Closer Look at “Father of Atomic Bomb”

the communication of people with different skill sets, addressing different parts of the project, was necessary. And he did much to make that happen.

Laine Perfas: As Oppenheimer and the whole team of scientists were developing the bomb, were they aware of how it was going to be used?
Shapin: Until the defeat of Nazi Germany — or really until intelligence missions established shortly before that there was no crash program to build an atomic bomb in Germany — until that point, they were totally committed to building the bomb, because the purpose was to prevent the Germans from having sole possession of this weapon. Until that point, Los Alamos scientists were not thinking hard about what to do with this weapon — whether it would be used against Germany or whether the threat of its use would be enough. It was an enormously challenging scientific and technological problem, and they were fully engaged in making that project a success. So the moral and political agonizing about the bomb and what to do with it belongs to a brief period toward the end of the project and it involved a relatively small number of people.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany, some of the project scientists thought that there was no need to drop the bomb on Japan, that there might be an off-shore demonstration, or that Japan might be clearly told that the bomb existed and what it could do, but Oppenheimer did little or nothing to help them. Nor is it clear that Oppenheimer could have done much to influence the use of the bomb. He had scientific authority but no significant political power. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military and political decisions. And it is clear — despite the agonizing — that many leading scientists wanted to see not just whether the bomb worked — the Trinity test established that it did — but what it could achieve as a strategic weapon. I think it’s fair to say that there were degrees of ambivalence in Oppenheimer’s own attitude.

Laine Perfas: Do you feel that Oppenheimer’s leadership was ultimately what brought about the atom bomb?
Shapin: No, I don’t — not because Oppenheimer didn’t and someone else did, but because you can’t sensibly talk about a project of this complexity and size and ascribe its success to an individual. I think that’s a point of principle. You might sensibly say that forms of industrial organization and huge expenditures of money built the bomb. But no one is going to see that movie. Forms of industrial organization don’t have steely blue eyes or charisma or moral anxiety.

Laine Perfas: So what is Oppenheimer’s legacy to the scientific community?
Shapin: That’s an interesting point. Oppenheimer did not have a Nobel Prize; other project physicists did. After the war, he wrote only a few scientific papers. If he had not been scientific director at Los Alamos, would Oppenheimer have had a Nobel Prize-winning career in physics? Possibly not. Would many biographies have been written about him? Probably not. Would he have had a platform as a post-war cultural commentator and would his views have been listened to? Possibly not. Would we all be going to see a movie about the man? Certainly not. Gen. Groves could easily have selected someone else to be scientific director of Los Alamos. If he had, what would Oppenheimer have become? What, if anything, would we be thinking about him?

Laine Perfas: Some people loved him. Some people hated him. What do you think, given what you’ve learned about him over the years?
Shapin: I think great scientific leaders, like great political leaders, are made partly by what they bring to the table and partly by circumstance. We tend to overvalue the role of innate individuality and undervalue the role of accident, circumstance, and, especially, of other people in making what we regard as a unique personality. Still, accident, circumstance, dramatic conventions, the work of historians, and many other considerations have, over the years, surrounded Oppenheimer with an aura, and made him fascinating. That’s a fact about Oppenheimer, but also a fact about us. We have used the figure of Oppenheimer as a way to think about science and morality, science and politics, science and religion, science and philosophy, about the role of the intellectual in modern society. He’s become an icon. And, if not him, who else would it be?

Samantha Laine Perfas is a Harvard Staff Writer. This article is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University’s official newspaper.