J. Robert Oppenheimer dies
On February 18 1967 J.Robert Oppenheimer the father of the atomic bomb dies in Princeton New Jersey at the age of 62.An expert in quantum theory and nuclear physics he was enlisted into the fledgling U.S.atomic weapons program in 1941.
In 1942 the Manhattan Project as the program became known was greatly expanded and Oppenheimer was asked to establish and direct a secret laboratory to carry out the assignment.He chose Los Alamos a site in the New Mexico desert that he had visited earlier in life and together with some of the worlds top physicists began work on the bomb.On July 16 1945 the worlds first atomic bomb was exploded at the Trinity test site in Alamogordo New Mexico and only three weeks later the United States dropped the first of two bombs on Japan.
Over 200000 Japanese eventually perished as a result of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Oppenheimer regretted the use of the terrible weapon he had helped build and he worked with the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to win approval for international control of atomic energy.The USSR refused to support the U.S.
plan and in 1949 the Soviets successfully detonated their first atomic weapon.The loss of U.S.atomic supremacy coupled with revelations that Los Alamos scientist Klaus Fuchs had given nuclear secrets to the Soviets led President Harry S.
Truman to approve development of the hydrogen bomb.Oppenheimer strongly opposed development of the H-bomb which was theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan.On November 1 1952 the first superbomb was successfully detonated in the Pacific.In 1953 because of both his opposition to the hydrogen bomb and his admitted leftist leanings in the 1930s Oppenheimer lost his security clearance and was ousted from the AEC.
The case stirred wide controversy and many people came to his defense.After leaving the government he returned to teaching.He died in 1967.
