109 East Palace (66 page)

Oppenheimer (
left
) and Captain Peer de Silva, head of security at Los Alamos, scouting in spring 1944 for what became known as Trinity site, where the atomic bomb was to be first tested. Six months earlier, de Silva had sent Groves a memo saying he suspected Oppenheimer of playing a key part in attempts to pass “highly secret information” to the Soviet Union.

(
Above
) The huge orange fireball and mushroom cloud of the Trinity test on July 16,1945. When Conant first saw the burst of white light, he thought the world was coming to an end.

(
Right
) Oppenheimer and Groves next to the charred remains of the steel tower at ground zero.

(
Above
) At the war’s end, Oppenheimer received the Army/Navy E Award (for excellence) on behalf of the laboratory.

Edward Teller congratulated Oppenheimer on receiving the Fermi Award on December 2, 1963. The long overdue recognition marked Oppenheimer’s return from disgrace, but many of those present felt that Teller should not have attended the ceremony after he had questioned whether Oppie could be trusted with the nation’s atomic secrets during the Gray Board hearings.

Dorothy continued to run her small outpost at 109 East Palace and to serve as “the gatekeeper” to Los Alamos until 1963. When she retired after twenty years, the office was closed. On the wall behind her are pictures of two of her heroes, I. I. Rabi (left) and Jim Conant (right). Time did not diminish her feelings for Oppie, and she remained his most devoted friend and ally to the end.

A battered hero: After the Gray Board found him to be a security risk and stripped him of his clearance, Oppenheimer was humbled but not destroyed. He continued to teach and write and remained a dignified if poignant figure.

No relation to the physicist Joseph McKibben who worked at Los Alamos.

Two members—Fermi and Rabi—agreed, but made their renunciation of the hydrogen bomb conditional on the Soviets’ agreement to do the same. Glenn Seaborg, who did not attend, sent a letter that indicated that he was undecided.

Neither Dorothy nor Oppie make any mention of the Serbers visit that summer. It may have been that because of Charlotte’s own Communist ties—both her brother and father were identified by the FBI as party members—Oppenheimer decided to omit any mention of them.

For Army, most services free. For civilians, may be included in rent to make $150/mo. subsistence. Not yet decided.

Chevalier was dismissed from his teaching post and left Berkeley. Years later, he maintained he was just trying to warn Oppenheimer about Eltenton, and never understood why Oppie turned the incident into such a “fantastic lie.”

Oppenheimer’s letter states the incident took place “very shortly before the test,” but several other sources indicate it was at least several months prior to Trinity.