American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

AMERICAN PROMETHEUS The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

BY KAI BIRD AND MARTIN J. SHERWIN ALFRED A. KNOPF 2005, 720 PAGES, $35

What a book! This tome is revealing, readable, and riveting. A biography of "the father of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer, it gives readers an insight into the fame of this outstanding theoretical physicist as well as his fall from grace. We are privy to his sense of responsibility for what he helped to create and the subsequent guilt that attended upon it. Despite his genius, we are left with the conviction that here was a person struggling with his humanity.

Oppenheimer's father was a German immigrant who became a successful, well-to-do businessman, setting up a trust for his children from which they could draw freely. His mother was a quiet, protective person who gave birth to Robert in 1904. She almost smothered him with concern. Some friends even sensed an almost Oedipus situation. Oppenheimer enrolled in a private New York City school called the Ethical Culture Society. Smacking of the elite, the teachers were committed intellectuals. Its mission was "not to see the way things are, but the way they could be." This was to be a lifelong influence on Robert and his younger brother Frank and instilled in them a search for social justice. (Frank eventually went into science and worked with his brother at Los Alamos.)

Robert attended Harvard and Cambridge and found his calling, not in laboratory work, but in theoretical physics. Up until now, Newtonian physics ruled the roost, but a new approach took over the sub-atomic world in the form of quantum physics. The proponents were all young. Indeed, at Los Alamos, the average age of the scientists was 25. Oppenheimer was among the brightest of the bright, but had a habit of being acerbic, even with those well-established in the profession. He experienced bouts of depression and, for a time, was under psychiatric care. Adept in various languages, he even did some translations of Sanskrit.

He became a social activist and associated with leftist causes to the point of making financial contributions to them. Jean Tatlock, a Communist Party member and a paramour of four years, persuaded him in this direction. Frustrated with the political world, she committed suicide. Such associations were to be his downfall when he eventually was denied security clearance by the Atomic Energy Commission, even though regard ed as "a loyal American citizen." This, however, came after the successful atomic implosion at White Sands.

The overall honcho of the Manhattan Project, Col. Leslie Groves, was given a general's rank as inducement for taking the job. He had just finished designing the Pentagon. Though of differing personalities, he and Oppenheimer worked well together. In fact, the former liked Oppenheimer and, despite objections from higherups, appointed "Oppie" director of the Weapons Laboratory in New Mexico.

The latter put together a cohesive community at Los Alamos despite differing views of the morality of the bomb and its use after the war. Almost uniformly, the scientists opposed the kind of secrecy required by the project and wanted a say-so in the post-war world. Among these was the controversial idea of producing a hydrogen bomb as advocated by Edward Teller and opposed by Oppenheimer.

To the dismay of his friends, Oppenheimer married the controver sial Kitty Dallet, remotely related to European royalty. She gave birth to a son, Peter, and a daughter, Toni. Peter never went into academics and Toni eventually committed suicide. Oppenheimer, an incessant smoker, died of throat cancer in 1967.

An special plus of the book is the extensive information given about virtually all who came into contact with this Prometheus. The volume was years in the making and the authors performed prodigious work in gathering information from thousands of pages of FBI documents, archival materials, and personal interviews. They have brought a new world of insight to this complex character and those historic times. The book contain 32 pages of photos and 100 pages of notes.

Reviewed by GERALD F. KREYCHE American Thought Editor

COPYRIGHT 2006 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning