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COPYRIGHT 2005 Smithsonian Institution
J. Robert Oppenheimer was born to wealthy parents in New York City in 1904. The Depression at home and the rise of Fascism abroad drew him to progressive politics during his tenure as a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
In 1942, he joined a select group of physicists investigating whether the development of an atomic bomb was possible. Impressed by Oppenheimer's ideas and intelligence, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the Army officer in charge of the Manhattan Project, appointed him to be the director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, despite some objections from the project's security staff.
The new lab opened in April 1943 with just a few hundred scientists. Los Alamos soon became a "secret city" housing some 6,000 men and women. Just 27 months later, Oppenheimer--known as "Oppie"--and his colleagues were ready to test an atomic weapon. Everyone at Los Alamos in a position to have an informed opinion agreed that without Oppenheimer's extraordinary leadership, atomic bombs would not have been completed in time to be used during the war. That was both a matter of pride and a heavy burden for "the father of the atomic bomb."
Everyone sensed Oppie's presence. He drove himself around the Hill in an Army jeep or in his own large black Buick, dropping in unannounced on one of the laboratory's scattered offices. Usually he'd sit in the back of the room, chain-smoking and listening quietly to the discussion. His mere presence seemed to galvanize people to greater efforts. Victor "Viki" Weisskopf, a physicist recruited to Los Alamos, marveled at how often Oppie seemed to be physically present at each new breakthrough: "He was present in the laboratory or in the seminar rooms when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was conceived. It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us." Hans Bethe, head of the lab's theoretical physics division, recalled the day Oppie listened to an inconclusive debate over what type of container should be used for melting plutonium. After listening to the argument, Oppie summed up the discussion. He didn't directly propose a solution, but by the time he left the room the right answer was clear to all.
Restlessness was also part of his character--or so thought young physicist Freeman Dyson. But Dyson also saw restlessness as Oppie's tragic flaw: "Restlessness drove him to his supreme achievement, the fulfillment of the mission of Los Alamos, without pause for rest or reflection."
By the end of 1944, six months after the Allies had landed on the beaches of Normandy, it was clear that the war in Europe would soon be over, and a number of the scientists at Los Alamos began to voice their growing ethical qualms about the continued development of the "gadget." Robert Wilson, chief of the lab's experimental physics division, had long discussions with Oppenheimer about how the bomb might be used. Wilson proposed holding a formal meeting to discuss the matter more fully. "He tried to talk me out of it," Wilson later recalled, "saying I would get into trouble with the G-2, the security people."
Despite his respect, even reverence, for Oppenheimer, Wilson thought little of this argument. He put up notices all over the lab announcing a public meeting to discuss "The Impact of the Gadget on Civilization."
To his surprise, Oppenheimer showed up on the appointed evening and listened to the discussion. Wilson later thought about 20 people attended. "We did have a pretty intense discussion of why it was that we were continuing to make a...
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