American Prometheus by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin (Review)
When I heard Christopher Nolan was directing a film version of American Prometheus, I thought it was time to move the book version to the top of my reading list. I remembered very little of Robert Oppenheimer beyond knowing of his work on the Manhattan Project. Fortunately, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin provided excellent insight on an individual who was both fascinating and complex.
Reading a variety of biographies helps illuminate how selective America tends to be on the historical figures it remembers and celebrates. Robert Oppenheimer is a fine example of this reality in that he was widely celebrated during his ascent and life before largely being forced into ignominious exile in the latter years of his life. The authors of American Prometheus not only laid out the personal reasons for Oppenheimer’s exile but the historical and cultural context that led to his Promethean fall.
Oppenheimer first appeared on the scientific scene at age twelve, when he began writing geologists in NYC. One geologist did not realize his age and invited him to join the New York Geology Society and give a lecture to the group. He accepted and spoke before a surprised and delighted audience. His prodigious talents continued to attract attention, but he was largely known as an exceptional mind with social skills that were awkward at best.
His early years added an interesting storyline while learning about Oppenheimer’s transformation from a socially inept wunderkind into a brilliant and charismatic leader. The description of Oppenheimer in his youth was nearly unimaginable as someone who could lead others. But Oppenheimer’s effort to improve—one example being his earliest flailing as a lecturer into a dynamic teacher—shows that a person need not simply accept the challenges of understanding and interacting with people. A person may not become a charismatic leader, but it is not required that awkward people need to accept remaining ill-at-ease with others.
Another fascinating realization is that Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, yet a significant number of his students and colleagues did. Consider this excerpt: “‘He was an idea man,’ recalled Melba Phillips [Oppenheimer’s first doctoral student], He never did any great physics, but look at all the lovely ideas he worked out with his students.’” Oppenheimer jumped from idea to idea in a wide variety of fields, many of which led to awards and recognition for his students.
Noble winner, Dr. Isidor Rabi, served as a contrast to Oppenheimer: “In the rarified world of physics, Rabi would come to be regarded as the deep thinker and Oppenheimer as the great synthesizer.” The two described their friendship and mutual respect in a way that illustrates the importance of the people in your circle. The best people will bring out your best and supplement your weaknesses. Oppenheimer took on his weaknesses and repeatedly overcame them. This trait should not be surprising when thinking about Oppenheimer’s philosophy on discipline.
Oppenheimer once wrote the following in a letter to his brother: “I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces.“ I find his focus on discipline interesting because it seems like a virtue so often minimized today. For Oppenheimer, his disciplined approach helped him put his great mind to remarkable use.
While Bird and Sherwin presented Oppenheimer and physics in interesting and accessible ways, they also addressed the trends in national politics, university campuses, labor parties, California (where Oppenheimer largely made his home), and the political left as a whole. The authors connected these ideas well to the Great Depression and the effect the era had on so many people. It gave helpful context for Oppenheimer’s later life in exile. While Oppenheimer’s politics were closely aligned with the Communist Party, there was not enough connection to the party for the FBI’s case to stand strongly against Oppenheimer. As the authors concluded, Oppenheimer was most accurately a New Deal liberal who supported the labor movement.
Oppenheimer was happy to give up his union activities and affiliations with the Communist Party in order to beat the Nazis. Oppenheimer’s communist sympathies nearly kept him out of the Manhattan Project, but the historical record suggests that the military and government decision-makers concluded that they could not stop Oppenheimer from figuring out the process for deploying fission in bomb form, so it was only prudent to bring him into the project.
When General Leslie Groves chose Oppenheimer as director of the Manhattan Project, it was not obvious that he would be the choice and there was distinct opposition at multiple levels. The hesitancy included his work as a theorist rather than an experimentalist. Oppenheimer’s politics and total absence of administrative experience made him an unlikely choice. This idea of change is supported by the early participants of Los Alamos. His team was struck by Oppenheimer’s disinterest in the mundane and lack of administrative skills. Yet the same skeptics attested to Oppenheimer’s capacity for change and growth as a leader.
Before American Prometheus, I had not considered the fact that the atomic bomb was developed for Germany and that it was not a given that we would use the bomb on Japan. I also did not know about our secrecy toward the Soviet Union in relation to the bomb. One wonders if the Cold War and arms race could have been avoided with greater trust in our allies. Relatedly, the decades of trouble with the USSR is all the more interesting given that it lined up precisely with Oppenheimer’s predictions on the Soviet arms race. The United States operated arrogantly in presuming that the rest of the world would be incapable of producing its own nuclear weapons. Once the Soviets figured it out, the arms race spiraled.
Similarly remarkable is the memo by George Kennan, former ambassador to the Soviet Union. His overview and understanding of the U.S.S.R. and how disarmament could thaw tensions was spot-on accurate, years before the United States took any such action. Kennan was the only public official to argue against using the atomic program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
The conflict between Oppenheimer and Admiral Lewis Strauss is terribly sad in how it turned out for both men. As one of Strauss’s fellow Atomic Energy Commissioners noted, “If you disagree with Lewis about anything, he assumes you're just a fool at first. But if you go on disagreeing with him. he concludes you must be a traitor.” This trait led to Oppenheimer’s ouster from respectable society and Strauss’s ouster from government service because he made so many enemies during his time in D.C.
The relationship between Strauss and Oppenheimer came to a head during the Atomic Energy Commission’s hearing against Oppenheimer’s security clearance was the type of sham trial you’d ironically expect in the Soviet Union rather than the United States. The absence of rights and general fairness during the AEC hearing to Oppenheimer shows the extent that McCarthyism plagued D.C. in the 1950s.
Once Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, his reputation in the United States tumbled in a way that would have been unfathomable earlier in his life. It was a sad conclusion to a remarkable career and one that was brought down by petty fearmongers rather than anything Oppenheimer did. It is a real-life example of Harvey Dent’s famous quote, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Needless to say, it will be fascinating to see what Christopher Nolan does with the biography of an individual who lived a life undoubtedly worthy of Hollywood treatment. In the meantime, I highly recommend Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s excellent book, American Prometheus.
