American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Reviews

• 
  Cassy

  Let’s do the numbers.
  
  599 pages of text
  256 books read for research
  44 articles and dissertations consulted
  41 manuscript collections pillaged
  10 government document collections accessed
  1 Pulitzer Prize
  6 newspapers/magazines named it best book of the year
  19 quality blurbs
  41 listed abbreviations
  20 page-long index
  83 pages of notes
  112 people interviewed (several more than once)
  2 authors
  25 years in the making
  38 days to read across 3 cities
  23 corners folded by this girl to mark something fascinating
  
  To describe this book as merely “well researched” would be an insult. It is an exhaustively thorough look at an important American figure…that I had never heard of when my dad gave this book to me as a Christmas gift several years ago. I had a vague notion that J. Robert Oppenheimer was in the newspaper business.
  
  Oppie (as I now refer to him) was a brilliant physicist and character, who headed the American development of the atomic bomb during WWII only to be stripped of his security clearance years later for petty political reasons. When I finished this book, I was all “Oppie said the cleverest thing about [insert topic]” and “Oppie would have loved this [documentary/book/color shirt].” I swear I was that annoying person who just achieved a (likely one-sided) friendship with someone much cooler and can’t shut up about it.
  
  What exactly can you expect to learn about MY NEW BESTIE in this book?
  
  (1) Speculation about whether Oppie was a closet Communist
  There are paragraphs, pages, and chapters playing the was-he-or-wasn’t-he game. What exactly did he learn at that wacko school as a youngster? Did he pay party dues? Why didn’t he report that conversation earlier? Why did he meet with that person on that day?
  
  The only person who really had the answer to the main question is Oppie, and he said “no.” Repeatedly. This speculation may sound boring (and it was at times), but it was integral to the story as it later brought down a man who had devoted his life to doing what he thought was best for this country.
  
  (2) Luminaries of the day
  As brilliant as Oppie was, he was also surrounded by brilliant people. After nearly every description of his physicist buddies, there was a note that “so-and-so went on to receive the Nobel Prize.” You will also learn about key political and military figures of the day. And for all these people, you will get more than just a rehashing of their image. You’ll get a quick glimpse of their personality, weakness, opinions, antics. This book breathes with characters.
  
  (3) A critical era of American history
  The authors evoked not just the people, but also stepped back and evoked the times – starting with the rush to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans (hurry, hurry, hurry!) and then the debate that followed Hiroshima (was that really necessary? what now? build another?). It was a dicey time for America and the world. I had learned some of this during my undergraduate, but this book bought it home for me.
  
  (4) Absolutely nothing about science
  If you are curious regarding the specifics of how the bomb was built or the physics behind it, you will be sorely disappointed while I was greatly pleased.
  
  (5) His wife!
  I have become increasingly interested in the stories of the women behind important men: how they helped made their men great and even how they suffered for it. For example, I remember walking through a museum about Einstein a couple years ago and thinking his wife deserved a medal, bucket of tears, her own museum, something for the crap she put up with. And Oppie’s wife, Kitty was similarly intriguing. Here is a brief review of her, count ‘em, four marriages:
  
  Husband #1: Why you should read your spouse’s diary
  When Kitty was “studying” aboard in Europe, she impulsively married a musician only to discover, when she snooped in his diary, that he was a gay drug addict. Strike one.
  
  Husband #2: Voluntary poverty followed by voluntary death
  Kitty bounced back quickly and married a handsome American activist. Although both came from well-to-do families, they chose to live in poverty to show their commitment to Communist ideals. Kitty eventually got fed up with lifestyle and walked away. The two were just starting to rekindle their love when he was killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War on the side of, you guessed it, the leftists.
  
  Husband #3: “This is Robert calling. Your wife is pregnant with my child.”
  Kitty’s next pick was an emotionally distant doctor. It was during this marriage that Kitty met Oppie and started some extramarital hanky-panky. When she discovered she was pregnant with Oppie’s child, Husband #3 and Oppie had a very civilized phone conversation where they decided it would be best if Kitty divorced one and married the other. I really wish the FBI had wire-tapped that call! What kind of husband can calmly discuss his wife’s infidelity with her lover? He must have been cold as a block of ice!
  
  Husband #4: Loved by Oppie, hated by everyone else
  After all the duds, Oppie was “the one.” The general consensus was that Oppie’s wife was a rude, habitually tipsy, and mediocre housewife, as well as a cold mother. Her one redeeming quality was her fierce loyalty to Oppie and his career. Yet she seemed frustrated in his shadows having given up her burgeoning career in botany for his sake. My favorite quote about Kitty was that “she made small talk, but she really wanted to make big talk.”
  
  Whew! I don’t know about you, but Kitty wears me out. And since she is not likeable enough to be the subject of her own biography, I am glad these authors gave her such good coverage here. As many anecdotes that made me sympathize with her, there were just as many times when I wanted to reach back in time and shake her.
  
  That’s enough about Kitty.
  
  It’s not often that I have a picture of myself reading the book I’m reviewing. But today is your lucky day! In a scene that is probably familiar to GoodReaders, here I am reading my book off in a corner during a family get-together.
  
  [image error]
• 
  Matt

  “With the end of the Cold War, the danger of nuclear annihilation seemed to pass, but in another ironic twist, the threat of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism is probably more imminent in the twenty-first century than ever before. In the post-9/11 era, it is worth recalling that at the dawn of the nuclear age, the father of the atomic bomb warned us that it was a weapon of indiscriminate terror that instantly made America more vulnerable to attack. When [J. Robert Oppenheimer] was asked in a closed Senate hearing in 1946 ‘whether three or four men couldn’t smuggle units of an [atomic] bomb into New York and blow up the whole city,’ he responded pointedly, ‘Of course it could be done…’ To the follow-up question of a startled senator, ‘What instrument would you use to detect an atomic bomb hidden somewhere in a city?’ Oppenheimer quipped, ‘A screwdriver [to open each and every crate or suitcase].’ The only defense against nuclear terrorism was the elimination of nuclear weapons…”
  - Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
  
  The creation of the atomic bomb was the work of many hands and many minds. A very short list of major contributors would include Ernest Rutherford, who explained the atom’s nucleus; Niels Bohr, who modeled the atom; Ernest Lawrence, who invented a cyclotron to smash atoms; and Enrico Fermi, who developed the nuclear reactor.
  
  Yet none of these men has been dubbed “the Father of the Atomic Bomb.”
  
  That unofficial title belongs to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who never – as far as I know – made a great scientific discovery or proposed a grand theory. Instead, he was an understander, a synthesizer, a man whose own genius was to collate the work of many other geniuses and direct it towards a single purpose: the creation of a bomb that could destroy with “the light of a thousands suns”; that could blast a person’s shadow onto a wall; that could not only flatten a city but – like the Romans salting the earth at Carthage – render it uninhabitable.
  
  Oppenheimer also realized – earlier than most, but already far too late – that the power he helped to unleash threatened all life on earth.
  
  ***
  
  Oppenheimer’s life is worthy of study, not just for his substantive impact as the scientific leader of the Manhattan Project, but because it is dramatic, filled with the kinds of twists and turns, the meteoric rise and stone-heavy fall, that led authors Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin to compare him to the unfortunate Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals, earning him the punishment of a regenerating liver that was devoured by an eagle each day.
  
  American Prometheus is a hefty biography of this enigmatic, brilliant, flawed man. In 591-pages of text, they take you from Oppenheimer’s cradle to his grave, from theoretical physicist to the head of the Manhattan Project’s secret weapons laboratory, and from prophet of impending doom to Cold War outcast, shunned due to early-life communist sympathies, and for speaking uncomfortable truths to powerful men.
  
  Though I never entirely connected with this tome, there is no doubt about the effort put forth by its authors. There are eighty-three pages of notes, many of them annotated, and an extensive bibliography. Bird and Sherwin have also conducted personal interviews with key players. The fact that some of these interviews date to the seventies show that the authors have been at work on this project long before its 2005 publication.
  
  In terms of raw materials, American Prometheus has all the makings of an intimate epic. Oppenheimer is an endlessly compelling character, a man who would have loved being alluded to in terms of Greek mythology. He was an exceptional polymath, his interests and intellect encompassing poetry, philosophy, history, and languages. He was bright and far-seeing, but also overbearing, brusque, impatient, condescending, and inflexible. While Bird and Sherwin clearly sympathize with their subject, they do not hide the messy details: the rampant adultery; the alcoholic wife; the political tone-deafness; and his relatively passive final surrender to his enemies.
  
  With such a conflicted leading man, an impossibly important stage (the endgame of the Second World War), and the highest imaginable stakes (the fate of human existence, in a way), this should have been a slam-dunk winner of a biography.
  
  For many, it was. For me, it was just fine.
  
  ***
  
  Early in my reading life, I was quick to dismiss books without a lot of critical reflection. Now, when a highly-lauded book elicits only a shoulder shrug, I struggle to understand why.
  
  Here, I think part of the reason is a lack of context for Oppenheimer’s “triumph.” Despite all the information densely packed into these pages, I don’t feel like Bird and Sherwin did a great job explaining – in functional terms – what Oppenheimer actually did to help birth the first atomic bombs. American Prometheus is full of quotations from people telling me how great he was, but very few of them explained why.
  
  If you were to look at my physics grades in both high school and college, you would know that I’m the last person asking for a physics textbook. However, the science is important to this story, and it’s just missing from the book. Aside from one or two mostly-unilluminating sentences breaking down quantum physics, this aspect is mostly ignored, while the achievements of the other scientists working with Oppenheimer barely mentioned, if at all.
  
  With the understanding that random comparisons are not exactly helpful, I feel compelled to refer to Richard Rhodes’s masterful twofer of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Though not devoted solely to Oppenheimer, Rhodes gives the man a fully-realized arc that does a much better job of exploring his actual scientific contributions while also following the tumultuous course of his life.
  
  ***
  
  The “tragedy” portions of American Prometheus are marginally better, unaffected by the lack of scientific insight. Instead, we are in the thickets of McCarthyism, Cold War paranoia, and Red baiting with a smart and prickly man whose ego probably got the best of him.
  
  Oppenheimer was at the vanguard of scientists who wanted to be open with the Soviet Union about nuclear arms, thereby hoping to forestall an arms race. Whether naïve or enlightened, this is probably an opinion he should have guarded a bit more closely, or worded a bit more carefully. After all, preaching “candor” while holding a top-secret security clearance as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission is ripe for misinterpretation by one’s enemies. Ultimately, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss orchestrated a kangaroo-court hearing to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance.
  
  With his clearance gone, all that Oppenheimer had left was his wealth, his family, the ability to travel the world, and a beachside house in the Virgin Islands, showing once again that all tragedy is relative.
  
  The larger calamity of a potential nuclear war, of course, looms much larger than Oppenheimer’s foreshortened career. Hard as he tried, he could not stitch the atom back together, once it had been divided.
  
  ***
  
  American Prometheus won the National Book Critics Circle Award upon its release. Soon enough, it will be turned into a Christopher Nolan biopic starring half the actors in Hollywood. Far be it for me to tell you to avoid this.
  
  Nevertheless, I’m not going to recommend it. One of the ways I rank biographies is to ask myself this question: Have I learned what it would be like to stand in this person’s presence? In American Prometheus, the answer is no. The Oppenheimer presented here is a collection of descriptions, a figure moving along a timeline. The authors told me to feel, but never gave me a reason. Oppenheimer was the most human of historical movers, but for some reason, his humanity never leapt off the page in the way I expected or required.
• 
  Brett C

  I thought this was fascinating! J. Robert Oppenheimer had a unique upbringing I found very interesting. He grew up in a nonobservant Jewish family and completed grade school in a private institution called The Ethical Cultural Society. This was a Judaic reformist school where "students were taught 'Ethical Imagination,' to 'see things not as they are, but as they might be.'", pg. 19
  
  Oppenheimer described his childhood "My life as a child did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.", pg. 21. He was described as odd, neurotic, and depressed by his university classmates. He eventually had a breakdown where he attacked a classmate (pg. 47). His poor social interactions and self-alienating behaviors led him tell a friend "I need physics more than friends", pg. 91
  
  He was brilliant, extremely intelligent, and internalized the knowledge he acquired. He eventually read the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads in the original Sanskrit (pgs. 99-102). His deep reflection and internalizing of the Gita would have a heavy impact during his work on the atomic bomb. "He liked things that were difficult. And since almost everything was easy for him, the things that would attract his attention were essentially the difficult. He had a taste for the mystical and the cryptic.", pg. 99
  
  Oppenheimer's credentials and reputation proceeded himself and landed him the job at the Los Alamos Research Laboratory in New Mexico. "In May 1942 he was appointed director of the fast-neutron research with the curious title 'Coordinator of Rapid Rapture.' Almost immediately, he began to organize a highly secret summer seminar of top theoretical physicists whose job it was to outline a bare-bones design of an atomic bomb.", pg. 180
  
  At the successful detonation of the atomic bomb at the Trinity Site he later told an interviewer "I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes his multi-armed form and says 'Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.'" pg. 309
  
  Eventually his past actions and who he socialized with put him in the cross-hairs of the Department of Justice and the FBI. His loyalty was questioned after he had accusations of being a Communist sympathizer, being unpatriotic, and was deemed a risk to national security. Towards the end of his life, he gave lectures at universities and dwelt on broader themes of culture and science. He became a humanist, pondering man's survival in an age of weapons of mass destruction, pg. 574
  
  I really enjoyed this one. It was highly detailed and contained a lot of thoroughly researched information. I would recommend it! Thanks!
• 
  Cherie

  “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  
  
  Revisiting the life of Robert Oppenheimer after finishing John Smith’s amazingly surrealistic fictionalization,
  Little Boy, I am continually struck by how this man’s life really was “stranger than fiction”.
  
  In this Pulitzer prize-winning biography, American Prometheus, Bird and Sherwin portray the famous atomic scientist’s life in mythic proportions. A lot of biographers do this with their subjects, but in this case it doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration. This really was a man whose decisions changed the world in a fundamental way, and whose life had as many twists and turns as a Greek tragedy.
  
  Bird and Sherwin include a lot of information on the political climate of the 1950s and go into a huge amount of detail about Oppenheimer’s personal politics. It can be a little dry as they spend so much time on whether or not he was a Communist, but it’s clear that they did their research and their portrayal is fair and even-handed.
• 
  Jackie "the Librarian"

  This is a very thorough book in some respects, and yet it is so narrow in scope I almost want to run out and read another Oppenheimer biography, and some histories that cover the same time period to get the personal details and background history the authors assumed you knew in THIS book. Almost.
  
  Sure, I'm familiar with the basic details of WWII, the McCarthy Era, and the atomic bomb, but if I wasn't this book wouldn't have helped much. Instead, the authors follow J. Robert Oppenheimer's life in detail from birth to death with a laser's focus on every political relationship and communist connection he ever had, so much so everything else is in soft focus. The book becomes at times a laundry list of names, connected to their political affiliations and possible communist leanings. Even Robert himself is given short shrift to the communist question. Every possible Communist connection is examined and re-examined so often, I felt like the authors had in effect become Oppenheimer's belated defense team.
  
  Why did they feel Oppenheimer needed defending, you may be asking? Wasn't he a brilliant physicist, the one who headed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb? Yes, he certainly was. Everyone in the scientific community was concerned that Germany was developing a bomb, including Oppenheimer, who was especially appalled over what was happening in fascist Germany, and horrified about what was being done to the Jews. He was eager to use his scientific skills in service of his country. But the power of the bomb that was developed filled him with concern, especially after seeing it used against a Japan that was essentially already defeated.
  
  Oppenheimer felt that the use of such weapons should be regulated not just by the U.S., and that secrecy would lead to an arms race with the Soviet Union, and he was right. But his advocacy for free sharing of information, and an international committee to guide the use of atomic power was not what the U.S. government wanted to hear in the 50s. His opposition to the development of the H-bomb opened him up to suspicion, and he was investigated by the FBI, including the illegal wiretapping of his phones.
  
  Oppenheimer had been working as a professor at Berkeley before the war, and as a liberal thinker he had had friends and family who were Communist, back when that meant opposition to the fascist regime in Spain, and improving social conditions at home. He had donated money to various causes through the U.S. Communist party, which wasn't unusual for the time. His own brother and his wife had been members of the Communist party at one time, although Robert himself never had been. All of these connections were used against him by his opponents many years later, in hearings in the 50s.
  
  Everything in the book leads up to Oppenheimer's hearings before the Personnel Security Board team put together by General Lewis Strauss, who was determined to both remove Oppenheimer from the Atomic Energy Commission, and remove his security clearance. Strauss had clashed with Oppenheimer over the development of the H-bomb, and had developed a personal antipathy to the scientist. With the tacit consent of President Eisenhower, Strauss set up a star chamber hearing to railroad Oppenheimer out, using unfair tactics such as denying access to evidence and not releasing the list of witnesses to Oppenheimer's lawyers ahead of time.
  
  Oppenheimer became seen as a Galileo type martyr to the scientific community, and though he was eventually rehabilitated and honored by President Johnson, Oppenheimer never truly recovered from the hearings.
  
  All of this part of Oppenheimer's life we get in exhaustive detail. What you won't learn so much about is Oppenheimer's personal life, which is present in the book, but not examined. Oppenheimer had a magnetic personality, and many relationships with women that we hear just a little about. He had affairs, even after his marriage to Kitty, whose previous husband was a Communist who had died fighting in the Spanish Civil War. I wanted to know more about his relationship with Kitty, a tempestuous woman with a big drinking problem. We hear that the Oppenheimers gave parties where they lavished their guests with drinks, but then skimped on the food. That's fascinating, I wanted to know more about what was going on there, and hear what people thought about it. I wanted to know more about his children, and how they felt being raised in such a family. We get tantalizing bits and pieces about how Robert tried to give his daughter away to another family at Los Alamos, and never bonded with his son, but then we are torn away to hear again about more Communist stuff. Can you hear my frustration?
  
  Sure, I figure there is WAY more documentation out there on the Communist issue, thanks to the FBI, than to Oppenheimer's personal life, and that's what the authors focused on. They do a good job of presenting this information chronologically and clearly, and if that's what you're interested in, you won't be disappointed. You will get every detail you could ever hope for! But if you want to know Oppenheimer, the man, you will only get glimpses here.
• 
  Christopher Saunders

  Impressive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist who went from obscurity to international fame as the director of the Manhattan Project, to ignominy and exile over his ambivalence towards nuclear weapons and leftist political views. Bird and Sherwin depict Oppenheimer throughout as a genius who, like many great men and women, is riven through with contradictions and personal foibles. He's a great lecturer and mentor to students and juniors, but somewhat ill-at-ease around peers and non-scientists; a devoted husband (to Kitty, his brilliant but mentally troubled wife) who nonetheless carried on several affairs; his beliefs, a strange admixture of Eastern philosophy, cutting edge physics (though, as the authors readily admit, more in applying extant theories to practical application) and a naivety bordering on credulity towards Communism. Indeed, Bird and Sherwin spend much time on Oppenheimer's politics, showing that he moved in the same circles as the Far Left (his wife was friends with Steve Nelson, a notorious CPUSA organizer; his brother, Frank, joined the Party; he attended meetings but spurned recruitment) through the idealism that led many New Deal-era progressives to find common cause with the Far Left: dislike of fascism (Oppenheimer was Jewish, with relatives killed in the Holocaust), support for labor reforms and racial justice, which weighed more heavily than Stalin's atrocities. The book's passages on the Manhattan Project and the development of the A-bomb are much lighter on science than, say, Richard Rhodes' Making of the Atomic Bomb. There's more emphasis on Oppenheimer's relationships with General Groves and his fellow scientists, the government's ongoing distrust of him (which caused him to expel several suspected Soviet spies from the Project) and how his scientific enthusiasm vanished as the disturbing ramifications of nuclear weapons become clear. Oppenheimer all but renounced his achievements after WWII, leading to investigations by Congress and the FBI, the humiliating revocation of his security clearance and a vagabond life drifting between teaching at Princeton, foreign lectures and warnings about the Cold War. For its immersive prose, sharp judgments and capturing Oppenheimer in all his maddening complexity - a great man fatally inured to risk, in science, politics and romance - this biography stands, in all likelihood, as definitive.
• 
  Lorna

  American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer was the Pulitzer prize-winning book in 2006. This was a comprehensive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of Los Alamos and the atomic bomb, devised to bring the end to World War II with the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The irony of this book may be that Oppenheimer, as a young man, came to New Mexico, finding not only himself, but that he loved this beautiful country. Many years later, I think that a regret that he had was bringing the attention of the world to northern New Mexico.
  
  ". . . he craved the exhilaration and the invigorating calmness induced by Perro Caliente. There was a rhythm now to his life: intense, intellectual work, at times to the point of near exhaustion, followed by a month or more of near exhaustion, followed by a month or more of renewal on horseback in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico."
  
  "We learned to watch the snow on the Sangres, and to look for deer in Water Canyon," Phil Morrison later wrote, with a lyricism that reflected the emotional attachment to the land that seized many residents. "We found that on the mesas and the valley that there was an old and strange culture; there were our neighbors, the people of the pueblos, and there were the caves of Otowi canyon to remind us that other men had sought water in the dry land."
  
  Having spent my early childhood in Los Alamos, I am still very conflicted about that time in our history. Oppenheimer was not only the choice of General Groves, but also the one who was able to assemble a group of physicists and scientists to come to a remote part of the United States and pioneer this daunting project. Much of the genius of Oppenheimer was his uncanny ability to ferret out the best talent and to relentlessly pursue that talent and to motivate and inspire them. However, the underlying and dark theme throughout this book was the hysteria that was rampant in the 1950's about communism.
  
  This is also a tale of a very complex man, not only a brilliant scientist and leader and a true twentieth century "Renaissance Man", but one who was devastated with the human toll that was wrought with the unleashing of the science that he had shepherded. This was a man who was well versed in Shakespeare and The Bhagavad Gita, who spent many years urging nuclear arms control.
  
  "Today that pride must be tempered with a profound concern. If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer on October 16, 1946
  
  "We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1953
• 
  Darwin8u

  “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him—the United States government."
  - Albert Einstein, Quoted in American Prometheus
  
  There is way too exploding in my head after reading this tonight to write a full and even meaningful review. I've always been fascinated with the Manhattan Project and last year read Rhode's amazing book,
  The Making of the Atomic Bomb. I've also read several of Richard Feynman's memoirs that detail aspects of his work and stories, but this has been the fullest investigation I've read into Oppenheimer's life.
  
  Things I'll probably write a bit about tomorrow:
  
  1. Oppenheimer, and Modern Physicists as founding father's of the modern age.
  2. The show trials of the AEC.
  3. Disappointment in Bernard Baruch, Teller, American Institutions, and even Oppenheimer.
  3. Current atmosphere of suspicion of Science.
  4. Current atmosphere of extreme vetting and loyalty tests.
  5. Other Myths for Oppenheimer: Pandora's Box or Flying too close to the Sun.
• 
  Emiliya Bozhilova

  Опасенията на част от учените от Лос Аламос през 1945 г., че три века несекващ прогрес нa физиката могат да завършат в един (ядрен) взрив, изглежда са имали известно основание.
  
  Животът на Робърт Опенхаймер е любопитна панорама на 20-ти век. Когато членовете на клуб на любители минералолози канят да изнесе лекция техен задочен член с очевидно блестящи познания по минералите, те нямат понятие, че това всъщност е едно 12 годишно момче, син на германски евреи, постигнали американската мечта и разполагащи с имение и яхта.
  
  Младият Опенхаймер е любопитна смесица от изумителен талант, влудяваща амбиция да остави ярък отпечатък (нямаща нищо общо с ограничена алчност или властолюбие) и доста крехка индивидуалност със склонност към неувереност и депресия. Така че младият Робърт е звездата на меката на довоенната физика - Гьотинген - но същевременно е подготвил и поставил отровна ябълка (в буквалния смисъл) на бюрото на научния си ръководител в Англия. Талантлив и енциклопедичен, влюбен в интелектуалните предизвикателства, той по същество се изгражда по-скоро като мултидисциплинарна личност с талант в квантовата физика, отколкото само като физик. Любител на психологията, литературата, езиците, със силно изявена склонност да търси и социална справедливост, той процъфтява като дете-чудо през Новия Курс на Рузвелт, когато симпатиите към комунизма в САЩ се разбират от американските леви интелектуалци като зов за социална справедливост и премахване на расовата дискриминация.
  
  Втората световна война изтласква на заден план либерализма, и натъртва на патриотизма. А Опенхаймер е патриот, при това интелектуално изключително амбициозен патриот, жаден да докаже себе си в най-дълбоките дебри на познанието, и проектът “Манхатън” изглежда навременния отговор на всички тези стремежи. Всички участвали в него са единодушни, че атомната бомба не би могла да има по-успешен, харизматичен, целенасочен и гъвкав ръководител. Притесненията за разрушенията и жертвите са теоретично ясни на Опенхаймер, но бомбата е делото на живота му и те в никакъв случай не са първостепенен приоритет за него.
  
  Но като всеки силен (и не само) интелект Опенхаймер мисли и в по-широк мащаб от ястребите във Вашингтон и в щаба, и след войната настоява за регулации и международно сътрудничество и открит научен обмен ��о отношение на атомната енергия. Когато САЩ се готви за водородната бомба, Опенхаймер активно се противопоставя на проекта с мотива, че в този случай има оръжие за геноцид - то никога не може да се ограничи в “тесния” периметър на един град, а поразява в огромни, континентални мащаби.
  
  В началото на Студената война такава позиция е ерес. И поддръжниците на въоръжаването се заемат с Опенхаймер по маккартисткия маниер на лова на вещици. През 1954 г. след “изслушване”, което е чиста пародия на съдебен процес, Опенхаймер е отлъчен като ненадежден елемент. Така е изпратено и послание към несъгласните учени - да си затварят устите за политически изказвания и да изпълняват заповедите на военните стриктно и само в техническите си области.
  
  Опенхаймер не е Нютон. Умът му обитава твърде много области извън чистата наука, и далеч не е научен идеалист. Опенхаймер не е и изцяло мъченик - има твърде много натрупани грехове, макар ФБР и Хувър действително да дават максимума от себе си в параноичния си тормоз и непрекъснато си шизофренно следене, за да го направят такъв. Дори не е винаги и добър човек. Но е определено умен и значим човек, неразривно показал заплетения възел между наука и военно приложение, наука и его, наука и политика, наука и свобода, наука и отговорност.
  
  ——
  Конкретната биография черпи от изобилие от архивни материали - публични или за известен период засекретени. И точно тук е големият пропуск на авторите - те често се губят из изобилието и скачат от име на име и случка на случка. Цитати има безброй - на колеги, съседи и познати, на речи на самия Опенхаймер. Но реалната личност - противоречива и достатъчно хлъзгава, какъвто е бил и маниерът му - си остава все така забулена в изпарения и мъгли. В някои моменти впечатлението ми беше, сякаш се възпроизвеждат нечии клюки, но на силно странични и неинформирани свидетели, които не са в състояние да предоставят надеждни данни. В други биографии авторите изграждат собствена интерпретация, каквато тук предимно липсва. Това, разбира се, е добре за безпристрастността, но в прекалено количество уморява, задълбавайки в несъществени детайли, само за да реферират към някой външен източник.
  
  Странна е и липсата на научни подробности. Физиката не е от лесните науки, но авторите действително всячески я избягват, което стои като голяма кръпка.
  
  Все пак информацията е интересна и достатъчно представителна, очертава нееднозначна картина на епохата, всъщност на няколко епохи. А и е написана достъпно и с достатъчно мръвки от полезни насоки за осмисляне.
  
  3,5⭐️
• 
  Chrissie

  I am in the middle of moving from one country to another, so I just do not have the time to write a decent review of this excellent, marvelous book! Please, if you are at all interested in either history or amazing people grab this book soon. On closing this book the reader truly understands the atmosphere that swallowed up America during the era of McCarthyism and the Cold War. The reader comes to understand Oppenheimer - his creativity, his imagination and his failings too. The list of the latter is long, but boy do I admire the guy! There is so much I could tell you about this man who I knew nothing about before I read this book, except his label as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb".
  
  I don't regret reading
  Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, but the two don't compare! You in no way need to read one to read the other. The first is about the bomb, the Manhattan project and spying, but this about Oppenheimer is about the person and his era.
  
  I listened to the audiobook read by Jeff Cummings. I have no complaints with the narration. Read the book or listen to it. You choose which ever suits you best. Just don't add it to one of those never-ending lists of books that you don't get around to actually reading!
• 
  Jan-Maat

  It was an interesting read and an interesting life though during the course of it I realised that Oppenheimer didn't appeal to me at all as a person.
  
  The background is interesting, particularly the role of Communism in the USA during the Popular Front period of opposition to Fascism before WWII and how that then panned out in the 1950s, ie what had been permissible came to be viewed as criminal even treacherous. Purely as a result of this Oppenheimer's younger brother ended up effectively in a form of internal exile in the USA unable to work at all in physics .
  
  Oppenheimer emerges as a competitive, ambitious figure who was perfectly willing to overlook any moral scruples to have the atomic bomb constructed and then tested. Particularly interesting was how the team involved in developing the Atom bomb campaigned to have two Japanese target towns reserved for them to test the bomb out on (there's a discussion of the cost effectiveness of the development of the atomic bomb over investment in conventional weaponry in
  The Shock of the Old that is worth looking at in this context broadly arguing that the decision to develop an atomic weapon lengthened the duration of the war by diverting resources away from producing conventional weapons ).
  
  This is also a life in science and worth reading for picture of how the new physics of the early 20th century was transmitted by Oppenheimer and others who were partially educated in Europe and then propagated those ideas in the USA in the pre-war period.
• 
  Mark

  Among the many controversies that color American history, almost none of them evoke as much passionate argument as the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. For decades people have quarreled over their necessity, with virtually every historian writing about the war compelled to declare a position on the matter. Yet few such doubts troubled people at the time when the bombs were dropped. Not only did the rudimentary opinion polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans favored their use, but the news of their successful deployment turned the man who headed the project, Robert Oppenheimer, into a national hero.
  
  Ironically, one of the few at the time who questioned the use of the bomb was Oppenheimer itself. While proud of the successful test in July 1945 of the device he spent nearly three demanding years shepherding into existence, this pride was soon tempered by the prospect of its use as a weapon of war. Confessing to the president, Harry Truman, that he felt that he had “blood on his hands,” he tried to use his newfound celebrity to influence the direction of American policymaking in the hopes of warding off an arms race that could end humanity. In less than a decade, however, Oppenheimer found himself driven from public life, forced into a melancholy exile from both physics and the corridors of power. The arc of this career is at the heart of Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s biography of the man. This approach fuels their explanation of how a brilliant, sensitive individual came to play such an important role in building an unprecedented means of destruction, and why he ended up ostracized from the very system his achievement had empowered.
  
  The authors trace the origins of Oppenheimer’s humanistic outlook to his upbringing. As the son of a wealthy textile importer and his cultured, artistically inclined wife, Robert enjoyed a privileged upbringing. Though both of his parents were of Jewish extraction, they had been married by Felix Adler, the founder of a reformist sect known as Ethical Culture, which embraced a broader, more secularly-oriented and humanist approach. As a boy Robert was educated at the Ethical Culture Society School, where he excelled academically from the start. While Oppenheimer majored in chemistry at Harvard University, after graduating summa cum laude he turned to physics and pursued graduate studies in Europe at both Cambridge University and the University of Göttingen. It was at Göttingen that Oppenheimer found himself at the heart of a pivotal moment in the development of theoretical physics, one in which he soon made a number of notable contributions himself.
  
  Upon earning his doctorate at the age of just 23 Oppenheimer returned to the United States, where he took up a position at the University of California. Once there he soon contributed markedly to the emergence of the school as a leading center for scientific study, and mentored an entire generation of promising young physicists. Oppenheimer was also increasingly drawn to support various political causes of the 1930s, particularly unionization and the fight against fascism in Europe. These brought him into association with several Communist Party members, which would create trouble for him in the decades that followed. Though Bird and Sherwin spend considerable space in the book delineating these relationships and exploring the question of whether Oppenheimer ever became a member of the party, their conclusion ultimately is an inconclusive one. In the end, only Oppenheimer could really say for certain whether or not he was a Communist.
  
  Oppenheimer’s association with Communists brought him to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and made several officials wary about employing him in the effort to develop an atomic bomb during the Second World War. Yet Oppenheimer’s early contributions to the initial investigation of the “uranium problem” were so impressive that by the late summer of 1942 he had emerged as the clear choice to run the weapons laboratory where the bomb would be designed and built. Oppenheimer grew quickly into the role, developing the administrative skills needed to harness and organize the enormous amount of scientific talent recruited to work at the Los Alamos site. Despite the toll the enormous strain took on him, success vindicated his efforts, as within two and a half years the Los Alamos team built something that was unimaginable barely a half-decade earlier.
  
  Troubled as he was by the consequences of his achievement, Oppenheimer dedicated himself after the war to promoting international control of atomic technology. These efforts were soon preempted, however, by the growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The circumstances of the emerging Cold War made Oppenheimer’s efforts to concede America’s advantage in atomic weapons particularly suspect, and the esteemed scientist increasingly found his counsel marginalized in policymaking circles. Foremost among his opponents was Lewis Strauss, a Republican and member of the newly-formed Atomic Energy Commission, who regarded Oppenheimer’s views with growing hostility. After being named as the commission’s chairman by Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 Strauss pushed to rescind Oppenheimer’s security clearance, with his efforts culminating in a series of hearings in the spring of 1954 that resulted in Oppenheimer losing his clearance the day before its expiration.
  
  Bird and Sherwin argue that Oppenheimer’s humiliation had a chilling effect on the public debate over nuclear weapons by demonstrating that not even the scientists whose work made them possible were immune from retribution when they dissented openly. And while Oppenheimer enjoyed a measure of rehabilitation in the years before his death from cancer in 1967, he remained detached from public affairs to the end of his life. It is difficult to finish this book without regret over this, as the authors’ portrait of Oppenheimer underscores the singular mixture of intellectual brilliance and wisdom that was lost as a result. The sensitivity of their depiction of their subject is just one reason why their book is such an essential read for anyone interested in this fascinating figure. Though some may bog down in their almost granular examination of Oppenheimer’s political associations, their decades of archival research and interviews with dozens of people who know Oppenheimer make this an invaluable account of his life, one that recounts in clear and accessible prose both the scope of his achievements and the tragedy of his fate.
• 
  George Kaslov

  Personally, all that I new about J. Robert Oppenheimer was his time during Project Manhattan and a few details about his show trial in 1954. This book managed to bring a lot more context to these events and show me as close it is possible the real Oppenheimer.
  
  What else can I say, this is probably the best biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer there is and together with Richard Rhodes' Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun makes the penultimate atomic trilogy.
• 
  Sarah ~

  American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - Kai Bird
  
  
  هذه سيرة الرجل الذي وصفَ بأنه: "العَالِم الذي يكتب كشاعر ويتحدث كنبي."
  سيرة غنية بالتفاصيل الدقيقة عن حياة روبرت أوبنهايمر الفيزيائي اللامع وتاريخ أمريكا من بداية القرن الماضي حتى منتصفه، والصراعات التي ماجت وقتها .
  عن نشأته وحياته ودراسته وإسهاماته في حقل الفيزياء النظرية وكونه المدير العلمي لمشروع مانهاتن لتصنيع أول سلاح نووي، وتعرضه لمضايقة المباحث الفيدرالية والتجسس عليه من قبلهم، بسبب آرائه السياسية والجمعيات المدنية التي قام بدعمها ولاحقًا بسبب آرائه الرافضة لسباق التسلح النووي وأسلحة الدمار الشامل، وكيف وجد نفسه وسط حملة شعواء في وقت تصاعدت فيه الحملة المكارثية وكان أوبنهايمر الضحية الأبرز للحملة، كما قال أحد المؤرخين: "كانت القضية في النهاية انتصارًا للمكارثية، وإن لم يتعرض له جو مكارثي شخصيًا." لكنه كان ضحية المرحلة والجو العام والضغائن الشخصية والأعداء الذين صنعهم على طول الطريق .
  سيرة فريدة عن رجل لامع ومعقد ويسمو على كل التصنيفات .
• 
  Aaron Million

  From a literary standpoint, this book was a true pleasure to read. A thorough biography of the brilliant but flawed physicist. Yet, from the view of being an American, I found it revolting. Oppenheimer, despite his propensity to be arrogant to the wrong people at the wrong times, deserved a far, far better fate than what ultimately came his way.
  
  Sherwin and Bird tell a fabulous story. At almost 600 pages, I feel like they have exhaustively covered all of Oppenheimer's life, yet not a single page was boring or unimportant. Everything they write about has a purpose - either professionally or personally - in Oppenheimer's life. His character is fully developed, his brilliance shines through on so many levels, and his mistakes are discussed in a fair way that minimizes the ones that were not costly, and maximizes the ones that proved fatal to his career.
  
  Oppenheimer was guilty of nothing worse than what all of us are guilty of: poor decisions when he was younger, and keeping questionable company. (NOTE: He did cheat on his wife, Kitty, but that is not what he was essentially on trial for in 1954.) Unfortunately, he was politically naïve and sometimes failed to grasp what others were trying to do to him. He was never a member of the Communist Party, was not a traitor, and did not pass atomic secrets to Russia or any other country.
  
  He was far to the left in the 1930s, gradually moving towards the center in the early 1940s as WWII was underway. His brother and his wife had been Communists, as had many of Oppenheimer's friends and acquaintances in California. The FBI knew this, and he was still allowed to be named Director of Los Alamos Research Lab in New Mexico to begin work on the atomic bomb. From then on, he only became more centrist politically, and drifted further and further away from any positive feelings towards Communism.
  
  Yet, he made a powerful enemy in Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Strauss truly hated Oppenheimer both personally and professionally, and went to great (read: illegal) lengths to not only get his security clearance revoked, but permanently smear his reputation and destroy him. The things that Strauss did, how he did them, that he had the FBI's help, and was also backed by the obtuse, hysterical Red-baiting craze of the time, are appalling to read about.
  
  Strauss is the main villain here, but several other people were less than upstanding individuals: Edward Teller, Ernest Lawrence, Harry Truman, J. Edgar Hoover (no surprise there), and Dwight Eisenhower, to name a few. Truman really comes across poorly: bent on being "decisive", he already has his mind made up about using the atomic bomb, and later on about moving forward with the development of the H bomb, without even listening to the scientists that he was paying to advise the government.
  
  The best parts of the book were the detailed proceedings of the security clearance "trial" in 1954, and all of the interesting anecdotes and intimate items about Oppenheimer the man. When I reached the end of the book, with him dying a painful death due to throat cancer and chemotherapy, I truly felt sorry for the man. He had devoted his life to science, and to his country, only to be stabbed in the back, harassed, professionally tarnished, and personally smeared. He looks so much better today than all of the people who tried to ruin him.
  
  Grade: A
• 
  Steve

  
  https://thebestbiographies.com/2022/0...
  
  Fascinated by the atomic age and nuclear proliferation, Martin Sherwin began working on this book in the late 1970s…eventually asking Bird for assistance bringing the project to fruition. Built on a foundation of extraordinary research, these two authors combed through thousands of once-classified documents, conducted more than 100 interviews and reconstructed seemingly contradictory historical threads in order to fully understand how Oppenheimer’s story unfolded.
  
  The resulting 591-page narrative is packed with penetrating insights into Oppenheimer’s life, the development of the world’s first atomic weapon and the government’s efforts to discredit Oppenheimer (who was accused of a variety of transgressions including being a Soviet spy).
  
  It is undeniable that J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) makes a compelling biographical subject. He was brilliant, quirky, passionate, tantalizingly multi-faceted and remarkably flawed. He was not just a gifted physicist…among other things he was an ardent fan of French and British literature, wrote poetry and learned Sanskrit in order to read ancient Hindu texts in their original form.
  
  Despite the narrative’s often detailed and occasionally complicated story-line, it is both straightforward and descriptive in an cleverly-composed way. And in many of the book’s chapters, every sentence seems to have been perfectly crafted for maximum effect.
  
  The authors never fail to fully, and often colorfully, introduce important characters and they are adept at explaining things in terms a layman (or an incautious reader) will understand – whether relating to quantum mechanics or the strengths and weaknesses of the government’s case against Oppenheimer.
  
  Excellent moments here abound. Among them: an wonderful introduction to Oppenheimer’s childhood, a skillful review of the early days of the nuclear arms race, a careful and nuanced exploration of Oppenheimer’s possible affiliation with the Communist party and a stunningly thorough (and damning) accounting of the government’s conduct during the Oppenheimer security hearings. And no one will put the book down during the penultimate chapter describing Oppenheimer’s strange, secluded life on a small Caribbean island the last years of his life.
  
  But as is often the case with fabulous biographies, the narrative is not consistently engaging…or effortless. At times it is burdened by the tedious intricacies of Oppenheimer’s life. In addition, the story occasionally loses sight of his wife and children – though never for long. And some readers will notice that Bird and Sherwin have regrettably subordinated Oppenheimer’s expertise and efforts in physics to his clumsy political activism and idiosyncratic personal life.
  
  Overall, however, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin have written what seems likely to be the definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. I have not yet read Ray Monk’s more recent “Robert Oppenheimer: His Life and Mind” so final judgment on the matter must wait. But one thing is certain: anyone looking for a compelling biography – or hoping to learn more about this extraordinarily interesting public figure – will not go wrong with this choice.
  
  Overall rating: 4½ stars
• 
  Porter Broyles

  I'm the child of the cold war. My dad was a second generation officer in United States Air Force. I graduated from High School while he was assigned to an Army Post in W. Germany in the mid 80s.
  
  I grew up knowing that Communist were not only our enemy, but anti-God, and anti-American. I remember reading about the evil USSR and East German government. I remember watching the movie "Red Dawn" at a Church Youth group event. Afterwards, the joke was "Kill a commie of mommie."
  
  As I've grown older, I have never lost the patriotic ferver with which I was raised, but I have also learned that some of ideas were misguided---this includes the vitriol with which my generation hated and feared Communists.
  
  Reading this book is pretty much an inditement against the anti-Communist/McCarthist feaver that engulfed this country for half a century.
  
  Robert "Oppie" Oppenheimer was no different than many of academics in the 1930s. After work or school, they would get together for a smoke and drink to discuss global events. Oppie, despite his being socially awkward, became a focal point for many of these discussions because of his superior intellect. Unfortunately, these social groups were seen by J Edgar Hoover's FBI as Communist fronts.
  
  Oppie's legacy would forever be intertwined with the suspicion that he was a member of the Communist Party.
  
  Much of this book explores this notion and documents the means to which the FBI went to "prove" that Oppie could not be trusted. During the War, Oppenheimer proved to be too important to the war efforts. After the war, his fame carried him.
  
  In the early 1950s and the growth of the McCarthy Era, Oppie was brought to "trial." The trial was a mockery of justice. Oppie's lawyers were not allowed to review the documents from which the prosecution quoted, this allowed the prosecutor to (mis)quote interviews or conversations that Oppie had 10-15 years earlier without knowing their veracity or accuracy. Similarly, the defense wasn't even provided with the names of the prosecutions witnesses, until they were on the stand. How can one defend oneself against a case when all the evidence is sprung on the defendant?
  
  This book really highlights the efforts that the US Government went to in order to villify Oppenheimer.
  
  For most of the book, I was thinking this would be a 5 star review.
  
  My final thoughts as I finished the book, was not on the brilliance of the story or how challenging I found the story, but wondering how many more pages I had to go?
  
  I don't mind long books. I frequently read longer books, but this one dragged at the end. I kept looking ahead to see how many more pages.
  
  Visually, the appearance didn't help---it has small font, small spacing, and small margins.
• 
  George

  "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is an outstanding biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was a fascinating individual and this book does him justice.
  
  As I was reading this biography I was struck by the parallels between Oppenheimer's life and Alan Turing's life. They had similar backgrounds, played major roles in World War Two and in the development of modern technology, led lives filled with both triumph and tragedy, and even had mysterious incidents involving a poison apple.
  
  I would love to see someone write a dual biography of Oppenheimer and Turing. I'm not sure if these two ever met in person (I hope to find out soon) but they traveled in some of the same circles (including the Institute for Advanced Study).
  
  One other thought: This book is not as detailed on the science of the development of the atomic bomb. I think a good complementary scientific book is
  The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.
  
  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in 20th Century history, nuclear war, or biographies.
  
  Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  
  Notes:
  Audiobook:
  
  Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
  Length: 26 hours and 30 minutes
  Unabridged Audiobook
  Release Date: 2007-03-28
  Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
• 
  Sketchbook

  J Robert Frankenstein : A brilliant scientist created a monster that later destroyed him. The ultimate contemporary horror story.
  
  25 years-in-the-making, this huge, lumbering volume is a mix of good-bad writing that collects a lot of facts without any context at all. Oppenheimer lost his security clearance in 1954 at the height of the McCarthy commie hysteria -- a point the authors never make, beyond one dismissive, passing sentence. That the US was riddled w Commies and Com-Symps in the 30s-40s is not a cockeyed fantasy either. Classified info was, indeed, passed by Commie spies at Los Alamos to the Russians -- another point the authors deliberately ignore. Some even went to the electric chair. In sum, the authors tell their story in a floating bubble, disconnected from the climate - the reality - of the time.
  
  Oppenheimer (father of the A-Bomb) was a kind of genius, and therefore a complicated freaky guy. His brother and sister-in-law were Commies, his soon-to-be alcoholic-bitch wife had a Commie past, many of his friends dipped into the Commie pool, along w dozens of other scientists, so...are you surprised that, though he was innocent, he aroused suspicions, when post W2, he argued that atomic info be shared...as a way of stopping the arms race?
  
  Oppie could be abrasive and rude; he offended many people, two biggies included scientist Edward Teller and the vile Lewis Strauss, chair of the AEC, who decided to ruin him for blood-sport. Like a clumsy schoolboy he even insulted Harry Truman. The authors state about 10 times that Oppie was "charismatic," three times within 5 pages...without any evidence. Oppie had acolytes as do all people of power -- and professors. Alas, the authors are unable to convey "charisma" beyond his piercing blue eyes and supreme articulation. What one remembers is that as an adolescent he once tried to poison a teacher.
  
  Oppie was dealt a terrible Chinese fortune cookie.
• 
  Clif Hostetler

  A well written biography about an interesting person. It also gives insight into the anti-communist hysteria of the early 50s.
  _______
  The above was written in 2008 in my early Goodreads.com days about a book read about a year earlier. I was just getting started in my hobby of writing book reviews.
  
  Below is the copy of a short review from PageADay's "1,000 Books to Read Before You Die" calendar for September 8, 2021:
  
  A Hamlet of the Atomic Age
  Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin are well aware of the mysteries surrounding the subject of their book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and /tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a biography of the brilliant physicist most famous for his role as director of the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb. The authors' scholarship informs our understanding of Oppenheimer's private and public lives--indeed, our understanding of 20th-century science polities, and warfare as well--without reducing their protagonist to a figure less complicated and enigmatic than he was. A vivid depiction of many of the 20th century's most telling themes, this magnificent life story is both a riveting narrative and a moving portrait pdf an individual of tempered, even tortured, nobility.
• 
  Brian

  “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Such are the lines attributed to Oppenheimer (quoting from his own translation of the Bhagavad Gita) upon viewing the explosion of the first atomic weapon. Even with such a foreboding sentiment, however, pages later Oppenheimer is not only approving the use of the bomb against Japan, he is actually involved of the selection of the targets, and displays no qualms about what he is doing. He would only find out years later that Japan had been days or weeks away from surrendering anyway, and that the desire to use the atomic weapon was more of an effort for the U.S. to flex its military muscles around the world (particularly in front of the Soviet Union), as well as to end the war before the Soviet Union could take part in the peace negotiations, thus providing a containment against the spread of communism. Despite this lack of knowledge, Oppenheimer and other scientists involved in the Manhattan Project felt various twinges of guilt afterwards, Oppenheimer’s so large that he’s reported to have said during a meeting with Truman “I feel I have blood on my hands” (to which Truman is supposed to have replied after his exit: “He thinks he has blood on HIS hands?!!”).
  
  Viewing the devastating effects of a nuclear explosion (people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki close to ground zero were vaporized on the spot) reveals the gravity of such a technological development as the nuclear bomb. Kai Bird and whoever do a good job of explaining how Oppenheimer, et al., had mixed feelings on working on the bomb, most feeling that if they didn’t do it first, Germany was certain to develop one soon. There was an enormous sentiment of patriotism, yet the scientists, naturally, were more interested in the science of it. Indeed, it seems quite a foreign sentiment in today’s world when when “anti-Americanism” is still somewhat in vogue. The biographers also do a good job also of exploring both Oppenheimer’s ethical background (his high school was particularly devoted to the subject of ethics, to add a twinge of irony), and his quasi-spiritual attachment to the place that would eventually become the testing ground for the first atomic weapons.
  
  The last half of the book deals with Oppenheimer's efforts to quell the surge of mass production of nuclear weapons, advocating for an international agency (which now exists) to regulate the use of nuclear energy and prevent further weapons development, particularly of the H-bomb (which was developed anyway). Such gestures in the late 40's and into the 50's were seen as nothing short of "un-American" by McCarthy and his cadre of anti-communist witch-hunters, and Oppenheimer quickly found himself in their crosshairs. In his young life, like many young intellectuals of the 20's and 30's, Oppenheimer had expressed an interest in Communism, and had many friends who were openly Communist, but became disillusioned with it after seeing it result in fascism. But his interest and his ties didn't help him, and the authors do a good job of describing how events of his early life would lead to trouble later. Oppenheimer did have his security clearance removed, was bugged and followed practically the rest of his life, and was shamed in front of the whole country. Many sympathized with him, however, seeing the hearings as unjust and unfair, and he became a kind of intellectual martyr, certainly ahead of his time in his vision for nuclear arms reduction and containment.
  
  Dense of detail, this is a very robust biography. While it is hard not to sympathize with Oppenheimer in plain view of the facts, it is also not hard to detect the clear bias the authors have in defending him. Thus, the objective historicism of this telling of the story is somewhat diminished. Nevertheless, the complexity and irony of Oppenheimer's life and thought comes through tremendously clearly, and the narration of events is, for the most part, rather lucid. I just found myself not as interested in this period of history (the McCarthy era) as others might be. More appealing is the development of Oppenheimer's ethical thought and intellectual pursuits, although I suppose that is more a subject of philosophy than history.
• 
  Conrad

  This book disappointed me on a few counts. First of all, its authors opted never to allow chronology to get in the way of a good story. There are all too many sentences that go something like this: "The conversation Oppie had with Chevalier that night would become very important twelve years later when, while testifying before HUAC..." etcetera. Only in the book, the spoilers are even more portentous.
  
  I would have preferred more physics and less politics. The authors, on the other hand, wanted always to refocus the reader's attention from physics to the indignities Oppenheimer suffered in the 50s (presumably because no one understands quantum mechanics). This is reasonable on the surface, but in a biography of the second most famous physicist of the 20th century, physics might be hard to avoid. Anyway, to this end, we also hear about Eisenhower being elected president before we hear about Oppie traveling to Europe to have a conversation with - wait, what's this - Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Forces Eisenhower? This doesn't happen once, but many times; instead of leaving a few threads to dangle for a little while and assuming that the reader is not so obtuse as to have forgotten them, the authors chose to leapfrog around, often needlessly. Doing so might have put the stress on Oppie's political difficulties, but those were not the most interesting parts of the book, for me, anyway.
  
  What is great about this book is the panoply of intellects and historical figures you encounter, everyone from George Kennan to Hermann Gödel to T.S. Eliot. The book also changed my opinion of Truman, who is portrayed here as an obstinate and dull man. Sometimes these people are reduced to other people's apothegms about them, but at least they're clever apothegms.
  
  One thing the book also does that is invaluable is provide a little backstory on the various military figures who were pivotal in the development and use of the bomb as well as the excesses of the anticommunist 50s. Lo and behold, the military establishment was far from univocal in these years, and there was more than enough animus between generals, joint chiefs, and the branches of the military to go around. This point is usually glossed over by other historians, who sometimes see the American military as a complex, instead of a complex. You don't get to read about the well-respected, highly decorated peaceniks in the Army (!) very often, even though they were definitely there after WWII.
• 
  Doreen Petersen

  Fascinating book!!!
• 
  LindaJ^

  While not the best written non-fiction, this book contained some fascinating history about the politics behind the production and use of the atomic bomb. While styled as a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the director of Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was developed, the book focused on the witch hunt by the FBI against Oppenheimer and the details of 1954 faux hearing that ultimately ended in Atomic Energy Hearing revoking Oppenheimer's security clearance.
  
  This was a very long book, and some incidents were told, verbatim, in more than one part of the book. The use of quotes was annoying, especially those used as chapter titles. The early life of Oppenheimer is told in detail but we get just snippets of his personal life after he marries Kitty. There is also little description of his actual duties at Los Alamos. What we learn is that he was a great facilitator of the work. He could synthesize and ask pertinent questions that helped scientists move forward. He also took steps, contrary to the wishes of the security and military people at Los Alamos, to create an environment where the scientists at Los Alamos could collaborate and discuss their individual projects.
  
  After the war, Oppenheimer served for many years as the director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton (not affiliated with the university). The book does not describe what he actually did in that role. It seems a good bit of his time, at least until his hearing, was spent consulting with the government, especially the AEC, on issues. We learn that Oppenheimer fell very much on the left side of the political scale and pre-war had many friends (including his wife to be) who were members of the Communist Party. He also contributed money to the Party and belonged to many groups considered to be "fronts" for Communist activity. This activity put him in the crosshairs of J.Edgar Hoover, and after the war, attracted the attention of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, during the height of the fear of Communism.
  
  Some of the points I was not familiar with included the angst of the scientists when the Truman decided to drop the bomb in Japan, after it was clear the war was won. Like the bombing of Dresden after Germany when it was clear that Germany would capitulate, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done after it was clear that Japan was ready to end the war. Many of the scientists who had worked hard to produce the bomb to keep Hitler from conquering Europe, were appalled at the decision to drop the bombs. Oppenheimer's position was a tough one to get a handle on. He supplied the details on how and when the bomb should be dropped, but he feared the potential arms race with the Soviets.
  
  The U.S. government does not come out looking good in this book. Due process and hearing rules were ignored during the hearing on Oppenheimer's security clearance. The special committee charged with conducting the hearing voted 2-1 to recommend withdrawal of Oppenheimer's security clearance. The chair of the AEC, a man named Straws, made sure the deck was stacked against Oppenheimer before that committee and before the AEC when it undertook to decide whether to confirm the Grey committee's recommendation. Ultimately it did, in a 4-1 vote. Straws was motivated to go after Oppenheimer because of his opposition to the development of the H-bomb.
  
  Oppenheimer was brilliant. He did not see the world in black and white terms but in shades of grey.
  Oppenheimer was one of the American citizens that J.Edgar Hoover targeted. Illegal wiretaps were constantly on his phones and agents were assigned to follow him almost 24 hours a day.
  
  On the personal side, the Oppenheimer family was truly dysfunctional. Robert and Kitty's children had tough time. Robert, although he had affairs, was devoted to Kitty, and the children suffered as a result.
  
  This was an interesting look at a important point in history. Well worth the read despite the less that good writing.
• 
  Genia Lukin

  To be honest, I had serious trouble rating this book, and I have similar trouble reviewing it.
  
  If I were rating it entirely by a subjective scale, it would probably receive a one-star rating from me, a rating which I am loathe to give, because I am not at all certain it is deserved.
  
  This book might be absolutely amazing and staggeringly interesting for someone who is genuinely curious about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer or about the Left-Right politics in America and its relations to the Communist party. The problem on my end, and it is twofold, is that, while generally curious about the life of Oppenheimer as a great scientist and the enabler, if not direct maker, of the atomic bomb, I cannot say I have ever been interested in Oppenheimer the person overmuch. Additionally, being no part of McCarthy's commissions, I really could care less whether he was or was not a member of the Communist party.
  
  For me, the biggest flaws of the book were its dry and oftentimes tedious writing, which could not get me interested in a subject I had no real empathy towards to begin with, and its constant harking back to this same matter of whether or not Oppenheimer had actually carried an ACP card.
  
  Truthfully? I don't care. It seems obvious that Oppenheimer had very left-wing political leanings, sympathised with communism and socialism but was repelled by Russia's dictatorship, and may have participated in some CCP activities. That's plenty for me about Oppie's politics, really. I don't care whether he actually ever paid dues to the party coffers, owned a little laminated card, gave it up, did not give it up, or what. The fact that he was left-wing but not a diehard communist, and with no ties to Russia, can be established in one single chapter, not discussed for the entire significant and formidable length of the biography. It's not as if the fact that he may actually have been a member of the ACP makes McCarthy's persecutions more justifiable or better, somehow!
  
  There is something wrong with a book about Oppenheimer that dedicates to the atomic bomb a fraction of the attention it devoted to his party allegiance.
  
  However, not to finish on a negative note, it's obviously a thoroughly researched work of scholarly significance, rigorous and thorough (too thorough?) and would be good for those people who care about the issues I mentioned above.
• 
  Zac Stojcevski

  So over south in the antipodes, in answer to the question, “Who was Oppenheimer ?” would elicit a response that he was some evil scientist that pushed for the making of the atom bomb. Context is key of course and the story is closer to a brilliant man and brilliant mind was able to coordinate the best minds in physics to explore the frontiers of science. However the culmination of centuries of human investigation culminated in the creation of an atom bomb to be deployed on an enemy already on its knees to prevent a multiparty treaty.
  
  When he refuses to pool his knowledge for methods of greater destruction, he is hounded as a communist and enemy of the state.
  
  Meanwhile because of a combination of his personality and the pressures his family deteriorated as did the man.
  
  The authors need to be commended for the painstaking detail of the research that has gone into this tome. They educate us to look beyond the headlines into the background, context, environment and historical positions of Oppie throughout his lifespan.
  
  His ultimate ostracism guaranteed that we would never benefit as a society from the brilliance of his mind, but that the unread would curse him and hold him responsible for unleashing la bomba atomica onto the world.
• 
  Hal Triedman

  one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. an exhaustively well-researched look at oppenheimer that raises salient and urgent questions around the intersections of american political life and nuclear policy.
  
  oppenheimer had a mammoth intellect, wrote and spoke with clarity and lucidity, and was fully aware of the world-historical nature of the drama and tragedy that surrounded his life. I appreciate the authors for recognizing that fact and often letting oppenheimer speak for himself.
• 
  Adam Ford

  As good a biography as I have read in years. A very well researched book where the author is wise enough to tell the reader when there is ambiguity in the record and smart enough to quote the actors a lot allowing the reader to make up their own mind about the events. This book deserved to win a Pulitzer Prize.
  
  A few thoughts:
  
  1. He was one weird dude as a kid and into his 20s. Very unstable, trying to poison one of his lab supervisors at Cambridge and once tried to strangle a friend. Very very unstable. Kind of reminded me of Danny Saunders, the main character from Potok's The Chosen.
  
  But by his 30s he had come through it and become one of the top American physicists and the founder of theoretical physics in America (at UC Berkeley). He went from being a troubled child and became a great man.
  
  2. The best story was very touching to me. A very bright graduate student (one of the inner circle) found an only moderately hard problem on Oppenheimer's office table among his papers and excitedly said he would like to work on it as a term paper. Oppenheimer snatched it away and pointedly said that problem was "not for you." A few days later, a PhD student who was struggling "found" the paper while he was visiting in Oppenheimer's office and Oppenheimer suggested the student work on the problem as his PhD thesis.
  
  The student graduated with the thesis and went on to have long productive career as a professor doing solid and helpful lab work in physics. The exceptionally bright Berkeley physics PhD students were going to jointly tell the guy to quit because he wasn't up to snuff before Oppenheimer made clear that he had the kid's back.
  
  3. I love biographies of great men. I have read probably hundreds of scholarly biographies. I can't recall any who were celibate or purely monogamist. None. I'm sure there is an exception out there somewhere, but great men (hetrosexual) seem biologically designed to enjoy the company of more than one woman.
  
  4. The government illegally wiretapped and placed listening devices on Oppenheimer and many others. They then used those secret wiretaps in administrative matters (things like security clearances) extensively. They weren't admissible in a Court of Law because they were illegal, but they were used extensively. The government has been breaking the law regarding privacy matters since at least J. Edgar Hoover and probably before. There is no privacy right that government respected and probably never will be.
  
  5. Oppenheimer's lawyers in the proceedings before the Atomic Energy Commission were horrible. They never should have participated in the sham court. Allowing the prosecutor to read into the record portions of transcripts that they did not have copies of is unforgivable malpractice. Agreeing to the trial without the benefit of seeing the evidence against their client (due to their not receiving security clearances) was malpractice too. Oppenheimer should have demanded that all evidence against him be given to him and his attorneys or they walk. Then they should have walked when denied. Participating gave a credibility to the proceedings that wasn't deserved.
  
  6. After decades of constant illegal surveillance by the FBI, Oppenheimer found a measure of peace on St. John, US Virgin Islands. Einstein said it best: "The problem with Robert is that he is in love with a woman that doesn't love him back." (Meaning Oppenheimer loved the US Government while the government didn't love him back.) Einstein thought that Oppenheimer should have left the US and gone to teach in Europe where he could have lived at peace and away from the crazy of Strauss and Hoover's obsessive McCarthyite campaign against him. But he never left, only retiring to St. John occasionally and there, still, on US soil. He loved the USA and remained a patriot, loyal and true, inspite of the abuse heaped upon him.
  
  7. He was rehabilitated by Kennedy and Johnson when they awarded him the Fermi Prize (Kennedy approved it, but it was awarded by Johnson after Kennedy was killed). It was too little too late. They asked him if he wanted to sit through another security clearance hearing and get his clearance reinstated, but he declined to go through another ordeal. By then he was a broken man to a great degree.
  
  8. Why he smoked his whole life is beyond me. He died of throat cancer at age 62. Far too young. Damn cancer sticks. Anyone who smokes is an idiot. I give him more of a pass due to the fuzzier knowledge we had back then. No one gets a pass today.
• 
  Ray

  At the risk of getting slammed with lots of negative votes on this review, can I offer a mild note of objection?
  
  First of all, I agree with most of the previous reviws. This is well-written, thoroughly researched, the most detailed ever produced on Op., etc. But I am unconvinced by the authors' take on the Communist issue. Nobody much is talking about this because its been a given for 40 years that McCarthy and crew were nuts or evil or both -- but... the new evidence from the Russian archives and the declassified American files have settled most all of the spy cases of the Cold War. Seems liberals and conservatives alike now all agree that the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and others WERE definitely spying for the Soviets as accused after all. So it was not all JUST paranoia and cynical political opportunism (though that may have been a motive for many of the accusers).
  
  Oppenheimer is about the only one left who history has not yet proven to have been guilty. I'm still not sure one way or the other, but what Bird and Sherwin fail to see is that Oppen.'s problems (even if he turns out to be innocent) WERE largely of his own making. He was his own worst enemy, as the book shows. The guy poisoned his tutor's apple (almost got him charged with attempted murder) for Pete's sake! Was Oppen. a communist and a spy? His brother Frank WAS a communist party (CP) member, as was Frank's wife. Oppen himself was an active member of CP-dominated teachers' union, signed lots of CP petitions, contributd financially to CP causes through Pop Folkoff, a CP functionary with ties to Soviet intelligence. He is believed to have written CP of Cal. pamphlets. FBI wiretaps of CP functionaries mentioned Oppen. as a CP member. A recently released Soviet intelligence memo referred to him as a secret CP member and friend of their cause. His wife Kitty Harrison (married 1939) was CP member.
  
  Anyway, Oppen. may not have been a spy, or a threat of spying. But he sure was less than careful in his behavior. For all this book's considerable merits, I think Bird and Sherwin downplay this fact too much.
• 
  Nancy Mills

  Very good biography of a complicated and brilliant man. The witch hunt targeting communists and anyone who had ever associated with them or expressed any sympathies, no matter how far in the past, is distressing. The idea that our own government, and our own society, can infringe on our liberties in such a way is nearly as worrisome as the oppressive regimes we oppose. After watching the Nazis destroy the lives and careers of German Jews, we turn around and treat left leaning Americans with the same prejudice. Fortunately it didn't go as far as gas chambers, but vigilance is dictated. Interestingly, at present the White Christian Male is starting to be subject to the same hatred. We never learn, do we?