American Prometheus (115 page)

164
“A certain stuffiness”:
Time,
11/8/48, p. 76.

164
“their bill for liquor”:
Margaret Nelson, interview by Sherwin, 6/17/81, p. 33.

164
“I felt that he obviously”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
p. 215; Edsall, interview by Weiner, 7/16/75, p. 40.

164
Kitty told some of her friends:
Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79, p. 11.

165
“Deeply flattered”:
Chevalier,
Oppenheimer,
p. 42.

165
“Kitty seemed quite”:
Ruth Meyer Cherniss, interview by Alice Smith, 11/10/76; Harold Cherniss, interview by Smith, 4/21/76, p. 20.

165
Robert felt reinvigorated:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
pp. 33–34. Dorothy McKibbin found a hospital record for the X rays, dated July 25 (FBI memo, 11/18/52, p. 46, JRO FBI file, series 14; FBI doc. 327, pp. 17–18); Michelmore,
The Swift Years,
p. 65; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 40, JRO hearing, p. 336.

165
Upon their return:
See correspondence of July 1941 in box 232, “Real Estate” folder, JRO Papers.

165
A Spanish-style, one-story villa:
Bird and Sherwin toured the house on 4/23/04; Chevalier,
Oppenheimer,
p. 43.

Chapter Twelve: “We Were Pulling the New Deal to the Left”

166 Alvarez “stopped the barber” and subsequent quotes: Luis W. Alvarez, Alvarez, pp. 75–76.

166 “The U business”: Smith and Weiner, Letters, pp. 207–8. Richard Rhodes credibly suggests that this letter was written on 2/4/39—and not 1/28/39 as Smith and Weiner conjectured (Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
p. 812, note 274).

167
“So I think it really”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
p. 209. Oppenheimer also wrote a letter to Serber about the fission discovery: “The news had just gotten to Berkeley and he wrote me. I gave a seminar on it that same day. . . . And I think even in the first letter he mentioned the possibility of making a bomb” (
The Day After Trinity,
dir. Jon Else, transcript, p. 12). Serber later destroyed all his letters from Oppenheimer (Serber, interview by Sherwin, 3/11/82, p. 21).

167
“It was first names”:
Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, pp. 4–5.

168
“a drawing—a very bad”:
Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
p. 275.

168
“That was the only”:
Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 10.

169
“Bohr was God”:
Ibid., pp. 6, 15–16.

169
“He gave us the usual”:
Ibid., p. 13.

170
“He was very keenly”:
Ibid., p. 8.

170
Oppenheimer gave no final exams:
Ed Geurjoy, “Oppenheimer as a Teacher of Physics and Ph.D. Advisor,” speech delivered at Atomic Heritage Foundation conference, Los Alamos, 6/26/04.

170
“[The student] was a very genial”
and subsequent quotes:
Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, p. 15.

171
“self-conscious and daring”:
Schrecker,
No Ivory Tower,
p. 133.

171
Joe Weinberg was probably:
Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 14. Hawkins says Weinberg was in his Berkeley Party group: “I think maybe at some time, yes.”

171
born in 1915:
Schrecker,
No Ivory Tower,
pp. 149, 41; Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 16.

171
“We were all close to communism”:
Bohm, interview by Sherwin, 6/15/79, p. 5.

172
“No one can feel”:
Weinberg, quoted in F. David Peat,
Infinite Potential,
p. 60.

172
“I had the feeling”:
Bohm, interview by Sherwin, 6/15/79, p. 17.

172
“many people who were not”:
Schrecker,
No Ivory Tower,
pp. 38, 47, 49, 56.

172
“He was very persuasive”:
Hawkins, interview by Sherwin, 6/5/82, p. 6.

173
“We were pretty secretive”:
Ibid., p. 14.

173
“The centralization of”:
Ibid., p. 12.

173
“Not that I know”:
Ibid., p. 15.

173
Martin D. Kamen was:
Kamen and Ruben made their carbon-14 discovery in 1940. Yet another chemist, Willard Libby, won the 1960 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing the technique of carbon dating (Kamen,
Radiant Science, Dark Politics,
pp. 131–32).

173
“It was like Mecca”:
Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, p. 20.

174
“Everyone sort of regarded”:
Ibid., pp. 2, 6.

174
“So we drove up and down”:
Ibid., pp. 6–7.

174
“When he spoke”:
Herve Voge, interview by Sherwin, 3/23/83, p. 19.

175
Fifteen people were present:
JRO hearing, pp. 131, 135.

175
“leftwandering activities”:
Childs,
An American Genius,
p. 319. Oppenheimer later testified that they debated at this meeting whether it would be a good idea to set up a branch of the Association of Scientific Workers. “We concluded negatively, and I know my own views were negative.” (JRO hearing, pp. 131, 135.)

175
“If he would just”:
Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, pp. 24–28; Kamen,
Radiant Science, Dark Politics,
pp. 184–86. Kamen eventually lost his job at the Rad Lab— largely due to a series of misunderstandings that led authorities to think he had acted as a spy for the Soviets. The false allegations haunted him for years; in 1951 Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper accused Kamen of being an “atom spy.” Depressed and beleaguered, Kamen attempted suicide, recovered, and decided to sue the
Chicago Tribune
for libel; eventually Kamen won the suit and was awarded $7,500 in compensatory damages. (Kamen,
Radiant Science, Dark Politics,
pp. 248, 288.)

176
“It seemed like”:
Rossi Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79, part 2, p. 2.

176
“It was a title”:
Max Friedman, interview by Sherwin, 1/14/82. Friedman later changed his name to Ken Max Manfred.

176
“an organization known to be”:
Peat,
Infinite Potential,
pp. 62–63. A 1947 report of the California Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California contained a long report by R. E. Combs “charging that the International Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians had been used as a front for communist espionage in connection with atomic research in the University of California Radiation Laboratory” (Barrett,
The Tenney Committee,
pp. 54–55).

177
“Oppenheimer has important”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
pp. 222–23.

177
“but it was not until”:
JRO hearing, p. 11.

177
“there will be no further”:
JRO to Ernest Lawrence, 11/12/41, Smith and Weiner, Letters, p. 220.

177
But though Oppenheimer ceased:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
pp. 217–18; Schrecker,
No Ivory Tower,
pp. 76–83.

178
“teachers who were communists”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
pp. 218–19.

178
“Everything that happened”:
Kamen, interview by Sherwin, 1/18/79, p. 21.

178
“that I had had about enough”:
JRO hearing, p. 9.

Chapter Thirteen: “The Coordinator of Rapid Rupture”

179
“that extremely powerful bombs”:
Martin J. Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
p. 27.

180
“Uranium Committee”:
Ibid., pp. 36–37.

180
Oppenheimer “would be a tremendous”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 51.

181
“essential point is to enlist”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
pp. 226–27.

181
“We were together”:
Serber, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/82, p. 20.

181
“Oh geez, look”:
Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, part 3, p. 17.

181
“As Chairman,” Edward Teller later wrote:
Bernstein,
Hans Bethe,
pp. 65, 78.

182
“We were forever”:
Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
p. 420.

182
While Oppenheimer soon concluded:
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr.,
The New World,
vol. 1, p. 104.

182
“we would do better”:
JRO to John Manley, 7/14/42, box 50, JRO Papers.

183
“I didn’t believe it”:
Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
p. 418.

183
“I’ll never forget”:
Arthur H. Compton,
Atomic Quest,
p. 127.

183
In the event:
Edward Teller had a different memory of this incident: “The question of igniting the atmosphere, if it was mentioned at all, was not discussed in any detail at the summer conference. It was not an issue” (Teller, with Judith Shoolery,
Memoirs,
p. 160).

183
According to Oppenheimer:
Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
pp. 418–21. 183
“only an atomic bomb”:
Teller,
Memoirs,
p. 161. 184
“I’m cutting off”:
Compton,
Atomic Quest,
p. 126.

184
“turned thumbs down”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 349, note 26 (memorandum of conversation, 8/18/42, box 1, JRO, AEC, record group 326, NA).

184 In this beautiful setting: Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic
Bomb,
pp. 70–71.

184
“decidedly left-wing”:
James Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
pp. 165–66; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 49.

184
“Oh, that thing”:
Leslie M. Groves,
Now It Can Be Told,
p. 4.

185
“Groves is a bastard”:
Herbert Smith, interview by Weiner, 8/1/74, p. 7.

185 “General Groves is the biggest S.O.B.”: Nichols, The Road to Trinity, p. 108; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
pp. 56–57.