One of the most influential American scientists of the 20th century despite not having won a Nobel Prize. The man responsible for taking to greater heights one of the most prominent centres for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry, Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies—known as a haven for scholars from every discipline, and whose residents over the years include more than 30 Nobel laureates, including Albert Einstein. A scientist-prophet who advocated for greater candor in matters of nuclear weaponry. A fierce patriot. A philosopher and a charmer. A scholar who was equally well-versed in Bhagavad Gita, Principia Mathematica, and the works of Shelley, Shakespeare and the like. A modern-day Galileo who was hounded and prosecuted for his views on science and its role in diplomacy and politics—arguably the most prominent victim of McCarthyism. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man most popularly known as “the father of the atomic bomb”, was all these and more.
Born in a wealthy, unorthodox Jewish family, Robert Oppenheimer, or 'Oppie' to his friends, was an unusually gifted child, who at the age of nine, had told a cousin, "Ask me a question in Latin and I will answer you in Greek."
Like several Western intellectuals who were enticed by Eastern mysticism, in his 20s, Oppenheimer was attracted to the fatalism of the Bhagavad Gita. His fascination for Gita was manifested the most when he quoted verses from the book after the first detonation of a nuclear weapon.
Oppenheimer began to take an active interest in politics after January 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. He was then a faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, and had a fellowship at Caltech. Oppenheimer's sympathies were with the Left. While he never bothered to have a Communist Party membership, he was always willing to contribute to noble causes, including offering money to support scientists fleeing Germany. His political affiliations and activism were to haunt him later, although he came to despise Communists as years went by.
Trinity, Little Boy, Fat Man
Oppenheimer transformed from an eccentric theoretical physicist with left-wing leanings to a "first-rate, highly organised leader" after he was recruited in 1942 to head the Manhattan Project—the US government programme to build atomic bombs during World War II—by General Leslie Groves. He managed to combine his passion for physics with his fascination for the desert high country of New Mexico when he, along with few fellow scientists and Army officials, zeroed in on Los Alamos for 'Project Y,' the laboratory that designed and fabricated the first atomic bombs for the Manhattan Project.
According to German-American theoretical physicist Hans Bethe, the once hesitant and diffident Oppenheimer became a decisive executive at Los Alamos. Bethe observed: Oppie "never dictated what should be done. He brought out the best in all of us, like a good host." The best scientific minds of America were at work at Los Alamos, believing that they are working to bring a decisive end to a war that was threatening to consume the whole world.
Oppenheimer had a remarkable flair for drawing people into his orbit, and this worked in his favour at Los Alamos even as scientists burned the proverbial midnight oil to bring the bomb to fruition. His working style was distinct; according to physicist Eugine Winger, he rarely gave orders but managed to get what he wanted "very easily and naturally, with just his eyes, his two hands, and a half-lighted pipe.”
According to his biographers Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin who penned American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer—the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner, on which the upcoming Christopher Nolan flick Oppenheimer is based—his "brittle and delicate shell actually disguised a stoic personality built of stubborn pride and determination."
(FILE) Scientists and other workers rig the world's first atomic bomb to raise it up onto a 100-foot tower at the Trinity Test Site near Alamagordo | AP
After months of grueling work, on July 16, 1945, the world's first nuclear explosion, codenamed 'Trinity', took place under the watchful eyes of Oppenheimer and others, 330 kilometres south of Los Alamos. Recalling the test in an NBC television documentary in 1965, Oppenheimer said," We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, and takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of the worlds'. I suppose we all thought that, one way or other."
The moment of the testing was indeed euphoric for Oppenheimer and other scientists, but the announcement of bombings—Little Boy and Fat Man—in Japan was met with much somberness, especially in Nagasaki. In a letter to his friend Haakon Chevalier, he wrote of the bomb: "...the thing had to be done Haakon. It had to be brought to an open public fruition at a time when all over the world men craved peace as never before, were committed as never before both to technology as a way of life and thought and to the idea that no man is an island."
Oppenheimer did have qualms about the bombings, and during a meeting with President Truman, Oppenheimer confessed that he had blood on his hands. However, he was not pleased when a play, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by German playwright Heinar Kipphardt, had his character expressing grief for his role in building the atomic bomb.
Revisionist historians assert that the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not a necessity as the Japanese were considering surrender. At the time, however, President Truman and Washington insiders wanted to end the war without Soviet intervention and they knew atomic bombs were the way. Oppenheimer's biographers write: "No one can be certain of Oppenheimer's reaction had he learned that on the eve of Hiroshima bombing, the president knew the Japanese were 'looking for peace' and that the military use of atomic bombs on cities was an option rather than a necessity for ending the war in August. But we do know that after the war, he came to believe that he had been misled, and that this knowledge served as a constant reminder that it was henceforth his obligation to be skeptical of what he was told by government officials.
'Chevalier affair' and 'defrocking' of Oppenheimer
While the atomic bombs catapulted him to the position of the poster boy of science and made him a household name, not everyone was enamoured by his charms. Despite his charisma, he had his fair share of detractors, including fellow theoretical physicist Edward Teller. Many despised him for his continued opposition to the development of hydrogen bombs and nuclear weapons stockpiling. There were even rumours that he was planning to defect to Russia.
It all began in the winter of 1942-43. During a dinner before he was to leave for Los Alamos, his friend Chevalier came up with a proposal. Chevalier said he has asked by a mutual acquaintance, a British-born physicist George E. Eltenton, to request Oppenheimer if he is willing to pass information about his scientific work so that the same could be passed to the Soviets. The argument was that the Soviet allies are fighting the same war but they were not receiving the support from the US that they are entitled to. Oppenheimer called the proposal "treason" and in clear terms told his friend that he would not be a party to Eltenton's schemes. The two brushed aside the incident, but it was to follow him throughout his professional, and even personal life.
Actor Cillian Murphy in a scene from Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'
The FBI got wind of the incident soon. This, together with his pro-left sympathies of younger days, and his occasional rendezvous with former lover and known Communist sympathiser Jean Tatlock, an American psychiatrist and physician, when he was in Los Alamos, made him a target of constant surveillance even as he headed one of the most secretive missions of the US—the Manhattan Project. His office was wiretapped, his mails monitored; he was constantly followed by FBI agents. At one point, he even considered quitting the project as he felt hounded by the investigations into his past.
Despite his scientific achievements and renown, Oppenheimer became a modern-day Galileo, a scientist who was prosecuted and whose loyalties were questioned. On December 23, 1953, Oppenheimer received a letter that charged that he was a security risk and hence his security clearance should be revoked—a grave charge directed at the man who was chairing the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) then.
Lewis Strauss, the chairman of AEC, had always considered Oppenheimer to be a threat to national security. An anti-Communist, he felt that "fundamental defects" in Oppenheimer's character, and his opposition to the super-bomb programme were not in America's interests. Strauss' biographer Richard Pfau is of the opinion that he believed that Oppenheimer was a Soviet agent. "The FBI listened to (Oppenheimer's) telephone calls, followed his movements, and invaded the privacy of his relationship with his attorney, all with the approval and encouragement of Strauss," writes Pfau.
Apart from the 'Chevalier affair', the list of accusations against him included his intimate relationship with Tatlock, his association with outfits that the House Un-American Activities Committee had termed Communist front-organisations—American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, and the Western Council of the Consumers Union, among others. "...you stated in 1943 that you were not a Communist, but had probably belonged to every Communist front organisation on the west coast and had signed many petitions in which Communists were interested," the letter outlining charges against him read. Other charges included his brother Frank Oppenheimer's Communist party membership, his wife Katherine's party affiliations, and even an alleged subscription to a Communist newsletter. The letter of charges reeked of the worst form of McCarthyism or the second Red Scare.
Oppenheimer was arguably the most prominent victim of McCarthyism, and his FBI file ran into thousands of pages. Despite never having faced a criminal trial, he was viciously attacked and ridiculed during an inquisition-like AEC hearing to revoke his security clearance. His opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb and his advocacy for greater openness in matters of science made him a soft target at a time when there was high paranoia about internal Communist threats.
His Communist sympathies during his younger days, association with various front organisations of the Communist party, and his continued friendship with fellow-travelers of the party, and the relationship with Tatlock were used against him in the hearing which was no less than a trial. Although many fellow scientists vouched for his integrity, the testimony of Teller was damning. "In a great number of cases I have seen Dr Oppenheimer act... In a way which for me was exceedingly hard to understand... To this extent I feel that I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better, and therefore trust more," he said.
Einstein had urged him not to submit himself to the hearing, and just walk away by resigning from the committee. When Oppenheimer refused to do this, Einstein reportedly told his secretary, nodding at Oppenheimer, "There goes a narr (fool).
While the board hearing the case said the US owed him "a great debt of gratitude for...magnificent service," it refused to renew his security clearance, saying his "continuing conduct and associations reflected a serious disregard for the requirements of the security system."
The hearing broke the man. His defeat was also perceived as the defeat of American liberalism. Once, when American drama critic and author John Mason Brown compared the hearing to "dry crucifixion," the scientist responded: "You know, it wasn't so very dry. I can still feel the warm blood on hands." According to his biographers, the hearing and its consequence always weighed on his spirit.
A scientist-philosopher and a complex man
In the words of CBS broadcaster late Eric Severeid, Oppenheimer was "the scientist who writes like a poet and speaks like a prophet." David E. Lilienthal, American attorney and the first chairman of the AEC, told the New York Times after the death of Oppenheimer that his friend Oppie was a "noble spirit", "a genius who brought together poetry and science." Einstein called him an "unusually capable man of many sided-education."
The pipe-smoking man in a porkpie hat knew how to throw a party, and his dry martinis were famous among his friends. He could converse on almost everything under the sun—philosophy, literature, poetry, music, and of course, Gita. Once a shy young man who allegedly tried to poison one of his professors over a minor disagreement, Oppenheimer metamorphosed into becoming the centre of attention at any party and could charm anyone to be his most willing audience with his erudition. But then, he could also come across as haughty, cold, distant, and often impatient with those in authority. He was a complex man!
His multi-faceted personality was aptly described when he received an honorary degree at Princeton in June 1966—"a physicist and a sailor, philosopher and horsemen, a linguist and cook, lover of fine wine and better poetry.” An impressed General Leslie Groves once said, "Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up," except sports.
It was possibly his philosophical leanings and altruism which prompted him to advocate against nuclear stockpiling. He wanted the nuclear genie to be returned to the bottle. Oppenheimer detested secrecy in matters of science and called for the internationalisation of modern science. "...secrecy strikes at the very root of what science is, and what it is for," he had once said.
Once, when asked if humanity has the capability to destroy itself, he responded: "Not quite. Not quite. You can certainly destroy enough humanity so that only the greatest act of faith can persuade you that what's left will be human."
