The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (Hardcover)

~ Priscilla McMillan (Author) "ON THE MORNING of April 12, 1954, readers of the New York Times woke to startling news..." (more)
Key Phrases: thermonuclear program, radiation implosion, unlimited destructive power, Los Alamos, United States, Robert Oppenheimer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harvard historian McMillan (Marina and Lee) focuses on the nine-year span in the late 1940s and early '50s when Oppenheimer, who had spearheaded the development of the atom bomb, was transformed from a hero into an alleged security risk, accused of spying for the Soviets. In light of the outstanding new biography American Prometheus and other recent scholarship on Oppenheimer, this account doesn't transform our perception of the man or the case, but it does fill in background on the anti-Communist agitators inside and outside the federal government, such as Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss, who conspired to "destroy Oppenheimer and make [Edward] Teller the leader of the scientific community" because of the latter's enthusiasm for (and Oppenheimer's doubts about) developing the hydrogen bomb. McMillan makes Teller one of the chief villains, dwelling on his contentious relations with other atomic researchers and underlining her contempt for his role in creating a massive, "superfluous" nuclear arsenal. The idealistic claim that Oppenheimer could have slowed or prevented the arms race through sheer force of personality is less convincing. Still, this is a damning record of the "travesty of justice" perpetrated through the smear campaign against Oppenheimer. (July 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The revoking of Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance, which caused his dismissal from the National Security Council and effectively ended his influence in the shaping of U.S. nuclear policy, constituted a tragic last act in the career of the father of the atomic bomb. Harvard professor McMillan offers a meticulously detailed account of the trial and the McCarthy-era shenanigans that surrounded it. Much of this story has been told before, most recently in Bird and Sherwin's definitive biography of Oppenheimer, American Prometheus (2005), but McMillan digs deeper, providing more evidence of the double--dealing by Oppenheimer's nemesis, security council member and McCarthy ally Lewis Strauss, and by rival physicist Edward Teller. She also argues persuasively that, had Oppenheimer remained on the council, he might have prevented the full-scale escalation of the arms race. Unfortunately, the security hearing makes for much less compelling reading than the human story of Oppenheimer himself, told so effectively in American Prometheus. Still, this account provides rich supplementary reading for those with an intense interest in the beginnings of the atomic age. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st ed edition (July 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670034223
• ISBN-13: 978-0670034222
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,010,855 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Man of Great Strengths and Great Weaknesses, August 1, 2005

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In studying Oppie I am reminded of the old saying about 'Gods too have feet of clay.' Oppie was a man of great talents, and some characteristics that I don't know if could be called great failures or not.

This book concentrates on the 1949 to 1955 period. These were the McCarthy years, when rumor, accusations, and the red scare. World War II was over, the Soviets, under Stalin had imposed the iron curtain. And it had become clear that communist spies in England and the United States had delivered the secrets of the atomic bomb to them.

As you might guess from the title, this book is very pro Oppenheimer. She blames Air Force officials, anti-Communist politicians, and competing scientists, particularily Edward Teller for seizing control of the U.S. nuclear policy and building ever more deadly weapons. Her telling of what happened is clear. Her philosophical tone is a bit more questionable.

She asks: Could development of the H-bomb have been averted? -- As a physicist I'll answer - No! It could be done (they thought at the time and were right), it would have been too intriguing a scientific question to let it pass. If not exactly at that time, then it would have been later. And considering the political situation at the time, no question that it would have been done.

She is very good about Oppie's weaknesses. After making an emotional appeal to Truman, Truman is rumored to have said, 'don't let that cry baby back into my office.'

There's a question I've always wondered, she doesn't answer it, I don't know that there is an answer. After the loss of his security clearance his influence on science policy was over. He became the director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. He thought and wrote about the problems of intellectual ethics, morality, and the most advanced subjects in physics. Was he as happy doing this as he had been in the public eye?

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars MIddling, definitely not the first book you should read on Oppenheimer, July 11, 2006

By	Kylo Ginsberg (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer : and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (Hardcover)

This is the third book in a row I've read on Oppenheimer (and related subjects), and this one is middling. The subject of this book is "the people and events that led to the destruction of J Robert Oppenheimer," although one of the book's flaws is that it isn't as focussed as that statement from the introduction might have it. For one thing, it's simply a given in the book that he was "destroyed" or "ruined" and yet there's scarcely a page or two about Oppenheimer the man or about Oppenheimer the man's reactions to his security clearance hearing. It's a pity too, because he's such a fascinating personality and compelling character that it would be interesting to learn more about him, personally or professionally. (I haven't read it yet, but the Kai Bird biography might be the trick here.)

What the book is more closely about is precisely the 1954 security clearance hearing, although McMillan spends about the first half of the book winding up to the subject in roundabout ways. She clearly has done her homework and has stories to tell, but she gets caught in the middle often: for example, when she goes into some depth on Teller and his contributions to the H-bomb, she appears to be digressing to slap Teller around if her real focus is the Oppenheimer security hearing, but on the other hand she doesn't go into enough depth if her purpose is to analyze the post-war community of (thermo-)nuclear bomb research.

Also, the book needed an editor to pick up the places where she repeats vignettes or quotes that she related 50 pages earlier; this unfortunately makes the book come off slapdash at times, although I think it was actually meticulously researched (no doubt just squeezed out under deadline). And, stylistically, the book's general methodical, dry tone (suitable to the material) is occasionally punctuated by McMillan's outrage with melodramatic chapter endings like: "the vast arsenal of superfluous nuclear weaponry that curses us today." My heart is with her, but she compromises the book with unbalanced rhetoric like this every 20 pages or so. One almost feels that she just couldn't stand being sober any more and has to yell out.

So the book has a number of failings, yes, but it's still largely readable and it makes an excellent supplement to more consequential books. I would certainly start with the like of Gregg Herken's The Brotherhood of the Bomb before reading this one. But coming to this book after Herken's, it does a nice job of filling in some of the gaps by virtue of a narrower focus and a number of authorial interviews providing little insights here and there. Not a must read by a long stretch, but not a waste of time for sufficiently interested readers.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scientist in controversy, February 24, 2007

By	James Hoogerwerf (Auburn, AL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (Paperback)

Robert Oppenheimer led the country's World War II Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, but America's nuclear monopoly was short lived. Only four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviets exploded their own device. An internal debate ensued within the Atomic Energy Commission's General Advisory Council (GAC) which was largely responsible for United States nuclear policy, chaired by Oppenheimer, on the merits of pursuing a hydrogen bomb. This debate occurred behind the scene and out of the public spotlight. Indeed the news of the Soviet accomplishment was delayed while President Truman determined its impact. Then not only did Truman overrule the GAC he "bound them to secrecy at a moment when they urged the public be more fully informed" (56) stifling any opportunity for an open public debate on a major national security issue.

At its "Halloween meeting" the GAC voted 8-0 to recommend the hydrogen bomb not be developed. McMillan explains how this opinion, the decision of scientists, diverged into a full-fledged developmental program comparable to the Manhattan project notwithstanding the reality of the bomb's destructive power. It is McMillan's contention that had the scientists, who knew the potential destructive power of the hydrogen bomb and who advocated a nuclear freeze, been able to keep control away from politicians, the arms race, hallmark of the Cold War, could have been averted.

McMillan argues "Oppenheimer "believed in international control, but he did not know how to get there [because] he was the possessor of a divided mind and extraordinarily divided emotions."(60) His personality prevented him from making a more forceful case against the "Super," as Edward Teller's design was known. One thing led to another and "the decision to produce the H-bomb enshrined secrecy and made the cold war a way of life...."(61) The urgency was heightened with the advent of the Korean War.

The war also had implications affecting Oppenheimer and his relations with the Air Force. Big bombs were preferred to defend Europe but smaller tactical weapons were needed in Asia where there existed few large targets. Atomic weapons seemed to promise "'the greatest possible gain in minimum time'"(91) reducing the need for a larger bomb. But Stan Ulam and Edward Teller developed the concept of "radiation implosion," which revived thermonuclear possibilities and led to the creation of a second (Livermore) laboratory in California diluting Oppenheimer's authority.

Oppenheimer's past affiliations with the Communist Party, Edward Teller's ambitions, and fellow GAC member Lewis Strauss' Machiavellian maneuvering, Soviet ambitions, Air Force militarism, McCarthy' red baiting, admitted espionage, and the war in Korea, combined to shunt Oppenheimer aside. In McMillan's treatise Oppenheimer, given his faults, is seen as a sympathetic figure that could have changed the course of history. However McMillan's bias is palpable: "Livermore and Los Alamos created the vast arsenal of superfluous nuclear weaponry that curses us today." (135) Nonetheless her contention that Oppenheimer was hung out to dry is well documented. Whether he could have averted the arms race is more speculative but her point that the shift away from scientific to political ownership of scientific knowledge is important to understanding the arms race. Ironically Robert Oppenheimer, the hero of nuclear development and long subjected to illegal scrutiny by the FBI, loses his security clearance though no one knows as many secrets as he does.