American Prometheus (104 page)
Bill McSweeney, the owner of Los Pinos, was our trail guide and local historian. Among other things, he told us (my wife and children were with me) about the tragic death—during a burglary of her Santa Fe home in 1961—of Oppie’s good friend, Katherine Chaves Page, the ranch’s previous owner. Oppie had met Katherine during his first visit to New Mexico and his youthful infatuation with her was one of the strong inducements repeatedly pulling him back to this beautiful country. After purchasing his own ranch, Oppie rented several of Katherine’s horses each summer, for himself, his younger brother, Frank (and, after 1940, his wife, Kitty), and their stream of guests, mostly physicists who had never mounted anything more independent-minded than a bicycle.
My trip had two purposes. The first was to share in a small way the experience that Oppie had so often shared with his friends, the liberating joy of riding on horseback through this awesome wilderness. The second purpose was to talk with his son, Peter, who was living in the family cabin. As I helped him build a corral, we talked for over an hour about his family and his life. It was a memorable beginning.
A few months earlier, I had signed a contract with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf for a biography of Robert Oppenheimer—physicist, founder in the 1930s of America’s leading school of theoretical physics, erstwhile political activist, “father of the atomic bomb,” prominent government adviser, director of the Institute for Advanced Study, public intellectual and the most prominent victim of the McCarthy era. The manuscript would be completed in four or five years, I assured my then editor, Angus Cameron, who is one of the dedicatees of this book.
During the next half-dozen years I traveled across the country and abroad, propelled from introduction to introduction, conducting many more interviews with those who had known Oppenheimer than I had imagined possible. I visited scores of archives and libraries, gathered tens of thousands of letters, memoranda and government documents—10,000 pages from the FBI alone—and eventually came to understand that any study of Robert Oppenheimer must necessarily encompass far more than his own life. His personal story, with all its public aspects and ramifications was more complicated, and shed vastly more light on the America of his day, than either Angus or I had anticipated. It is an indication of this complexity, this depth and wider resonance—of Oppenheimer’s iconic standing—that since his death, his story has taken on a new life, as books, movies, plays, articles and now an opera (Dr. Atomic), have etched his shadow ever more sharply on the pages of American and world history.
Twenty-five years after I started out on that ride to Perro Caliente, the writing of Oppenheimer’s life has given me a new understanding of the complexities of biography. It has been sometimes an arduous journey but always an exhilarating one. Five years ago, soon after my good friend Kai Bird completed
The Color of Truth,
a joint biography of McGeorge and William Bundy, I invited him to join me. Oppenheimer was big enough for both of us and I knew my pace would be quicker with Kai as my partner. Together we have finished what turned out to be a very long ride.
We both have many people who shared our journey and nurtured the dream of this book. Another worthy dedicatee of
American Prometheus
is the late Jean Mayer, president of Tufts University, a man whom I deeply admired. In 1986, Mayer appointed me the founding director of the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center (NAHHC), an organization devoted to the study of the dangers associated with the nuclear arms race that Oppenheimer had confronted. Oppenheimer’s life story also inspired the Global Classroom project, an American-Soviet program that from 1988 to 1992 connected students at universities in Moscow and Tufts University to discuss the nuclear arms race and other pressing issues. Several times a year our discussions were linked by TV satellite, and broadcast throughout the Soviet Union and on selected PBS stations in the United States. Oppenheimer’s ideas shaped many of these remarkable moments in the evolution of glasnost.
We’d also like to thank two talented and accomplished women, our long suffering wives, Susan Sherwin and Susan Goldmark; they also have shared our long ride—and kept us in our respective saddles. We love them, respect them, and thank them for their special blends of patience and exasperation with our obsession for this book.
We also thank Ann Close, a seasoned Knopf editor whose Southern patience and attention to the smallest of details has enriched this book. She expertly shepherded a long manuscript to publication under an incredibly tight schedule. Our copy editor, the legendary Mel Rosenthal, sharpened our focus, improved our prose, and taught us how not to dangle our modifiers. We also thank Millicent Bennett for making sure that nothing got lost. Stephanie Kloss executed an elegant design for the book’s jacket. We thank the Washington, D.C. artist Steve Frietch for initially proposing the Alfred Eisenstadt portrait of Oppenheimer for the cover.
We are also deeply grateful to another wonderful editor, Bobbie Bristol, who nurtured and protected this book for decades before she retired and passed it on to Ann. But even under Bobbie’s protective care it could not have been sustained for a quarter of a century were it not for the serious intellectual culture and respect for authors that characterizes the publishing house of Alfred A. Knopf.
Gail Ross is both a lawyer and a book agent—and we are grateful to her for renegotiating the terms of a twenty-year-old contract with Knopf—and for many future lunches at La Tomate!
The “wily” Victor Navasky has been a friend and mentor to us both— and he deserves credit for having introduced us more than two decades ago. We are grateful for his wisdom and his friendship, and for his wonderful wife, Annie.
We are indebted to several eminent scholars who took the time to carefully read early versions of our manuscript. Jeremy Bernstein, also an Oppenheimer biographer, is an accomplished physicist and writer who did his patient best to correct our wrong-headed apprehensions of quantum physics.
Richard Polenberg, the Goldwin Smith Professor of American History at Cornell University, ruined his summer on our behalf by meticulously reading the entire manuscript and sharing with us both his knowledge of the Oppenheimer security case and his artful sensibility as a writer of history.
James Hershberg, William Lanouette, Howard Morland, Zygmunt Nagorski, Robert S. Norris, Marcus Raskin, Alex Sherwin and Andrea Sherwin Ripp also read all or parts of the manuscript and we are grateful for their insights and comments.
Over the years, we have benefited from the willingness of such formidable scholars as Gregg Herken, S. S. Schweber, Priscilla McMillan, Robert Crease, and the late Philip Stern to challenge us with their own ideas and scholarship about the controversial issues surrounding Oppenheimer’s life. Both of these fine historians have graciously shared documents and interview sources. Max Born’s biographer, Nancy Greenspan, generously shared the fruits of her research. We are indebted to Jim Hijiya for his scholarly interpretation of Oppenheimer’s fascination with the Bhagavad-Gita. More recently, we have encountered the work of the British historian of science, Charles Thorpe, and we thank him for permission to quote from his doctoral dissertation—a version of which will soon be published.
We wish to thank Drs. Curtis Bristol and Floyd Galler and the psychoanalyst Sharon Alperovitz for their psychological insights about Oppenheimer’s early life. Dr. Jeffrey Kelman graciously helped us to interpret the autopsy report and other medical records pertaining to the death of Dr. Jean Tatlock. Dr. Daniel Benveniste shared with us his insights on Oppenheimer’s study of psychoanalysis with Dr. Siegfried Bernfeld. We are indebted to the late Alice Kimball Smith and to Charles Weiner whose superbly annotated collection of Oppenheimer’s correspondence inspired many of our interpretations. We similarly owe a debt to Richard G. Hewlett and Jack Holl for their assistance during the earliest stages of this book, and for their excellent official histories of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Many dedicated archivists went out of their way to guide us through many thousands of pages of official documents and private papers. We wish to thank in particular Linda Sandoval and Roger A. Meade at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives; Ben Primer at Princeton University; Dr. Peter Goddard, Georgia Whidden and Christine Ferrara, Rosanna Jaffin at the Institute for Advanced Study; John Stewart and Sheldon Stern at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library; Spencer Weart at the American Institute of Physics; John Earl Haynes at the Library of Congress; and the many others who assisted us at the libraries and archives listed on pages 601 and 602.
These and many other archivists at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and archives at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of California’s Bancroft Library are working hard to preserve our history.
As both American citizens and historians we salute all who have supported and sustained the Freedom of Information/Privacy Act. It has not only made access to FBI, CIA and other previously closed government investigative files available to historians and journalists, but more importantly, it has contributed to sustaining our democracy.
No book of this scope can be researched without the assistance of young and energetic students of history. A select group of them associated with the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center (NAHHC) at Tufts University prepared chronologies, analyzed and organized documents, researched articles and transcribed hundreds of hours of interviews. Susanne LaFeber Kahl and Meredith Mosier Pasciuto, both Tufts graduates, and both brilliantly efficient administrators, organized this work and contributed research of their own.
A remarkable group of research assistants and graduate students at NAHHC contributed in numerous ways. Miri Navasky, now a talented documentary filmmaker, spent many long hours searching out documents and creating a chronology of Kitty Oppenheimer’s life. Jim Hershberg constantly asked probing questions and enthusiastically shared documents that he had gathered for his magisterial biography of James Conant. Debbie Herron Hand efficiently transcribed interviews. Tanya Gassel, Hans Fenstermacher, Gerry Gendlin, Yaacov Tygiel, Dan Lieberfeld, Philip Nash, and Dan Hornig all provided intellectual and moral support.
Peter Schwartz did some of the early spadework in San Francisco Bay Area archives. Erin Dwyer and Cara Thomas typed corrections into the final chapters, Patrick J. Tweed, Pascal van der Pijl and Euijin Jung also assisted us in the research of this book.
Many other friends and colleagues have sustained us over the years it has taken to write this biography.
Kai wishes particularly to thank his parents, Eugene and Jerine Bird for nurturing his passion for history, and his son, Joshua Kodai Bird, for patiently allowing him to read aloud large portions of the manuscript at bedtime. He also thanks Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel; Gar Alperovitz; Eric Alterman; Scott Armstrong; Wayne Biddle; Shelly Bird; Nancy Bird and Karl Becker; Norman Birnbaum; Jim Boyce and Betsy Hartmann; Frank Browning; Avner Cohen and Karen Gold; David Corn; Michael Day; Dan Ellsberg; Phil and Jan Fenty; Thomas Ferguson; Helma Bliss Goldmark; Richard Gonzalez and Tara Siler; Neil Gordon; Mimi Harrison; Paul Hewson; Congressman Rush Holt; Brennon Jones; Michael Kazin and Beth Horowitz; Jim and Elsie Klumpner; Lawrence Lifschultz and Rabia Ali; Richard Lingeman; Ed Long; Priscilla Johnson McMillan; Alice McSweeney; Christina and Rodrigo Macaya; Paul Magnuson and Cathy Trost; Emily Medine and Michael Schwartz (and their mountain sanctuary); Andrew Meier; Branco Milanovic and Michelle de Nevers; Uday Mohan; Dan Moldea; John and Rosemary Monagan (and all our friends at his writers’ group); Jacques and Val Morgan of Idle Time Books; Anna Nelson; Paula Newberg; Nancy Nickerson; Tim Noah and the late Marjorie Williams; Jeffery Paine; Jeff Parker; David Polazzo; Lance Potter (who found the epigraph on Prometheus); William Prochnau and Laura Parker; Tim Rieser; Caleb Rossister and Maya Latynski; Arthur Samuelson; Nina Shapiro; Alix Shulman; Steve Solomon; John Tirman; Nilgun Tolek; Abigail Wiebenson; Don Wilson; Adam Zagorin, and Eleanor Zelliot.
Kai is particularly indebted to Lee Hamilton, Rosemary Lyon, Lindsay Collins, Dagne Gizaw, Janet Spikes and all his other friends at the Woodrow Wilson Center for listening to his long-winded stories about Oppie.
Martin adds his thanks to his many mutual friends above and wishes particularly to acknowledge his children, Alex Sherwin and Andrea Sherwin Ripp for their love and their bemused willingness to share so many years of their lives and their living space with the enormous collection of boxes, file cabinets and bookshelves that were dedicated to “Oppie’s cocoon.” His sister Marjorie Sherwin and her partner Rose Walton did not have to live with the cocoon, but they frequently visited it and never lost hope that a butterfly would emerge. That it finally did is in no small way due to the encouragement and support of three wonderful mentors who taught and sustained him through graduate school at UCLA—and beyond: Keith Berwick, Richard Rosecrance and Robert Dallek.
Martin also thanks and acknowledges the support and intellectual encouragement—and in many cases the hospitality during research trips— of many old friends and colleagues: Hiroshima’s Mayor, Tadoshi Akiba; Sam Ballen; Joel and Sandy Barkan; Ira and Martha Berlin (and
The Wisconsin Magazine of History
); Richard Challener; Lawrence Cunningham; Tom and Joan Dine; Carolyn Eisenberg; Howard Ende; Hal Feiveson; Owen and Irene Fiss; Lawrence Friedman; Gary Goldstein; Ron and Mary Jean Green; Sol and Robyn Gittleman; Frank von Hippel; David and Joan Hollinger; Michele Hochman; Al and Phyllis Janklow; Mikio Kato; Nikki Keddie; Mary Kelley; Robert Kelley; Dan and Bettyann Kevles; David Kleinman; Martin and Margaret Kleinman; Barbara Kreiger; Normand and Marjorie Kurtz; Rodney Lake; Mel Leffler; Alan Lelchuk; Tom and Carol Leonard; Sandy and Cynthia Levinson; Dan Lieberfeld; Leon and Rhoda Litwack; Marlaine Lockheed; Janet Lowenthal and Jim Pines; David Lundberg; Gene Lyons; Lary and Elaine May; David Mizner; Bob and Betty Murphy; Arnie and Sue Nachmanoff; Bruce and Donna Nelson; Arnold and Ellen Offner; Gary and Judy Ostrower; Donald Pease; Dale Pescaia; Constantine Pleshakov; Phil Pochoda; Ethan Pollock; the late Leonard Rieser; Del and Joanna Ritchhardt; John Rosenberg; Michael and Leslie Rosenthal; Richard and Joan Rudders; Lars Ryden; Pavel Sarkisov; Ellen Schrecker; Sharan Schwartzberg; Edward Segel; Ken and Judy Seslowe; Saul and Sue Singer; Rob Sokolow; Christopher Stone; Cushing and Jean Strout; Natasha Tarasova; Stephen and Francine Trachtenberg; Evgeny Velikhov; Charlie and Joanne Weiner; Dorothy White; Peter Winn and Sue Gronwald; Herbert York; Vladislav Zubok.