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Authors: Katherine Williams Burton Feldman
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the Spanish Civil War. Dallet had been a Party organizer; Katherine had been a member herself for several years. By 1939 and the Nazi-Soviet Pact that led to the devouring of Poland, she had become disillusioned. Oppenheimer, too, began to gravitate away from the extreme left.
But his political past returned to haunt Oppenheimer. When General Groves, head of the bomb project, decided that Oppenheimer was the ideal director, he was rebuffed, at first, by the Army. Groves persisted and managed to cow the security-conscious Military Policy Committee. 24 Oppenheimer's organizational brilliance surprised many of his colleagues, who were first dismayed to have a young man who had not even won a Nobel Prize leading Los Alamos. Despite his support of Oppenheimer, Groves was intensely security-minded. So guarded was he of atomic secrets that he hesitated to brief agents sent behind Germany lines lest a captured agent unwittingly give away a vital secret. 25 Still, Groves could not prevent background checks on Oppenheimer, and throughout 1943 they continued. He was shadowed, his Berkeley neighbors were questioned, and he was interrogated endlessly. FBI reports accumulated. Whenever Oppenheimer was questioned, his answers were recorded. Later, careless errors and contradictions were pointed to as evidence of questionable loyalty. In June 1943, Oppenheimer visited Berkeley and then met Jean Tatlock in San Francisco. The FBI trailed them on leaden feet:
He was met by Jean Tatlock who kissed him. They dined⦠then proceeded at 10:50 pm to 1450 Montgomery Street and entered a top-floor apartment. Subsequently the lights were extinguished and Oppenheimer was not observed until 8:30 am next day when he and Jean Tatlock left the building together. 26
In late 1943, with the supersecret Los Alamos laboratory well under way and awaiting his attention, its director was forced to reveal the name of a friend, Haakon Chevalier, a former colleague at Berkeley. Chevalier had earlier approached Oppenheimer with the name of an engineer who had Russian contacts. Having at first failed to mention the incident to the FBI, he later did so. The admission, and his failure to disclose the conversation immediately, became part of the evidence at his 1954 hearing.
Security dogged Oppenheimer, as it did (and still does) all physical scientists underwritten by a government at war (whether hot or cold, declared or not). In the 1940s, security meant Army G-2 (Intelligence) and the FBI, whose director, J. Edgar Hoover, was rabidly anti-Communist and reflexively anti-Semitic. In the earlier Red Scare of 1919, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer had launched a campaign against âforeign-born subversives and traitors,â 27 by which was meant anyone connected to Marxism, socialism, trade unionism, or a myriad of other left-wing inclinations. (It did Hitler no harm among many conservative Americans that he declared himself an enemy of Bolshevism.) Likewise, Palmer's protégé Hoover believed that the Communist threat came from within. When, later, Oppenheimer faced his inquisition, his work at Los Alamos seemed to constitute âmeans and opportunity.â The motive was a given.
Los Alamos meant the end of Oppenheimer's scientific career. Like all his Los Alamos colleagues, he did no fundamental work during the war. Afterwards, he became a public figure, for better or worse. Yet Los Alamos in turn did much for Oppenheimer. The astute Hans Bethe, who knew him well, later observed:
There was a tremendous change in Oppenheimer from 1940 to 1942, and especially in 1943. In 1940 he was confused, he mumbled, he certainly wouldn't have given anybody any ordersâ¦. [H]e was attracted by problems beyond the capacity of anybody to solve, including hisâ¦. In 1942 the new personality had gelled. He was much more decisiveâ¦. [In 1943] he really came into his own, and he obviously had always wanted to accomplish something definite, something outstanding.
But his political past returned to haunt Oppenheimer. When General Groves, head of the bomb project, decided that Oppenheimer was the ideal director, he was rebuffed, at first, by the Army. Groves persisted and managed to cow the security-conscious Military Policy Committee. 24 Oppenheimer's organizational brilliance surprised many of his colleagues, who were first dismayed to have a young man who had not even won a Nobel Prize leading Los Alamos. Despite his support of Oppenheimer, Groves was intensely security-minded. So guarded was he of atomic secrets that he hesitated to brief agents sent behind Germany lines lest a captured agent unwittingly give away a vital secret. 25 Still, Groves could not prevent background checks on Oppenheimer, and throughout 1943 they continued. He was shadowed, his Berkeley neighbors were questioned, and he was interrogated endlessly. FBI reports accumulated. Whenever Oppenheimer was questioned, his answers were recorded. Later, careless errors and contradictions were pointed to as evidence of questionable loyalty. In June 1943, Oppenheimer visited Berkeley and then met Jean Tatlock in San Francisco. The FBI trailed them on leaden feet:
He was met by Jean Tatlock who kissed him. They dined⦠then proceeded at 10:50 pm to 1450 Montgomery Street and entered a top-floor apartment. Subsequently the lights were extinguished and Oppenheimer was not observed until 8:30 am next day when he and Jean Tatlock left the building together. 26
In late 1943, with the supersecret Los Alamos laboratory well under way and awaiting his attention, its director was forced to reveal the name of a friend, Haakon Chevalier, a former colleague at Berkeley. Chevalier had earlier approached Oppenheimer with the name of an engineer who had Russian contacts. Having at first failed to mention the incident to the FBI, he later did so. The admission, and his failure to disclose the conversation immediately, became part of the evidence at his 1954 hearing.
Security dogged Oppenheimer, as it did (and still does) all physical scientists underwritten by a government at war (whether hot or cold, declared or not). In the 1940s, security meant Army G-2 (Intelligence) and the FBI, whose director, J. Edgar Hoover, was rabidly anti-Communist and reflexively anti-Semitic. In the earlier Red Scare of 1919, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer had launched a campaign against âforeign-born subversives and traitors,â 27 by which was meant anyone connected to Marxism, socialism, trade unionism, or a myriad of other left-wing inclinations. (It did Hitler no harm among many conservative Americans that he declared himself an enemy of Bolshevism.) Likewise, Palmer's protégé Hoover believed that the Communist threat came from within. When, later, Oppenheimer faced his inquisition, his work at Los Alamos seemed to constitute âmeans and opportunity.â The motive was a given.
Los Alamos meant the end of Oppenheimer's scientific career. Like all his Los Alamos colleagues, he did no fundamental work during the war. Afterwards, he became a public figure, for better or worse. Yet Los Alamos in turn did much for Oppenheimer. The astute Hans Bethe, who knew him well, later observed:
There was a tremendous change in Oppenheimer from 1940 to 1942, and especially in 1943. In 1940 he was confused, he mumbled, he certainly wouldn't have given anybody any ordersâ¦. [H]e was attracted by problems beyond the capacity of anybody to solve, including hisâ¦. In 1942 the new personality had gelled. He was much more decisiveâ¦. [In 1943] he really came into his own, and he obviously had always wanted to accomplish something definite, something outstanding.
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