312. Hugh Tatlock, interview by MS, February 2001, MSF.
313. Sherr, interview by MS.
314. Dr. John Whiteclay Chambers II, "Office of Strategic Services Training During World War II," Studies in Intelligence 54 no. 2 (June 2010). See also Ruth Tolman Personnel File; Robin Winks comments that in 1944 "the Schools and Training Branch of the OSS was still trying to decide precisely how it should train its people, and a good bit of the program was experimental." Robin Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 128.
315. J.S.P. Tatlock to Winifred Smith, 22 July 1944, Winifred Smith Papers, Vassar.
316. As quoted in Conant, 109 East Palace, 181.
317. Ibid., 182.
318. On General Groves, see his memoir, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (New York: Da Capo Press, 1962); Norris, Racing for the Bomb, and Bernstein, "Reconsidering the 'Atomic General': Leslie R. Groves."
319. Sherr, interview by MS. See KB/MS, Prometheus, 264.
320. In addition, Theodore Hall, a young physicist who felt that America should not have a monopoly on nuclear discoveries; Harry Gold, a laboratory chemist who helped Fuchs pass information on the bomb project to the Soviets; and David Greenglass, recruited as a spy by his wife, Ruth Rosenberg Greenglass (sister to convicted and executed spy Julius Rosenberg), and passed nuclear secrets via Harry Gold.
CHAPTER 22
321. "The Text of the Day's Communiques on the Fighting in the Various War Zones." NYT, October 3, 1944.
322. James MacDonald, "British Battling Inside Muenster," NYT, April 3, 1945. MacDonald wrote that "Muenster was done for. . ."; Drew Middleton, "North Reich Cut," NYT, April 4, 1945.
323. Information on Kitty's German family courtesy of Martin Vissering.
324. Joseph Shaplen, "Fuehrer 'Bruised.' Bomb Wounds 13 Staff Officers," New York Times, July 21, 1944. Hitler dictated to Keitel the letter sent to Field Marshall Rommel in France ordering him to return to Germany if innocent and if not, to commit suicide by swallowing poison (Hitler preferred this method so Rommel's suicide could be attributed to a brain injury). Gorlitz, ed., The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, 193–95; Peter Hoffman, Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905–1944 (first published in Stutgart, 1992; Cambridge: CU Press, 1995), 263–70.
325. Colonel General Alfred Jodl signed the surrender on the Western Front before General Eisenhower on May 7, 1945; Keitel signed the Eastern Front surrender before the Russian's Marshal Zhukov. Official VE Day is celebrated May 8.
326. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 381–82. For the text of Truman's press conference, see www.Presidency.ucsb.edu/ws and for Churchill's speech, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/8/newsid_3580000/3580163.stm. May 8, 1945.
327. See Boris Pash, The Alsos Mission, (New York: Award House, 1969); Powers, Heisenberg's War.
328. Anne Wilson Marks, interview by KB, March 5, 2002, MSF.
329. Ibid., March 14, 2002.
330. Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by MS, December 3, 1978, MSF; Goodchild, JRO, 128.
331. At other times, Robert and Kitty used a commonplace phrase as a type of codeword.
332. Frank Oppenheimer, interview by CW, February 9, 1973, AIP.
333. Jane Wilson, "Not Quite Eden" in Wilson and Serber, Standing By and Making Do, 4.
334. Frank Oppenheimer, interview by CW, February 9, 1973, AIP.
335. Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Else, for The Day After Trinity (documentary film, 1980). This quotation is from some seven years after the 1973 interview in which Frank told CW that "I don't remember what we said, now."
336. Groves, Now It Can Be Told, 298.
CHAPTER 23
337. Hershberg, Conant, 234.
338. Ibid., 233–34.
339. David McCullough, Truman, 455.
340. Natalie Raymond to Ruth Tolman, Sunday 1945, Series X: Ruth Tolman, Box 11, RCT Papers, Caltech.
341. Jean Bacher, interview by MS, August 29, 1983.
342. Chevalier, Story of a Friendship, ix.
343. Robert Oppenheimer to James Conant, September 9, 1945, quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 320.
344. See Judith Goodstein, "Tales in and Out of 'Millikan's School,'" The Pauling Symposium, Special Collections, Valley Library, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.
345. Bacher, interview by MS.
346. As quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 323–24.
347. On the twentieth anniversary of Hiroshima, Robert stated in an interview that scientists "had known the sin of pride. We had turned to effect. . . the course of man's history. We had the pride of thinking we knew what was good for man. This is not the natural business of the scientist." As quoted in Charles Thorpe, Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 286.
348. According to Lilienthal, Baruch admitted that "he wasn't much on technical scientific stuff, but he could smell his way through—and that's the way he did things, smell his way." David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. 2: The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 32.
349. Ibid., 30–31, 72.
350. JFO FBI File 100-17828-79, July 20, 1946. Dated 7/29/46 (Surveillance dates 7/19–7/24), MSF.
351. Wendell McRae to Ruth Tolman, August 7, 1945. Series X: Ruth Tolman, Box 11, Folder 33, RCT Papers, Caltech.
352. James Miller, "Clinical Psychology in the Veterans Administration," American Psychologist 1, no. 6 (1946): 181–89; Capshew, Psychologists on the March, 172–73.
353. Edwin G. Boring served as director of the Laboratory from 1924 to 1949 during which time he worked, as did Ruth, to establish psychology as a science in its own right.
354. Ruth Tolman to E. G. Boring, January 25, 1946, quoted in Capshew, Psychologists on the March, 90. See articles published by Ruth Tolman and E.G. Boring in the Bibliography.
355. Dana L. Moore, "The Veterans Administration and Its Training Program in Psychology," in Donald K. Freedheim, ed., History of Psychotherapy: A Century of Change (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1992), 776–800; Alice Bryan and Edwin G. Boring, "Women in American Psychology: Statistics from the OPP Questionnaire," American Psychologist 1, no. 3 (1946): 75.
356. As Chief Psychologist and Director of Psychological Research at Worcester State Hospital, David Shakow made substantial contributions to the scientific study of schizophrenia and by extension to psychopathology in general. Shakow's schizophrenia work informed his developing ideas on the synergy between clinical practice and research; Ruth Tolman to David Shakow, November 4, 1946, David Shakow Papers, M1358, AHAP, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio.
357. Barton Bernstein interviewed James Douglas, the son of the founder of Douglas Aircraft, who claimed that he visited the Tolman house "one morning during the war" and saw Oppenheimer and Ruth Tolman alone, wearing only dressing gowns." KB/MS, Prometheus, 654n.
CHAPTER 24
358. Robert was not opposed to nuclear weapons—it was too late for that—nor was he categorically opposed to the thermonuclear bomb (the GAC with Robert as chairman had approved the quest for the "Super" in 1947). He had opposed it at first because he thought it impossible to build, and later because he did not want the military to be dependent on bombs which would obliterate nations instead of tactical nuclear weapons.
359. May 14, 1946, 4, "To Director, FBI. Compilation of Recent Information Furnished to the SF Office by Confidential Informant." Reports of electronic surveillance of 1 Eagle Hill, most with only date and page number. FBI Microfilms, MSF.
360. Ibid., 5.
361. Ibid.
362. Lilienthal, New Year's Eve, 1946, Journals, Vol. 2, 127.
363. FBI electronic surveillance of 1 Eagle Hill report, June 22, 1946, June 31, 1946, MSF.
364. As quoted in Richard West, "Jack B. Tenney, Ex-State Senator, Foe of Communism, Dies at 72," Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1970. Tenn
ey (who wrote the hit song "Mexacali Rose") was also an instigator of the Loyalty Oath for University Of California employees that Richard Tolman refused to sign.
365. Kitty and Robert did continue to see some of their "fellow traveler/Communist" friends: the Chevaliers, the Hawkins, and the Serbers, among others.
366. As quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 327.
367. Ibid., 360.
368. Throughout the FBI files, there will be recommendations from the San Francisco office from 1946 through the 1950s that the electronic surveillance be discontinued; Hoover would insist otherwise.
CHAPTER 25
369. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, August 24, 1947, Box 72, Ruth Tolman Folder, JRO Papers, LOC. All the Ruth Tolman–Robert Oppenheimer letters are from this collection, Box 72, unless otherwise cited. Ibid., June 31, 1947.
370. Bruner, In Search of Mind, 236 and Jerome Bruner, interview by Patricia Klaus, March 27, 2013.
371. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, August 24, 1947.
372. Bruner, In Search of Mind, 236.
373. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, August 24, 1947.
374. Kitty, in the midst of an argument with McCutchen over their fence and her privet hedge, wrote: "It is indeed with surprise and with gratitude that I know full well that you have never once complained when one or both of our horses has blundered across your garden." Kitty Oppenheimer to Brunson McCutchen, Olden Farm, June 7, 1960, courtesy of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ.
375. Bruner, interview with Klaus; Bruner, In Search of Mind, 236.
376. Ibid.
377. Edward Lofgren, interview by Shirley Streshinsky, 2010; Frank Oppenheimer, interview by CW, May 21, 1973, Niels Bohr Institute & Library, AIP, College Park, MD.
378. See Kelly, Something Incredibly Wonderful, 86-100.
379. There is voluminous literature on this subject written by historians, among them Barton Bernstein, Gregg Herken, Martin Sherwin and Richard Rhodes, as well as many of the participants in the struggle over American nuclear weapons.
380. Sherr, interview by MS.
381. Ibid.
382. The gimmick story appears in many biographies as was originally observed by David Lilienthal; Dorothy McKibben, interview by AKS, January 1, 1976, Dorothy McKibben Folder, AKS Papers, MIT.
383. See, among others: Serber, interview by MS, March 11, 1982; Verna Hobson, interview by Martin Sherwin, July 31, 1979; Francis Fergusson, interviews by MS/MSF.
384. There were people who thought Robert and Kitty, in their own way, made a good pair: Freeman Dyson, who commented on how they stayed together through better and worse, Robert Serber, and David Lilienthal. Curiously, most of those who made a positive assessment were men. With the exception of Abraham Pais, Kitty's most savage critics were women.
385. Ruth Valentine to Robert Oppenheimer, Monday, August 16, 1948, Ruth Tolman Folder, Box 72, JRO Papers, LOC.
386. Ibid.
387. Margery Freeman to Margaret Mead, September 7, 1948, Series II: Folder 39.8, Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Vassar Libraries.
388. Ibid. This note had been used by at least two historians to suggest, erroneously, that Ruth Tolman and Val had a lesbian relationship. See Hilary Lapsley, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999) and Lois W. Banner, Intertwined Lives.
CHAPTER 26
389. Ruth Tolman to David Shakow, November 16, 1948. David Shakow Papers. Richard left almost a million dollars to Caltech at his death, with the interest to go to Ruth for her life time.
390. As quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 391.
391. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, undated [Tuesday some time after Richard's death in September 1948]; Robert Oppenheimer to Ruth Tolman, November 18, 1948.
392. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, undated [Tuesday some time after Richard's death].
393. Robert Oppenheimer to Ruth Tolman, November 18, 1948.
394. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, [1949, sometime after July as Ruth referenced Katherine Page's marriage to Charles Kavanaugh in July 1949].
395. Peter was born May 12, 1941; Toni, December 7, 1944.
396. See KB/MS, Prometheus, 393–400.
397. Katherine Page to Robert Oppenheimer, July 7, 1949, General Case File, Box 55, JRO Papers, LOC.
398. Frank Oppenheimer, interview by CW, May 21, 1973.
399. David Lilienthal, interview by MS, October 14, 1978, quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 401.
400. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, April 16, 1949.
401. Ruth and Val worked together on the symposium, part of the prestigious Hixon Lectures at Caltech, and suggested inviting eminent psychologists and others including Bertrand Russell, Margaret Mead and Robert Oppenheimer.
402. Harry M. Grayson and Ruth S. Tolman, "A Semantic Study of Concepts of Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 45, no. 2 (April 1950): 216–31.
403. Ruth Tolman to David Shakow, November 16, 1948.
404. Ed Pye, interview by Shirley Streshinsky, 2005.
405. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, April 16, 1949. Ruth had a woman helping her with her house most of the time, something she regarded as a necessity since she entertained often and had many house guests.
406. Ibid.
407. Ibid., August 1, 1953.
CHAPTER 27
408. The detonation of Joe-1 was not the only event that added to America's growing paranoia: in January, Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist who went to Los Alamos with the British, confessed to being a spy for the Soviets; in June, North Korean troops invaded South Korea and by the end of the month, President Truman had committed U.S. troops.
409. Murray Gell-Man, Physics Today Online; Hans Bethe, "J. Robert Oppenheimer," Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 71 (National Academies Press: Washington, D.C., 1997), 202.
410. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, [September 5, 1952].
411. Robert Oppenheimer to Ruth Tolman, February 27, 1953.
412. Ibid., [1953].
413. Ibid., April 18, 1953.
414. Ruth S. Tolman, "Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished," American Psychologist 8, no. 12 (1953): 721–33.
415. As quoted in KB/MS, Prometheus, 470.
416. Charles Lauritsen to Robert Oppenheimer, August 7, 1953, Box 45, JRO Papers, LOC.
417. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, [August 1953].
418. Chevalier, Story of a Friendship, 86–87.
419. KB/MS, Prometheus, 476.
420. KB and MS portray Borden's pursuit of Oppenheimer as almost a personal mania; Barton Bernstein suggests that Borden may have been motivated more by a sincere, if obsessive, concern for national security.
421. Tom Wicker, Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006).
422. President Eisenhower had signed Executive Order 10450 in April 1953 which specified that anyone deemed a possible security risk should undergo a security hearing, with a three-member panel. Strauss chose the panel members, but not the idea of the panel itself.
423. Strauss wanted to be rid of Robert and had begun an anonymous public campaign to discredit him. Fortune, Time and Life (all owned by Henry Luce, a friend of Strauss), published articles accusing Robert of undermining the H-Bomb effort and U.S. military preparedness. Strauss, afraid that a public hearing would undermine scientists' confidence on the government, hoped Robert would resign. See, among other, Bernstein, "The Oppenheimer Security-Loyalty Case Reconsidered." Stanford Law Review 42 no. 6, July 1990:1383-1484
424. Anne Mark, interview by KB, March 14, 2002, MSF.
425. KB/MS, Prometheus, 484.
426. Anne Marks, interview by KB.
CHAPTER 28
427. Hobson, interview by MS.
428. Ibid.
429. Garrison took the case pro bono; had he not, even though Robert was reasonably well off, the trials could
well have bankrupted him. Herb Marks offered his support too and probably worked pro-bono as well.
430. Hobson, interview by MS.
431. Ibid. Freeman Dyson would write that Kitty was the rock upon which Robert stood, that he was dependent upon her strength.
432. Priscilla McMillan, The Ruin of JRO and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (New York: Viking, 2005), 199.
433. Hobson, interview by MS.
434. Ibid.
435. KB and MS, Prometheus, 491.
436. Ruth Tolman to Robert Oppenheimer, April 3, 1954.
437. AEC, ITMJRO: Transcript, 8. Barton Bernstein pointed out that Robert and his lawyers had composed several drafts of the responses. In one of those drafts, Robert gave a slightly different description of his relationship with Jean Tatlock: "It is, indeed, true that Jean Tatlock was one of the immediate occasions of my becoming interested in political questions. I met her at a time when I had suddenly become vulnerable to falling in love . . . I do not, and can not, believe that she was bad—I do know that she was complex and mysterious. Her great interest was in martyrdom, and I cannot believe that she had the slightest disposition toward conspiracy, or, in reality, politics." Security Clearance File, JRO Papers.
438. In one of the more complicated turns of this saga, one day in January, Robert had been seated next to James Reston, NYT bureau chief in Washington, on an airplane; Robert seemed "unaccountably nervous" and Reston began making calls, among them to Robert. Garrison and Robert decide to tell their side of the story with the proviso that Reston not print until the story seemed about to break. Although Robert, the panel and the witnesses had been told the proceedings were secret, Robert and Garrison decided on what they thought of a pre-emptive release and the story broke on the first page of the NYT on Tuesday, April 13, the second day of the Hearing, releasing the storm of publicity that Strauss wished to avoid. See KB/MS, Prometheus, 502–03.
439. David Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. 3: The Venturesome Years, 1950–1955 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 505.
440. Goodchild, JRO, 249.
441. Bernstein, "The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered," 1445
An Atomic Love Story Page 36
