Summary of American Prometheus By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

By Willie M. Joseph

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Summary of American Prometheus By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

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The definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Nobel Prize winner, is a riveting account of his life and times. Written by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, it captures Oppenheimer's rise and fall, set in the turbulent decades of America's transformation. The book is praised for its voluminous scholarship and insight, capturing Oppenheimer's essential nature and his damaging, self-contradictory behavior.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Jul 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223439073

Willie M. Joseph

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PREFACE

In 1953, Robert Oppenheimer faced a fateful decision: resign from his government advisory positions or fight charges contained in a letter from chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss. Oppenheimer was declared a security risk and faced charges ranging from ridiculous to political. He had been haunted by a premonition that something dark and ominous lay in wait for him since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As anticommunism rose in postwar America, Oppenheimer became increasingly aware that a beast in the jungle was stalking him. His left-wing activities during the 1930s in Berkeley and postwar resistance to the Air Force's plans for massive strategic bombing with nuclear weapons angered powerful Washington insiders, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Lewis Strauss.

After much discussion, Oppenheimer concluded that no matter how stacked the deck, he could not let the charges go unchallenged. He drafted a letter addressed to Dear Lewis, stating that Strauss had encouraged him to resign. However, Oppenheimer could not let the charges go unchallenged, and he drafted a letter addressed to Dear Lewis.

By the end of the evening, Oppenheimer was exhausted and despondent. After several drinks, he retired upstairs to the guest bedroom, where a terrible crash occurred. He collapsed on the bathroom floor, and his unconscious body was blocking the door. They gradually forced it open, pushing Robert's limp form to one side.

The agony and humiliation Oppenheimer endured in 1954 were not unique during the McCarthy era. He was America's Prometheus, the father of the atomic bomb, who had led the effort to wrest from nature the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war. He had spoken wisely about its dangers and potential benefits, and then, near despair, critically about the proposals for nuclear warfare being adopted by the military and promoted by academic strategists.

In the late 1940s, as U.S.-Soviet relations deteriorated, Oppenheimer's persistent desire to raise tough questions about nuclear weapons greatly troubled Washington's national security establishment. Strauss and his allies were determined to silence the one man who they feared could credibly challenge their policies. American Prometheus is a deeply personal biography that follows J. Robert Oppenheimer from his childhood in New York's Upper West Side to his death in 1967. The book is based on thousands of records gathered from archives and personal collections, including Oppenheimer's own massive collection of papers in the Library of Congress and FBI records accumulated over over a quarter century of surveillance.

The book also highlights the connection between our identity as a people and the culture of things nuclear. Oppenheimer tried to divert us from the bomb culture by containing the nuclear threat he had helped to set loose. His most impressive effort was the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which remains a singular model for rationality in the nuclear age. However, Cold War politics at home and abroad doomed the plan, and America and other nations embraced the bomb for the next half century. With the end of the Cold War, the danger of nuclear annihilation seemed to pass, but the threat of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism is probably more imminent in the twenty-first century than ever before.

Oppenheimer's warnings were ignored, and he was silenced. The powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him when he tried to control the atomic fire. The book highlights the importance of a person's public behavior and policy decisions guided by their private experiences of a lifetime.

PROLOGUE

On February 25, 1967, six hundred friends and colleagues gathered in Princeton to remember and mourn the death of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was known as a great physicist, the father of the atomic bomb, and a national hero. He was declared a security risk by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, making him the most prominent victim of America's anticommunist crusade. Nobelists, including Isidor I. Rabi, Eugene Wigner, Julian Schwinger, Tsung Dao Lee, and Edwin McMillan, attended the memorial service.

Nobelists included Albert Einstein's daughter, Margot, Robert Serber, Hans Bethe, and Irva Denham Green. The event was attended by powerful luminaries of America's foreign policy establishment, including John J. McCloy, General Leslie R. Groves, Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey. The memorial service was attended by Oppenheimer's widow, Katherine Kitty Puening Oppenheimer, their daughter Toni, and son Peter. Hans Bethe, who had known Oppenheimer for three decades, gave the first of three eulogies, describing him as a leader who brought out the best in his team. Henry DeWolf Smyth, a physicist and Princeton neighbor, gave the second eulogy, stating that Oppenheimer had voted to restore his security clearance in 1954.

Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and an aesthete, was a symbol of the tragedy of the modern nuclear scientist. He was a brilliant and complex figure, passionate about social justice and a tireless government adviser. Oppenheimer's decision to participate in the creation of a genocidal weapon was a Faustian bargain, and he tried to renegotiate it, but was cut down for doing so. He led the effort to unleash the power of the atom but was questioned by the government when he sought to warn his countrymen of its dangers and constrain America's reliance on nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer's life was shrouded in controversy, myth, and mystery.

His death was compared to the 1633 trial of Galileo Galilei by a medieval-minded church, and his ordeal resembled Captain Alfred Dreyfus in France in the 1890s. Despite his controversies, Oppenheimer's dedication to science and rational thought led to his unique role as an architect of the nuclear era.

PART ONE

He Received Every New Idea as Perfectly Beautiful

In the early 1900s, science played a significant role in the second American revolution, with inventions like the internal combustion engine and manned flight revolutionizing the lives of ordinary people. However, a group of scientists were also creating a fundamental revolution, with the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 and the publication of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity in 1905. This revolution led to the celebration of scientists as heroes, promising a renaissance of rationality, prosperity, and social meritocracy.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, born in 1904, was raised in a Jewish family in New York, where he chose to shape his identity within the Ethical Culture Society, which celebrated rationalism and a progressive brand of secular humanism. This approach to life promoted social justice over self-aggrandizement, but for Robert Oppenheimer, it reinforced his lifelong ambivalence about his Jewish identity.

Julius Oppenheimer arrived in New York in 1888, working in a company warehouse and eventually becoming a full partner in the firm of Rothfeld, Stern & Company. He was introduced to Ella Friedman, a young painter with a beautiful demeanor and a powerful personality. They married on March 23, 1903, and had a son named Robert. Julius decided to name the boy after himself, despite Jewish traditions not playing a role in the Oppenheimer household.

Julius moved his family to a spacious eleventh-floor apartment in 1903, overlooking the Hudson River. The family's life was marked by a focus on social justice, rationality, and science, but it also reflected the irony of his life. The Oppenheimer family lived in a luxurious apartment with fine European furniture and a collection of French Postimpressionist and Fauvist paintings chosen by Ella. Robert was raised in luxury, but his parents did not consider him spoiled. Julius Oppenheimer, a wealthy businessman, was a multimillionaire by 1914. Robert's friends were struck by their contrasting personalities, with Julius being a conversationalist and extrovert, and Ella being a delicate person.

Robert's mother, Ella, was a loving and caring mother, but he was also a jolly German-Jewish man. He loved art and music, and his mother was overly protective of him. Ella's fragile nature and her strict standards led to Robert's introspection and a difficult childhood. He was encouraged to paint but gave up when he went to college.

Robert's mother disapproved of his father's trade and commerce, and Ella made it clear to her son that she felt ill-at-ease with their obtrusive manners. Robert felt torn between his mother's strict standards and his father's gregarious behavior. He felt ashamed of his father's spontaneity and guilty that he felt ashamed.

In 1909, Julius took Robert on transatlantic crossings to visit his grandfather Benjamin in Germany. He became an ardent mineral collector, and his father took him on rock-hunting expeditions along the Palisades. The apartment on Riverside Drive was filled with Robert's rocks, each neatly labeled with its scientific name. Julius encouraged his son in this solitary hobby, plying him with books on the subject. Robert Oppenheimer, a young boy, was fascinated by the structure of crystals and polarized light.

He had three passions: minerals, writing and reading poetry, and building with blocks. At the age of twelve, he was nominated for membership in the New York Mineralogical Club, and he was given every opportunity to develop along his own inclinations and at his own rate of speed. Julius encouraged his son to participate in these adult pursuits, and he was given a professional-quality microscope that quickly became his favorite toy.

Robert's early childhood was nurturing, with his parents catering to his interests and providing him with a 1721 edition of Chaucer and private lessons from George Barère. However, as the firstborn, Robert acquired an unpleasant ego, which he later confessed to later. In September 1911, Robert was enrolled in a unique private school, the Ethical Culture Society, founded by Dr. Felix Adler. The Society inculcated in its members a commitment to social action and humanitarianism, emphasizing the importance of responsibility for one's life and destiny.

Federal Reform Judaism, a non-religion, was a perfect fit for upper-middle-class German Jews who were intent on assimilating into American society. Felix Adler, the son of Rabbi Samuel Adler, led the Reform Judaism movement in Germany and preached a sermon on the Judaism of the Future. Adler led the congregation out of the established Jewish community and founded Ethical Culture with the financial support of Joseph Seligman and other Jewish businessmen of German origin.

Ethical Culture was a reformist Judaic sect, with meetings held on Sunday mornings, organ music played, and no prayers or religious ceremonies. Distinguished speakers like W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington were welcomed in the ornate auditorium. In the nineteenth century, elite efforts to reform and integrate upper-class Jews into German society led to the emergence of the Ethical Culture Society. This movement was influenced by the rise of anti-Semitism in American society, which had been relatively recent since the American Revolution.

The stock market crash of 1873 led to a scandal in New York, with Joseph Seligman, the wealthiest Jewish of German origin, being turned away as a Jew. Adler's Ethical Culture Society provided a timely vehicle for dealing with this growing bigotry.

Adler believed that the answer to anti-Semitism was the global spread of intellectual culture. He criticized Zionism as a withdrawal into Jewish particularism and believed that the future for Jews lay in America, not Palestine. In 1880, Adler founded the Workingman's School, a tuition-free school for the sons and daughters of laborers, which aimed to train reformers. The school became a showcase of the progressive educational reform movement, and Adler was deeply moved by Marx's description of the industrial working class.

Adler's progressive education influenced Robert Oppenheimer, who was a star student at the school. He was surrounded by people who believed in themselves as catalysts for a better world. Ethical Culture members served as agents of change on politically charged issues such as race relations, labor rights, civil liberties, and environmentalism.

Adler was deeply saddened and conflicted when America was drawn into World War I. He was not a pacifist, but he supported the arming of American merchant ships and urged his congregation to give its undivided allegiance to America. Robert Oppenheimer, a German-American student, was a fierce critic of the German monarchy and anticolonialist, who was also a trustee of the Ethical Culture Society. He was a witty saint who taught ethics in a Socratic-style seminar, discussing social and political issues. Robert's years at the school were filled with debates on topics such as the Negro problem, the ethics of war and peace, economic inequality, and understanding sex relations.

Robert's sheltered upbringing created an inner toughness and physical stoicism that he may not have recognized. At the age of fourteen, Julius sent Robert to a summer camp, Camp Koenig, where he was exposed to the cruelties young adolescents can inflict on those who are shy, sensitive, or different. However, Robert refused to fight back and was eventually stripped naked and locked in the icehouse for the night.

Robert's highbrow personality was nurtured by the Ethical Culture School's attentive teachers, who had been carefully selected by Dr. Adler as models of the progressive education movement. He excelled in various subjects, including physics and chemistry, and excelled in reading and writing. However, his peers regarded him as distant and uncooperative. Robert's peers thought he was rather gauche and didn't know how to get along with other children.

Robert's experiences at the school shaped his character and his understanding of the world around him. His experiences at the school, as well as his own, shaped his character and his understanding of the world around him.

His Separate Prison

In September 1922, Robert Oppenheimer enrolled at Harvard, despite not receiving a fellowship. He was assigned a single room in Standish Hall, a freshman dormitory facing the Charles River. At nineteen, he was an oddly handsome young man with extreme features, such as a thin, kinky black hair and a straight Roman nose. His appearance was mesmerizing and slightly bizarre, and his behavior in Cambridge drove him back to his former introversion. At Harvard, his intellect thrived, but his social development floundered. He was on his own, and he made very few new friends.

Robert was already reading darkspirited writers like Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield, and his favorite Shakespearean character was Hamlet. He had bouts of melancholy and depressions as a youngster, and his flair for the intellectual went beyond the merely ostentatious. He formed a friendship with Frederick Bernheim, a pre-med student who had graduated from the Ethical Culture School a year after him. They shared adjacent rooms in an old house at 60 Mount Auburn Street, close to the offices of the Harvard Crimson.

Robert was considered a hypochondriac, and he was often seen as a dominant figure in his room. Bernheim credited him with inspiring his later career in medical research. William Clouser Boyd, another Harvard student, took an instant liking to Robert and they shared interests aside from science. They tried to write poetry and short stories imitative of Chekhov, and Boyd called him Clowser.

Robert's quick mind and musical preferences were not shared by Boyd and Oppenheimer. He would go to an opera with Boyd and Bernheim, but he would leave after the first act. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist at Harvard, initially struggled with choosing an academic path. He took various unrelated courses, including philosophy, French literature, English, introductory calculus, history, and three chemistry courses. He briefly considered architecture, but eventually settled on chemistry as his first passion.

Robert read all three thousand pages of Gibbon's classic history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and began writing poetry. He also read widely in French literature and began writing poetry, which appeared in Hound and Horn, a student journal.

Harvard's political culture in the early 1920s was conservative, with a quota to restrict the number of Jewish students. In 1924, the Harvard Crimson reported that the university's former president Charles W. Eliot declared it unfortunate that growing numbers of the Jewish race were intermarrying with Christians. President A. Lawrence Lowell refused to allow Negroes to reside in freshman dormitories with whites. Robert joined the Student Liberal Club, founded three years earlier, which took a formal stand against the university's discriminatory admissions policies.

By the end of his freshman year at Harvard, Robert decided that he had made a mistake in selecting chemistry as his major. He found that what he liked in chemistry was very close to physics, and he petitioned the Physics Department for graduate standing, which would allow him to take upper-level physics courses. He listed fifteen books he claimed to have read, but the faculty committee considered his petition, which was later dismissed by George Washington Pierce.

His primary tutor in physics was Percy Bridgman, who later won a Nobel Prize. Oppenheimer found Bridgman a wonderful teacher, but he was both precocious and occasionally brash. When the famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr gave two lectures at Harvard in October 1923, Robert made a point of attending both lectures. He would later say that he venerated Bohr deeply, and Professor Bridgman noted that his impression on everyone who met him was a singularly pleasant one personally. Oppenheimer, a prominent physicist and mathematician, was known for his eclectic approach to learning physics, focusing on abstract problems rather than the dreary basics.

He felt insecure about the gaps in his knowledge and believed that he should have learned more mathematics through being with people. Despite this,