Talk:Robert Oppenheimer

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Contents

1 Picture 2 Infobox? 3 I am death... 4 Vandalism 5 Rehabilitation 6 Chevalier incident needs clarification 7 Positron paper 8 Oppie 9 CPUSA

Picture

• That's quite a nice picture of Oppie. I think it conforms more to the general public conception of him.--Ashujo April 15, 09.58 UTC
  • But I'm reasonably sure it is not public domain. I can double-check that though. It was obviously taken by a professional photographer in the post-Los Alamos years, and so is likely anything but fair-use, which is not ideal if we have a public domain photograph that could easily substitute. --Fastfission 15:44, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• What about the profile picture from Bethe's memoirs (NAP)?--Ashujo 16:26, April 15, 2005

• • My guess is probably not. Almost all pictures of Oppenheimer from his non-Los Alamos years are held by copyrights of some sort (either by institutions, image archives, or news media). His earlier years and Los Alamos years are a bit easier, since they were taken by two national labs (and thus inelligible for copyright). And none of it is old enough to be inellible because of age. (If you find this restrictive -- I do too! But unfortunately this is how photographs are regulated under US Copyright law, which is ridiculously restrictive for historical figures. If you want to be really shocked, check out how much corbis.com charges for image use of any sort! If Wikipedia was publishing for profit, we would just buy a license and chalk it up to normal cost of business) --Fastfission 22:24, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • I've removed the images User:Kasparov has added because I'm positive that none of them are in the public domain. I've reinstated the public domain images. I don't believe any of these would qualify for fair use, either, because there ample enough public domain photographs to illustrate his life (fair use is to be used only when there is nothing else available). The pictures in question, which I have listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images, are: Image:Robert Oppenheimer-Theoretical Physicist.jpg, Image:Julius Robert Oppenheimer.jpg, and Image:Professor Oppenheimer.jpg. They are all very lovely pictures but that is because they have been taken by professional photographers (some are owned by the photographers, some are owned by photography clearing houses, etc.). --Fastfission 01:42, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Infobox?

I think that infobox is beyond ugly, and contains no more information than is already immediately viewable (name, birth and death dates, etc.). Many biographical articles do not have infoboxes, so I do not think it is a requirement in any sense. What do others think? Compare: infobox (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Oppenheimer&oldid=12389787) vs. no infobox (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Oppenheimer&oldid=12378114). Lets have an informal poll/discussion about this before making such a drastic aesthetic change. --Fastfission 14:25, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am death...

The original was misquoted as 'I am death, the destroyer of worlds.' It ought to be 'I am become death...' at least that's how I've usually seen it translated. A trifling edit.

• I was going to say the same thing...

166.20.114.10 13:47, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I've seen it as "I am become Shiva" etc

Yggdrasilsroot 14:46, 22 April 2005

• • It is usually "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," though sometimes is quoted as "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." The most authoritative source on this is this paper (http://www.aps-pub.com/proceedings/1442/Hijiya.pdf), I believe. --Fastfission 14:51, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Is it possible to lock this page to avoid the constant vandalism? Particularly while it is featured article... Gblaz

Rehabilitation

A decade later, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of rehabilitation.

'I do not think that word means what you think it means.' I don't think the word rehabilitation is appropriate here. Maybe reconciliation?

Rehabilitation was used for people who had been branded as Communists in one way or another. In JRO's case, it was the administration saying, "This person is no longer off limits, they are recognized by the government". (the awarding of the Fermi award to JRO, by the way, provoked a lot of controversy over the purpose of the award, as a number of congressmen thought it was just going to old Manhattan Project veterans and questioned whether it was worth the money) --Fastfission 14:46, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chevalier incident needs clarification

IN one section we have:

In August 1943, Oppenheimer told Manhattan Project security agents that three of his students had been solicited for nuclear secrets by a friend of his with Communist connections. When pressed on the issue in later interviews with General Groves and security agents, he identified the friend as Haakon Chevalier, a Berkeley professor of French literature. Oppenheimer would be asked for interviews related to the "Chevalier incident," and he often gave contradictory and equivocating statements, telling Groves that only one person had been actually been approached, and that that person was his brother Frank.

Later in the section about having his clearance revoked, it states he admitted to making it all up. However it is rather unclear when this happened, did he state this in the 1950s, or during the original investigation? And what is the story here, in retrospect, did Chevalier (the the "other two") get approached or not? After all, this was going on during the project.

Maury 11:11, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Part of it is I think that it is somewhat confused in general. But as I understand it, the timeline (for those who want to work on it), is:

• 1943, JRO tells MED security that 3 of his students were solicited, won't elaborate who was solicited or by whom
• Later, grilled by Groves on this, says that it was Chevalier who solicited his students, says he won't reveal who was solicited
• Later still, tells Groves in private that Frank was solicited
• At his hearing in 1954, says he made the whole thing up

The one thing I can't quite remember how it fits into everything is that I believe Chevalier is also supposed to have solicited Oppenheimer -- I can't remember exactly how that works though. If I get a chance I will try to look this all up again; it is a very confusing set of purposely contradicting stories in the first place, though, but some coherency should be able to found in its explanation... --Fastfission 14:42, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Positron paper

The added text is:

About the same time, he also wrote a paper essentially predicting the existence of the positron (which was predicted by Paul Dirac), a formulation that he however did not carry to its natural outcome, because of his skepticism about the validity of the Dirac equation.

• The preceding sentence sets the same time as the laste 30's. Do we wish to claim that JRO predicted the positron half-a-dozen years after it had been observed?

• Even if valid, the two uses of predict should be distinguished; present text suggests Oppenheimer deserved Dirac's reputation. Such a claim should be made explicitly, and explained. Septentrionalis 22:15, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You are right. I changed it to 1930- Ashujo

Oppie

I was just wondering: am I mistaken or hadn't he been called "Oppie" by his friends? Even if the former case applies, I still think he should be called "Oppie" because

1. it is cute and

2. (1) implies more familiarity to Oppenheimer for the general audience.

The text already contains a reference to his "Oppie" nickname. Use your browser's search function. And don't change the captions to silly things. --Fastfission 04:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Silly? I don't find it "silly". I think it is important for any Oppie beginner to get a grip of his personal facts before he/she starts learning Oppie's professional works. That'll facilitate the beginner's interest in Oppie. You don't think my suggestion is important? That's why you are normal -- and you'll be so for the rest of ur life :) -- Orz

His nickname is not a "personal fact" of such gravity that it belongs in the first sentence of the article. --Fastfission 20:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There you go, I put in a paragraph which explicitly states when and why he got his nickname. --Fastfission 20:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

CPUSA

Oppenheimer, so it seems, was a member of the CPUSA until 1941. Anyone interested in helping me write that portion. Nobs 02:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What's your source for that information? The article now says that he never joined. Thanks, -Willmcw 05:59, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

At best he has been called an "unofficial member" (whatever that means) of a faculty committee which had some ties to CPUSA people, but that is still pretty speculative and a source of considerable disagreement among Oppenheimer scholars. See, i.e. Gregg Herken's little page on the subject here (http://brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/documents.html) and his notes here (http://brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/authorsnotes.html), but this is still pretty much in flux as far as historical conclusions go and should not be in the article until it has settled down a bit (a number of prominent historians disagree pretty sharply with Herken), or at least proceed with some careful gloves on. --Fastfission 20:31, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The evidence is Oppenheimer was a member of the CPUSA til 1941 (joined about 1936, I beleive) To be clear, there is no suggestion he was involved in the CPUSA's "secret apparatus" which went underground about about 1932 and conducted infiltration and espionage. This is no attempt to smear the man, only setting the record straight. Nobs01 21:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Letter from Boris Merkulov to Lavrenty Beria [1] (http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=library.document&topic_id=1409&id=17221) Nobs01 22:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please take a look at the pages I linked above, they cover this in detail (specifically here (http://brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/document8.html)). Nobody trusts anything which came from Kheifitz in part because he knew his neck was on the line if he didn't report that he was recruiting people. Eventually his luck ran out and he was recalled and sent to the gulag (again). The professional historians on the subject don't take the internal NKVD memos at face value for a variety of reasons. The question as to whether Oppenheimer was officially or unofficially a Communist has not been satisified in any straightforward way. He certainly did not officially and openly join CPUSA at any point, though his younger brother Frank did as did his wife Katherine/Kitty. --Fastfission 22:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To clarify the issue, one needs to look at the money. In those days Communist party members paid dues to the party. It seems this is tried to be explained away as "donations" or some sort of humanitarian gesture (imagine that, someone being a "humanitarian benefactor" of the Communist Party). In the final analysis, we have him paying dues, and the gubmint suspending his security clearance. And it appears the gubmint likewise tried to CY their A by being a party to the myth that "he never joined", so as to avert another scandel. Nobs01 00:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Listen, whatever your "personal impressions" are on this, this is a topic of active debate among full-time academic historians who have each written lengthy books on Oppenheimer. There is no consensus on this and it has been a controversy for a number of decades. The fact that he provided funds for a number of left-wing groups, some of which were later found out to have CPUSA affiliations, does not mean he was "paying dues". The reasons he got his clearance revoked are many and did not have to do with the AEC commissioners having any evidence, besides his inconclusive FBI file, that he was a member of the party. It is telling that, despite their damnest attempts and hundreds of pages of data, the FBI could never conclusively link Oppenheimer with the CPUSA. --Fastfission 01:26, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Listen, instead of debating here, why don't those who are interested look at the two latest books about Oppie, that by Cassidy, and the one by Bird and Sherwin. Despite hundreds of files and pages collected on him by the FBI, they could never find any conclusive evidence that he was an actual member of the CP. We don't need to reiterate the Greek philosphers' philosophy of perpetually theorizing about the number of horse's teeth, instead of simply resolving the matter by looking him in the mouth :-) --Ashujo 01:26, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Clearly (a) he held views consistent with Communist doctrine (athiesm, radical non-democratic takeover of institutions etc.) (b) he supported Communist institutions with his own hard cold cash. No one denies his sympathy for the cause, in fact its worn as a badge of honor.

My personal impression again is I'm satisfied with the contortions people bend themselves into in order to justifing views, then deny the people who hold them actually are sincere. Thank you. Nobs01 19:33, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Um, alright, you can have your "personal impression" all you want (though I think it is pretty under-informed on the particulars to this one), but just don't insert it into the article. I agree with Ashujo on this one. --Fastfission 02:26, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The External from the AEC is fine. And the denials speak loud enough.Nobs01 02:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For the record let me insert Haynes & Klehr reading on the subject (paraphrased from Venona pp. 327-330):

"he had been an ardent Popular Front liberal and ally...gave generous contributions often deliverd to Isaac Folkoff...Oppie did not know just the secrets of some parts of the project; as director, he knew all the secrets, and just as soon as they came into being...up to the time he reported the Chevalier approach, he may have overlooked the conduct of others... a passivity motivated by personal and political ties to those persons.". Sins of ommission or neglect, it appears. (Although another theory states the Chevalier approach may not have been an attempt at recruitment, but part of the big shake up after Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943, and agents had to be reassigned new case officers). thx. Nobs01 21:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Again, you're not really responding to the questions up for debate. Furthermore, you've gone from asserting you had proof of party membership to now saying that he just donated money to leftist groups and resting on the "denials" to prove your point. I don't think you know much about this character and the specifics of his dealings either way, and I'm not sure why you feel compelled to keep up this silly exchange. --Fastfission 22:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, presently I am reviewing 349 persons (some named, some yet unidentified) in Venona transcripts. Oppie has not been the focus of review, and I suspect it may be 18 to 24 months before I can focus on his case. I am curious however, about the explainations and denials, particularly among living biographers familiar with the case. It seems the guy was extremely sympathetic to this anti-democratic cause, and no one denies that. I'm just confused if this is hero-worship of a dead guy or what. Nobs01 00:05, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

He was a rich guy who dated a Communist girl and cared about lofty ideals for a few years of his life during the 1930s and 1940s. Hardly a surprising case in that respect. Unlike his brother he was smart enough not to openly join the party. The question of whether he was a party member or not was a key question investigated at length by the FBI (who couldn't provide any evidence of such) and his previous affiliations led to his big security hearing which eventually left him stripped of clearances and all of that. If you read the article you can see why people have spent considerable time trying to research this. I'm certainly not hero-worshipping the guy, you're just drawing conclusions that don't reflect a lot of knowledge on the subject and you don't seem to care about nuance in the slightest. --Fastfission 05:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)