to help protect Newmont Corporation’s tax status. Newmont Mining Corporation was founded in 1921 by “Colonel” William Boyce Thompson, a friend and business associate of Baruch. (Baruch, My Own Story, p. 238.) See also Allen, Atomic Imperialism, p. 108. The fact that Fred Searls was head of Newmont Mining Corp. is cited in Baruch, The Public Years, p. 363. Searls had also served as Byrnes’ assistant during the war.
343 “Don’t let these associates”: Lieberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, p. 273.
344 “despised Baruch”: Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 6.
344 “It is too bad”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 70 (diary entry for 7/24/46).
344 Baruch was right: Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 270.
344 “follow Oppenheimer’s activities”: Hoover to SAC Los Angeles, JRO FBI file, sect. 1, doc. 23, 3/13/46.
344 “an attempt to box”: SAC San Francisco, FBI memo to Hoover, 5/14/46, regarding surveillance of Oppenheimer telephone conversation with Kitty on 5/10/46 (JRO FBI file, docs. 45, 46). Almost a year later, the FBI wiretap was still active, and Kitty knew it. On 3/25/47, she told a friend, “Be careful what you say on the phone.” When asked why, she replied, “The FBI, you know.” (JRO FBI file, doc. 148, 3/25/47.)
345 “as of possible interest”: FBI teletype to director, 5/8/46, JRO FBI file, doc. 33.
345 “if a major power”: Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, vol. 1, pp. 562–66.
345 Baruch nevertheless insisted: Bird, The Chairman, p. 281.
346 “I am told that”: Ibid., p. 282.
346 “still very heavy of heart”: JRO to Lilienthal, 5/24/46, Lilienthal Papers, cited in Lieberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, pp. 284–85.
346 “The American disposition”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 70 (diary entry for 7/24/46).
346 “The American proposal”: Ibid., pp. 69–70 (Lilienthal diary entry for 7/24/46).
346 “They worry me like hell”: FBI wiretap excerpt, 6/11/46, Lewis Strauss Papers, HHL.
347 “It proposes that”: JRO, “The Atom Bomb as a Great Force for Peace,” New York Times Magazine, 6/9/46.
347 “What do we do”: Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 25.
347 “the quick and the dead”: Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 590.
347 “knowing it was a damn fool”: FBI wiretap of Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer phone conversation, 6/20/46, JRO FBI file, doc. 68.
348 “It was his [Baruch’s] ball”: Dean Acheson oral history, n.d., PPF, HSTL; Bird, The Chairman, p. 282; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 181.
348 “I cannot tell”: JRO, “Three Lectures on Niels Bohr and His Times,” Pegram Lectures, Brookhaven National Laboratory, August 1963, p. 15, Louis Fischer Papers, box 9, folder 3, PUL.
348 “He is really a tragic”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 69 (diary entry for 7/24/46).
348 “Every American knows”: JRO, “The International Control of Atomic Energy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 6/1/46.
349 “Of course it could be done”: Bird and Sherwin, “The First Line Against Terrorism,” WP, 12/12/01; see also John von Neumann to Lewis Strauss, 10/18/47, Strauss Papers, HHL; Herken, Counsels of War, p. 179. See also Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, chapter 18, footnote 92 (web version only), where Herken reports that the project to investigate the dangers of nuclear terrorism was code-named “Cyclops.” He cites Matteson to Stassen, 9/8/55, box 16, USSD; Panofsky interview by Herken (1993). A few years later, Oppenheimer persuaded the Atomic Energy Commission to have two physicists, Robert Hofstadter and Wolfgang Panofsky, write a report on the problem. The resulting top secret report recommended the installation of radiation detectors at all airports and ports. For a time, this was actually done in a few major airports. The Hofstadter-Panofsky report—known in the intelligence community as the “Screwdriver Report”—is still classified.
349 “the only way in which this country”: JRO speech, “Atomic Energy as a Contemporary Problem,” 9/17/47, reprinted in JRO, The Open Mind, p. 25.
349 He was conspicuously absent: General Groves issued instructions to the effect that while Oppenheimer would be invited to witness the Bikini tests, he would not be permitted to evaluate the results (Herken, The Winning Weapon, p. 224). See also Radio Bikini, (documentary film).
350 “cry-baby scientist”: Truman, memo to Acheson, 5/7/46, “Atomic Tests” folder, PSF Box 201, HSTL (courtesy of archivist Dennis E. Bilger).
Chapter Twenty-six: “Oppie Had a Rash and Is Now Immune”
351 “I did actually”: JRO hearing, p. 35; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 32.
351 “I owe you”: JRO FBI file, doc. 102, phone transcript, 10/23/46.
352 “it is not a major issue”: Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 308; phone conversation between Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer, FBI memo, 12/14/46, doc. 120, JRO FBI file; Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, vol. 2, pp. 15–16.
352 “given up all hope”: JRO hearing, p. 327.
352 “He wanted me”: Ibid., p. 41. Acheson’s statement to JRO makes it clear that the Truman Doctrine was the American Government’s opening move in the emerging cold war.
352 To Osborn’s surprise: Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, vol. 2, p. 268. See also James G. Hershberg, “The Jig Was Up: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the International Control of Atomic Energy, 1947–49,” paper presented at Oppenheimer Centennial Conference, Berkeley, April 22–24, 2004.
353 “encirclement and their need”: JRO hearing, p. 40.
353 “terribly depressed”: Keith G. Teeter, FBI memo to file, 3/3/54, SF 100-3132.
353 he “commented on the fact”: JRO FBI file doc. 159, Ladd to director, 8/11/47, p. 13.
353 “It is clear”: JRO, The Open Mind, pp. 26–27. See also Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 446–47.
354 “take this great plunge”: JRO hearing, p. 69.
354 To all appearances, Oppenheimer: Joseph Alsop to JRO, 7/29/48, Alsop folder, box 15, JRO Papers.
354 “Whatever the Russians did”: Scott Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, p. 400.
355 “that new insight”: JRO to MacLeish, 9/27/49; MacLeish to JRO, 10/6/49; JRO to MacLeish, 2/14/49. All in MacLeish folder, box 49, JRO Papers.
355 Significantly, Frank Oppenheimer’s: In February 1947, two CP functionaries visited Frank in his home and spent two hours coaxing him to renew his prewar contributions to the Party. They left empty-handed, and the FBI later heard from an informant that one of the CP officials complained, “I think we lost about ten G’s.” JRO FBI file, doc. 149, 4/23/47.
355 “the Russians were ready”: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin, 12/3/78.
356 “Haakon, believe me”: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, pp. 69, 74; Barbara Chevalier diary, 7/14/84, notes taken by Gregg Herken. See Herken’s website, www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com. An FBI wiretap reports that Chevalier phoned Kitty Oppenheimer on 6/3/46 to confirm that he would visit the Oppenheimers the next evening (JRO FBI file, sect. 2, doc. 56, 6/3/46). This suggests that Chevalier met with Oppenheimer not twice but three times in the spring and summer of 1946: May 1946 at Stinson Beach; June 4, 1946, at Eagle Hill; and sometime between 6/26/46 (the day of Chevalier’s FBI interrogation) and 9/5/46, the day of Oppenheimer’s FBI interview. In addition, Kitty agreed to spend the weekend of June 22–23 at the Chevaliers’ home. But she later postponed this visit to the following weekend. (6/21/46 memo.)
356 “What about Opje?” and subsequent quotes: Chevalier claims that a day later he outlined the plot for his 1959 novel, The Man Who Would Be God (Chevalier, Oppenheimer, pp. 79–80).
356 “Someone obviously has it”: Chevalier, Oppenh
eimer, p. 58.
356 On June 26, 1946: FBI background report on JRO, 2/17/47, p. 10; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 70.
357 “would be safely transmitted”: FBI (Newark) synopsis of facts, 19–22. Eltenton and Chevalier signed statements 6/26/46, document 786, JRO FBI files.
357 “I wish to state”: Chevalier, affidavit for the FBI, 6/26/46, Chevalier FBI file part 1, also read into a tape recorder by Sherwin during an interview with Chevalier, 7/15/82, pp. 10–11.
357 Some time later: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. 68.
358 “Opje’s face at once”: Ibid., pp. 69–70; JRO hearing, p. 209.
358 “Then, to my utter dismay”: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, pp. 69–70.
359 “to do such a thing”: JRO FBI file, sect. 12, doc. 287, 4/18/52, “Allegation of Espionage Activity on the Part of George Charles Eltenton,” p. 20 (declassified 1996).
360 Oppenheimer expressed interest: Strauss, Men and Decisions, p. 271.
360 there “wasn’t a scientist”: JRO FBI file, sect. 1, 1/29/47 and 2/2/47, summaries of wiretap conversations between Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer.
360 “Ah, that I can do”: Strauss, Men and Decisions, p. 271.
360 “Princeton is a madhouse”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 190.
360 “It is impossible for me”: Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, 10/10/49.
360 “You won’t be free”: JRO FBI file, sect. 1, 1/29/47 and 2/2/47, summaries of wiretapped conversations between Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer.
361 “I guess that settles it”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 142.
361 “His name is”: New York Herald Tribune, 4/19/47.
361 “In physical appearance”: Beatrice M. Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” p. 613, unpublished manuscript, IAS Archives.
361 Lewis Strauss, however, was: Richard Pfau, No Sacrifice Too Great, p. 93; Strauss, Men and Decisions, pp. 7, 84.
362 “Regarding Strauss”: JRO FBI file sect. 3, doc. 103, FBI wiretap of JRO phone conversation with David Lilienthal and Robert Bacher, 10/23–24/46.
362 “If you disagree”: Joseph and Stewart Alsop, We Accuse, p. 19; Duncan Norton-Taylor, “The Controversial Mr. Strauss,” Fortune, January 1955; Brown, Through These Men, p. 275.
362 “would not be gone long”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 174; JRO FBI file, 5/9/47.
362 “pleasant garden”: JRO FBI file, sect. 6, 5/7/47, contained in wiretap summary, 5/27/47.
362 “the greatest blow”: JRO FBI file, sect. 6, newspaper clipping, 4/28/47.
362 “I am terribly pleased”: Rabi to JRO, undated, Sunday afternoon, circa April 1947, Rabi correspondence, box 59, JRO Papers.
363 His friend and former: JRO FBI file, sect. 6, phone transcript, 2/27/47.
363 “His wisdom and broad interests”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/20/63, p. 19.
363 “a very close”: JRO hearing, p. 957.
363 “Robert loved the Tolmans”: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin, 12/3/78.
363 “totally suited for”: Jerome Seymour Bruner, In Search of Mind, pp. 236–38; John R. Kirkwood, Oliver R. Wolff and P. S. Epstein, “Richard Chase Tolman, 1881–1948,” National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Biographical Memoirs, vol. 27, Washington, D.C., National Academy of Sciences, 1952, pp. 143–44.
363 And during the war: Who Was Who in America, vol. 3, 1951–1960 (Chicago: A. N. Marquis Co., 1966), p. 857.
363 “Remember how we”: Ruth Tolman to JRO, 4/16/49, Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers.
364 “My heart is very full”: Ruth Tolman to JRO, 8/24/47, Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers.
364 “I look back”: Ruth Tolman to JRO, August 1 (1947?), Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers.
364 “we’d go to the sea”: Ruth Tolman to JRO, undated (November 1948?) Thursday night, Pasadena, Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers.
364 “Ruth, dear heart”: JRO to Ruth Tolman, 11/18/48, Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers.
364 “I think Kitty”: Jean Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 3/29/83. When asked by Sherwin about rumors of an affair between Tolman and Oppenheimer, Bacher became flustered, and insisted, “There certainly was never any sexual interest in the relationship; it was very supportive.” She then made it clear that further questions about an affair would conclude the interview.
365 “Dr. Oppenheimer first earned”: “Memorandum for the Files of Lewis L. Strauss,” 12/9/57, box 67, Strauss Papers, HHL. Strauss’ secretary, Virginia Walker, told the historian Barton J. Bernstein that her boss was very upset when he learned of Oppenheimer’s affair with Tolman (Walker, interview by Barton Bernstein, 11/7/02). Bernstein also reports an interview with James Douglas, an aircraft company executive who claimed that he had visited the Tolman house one morning during the war and saw Oppenheimer and Ruth Tolman alone, wearing only dressing gowns. See also Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, pp. 290, 404; Herken cites a 1997 interview with Lawrence’s wife, Molly, who remembered her husband coming home in a rage from a cocktail party hosted by Gloria Gartz, a neighbor and psychologist who knew Ruth Tolman. Gartz apparently told Lawrence of the affair at this party, which took place sometime prior to the 1954 Oppenheimer hearings. When Herken asked Molly if Richard Tolman was still alive at the time of the affair, Molly answered, “I know he was.”
365 “I shall always remember”: Ruth Tolman to JRO, undated, Tuesday (spring 1949?), Ruth Tolman folder, box 72, JRO Papers. Ruth Tolman’s papers were destroyed at her instructions upon her death (Alice Smith to Beatrice Stern, 12/14/76, Smith correspondence, Sherwin Collection). A friend of Ruth’s later said that Ruth herself destroyed her letters from Robert. Dr. Milton Pleoset, interview by Sherwin, 3/28/83, p. 11. Pleoset recalled, “She was very close to Oppenheimer.”
365 “there was derogatory”: JRO hearing, p. 27.
365 “to conduct an open” and subsequent quotes: Barton J. Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,” Stanford Law Review, July 1990, p. 1399.
366 “Joe, what do you think?”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, p. 104.
366 Oppenheimer “may at one time”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, pp. 104–5; Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,” Stanford Law Review, July 1990, p. 1399; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 179.
366 “rather carefully”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, p. 104.
367 “specifically substantiating the fact”: FBI to Lilienthal, JRO FBI file, doc. 149, 4/23/47; see also Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 179.
367 “he had had homosexual tendencies”: JRO FBI file, doc. 165, 10/30/47, SAC San Francisco to FBI director, declassified 6/28/96. The “extremely derogatory” story about Hall and Oppenheimer was regurgitated in another FBI memo to Mr. Ladd on 11/10/47. S. S. Schweber cites this FBI document in his book In the Shadow of the Bomb, p. 203.
367 Lilienthal thought it telling: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, pp. 179, 377.
Chapter Twenty-seven: “An Intellectual Hotel”
369 The Oppenheimers arrived: Regis, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, p. 138; Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 141.
370 Robert had most of them torn out: Anne Wilson Marks to Kai Bird, 5/11/02.
370 Soon after their arrival: Time, 11/8/48, p. 76.
370 “an artist in the ancient”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 6, p. 130.
370 “When we first moved”: Morgan, “A Visit with J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Look, 4/1/58, p. 35.
370 Robert mounted one: Oppenheimer sold this painting in 1965 for $350,000; twenty years later it was sold to a private collector at Sotheby’s for $9 million.
370 They hung a Derain: Brown, Through These Men, p. 286.
370 Oppie’s austere study: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, pp. 16–17.
370 Oppenheimer’s ground-level office: Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 198.
371 Oppenheimer took these: Regi
s, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, p. 139.
371 “monstrous safe”: Freeman Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 8; Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 240. By 1953, the classified documents had been moved to a vault in the basement. But the AEC was still spending $18,755 a year on five guards to maintain twenty-four-hour security. (F. J. McCarthy, Jr., to Strauss, memo, 7/7/53, Strauss Papers, HHL.)
371 “ablaze with power”: Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 241.
371 “that looked as if”: Jeremy Bernstein, e-mail to Sherwin, April 2004.
371 Oppie drove a stunning blue: Bernstein, The Merely Personal, p. 164; Bernstein, The Life It Brings, p. 100; Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 255.
371 “cut like a monk’s”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 3, p. 173 (diary entry of 6/6/51).
371 “He was very thin”: Freeman Dyson, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 9.
371 “a town with character”: Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 322.
372 In 1933, Flexner: Ibid., p. 196.
372 “writing unnecessary textbooks” and subsequent quotes: Regis, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, pp. 26–27; Abraham Flexner, Harper’s, October 1939; Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, pp. 194–96, 223.
372 “Today,” he told: JRO, “Physics in the Contemporary World,” Second Annual Arthur Dehon Little Memorial Lecture at MIT, 11/25/47, p. 7.
372 “This is Robert” and subsequent quotes: Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, pp. 224, 230, 221. Pais is citing K. K. Darrow’s diary for 6/3/47, on file at NBL.
373 “I was sitting next to”: Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, pp. 232, 234.
374 “renormalization theory”: Weisskopf, The Joy of Insight, p. 171.
374 “Let me handle this”: Ibid., p. 167.
374 “Professor of Physics”: Regis, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, p. 140.
375 “He didn’t have Sitzfleisch”: Ibid., p. 147.
375 The Institute was a singularly: Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” p. 642. Stern’s unpublished manuscript was commissioned by Oppenheimer in 1964, but never published (IAS Archives).
