American Prometheus (67 page)
Oppenheimer deeply admired the “extraordinary originality” of the man who had formulated the general theory of relativity, “this singular union of geometry and gravitation.” But he thought Einstein “brought to the work of originality deep elements of tradition.” And Oppenheimer firmly believed that later in Einstein’s life it was this “tradition” that misled him. To Oppenheimer’s “sorrow,” Einstein devoted his Princeton years to trying to prove that quantum theory was flawed by significant inconsistencies. “No one could have been more ingenious,” Oppenheimer wrote, “in thinking up unexpected and clever examples; but it turned out that the inconsistencies were not there; and often their resolution could be found in earlier work of Einstein himself.” What distressed Einstein about quantum theory was the notion of indeterminacy. And yet it had been his own work on relativity that had inspired some of Bohr’s insights. Oppenheimer saw this as highly ironic: “He fought with Bohr in a noble and furious way, and he fought with the theory which he had fathered but which he hated. It was not the first time that this had happened in science.”
These disputes did not prevent Oppenheimer from enjoying Einstein’s company. One evening early in 1948, he entertained David Lilienthal and Einstein at Olden Manor. Lilienthal sat next to Einstein and “watched him as he listened (gravely and intently, and at times with a chuckle and wrinkles about his eyes) to Robert Oppenheimer describing neutrinos as ‘those creatures,’ and the beauties of physics.” Robert still loved to be the bearer of lavish gifts. Knowing of Einstein’s love of classical music, and knowing that his radio could not receive New York broadcasts of concerts from Carnegie Hall, Oppenheimer arranged to have an antenna installed on the roof of Einstein’s modest home at 112 Mercer Street. This was done without Einstein’s knowledge—and then on his birthday, Robert showed up on his doorstep with a new radio and suggested they listen to a scheduled concert. Einstein was delighted.
In 1949, Bohr was visiting Princeton and agreed to contribute an essay to a book celebrating Einstein’s work on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. He and Einstein enjoyed each other’s company, but, like Oppenheimer, Bohr could not understand why quantum theory was such a demon for Einstein. When shown the manuscript of the Festschrift, Einstein noted that the essays contained as many brickbats as words of praise. “This is not a jubilee book for me,” he said, “but an impeachment.” On the day of his birthday, March 14, an audience of 250 eminent scholars gathered in a Princeton auditorium to hear Oppenheimer, I. I. Rabi, Eugene Wigner and Hermann Weyl sing his praises. However strongly his colleagues may have disagreed with the old man, the air was electric with anticipation when Einstein entered the hall. After a moment of sudden silence, everyone stood to applaud the man they all knew was the greatest physicist of the twentieth century.
AS PHYSICISTS, Oppenheimer and Einstein disagreed. But as humanists, they were allies. At a moment in history when the scientific profession was being bought wholesale by a Cold War national security network of weapons labs and universities increasingly dependent on military contracts, Oppenheimer had chosen another path. Though “present at the creation” of this militarization of science, Oppenheimer had walked away from Los Alamos, and Einstein respected him for attempting to use his influence to put the brakes on the arms race. At the same time, he saw that Oppenheimer used his influence cautiously. Einstein was mystified when, in the spring of 1947, Oppenheimer refused his invitation to speak at a public dinner of the newly formed Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. Oppenheimer explained that he felt “unprepared to make [a] public address at this time on Atomic Energy with any confidence that the results will lead in the direction for which we all hope.”
The older man clearly didn’t understand why Oppenheimer seemed to care so much about maintaining his access to the Washington establishment. Einstein didn’t play that game. He would never have dreamed of asking the government to give him a security clearance. Einstein instinctively disliked meeting politicians, generals or figures of authority. As Oppenheimer observed, “he did not have that convenient and natural converse with statesmen and men of power. . . .” And while Oppie seemed to relish his fame and the opportunity to mix with the powerful, Einstein was always uncomfortable with adulation. One evening in March 1950, on the occasion of Einstein’s seventy-first birthday, Oppenheimer walked him back to his house on Mercer Street. “You know,” Einstein remarked, “when it’s once been given to a man to do something sensible, afterward life is a little strange.” More than most men ever could, Oppenheimer understood exactly what he meant.
AS AT LOS ALAMOS, Oppenheimer was still uncommonly persuasive. Pais recalled meeting a senior scholar just emerging from Oppie’s office. “Something odd just happened to me,” said the professor. “I had gone to see Oppenheimer regarding a certain issue on which I held firm opinions. As I left, I found that I had agreed with the opposite point of view.”
Oppenheimer tried to exert the same charismatic powers over the Institute’s Board of Trustees—but with mixed results. In the late 1940s, the board was often stalemated between liberal and conservative factions. It was dominated by its vice chairman, Lewis Strauss. Other trustees tended to defer to his judgment, partially because he was the only board member with substantial wealth. At the same time, some of the more liberal trustees were put off by his archconservatism. One trustee grumbled that the board did not need “a Hoover Republican thinking in the last century.” Although Oppenheimer had met Strauss only briefly before coming to Princeton, he was well aware of Strauss’ political views and quietly made it clear that he would not welcome Strauss’ elevation to the post of chairman of the board.
Oppenheimer’s personal relations with Strauss were initially correct and cordial. Yet it was in these early years that the seeds of a terrible feud were sown. On his visits to Princeton, Strauss was often entertained in Olden Manor; after one such dinner, he sent Robert and Kitty a fine case of wine. But it was clear to all that both men were eager for power and willing to exercise it against each other. One day, Abraham Pais was standing outside Fuld Hall when a helicopter landed on the expansive lawn that separated the Institute from Olden Manor. Out stepped Strauss. “I was struck by his appearance,” Pais later wrote, “suave if not slick, and had the instinctive reaction: Watch out for what is behind this fellow’s deportment.”
Oppenheimer soon realized that Strauss had ambitions to be something of a “coadministrator.” In 1948, he told Oppenheimer that he was contemplating buying a former faculty member’s home on the grounds of the Institute. In a clear signal, Oppenheimer forestalled this by quickly getting the Institute to buy the house in question and renting it to another scholar. Strauss apparently got the message. As the Institute’s unpublished official history notes, “The episode marks the apparent end for the time being of Mr. Strauss’ hope to help govern the Institute at short range.” It also established a permanent tension and mutual distrust that extended beyond the Institute. Despite this setback, Strauss exerted his influence over the Institute through his close alliance with Herbert Maas, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Professor of Mathematics Oswald Veblen, the only faculty trustee.
Strauss was often annoyed that Oppenheimer sometimes made politically sensitive decisions without first seeking the trustees’ approval. In late 1950, Strauss temporarily blocked Oppenheimer’s appointment of a mediaevalist scholar, Professor Ernst H. Kantorowicz, because he had refused to sign a California Board of Regents loyalty oath. Strauss relented only when it became clear that his was the sole dissenting vote. When Congress passed legislation requiring an FBI security clearance for scientists funded by fellowships from the AEC, Oppenheimer fired off an angry letter to the AEC. The Institute, he wrote, would no longer accept such fellowships on the grounds that the required security investigations violated its “traditions.” Only a month later did Oppenheimer inform the trustees of his action. According to the minutes of the meeting, some trustees expressed the fear that the director’s action might involve the Institute in a “political controversy,” specifically with the FBI. Oppenheimer was told that in the future, he should consult with the Board prior to making such decisions.
In the spring of 1948, Oppenheimer gave an interview to a reporter from the
New York Times
in which he talked freely about his vision for the Institute. He said he expected to invite many more scholars—or even nonacademics with experience in business or politics—for short-term visits of a semester or a year. “Oppenheimer plans to have fewer life members,” the
Times
reported. And then the reporter gave this breezy description of Oppenheimer’s job: “Suppose you had funds at your disposal based on a $21,000,000 endowment. . . . Suppose you could use this fund to invite as your salaried house-guests the world’s greatest scholars, scientists and creative artists—your favorite poet, the author of the book that interested you so much, the European physicist with whom you would like to mull over some speculations about the nature of the universe. That’s precisely the set-up that Oppenheimer enjoys. He can indulge every interest and curiosity. . . .”
Needless to say, some of the Institute’s life members winced at these words. Others took offense at the notion that their director could run the Institute according to his intellectual whims. Oppenheimer committed another indiscretion in 1948 when he quipped to
Time
magazine that, while the Institute was a place where men could “sit and think,” one could only be sure of the sitting. He went on to say that the Institute had “something of the glow of a mediaeval monastery.” And then he inadvertently wounded the sensibilities of the permanent faculty by suggesting that the best thing about the Institute was that it served as “an intellectual hotel.”
Time
described the Institute as “a place for transient thinkers to rest, recover and refresh themselves before continuing on their way.” Subsequently, the faculty told Oppenheimer that it was their “very strong opinion” that such publicity was “undesirable.”
Oppenheimer’s larger plans for the Institute often met with resistance— particularly from the mathematicians, who had initially thought he would favor them with appointments and an ever-larger share of the Institute’s budget. The arguments could become extraordinarily petty. “The Institute is an interesting Paradise,” observed his perceptive secretary, Verna Hobson. “But in an ideal society, when you remove all the everyday frictions, the frictions that are created to take their place are so much more cruel.” The fights were mostly about appointments. On one occasion, Oppenheimer was presiding over a meeting when Oswald Veblen marched in and insisted on listening to the discussion. Oppenheimer told him he had to leave, and when the mathematician refused, he adjourned the meeting to another room. “It was just like little boys fighting,” recalled Hobson.
Veblen frequently instigated trouble for Oppenheimer. As a trustee, he had always been something of a power broker inside the Institute. Many of the mathematicians, in fact, had expected Veblen to be named director. Instead, as one Institute professor put it, “This upstart Oppenheimer was brought in. . . .” Von Neumann had actively opposed Oppenheimer’s selection as director: “Oppenheimer’s brilliance is incontestable,” he had written to Strauss, but he had “serious misgivings as to the wisdom of making him Director.” Von Neumann and many other mathematicians had favored “replacing the directorship by a faculty committee, with a rotating one or two year chairmanship.” Instead, they got precisely what they did not want: a strong-willed director with a broad, complicated agenda.
Oppie exhibited the same patience and energy at the Institute that had characterized his leadership of Los Alamos. But according to Dyson, his relations with the mathematicians were “disastrous.” The Institute’s mathematics school had always been first-rate, and Oppenheimer tried hard never to interfere with their business. Indeed, during his first year as director, he presided over a 60 percent increase in the number of members coming to the School of Mathematics. But instead of reciprocating, the mathematicians invariably opposed many of his appointments in the nonmathematical fields. Frustrated and angry, Oppenheimer once called Deane Montgomery, a thirty-eight-year-old mathematician, “the most arrogant, bull-headed son-of-a-bitch I ever met.”
Emotions ran deep, and led to irrational outbursts. “He [Oppenheimer] was out to humiliate mathematicians,” said André Weil (1906–1998), the great French mathematician who spent decades at the Institute. “Oppenheimer was a wholly frustrated personality, and his amusement was to make people quarrel with each other. I’ve seen him do it. He loved to have people at the Institute quarrel with each other. He was frustrated essentially because he wanted to be Niels Bohr or Albert Einstein, and he knew he wasn’t.” Weil was typical of the bloated egos Oppenheimer encountered at the Institute. These were not the young men he had easily led in Los Alamos by the force of his personality. Weil was arrogant, acerbic and demanding. He took an almost roguish delight in intimidating others, and he was furious that he could not intimidate Oppenheimer.
Academic politics can be notoriously petty, but Oppenheimer was confronted by several paradoxes peculiar to the Institute. By the nature of their discipline, mathematicians invariably do their best intuitive work in their twenties or early thirties—whereas historians and other social scientists often need years of studious preparation before they became capable of genuinely creative work. Thus, the Institute could easily identify and recruit brilliant, youthful mathematicians, but rarely appointed a historian who was not already well seasoned. And while the young mathematicians could read and form an opinion about a historian’s work, no historian could do the same for a prospective candidate in the School of Mathematics. And herein lay the most vexing paradox: Because the mathematicians were in the nature of things quickly beyond their prime, and because they had no teaching duties, in middle age many of them tended to devote themselves to other affairs. If not distracted, the mathematicians inevitably turned every appointment into a controversy. Conversely, the nonmathematicians, being older and facing the prime productive years of their careers, had little interest or time for such academic intrigues. But, unhappily for the mathematicians, in Oppenheimer they found themselves confronted by a director who, though a physicist, was determined to balance the Institute’s science culture with the humanities and social sciences. To their dismay, he recruited psychologists, literary critics and even poets.
