PRAISE FOR AN ATOMIC LOVE STORY
"Through diligent research, brilliant insights, and clear, incisive writing, Streshinsky and Klaus have deepened our understanding of Robert Oppenheimer's emotional life and loves. To comprehend his fascinating complexity, readers interested in the 20th century's most intriguing American scientist must now supplement the many biographical Oppenheimer tomes with this marvelous concise and precise book. Anyone with the slightest interest in Oppenheimer's biography will not be able to put it down."
—Martin J. Sherwin, co-author of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize–winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
"An Atomic Love Story is a story of many loves. A whole new range of Robert Oppenheimer's life emerges, a deeper and richer view of one of the pivotal figures of the 20th century."
—Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
"It is impossible to see Robert Oppenheimer whole without understanding the three great loves of his life. A closed book to most of the world, he opened himself to these three women, showing them the depth and intensity of his longing for the intimacies of the spirit as well as those of the flesh. An Atomic Love Story gives us the missing piece of the man."
—Patricia O'Toole, author of The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends and When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House
ALSO BY SHIRLEY STRESHINSKY
Audubon: Life and Art in the American Wilderness
Gift of the Golden Mountain
A Time Between
The Shores of Paradise
Hers the Kingdom
Turner Publishing Company
200 4th Avenue North • Suite 950 Nashville, Tennessee 37219
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An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer's Life
Copyright © 2013 Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus. All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover design: Gina Binkley
Book design: Kym Whitley
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Streshinsky, Shirley.
An atomic love story: the extraordinary women in Robert Oppenheimer's life / Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61858-019-1 (hardback)
1. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904–1967. 2. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904–1967--Relations with women. 3. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904–1967--Marriage. 4. Physicists--United States--Biography. 5. Women--United States--Biography. 6. Man-woman relationships--United States--History--20th century. 7. Sex role--United States--History--20th century.
I. Klaus, Patricia. II. Title.
QC16.O62S696 2013
530.092--dc23
[B]
2013024440
Printed in the United States of America
13 14 15 16 17 18 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For daughter Maria Streshinsky, who grew up listening to Oppenheimer stories, became a journalist and an editor, and deserves a place in the sun for her help in making An Atomic Love Story come true.
And for son Evan Klaus, who regularly called from 9,697 miles away in Africa to ask, "How's the book?" And for his inimitable PowerPoints, which have never failed to make me laugh at many times in my life.
CONTENTS
Cast of Characters
What Is It About Robert?
Prologue
I. Bloodlines
Chapters 1–2
II. The Exuberant Years
Chapters 3–8
III. Forebodings
Chapters 9–12
IV. Love and War
Chapters 13–16
V. Los Alamos and Washington, D.C.
Chapters 17–20
VI. The Atomic Bomb
Chapters 21–23
VII. Repercussions
Chapters 24–27
VIII. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Aftermath
Chapters 28–29
IX. Martyrdom Rejected and A Final Voyage
Chapters 30–31
Outside the Timeline
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Photo Credits
Index
"HE WON EVERYONE QUICKLY WITH AN EXQUISITE CONSIDERATION AND A POLITENESS THAT MOVED SO FAST AND INTUITIVELY THAT IT COULD BE EXAMINED ONLY IN ITS EFFECT. THEN, WITHOUT CAUTION, LEST THE FIRST BLOOM OF THE RELATION WITHER, HE OPENED THE GATE TO HIS AMUSING WORLD."
Tender Is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1923
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Oppenheimers
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Ella Oppenheimer: his mother
Julius Oppenheimer: his father
Frank Oppenheimer: his only brother, also a physicist
Kitty Oppenheimer: Robert's wife (see also Puening/Vissering)
Peter and Katherine (Toni) Oppenheimer: Robert and Kitty's children
Jackie Oppenheimer: Frank's wife; with him joined Communist Party in 1937
Robert's Friends*
* * *
* Title "Dr." intentionally removed because so many were either medical doctors or Ph.D.s.
William Boyd: Harvard classmate
Haakon Chevalier: professor of French literature at UC Berkeley, involved in Spanish refugee activity and Communist Party
Jane Didisheim Kayser: classmate at Ethical Culture School
John T. Edsall: Harvard classmate, received M.D. at Harvard, later a professor of biological chemistry there
Francis Fergusson: Ethical Culture School classmate; was at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship when Robert was at Cambridge; became a drama and literature critic; a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in 1947–48 and again in 1967
Paul Horgan: along with Francis Fergusson, was with Robert at Los Pinos in New Mexico; writer of fiction and nonfiction and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes
Roger Lewis: Frank's friend who spent time at Perro Caliente
Katherine Chaves Page (Katy): descended from an old hidalgo family; owner of Los Pinos Ranch in New Mexico where Robert spent summers as a young man
Robert Serber: physicist and Robert's "right-hand man" before and after Los Alamos; after the deaths of his wife Charlotte and Robert, he became Kitty's companion
George Uhlenbeck: physicist from the Netherlands; he and wife Else were friends at Berkeley and Perro Caliente
Jeffries Wyman: Harvard classmate; professor of molecular biology at Harvard 1928–1951; scientific advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Paris in 1954; close friend to John Edsall and Robert
The Tatlocks
Jean Tatlock
Marjorie Fenton Tatlock: her mother
J. S. P. Tatlock: her father, a medieval scholar and professor at Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley
Hugh Tatlock: Jean's brother; a medical doctor
Anne Fisher Tatlock: Hugh's wife; Jean's sister-in-law
Jessie Tatlock: J.S.P. Tatlock's sister; Jean's aunt; professor of history at Mt. Holyoke College
Winifred Smith: Marjorie Tatlock's lifelong friend; professor of English and drama at Vassar College; Jean's mentor
Priscilla Smith (Robertson): reared by Winifred Smith; Jean's girlhood friend; became a historian
Jean and Do
nald Macfarlane: Marjorie's friends; psychologists at UC Berkeley; followers of Jung
Elizabeth Whitney: a close friend of Marjorie's; a medical doctor and Jungian analyst; briefly married to J. S. P. Tatlock after Marjorie's death
Jean's Friends and Colleagues
Thomas Addis: renowned hematologist and kidney specialist at Stanford University Hospital; sympathetic to Communism and deeply committed to social/political causes, especially the Spanish Civil War refugees
Siegfried Bernfeld: Jewish Freud-trained psychoanalyst who emigrated from Europe in 1936; Jean's mentor and psychoanalyst at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco
Leni Cahn: young German friend of Field family who watched over Margot Clark and Jean in Switzerland, 1930–1931
Eleanor Clarke: Jean's best friend at Vassar; a well-known poet, married Robert Penn Warren
Jean Clark: Cambridge girlhood friend; daughter of Harvard professor
Margot Clark: Jean Clark's younger sister; spent year in Europe with Jean
Letty Field: Cambridge girlhood friend; lived with brothers and her widowed mother; the Clark sisters, May Sarton, and Field attended Shady Hill School; Jean joined them at Cambridge High and Latin
Edith Arnstein Jenkins: daughter of a friend of Marjorie Tatlock's; graduated from UC Berkeley; deeply involved in left-wing and labor politics in the San Francisco Bay Area
Jackie Oppenheimer: see Oppenheimer Family
Hannah Peters: medical doctor who fled Germany with her husband Bernard Peters; she would become Robert's personal physician and a close friend of Jean's; far left-wing in her politics, though she and her husband denied being members of the Communist Party
May Sarton: Cambridge girlhood friend (one of the "Snabs"); daughter of a Harvard historian of science; after a brief acting career, Sarton became a well-known poet and novelist
Katherine Warren: stage actress who befriended Jean
Mary Ellen Washburn: a friend of both Jean and Robert who lived in the Berkeley hills; Robert's landlady for a time
Tolman/Sherman Family
Ruth Sherman Tolman
Richard Tolman: her physicist husband; dean at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena
Edward Tolman: Richard's younger brother; professor of psychology at UC Berkeley; one of founders of the field of behavioral psychology
Kathleen Tolman: Edward Tolman's wife; mother of Deborah Tolman Whitney and Mary Tolman Kent
Lillie Margaret Sherman: Ruth's older sister; worked with the YWCA her entire career
Alma Sherman Chickering: Ruth's first cousin; married into a prominent San Francisco Bay Area family
Bill Chickering: Alma Chickering's son; war correspondent for Time/Life
Ruth's Friends and Colleagues
Jean Bacher: wife of Bob Bacher, a physicist at Los Alamos, then Caltech
Ruth Benedict: renowned anthropologist and author of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword; teacher and sometime partner of Margaret Mead
Edward Boring: an experimental psychologist; taught at Clark University and Harvard; president of the American Psychological Association; concerned with the work of women in the field of psychology
Jerome Bruner: worked in Washington with Ruth at Office of War Information; later professor of psychology at Harvard, Oxford, and NYU; a pioneer in the field of cognitive psychology
Charles "Charlie" Lauritsen: emigrated from Denmark; a physicist at Caltech and with wife Sigrid were close friends of the Tolmans
Margery Freeman: Ruth Benedict's sister; lived in Pasadena; wife of a Presbyterian minister
Natalie Raymond: daughter of prominent Pasadena family; close friend of Robert Oppenheimer, Ruth Valentine and Ruth Tolman; also sometime partner of Ruth Benedict
David Shakow: educated at Harvard; expert in the study of schizophrenia; worked with Ruth on research papers and in the American Psychological Association
Ruth "Val" Valentine: Pasadena neighbor and best friend; from a prominent San Francisco Bay Area family; had Ph.D. in Psychology from UC Berkeley and worked in the Los Angeles school system as a psychologist; sometime partner of Ruth Benedict
Vissering/Puening Family
Katherine (Kitty) Vissering Puening
Franz Puening: her father; a German-born chemical engineer
Kaethe Vissering Puening: her mother; also born in Germany
Gen. Wilhelm Keitel: Kitty's first cousin once removed; German field marshal and head of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces during World War II
Hilde Vissering de Blonay: Kitty's aunt; an assistant director in German films who worked for Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda during the Nazi era
Kitty's Friends and Husbands
Zelma Baker "Bake": high school friend; a successful research scientist; stayed in touch with Kitty through the 1930s
Shirley Barnett: wife of Los Alamos physician Dr. Henry Barnett; sometime confidante of Kitty
Barbara Chevalier: wife of Haakon; the couple cared for Peter Oppenheimer when he was a baby
Hilda Dallet: Joe's mother who lived in New York City and Long Island
Priscilla Duffield: Robert's first secretary at Los Alamos
Verna Hobson: one of Robert's Princeton secretaries who became a confidant
Anne Wilson Marks: Robert's last secretary at Los Alamos; married Herbert Marks and after his death worked for international arms control
Steve Nelson: Communist Party member and organizer; best friend of Joe Dallet in Spain; met Robert through his friendship with Kitty
Charlotte Serber: from a left-wing literary-political family in Philadelphia; scientific librarian at Los Alamos; wife of physicist Robert Serber
Pat Sherr: wife of a Los Alamos physicist; a sometime confidante of Kitty's; cared for baby Toni Oppenheimer for four months
Fiona St. Clair: friend from St. John; later married Robert Serber
Jane Wilson: wife of physicist Robert Wilson; at Los Alamos
Frank Ramseyer: Kitty's first husband; a Harvard-trained musician and later professor of music at Wheaton College outside Boston
Joe Dallet: Kitty's second husband; a doctrinaire Communist who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War
Stewart Harrison: Kitty's third husband; a medical doctor who worked on the therapeutic use of X-rays at Caltech; friend of the Tolmans
Military Intelligence at Los Alamos and Washington, D.C.
General Leslie Groves: military director of the Manhattan Project
Major Robert Furman: a civil engineer, appointed by Groves to be head of Military Intelligence for the Manhattan Project
Lt. Col. John Lansdale: a lawyer by profession; head of security for the Manhattan Project; Groves' personal assistant
Lt. Col. Boris Pash: Army counterintelligence officer assigned to San Francisco; later military leader of the ALSOS Mission; strongly anti-Communist
Peer de Silva: head of security at Los Alamos; worked with Pash and Lansdale
The Scientists
Robert Bacher: Robert's "right-hand man" at Los Alamos; became chairman of division of physics at Caltech and dean of faculty; he and his wife, Jean, were close friends of the Tolmans
Patrick Blackett: British physicist at University of Cambridge; the tutor on whose desk Robert left the "poison apple"
Hans Bethe: influential theoretical physicist who left Europe in the 1930s for Cornell, where he spent his entire career except for the years at Los Alamos
Neils Bohr: the "great man" of physics; fled Denmark in 1943; was at Washington and Los Alamos during the war; returned to Denmark
Freeman Dyson: physicist who came to Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in 1953; in 2013 still a member of IAS
Werner Heisenberg: outstanding physicist spearheading the German effort to built an atomic bomb; known to many at Los Alamos
Charles Lauritsen: see Ruth's Friends and Colleagues
Ernest Lawrence: professor of experimental physics at UC Berkeley; director of the Radiation Lab
at UC Berkeley; co-founder of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; supported development of the hydrogen bomb
Edward Lofgren: physicist friend of Frank Oppenheimer at UC Berkeley and at University of Minnesota
Linus Pauling: a professor of theoretical chemistry at Caltech; with wife, Ava Helen, was close friend to Robert early in career
Edward Teller: Hungarian theoretical physicist at Los Alamos; founder (with Ernest Lawrence) and director of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; strong proponent of the hydrogen bomb
Robert Serber: at University of Illinois, Los Alamos, then professor of physics at Columbia; close friend and colleague of Robert's
Richard Tolman: see Ruth Tolman
Robert Wilson: experimental physicist; worked closely with Robert at Los Alamos; helped organize Association of Los Alamos Scientists after the war; urged international control of nuclear weapons
The Statesmen
Dean Acheson: served as Secretary of State under President Truman, 1949–1853; principal architect of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine
Vannevar Bush: vice-president of MIT, dean of MIT School of Engineering, head of Office of Scientific Research and Development during the war; informal scientific advisor to President Roosevelt
George Kennan: diplomat, advisor, and historian; played important role in development of Cold War policy in the 1950s; came to the Institute for Advanced Study in 1953 and became Robert's close friend
David Lilienthal: head of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s; chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 1946–1950; friend and neighbor of the Oppenheimers in Princeton
Bernard Baruch: investment banker, business partner, and close friend of Lewis Strauss; advised various presidents on economic policy
James Conant: professor of chemistry and president of Harvard until appointed first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany; during the war, served as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee
Robert's Opponents
William L. Borden: former executive director of the Joint Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy; worked with Strauss and Hoover to have Robert's security clearance revoked
J. Edgar Hoover: director of the FBI; always suspicious of Robert's "Communist connections"
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