In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer [antikvár]

FOREWORD Having spent six eye-straining weeks in a line-by-line reading of this massive volume, I am not sure whether to pity or envy those who now have the opportunity, thanks to the initiative of The M.I.T. Press, and the fortitude to wade into it. But, on reflection, the envy far outweighs the pity, for lodged in those 750,000 words are history, drama, conflict, personalities, villains and heroes, injustice, brutality, courage, and eloquence — all of it grist for either historian or novelist. For many who lived in the era of J. Robert Oppenheimer — and the shorter-lived notoriety of Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin — Oppenheimer and the ordeal he went through stir vivid recollections. More recently, however, Oppenheimer has become a rapidly receding figure in the public mind and his security trial is virtually unknown, so it may be helpful to set the factual stage for the remarkable proceeding you are about to read. In 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer, a shiningly gifted physics professor at Berkeley and then just 38, was chosen to head the Los Alamos laboratory which would lead a scientific race against the Germans to develop the world's first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer's prewar associations with the Left, including some Communists, aroused the suspicions of Army security officers, but he enjoyed the confidence of the Manhattan Project's director. General Leslie Groves, and survived several encounters with security investigators. After the war, revered as "the father of the atomic bomb," he was a ubiquitous advisor to the government on atomic and security matters, serving as a member of several advisory committees, chairing some of them — most notably the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission. In these posts, his outlook and his often abrasive personality collided with those in the Pentagon and elsewhere who were consumed by a fear of Soviet nuclear superiority and who passionately pressed for maxi-mum-speed development of American military strength, especially nuclear. This conflict came most sharply into focus in 1949, just after the Soviets exploded their first atomic device (far sooner than most had expected), and the United States was forced to decide how vigorously to pvusue the development of the "super" — the vastly powerful hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer and the General Advisory Committee (GAC) wanted, at the least, to delay any major U.S. H-bomb program until there could be one last effort to reach an agreement with the Soviets on a mutual forswearing of the "super." President Truman decided otherwise. Oppenheimer was not reappointed to the GAC in 1952 and, indeed, when Dwight Eisenhower and the Republicans took office in January 1953, Oppenheimer had all but disappeared from the Washington scene. His only official connection with the government was a consultant contract with the