Oppenheimer, J. Robert

Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904–1967), physicist.Born in New York City, J. Robert Oppenheimer attended Harvard University and in 1927 received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Germany's Göttingen University where he studied with Max Born. In 1929, after lecturing at Europe's leading centers of physics, he accepted an unusual joint appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology. While teaching half‐time at Cal Tech (and seriously studying the arts, languages, and literature), he nevertheless transformed Berkeley into the top U.S. center for quantum physics. He also became friendly with members of the Communist party in northern California, married the widow of a party official, and supported causes championed by the party.

In 1942, despite opposition by security officers, General Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project, appointed Oppenheimer director of the Los Alamos laboratory responsible for designing and constructing atomic bombs. He proved an effective leader, and on 16 July 1945, the first atomic device was tested at Alamagordo, New Mexico. On 6–9 August, atomic bombs obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Transformed into a national hero, “the father of the atomic bomb,” Oppenheimer used his new‐found fame to promote the Acheson‐Lilienthal plan for the international control of atomic energy.

In 1947–1953, while directing the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he served on numerous government advisory committees and chaired the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). His former communist associations and his opposition to the hydrogen‐bomb project led in 1953 to the suspension of his security clearance—an action coordinated by Lewis L. Strauss, appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as AEC chairman. In 1954 a biased and inquisitorial AEC hearing board, while affirming Oppenheimer's loyalty, nevertheless declared him a security risk. The decision ended his career as a government adviser but made him a martyr in the eyes of many. In 1963, in a gesture of reconciliation, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Oppenheimer the prestigious Enrico Fermi Prize.
See also Acheson, Dean; Cold War; Communist Party—USA; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Atomic Bombing of; Nuclear Strategy; Nuclear Weapons; Physical Sciences; Science: From 1914 to 1945; Science: Since 1945.

Bibliography

Philip Stern , The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial, 1969.
Peter Goodchild , J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds, 1980.
Gregg Herken , Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller, 2002.

Martin J. Sherwin