Book Choice

I was among Lehigh faculty and staff members asked for book recommendations for Christmas (it is well-known that I love books), and I picked "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. As I told the person putting the recommendations together, the book "provides a fascinating portrait of ‘the father of the atomic bomb’ before, during and after his days at Los Alamos, without delving into physics. It is a sobering account of how the government cast aside scientists' misgivings for political purposes, and of how a man’s life was destroyed by McCarthyism. The book raises issues about ethics and science that remain valid today." The last few chapters, which detail the thorough and successful attempts by a few administrators and politicians to crush the man's spirit (they resented his prestige and his opposition to the hydrogen bomb in the middle of the Cold War) by revoking his security clearance in a kangaroo court full of illegal tactics are absolutely sickening. While time ultimately vindicated Oppenheimer and exposed the nobodies for what they were, there is no happy ending to this story. Particularly disturbing still is that the men involved in these blatantly extralegal proceedings were neither monsters nor clowns (McCarthy had nothing to do with the matter) and, in spite of overwhelming evidence of bias, honestly believed they were performing their duty. From pages 548-550 of the paperback edition: "One scientist had been excommunicated. But all scientists were now on notice that there could be serious consequences for those who challenged state policies. (...) Increasingly alarmed by the development of what President Eisenhower would someday call the 'military-industrial complex,' Oppenheimer had tried to use his celebrity status to question the scientific community's increasing dependency on the military. In 1954, he lost."