by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
24 “Roberty, Roberty”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, pp. 8–9.
24 “It was a blowy”: Francis Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/8/79, p. 6.
24 Robert graduated: As a child, Oppenheimer had his fair share of illnesses. At the age of six he had a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy; in 1916 he had an appendectomy; and in 1918 he had scarlet fever. J. Robert Oppenheimer, medical physical, Presidio of San Francisco, 1/16/43; box 100, series 8, MED, NA.
25 “his Jewishness”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 9.
25 “We all did”: Jeanette Mirsky, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 61.
25 Frank Oppenheimer said: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 40.
25 “this great troika”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 9.
26 Robert was intensely: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Alice Smith, 4/14/76, p. 12. In 1961, Katherine Chaves Page (Cavanaugh) was stabbed to death in her bed during an apparent robbery by a young Mexican-American neighbor (Dorothy McKibbin, interview by Alice Smith, 1/1/76).
26 “reigning princess”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 6.
26 “his very good friend”: Francis Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/8/79, p. 3, and 6/18/79, p. 8.
26 “Thank God I won”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, pp. 15–16.
27 “I never heard”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, pp. 6–10.
27 Robert told Smith: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 1.
27 “He looked at me sharply”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 9.
27 “For the first time”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 10.
28 “beautiful and savage country”: Emilio Segrè, Enrico Fermi: Physicist, p. 135.
28 The ranch school stood: Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era 1943–45, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1986, p. 9.
28 “Of course I am insanely jealous”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 22 (JRO to Herbert Smith, 2/18/23).
Chapter Two: “His Separate Prison”
29 “because I could”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 14; William Boyd, interview by Alice Smith, 12/21/75, p. 5.
29 His eyes were: Robert Oppenheimer, U.S. Army physical, 1/16/43, box 100, series 8, MED, NA.
30 “He [Robert] found”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 61.
30 “Robert had bouts”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 9.
30 “What intolerable heat”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 15, and Jeffries Wyman, interview by Charles Weiner, 5/28/75, p. 14; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 6.
31 “He went to bed”: Frederick Bernheim, interview by Weiner, 10/27/75, pp. 7, 16.
31 “We had lots of”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 33.
31 “he was pretty careful”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 45; William Boyd, interview by Alice Smith, 12/21/75, p. 4.
31 “I was very fond”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 34.
32 “The notion that”: Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, 10/10/49.
32 “When I am inspired”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 59.
32 “The dawn invests”: Robert Oppenheimer, “Le jour sort de la nuit ainsi qu’une victoire,” Oppenheimer poems received from Francis Fergusson, Alice Smith Collection (now in Sherwin Collection).
33 “will look like Jews”: Richard Norton Smith, The Harvard Century, p. 87; Harvard Crimson, 12/13/24 and 1/17/23.
33 In March 1923: “Liberals Take Stand Against Restriction,” Harvard Crimson, 3/14/23.
33 “asinine pomposity of”: John Trumpbour, ed., How Harvard Rules, p. 384; The Gadfly, December 1922, published by the Student Liberal Club, Harvard University; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 9; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 15; Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 15. John Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, p. 6.
33 “I can’t recall”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, pp. 7, 9.
33 “Obviously, if he [Oppenheimer]”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 8; Smith and Weiner, pp. 28–29.
33 “I found Bridgman”: Time, 11/8/48, p. 71.
34 “I judge from”: Gerald Holton, “Young Man Oppenheimer,” Partisan Review, 1981, vol. XLVIII, p. 383; Time, 11/8/48, p. 71. The temple of Segesta was probably built in the years 430–420 B.C.
34 When the famous: William Boyd, interview by Alice Smith, 12/21/75, p. 7.
34 “it would be hard to exaggerate”: Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, pp. 541, 253; Time, 11/8/48, p. 71.
34 “To this day”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, pp. 5, 9.
34 “I had a very exciting”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, pp. 5, 9.
35 “[Oppenheimer] has grown”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 48.
35 “Leonardos and Oppenheimers”: Paul Horgan, A Certain Climate, p. 5.
35 “Generously, you ask what I do”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 54.
35 Dark wit aside: William Boyd, interview by Alice Smith, 12/21/75, p. 9.
36 “My feeling about myself”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 60–61, 19; Time, 11/8/48, p. 71.
36 “too much in love”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 60.
36 “Tonight she wears”: JRO, “Neophyte in London,” Oppenheimer poems received from Francis Fergusson, Alice Smith Collection.
36 “No, I know”: JRO, “Viscount Haldome in Robbins,” Oppenheimer poems received from Francis Fergusson, Alice Smith Collection. In the margins of this typed poem, Oppenheimer has scrawled, “My first love poem.”
37 “What has soothed me most”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 62.
37 “The job and people”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 32–33.
38 He made the dean’s list: Harvard Crimson, 11/18/24, 3/9/25.
38 “Even in the last stages”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 60.
38 “Although I liked to work”: Robert Oppenheimer’s Harvard transcript, 1922–25, Alice Smith Collection; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 68; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 10.
38 “Boyd and I got plastered”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 74; Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 15.
38 “more near the center”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 14.
39 “As appears from his name”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 77.
39 “We hit the divide”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 80–81.
40 Pipe tobacco and cigarettes: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 14.
40 “Rutherford wouldn’t have me”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 14.
Chapter Three: “I Am Having a Pretty Bad Time”
41 In mid-September 1925: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 86.
41 “When I met him”: Francis Fergusson, “Account of the Adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe,” memo, February 26 (no full year, but quite likely February 1926), attached to Fergusson, interview by Alice Smith, 4/21/76, Sherwin Collection.
41 “was completely at a loss”: Fergusson, interview with Sherwin, 6/18/79, p. 1.
41 “I was cruel”: Fergusson, “Account of the Adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe.”
42 Quantum theory: John Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum, pp. 284, 321–22.
42 “I was still”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 11.
42 “I met [Patrick M. S.] Blackett”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 89; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 16.
43 “the place is very rich”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 87–88.
43 “The point is”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 17.
43 “that he felt so miserable”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 17; Wyman, interview by Weiner, 5/28/75, p. 22.
43 On another occasion: Pais, Inward Bound, p. 367. Rutherford told this story to Paul Dirac, who conveyed it to Pais.
43 Neither was it any comfort: Fergusson, interview by Alice Smith, 4/21/76, p. 36.
43 “There are some terrible”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 88.
43 “In a way”: Frederick Bernheim, interview by Weiner, 10/27/75, p. 20.
43 Ro
bert had always been fond: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 19; Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 19.
44 “first class case of depression”: Fergusson, “Account of the adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe.
44 “He found himself in”: Ibid.
45 Ella “saw to it”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79.
45 He “did a very good”: Alice Smith, notes on Fergusson, 4/23/75, p. 4.
45 “There they lay”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, p. 1; Fergusson, “Account of the adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe,” p. 3.
45 “Really I have been engaged”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 90.
45 Among other complaints: Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, p. 27.
46 “Whether or not”: Wyman, interview by Weiner, 5/28/75, p. 23.
46 “He had kind of poisoned”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 4–6.
46 “He was retained”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 16.
46 “further analysis would”: Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, p. 19. Edsall later said that in June 1926 Oppenheimer told him of the analyst’s diagnosis, but in Edsall’s memory, the psychiatrist in question was in Cambridge. Edsall was astonished that a doctor would say such a cruel thing to a patient. Prominent disciples of Freud such as Dr. Ernest Jones dominated the psychiatric profession in London during the mid-1920s; indeed, it is entirely plausible that Jones was the psychiatrist who treated Oppenheimer. Julius Oppenheimer always sought out the best for his son. Dr. Jones was not only the most famous Freudian practicing in England, but he was also one of only four analysts who maintained an office on Harley Street. Furthermore, though he was undoubtedly a devoted disciple of Freud’s—and later became his biographer— Jones was notorious in the profession for misdiagnoses. Jones could easily have misdiagnosed Oppenheimer with dementia praecox. [See International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 8, part 1, courtesy of Dr. Daniel Benveniste, e-mail 4/19/01 to Bird re: Harley Street analysts. Dr. Curtis Bristol is our source for Dr. Jones’ predilection for misdiagnosis.]
46 “He looked crazy”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, p. 2; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 94.
47 “I was on the point”: Time, 11/8/48, p. 71.
47 “My reaction was dismay”: Fergusson interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, p. 5.
47 “began to get very queer”: Fergusson claimed that the Paris psychiatrist referred Robert to a high-class prostitute, a woman experienced in dealing with young men about their sexual needs. According to Fergusson, Robert didn’t like the idea much, but he went to see the woman. “Robert couldn’t get to first base with her at all,” Fergusson said. “She was an older woman, an experienced, intelligent woman. But nothing would click.” Fergusson, interview by Alice Smith, 4/21/76, p. 39; see also Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 1–4, 7.
47 “I leaned over”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 7–9; Fergusson, “Account of the Adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe.” Fergusson’s engagement to Keeley was later broken off.
48 “deep glares that Robert”: Fergusson, “Account of the Adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe.”
48 “I’ve a notion”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 86.
48 “He knew that I knew”; “You should have”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 91–98.
48 “awful fact of excellence”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 91–98.
49 “He put me in a room”: Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 7–9.
49 “[Dr.] M has decided”: Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, pp. 18–20.
49 “gave the psychiatrist”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 16.
49 For ten days: “Talk of the Town,” The New Yorker, 3/4/67.
49 “The scenery was magnificent”: Bernheim to Alice Smith, 8/3/76, Alice Smith correspondence A–Z, Sherwin Collection.
50 “The kind of person”: Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, pp. 26, 31.
50 “It’s a great place”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 95.
50 “One day”; “I never knew”: Wyman, interview by Weiner, 5/28/75, pp. 21–23.
50 “he [Robert] spoke of it”: Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, pp. 20, 27.
50 “All this happened”: Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner, speculated, “Perhaps the apple symbolized a scientific paper containing a suddenly recognized error.” Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 93; Denise Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 36; Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 4–6; Fergusson, interview by Alice Smith, 4/23/75, pp. 36–37.
51 “The psychiatrist was a prelude”: He went on to explain to Davis why he wished the event to remain inscrutable: “My reason for telling you? Those loyalty hearings that the government held on me in 1954. The records printed in so many hundreds of pages of fine print in 1954. My big year, I’ve heard people say, and my life story complete in those records. But it isn’t so. Almost nothing that was important to me came out there, almost nothing that meant anything to me is in those records. You see, don’t you, that I’m proving this point to you now. With something important to me not in those records.” (Nuel Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, pp. 21–22.)
51 So what actually happened: Some historians, including S. S. Schweber and Abraham Pais, have speculated that Oppenheimer may have been wrestling with latent homosexuality. We think this speculation is groundless. Pais, who knew Oppenheimer as a friend and colleague, wrote in his 1997 memoirs that in the early 1950s he “was convinced that a strong, latent homosexuality was an important ingredient in Robert’s emotional makeup.” And yet, the friend who knew him best in those years, Francis Fergusson, insisted, “I never found in him any homosexual tendencies. I don’t think it bothered him at all. He was just frustrated with his inability to make it with women at the time and his frustrations with his work.” Similarly, Robert’s Harvard roommate, Frederick Bernheim, explained, “He felt he was very inadequate with girls, and he would resent very much if I went out with a girl. . . . There was no homosexuality at all. . . . I had no sexual feelings for him or he for me, as far as I know, but he had—I don’t know why—he had sort of [a] feeling that we should make a unit.” See Pais, A Tale of Two Continents, p. 241. See also Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb, pp. 56, 203. For some hearsay of Oppenheimer’s latent homosexuality, see JRO FBI security file, V. P. Keay to Mr. Ladd, 11/10/47, where he is rumored to have had “an affair with Harvey Hall, . . . a mathematics student at the University, who was an individual of homosexual tendencies and at the time was living with Robert Oppenheimer” (FBI security file, microfilm, reel 1; see also Schweber, p. 203). However, Harvey Hall never lived with Oppenheimer. Hall and Oppenheimer did collaborate on at least one paper, published in Physical Review (Haakon Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. 12). Fergusson, interview by Sherwin, 6/18/79, pp. 3–4, 7; Bernheim, interview by Weiner, 10/27/75, p. 16.
51 The book was: Haakon Chevalier, interview by Sherwin, 6/29/82, p. 6.
52 “I felt much kinder”: Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 36.
52 “Another cackle”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 16.
53 “In a rudimentary way”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 96; JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 17.
53 Dirac’s work; “he didn’t think”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 96; Wyman, interview by Weiner, 5/28/75, p. 18.
53 “reading books interfered”: Pais, et al., Paul Dirac, p. 29.
53 “Not often in life”; “his God”: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 53–54; Wyman, interview by Weiner, 5/28/75, p. 30.
53 “At that point I forgot”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 17.
53 “How is it going?”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 21.
54 Bohr vividly remembered: Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 495.
54 “are the problems mathematical” and subsequent quotes: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/20/63, pp. 1–2.
54 “It was wonderful”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 97.
54 “Oppenheimer seemed to me”: Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 36.
55 “very great misgivings”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/18/63, p. 21.
Chapter Four: “I Find the Work Hard, Thank God, & Almost Pleasant”
56 German physicists at the time: “Talk of the Town,” The New Yorker, 3/4/67.
56 It was Oppenheimer’s good fortune: Pais, The Genius of Science, pp. 32–33.
57 He was the ideal mentor: Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum, pp. 55–57; “Obituary: Prof. Max Born,” The Times of London, 1/7/70.
57 “We got along”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 97.
57 “had the typical bitterness”: Smith and Weiner, p. 100.
58 “Although this [university]”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/20/63, p. 5.
58 “He was,” said Uhlenbeck: Pais, The Genius of Science, pp. 307–8.
58 “I was part of a little community”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/20/63, p. 4.
59 “professors at Princeton”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 100.
59 “You would like”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 100–101.
59 One day, Paul Dirac: Pais, Inward Bound, p. 367. Pais cites a private communication from Dirac.
59 “I still was not entirely”: JRO, interview by Kuhn, 11/20/63, p. 6.
59 “highly neurotic”: Helen C. Allison, interview by Alice Smith, 12/7/76. The Hogness couple followed Oppenheimer to Berkeley in 1929.
59 On occasion: Max Debruck, “In Memory of Max Born,” Debruck Papers, 37.8, Caltech Archives, courtesy of Nancy Greenspan.
60 “He was a man”; “To make this more certain”: Max Born, My Life, p. 229; Goodchild, Oppenheimer, p. 20.
60 “I couldn’t find”: Born, My Life, p. 234; Royal, The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 38.
60 “Almost all of the theorists”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 102.
61 “On the classical”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 104–5.
61 “The trouble is”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 20.
61 “All right, we’ll leave”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 21.
62 “A little late”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 104; Margaret Compton, interview by Alice Smith, 4/3/76.