Scope and Content Note
The collection of Martin Jay Sherwin (1937- ) relating to theoretical physicist and “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) spans 1910-2006, with the bulk of the collection concentrated from 1931 to 2006. The collection consists entirely of Sherwin's files relating to the writing and publishing, with Kai Bird, of their Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Oppenheimer, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The papers include interviews and oral histories, government records, articles and newspaper clippings, topical files, correspondence, photographs, and printed matter. The collection is organized in four series: Interviews and Oral Histories , Government File , Subject File , and Classified.
The interviews with Oppenheimer and his colleagues, family members, childhood and university friends, associates, students, and antagonists were compiled by Sherwin, Bird, Alice Kimball Smith, and others. Smith edited Robert Oppenheimer, Letters and Recollections, published in 1980, and Sherwin and Bird relied heavily on the interviews and correspondence she collected for their book. Interviewees include Hans A. Bethe, Haakon Chevalier, Lee A. DuBridge, Francis Fergusson, Leslie R. Groves, Paul Horgan, George F. Kennan, David Eli Lilienthal, Frank Oppenheimer, Lewis L. Strauss, and Edward Teller.
The accomplishments and controversies of Oppenheimer's government service are documented in the Government File series. The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory files relate to Oppenheimer's stint as director of the laboratory during World War II and the development there of the first atomic bombs. Also included are copies of Oppenheimer's Federal Bureau of Investigation file, spanning 1941-1975, that was released to Sherwin under the Freedom of Information Act and contains wiretap transcripts, agent reports, and statements of confidential informants. Oppenheimer's prewar political views and Communist associations during that period and controversial positions he took as an advisor on nuclear policy after the war, such as his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb and his push for the international control of atomic energy and weaponry, raised national security concerns at the FBI, the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, and congressional committees. Other FBI files pertain to Oppenheimer's brother, experimental physicist Frank Oppenheimer, and his friend, fellow professor, and alleged communist, Haakon Chevalier. FBI files also comprise part of topical files in the Subject File series on Oppenheimer's wife, Katherine P. Oppenheimer, and on an earlier fiancee, Jean Tatlock.
Concerns relating to J. Robert Oppenheimer's alleged risk to national security came to a head in 1954, when the Personnel Security Board of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission revoked his security clearance after a hearing, thus eliminating his direct influence on atomic energy and weapons policy. The security clearance hearing, Oppenheimer's service on the General Advisory Committee, and the controversy about building the hydrogen bomb are among the topics documented by the commission's material in the Government File .