American Prometheus (120 page)

261
“Our thin, ascetic Director”:
Wilson and Serber, eds.,
Standing By and Making Do,
p. 50.

261
“I have to tell you”:
Marks, interview by Bird, 3/14/02.

262
“He really was”:
Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.

262
“They were terribly close”:
Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, p. 25.

262
“Her background was not good”:
JRO hearing, p. 266; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 88.

262
“I was sure she’d been”:
Davis,
Lawrence and Oppenheimer,
p. 156.

263
“Dr. Oppenheimer was”:
Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 90.

263
So many young couples:
By June 1944, one fifth of all the married women in Los Alamos were pregnant. Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 276; Wilson and Serber, eds.,
Standing By and
Making Do,
p. 92; Robert Serber,
Peace and War,
p. 83.

263
On December 7, 1944:
Brode,
Tales of Los Alamos,
p. 22.

263
“Kitty had begun”:
Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79.

263
“She must have felt”:
Frank and Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin 12/3/78; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 128.

264
“It seemed to me”:
Pat Sherr, interview by Sherwin, 2/20/79. Pat’s husband, Rubby Sherr, confirmed that his wife took care of Toni Oppenheimer (Rubby Sherr, e-mail to Bird, 7/11/04).

265
“It was known”:
Jackie Oppenheimer, interview by Sherwin 12/3/78; Goodchild,
J.
Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 128.

265
“She drank somewhat”:
Pat Sherr, interview with Sherwin, 2/20/79, p. 4.

265
“She certainly didn’t drink”:
Hempelmann, interview by Sherwin, 8/10/79, pp. 11, 20.

265
the “place where the water”:
Steeper,
Gatekeeper to Los Alamos,
p. 34.

265 “We had tea”: JRO to Mrs. Fermor S. Church, 11/21/58, box 76, JRO Papers.

265
“slim and wiry hero”:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
p. 86.

265
Her life was simple:
Pettitt,
Los Alamos Before the Dawn;
Church,
The House at
Otowi Bridge,
pp. 12, 86; Church,
Bones Incandescent,
p. 30.

266
“Don’t do it”:
Dorothy McKibbin to Alice Smith, 10/17/75, Smith correspondence, Sherwin Collection; Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
p. 280; McKibbin interview, 1/1/76.

266
“Along about April”:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
pp. 123–24.

266
“Kitty and I understood”:
Peter Miller to JRO, 4/27/51, box 76, JRO Papers.

266
“Mr. Nicholas Baker”:
JRO to Groves, 11/2/43, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers.

267
“in gratitude for”:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
pp. 95–98; Peter Miller to JRO, 4/27/51, box 76, JRO Papers. Miller was quoting Warner’s words about Bohr and Oppenheimer on her deathbed.

267
But it was only Oppie’s:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
p. 130; Brode,
Tales of
Los Alamos,
pp. 120–27.

267
“Not the smallest part”:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
pp. 98–99, 130. In her 1945 Christmas letter, Miss Warner wrote, “I had not known what was being done up there, though in the beginning I had suspected atomic research.”

Chapter Twenty: “Bohr Was God, and Oppie Was His Prophet”

268
The “race” for the atomic:
Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
pp. 523–24; Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
p. 106.

269
“To Bohr”:
JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,”
New York Review of Books,
12/17/64; Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
pp. 237–38.

269
Groves’ displeasure had:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
pp. 239–40.

269
To prevent this:
Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
pp. 90–114.

270
“General, I can’t stand it”:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 247.

270
“whispering mumble”:
Norris,
Racing for the Bomb,
p. 252.

270
“within five minutes”:
JRO hearing, p. 166.

270
“Is it really big enough?”:
JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,”
New York Review
of Books,
12/17/64.

270
“That is why”:
Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
p. 91.

271
“require a terrific technical effort”:
Robert Jungk,
Brighter Than a Thousand Suns,
p. 103; Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 253.

271
“On the other hand”:
See February 2002 release of Bohr letters by the Niels Bohr Institute, doc. 10. See the website of the Niels Bohr Archive:
www.nba.nbi.dk
;
see also Michael Frayn’s play
Copenhagen,
and Powers, “What Bohr Remembered,”
New York
Review of Books,
3/28/2002.

271
“Bohr had the impression”:
JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,”
New York
Review of Books,
12/17/64. See also Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
pp. 120–28; Cassidy,
Uncertainty;
Jungk,
Brighter Than a Thousand Suns,
pp. 102–4.

272
One glance, however, persuaded:
Robert Serber,
Peace and War,
p. 86. The sketch was probably Bohr’s and depicted what Heisenberg had shown him. It has since disappeared.

272
“My God,” Bethe said:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 253.

272
“be a quite useless”:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 254; JRO to Groves, 1/1/44, MED RG 77E 5, box 64, 337.

272
“it is easy”:
JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,”
New York Review of Books,
12/17/64.

272
“Bohr at Los Alamos”
and subsequent quotes:
JRO to Groves, 1/17/44, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers; JRO, “Three Lectures on Niels Bohr and His Times: Part III, The Atomic Nucleus,” Pegram Lecture, August 1963, box 247, JRO Papers; JRO, “Niels Bohr and Atomic Weapons,”
New York Review of Books,
12/17/64.

272
“this bomb may”:
Victor Weisskopf, interview by Sherwin, 4/21/82.

272
“it is already evident”:
Bohr, “Confidential comments on the project of exploiting the latest discoveries in atomic physics for industry and warfare,” 4/2/44, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.

273
Finally, Bohr concluded:
Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
pp. 93–96; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 92. See also Margaret Gowing,
Britain and Atomic Energy,
1939–1945.

273
“[He] knew Bohr”:
Weisskopf, interview by Sherwin, 4/21/82.

274
“My God, suppose”:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 255.

274
“the implication was”:
Palevsky,
Atomic Fragments,
p. 117. Years later, Oppenheimer told friends that he wanted someday to write a play to explore the notion of what would have happened if Roosevelt had lived into the postwar period.

274 “Complementarity”: Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum, pp. 85, 88.

274
“Bohr was not satisfied”:
Bernstein,
Cranks, Quarks, and the Cosmos,
p. 44.

274
join them in their “scientific work”:
Peter Kapitza to Bohr, 10/28/43, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.

275
“to propose to the rulers”:
David Lilienthal,
The Journals of David E. Lilienthal,
vol. 2, p. 456 (diary entry of 2/3/49).

275
To Bohr’s thinking:
Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
p. 106.

275
“It seemed to me”:
Palevsky,
Atomic Fragments,
p. 134; Robert Wilson, interview by Owen Gingrich, 4/23/82, p. 5 (Sherwin Collection); Wilson, “Niels Bohr and the Young Scientists,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
August 1985, p. 25.

275
“there was never”:
JRO hearing, p. 173.

275
“How did he [Bohr]”:
Sherwin,
A World Destroyed,
pp. 107–10. Bohr met with Churchill in mid-May 1944 and with Roosevelt on 8/26/44. The meeting with Churchill was brief and disappointing: “We did not even speak the same language,” Bohr later said. By contrast, Bohr came away from his meeting with Roosevelt with the impression that the president was strongly sympathetic to his views.

275
“was at times a thorn”:
Groves to JRO, 12/7/64, Groves folder, box 36, JRO Papers.

276
“from leakage regarding”:
Bohr, “Confidential comments on the project of exploiting the latest discoveries in atomic physics for industry and warfare,” 4/2/44, box 34, Frankfurter-Bohr folder, JRO Papers.

276
“were committed to building”:
Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 257.

Chapter Twenty-one: “The Impact of the Gadget on Civilization”

277
“He was present”:
Thorpe and Shapin, “Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer?,”
Social
Studies of Science,
August 2000, p. 573.

277
Hans Bethe recalled:
Bethe, “Oppenheimer: Where He Was There Was Always Life and Excitement,”
Science,
3/3/67, p. 1082.