American Prometheus (123 page)

309
“Now we’re all sons”:
Years later, Oppenheimer remembered Bainbridge’s remark and told David Lilienthal that he agreed with it: “I guess that is just about right” (Lilienthal,
The Journals of David E. Lilienthal,
vol. 6, p. 89, diary entry for 2/13/65).

309
“Tell her she can”:
Lamont,
Day of Trinity,
pp. 242–43; Anne Wilson, his secretary, said she had no such recollection (Anne Wilson Marks, phone interview by Bird, 5/22/02). While Richard Feynman got out his bongo drums and beat them with elation, he later said of the moment, “You stop thinking, you know; you just stop.” Robert Wilson, who was not elated, had said to Feynman, “It’s a terrible thing that we made.” Feynman, “
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,
” pp. 135–36.

309
But curiously, he didn’t:
Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society,
vol. 144, no. 2 (June 2000), pp. 123–24.

Chapter Twenty-three: “Those Poor Little People”

313
“They were picking”; “Those poor little”:
Anne Wilson Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.

314
“Don’t let them bomb”:
Lt. Col. John F. Moynahan,
Atomic Diary,
p. 15. The bombardiers followed Oppenheimer’s instructions, dropping the bomb visually on the center of Hiroshima. But Nagasaki was bombed “largely by radar,” because of cloud cover and because the bomber was running low on fuel. (See Norman Ramsey to JRO, dated “after August 20, 1945,” box 60, JRO Papers.)

315
“what actually occurred”:
Alice Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 53; see also Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
p. 230.

315
“the visible effects”; “Why the hell”:
Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” Badash, et al., eds.,
Reminiscences of Los Alamos,
p. 37.

315
“I’m proud of you”:
Groves and JRO, transcript of phone conversation, 8/6/45, RG 77, entry 5, MED files, 201 Groves, box 86, gen. correspondence 1942–45, telephone conversation file.

315
“Attention please, attention”:
The Day After Trinity,
Jon Else, transcript, p. 58.

316
“This last 24 hours”:
Ed Doty to parents, 8/7/45, Los Alamos Historical Museum.

316
“too early to determine”:
Sam Cohen,
The Truth About the Neutron Bomb,
p. 22; Hijiya, “The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
vol. 144, no. 2 (June 2000), p. 155. Hijiya cites Cohen for the claim that Oppenheimer clasped his hands together like a prizefighter, but this detail is not in Cohen’s book. It is found, however, in Lawren,
The General and the Bomb,
p. 250.

316
“That night we”:
Phil Morrison’s radio talk, ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, Federation of American Scientists Records, XXII, p. 2. “The Atom Bomb Scientists Report Number Three: Death of Hiroshima,” p. 1, Special Collections, UC.

316
“certainly no one [at Los Alamos] celebrated”
and subsequent quotes:
Ed Doty to parents, 8/7/45, Los Alamos Historical Museum; Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 77. Smith wrote only that Oppenheimer saw a “young group leader being sick in the bushes.” Thomas Powers identifies the young group leader as Robert Wilson (Powers,
Heisenberg’s War,
p. 462). See also
The Day After Trinity,
Jon Else.

317
“I felt betrayed”:
Robert Wilson, “Robert Jungk’s Lively but Debatable History,”
Scientific American,
December 1958, p. 146; Palevsky,
Atomic Fragments,
pp. 140–41.

317
“People were going”:
The Day After Trinity,
Jon Else, transcript, pp. 59–60; Palevsky,
Atomic Fragments,
p. 141.

317
“As the days passed”; “Oppie says”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope
(1971 edition), p. 77; Robert Serber,
Peace and War,
p. 142.

317
“nervous wreck”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 139; FBI memo, 4/18/52, sect. 12, JRO FBI file.

318
“unconditional surrender”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
pp. 279–304; Alperovitz,
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,
pp. 417–20; see also Barton J. Bernstein, “Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History;” Uday Mohan and Sanho Tree, “The Construction of Conventional Wisdom,” and the essays by Norman Cousins, Reinhold Niebuhr, Felix Morley, David Lawrence, Lewis Mumford, Mary McCarthy and other early critics of the bombings, reprinted in Bird and Lifschultz,
Hiroshima’s
Shadow,
pp. 141–97, 237–316.

318
Lawrence tried to reassure:
Childs,
An American Genius,
p. 366; Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 140.

318
“it is our firm opinion”:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
pp. 293–94 (JRO to Stimson, 8/17/45).

319
“no alternative to”:
Ibid., pp. 300–1; JRO to Ernest Lawrence, 8/30/45.

319
“You will believe”:
Ibid., pp. 297–98; JRO to Herbert Smith, 8/26/45; JRO to Frederick Bernheim, 8/27/45.

319
“Dear Opje”:
Chevalier,
Oppenheimer,
p. xi.

319
“Circumstances are heavy”:
The Day After Trinity,
Jon Else, transcript, p. 65, JRO to Haakon Chevalier, 8/27/45,
The Day After Trinity,
supplemental files; Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 142.

320
“I have a sense”:
JRO to Conant, 9/29/45, JRO Papers.

320
Incredibly, a formal offer:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
p. 300.

320
“I have very mixed”:
Ibid., pp. 301–2.

320
“Kitty didn’t often”:
Jean Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 11/5/87, pp. 3–4. Didisheim quote contained in a letter from Herbert Smith to Frank Oppenheimer, 9/19/73, folder 4–23, box 4, Frank Oppenheimer Papers, UCB.

321
“But Phil was”:
Bacher, interview by Sherwin, 11/5/87, p. 2.

321
“Virtually everyone in the street”:
A transcript of Phil Morrison’s radio talk can be found in the ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, Federation of American Scientists (FAS) XXII, p. 2. “The Atom Bomb Scientists Report Number Three: Death of Hiroshima,” p. 5, Special Collections, UC.

321
“At one point”:
Serber,
Peace and War,
p. 129.

321
“We circled finally”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 115; a transcript of Morrison’s radio talk can be found in the ALAS series for station KOB (Albuquerque), no. 3, FAS XXII, p. 2.

321
“Much was now explained”:
Church,
The House at Otowi Bridge,
pp. 130–31; Church,
Bones Incandescent,
p. 38.

322
“We took this tree”:
Michael A. Day, “Oppenheimer on the Nature of Science,”
Centaurus,
vol. 43 (2001), p. 79;
Time,
11/8/48.

322
“The war had made it”:
Weisskopf, note on physics in the postwar years, December 1962, box 21, “JRO and Niels Bohr,” JRO Papers.

322
“very belatedly”:
JRO, “Three Lectures on Niels Bohr and His Times,” Pegram Lectures, Brookhaven National Laboratory, August 1963, p. 16, filed in Louis Fischer Papers, box 9, folder 3, PUL. Henry Stimson diary, 9/21/45, p. 3, YUL.

322
“Now it is in your”:
Ibid.

Chapter Twenty-four: “I Feel I Have Blood on My Hands”

323
“Hats off to the men”
and subsequent quotes:
Paul Boyer,
By Bomb’s Early Light,
pp. 266–67; Pais,
The Genius of Science,
p. 274.

323
“We have made”:
JRO, “Atomic Weapons,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
January 1946. He gave this speech on 11/16/45 in Philadelphia, where it was entitled “Atomic Weapons and the Crisis in Science,” filed in folder 168.1, Lee DuBridge Papers, courtesy of James Hershberg.

324
“I thought that he”:
Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 11.

324
On September 9, Oppenheimer:
Smith and Weiner,
Letters,
p. 304; JRO to Harrison, 9/9/45.

325
“the situation looked”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
pp. 116–17.

325
“the suppression of the document”:
Ibid., p. 120.

325
“not merely a super”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 150.

325
“armaments manufacturer”:
Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,”
Life,
10/10/49.

325
“I neither can”:
Teller and Brown,
The Legacy of Hiroshima,
p. 23.

326
Unbeknownst even to Washington:
Henry Wallace diary, 10/19/45, reprinted in John Morton Blum,
The Price of Vision,
p. 497.

326
“The hope of civilization”:
Truman,
Memoirs,
vol. 1, p. 532.

326
Leo Szilard was outraged:
Lanouette,
Genius in the Shadows,
p. 286.

326
“I believe that”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 167; Hewlett and Anderson,
The New
World,
vol. 1, p. 432.

327
“The Johnson bill”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 153; Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 401–2.

327
“a masterpiece”:
Lanouette,
Genius in the Shadows,
p. 293.

327
“oblique attack”:
Smith,
A Peril and a Hope,
p. 154.

327
“He said there wasn’t”:
The Day After Trinity,
Jon Else, transcript, p. 68; Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 178.

327
“Mailing it was”:
Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 395–96; Wilson, “Hiroshima: The Scientists’ Social and Political Reaction,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
September 1996, p. 351.