by American Prometheus: The Triumph;Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
232 She implored him: Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 89. Michelmore does not provide citations or quotes, and no such letters have been found.
232 “she was extremely unhappy”: JRO hearing, p. 154.
232 “On June 14, 1943, Oppenheimer”: Secret FBI memo, “Subject: Jean Tatlock,” 6/29/43, file A, RG 326, entry 62, box 1, and also found in AEC PSB record of JRO hearing, box 1, NA. See also Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 571; JRO hearing, p. 154. The military intelligence agents watched the darkened apartment building at least until 1:00 a.m. But by another account they may also have been able to eavesdrop on the couple electronically. The alleged transcript reportedly has Oppenheimer and Tatlock talking for a long time in the living room before they adjourned to the bedroom. See Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 90. Goodchild cites two unnamed sources who claim to have seen a transcript showing that the FBI had managed to bug Tatlock’s apartment. No such transcript has been declassified.
233 “Did you find out”: JRO hearing, p. 154.
233 “might either use her”: FBI memo for Mr. E. A. Tamm (Hoover’s assistant), 8/27/43, 101-6005-8, Jean Tatlock FBI file, 100-190625-308.
233 “it has been determined”: An FBI document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that a wiretap was placed on Tatlock’s home phone on 9/10/43 (FBI radiogram NR 070305, 9/10/43). But Tatlock’s FBI file contains phone index cards dated August 1943, suggesting that perhaps Army Counter-Intelligence had already begun the phone surveillance (Jean Tatlock FBI file, FOIA no. 0960747-000/190-HQ-1279913, San Francisco (SF) 100-18382). There are index cards for at least some of her phone calls (dozens of pages are still classified). We learn little of substance. For instance, on 8/25/43, an unidentified woman who is apparently in the Marines calls Jean from New York City. Jean tells her that she is flying to Washington, D.C., on September 11 for a vacation. (Jean Tatlock FBI file, FOIA no. 0960747-000/190-HQ-1279913, SF 100-18382; Hoover, “Memorandum for the Attorney General,” 9/1/43, FBI doc. 100-203581574, found in Jean Tatlock FBI file; Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82.)
233 Oppenheimer “may still be connected”: JRO FBI file, doc. 51, 3/18/46, JRO background; JRO FBI file, doc. 1320, 4/28/54.
233 “he may be making”: Col. Boris Pash to Lt. Col. Lansdale, memo on JRO, 6/29/43, reprinted in JRO hearing, pp. 821–22.
233 Pash naturally wondered: FBI confidential memo SF 101-126, p. 4. The FBI knew, for instance, that as late as 10/29/42, Tatlock was still a subscriber to People’s World. The FBI also thought it suspicious that two other people living in Tatlock’s small apartment building had close associations with the Communist Party. Emil Geist was a subscriber to People’s World. Another neighbor, David Thompson, was identified as literature director of the North Beach section of the Communist Party. (Secret FBI memo, “Subject: Jean Tatlock,” 6/29/43, File A, RG 326, entry 62, box 1, NA.)
234 “It is the opinion”: Pash to Lansdale memo on JRO, 6/29/43, reprinted in JRO hearing, pp. 821–22.
234 “you should tell”: Lansdale to Gen. Groves, 7/6/43, RG 77, entry 8, box 100, NA.
235 “specially trained Counter Intelligence”: Pash to Lansdale, memo on JRO, 6/29/43, reprinted in JRO hearing, pp. 821–22.
Chapter Seventeen: “Oppenheimer Is Telling the Truth . . .”
236 “irrespective of the information”: Stern, The Oppenheimer Case, p. 49.
236 “In the future”: Nichols, The Road to Trinity, p. 154; Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, p. 102.
237 “indiscretions which could”: JRO hearing, p. 276.
237 “trying to indicate”: JRO hearing, p. 276 (Lansdale to Groves, memo, 8/12/43).
238 General Groves later told: FBI from Newark SAC, to FBI director, 12/22/53, doc. 565, p. 2, JRO FBI file.
238 “This is a pleasure” and subsequent quotes from Pash and Oppenheimer: JRO hearing, pp. 845–48 (Pash-Oppenheimer interview, 8/25/43). 239 Perhaps Chevalier had mentioned: Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, p. 97.
241 “this man Eltenton”: JRO hearing, pp. 845–48.
242 “association with the Communist”: Ibid., p. 847.
242 “I think that a lot”: Ibid.
243 “a boy called [David] Fox”: Ibid., p. 852.
243 “My motto is”: Ibid., p. 853.
244 “I want to say this”: Ibid., pp. 871–86.
246 “O.K. sir”: Ibid.
246 “believed that Oppenheimer”: Ibid., p. 167; A. H. Belmont to D. M. Ladd, FBI synopsis memo, p. 5, 12/29/53, JRO FBI file.
247 “In other words”: Memo to file, 9/10/43, conversation between James Murray, investigative officer, DSM project, Berkeley, and General Groves, Groves file, Lewis L. Strauss Papers, HHL. This memo was passed to Teeple by Murray in September 1954. Teeple passed it to Strauss.
248 “gave him hell”: Belmont to Ladd, FBI synopsis memo, p. 5, 12/29/53, JRO FBI file; Haakon Chevalier FBI file part 1 of 2, doc. 110, memo to director, 3/2/54, p. 3.
248 “the original source of the story:” Belmont to Ladd, FBI synopsis memo, p. 7, 12/29/53, JRO FBI file.
Chapter Eighteen: “Suicide, Motive Unknown”
250 “lying on a pile of pillows”: City and County of San Francisco, Coroner’s Office, Necropsy Department, CO-44-63, 1/6/44, 9:30 a.m.
250 “I am disgusted with everything”: San Francisco Chronicle, 1/7/44, p. 9; San Francisco Examiner, 1/6/44, front page; San Francisco Examiner, 1/7/44, p. 3. Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 50. The suicide note was not preserved in the San Francisco medical examiner’s file on the Tatlock death. No handwriting analysis was made of the note.
250 “Tatlock sympathized with”: Peter Goodchild reports that John Tatlock was well-known in Berkeley for his right-wing views (Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 31). According to Phil Morrison, this is incorrect. See also FBI documents re: Richard Combs: “Extract from Memorandum on Communist Activities, Los Angeles, Calif., 15 Oct. 38.”
251 “acute edema of the lungs”: Necropsy Department report, 1/6/44, Coroner’s Office, City and County of San Francisco, CO-44-63; Pathological Department report, CO-44-63; Toxicological Department report, case no. 63; 1/13/44, Certificate of Death, 1/8/44; Coroner’s Register, record of death of Jean Tatlock.
251 “Suicide, motive unknown”: San Francisco Chronicle, 1/7/44, p. 9. Dr. Siegfried Bernfeld was listed as a witness on the coroner’s “record of death” for Jean Tatlock. Beside his name are scrawled the words “15 calls in Nov,” perhaps indicating that he had seen her for fifteen sessions of analysis in November.
251 “For you were never starved”: Priscilla Robertson, undated letter, circa 1944, “Promise,” p. 28, Sherwin Collection.
251 Jackie Oppenheimer later reported: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 35.
251 “had slept with every ‘bull’ ”: Edith Jenkins, interview by Herken, 5/9/02. Tatlock’s bisexuality was attested to by Mildred Stewart and Dorothy Baker, two literary figures in California who wrote about the lesbian community (Mildred Stewart oral history, p. 34, Special Collections, SU).
252 “Jean seemed to need”: Jenkins, Against a Field Sinister, p. 28. Hilda Stern Hein— the granddaughter of Oppenheimer’s aunt Hedwig Stern—later said she knew that Washburn and Tatlock were “more than friends” (Hans “Lefty” Stern, phone interview by Bird, 3/4/04).
252 Unable to come: Edith Jenkins, interview by Herken, 5/9/02; Barbara Chevalier, interview by Herken, 5/29/02. Chevalier said Washburn had told her this story.
252 The day after: Cap. Peer de Silva, the Los Alamos security officer whose job it was to know everything about Oppenheimer’s personal life, later claimed to have been the one who first gave him the news. Robert wept openly, De Silva wrote. (Peer de Silva, unpublished manuscript, p. 5.) De Silva’s manuscript contains many incorrect assertions, such as the notion that Tatlock became Steve Nelson’s mistress or that she served in an ambulance corps in the Spanish Civil War. He also wrongly asserts that Tatlock cut her o
wn throat in the bathtub. De Silva described Oppenheimer’s reaction to Tatlock’s death in an interview with the FBI in February 1954. He wrote in his unpublished manuscript, “He [Robert] then went on at considerable length about the depth of his emotion for Jean, saying there was really no one else to whom he could speak.” In what De Silva felt was a “sincere display of emotion,” Oppenheimer confessed he had been “deeply devoted” to Tatlock and “had resumed a very close intimate association with her after his marriage and until the time of her death.” De Silva is not a reliable observer, and it is not credible that Oppenheimer would confide in him. (FBI interview of Peer de Silva, 2/24/54, RG 326, entry 62, box 2, file C [FBI report], NA.)
252 “He was deeply grieved”: Robert Serber, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/82, p. 11. Michelmore, The Swift Years, p. 50; Serber, Peace and War, p. 86.
253 “No direct action”: Confidential FBI teletype from San Francisco to director, date censored, 100203581-1421, Jean Tatlock FBI files 100-18382-1 and 100-190625-20.
253 In the years since: Schwartz, From West to East, p. 380; see also private detective report from Keith Patterson of Josiah Thompson Investigations to Stephen Rivele, 7/12/91, regarding an investigation into Tatlock’s death.
253 “If you were clever”: Dr. Jerome Motto, interview by Bird, 3/14/01. Dr. Jeffrey Kelman, interview by Bird, 2/3/01. Dr. Kelman suggests that one might be able to know if Tatlock was murdered if the coroner had reported the exact levels of chloral hydrate in her blood. If these levels were too low—in other words, if she had been given just enough to knock her out in the form of a “Mickey Finn”—then someone would have had to hold her head under the water. The death certificate merely reports “a faint trace of chloral hydrate.” Arguably, “a faint trace” may militate against suicide. But if so, does this mean that the suicide note was forged? Unfortunately, records from the brief formal inquest into the Tatlock death seem not to have been preserved.
253 Some investigators: Dr. Hugh Tatlock filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for information about his sister (Dr. Hugh Tatlock, interview by Sherwin, February 2001). The FBI released about eighty pages of highly censored material—but several documents suggest that “technical surveillance” was initiated on Jean Tatlock’s phone line on 9/10/43.
254 “in the Russian manner”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 106.
254 delegated responsibility for assassinations: Church Committee Final Report, Book IV, pp. 128–29; William R. Corson, The Armies of Ignorance, pp. 362–64; Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red, p. 29.
254 Clearly, Col. Boris Pash: After the war, Col. Pash was decorated for his leadership of the top secret Alsos Mission, raiding teams that seized dozens of top German scientists and 70,000 tons of Axis uranium ore in 1944 and 1945 (Christopher Simpson, Blowback, pp. 152–53).
Chapter Nineteen: “Would You Like to Adopt Her?”
255 “We had no invalids”: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 13.
255 “as if we shut”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 188.
255 “Only the oldest”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, p. 126.
255 “We found that on the mesas”: Ibid., p. 98.
256 Just before arriving: Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, p. 41.
256 “Here at Los Alamos”: Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,” Social Studies of Science, August 2000, p. 547.
256 “island in the sky”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 182; Wilson and Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do, p. 5.
256 “Everyone in your house”: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 39.
256 When the local theater: Smith and Weiner, p. 265; Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, pp. 72, 23.
256 “The alcohol hits you”: Dr. Louis Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 29.
257 “Kitty was strictly”: Anne Wilson Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.
257 “She was awful bossy”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, pp. 8, 24.
257 “If you were”: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, pp. 72, 23; Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 30; Dorothy McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 22.
257 On Sundays, many residents: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 10; Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, pp. 56, 88–93; McKibbin, interview by Jon Else, 12/10/79, p. 20; Wirth and Aldrich, Los Alamos, p. 261.
258 “He was always”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 22.
258 “I think he only picked”: Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.
258 The habit had so callused: Peer de Silva, unpublished manuscript, p. 1, courtesy of Gregg Herken.
258 Gradually, life on the mesa: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, pp. 28, 33, 51–52.
259 “It seems that the girls”: Wilson, “A Recruit for Los Alamos,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1975, p. 47.
259 “the best dry martinis”: Nancy Cook Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 83.
259 “Dorothy loved Robert”: Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, pp. 60, 83. Steeper is citing her 1999 interview of David Hawkins. Steeper wrote of “the many quiet evenings Robert spent at Dorothy’s house, an oasis from the unsightly settlement of Los Alamos and a respite from the urgency and relentless stress of building the bomb. What a comfort Dorothy must have been to him and how she delighted in his friendship.” (Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 125.)
260 “She wanted to make big talk”: Pat Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79.
260 “She seemed to be”: Joseph Rotblat, interview by Sherwin, 10/16/89, p. 8.
260 “She was a very intense”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 127.
260 “She would give me”: Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79.
260 “He would give her”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 127.
260 “It never seemed”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 18.
260 “He [Oppenheimer] stopped”: Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.
261 “Our thin, ascetic Director”: Wilson and Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do, p. 50.
261 “I have to tell you”: Marks, interview by Bird, 3/14/02.
262 “He really was”: Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.
262 “They were terribly close”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 25.
262 “Her background was not good”: JRO hearing, p. 266; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 88.
262 “I was sure she’d been”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 156.
263 “Dr. Oppenheimer was”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 90.
263 So many young couples: By June 1944, one fifth of all the married women in Los Alamos were pregnant. Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 276; Wilson and Serber, eds., Standing By and Making Do, p. 92; Robert Serber, Peace and War, p. 83.
263 On December 7, 1944: Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, p. 22.
263 “Kitty had begun”: Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79.
263 “She must have felt”: Frank and Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin 12/3/78; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 128.
264 “It seemed to me”: Pat Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79. Pat’s husband, Rubby Sherr, confirmed that his wife took care of Toni Oppenheimer (Rubby Sherr, e-mail to Bird, 7/11/04).
265 “It was known”: Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin 12/3/78; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 128.
265 “She drank somewhat”: Pat Sherr, interview with Sherwin, 2/20/79, p. 4.
265 “She certainly didn’t drink”: Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, pp. 11, 20.
265 the “place where the water”: Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 34.
265 “We had tea”: JRO to Mrs. Fermor S. Church, 11/21/58, box 76, J
RO Papers.
265 “slim and wiry hero”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, p. 86.
265 Her life was simple: Pettitt, Los Alamos Before the Dawn; Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, pp. 12, 86; Church, Bones Incandescent, p. 30.
266 “Don’t do it”: Dorothy McKibbin to Alice Smith, 10/17/75, Smith correspondence, Sherwin Collection; Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 280; McKibbin interview, 1/1/76.
266 “Along about April”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, pp. 123–24.
266 “Kitty and I understood”: Peter Miller to JRO, 4/27/51, box 76, JRO Papers.
266 “Mr. Nicholas Baker”: JRO to Groves, 11/2/43, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers.
267 “in gratitude for”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, pp. 95–98; Peter Miller to JRO, 4/27/51, box 76, JRO Papers. Miller was quoting Warner’s words about Bohr and Oppenheimer on her deathbed.
267 But it was only Oppie’s: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, p. 130; Brode, Tales of Los Alamos, pp. 120–27.
267 “Not the smallest part”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, pp. 98–99, 130. In her 1945 Christmas letter, Miss Warner wrote, “I had not known what was being done up there, though in the beginning I had suspected atomic research.”
Chapter Twenty: “Bohr Was God, and Oppie Was His Prophet”
268 The “race” for the atomic: Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 523–24; Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 106.
269 “To Bohr”: JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,” New York Review of Books, 12/17/64; Powers, Heisenberg’s War, pp. 237–38.
269 Groves’ displeasure had: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, pp. 239–40.
269 To prevent this: Sherwin, A World Destroyed, pp. 90–114.
270 “General, I can’t stand it”: Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 247.
270 “whispering mumble”: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, p. 252.
270 “within five minutes”: JRO hearing, p. 166.
270 “Is it really big enough?”: JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,” New York Review of Books, 12/17/64.