Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma

Rating:
Summary: A very appropriate title
Review: The title of this book is an apt one. J. Robert Oppenheimer was indeed a complex personality that was difficult to understand. His accomplishments in physics are extraordinary and he is generally considered the inventor of the atomic bomb. Like so many intellectuals of the thirties, he had some ties to international Communist parties. In those days, there appeared to be only two viable political movements, communism and fascism. Many intellectuals who could not stomach fascism did some investigation into what communism had to offer. At the very least, Oppenheimer can be placed in this category, and it may be that it went even further than that. However, there is no evidence that he was ever actively involved in the communist party and this affiliation was ultimately used to strip him of his security clearance.
This tale is also a sad one and says so much about how wayward political movements can destroy people. Even with all of his problems with accusations of his flirtation with communism, the jealousy of some of his colleagues and his very inappropriate comments, there is no crack in the consensus that Oppenheimer was the father of the atomic bomb. His leadership was extraordinary, so much so that General Leslie Groves, the military man in charge of the project had no compunctions about choosing Oppenheimer to be the leader, even though Groves knew all about his ties to international communism. And yet, almost as soon as Oppenheimer was no longer needed, the questions about his past came forward. However, and that is where this book is excellent, it was as much his opposition to the much more powerful hydrogen bomb that led to the loss of his security clearance.
Oppenheimer is often put forward as an example of wretched anti-communist excesses destroying innocents. As Bernstein so correctly points out, Oppenheimer firmly believed that the sole purpose of the hydrogen bomb was to exterminate cities, and so had no real value as a tactical weapon. That opposition counted almost as much as the communist links when he was being grilled over his security clearance. It is very possible, although this is just informed speculation, that had Oppenheimer came out in favor of the building of the hydrogen bomb, he would have retained his security clearance.
While Bernstein relies on historical data to justify many of his points, he was in fact personally acquainted with the principal physicists involved in the development of nuclear weapons. This gives him a unique perspective on Oppenheimer and the circumstances of his triumph and tragedy. He explains the events very well, including those times when Oppenheimer made statements that were incredibly naïve and personally destructive.


Rating:
Summary: Insight into an enigma...
Review: Jeremy Bernstein obviously admires J. Robert Oppenheimer. This is not surprising. Almost everyone who came in contact with his sparkling intellect idolised him. In the 1930s, as a Professor at Berkeley, his students were so awestruck by him, that they could frequently be seen imitating his mannerisms. There were a few who loathed him for his high brow attitude and sharp tongue. In fact, people who met him could roughly be divided into the above two categories. However, the latter formed an exception. The result is that he is generally considered by everyone who had known him, whether it was the janitor at Los Alamos, or Nobel Laureates, as an exceptionally brilliant intellect, and one who also had acute insight into human nature and the consequences of the atomic age.
Now in this new biography, Bernstein brings his well known skills at chronicling famous scientists to bear upon this remarkable man. There have been a few biographies of him so far. Probably the one by Peter Michelmore is most compelling. (The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story)The closest that one can get to knowing him well is through his touching and insightful collection of letters, chronicled by Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner.(Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections) But almost forty years after his death in 1967, what made him tick still seems a mystery. Was it his innate charisma and the blue, innocent, harrowing glare of his eyes, or his lightning fast mind? Was it his incredible knowledge about all things intellectual, from physics to Dante to the Bhagavad Gita? Was it his mesmerising command over the English language, a mixture of spell binding and obscure words, that drew hundreds to his lectures? Or was it his role as the Hamlet and conscience of the atomic age? Certainly all these factors contributed, but Robert Oppenheimer is still not completely unraveled.
However, Bernstein makes a sincere and moving attempt to do this. He is very well qualified for the task. Over the years, he has written extremely informative and entertaining biographies of physicists. He is also a well trained physicist himself and has worked at some of the better known centres of physics in the world-Harvard, Los Alamos and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Most importantly, he worked at this famous institute at a time when Oppenheimer was its director and some of the most acclaimed scientists were flocking there to work at the frontiers of knowledge. Bernstein does not intend this book to be a biography of Oppenheimer. Instead, he says that this is 'The biographical column for the New Yorker which he never wrote.' Bernstein focuses on the main events in Oppenheimer's life which gives the reader much insight into his human nature. He begins every chapter with a curious and affectionate anecdote about his life. Like the time when the absent minded professor went on a car ride on a moonlit night with one of his female students, and then got out for a stroll and walked all the way back to his home, completely forgetting about her. Or warm recollections about the great man from some of the people who knew him the best- fellow Nobel Prize winning physicist and friend Isidor Rabi for example. The most interesting part of the book probably is the one that sheds light on Oppenheimer's tenure as director of the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the most acclaimed intellectual ivory towers in the world, where Bernstein had an opportunity to observe Oppenheimer almost daily. The stories of the odd men and women who worked there during the 1950's make entertaining reading. For example, here's a hilarious exchange between an aggressive young American mathematician (AM) and an elderly French mathematician (FM) which Bernstein overhears:

AM: Prof. Leray, do you watch any movies?
FM: Silence
AM: What about gangster movies, Prof. Leray? BANG BANG?
FM: Silence
AM: Do you have gangsters in France, Prof. Leray?
FM: Yes, but they constitute the Government.

There were many similar small anectodes in this book which I did not know. The main focus in all of this is the towering intellect at the head of the institute. Bernstein discusses the warmth behind many of the small favours that Oppenheimer did for others, and the formal notes which he sometimes used to post on the notice board ('Members are kindly requested to play touch football out of earshot of the library'). Bernstein also discusses Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing, a painful event for him and his family, and a shameful act on the part of certain members of the Government. All through the book, the author brings an honest, personal perspective to the life of this great man, one who did commit follies in his life, but which I think should be excused in light of the great positive influence he had on people around him and on science in America. In that era of distrust and bitterness, Robert Oppenheimer was a guiding light to everyone and a champion of freedom, full of insight, compassion and understanding. It is important that he be remembered in the same spirit that Einstein and Russell are remembered. Bernstein's book helps tells us why.

"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as [we] are free to ask what [we] must, free to say what [we] think, free to think what [we] will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress."

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Rating:
Summary: An involving, highly recommended biographical survey
Review: Oppenheimer: Portrait Of An Enigma is the biography of the preeminent American nuclear scientist has been a long-awaited book: Biographer Jeremy Berstein spent two years at the institute where Robert Oppenheimer was director, observed him nearly daily, and is in the perfect position to blend history with personal observation. The nuclear physicist Oppenheimer was key in creating the atomic bomb, and was a genius both scientifically and otherwise: Oppenheimer's science, background, and most of all the personal talks between biographer and scientist spice up a revealing, involving, highly recommended biographical survey.

Rating:
Summary: Interstitial Material
Review: This book has supplied insights and information which none of my readings on the topic of Oppenheimer or the Manhattan Project or Los Alamos (where I spent part of my childhood, hence the interest) has provided.

This is not a massive tome with large quantities of detail related to any one specific area of Oppenheimer's life, but provides information that tends to hold the massive amounts of data which has been written about him at a more personal level.

All in all, a readable, cogent, human book about a man whose life seems filled with contradictions and disparate interests.

Rating:
Summary: enigma is right
Review: What I found as an "enigma" after reading this book is how
other people thought that this was a good book! There is nothing
here that has not been discussed elsewhere. I would recommend "Brotherhood of the Bomb" to learn about Oppenheimer and his contemporaries.