Reflections on American Prometheus

Just as Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to men, J. Robert Oppenheimer “raided Mount Olympus and…brought back for man the very thunderbolts of Zeus.” For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity. 

One can see why Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s revelatory biography of one of the 20th century’s most important figures took more than two decades to complete. The book was released in 2005, and the following year received a Pulitzer Prize. This only came, however, after countless interviews with figures who knew Oppenheimer personally and those who knew him from a distance. Sherwin started the project himself in the early 1980s, gleaning from more than 50,000 dossiers, interviews, documents, reports, transcripts, letters and diaries, but it was only in 1999 that he solicited help from Kai Bird to edit his manuscript. It took another half-decade to complete.

The hours sunk into the work shine through each page, including subtle references to side characters, small interview remarks, and at some points philosophical commentary, which is natural given the nature of the subject’s (Oppenheimer’s) work. These tidbits offer a more wholesome evaluation of the man, whilst highlighting the depth of research. Moreover, despite the obvious tangents an author would be tempted to explore, American Prometheus remains remarkably succinct. The authors manage to keep the book’s focus with adroitness and tenacity, keeping only the information necessary to Oppenheimer’s story. At points reading like a novel.

With the book’s focus being the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one would expect lengthy discussions of the science at the core of his life. This, however, is not the case: no doubt for the sake of casual readers, it is Oppenheimer the person who takes centre stage, while science and maths take a back seat. This is, though, still a bold decision, given that Oppenheimer is arguably the most important scientific figure of the 20th century. Surely Sherwin and Bird will have recognised the lack of general appeal had the book delved into nitty-gritty scientific discussions.

As the book’s opening chapter reads, “In the first decade of the twentieth century, science initiated a second American revolution…Around the globe scientists were soon to be celebrated as a new kind of hero, promising to usher in a renaissance of rationality, prosperity and social meritocracy.” It is here that we meet our protagonist.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was born to a well-to-do set of parents who were first-generation Jewish-German immigrants to the United States. Much of his upbringing is characterised by a happy and, arguably, slightly cosseted existence. His parents were hard-working Jews, though this identity was one towards which Robert would feel ambivalent. He was of Jewish heritage rather than Jewish practice. Regarding his early education, he would study at the Ethical Culture School, which would instill a rounded teaching by promoting a responsible way of living.

Through his higher-education pursuits, Oppenheimer would travel to Cambridge, England; to Copenhagen, Denmark, seeking out Niels Bohr; and to Göttingen, Germany. By the time he set foot back on American soil, he had mixed, dined and been lectured by some of the world’s leading voices in quantum physics. If Einstein’s theory of relativity, developed in 1905, was the firework which set off this revolution of scientific discovery across Europe, Oppenheimer would be its encore—the final road where theoretical physics was leading. (Of course, it also served as the starting gun to something much worse.) By the time Bohr had furthered his notion of the atomic structure in the mid-1920s, the era of quantum physics was well and truly underway. It is especially here that the book finds a vivacious rhythm, detailing with great clarity this age of discovery without becoming esoteric. The opting for story over science has to be commended here, from a casual reader’s perspective.

With the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler to the German chancellorship, Oppenheimer seems to take a much more active interest in political affairs more generally. Perhaps because, while he may not have admitted it, something in Hitler’s vitriolic attacks on the German-Jewish population struck right to his core—an observation not made explicit in the book. Several years later, the same day that Oppenheimer proposed the first notion of what would become known as “black holes” in the universe, Germany invaded Poland, usurping a huge scientific discovery to the nth degree. It is between these events that the scientist becomes heavily involved with left-wing causes, and organisations that were, in the words of the FBI, “fronts for Communist activity.” Here we meet the overarching antagonist in the book.

The illegal spying conducted on Oppenheimer started in the mid-1930s, with FBI agents taking notes of licence plates outside houses and events he frequented, usually union meetings or merely discussion groups. The groups would discuss all manner of subjects, from philosophy to the Spanish Civil War, a cause to which Oppie would donate. By the time of Oppenheimer’s security hearing in 1954, which exemplified the anti-Communist mood of the nation by that time, the FBI had over 6,000 pages of information on him. This theme, along with his directorship of the Manhattan Project, becomes central to the book’s discussion and, at times, analysis of wider American society as a whole. 

With the subject matter being the creator of the atomic bomb, the discussions regarding its impact and ramifications for the future turn philosophical. How could a nation be entrusted with such deadly power? What would this mean for humanity’s survival? Such questions were debated among the community living at Los Alamos, even by the early autumn of 1944, as most could see the collapse of the Wehrmacht was imminent.

One of the most interesting points of analysis is that Oppenheimer, up until his death, was still left unconvinced as to whether the dropping of the bomb on Japan was really necessary. With Germany having surrendered in early May of 1945, discussions in Los Alamos turned to the bomb’s necessity. However, this was not up to the scientists to decide, as is shown by the book. The war in the Pacific raged on, though, with the seemingly indefatigable Japanese forces unwilling to surrender, for sacrifice for the Japanese was far more noble than surrender. Even after the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima, government officials still opted to keep the meat grinder on full blast, with surrender only arriving after Fat Man was unleashed upon Nagasaki. Yet still, with these facts, many scientists at Los Alamos, including Oppie, were left in a morass years later.

Clearly, those involved with the Manhattan Project felt that the bomb was eventually to be used on German targets, rather than Japanese. However, the German fight imploded more quickly than was expected, and the nuclear effort at Los Alamos wasn’t quick enough for that to happen. By the time the Trinity test came in July of ’45, though, billions of dollars had been spent. It had to be for something.

It’s an interesting historical what-if. Had the Japanese surrendered with Germany in May of ’45, it is doubtful that the Manhattan Project would ever have reaped its morally ambiguous harvest. As the book highlights, America’s top military officials clearly felt that the war had to end in a decisive unveiling of this immense genocidal weapon—largely to save American lives in the Pacific. But, in a skewed sense, were those involved in the bomb project “lucky” that the Japanese prevailed on?

These points of discussion become increasingly interesting the more time goes on. To the point of the worldwide nuclear proliferation that has followed, arguably, time has rendered Oppenheimer’s worries slightly futile. Yes, nuclear weapons place immense power with an aggressor, making warfare asymmetric. Though it is with nuclear proliferation that has come the mantra of “mutually assured destruction”: the notion that two superpowers cannot “win” a nuclear war, as the world they inherit is changed irrevocably, something which Oppenheimer stressed vociferously in the years after 1945.

A more obvious point is that, despite proliferation, the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki still remain the only two uses of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. The nature of warfare has changed greatly, alongside nuclear capability.

Today, the Russian fight in Ukraine, which has been dragging on longer than the First World War, is yet to see nuclear escalation. Aside from the points aforementioned, this is probably attributable to the ease of drone warfare. As both sides have come to realise, when targets become more precise and specific, why opt for nuclear weapons? The nuclear option is financially and strategically fatuous when you can manufacture huge stockpiles of drones that can destroy targets with greater precision and impact.

Then again, in the Middle-East, America engages in a war over the very prevalence of nuclear weapons in the hands of an adversary. Or an alleged prevalence, should I say. As Oppenheimer emphasised, if an aggressor has no moral qualms over their use, what does this mean for the world? While the president's war in Iran may be a huge step out of line with his campagin promises, those who vehemently object to the military action forget that for the Isalmist leadership in Iran, such weapons can be the path to a most beautiful afterlife. It's this attitude that presents the kind of danger that Oppenheimer and several other prominent scientists warned of in the wake of nuclear proliferation. These short asides regarding philosophical and historiographic analysis is handled deftly.

As previously mentioned, the book does a wonderful job of showing the level of anti-Communist hysteria that was fuelled by America's lawmakers and government officials. Oppenheimer was a target of blatant Soviet-style tactics for the very purpose of scourging Soviet influence from its society. In this sense, Oppenheimer lived a life that typified a most American one. A son of a Jewish immigrant family, who rises to be one of the most important scientists of his time, who is brought down by political affiliation. Not to say that this encapsulates America for its history; the optics of his story however, do indeed speak of a kind of triumph and tragedy most closely associated with US stories of great extremes.

In its scope, pacing, readability and analysis, American Prometheus succeeds in spades. Not only is it endlessly thrilling, but it remains a quintessential story of the American Prometheus. An utterly addictive read that is a distinctly American story.