Customer Reviews

Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller

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Gregg Herken's Brotherhood of the Bomb manages to overcome the most common obstacle with history books--it makes the subjects and the events come alive. Herken had access to The Smithsonian Archieves as well as interviews with the primary sources involved in the creation of the bomb. The book is a fair balanced account of the difficult personalities and politics that went into the creation of the first nuclear bomb and the later more powerful "super". Only two other books has been this impressive (both by Richard Rhodes)and exhaustive. Herken's book has the advantage of additional resources.

The personalities and egos of Oppenheimer, Teller and Lawrence contributed to the rise and downfall of each man. Oppenheimer's eventual ethical objections to the development of the super came as much from his personal beliefs as it did his distaste for Teller's ideas. Teller became a hawk regarding nuclear policy and, ultimately, his opinions on Oppenheimer contributed to his loss of his security clearence. Lawrence was as driven as both men and largely apolitical until politics and science intersected.

Herken's book is a fascinating portrait of the players and time that helped shape the modern world.

Herken has written a wonderful account of the United States's programs to develop an atomic bomb during World War II and to build an H-bomb during the 1950s. But beyond chronicling scientific and technological developments, the book explores the world of American politics and government and how it was influencing the physics side of things. More importantly to the work's argument, however, Herken also delves into the scientists personal lives--their friendships, their hobbies, their activities. To that end, he focuses on three:

--Ernest Orlando Lawrence, the driven, imperious, South Dakotan who directed the Rad(iation) Lab at Berkeley and created--ruled, some would say--a "cyclotron republic" there

--Edward Teller, the temperamental Hungarian emigre who fled to the United States from Communists in his native land and from Nazis in Germany, and who, to the exclusion of almost everything else, pursued the H-bomb at Los Alamos and then at Livermore (an interesting anecdote describes how, at the Trinity test, he stunned his companions by putting on suntan lotion, gloves, and welder's glasses)

--J. Robert "Oppie" Oppenheimer (according to Herken, the "J" stands for nothing; other sources have it as "Julius"), the introspective director of the Manhattan Project with an affinity for Eastern religions and leftist, even Communist, causes

These three figure prominently in the tale which begins at Berkeley in the 1930s, where the great physicists of the day began to coalesce. World War II took most of them to Los Alamos in some way or another, although Lawrence's work was mostly at the Rad Lab developing ways of enriching uranium. By the end of the war, splits were beginning to appear as the scientists became more aware of the political and moral implications of their work. While Oppenheimer became something of a celebrity in the nation at large and served as an advisor to a handful of government commissions and committees, Lawrence fervently lobbied for government funding for bigger and faster cyclotrons, and Teller ever more energetically pursued his Super.

Oppenheimer, who had been loosely affiliated with the Communist Party in the late 1930s, had been under FBI scrutiny--including wiretaps of his phone--ever since he became director at Los Alamos and gained a security clearance then only at Leslie Groves' insistence. In the mid-1950s, as the penetration of the bomb project came to light, and in the wake of the McCarthy hearings, and after Oppenheimer had voiced his opposition to the Super, the physicist's political leanings began to concern government officials. Hearings were held, which included somewhat ambiguous though negative testimony from Teller, and Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked.

Of course, this is just the briefest of summaries. Other books, notably and admirably Rhodes', have detailed both bomb programs, but Herken's adds depth to the stories by focusing on the personal relationships between the scientists and demonstrating how they impacted events. Loyalty was important. But loyalty to what? Friends? Family? Science? The government? Politics? Ideology? Humanity? More often that not, it was a combination--"tangled loyalties," as Herken calls it. And the end result was often ill will or resentment; disagreements over the ends of science often boiled over into broken friendships, or into political conflict.

These men loom large in modern history. They were giants of nuclear physics as well as of their time. But they were human, too--flawed giants. "Physicists have known sin," said Robert Oppenheimer. In response, some years later, Edward Teller wrote, "Physicists have known power." No two statements better capture the status of physics (and physicists) in the world--and the differences separating these two men.

This is a wonderful book about one of the most controversial developments of the last century: the development of the atomic and then hydrogen bombs. At the core of the book are the three scientists - Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller - who had the greatest impact, both from the technical problems they confronted and from the political points of view they advocated. Though a bit rarified in terms of general interest as it focuses on science advisors, this for me was a fascinating recounting of the decisions that led to the arms race and eventually cost $5.5 trillion and produced 120,000 nuclear weapons. It also evokes with great eloquence the domestic repercussions of the cold war and paranoia of the 1950s.

Herken writes well, though at times his style was strange for me. For example, one person evaluated a speech with a "gimlet eye." (I had to look that up.) Nonetheless, Herken's writing is dramatic and fast paced, far far better than I would normally expect from an American academic.

Recommended with enthusiasm.

"Brotherhood of the Bomb" is very good for its first hundred pages as it details the early careers of physicists Ernest Lawrence, Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller. Thereafter, the book gets a little too fact-laden and turgid, but it is still a worthwhile book to make your way through. The author strives for, and mostly achieves, an objective account of the scientific and political controversies surrounding Robert Oppenheimer.

The book is good in that it gives recognition to Lawrence as a pioneering atomic energy physicist and assigns only secondary roles to Oppenheimer and Teller in the early part of the book. The charismatic Oppenheimer, however, received the assignment of leading the team that built the first atomic bomb -- although General Leslie Groves, decidely uncharismatic, was really the man who managed the multi-faceted project and deserves at least equal credit with the scientists. Teller, also decidely uncharismatic, later managed the hydrogen bomb project and was a prominent voice in the scientific community until the 1980s.

The fascination of all the science is enhanced by Oppie's politics and the eventual denial of a security clearance for him to work for the U.S. government. The author describes Oppie's many leftist and Communist friends and contacts -- as investigated by the FBI and military security -- in great detail. In most accounts, Teller is the dastardly villain who declines to recommend Oppie for a renewal of his security clearance -- and Oppie forever after will be a hero to those who see this as a vast injustice. I hardly think it was all that big a deal. Oppie didn't go to jail, he didn't lose his job, he wasn't disgraced in the scientific community -- if anything his reputation and fame were enhanced. All that happened to Oppie was that he was denied the opportunity to work on bigger and better bombs within the US government.

Teller, in one divergent view, was the man of conscience who expressed his view and will be forever punished for it. While I would be surprised to learn that Oppie was a spy, rational people could certainly believe that he was a potential security threat; many of his closest associates and relatives were Communists and his past political behavior had been reckless for a man entrusted with the most sensitive secrets of the U.S. government. As the old saw goes, you are judged by the company you keep -- and nobody in his right mind would have shared atomic secrets with many of Oppie's friends. (The Teller vs Oppenheimer controversy will undoubtedly continue through the ages.)

If you like this book, you might also look at Richard Rhodes' two monumental volumes on the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs.

Smallchief

I've always found the subject of America's quest to build the atomic bomb to be one of history's most fascinating subjects. There are few things that have changed the course of world events more than the Allied victory in WWII and the onset of the nuclear age.

A number of years ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Los Alamos, New Mexico, and spent half a day at the museum near the lab that detailed the development of the bomb.

That's why I was excited to see this new book about Lawrence, Teller and Oppenheimer and quickly sat down to read it. Now that I've finished it, I don't think I know much more about what happened than I did before picking up the book.

Sure, there are some fascinating passages about the scientists and their relationships with one another, but there is very little actual information on what happened. Part of the problem is that the book is so clumsily written that it is too hard to follow. The writer alternates between writing about the development of the bomb and writing about quest to prove Oppenheimer's loyalty and subequently fails to include enough substance on either subject. To give you an idea, the actual detonation of the first atomic bomb in White Sands is given only a few pages. Subsequent tests are barely mentioned at all.

Thankfully, the writer covers the issue of Soviet espionage and the questionable behavior of the Oppenheimer brothers but even that discussion seems to have the proper context.

I'll give it two stars because of my interest in the subject matter but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

In this well written book that draws on recently declassified US and Soviet sources, Herken draw a picture of the transition from research to high stakes nuclear policy. He uses the lives of three key physicists, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Teller, to explore the complex issues of applying the new knowledge about atomic power to first creating an atomic bomb, and later to the intense debate about whether a hydrogen bomb should be created.

In choosing three scientists with very different temperaments, Herken describes not only the chronology of events from the mid 30's to the 60's, but can look at the fascinating intersection of how personal experiences contribute to the shape of history.

I was personally fascinated by Oppenheimer, who was affiliated with left wing and Communist organizations in the 30's, but did a stellar job of driving the research that led to the atomic bomb. The book describes how various government agencies had him and his colleagues under surveillance throughout the war, and into the 50's. I found this fascinating. Far more repulsive was how innuendo and carefully excerpted materials were used to paint him as a possible spy during the 50's Communist witch hunts.

For me, Oppenheimer's was the saddest story; using his reluctance to create the H-bomb as "proof" that he was a Soviet sympathizer is one of the dark moments of American history. The story of a man with a conscience about the consequences of his actions, against a backdrop of huge pressures to compete against the Soviet arms program, is the stuff of tragedy.

The portraits of the scientists are well drawn, and their differing motivations become clearer as they become older.

You don't need to be a physicist yourself to read this... The science is explained succinctly, with enough detail to be satisfying to the lay person. It might be slightly disappointing to someone deeply familiar with physics.

The focus is on how personality and politics shaped one of the most critical policies of the second half of the twentieth century: the American nuclear policy.

This is the story of the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb and the brotherhood of men whose genius created the bomb. While the story is very interesting, the text is difficult to read. The book has excellent photographs of the period which are just amazing to see. The book has over 80 pages of notes and looks like some kind of legal paper.

This book was very fascinating and fun to read. The book is very informative and interesting about the development of "the Bomb", and beyond. The book goes into vast detail about Ernest Lawrence, Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller; especially Ernest Lawrence. The book starts in about 1939 with Ernest's invention of the cyclotron, and ends in the early 1960's with the Limited Test-Ban treaty. Besides talking about the relationships between the three physicists, which is very interesting, the book also talks about a lot of the small people involved in the production of the first fission weapon. What I think is cool, is the information given on Robert Oppenheimer from the FBI. The book also sends a lot of time discussing Edward Teller's interest and development of the Hydrogen Bomb. Although it does give some information about the nuclear testing we have done, it would be better if the Author discussed this more. Overall, I enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in the history and development of nuclear weapons.

Despite a prose style I find to be rather dry (as if the author believes that responsible history must be informational in tone as well as content), Herken's story of the American nuclear weapons program's early years does succeed in giving us the key players in the drama before, during, and after Los Alamos in all their gloriously flawed humanness. Teller is seen as the uncomfortably single-minded father of the hydrogen bomb, planning and plotting that weapon even before Little Man and Fat Boy were produced, calling the atomic bomb a mere engineering project in comparison to the "Super." Lawrence is the organizer and initiator, fostering bigger and bigger cyclotrons and recruiting more and more scientists and technicians ("the boys") for his pet project. And then there's Oppenheimer, most brilliant and egoistic of all, whose nonchalant inattention seems to have been as great a factor in his fall from grace as his political leanings in the years before the war. In the exceptional feature film that could be made from this story, the substance of this book would serve a screenwriter well. However, since Herken's prose possesses more flatness of tone than enthusiasm, it would not be wise to attempt to translate its style to film. Viewers would likely nod off.

A new take and prospective on the men who brought about the creation of the Atom Bomb. What they did and didn't know, about the effects that would change all of their lives. Not just the main characters, but all the un-named assistants, who later died from the effects of the making of the elements of the bomb.