Talk:J. Robert Oppenheimer

Citations needed for the assertion that he did not contribute much to the Manhattan Project beyond management and that he associated with communists, as well as about the relativity stuff.--John 13:22, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Sources would be nice.

This article is about as extreme an example of spin as I can imagine, but it looks to me like facts seen in a funhouse mirror... but facts.

The association with Communists is true enough, I think; Jean Tatlock in particular. That can probably be sourced to Findings and Recommendations of the Personnel Security Board in the Matter of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. I don't think Oppenheimer denied associating with Communists. The security report says

Dr. Oppenheimer in his testimony before this Board admitted having associated with Jean Tatlock from 1936 until 1943. He stated that he saw her only rarely between 1939 and 1943, but admitted that the association was intimate. He admitted having seen Jean Tatlock under most intimate circumstances in June or July of 1943, during the time when he was Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, and admitted that he knew she had been a Communist and that there was not any reason for him to believe that she was not at that time still a Communist. He named several Communists, Communist functionaries or Communist sympathizers whom he had met through Jean Tatlock, or as a result of his association with her.

I assume that that Oppenheimer really did say what the report says he said.

"high-level manager" is interesting, too. It's been a while since I've read a biography of Oppenheimer, but I would have thought "charismatic leader who was able to recruit stellar scientific talent through scientists' personal confidence in him" and "kept a herd of independent-minded academics focussed, on track, and got them to actually deliver working weapons, unlike Heisenberg in Germany" would be more like it. But "did little of the theoretical or actual experimental work" sounds reasonable. Dpbsmith 14:21, 5 March 2007 (EST)