Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin

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

305 The FBI and army: In June 1944, while Frank was stationed at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, uranium separation plant, Jackie had written him soon after the Allied landings in France, “Well, well, the D-Day has come. I think that is wonderful. . . . But as you have predicted, and as I more or less [illegible], the battle against Russia (propaganda) has already started. . . . it’s insidious.” To Jackie this was “pure, unadulterated American Fascism.” (Jackie Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, undated, circa June 1944, folder 4–13, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB.)

  305 “We spent several days”: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Weiner, 2/9/73, p. 56.

  305 “You can change the sheets”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 151.

  305 “Oppenheimer became so emotional”: George Kistiakowsky, “Trinity: A Reminiscence,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1980, p. 21.

  305 “In battle, in forest”: Vannevar Bush, Pieces of the Action, p. 148.

  306 “The weather is whimsical”: Lansing Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 184.

  306 “Funny how the mountains”: Ibid., p. 193.

  306 To relieve the tension: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 12.

  306 “All the frogs”: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Weiner, 2/9/73, p. 57.

  306 “There could be”: Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 210; The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 12.

  307 “obviously confused”: Szasz, The Day the Sun Rose Twice, p. 73.

  307 Worried that some: Norris, Racing for the Bomb, pp. 403–4; Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 210.

  307 “If we postpone”: Lamont, Day of Trinity, pp. 212, 220.

  307 “a big ball of orange”: Feynman, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” p. 134.

  307 “something had gone wrong”: Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 232.

  308 “I could feel the heat”: Serber, Peace and War, pp. 91–93.

  308 “All of a sudden”: Badash, et al., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, pp. 76–77.

  308 Frank Oppenheimer was: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 47.

  308 “the light of the first”: Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Weiner, 2/9/73, AIP, p. 56; The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 14.

  308 “Lord, these affairs”: Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 226.

  308 “Dr. Oppenheimer . . . grew”: General Thomas Farrell, “Memorandum for the Secretary of War,” 7/18/45, reprinted in Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pp. 436–37; NYT, 8/7/45, p. 5; Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 144, no. 2 (June 2000), p. 165.

  308 “I think we just said”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, pp. 15–16.

  308 “I’ll never forget”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 242; The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 50; Frank Oppenheimer, interview by Jon Else, 1980; Szasz, The Day the Sun Rose Twice, p. 89.

  309 “Lots of boys”: William L. Laurence, NYT, 9/27/45, p. 7.

  309 “We knew the world”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, pp. 79–80. Some Sanskrit scholars suggest that a better translation of this line would be “I am become Time, destroyer of worlds.”

  309 “priestly exaggerations”: Pais, The Genius of Science, p. 273.

  309 “The big boom”: Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 76; NYT, 9/26/45, pp. 1, 16.

  309 Oppie pulled out: Lamont, Day of Trinity, p. 237; Kistiakowsky, “Trinity: A Reminiscence,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1980, p. 21.

  309 “Now we’re all sons”: Years later, Oppenheimer remembered Bainbridge’s remark and told David Lilienthal that he agreed with it: “I guess that is just about right” (Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 6, p. 89, diary entry for 2/13/65).

  309 “Tell her she can”: Lamont, Day of Trinity, pp. 242–43; Anne Wilson, his secretary, said she had no such recollection (Anne Wilson Marks, phone interview by Bird, 5/22/02). While Richard Feynman got out his bongo drums and beat them with elation, he later said of the moment, “You stop thinking, you know; you just stop.” Robert Wilson, who was not elated, had said to Feynman, “It’s a terrible thing that we made.” Feynman, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” pp. 135–36.

  309 But curiously, he didn’t: Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 144, no. 2 (June 2000), pp. 123–24.

  Chapter Twenty-three: “Those Poor Little People”

  313 “They were picking”; “Those poor little”: Anne Wilson Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.

  314 “Don’t let them bomb”: Lt. Col. John F. Moynahan, Atomic Diary, p. 15. The bombardiers followed Oppenheimer’s instructions, dropping the bomb visually on the center of Hiroshima. But Nagasaki was bombed “largely by radar,” because of cloud cover and because the bomber was running low on fuel. (See Norman Ramsey to JRO, dated “after August 20, 1945,” box 60, JRO Papers.)

  315 “what actually occurred”: Alice Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 53; see also Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 230.

  315 “the visible effects”; “Why the hell”: Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” Badash, et al., eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos, p. 37.

  315 “I’m proud of you”: Groves and JRO, transcript of phone conversation, 8/6/45, RG 77, entry 5, MED files, 201 Groves, box 86, gen. correspondence 1942–45, telephone conversation file.

  315 “Attention please, attention”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 58.

  316 “This last 24 hours”: Ed Doty to parents, 8/7/45, Los Alamos Historical Museum.

  316 “too early to determine”: Sam Cohen, The Truth About the Neutron Bomb, p. 22; Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 144, no. 2 (June 2000), p. 155. Hijiya cites Cohen for the claim that Oppenheimer clasped his hands together like a prizefighter, but this detail is not in Cohen’s book. It is found, however, in Lawren, The General and the Bomb, p. 250.

  316 “That night we”: Phil Morrison’s radio talk, ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, Federation of American Scientists Records, XXII, p. 2. “The Atom Bomb Scientists Report Number Three: Death of Hiroshima,” p. 1, Special Collections, UC.

  316 “certainly no one [at Los Alamos] celebrated” and subsequent quotes: Ed Doty to parents, 8/7/45, Los Alamos Historical Museum; Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 77. Smith wrote only that Oppenheimer saw a “young group leader being sick in the bushes.” Thomas Powers identifies the young group leader as Robert Wilson (Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 462). See also The Day After Trinity, Jon Else.

  317 “I felt betrayed”: Robert Wilson, “Robert Jungk’s Lively but Debatable History,” Scientific American, December 1958, p. 146; Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, pp. 140–41.

  317 “People were going”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, pp. 59–60; Palevsky, Atomic Fragments, p. 141.

  317 “As the days passed”; “Oppie says”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope (1971 edition), p. 77; Robert Serber, Peace and War, p. 142.

  317 “nervous wreck”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 139; FBI memo, 4/18/52, sect. 12, JRO FBI file.

  318 “unconditional surrender”: Hershberg, James B. Conant, pp. 279–304; Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pp. 417–20; see also Barton J. Bernstein, “Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History;” Uday Mohan and Sanho Tree, “The Construction of Conventional Wisdom,” and the essays by Norman Cousins, Reinhold Niebuhr, Felix Morley, David Lawrence, Lewis Mumford, Mary McCarthy and other early critics of the bombings, reprinted in Bird and Lifschultz, Hiroshima’s Shadow, pp. 141–97, 237–316.

  318 Lawrence tried to reassure: Childs, An American Genius, p. 366; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 140.

  318 “it is our firm opinion”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 293–94 (JRO to Stimson, 8/17/45).

  319 “no alternative to”: Ibid., pp. 300–1; JRO to Ernest Lawrence, 8/30/45.

  319 “
You will believe”: Ibid., pp. 297–98; JRO to Herbert Smith, 8/26/45; JRO to Frederick Bernheim, 8/27/45.

  319 “Dear Opje”: Chevalier, Oppenheimer, p. xi.

  319 “Circumstances are heavy”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 65, JRO to Haakon Chevalier, 8/27/45, The Day After Trinity, supplemental files; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 142.

  320 “I have a sense”: JRO to Conant, 9/29/45, JRO Papers.

  320 Incredibly, a formal offer: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 300.

  320 “I have very mixed”: Ibid., pp. 301–2.

  320 “Kitty didn’t often”: Jean Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 11/5/87, pp. 3–4. Didisheim quote contained in a letter from Herbert Smith to Frank Oppenheimer, 9/19/73, folder 4–23, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB.

  321 “But Phil was”: Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 11/5/87, p. 2.

  321 “Virtually everyone in the street”: A transcript of Phil Morrison’s radio talk can be found in the ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, Federation of American Scientists (FAS) XXII, p. 2. “The Atom Bomb Scientists Report Number Three: Death of Hiroshima,” p. 5, Special Collections, UC.

  321 “At one point”: Serber, Peace and War, p. 129.

  321 “We circled finally”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 115; a transcript of Morrison’s radio talk can be found in the ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, FAS XXII, p. 2.

  321 “Much was now explained”: Church, The House at Otowi Bridge, pp. 130–31; Church, Bones Incandescent, p. 38.

  322 “We took this tree”: Michael A. Day, “Oppenheimer on the Nature of Science,” Centaurus, vol. 43 (2001), p. 79; Time, 11/8/48.

  322 “The war had made it”: Weisskopf, note on physics in the postwar years, December 1962, box 21, “JRO and Niels Bohr,” JRO Papers.

  322 “very belatedly”: JRO, “Three Lectures on Niels Bohr and His Times,” Pegram Lectures, Brookhaven National Laboratory, August 1963, p. 16, filed in Louis Fischer Papers, box 9, folder 3, PUL. Henry Stimson diary, 9/21/45, p. 3, YUL.

  322 “Now it is in your”: Ibid.

  Chapter Twenty-four: “I Feel I Have Blood on My Hands”

  323 “Hats off to the men” and subsequent quotes: Paul Boyer, By Bomb’s Early Light, pp. 266–67; Pais, The Genius of Science, p. 274.

  323 “We have made”: JRO, “Atomic Weapons,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, January 1946. He gave this speech on 11/16/45 in Philadelphia, where it was entitled “Atomic Weapons and the Crisis in Science,” filed in folder 168.1, Lee DuBridge Papers, courtesy of James Hershberg.

  324 “I thought that he”: Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 11.

  324 On September 9, Oppenheimer: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 304; JRO to Harrison, 9/9/45.

  325 “the situation looked”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 116–17.

  325 “the suppression of the document”: Ibid., p. 120.

  325 “not merely a super”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 150.

  325 “armaments manufacturer”: Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, 10/10/49.

  325 “I neither can”: Teller and Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima, p. 23.

  326 Unbeknownst even to Washington: Henry Wallace diary, 10/19/45, reprinted in John Morton Blum, The Price of Vision, p. 497.

  326 “The hope of civilization”: Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 532.

  326 Leo Szilard was outraged: Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows, p. 286.

  326 “I believe that”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 167; Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, vol. 1, p. 432.

  327 “The Johnson bill”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 153; Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 401–2.

  327 “a masterpiece”: Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows, p. 293.

  327 “oblique attack”: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 154.

  327 “He said there wasn’t”: The Day After Trinity, Jon Else, transcript, p. 68; Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 178.

  327 “Mailing it was”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 395–96; Wilson, “Hiroshima: The Scientists’ Social and Political Reaction,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, September 1996, p. 351.

  328 “Oppie’s suggestions [should]”: Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 409.

  328 Within the month: Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 197–200.

  328 “his eyes were glazed”: Steeper, Gatekeeper to Los Alamos, p. 111.

  329 “Today that pride”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 310–11.

  329 “That day he was us”: Eleanor Jette, Inside Box 1663, p. 123.

  329 “[i]t would seem wrong”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 306.

  329 “how much we pay”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 149.

  331 “The guilt consciousness”: Henry Wallace diary, 10/19/45, reprinted in Blum, ed., The Price of Vision, pp. 493–97. For more on Byrnes’ atomic diplomacy, see Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, p. 429.

  331 “The first thing is”: Murray Kempton, “The Ambivalence of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Esquire, December 1983, reprinted in Kempton, Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events, p. 121. Kempton mistakenly places this conversation in 1946. Another version of this story appears in Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 260. Davis provides no date or citation—but according to President Truman’s appointment calendar, the president met with Oppenheimer on only four occasions: 10/25/45, 4/29/48, 4/6/49, and 6/27/52.

  331 “incomprehension it showed”: Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 261.

  332 “I feel I have blood” and subsequent quotes: Truman to Dean Acheson, memo, 5/7/46, box 201 PSF, HSTL. See also Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, p. 228, and Boyer, By Bomb’s Early Light, p. 193. Boyer places Dean Acheson in the room, but the Truman Presidential Appointment Calendar notes the presence only of Robert Patterson, Oppenheimer, and Truman (Matthew J. Connelly files, Presidential Appointment Calendar, 10/25/45, HSTL). Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 150. Herken is citing Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 258; Michelmore, The Swift Years, pp. 121–22, and Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 118.

  333 “He was not a man”: Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 9.

  333 “a simple man, prone”: John J. McCloy diary, 7/20/45, DY box 1, folder 18, McCloy Papers, Amherst College.

  333 “the fix we are in”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 315–25.

  333 “I remember Oppie’s”: Ibid., p. 315.

  334 “I know that many”: Ibid., pp. 315–25.

  334 “sacred trust”: Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 537.

  335 “Dear Mr. Opp.”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 325–26.

  Chapter Twenty-five: “People Could Destroy New York”

  336 “Since the use of”: JRO FBI file, sect. 1, doc. 20, Hoover to Byrnes, memo, 11/15/45, and Hoover to Brig. Gen. Harry H. Vaughan, military aide to the president, memo, 11/15/45.

  336 “Isn’t it nice?”: JRO FBI file, sect. 4, doc. 108, p. 9.

  337 “appears to leave some doubt”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 160; see Herken’s website www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com for chapter 9’s extended endnote 7: Menke, FBI memo to file, 3/14/47, box 2, JRO/AEC.

  337 “close to Oppenheimer”: JRO FBI file, doc. 51 (3/18/46, p. 6) and doc. 159 (Ladd to FBI director, 8/11/47, p. 7).

  337 “done nothing towards”: JRO FBI file, doc. 134, “Julius Robert Oppenheimer: Background,” 1/28/47, p. 7.

  338 A wiretap on: Memo to FBI director, 5/23/47, JRO FBI file, serial 6. Hoover also authorized “microphone surveillance.”

  338 “OK if Father will keep quiet”: Upon receiving this news, Hoover ordered no further contact with Wilson (JRO FBI file, sect. 1, doc. 25, 3/26/46); Anne Wilson Marks, phone interview by Bird, 10/21/02.

 
; 338 “What the hell”: Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 17.

  338 “reliable informants”: Hoover to George E. Allen, 5/29/46, PSF Box 167, folder: FBI Atomic Bomb, HSTL; Bird, The Chairman, p. 281.

  339 “So it came to me”: Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, pp. 2–5; Rigden, Rabi, pp. 196–97.

  339 Four weeks later: Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, vol. 1, p. 532.

  340 “He walked back and forth”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 13; Lilienthal to Herb Marks, 1/14/48, Lilienthal letters to JRO, box 46, JRO Papers.

  340 “Everybody genuflected”: Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 178.

  340 “almost musically delicate mind”: Bird, The Chairman, p. 277.

  340 “All the participants”: Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 153.

  341 “Our bewildered questions”: Ibid., see also JRO hearing, pp. 37–40.

  341 “This is a brilliant”: Joseph I. Lieberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, p. 255.

  341 “without world government”: JRO, “Atomic Explosives.” Folder: United Nations, AEC, box 52, Bernard Baruch Papers, PUL.

  342 “Oppenheimer screwed it up”: Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 6; Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 164.

  342 “Only something as drastic”: Lieberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, p. 246.

  342 Soon afterwards: “A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy—Prepared for the Secretary of State’s Committee on Atomic Energy by a Board of Consultants: Chester I. Barnard, Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer, Dr. Charles A. Thomas, Harry A. Winne, David E. Lilienthal, Chairman,” Washington, D.C., 3/16/46.

  342 “favorably impressed”: James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 269. For Byrnes’ business ties to Baruch, see Burch, Elites in American History, vol. 3, pp. 60, 62; see also David Robertson, Sly and Able, p. 118, for a description of Byrnes’ close friendship with Baruch.

  343 “When I read the news”: Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, p. 30; Bird, The Chairman, p. 279.

  343 “We’re lost”: Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 165. Oppenheimer later said of Baruch’s appointment, “That was the day I gave up hope, but that was not the day for me to say so publicly” (Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 260).