Headscratchers / Oppenheimer

• Why is Oppenheimer remembered as the "father" of the atomic bomb, when it seems that many others contributed?
  • Essentially he was the civilian/scientific face of the project. Whilst obviously an incredible genius he didn't actually invent the atomic bomb, that was more of a group effort. Oppenheimer's strengths were his skills as a coordinator, mentor and mediator between the various scientists and the military. He was also extremely innovative, in the film he is referred to as the "King of the Improvisers". For instance refining uranium required vast amounts of copper which was in extremely short supply in wartime America as it was used to manufacture brass for munitions. So the Manhattan Project borrowed millions of dollars worth of silver bullion from the US Mint and utilised this instead (this lead to the legend of "Teller's Treasure", that the now radioactive silver was buried in the desert to cool off but due to the devastation caused by the later H-bomb tests the exact location was lost and it was never recovered). Oppenheimer was always uncomfortable with the title whilst Edward Teller revelled in being called "The Father of the H-bomb".

• How did people with such obvious security problems get into the top secret Manhattan Project?
  • Because it was a race against time with the Germans who were developing their own bomb and it was considered worth the risk. In reality it turned out German research was years behind the Allies (partly due to Allied sabotage, partly because of their own infighting and refusal to accept contributions of Jewish scientists), but given the circumstances the Allies were understandably unwilling to take that chance.
  • Classic case of Bunny-Ears Lawyer; when you're developing something as crazy as an atomic weapon and are doing it in a time crunch, you really need all the talent you can get, even the weird ones.

• What really happened to Oppenheimer's lover Jean?
  • Unknown, her death was written off as a suicide and despite numerous conspiracy theories there is nothing to suggest otherwise.

• What was so bad about Oppenheimer losing his security clearance?
  • Because without the clearance, he would not be able to steer the nuclear program in a direction that would limit the risk of wholesale nuclear war. Because he was denied the clearance, Teller took over, hydrogen bombs were made, and the world got to enjoy several close calls (such as the Cuban Missile Crisis) with nuclear annihilation.
  • On a personal level, if the United States government does not consider you trustworthy enough to work on projects related to national security, that is damaging on both a reputational level (since it heavily implies you are untrustworthy, especially in an incredibly paranoid time like the 1950s) and a career level (since many institutions will not consider you trustworthy enough to work for them, and may be prevented from employing you anyway depending on any connections or involvement they have in government projects).

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