I suppose I first learned about Oppenheimer — beyond that he was the “father of the bomb” — a few years back, when I read E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.
Born into a wealthy family, he was a frail but precocious boy, pampered and socially awkward, who grew up to be an arrogant and even cruel young man — but somehow he ended up running the Manhattan Project and running it well.
The latest episode of PBS’s American Experience, The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer, gives an extremely sympathetic portrayal of his life and the infamous loss of his security clearance years after the war.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for Oppenheimer, but I’m amazed how shocked — shocked! — we’re supposed to be that the military would not trust a man who almost married one (crazy) Communist, did marry another (crazy) Communist, had a brother who was a Communist, had good friends who were Communists, including one who asked him to pass along secrets, etc., especially after the Communists had already developed an atomic bomb using technical secrets stolen from Americans.
How dare they take away his security clearance!?
Can’t we admit that both sides were reasonable? Oppenheimer knew he wasn’t handing over atomic secrets, but the military had good reason to believe he might?
Anyway, watch the whole thing yourself online.
(Hat tip à mon père.)