important for providing historical perspective. if you didn't get your answer, your question answered, the panelists will be around for briefly afterwards and want to encourage all of you to take a look at some of the literature outside, the entrance here about the important work of the american historical association. we hope. see you at the next briefing, which will be on the history of housing on november 29th on the house side of the capitol. and please join me in thinking our panel.

my name is jon kulaga. i have the privilege of serving as the president of indiana wesleyan university and as the host for this panel discussion. j. robert oppenheimer. an evolving legacy as one of the most complicated figures in history. decades may pass before historians come to some consensus about the details of oppenheimer's life and what those details mean. last summer witnessed the release of christopher nolan's oppenheimer, arguably most elaborate and most costly cinematic exploration of the academic vocation. just prior to the release of the first trailer for that film in december 2020 to the united states department, energy issued an order vacating. the 1954 atomic energy commission decision in the matter of j. robert oppenheimer. the decision that resulted in oppenheimer being stripped of

his security clearance. our panelists will grapple the status of oppenheimer's legacy in the wake of that order. the release of the film and the nature, the relationship, the scientific community shares with the federal government. our panel this evening includes three distinguished guests who, in their own ways are arguably better situated than anyone to come to grapple with those questions. first, kai bird is the director of the leon levy center for biography at the city university of new york's graduate center. the author of numerous books burden his coauthor, martin j. sherwin, won the pulitzer prize for biography in 2006 for american prometheus the triumph and tragedy of j. robert oppenheimer. nolan's film was inspired by build upon bernard sherman's magisterial account of oppenheimer's life, an account that surged back into the new york times nonfiction bestseller

list last summer. second, narayan subramanian is an advisor. the secretary of the united states department energy, an expert in sustainable energy policy. narain is an attorney by training and was tasked with this research informed the secretary of energy's 2022 order vacating the atomic energy decision in the matter of j. robert oppenheimer. third, j.d. sun is a national for the washington post. her own grandmother, chien-shiung wu, was a nuclear physicist and a at columbia university who worked on the manhattan project. jada is author of unleashing oppenheimer inside. christopher nolan's atomic age thriller, a book scheduled for release by insight editions on october 24th. at the end of our panel, you can find a qr code you can use to purchase a discounted copy of jada's book. our moderator this evening is colleague at indiana wesleyan

university, warren f rogers. warren appointed to the blanchard chair in physics in 2016. two years later. he won the american physical society for a faculty member for research in an undergraduate institution, warren conducts accelerator nuclear physics research funded by the national science foundation with indiana wesleyan students on the iwg campus at the facility of four rare isotope beams at michigan state university and at oppenheimer's own los alamos national laboratory is thus my pleasure to entrust this conversation. j. oppenheimer an evolving legacy to warrant. thank you, dr. collega, for your warm welcome and for providing us the context for our conversation this evening on the evolving legacy of robert oppenheimer. it's my honor to serve as moderator for this conversation with our distinguished guests, our evening will be guided by a series of questions posed by students at indiana wesleyan university. so we'll ahead and begin with

our first question. j. robert oppenheimer believed atomic bombs, in his words, dreadful weapons and fully understood the devastating impact they would have on a large civilian. and yet, he continued, be involved in its development. ultimately with spectacular success. when development the hydrogen bomb was later proposed debated, he strongly opposed its development use. why was his response to the development of each weapon so different? well, thank you, warren. i'll take question. thank you. i you know, i think robert oppenheimer, an extremely ambivalent. he was a scientist who knew that you could not stop doing science, that human beings are not going to be dissuaded from discovering the physical world around them. and so, you know, by 1939, decision was known and therefore he understood that, that these

there was a possibility that these that this gadget could be and neared and he feared that the german physicists were going to give it to hitler and that fascism would triumph because of atomic weaponry. so he was willing to do this in the first instance, but he was very ambivalent about it. and then when it came to the hydrogen bomb, after the he argued against its development. he argued, we didn't need bigger weapons. and in fact, he was arguing that these weapons were weapons for aggressors. they were defensive weapons. there weapons of terror. he said this explicitly in a public speech october of 45, just three months after hiroshima. so he was, you know, philosophically, extremely and ambivalent about what he had done. on the one hand, he knew it necessary. and on other hand, he understood

the human tragedy that was going to befall the victims the cities. and i'll just end this answer with an anecdote that comes right out of american prometheus i to track down and interview oppenheimer's last secretary kerry at los alamos, a woman named and wilson ma and and wilson was living in georgetown just a couple miles from my home here in washington, d.c. and she was still alive and 23. i went over and interviewed her. and at one point in the interview, she said, you know, i was walking to work one day with a neighbor and she suddenly she started muttering those poor little people, poor little people who would. and she stopped him and said, robert, what are you talking about? and he explained, well, you know, we just successfully had

the trinity test. we know the gadget works, and now it's going to be used on a japanese city because there is no military target large enough, a demonstrated and the victims are going to be women and children and old man and a city of poor little people saying about story is that when i went back and told my coauthor, martin sherwin, about this, he said, well, that's same week that he was meeting with the bombardiers who are going to be on the airplane, the enola gay. and he was instructing them at exactly what altitude to deploy to, release the weapon and at what altitude it should be exploded to have the maximum destructive. so he was his duty as the scientific director of this secret city, los alamos, to this weapon. and he was painfully of the

consequences. i think what struck me a lot about, the manhattan project, was that so many were either were jewish or they were fleeing, you know, they'd fled from europe or they were hearing stories about what was happening in nazi germany, a my grandmother's side, my grandmother, chien-shiung wu was came over from china just before the rape of nanking, which just destroyed that city and was incredibly horrible with the japanese. and i think there was some impetus among the scientists at that time for the atomic bomb that like that that they were going to prevent more destruction and more death. these were horrible weapons. they were going to prevent so much more. and you get to the hydrogen bomb, it's like you already have an incredibly destructive weapon. so why do you an even more destructive weapon?

what's what's the point? i really appreciate how the distinction between the two elevates it from a very fierce bomb to a bomb of genocide. the hydrogen bomb is really just a bomb of mass destruction, and it's hard to imagine how that would into a military strategy other than just obliteration. would you would you care speak a bit about edward teller. edward teller was was so positive. so eager to pursue that project. and he and oppenheimer see eye to eye about that. would you care to say something about their relationship and whether or not also how affected oppenheimer's attitude, the hydrogen bomb? well, yes, you know, they were colleagues. they were both quantum physicists. they knew each other before war. oppenheimer to recruit teller brought him to los alamos. but they were they were like oil and water in their personalities and in their politics.

you know, oppenheimer was a man of the left, edward teller was an immigrant from hungary. as a young man, he had witnessed communist, brief communist revolution. at the end of world war one. he was fiercely anti-communist, very conservative. and, you know, he was also a brilliant physicist. and he realized, like oppenheimer did by 1942, he understood oh, yes, of course. the atomic bomb easily built. there's no no, no physics to be learned is just an engineering problem. oppenheimer understood this to and so edward wanted to work on something more interesting, more difficult or he was trying to work on the hydrogen when they still hadn't even, you know, built and tested. yeah. is a an atomic weapon and need an atomic weapon to ignite a

hydrogen weapon. anyways, teller was very difficult, but oppenheimer were, you know, patiently put up with some evil at los alamos. but then after the war, they really had a falling out because oppenheimer wanted nothing to do with building more weapons. he is said to have remarked at one point, well, we should give los alamos back to the indians. and teller wanted to work on on more weaponry to build up a nuclear arsenal, to be able to face down the soviet empire. and he was eager to build the hydrogen and. so he he was appalled when oppenheimer clearly went out publicly against the building of the hydrogen after 1949, when the russians tested their own atomic bomb. so they they you know, they

became enemies. and edward teller testified against oppenheimer in the 1984 trial, sort of stabbing him in the back. it was it a rocky relationship? yes. yeah, yeah, yeah. i interviewed benny, who plays in the movie, and he said he sort of i think bob, he and chris had sort of figured out that he was sort of the petulant teen, the petulant guy in the back of the room throwing paper airplanes, completely bored with this project that they had going in because he really wanted to work on something else. well one of the things that strikes me about oppenheimer's experience was, and in the reading, chis and martin's very, very fine book, it's where i've learned what i know. it's very interesting that oppenheimer, with an optimism about science, people will listen to science if we have good arguments that are on scientific fact, we can make an impact in this in this

environment where science and politics are coming. and i read into it a certain naivete on his part about how well people would listen to him and how well the logic and sense he might present. and it's a relationship between science and politicians that was very complicated back then. so how can we understand complicated relationship between science and government and politics that existed the forties and fifties? ethics were not. i'm happy to take that one. when secretary jennifer granholm issued a statement last december vacating the atomic energy commission of 1954 decision to revoke dr. dr. oppenheimer security clearance, she she made it about the fact that that decision in 1954 had a chilling effect on freedom of expression within the scientific community. you very much if you read the order that that she published she emphasized the fact that as time has passed, it's become

clearer and clearer that oppenheimer's loyalty and love of country that had come clear and. my casebook among other things, have given further evidence of the procedural plot and how that theory went and the impact that had on the scientific community and one additional book that i would i would mention that really does a good job of bringing this down is a book written by two former department of energy, richard hewlett and jock hall and the theory the books called atoms war and peace where they had access. i want to state for about 30 years they had access to all the primary source materials from the manhattan project. and they published this book in 1989. and looking back at the oppenheimer hearing and, all the events that led up to that hearing and, one of the things that they emphasized in the book, in the chapter about the hearing is oppenheimer. by the time of the hearing, be

the security clearance hearing had come to represent the the austin of science in american life. and that was their quote. and he went when the energy commission were going through oppenheimer its record and whether he deserved to have a security clearance. you heard a lot of warning signs from the scientific community. it marched the american physical society put a letter. the federation of american blind to put out alert. and there were all unanimous in and saying that this is going to have a real chilling effect on on the comfortability. scientists feel with expressing opinion that go against the great with the sun. and if you do this all that the dreams that you have in federal government promoting american innovation are going to be undermined by the fact that. i just want to come works. i mean obviously you know the

national laboratory enterprises have exploded in part because of people like robert oppenheimer. and in spite of the hearing. but that being said, when you look back retrospectively, you can definitely the in the 1950s and 1960 distrust the built toward the government at large and specifically from the time. so i think the thing of the secretary has really wanted to emphasize this order came out is that this has contemporary significance today in the midst of the attacks that climate scientists are facing, that public health official and generally public intellectual are facing, the attacks generally that the country is seeing happy right now. it came clear to her that it's more important than ever for the department energy, the department that oversees the national laboratory that is at the heart of american innovation today needs to put out a very stern statement. and by as scientist and i, in

the really, really important takeaway oppenheimer story and, something worth correcting and amplifying today. thank you. now, i would just want to add, you know, this is really important point where we're a society that is drenched in technology and science, and yet we have a citizenry that is surprisingly distrust for scientists and for chiefs. and of course, we saw this as narayen just pointed out, during the pandemic was dr. anthony fauci and where his his authenticity and his is integrity was questioned and conspiracy. these theories were put out about him and you know, this is this is a terrible a weakness of our society that we seem to seemingly so these strains of anti-intellectual ism sort of

pop up every few decades. and we saw this blatantly in the mccarthy period when robert oppenheimer became, the chief celebrity victim of the mccarthy era. but this anti-intellectual ism haunts us today, is it explains why, you know, science is so distrusted. you made the same point when i when i talk to you for the book and you also linked it to climate deniers that climate change deniers, there's a lot of distrust, there's scientific evidence and you can just say, no, it's it's it's not true. i grew up in los alamos, new mexico, which is a town that would not exist. but for the military and other complex. and my my dad was is was employed there. i mean, he just retired like two weeks ago. one and so it's 75 but and he

was he's a nuclear physicist and. it is the most conservative other than the south of new mexico, which is ranchland. it's the most conservative, most republican place in, northern new mexico. and a lot that is because because republicans spend defense and democrats don't as much. so people's jobs are tied up into, you know, whether or not the government is being hawkish at the time. and i and i just i sort of remember sort of times the funding went away because of a new administration. and, you know, pink slips were being handed out. and everybody's jobs were on the line. and it's that kind of tenuous this makes it hard for. scientists want to speak up. and if you're a nuclear physicist, there's not a lot of place other than defense. there's not a lot you to be working on. and and these national labs are sort of where you can work. i think that's why my dad stayed

in the business so long, because if you love doing nuclear physics, like you subject you working in order to keep your clearance and do all that. so i kind of get why scientists feel difficulty speaking up. what i also find interesting was in oppenheimer's time, it was really people in the government in particular that were resistant to the arguments that he forwarded in in advocacy of wisdom and control. today, it's a complicated mix of, as you say, the public and the issue of science literacy, which we really, really need to address. there's a great science illiteracy out there, but it's also with politics because we it's not simply an attitude of the public, but there are there are those in politics that seize and exploit certain attitudes that also make it very frustrating for science. so and as a scientist, i can certainly relate this wonderful book by i and was turned into a movie by christopher nolan and

i. i wonder if we can take a few minutes to speak about that. for example, how reliably, in your opinion, does that movie depict oppenheimer's life work and legacy in the 20th century? and are any aspects of the film films portrayed all that deviate for the purpose of cinematic effect from historical events and impact might this film have on today's conversation about science and nuclear policy? warren again, i can start with that. you know, when you about deviations time i had some some more insight than i do but but christopher nolan only up one character there's only one composite character in this. and in a cast of about 80, he was really keen on every single person. so you have all these famous if you've seen the movie, you have all these famous people who show up for two events in, the movie. and that's because he really wanted each person be a real person. and the only the only composite

character is all. alden right. plays the senate aide who sort of volleys off of robert downey jr. louis strauss character. that's the only person is that isn't completely real. i know that. i mean they they shot in los alamos. they shot in oppenheimer's real home. they shot at fuller, which is where the scientists use. it's a big it's a they ran a giant log cabin and it's where the scientists had cafeteria. and it's also where my high school prom party happened. i was it's it's really that they were shooting there. i went a whole day and then they recreated los alamos using blueprints. they created los alamos. they recreated the trinity site using real blueprints. they found designs and photos of

the gadget. and that is painstakingly recreated. so those parts completely real in terms of oppenheimer's legacy, i think that that would might also have been after you and me waiting on that well i'm i'm eager to read your book it looks fascinating in the making of the film, and i guess it's going to be out late october. but listen, i was blown away by the film. it's you know, it's an artistic achievement cinematically. it's it's an experience to see on the big screen. but you know what? no one has done a miracle in that he's taken. this 700 plus page, very complicated biography, a very elusive and animatic man. oppenheimer. and he's transformed it into a different artistic medium and made it something else.

however in doing so, i i'm amazed that he was able to capture oppenheimer's personality and it's yeah, it's a hollywood miracle in it is really pretty faithful to the book. there are there are no historical glaring inaccuracies. there are obviously imagined conversations between einstein and oppenheimer and at the beginning of the film and at the end and once in between. and we can't we can't know what was said between these two men, but they're not conversations. so that, too, is, i think, faithful to the spirit of biography. and there's actually in of those conversations is comes straight out of the book where tells einstein that about to go down to washington this trial he's

going to be absent and and einstein says robert why are you subjecting yourself to this witch hunt why go to your sister atomic test if they don't want you you could walk away and they argue and and even this is captured briefly and in the film i think the film is a great teaching moment and and people will learn a lot of history and. it it also is something that people will argue about was the bomb necessary to end the war. how close the japanese to surrendering even these complicated historical arguments that historians will argue about forever are these even these are sort of brief. lee hinted that in a manner that invites people go and look at the history go and read some

more and and argue amongst yourself about the evidence. i will be, from a lawyer's perspective one of the fascinating things about the film how the lens through which the story's told is the security clearance proceeding, the film starts there and then it kind of a flashback and the beauty of that approach the film is, i think two things that came out of that. one is i think, the director is able to very effective capture the chaos of ensuring itself and how his entire wife would put on starting from when he went to study in europe and all the way until the present day. but the second thing that i think only the medium of a film could really effectively do, it show the parallels between the life led by robert and the preceding, and then robert downey, jr, who played both straws. how his career and and the quote

that that ringing in my ears is it's just a denial not of that that neither had you know people ranked a right to a fair approach that and that was that was kind of the theme the parallel theme i think christopher nolan was able to really bring out obviously covered it in the book. but you read a book over many weeks or months. i, i, but you know, you study their you're watching the movie and you know, in 3 hours you kind of perfectly it's almost poetic how the parallel between two story i think the movie of accurately portrays how had had a much fairer hearing that it would know. well i'm very that nolan focused on the trial this is extremely important and an important part of the story and it reminds me that when marty i were in the midst of the book, you know,

which marty spent 25 years on when i came aboard just for the last five years of the project. at one point he turned to me and he said, you know, you and i wouldn't be working on this project for so many years if it was just a story about the making of this gadget. it was just very about the father of the atomic bomb. what makes the story really just compelling and then obsessive is what to oppenheimer after world war two? you know, the fact that he is hailed as america's greatest scientist and 1945 and his image is put on the cover of time and life magazine. and then just nine years later comes the fall, the tragedy of what happened to him in this kangaroo court ending. and that's what makes the the story so human and compelling and tragic. and that's that that's that

story is what makes you turn the page, find out what happened and, why? there's there's like a few things i might suggest that people look up that are hinted at in the movie that are they're interesting. i think oppenheimer's reason for being vilified after the bomb was because he had communist associations before the war and it was really pretty common among scientists at that time to be to sort of be sympathizers. the spanish civil, to i'm i feel like i'm not the expert on but he was i thought that was a really compelling part of your book about how how many scientists really so empathy for russia during the war because they were supposed to be our allies we weren't sharing and that's sort of like you name slides like that's all it's all

tied together. i also think that there was a lot of outcry when. the film came out about not featuring what happened to the japanese people. also downwinders in new mexico in new, the two big deals were the the were homesteaders who were hispanic farmers who were on the platform of los alamos, who were sort of ticked off their lands for the manhattan and then when the bomb in alamogordo they of course didn't warn the local population they they had to keep it under wraps. and you'll hear about these people who, like a farmer, would go out if in the morning and he thought the sun rose twice. and then and then, you know, a decade later, like 19 out of 20 girls and in the local school have cancer. so that's sort of another legacy of the bomb that is interesting to look at. and, of course, the the trials

culminated in the removal oppenheimer's security clearance, which was a severe blow to somebody who had demonstrated such loyalty to the country and such devotion to the project. and when i was a graduate student, of course, the name oppenheimer or always evoked the the memory of the pain that this man and you know, we talk about his science, but he's much known for his work on the bomb and the hearings. why has it taken nearly 70 years for the u.s. government to those wrongs committed against them by the recent action taken by the u.s. secretary of energy to vacate that 1954 aec decision to revoke his security clearance? why now and how important is that action for our country going forward? now i can start with that one. so last summer there were a series of culminating events that i can also speak about. i'm sure that led secretary of energy jennifer granholm to ask

the team of people within the department energy to take a real look at at at the proceeding and at the time. last summer, there was a series of letters from all the living directors of the los alamos national laboratory, all the living of the idaho national laboratory, and then a bipartisan letter from 43 u.s. senators asking the secretary to take a second look. and it's not to say that there haven't been past efforts, past secretary of energy, to take a second look and take in all intimate the things i think really mattered here, kai, after the decision out kai in a york times in a reunion a strange history and. i think it's actually it's really apt for the circuit because really what happened here the very any drumbeat towards is not there there's no way that the department of energy in 2022 could he can you

know i said a true second look at the matter and then made a decision to vacate that 1954 decision by the atomic energy commission if there hadn't been a ridge which historical record prior to that and every attempt in the last 70 years in some way actually move the ball forward. and just to give you an example, there were a series of attempts during the obama administration, and one of the things that happened during secretary chu and also on a perjury, original mueller's tenure, there was a real effort to have them revisit the issue. and the two of them were able to declassify it by all of the transcripts from the hearing. so there was even of a record. and there's also been steady effort from the department to pass on a lot of the primary source material to the hearing, to the archives, to the historical records have also gotten bigger, even since my book in 2005 came out. so i that also helped.

and then secretary also established the oppenheimer fellows program. and in may there was an agent at the first by the secretary of energy saying, you, we wronged this individual. he was a loyal american. and with actually honor it like it's being creative. ellsberg himself. so that also helped, you know, in many ways when when the department of energy took a second look at this last year, we were very much standing on the shoulders of a lot of his high being one of them passed and marty sherwin passed his story at the department of energy and its predecessor, egypt agency, the energy research development administration and the energy commission. they have been collecting information for decades. so it was a privilege for me sitting at that time in the general counsel docket to get to go actually into the archives, read archives book, went through all the footnotes and that, you know, the secretary said, we're

going to do this. we have to do this the right way we we turned over every rock we could and we marked three years later, like i said, you know, the historical record by that we had gotten quite robust there was also a real by person push for us to do the. two particular factors that the secretary based her decision on were one something that kind of book and the movie do a tremendous job of demonstrating which is you don't even have to have a law degree to to, to see. but the way that hearing was conducted was was fundamentally flawed. we have a sense of fairness that we understand that mean the prosecution and the defense should not be having communication or contact would be arbiters of a case or a proceeding outside of the strict setting up that proceeding in what became clear and what's become clear in the historical

record page book in the movie showbiz is roger robb, one of the individuals designated present the case to revoke dr. security earlier on he was assigned before the jury even started to assess the personnel security board in reviewing the factual record so that was strike number one. strike number two is the number of conversations robb and jeff teague had with the personnel security board during a hearing outside of the normal setting of the hearing conversation that neither dr. oppenheimer or his lawyer, blake garrison, accept to, they did not know what conversations were being had on information that was shared with them in a classified setting, but would not share with dr. oppenheimer or counsel. and that the third major strike is after personnel security board hearing concludes and the personnel security board was writing their opinion. mr. robb and his team actually assisted them in both their

majority opinion as well as the dissenting opinion out of concern that the dissenting opinion was going to make the majority look really bad. the team actually would was brought in to also help rewrite that one. it would not or security board looked at that so those are three strikes just from the the hearing the personnel security board sharing it itself. the second factor was that an extraordinary decision was made for the atomic energy commission and its five commissioners themselves render a decision on a security the way the atomic energy commission regulations were set up were for the general manager. at that time. it was katie nichols who the movie, a guy with the glassed in. but matt damon at that drycleaners. so he he looms large in the movie and katie nichols, the general manager, the regulations was opposed to make the final

decision. if oppenheimer and his counsel appealed the decision of the personnel security board. one unit up happening was between the personnel security board decision which was a21 decision and the final four one decision of the atomic energy. it thought there was an additional opinion inserted in between it's almost like an appeals court. it's like in between it neither dr. oppenheimer nor is counsel had any opportunity to rebut the presented by that appeals court in this case judy nichols in between and the reason that actually matter is if you go a read the decision the majority in unit the personnel security board. i focus primarily on dr. oppenheimer is opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb at the base for why they were both pretty clear. and then if you read katie nichols's opinion which came out many years later she ships the facts to focus on dr. oppenheimer past association in

the early forties when we the bomb project first started on behalf of ieee incident as people call. and so that was a marked shift and one that neither dr. oppenheimer nor as counsel had an opportunity to rebut. the the the fact that we're emphasizing clinical attention and what was fascinating going through the the archival record on what they were actually whistleblowers within the atomic energy that were saying something here it's wrong. there were a turn at the atomic energy commission even five years later. one of the things that it found in the archives so the 45 page memo by atomic by an atomic energy commission lawyer that did have all suite of the regulation then and what happened during that. this is fundamental flawed and i am the terrifying thing. but you more or less conclude that the oppenheimer trial. but the security system of the united states it's actually on trial and that it showed grave

failures in the security. so that was fascinating. and then i will say the dissenting commissioner, henry smith, there were memos going about from him explicitly warning his fellow commissioners he did something about that. he was wrong. but neither dr. oppenheimer nor his counsel gotten to see this opinion. katie nicholl. and so ultimately the decision that the thacker jury took was based on the procedural flaws she vacated, the decision of the atomic energy commission on the basis that with it deviated from the regulations of the commission. and so, yeah, that that, that essentially is why that she ultimately made the decision last december to issue this. and it was extraordinary for secretary energy to revisit an atomic energy commission decision. but at the or the present moment live in and the heat is the sheer volume of just historical record that has built up over the last seven years made it

practically impossible for her not to render such a decision you provided a memo. would you like to walk us through the 1954 aec memo that you provide? you know, if you can not put enough, i can talk about that. so this memo that i found, the archives, i think kind of sums it up. so this memo was issued in january 1950 or a good three months before. the oppenheimer hearing only kicked off and it was a memo written to the general manager of the atomic energy commission by a staffer in and you see the atomic energy commission letterhead at the top. and it's where the stanford basically gamed out how dr. oppenheimer will respond to the allegations brought against. and it also makes it very significant confession you'll see that wait a half that there really was no new evidence. and then on the second nature of just scrolling down, there's two things that i would note here.

a point underlie that the element of surprise must be maintained. this is on official letterhead in the atomic energy commission, and it basically exposes the fact that a fair hearing not intact going in. and the second thing that is significant at the bottom of this memo is this i to lewis, the chairman of the atomic energy commission, which also demonstrates that the chairman was very well aware of what was happening behind this speech. and among the memos that i also found in the archives bed are also cited in his book talks about how the chairman himself helped handpick the personnel, security board members, as well as the attorney that would present the case, which are all really extraordinary action and also perhaps demonstrate that the chairman at that time had a lot of time on at the end or really an ax to grind. and so i'll. end there. but the memo, i think, is a

really good example of, you know, the historical record matters. archiving these things matter. and it really helped, you know, make the case that, you know, this was a hearing that was not fundamentally found by anybody, is it is it accurate that that strauss leaked fbi file warden. i can't answer that. i'm i'm not sure. but i mean, i have more. well he he got it from someone and it's clear straw's was orchestrating as this memo demonstrates, orchestrating the entire proceeding that was going to take oppenheimer down deep, rock him in his own church, in the words of edward teller. now, this is an extraordinary lytic all move. it was politically motivated. and you see this, the actions of straw's and you know, the action

by secretary jennifer granholm is really quite extraordinary. i'll illustrate this with this little story when marty and i first attempted a sort of suggests with a series of memos and letters to the government that it was timed to nullify unfair 1954 decision. we we initially went to a law firm in washington dc and persuaded them to pro-bono look into the case, review the record to see if there was any judicial avenue for nullifying that. and about three months into the their research, we got a call from one of the senior partners saying, you know, i'm sorry but one of our partners, c boyden gray has objected to our taking on this case pro bono. and so have to withdraw.

well, washington is a very small town, actually, and c boyden just happened to be the son of gordon gray, who was the chairman of the panel. the three member panel that convicted oppenheimer and stripped him of his security clearance. his son was objecting to any any notion that what his father had done was was wrong. well, see, boyden gray was a powerful lawyer in this town. he was chief counsel or white house counsel to the first president, george h.w. bush. he was a powerful rubber republican figure. and so know there was there were there was a political legacy involved that very powerful political interests, that wanted to maintain the notion that oppenheimer was justifiably convicted. and so what happened is, as narayen has pointed out, i

think, is that the archive is just overwhelmed. you know, the evidence was too strong and. over seven years after attempts, they finally know the facts prevail. so how important would you say this decision is for the country moving forward to vacate that? is it important or is it just a point in history just to correct a wrong? you think it's important for our country moving forward? i think it's very important. it sends message to scientists that if you speak out, if you become a public intellectual and try to give based on your expertise, you will you'll be respected and the government will respect your first amendment rights and. i think that's important. and it's just it sends a message to students. read about the oppenheimer case and they'll finally realize

there was indeed a last chapter that the story did not end. 1954 was his humiliation and it ended in 2022, when i could. jerry granholm vacated the decision so it you know oh share about month ago the secretary went up to los alamos it was her first trip to the national laboratory. and on a panel, charles oppenheimer, the grandson of robert oppenheimer, and she shared with the entire alamos scientific community the folks that had shown to this event booking them. and the i think that this is really for, you know, this to to vindicate the legacy of the father, the national laboratory, but really the national laboratory system of the country, our scientific enterprise at large, very much rests on the shoulders of the dr. oppenheimer.

so this decision, as she put it, should have ripple in the scientific community and can encourage scientists like you, los alamos scientist, to pick up when you disagree and when you have an opinion that we should that the public should know about it. and since you mentioned charles, i mean, it does have a profound effects for the family, like the decision had effects on that family. it's an american tragedy. and his his daughter not get a job as a translator for it's for the u.n. because of wow what happened with her father and and she ultimately took her own life. and so there's a lot there mean i would i would know more than i would but it it's sad with having another family. and what happened to again. oppenheimer very busy and postwar efforts in his advocacy of control, regulation of nuclear weapons.

how did his advocacy for cooperation in disarmament influence cold war politics within months, hiroshima and nagasaki, he was publicly speaking out against the notion that america should rely on these weapons for defense. and he crafted in 1947, along with david lilienthal, a proposal that known as the oppenheimer lilienthal, proposed for creating an international authority that, would have dahlgren rights to go and any factory, any laboratory anywhere in the world as part of an inspection regime to regulate this new technology and to make it possible to ban the atomic weapons. now, this idea was

controversial. oppenheimer strongly supported. david lilienthal of a respected member of the foreign policy establishment was on board and many other figures in and our policy establishment. but there were people criticized it as naive and impractical and during the harry truman administration it was essentially a sabotage and you know truman didn't listen to oppenheimer neither did dwight eisenhower or senate recall in the film there's this dramatic moment where oppenheimer gets a chance. come and give us a pitch to harry truman in the oval office to make the case for international controls and to make the case for not going down the road of developing more weapons and getting into an arms race with the soviet union. and before we can really make the argument, harry truman asked

them, well, dr. oppenheimer, when do think the russians are going to get the bomb? oppenheimer says, why not, sure. but soon, in the coming years, they're capable of doing it. and truman interrupts them and says, i know i. the answer to that question never. they're not capable of doing this. yeah, and of course, oppenheimer at that moment loses it completely. he realizes that the president, the united states has no understanding that there is no there are no secrets to this development of this weapon. the physics is known that any country, however small, and be able to elude these weapons and lose. and he says exactly the wrong thing to the man who made the decision to use two weapons on two japanese cities. he says, well, sir, you don't understand we have blood on our hands or i have blood on my hand. and of course the meeting ends

very quickly and truman turns to one of his aides and reported, lee says, you know, i don't want to see that scientist ever again. we're so it's it's a terrible missed opportunity, a road not taken. he knew about truman's decision to drop the bomb. and by that time, germany had already surrendered. and japan was on the brink of surrender. so i'd like to ask what was his what were his feelings and thoughts about the continuation of the project to the point of the bomb and what was accomplished by dropping the bomb on civilian populations during this point at this point in the war after germany had surrendered and japan was on the brink what was accomplished yet would you say, you know, there was a meeting in los alamos in may of 1945 called by the physicists working on the gadget, not by oppenheimer. and they wanted to discuss

exactly this question why are we working. hard to build this thing when germany is obviously defeated and? we know that the japanese are probably capable of having a bomb project and their and oppenheimer attended the meeting. he stood at the back and listened to them arguing and he stepped forward and he made the argument that niels had made to him and he first arrived in los alamos on the last day of 1943, the famous danish physicist niels baur says, robert, what is i have one question for you. is a big enough is the bomb big to end all war? now you know this is sort of this is a an intriguing argument and oppenheimer, i think, genuinely convinced of it. but it so a little bit of a naive argument by but he talked

himself into believing that if this weapon was demonstrated in this war, everyone would see how terrible it was and we would never war again. i think there's some merit to the argument that if it hadn't been, then the next war actually have been fought maybe in korea by that time the russians would have had a bomb and and bomb would not have been used we wouldn't have seen the destruction and trauma of hiroshima. it's possible the next war would have been fought by adversaries, both of whom would be armed killer weapons, so that it could have been a very dangerous scenario, have ended civilization. so this is the argument, but it's somewhat a rationalization. and i'm you know, it but he convinced and he convinced his

fellow scientists at los alamos to forge ahead it's a very complicated story. yeah. i mean we were talking earlier about the divide between science and government. and i think margaret, the movie does this really well where sort of shows that as soon as the bomb is tested and does well, then suddenly decision making is largely i mean. he's involved in some of the decision making. it's truman who decides, drop the bomb. there's this scene that everyone in the theater that i was and that talks about where harry simpson, like decides not to drop it kyoto because he and his wife they teach in their and liked it you know you know i mean and i actually had a really interesting conversation with the filmmakers. lee yeah, just like a couple of days ago about about this. i don't know why they were talking about oppenheimer, but, you know, he reminded me that, you know, the japanese attacked.

so pearl harbor and the military's needs to retaliate against the japanese was very strong. and i think we forget that in when we talk about germany was defeated it was the japanese that attacked they were also the only of the groups, you know italians germans were not interned in america. they were the only nonwhite group. and it's just sort of an interesting thought about like where the gover, you know, the military mind was taking that and they very wanted to use these two bombs on two japanese cities. after the events that led to their revoking of his security clearance and his to advocate for international control and care. would you care to comment on his career after that, after his security clearance was revoked? what were his contribution to

science, education, public policy? and how would you say he's remembered today in the scientific political communities? oppenheimer didn't do much science after world two and very little. the 54 hearing he became of a recluse, a philosopher. he wrote some essays. he gave a excuse. but he was pretty much, you know, silenced by that 54 trial. and that's summer. he went off to the caribbean on a sailing expedition. he took family to sort of escape the of publicity and he loved sailing. he discovered on that trip a little island of saint john and the virgin islands and part of the summer there with fbi agents

trailing him, fearful, fearful that a russian submarine might surface off the coast of saint john and spirit away to moscow. and ridiculous anyway, oppenheimer in love with saint john and bought a piece of property right on the beach and soon built a very smart little cabin and he spent the rest of his life every you spending probably three or four months of the year in john walking the beach barefoot, bare chested. he was, you know, almost beach bum, very isolated, seen no, it it's a sad story as william fulbright, the senator said after he died. we should remember, went on the floor of the senate and intoned that we should. what robert oppenheimer gave to

america and we should remember what we did to him. i found i found sort of the legacy of these scientists afterwards as fascinating is what they did during manhattan project. and i think, you know, oppenheimer's frank was it was a similar of parallel to him in that frank couldn't really get a job at a university because been a card carrying member the communist party or anything goly times and but he did go on he founded the exploratorium in san francisco, which is, you know, a great children's science museum. yeah, that was that an achievement, really. i kind of museum that thought children how to play with and do their own experiments and and frank know made a success of that and he had in itself become a victim my car of the era and

couldn't teach and ended up running a cattle ranch in colorado for some years before he finally got back to california and and the exploratorium. i was just going to say on that point about frank oppenheimer this past july charles oppenheimer, the grandson was able to partner the oppenheimer fellows program, though. and i mentioned or anybody or secretary had established by now there has been about six cohorts of. the oppenheimer fellows across, the national laboratory complex and it's explicitly been called a professional development program based on the fact that robert oppenheimer led manhattan project, the los alamos project in 30. but what was really beautiful was charles able to get the state and the exploratory endeavor in. you had about 100 laboratory scientists, oppenheimer, from across the national laboratory

complex, which for national directors will bear speaking at a site that the legacy of frank oppenheimer and in many ways you know it showed how the oppenheimer kind of now integrated again with you know government government i trust the national laboratory but also the legacy of frank oppenheimer lives on create a convening space for children to learn about science, get passionate about science, but also to adults to have not meeting with a fascinating conversation among laboratory scientists of what did stein look like today? what are the implications of artificial intelligence? what what can the national laboratories do better to mobilize against the climate? so all to state that the the above robert oppenheimer and frank oppenheimer large even today and i recently thought when he came to the department of energy you can't turn a corner in the building without

seeing oppenheimer start it like it imprinted somewhere in the building. sort of a different kind of legacy that that nolan taught that. christopher nolan talks to me about about oppenheimer having which is, you know, part of the reason why he wanted do this movie was that there one man, one personality really was able to make this project come together and he wasn't really good at math. he hated being in the lab you know, he well, he wasn't like a model scientist never won a nobel prize. he got bored of projects, sort of never followed up. you predicted holes and then nothing happened. you know, he did all these things, but he he had sort of a charisma and he had a way of bringing people together. and i think that that's kind of a legacy for scientists in that you don't nasa's you maybe you're not great at that. some part of your field but you can excel in another place and people's or something like that

but it really has incredible impact that yes let's select one more question. two to talk about as i think an appropriate way to close our conversation. there was. definitely a lot of fear and paranoia in the government in, the forties. and i find it very interesting as you pointed out, kai that ultimately it was his lack of support for the development of the hydrogen bomb that really ruffle the feathers of people in the government who wanted to pursue this and not as much what early on was a concern. and that is his ties with communist sympathizers, the nationalism and paranoia the 1950s affected governance. and i'd love to hear your thoughts, how it affected governance and is there any modern day lesson that we can learn from that. and in fact, there any modern day parallel that we see to the red scare, the fifties?

well, there is an obvious parallels. you know, you can explain our current divisive politics by looking at the seeds of that were planted in the mccarthy era and have now sprout in the form of donald trump when, you know, it's a direct parallel. my current project, actually, biographical project, is a biography of roy cohn. and roy cohn was chief counsel to senator joe mccarthy and actually to go after oppenheimer, subpoena him and the eisenhower administration had to send richard nixon down, the vice president, to tell roy cohn and his boss, joe mccarthy, that they had other plans they did or oppenheimer and they didn't want mccarthy to subpoena. oppenheimer in that fashion,

bring him before their committee. and, you know, roy cohn went on in the 1970s to become the lawyer to the young real estate developer in new york city named donald trump. and he taught him everything, knew about how to deal with the press, how never apologize, how to always and how to write, you know, go after your political with the big and we're living with this kind of politics roy. cohn is haunting us from his grave and it's direct line between the mccarthy era and the era trump. it's i just and you know, oppenheimer as the chief celebrity victim of the mccarthy era, is a story that, you can study to understand our current political dilemmas.

i'd like to offer each of you just a few minutes to reflect and offer us some closing remarks from your point of view about the importance of this story, the importance this historical event in the 20th century, how it impacts us today and what lessons we can learn. well, you know, i think the oppenheimer is incredibly relevant to our times. it teaches us about the danger of nuclear weapons, how to survive the atomic age that he gave us and that we'll never it will never end. we're going to always have to learn how to live with bomb and, you know, the story could still very badly. so we shouldn't too complacent about weapons they're very dangerous. secondly, we need to learn from the political saga of the mccarthy era and realize what happened to robert oppenheimer.

1954 was a travesty, and it's something that we're sort of, you know, that has poisoned current politics. and frankly, we need to learn to give scientists respect and understand the scientific, which is one of extreme annotation and searching for facts. and that's necessary because in society, global society is just drenched with science and technology and and we're on the cusp of a new scientific revolution with intelligence, biomedical breakthroughs. and we need scientists to advise us finally i think hollywood should take a big lesson from the success christopher nolan's film and and realize that they

sell a lot of popcorn by doing a serious movie they start a real biography and history and sex and enough with these pseudo superhero shows we have some real heroes to look and they should be explored on the big screen but it also comes out with a barbie movie. but i, i think i think for. i mean, i just personally learned a from from working on the on my project which about personal and v but also reading ties and a lot more about my hometown. i think the things that i took where you might not know that much about where you live or where you grew up and and it's exploring and the as storytellers, you know, there's the big right there's the there's the bomb, there's that's

like the headline and. then i think nolan did it really well where he sort of found ways in through the security hearings that there's there's other things to look at and within history and hollywood movie making there are stories women and people of color that are sort of not told throughout history and that you have to like really dig and look for like it's that it's it's a really important thing to to sort of highlight those and just because you aren't reading about them as the headline events doesn't mean that they weren't there and they were important. but note i would end on probably tipping my to jada and ty i think guide to think that they wanted they think storytelling in filmmaking matters i think a film and not just entertainment it's also an opportunity to read it evokes history that in a in a popular media to bring things back into the public. i think that it's really really

helpful. and then the second thing i would say is earlier is when i learned personally there, you know, the things that's going through the historical record and in all of that is that history matters, that the telling of history now, archiving history, it all makes a different and also being student of history allows us to learn a lot. i mean, they always say the past is prolog, but really i think there a lot at it-i just, you know, very interestingly we put together some strands from history to the present day which i think for the students that are watching this, even for the the stem students reading the history it important i think would be the beautiful thing about the oppenheimer story is he really was someone didn't just care about science science but really cared about the humanities style the poetry and

the historical value and what he was doing and many department like the department of energy which is supposed to be doing innovation and deployment of clean energy and managing the nuclear weapons arsenal. we have a lot of history to learn from it. well, we're not just doing time. we all need to understand a moment in history. we're living through and the impact we have today. and i think jada and kai for their contribution and and it's really been a pleasure to serve on i want to thank the three of you for a rich and engaging on the evolving legacy of jay robert oppenheimer. my thanks to you. kai bird coauthor with martin sherman of the pulitzer prize winning american the triumph and tragedy of jay robert oppenheimer to narayan subramanian to the secretary of u.s. department of energy and to jada yuan national correspondent for the washington post and author of the recently released