American Prometheus
The subtitle to this biography is "The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer", and it gives a compelling account of his life as a renown physicist who became the infamous "father of the atomic bomb."
Robert Oppenheimer was brought up in a Jewish family that usually ignored the traditions of that faith. He was born in 1904, and his early education was at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. Later he received scholarships in physics at universities in the United States, England and Europe. He later became a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley but also taught summer courses at Caltech in Southern California.
While Oppenheimer was in Berkeley in the late 1930s, the Bay Area Communist Party was flourishing, and though Oppenheimer never became a member, he had many friends who were. Even though Russia was an ally in World War II, communism itself became a threat in this country. So it was difficult for Americans to label the Soviet Union as a friend or an enemy.
Oppenheimer’s friendship with many communists in the Bay Area came to light after he became director of the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico. He was working along with General Groves, who represented the military involvement in nuclear weapons research. Several times Groves endorsed a security clearance for Oppenheimer, but FBI agents still kept him under surveillance, through interviews with him and illegal wiretapping.
After the atomic bomb was tested and then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, questions of justification arose. It became evident that Russia had been willing to join us in conquering Japan. The Japanese had also been ready for a peaceful settlement. Even the concept of civilians being the target of the first atomic bomb had been discussed. But we ignored all of these.
Oppenheimer became aware of these questions too late, but he strongly urged that we share our nuclear research with the rest of the world. He feared an arms race with Russia, and as a prelude to the Cold War, by 1948 we had 50 bombs, and by 1950 we had 300. This stand and his opposition to the hydrogen bomb brought about the Gray Board "inquiry" while he was Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Through FBI files which Oppenheimer and his lawyers were not allowed to see, his security clearance was taken away. This defeat later became known as a "...a defeat of American Liberalism."
The findings in the Gray Board inquiry which destroyed Oppenheimer’s fame and prestige were strongly supported by scientists and administrators such as Lewis Strauss, Edward Teller, and Ernest Lawrence, who were devoted to "American military interests." However, Oppenheimer never lost the trust and admiration of such men as Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling, and 282 scientists at Los Alamos. President Kennedy later praised him and awarded him a medal for his many years of public service.
J. Robert Oppenheimer died in 1967. Research on this biography took over 25 years and the book was published in 2005.