Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin

by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

  158 “We had a nice few days”: Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 28. Nelson read this letter into Sherwin’s tape recorder.

  159 “Man, what a feeling”: Dallet, Letters from Spain, p. 45.

  159 “near hatred”: Sandor Voros, American Commissar, pp. 338–40.

  159 “A percentage of the men”: Merriman and Lerude, American Commander in Spain, pp. 124–25. FBI doc. 263; FBI doc. 49, 10/9/37, contained in Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism, pp. 184–86; Schwartz, From West to East, p. 360; Peter Carroll, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, pp. 164–65.

  160 “The attack started”: Voros, American Commissar, p. 342. Vincent Brome, The International Brigades, 1966, p. 225. “We lost some good men in the attack,” wrote Bob Merriam to his wife on 10/16/37, “including Joe Dallet”; Merriman and Lerude, American Commander in Spain, p. 175; FBI doc. 158, p. 3; Rosenstone, Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War, pp. 234–36.

  160 “She was crushed”: Steve Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, pp. 8–9; Nelson, et al., American Radical, pp. 232–33; JRO hearing, p. 574. FBI doc. 284, p. 5.

  160 given “themselves completely”: Allen Guttmann, The Wound in the Heart, p. 142; Daily Worker, 10/27/37.

  160 Kitty spent a couple of months: FBI memo 5/6/52, Katherine Oppenheimer FBI file (100-309633). Kitty met Browder only once, when he came to Youngstown, Ohio, to see Joe Dallet; they had dinner together (FBI memo on Katherine Oppenheimer, 4/23/52, JRO file, sect. 12).

  160 “She seemed to be”: Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 32; Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79, p. 10.

  161 “an impossible marriage”: Jean Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 3/29/83, p. 4; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 39; JRO FBI file, doc. 108, p. 4.

  161 At twenty-nine, Kitty: JRO hearing, p. 574. Kitty was enrolled at UCLA from September 1939 through June 1940 and lived at 5531⁄2 Coronado Street, Los Angeles.

  161 “He would ride up”: Dr. Louis Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 26.

  162 Just a day or two: Serber, Peace and War, pp. 59–60. Frank and Jackie Oppenheimer also spent some time that summer on the ranch, bringing with them eleven-year-old Hans “Lefty” Stern, the son of their cousins, Dr. Alfred and Lotte Stern.

  162 “he and the Oppenheimers”: JRO FBI file, doc. 154, p. 7.

  162 Even though Bob Serber: Serber, Peace and War, p. 60.

  162 “Kitty Dallet!”: Steve Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 12; Nelson, et al., American Radical, p. 268.

  163 By the time the newlyweds: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 52.

  163 At the end of November: D. M. Ladd to FBI director, 8/11/47, JRO FBI file, doc. 159, p. 7. Ladd is quoting Nelson, apparently from an 8/7/45 wiretap.

  163 Kitty immediately invited: Kitty Oppenheimer to Margaret Nelson, undated, circa 11/29/40, in Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 30.

  163 An FBI wiretap: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 56.

  163 “With all of his brilliance”: Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 31; Steve Nelson, et al., American Radical, p. 268.

  163 “He was gentle, mild”: Sabra Ericson, interview by Sherwin, 1/13/82.

  163 “She could not stand” and subsequent quotes: Frank and Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin, 12/3/78; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 39–40; Serber, interview by Sherwin, 3/11/82, p. 15; Chevalier, interview by Sherwin, 6/29/82, p. 2.

  164 “Bombsight”: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 65.

  164 “A certain stuffiness”: Time, 11/8/48, p. 76.

  164 “their bill for liquor”: Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 33.

  164 “I felt that he obviously”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 215; Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, p. 40.

  164 Kitty told some of her friends: Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79, p. 11.

  165 “Deeply flattered”: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. 42.

  165 “Kitty seemed quite”: Ruth Meyer Cherniss, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76; Harold Cherniss, interview by Smith, 4/21/76, p. 20.

  165 Robert felt reinvigorated: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, pp. 33–34. Dorothy McKibbin found a hospital record for the X rays, dated July 25 (FBI memo, 11/18/52, p. 46, JRO FBI file, series 14; FBI doc. 327, pp. 17–18); Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 65; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 40, JRO hearing, p. 336.

  165 Upon their return: See correspondence of July 1941 in box 232, “Real Estate” folder, JRO Papers.

  165 A Spanish-style, one-story villa: Bird and Sherwin toured the house on 4/23/04; Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. 43.

  Chapter Twelve: “We Were Pulling the New Deal to the Left”

  166 Alvarez “stopped the barber” and subsequent quotes: Luis W. Alvarez, Alvarez, pp. 75–76.

  166 “The U business”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 207–8. Richard Rhodes credibly suggests that this letter was written on 2/4/39—and not 1/28/39 as Smith and Weiner conjectured (Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 812, note 274).

  167 “So I think it really”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 209. Oppenheimer also wrote a letter to Serber about the fission discovery: “The news had just gotten to Berkeley and he wrote me. I gave a seminar on it that same day. . . . And I think even in the first letter he mentioned the possibility of making a bomb” (The Day After Trinity, dir. Jon Else, transcript, p. 12). Serber later destroyed all his letters from Oppenheimer (Serber, interview by Sherwin, 3/11/82, p. 21).

  167 “It was first names”: Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, pp. 4–5.

  168 “a drawing—a very bad”: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 275.

  168 “That was the only”: Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 10.

  169 “Bohr was God”: Ibid., pp. 6, 15–16.

  169 “He gave us the usual”: Ibid., p. 13.

  170 “He was very keenly”: Ibid., p. 8.

  170 Oppenheimer gave no final exams: Ed Geurjoy, “Oppenheimer as a Teacher of Physics and Ph.D. Advisor,” speech delivered at Atomic Heritage Foundation conference, Los Alamos, 6/26/04.

  170 “[The student] was a very genial” and subsequent quotes: Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 15.

  171 “self-conscious and daring”: Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, p. 133.

  171 Joe Weinberg was probably: Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 14. Hawkins says Weinberg was in his Berkeley Party group: “I think maybe at some time, yes.”

  171 born in 1915: Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, pp. 149, 41; Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 16.

  171 “We were all close to communism”: Bohm, interview by Sherwin, 6/15/79, p. 5.

  172 “No one can feel”: Weinberg, quoted in F. David Peat, Infinite Potential, p. 60.

  172 “I had the feeling”: Bohm, interview by Sherwin, 6/15/79, p. 17.

  172 “many people who were not”: Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, pp. 38, 47, 49, 56.

  172 “He was very persuasive”: Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 6.

  173 “We were pretty secretive”: Ibid., p. 14.

  173 “The centralization of”: Ibid., p. 12.

  173 “Not that I know”: Ibid., p. 15.

  173 Martin D. Kamen was: Kamen and Ruben made their carbon-14 discovery in 1940. Yet another chemist, Willard Libby, won the 1960 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing the technique of carbon dating (Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, pp. 131–32).

  173 “It was like Mecca”: Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, p. 20.

  174 “Everyone sort of regarded”: Ibid., pp. 2, 6.

  174 “So we drove up and down”: Ibid., pp. 6–7.

  174 “When he spoke”: Herve Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 19.

  175 Fifteen people were present: JRO hearing, pp. 131, 135.

  175 “leftwandering activities”: Childs, An Ameri
can Genius, p. 319. Oppenheimer later testified that they debated at this meeting whether it would be a good idea to set up a branch of the Association of Scientific Workers. “We concluded negatively, and I know my own views were negative.” (JRO hearing, pp. 131, 135.)

  175 “If he would just”: Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, pp. 24–28; Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, pp. 184–86. Kamen eventually lost his job at the Rad Lab— largely due to a series of misunderstandings that led authorities to think he had acted as a spy for the Soviets. The false allegations haunted him for years; in 1951 Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper accused Kamen of being an “atom spy.” Depressed and beleaguered, Kamen attempted suicide, recovered, and decided to sue the Chicago Tribune for libel; eventually Kamen won the suit and was awarded $7,500 in compensatory damages. (Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, pp. 248, 288.)

  176 “It seemed like”: Rossi Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79, part 2, p. 2.

  176 “It was a title”: Max Friedman, interview by Sherwin, 1/14/82. Friedman later changed his name to Ken Max Manfred.

  176 “an organization known to be”: Peat, Infinite Potential, pp. 62–63. A 1947 report of the California Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California contained a long report by R. E. Combs “charging that the International Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians had been used as a front for communist espionage in connection with atomic research in the University of California Radiation Laboratory” (Barrett, The Tenney Committee, pp. 54–55).

  177 “Oppenheimer has important”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 222–23.

  177 “but it was not until”: JRO hearing, p. 11.

  177 “there will be no further”: JRO to Ernest Lawrence, 11/12/41, Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 220.

  177 But though Oppenheimer ceased: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 217–18; Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, pp. 76–83.

  178 “teachers who were communists”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 218–19.

  178 “Everything that happened”: Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, p. 21.

  178 “that I had had about enough”: JRO hearing, p. 9.

  Chapter Thirteen: “The Coordinator of Rapid Rupture”

  179 “that extremely powerful bombs”: Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 27.

  180 “Uranium Committee”: Ibid., pp. 36–37.

  180 Oppenheimer “would be a tremendous”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 51.

  181 “essential point is to enlist”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 226–27.

  181 “We were together”: Serber, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/82, p. 20.

  181 “Oh geez, look”: Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, part 3, p. 17.

  181 “As Chairman,” Edward Teller later wrote: Bernstein, Hans Bethe, pp. 65, 78.

  182 “We were forever”: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 420.

  182 While Oppenheimer soon concluded: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, vol. 1, p. 104.

  182 “we would do better”: JRO to John Manley, 7/14/42, box 50, JRO Papers.

  183 “I didn’t believe it”: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 418.

  183 “I’ll never forget”: Arthur H. Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 127.

  183 In the event: Edward Teller had a different memory of this incident: “The question of igniting the atmosphere, if it was mentioned at all, was not discussed in any detail at the summer conference. It was not an issue” (Teller, with Judith Shoolery, Memoirs, p. 160).

  183 According to Oppenheimer: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 418–21. 183 “only an atomic bomb”: Teller, Memoirs, p. 161. 184 “I’m cutting off”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 126.

  184 “turned thumbs down”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 349, note 26 (memorandum of conversation, 8/18/42, box 1, JRO, AEC, record group 326, NA).

  184 In this beautiful setting: Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, pp. 70–71.

  184 “decidedly left-wing”: James Hershberg, James B. Conant, pp. 165–66; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 49.

  184 “Oh, that thing”: Leslie M. Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 4.

  185 “Groves is a bastard”: Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 7.

  185 “General Groves is the biggest S.O.B.”: Nichols, The Road to Trinity, p. 108; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 56–57.

  185 “Take this and find”: Robert S. Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 179–83; Serber, The Los Alamos Primer, p. xxxii.

  185 “overweening ambition” and subsequent quote: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 240–42; Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 449.

  186 “we could begin”: JRO hearing, p. 12; Lillian Hoddeson, et al., Critical Assembly, p. 56.

  186 A week after: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 241.

  186 “[his political] background included”: Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 63.

  186 “It was not obvious”: Hans Bethe later claimed that Ernest Lawrence had wanted his Rad Lab colleague Edwin McMillan appointed director of Los Alamos. “Groves very wisely decided that the director had to be Oppenheimer,” Bethe told Jeremy Bernstein. (Bernstein, Hans Bethe, p. 79.)

  186 “I had no support”: Groves to Victor Weisskopf, March 1967, Weisskopf folder, box 6, RG 200, NA, Papers of Leslie Groves, courtesy of Robert S. Norris.

  186 As much as he admired: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 71.

  186 “He was a very impractical”; “He couldn’t run”: Charles Thorpe and Steven Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?” Social Studies of Science, August 2000, p. 564; Bernstein, Experiencing Science, p. 97.

  187 “was a real stroke of genius”: Jon Else, The Day After Trinity, transcript, p. 11.

  187 “It is about time”: JRO to Hans Bethe, 10/19/42, Bethe folder, box 20, JRO Papers.

  187 “He talked very fast”: John McTernan, phone interview by Bird, 6/19/02.

  187 “many people all around”: Bohm, interview by Sherwin, 6/15/79, p. 15.

  187 “various radical study groups”: Betty Friedan, Life So Far, pp. 57–60.

  187 “They were all working”: Ibid., p. 60; Friedan, interview by Bird, 1/24/01.

  188 “Many of us thought”: Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79, part 1, p. 17.

  188 “I’ve heard some of these”: Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79, part 2, p. 5. For an argument about why a “second front” was not opened up in 1943, see John Grigg, 1943: The Victory That Never Was.

  188 “respected him a great deal”: Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79.

  188 “I was responsible”: Steve Nelson, American Radical, pp. 268–69.

  188 By the early spring of 1943: Steve Nelson–Joseph Weinberg transcript, 3/29/43, entry 8, box 100, RG 77, MED, NA, College Park, MD.

  191 “cunning and shrewd”: Anonymous review of The Alsos Mission, by Boris T. Pash (1969), in Intelligence in Recent Public Literature, Winter 1971. The author of this book review reports that he is a close friend of Pash’s.

  191 Pash quickly leaped: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, pp. 96–98. Shortly after Nelson’s wiretapped conversation with “Joe,” the FBI observed Nelson meeting Peter Ivanov, the Soviet vice counsel in San Francisco. They were seen talking on the grounds of the St. Francis Hospital—and then a few days later a Soviet diplomat stationed in Washington visited Nelson in his home and paid him ten bills of unknown denomination. As a result, J. Edgar Hoover himself wrote a letter to Harry Hopkins in the White House to report that Nelson was trying to infiltrate Communist Party members into “industries engaged in secret war production” (Report on Atomic Espionage [Nelson-Weinberg and Hiskey-Adams Cases], 9/29/49, HUAC, pp. 4–5; J. Edgar Hoover to Harry Hopkins, 5/7/43, reprinted in Benson and Warner, Venona, p. 49. Hoover claimed this transaction occurred on 4/10/43. Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 325–26).

  192 “we had an unidentified man”: JRO hearing, pp. 811–12.


  192 “Pressure was brought to bear”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 106.

  192 “Lehmann advised Nelson”: FBI doc. 100-17828-51, 3/18/46, JRO background. According to the FBI, in May 1943, John V. Murra, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, arrived in San Francisco and contacted Bernadette Doyle. Murra reportedly told Doyle that he wanted to get in touch with Mrs. Oppenheimer. Presumably, Murra had known Joe Dallet in Spain. In response, Doyle directed Murra to call the Joint Anti-Fascist Committee or the University of California at Berkeley. According to the FBI document, Doyle stated that Robert Oppenheimer was a Party member but that his name should be removed from any mailing lists in Murra’s possession and he should not be mentioned in any way. There is no indication that Murra ever saw Kitty, who was by then in Los Alamos. We see this story as evidence that some members of the CP thought of Oppenheimer as a comrade—not that he was in fact a Party member.

  193 He spent the war years: Peat, Infinite Potential, p. 64.

  193 Max Friedman was called: Friedman, interview by Sherwin, 1/14/82.

  193 Army intelligence: In 1949, Irving David Fox—by then a teaching assistant in physics at Berkeley—was called to testify before HUAC. He refused to name names and subsequently was called before the university regents to explain his political beliefs. Fox frankly explained that while he had attended some Communist-sponsored meetings, he had never joined the Party. Fox was nevertheless fired, an action that precipitated a furious controversy over loyalty oaths at Berkeley for several years. (Griffiths, “Venturing Outside the Ivory Tower,” unpublished manuscript, shorter version, LOC, pp. 18–19.)

  193 As for Weinberg: Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, Bombshell, p. 106.

  194 “He appeared excited”: Steve Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 17; Steve Nelson, et al., American Radical, p. 269.

  Chapter 14: “The Chevalier A fair”

  196 “He was visibly disturbed”: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. 55; Chevalier said Kitty never entered the kitchen while he and Oppenheimer discussed Eltenton’s proposition (Chevalier, interview by Sherwin, 6/29/82, p. 2).