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A Life in Twilight reveals the least-known and most enigmatic period of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life, from the public humiliation he endured after the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission’s investigation into his alleged communist leanings and connections to his death in 1967. It covers Oppenheimer’s continued work as a scientist and philosopher and head of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, his often controversial public appearances, as well as parts of his private life.
What emerges is a portrait of a man who was toppled from the highest echelons of politics and society, had to see his honor and name blackened, but succeeded in maintaining his dignity and rebuilding a shattered life, although he never truly recovered from the McCarthy-inspired persecution he suffered. Previously unpublished FBI files round out the picture and cast a sinister cloud over Oppenheimer’s final years, during which he remained under occasional surveillance.
Mark Wolverton has succeeded in presenting an evenhanded and very well- researched account of a life that ended in twilight. It reads like a written version of the acclaimed film Good Night, and Good Luck, and indeed Murrow’s interview with Oppenheimer is one of the central elements of the story.
A Life in Twilight is an important exploration, not only of a prominent scientist and philosopher, but also of an unforgettable era in American history.
The man who headed America's top-secret atom-bomb program was branded a security risk in 1954 because of personal enmities, past associations with leftists and his opposition to the hydrogen bomb. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer seemed ruined. This near-worshipful biography charts Oppenheimer's comeback as liberal icon and scientific sage. Oppenheimer, writes journalist Wolverton (The Science of Superman), became a globe-trotting "philosopher-poet of science," extolling freedom of inquiry and delivering physics lectures to lay audiences that didn't understand his equations but were enraptured by "the steady gaze, the soft but powerful voice, the precisely measured gestures, the subtle facial expressions of his mind at work." He proved equally hypnotic as a political symbol. Right-wingers tried to bar him from campus speaking engagements while liberals and the scientific community championed him as a martyr to McCarthyism. Wolverton, who intersperses a rehash of Oppenheimer's rigged 1954 security hearing and reproduces documents from his ridiculous FBI surveillance file, comes down on the latter side. Filled with speeches and minor furors, Oppenheimer's third act lacks drama, but it opens a revealing window onto the intellectual climate of the cold war. 5 b&w photos. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Science writer Wolverton (The Depths of Space; The Science of Superman) brings sensitivity, insight, and convincing research to this attempt at encompassing the last 13 years of J. Robert Oppenheimer's life. While biographies of Oppenheimer are abundant, the period from the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission's investigation into the physicist's Communist leanings to his death in 1967 has rarely been examined in any depth. Wolverton's equitable treatment of the scientists, academia, government officials and agencies, and the media surrounding Oppenheimer during this time contributes to the fuller picture of this complex man and makes for excellent reading. Although the events covered occurred more than 40 years ago, the circumstances surrounding Oppenheimer's treatment by Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Atomic Energy Commission still reverberate. The science behind Oppenheimer's work and research is the backdrop here; an understanding of physics is not required to appreciate the person Oppenheimer was. Recommended for academic and public library collections.
—Margaret F. Dominy
The nuclear physicist's busy and not terribly melancholy life after his humiliating security-clearance hearing in 1954.
A national icon after World War II, extolled as father of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer (1904–67) hobnobbed with world leaders and advised presidents. He also had plenty of enemies, who finally capitalized on his reluctance to develop the hydrogen bomb and enthusiastic participation in 1930s left-wing activities to organize the 1954 hearing that revoked his security clearance. Few historians deny that the hearing was wildly unfair or that he behaved with inexplicable passivity, which made the outcome inevitable. Science writer Wolverton (The Depths of Space, 2004, etc.) emphasizes that Oppenheimer loved being at the center of power, so this rebuff delivered a crushing blow, but it had no affect on his status as an internationally respected physicist or as director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He continued to travel and write, and his lectures—on science or philosophy, never politics—attracted overflow audiences. Liberals and the liberal media supported him, but most Americans and the popular media looked on him as a suspicious character. Matters improved as anticommunist furor declined, particularly after Democrats won the 1960 election. By the '60s many prominent officials supported restoring Oppenheimer's security clearance, but this didn't happen; he refused to submit to another hearing, and the administration was reluctant to risk another controversy. Wolverton makes a good case that Oppenheimer led a satisfying life until the end. He maintained an intense concern with scientific policy and preventing nuclear war, always enjoyed arespectful audience and remained an establishment spokesman, never a gadfly like Linus Pauling or Leo Szilard. He vehemently objected to artists and historians who portrayed him as a tragic figure tormented by remorse over his role in developing the bomb.
A sympathetic account of a brilliant but enigmatic giant of 20th-century science.
Agent: Michael Psaltis/Psaltis Literary
Prelude 3
Pt. 1 The Edge of Mystery
1 The Scientist and the Reporter 13
2 The Sage of Princeton 29
3 The Price of Celebrity 43
4 The Bleak Face of Unhumanity 55
Pt. 2 A Rugged Time
5 A Great Open Windy World 71
6 The Climate of Suspicion 83
7 A Sense of Panic 95
8 Rumblings of Redemption 109
Pt. 3 A Universal Confusion
9 The Answer to Fear 127
10 The Otherness of People 141
11 A Good Augury 155
12 A Kind of Humanity 171
Pt. 4 Courage and Hope
13 Honor and Respect 189
14 Charity and Courage 203
15 Darkness and Light 219
16 The Public and the Private 233
17 Responsibility and Guilt 247
Pt. 5 The All-Encompassing Dark
18 The Sad Account 263
19 Quartet in C-sharp Minor 279
20 The Persistence of Dignity 293
Afterword and Acknowledgments 307
Notes 311
Select Bibliography 325
Index 329
Anonymous
Posted January 27, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted June 24, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
A Life in Twilight reveals the least-known and most enigmatic period of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life, from the public humiliation he endured after the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission’s investigation into his alleged communist leanings and connections to his death in 1967. It covers Oppenheimer’s continued work as a scientist and philosopher and head of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, his often controversial public appearances, as well as parts of his private life.
What emerges is a portrait of a man who was toppled from the highest echelons of politics and society, had to see his honor and name blackened, ...