American Prometheus (127 page)

381
“watched him as he”:
Lilienthal,
The Journals of David E. Lilienthal,
vol. 2, p. 298.

381
Oppenheimer arranged to have:
Georgia Whidden, interview by Bird, 4/25/03.

381
“This is not a jubilee”:
Denis Brian,
Einstein: A Life,
p. 376.

381
“unprepared to make”:
JRO to Einstein, undated (reply to Einstein’s letter of 4/15/47), JRO Papers.

382 “He did not have”: Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 719.

382
“You know,” Einstein told him:
JRO, “On Albert Einstein,”
New York Review of
Books,
3/17/66.

382
“Something odd just”:
Pais,
A Tale of Two Continents,
p. 240.

382
“a Hoover Republican”:
Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” pp. 613–14, unpublished manuscript, IAS Archives.

383
“I was struck”:
Pais,
A Tale of Two Continents,
p. 327.

383
“The episode marks”:
Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” pp. 672–73, 688, unpublished manuscript, IAS Archives.

383
“political controversy”:
Ibid., pp. 679–80, 691.

383
“Oppenheimer plans to have”:
Harry M. Davis, “The Man Who Built the A-Bomb,”
New York Times Magazine,
4/18/48, p. 20.

384
“an intellectual hotel”:
“The Eternal Apprentice,”
Time,
11/8/48, p. 70.

384
“very strong opinion”:
Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” p. 651, unpublished manuscript, IAS Archives.

384
“The institute is”:
Verna Hobson, interview by Sherwin, 7/31/79, p. 14.

384
“This upstart Oppenheimer”:
John von Neumann to Lewis Strauss, 5/4/46, Strauss Papers, HHL. The founding director of the institute, Dr. Abraham Flexner, also strongly opposed Strauss’s selection of Oppenheimer (Strauss,
Men and Decisions,
p. 271).

385
“disastrous”:
Freeman Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 18.

385
Indeed, during his first:
Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” p. 654, unpublished manuscript, IAS archives.

385
“the most arrogant”:
Regis,
Who Got Einstein’s Office?,
pp. 151.

385
“He [Oppenheimer] was out to humiliate”:
Ibid., p. 152.

385
Academic politics can:
Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” pp. 667–69, unpublished manuscript, IAS Archives.

386
“He really flattened me”:
Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 17.

386
Abraham Pais recalled:
Pais,
A Tale of Two Continents,
p. 240.

386
“I meant, will you explain”:
Bernstein,
Oppenheimer,
pp. 184–85.

386
“air of hauteur”:
Pais,
A Tale of Two Continents,
p. 241.

387
“Tea is where”:
Wheeler,
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam,
p. 25.

387
“The best way to send”:
Time,
11/8/48, p. 81.

387
“The young physicists”:
Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
Life,
10/10/49.

387
“I have been observing”:
Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe,
p. 73; John Manley, interview by Sherwin, 1/9/85, p. 27.

387
“Fireballs, fireballs!”:
Murray Gell-Mann,
The Quark and the Jaguar,
p. 287.

388
“came down on me”:
Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe,
pp. 55, 73–74.

388
“so much deeper”:
Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 3.

388
“conquer the Demon”:
Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe,
p. 80.

388
“incomprehensibility can be mistaken”:
Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 5.

388
“Science’s sense of guilt”:
Time,
2/23/48, p. 94.

388
“That sort of crap”:
Rabi, interview by Sherwin, 3/12/82, p. 11.

388
“Scientists aren’t responsible”:
Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
Life,
10/10/49.

389 “One can only imagine” and subsequent Blackett quotes: P. M. S. Blackett, Fear, War,
and the Bomb,
pp. 135, 139–40. This is the American edition of the original British publication.

389
“The wailing over Hiroshima”:
Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 433–35. Philip Morrison wrote a highly favorable review of Blackett’s book in the February 1949 issue of the
Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists.
JRO to Blackett, cable, 11/6/48; JRO to Blackett, 12/14/56, JRO Papers.

389
That spring:
Physics Today,
vol. 1, no. 1 (May 1948).

390
“He wanted to be”:
Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe,
p. 87.

Chapter Twenty-eight: “He Couldn’t Understand Why He Did It”

391
“The
Europa reise
is”:
JRO to Frank Oppenheimer, 9/28/48, Alice Smith Collection, Sherwin Collection.

392
“completely broken”:
Preuss, “On the Blacklist,”
Science,
June 1983, p. 33.

393
“authentic contemporary hero”:
Time,
11/8/48, p. 70;
Time
’s cover photo showed Oppenheimer standing before a blackboard filled with mathematical formulae; Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe,
p. 74.

393
“I woke up to a recognition”:
Time,
11/8/48, p. 76.

393
“quite good”:
Herbert Marks to JRO, 11/12/48; JRO to Marks, 11/18/48, box 49, JRO Papers.

394
“You may have to”:
Peat,
Infinite Potential,
p. 92.

394
“Dear Rossi: I was glad”:
JRO to Lomanitz, 10/30/45, Sherwin Collection.

394
“Oh, my God”:
Lomanitz, interview by Sherwin, 7/11/79. Lomanitz wrote Peter Michelmore that Oppenheimer had “seemed inordinately worried” (Lomanitz to Michelmore, 5/21/68, Sherwin Collection).

394
But Oppenheimer had:
Walter Goodman,
The Committee,
pp. 239, 273. HUAC’s chief investigator, Louis Russell, was another former FBI agent.

394
“We won’t lie”:
JRO hearing, p. 151.

395 “a dangerous man”: Hearings before the HUAC, 6/7/49, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, RG 233 HUAC Executive Session Transcripts, box 9, JRO folder, pp. 8–9, 21.

396
“Just look at him”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
pp. 124–25.

396 “tremendously impressed”: Hearings before the HUAC, 6/7/49, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, RG 233 HUAC Executive Session transcripts, box 9, JRO folder, Robert Oppenheimer, p. 42.

396
“Robert seemed to have”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 120.

397
Peters denied that he had been:
Hearings before the HUAC, 6/8/49, pp. 1–9, Bernard Peters Papers, NBA.

397
“God guided their questions”:
FBI file 100-205953, report made in Buffalo, New York, 3/5/54, by Charles F. Ahern, Sherwin Collection. The FBI obtained this quote from a 6/23/49 letter intercepted between Ed Condon and his wife, Emilie (
New York
Herald Tribune,
4/20/54). By one account, Peters replied, “What do you mean? What if God had not guided their questions, would you have said something derogatory about me?” (Stern notes and questions for Harold Green, Philip Stern Papers, JFKL.)

397
“Dr. Oppenheimer Once Termed”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 125;
Rochester
Times Union,
6/15/49.

397
Peters knew immediately:
Sol Linowitz, a lawyer—later a high-ranking official in the Carter Administration—represented Peters. See Linowitz to Peters, 11/29/48, and attached legal document, Peters Papers, NBAC.

397
“I have never told”:
Rochester Times-Union,
6/15/49; Peters was apparently arrested on a warrant of the State Secret Police of Munich, issued on 5/13/33 on suspicion of illegal communist activities. Another police order, dated 10/14/33, charged him with communist activities and barred him from further academic studies. (
Rochester Times-Union,
7/8/54, contained in folder 11, Peters Papers, NBAC.) Peters was Jewish and the Nazis were in power, suggesting that these charges should be taken with a grain of salt.

397
“You are right that I”:
Bernard Peters to JRO, 6/15/49, Peters Papers, NBAC.

397
“to sue Robert”:
Bernard Peters to Hannah Peters, 6/26/49, Bernard Peters Papers, NBAC.

397
“very much disturbed”:
JRO FBI file, sect. 7, doc. 175, 7/5/49, p. 18. The FBI is citing an Oppenheimer phone conversation dated 6/20/49. See also Hannah Peters to Bernard Peters, 6/20/49, Bernard Peters Papers, NBAC.

398
“set this record straight”:
JRO hearing, p. 212; Schweber,
In the Shadow of the
Bomb,
pp. 123–27.

398
“I remember you”:
Hans Bethe to JRO, 6/26/49, Peters Papers, NBAC.

398
“shocked beyond description”:
Condon’s letter to his wife was intercepted by the FBI, and in 1954 it was leaked to the press. See
New York Herald Tribune,
4/20/54.

398
“Oppie has been”:
Paul Martin, “Oppenheimer Testimony on Dr. Peters Draws Charges of ‘Immunity Buying,’ ”
Rochester Times-Union,
7/9/54, folder 11, Peters Papers, NBAC.

398
“I have lost”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 126. “The thing that horrified me most,” Condon later said, “was he [Oppenheimer], a Jewish boy, so soon after the six million had been cremated—and this was his personal protégé, also a Jewish boy—he said to this scoundrelly committee, ‘I’m not sure how far I would trust Peters, because he resorted to guile in escaping from Dachau’ ” (see Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, p. 486).