61 years ago, at half past eight in the evening of April 29, 1962, former US President John F Kennedy smiling broadly, accompanied by his wife Jacqueline, descended a staircase and walked towards the East Room of the White House in Washington DC. By 1962, the United States of America could gloriously claim that there were 76 Americans who had won the Nobel Prize and 23 percent of all Nobel recipients were Americans. That night, 49 Nobel laureates, along with Pulitzer Prize winners, noted actors and Poet Laureates assembled at the White House for a special “brains dinner”. These women and men represented some of America’s greatest scientists, writers, scholars, thinkers, and peacemakers. There had never been such an exclusive meeting of American intellectuals at the White House.
President Kennedy, also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, reflected the gravitas, glamour, and graciousness of the time, and the historical gathering of scientific and literary figures at his home held great significance for him. Dressed in the formal black-tie attire, the six-foot-one-inch-tall handsome Kennedy was basking in his diplomatic achievements and the promise of a limitless future for his country. The convocation of the nation’s top minds also symbolised the truly forward-looking America. Among others, the President exchanged greetings with the 88-year-old poet, Robert Frost, author Pearl S Buck, African-American writer, James Baldwin, two-time Academy award-winning actor Fredric March, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, Lester Pearson, and Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling who would be awarded his second Nobel Prize later that year. The extraordinary collection of talent gathered at the White House included the national hero Astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
The First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, dressed in an Oleg Cassini-designed gown had returned from her two-week-long goodwill visit to India in March. She was besieged for autographs even by celebrities and asked about her trip to India. The first lady said, “It’s been a dream.” President Kennedy commenced the program with one of his most memorable remarks, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” As the 127 guests were served the first course prepared by Rene Verdon, the executive chef at the White House, a tall thin man with deep blue eyes and grey hair puffing on his ubiquitous pipe took his designated seat with the “who’s who” at the table of Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the attorney general Bobby Kennedy. The place card in calligraphy on that important table number 11 read — Dr J Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer, who was part of that historic setting of the State Dining Room, was an amazingly gifted man who led a bizarrely dramatic life. Unique in the scientific and academic world, Oppenheimer’s elitist and upper-class Manhattan upbringing, ownership of a rare European art collection, love for sailing, and fluency in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit had always attracted adulation. A Time magazine interview with his schoolmaster Herbert Winslow Smith revealed, “At 15, it was immediately obvious that this thin, gangling boy was a genius, and, in fact, his mind is so tremendous that it makes you really uneasy.” After he graduated from Harvard in just three years and earned a doctorate from the University of Gottingen at 23, he trained an entire generation of top American physicists at Cal Tech and Berkeley in the 1930s. He was popularly known as the erudite professor who had Picasso and Van Gogh’s “Enclosed Field with Rising Sun,” displayed at his well-appointed home, drove an expensive car, and regularly dined with his favorite students at upscale San Francisco restaurants. He also always picked up the tab.
The brilliant physicist’s leadership of the Los Alamos team led to the detonation of the ‘gadget’ in the desolate New Mexico desert and ended the six-year global war within one month. Among the nation’s most articulate scientists and hotly sought-after public speaker, Oppenheimer regularly quoted writers and poets in his popular addresses. Broadcaster Eric Severeid described him as “the scientist who writes like a poet and speaks like a prophet”, and his picture had appeared on the covers of Life and Time magazines. An internationally recognised celebrity, Oppenheimer had been made the officer of the Legion of Honor in France and elected as a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society. David Lilienthal, the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said, “He is the only authentic genius I know” and Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, added that the two greatest minds he had ever met were Lord J. M. Keynes and Robert Oppenheimer.
Nominated numerous times for the Nobel Prize, Oppenheimer still in his early 40s could have effortlessly stood among the great immortals of nuclear physics. However, in the post-war period, he could not reconcile with the fact that humankind had to forever live under the shadow of radioactive extinction. At the same time, his high-profile status in America produced a band of jealous detractors who felt the scientist had got too big too soon. Due to his unyielding opposition to America’s Hydrogen bomb, he fell under suspicion of being a Communist spy.
On April 13, 1954, after a nationally publicized hearing, he lost his security clearance and was consumed by the McCarthy-era quicksand. On learning that Oppenheimer’s security clearance had been suspended, Albert Einstein issued a straightforward statement expressing his support: “I have the greatest respect and warmest feelings for Dr Oppenheimer. I admire him not only as a scientist but also as a great human being.” Privately he is reported to have said that the problem was simple. All Oppenheimer needed to do was go to Washington, tell the administrators that they were fools, and then go home. The scientific community maintained that the act of suspension did not disgrace Oppenheimer, it dishonoured and disgraced the high traditions of American freedom. Denial of access to the government’s atomic secrets brought Oppenheimer’s career to a crashing halt. The scholar and the humanist ousted from his exalted status in Washington was restricted to the confines of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. Here, the Bhagavad Gita, with its pink cover reinforced with Scotch tape, continued to occupy a place of honour in Oppenheimer’s study. He was known to be specifically fond of a Sanskrit couplet, “Scholarship is less than sense, therefore seek intelligence”.
At the Nobel Prize winner’s dinner on that Sunday evening in April 1962, Oppenheimer, the 58-year-old “Father of the Atomic Bomb”, also considered a security risk by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was specifically seated only a few paces away from the President. For the past few years, Kennedy had known no evidence ever came to light that supported the allegations against the celebrated scientist. After succeeding Eisenhower as President, he was keen to erase this terrible blot on the history of America. McGeorge Bundy, the former Harvard dean and now national security advisor to Kennedy, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a top White House aide led the efforts to restore the fallen icon. They ensured Oppenheimer, an honourable man martyred by Republican radicals, was invited to the exclusive White House dinner. The invitation was the Kennedy administration’s first step in a two-step procedure for liberating him from the false charges of disloyalty to America. Oppenheimer was discreetly asked that night whether he would endure another hearing to get his security clearance back. His clear response was “Not on your life.” Nevertheless, the official comeback of J Robert Oppenheimer was in the offing.
Over a year and a half later on November 21, 1963, the New York Times announced on its first page that President Kennedy will present the prestigious Enrico Fermi Award to Dr J Robert Oppenheimer. Despite the political hesitation within his own ranks and the expected uproar from the Republicans, Kennedy decided to present the award at a public ceremony at the White House. The Fermi Award named after the Italian-born scientist symbolically rejected the cruel decision against Oppenheimer in the McCarthy period. Then, just the next day, on November 22, Oppenheimer was working on his acceptance speech in his office in Princeton. His son Peter rushed in with the news that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. On that fateful afternoon, while the soap opera, “As The World Turns” was airing on CBS, news anchor Walter Cronkite went on air, stating, “From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00 pm Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago….”
The emotion on Cronkite’s face was apparent as he fought to control his composure, locking it inside a clenched jaw. For the rest of the week, a shocked Oppenheimer sat in front of his television and watched the news relating to the national tragedy.
A week and a half later, on December 2, 1963, on the anniversary of the first self-sustained chain reaction, Oppenheimer now losing his hair, and having lost most of his fire, received the Enrico Fermi award at a subdued White House ceremony. The award was signed by Kennedy but handed to Oppenheimer by President Johnson. It came with a citation, a gold medal, and a $50,000 cash prize. Johnson said, “It is important to our nation that we have constantly before us the example of men who set high standards of achievement. This has been the role that you have played, Dr. Oppenheimer…” Standing next to him, his wife Kitty and their two children present on the occasion saw his honour finally being somewhat restored by the Johnson administration. Later, Oppenheimer and Kitty went upstairs to meet Jacqueline Kennedy who was busy packing her belongings in her private quarters. Kennedy’s grieving widow told Oppenheimer just how much her late husband had wanted to give him the Fermi Award. Kennedy, in one of his last acts, had ensured Oppenheimer was no longer a political pariah. And with the Enrico Fermi award, the eight years of political ostracism for Oppenheimer had ended.
However, the award was too little too late. By then, tragically, his own end was close. Just over three years later, on February 18, 1967, one of the most remarkable personalities of the last century, Dr J Robert Oppenheimer, passed away at his New Jersey home. He was just 62.
Arthur Schlesinger, his foremost supporter in Washington, had earlier written to him, “You have faced more terrible things than most men in this terrible age, and you have provided all of us with an example of moral courage, purpose and discipline – you probably are not aware of the meaning your life has had for my generation.” For decades Oppenheimer’s fans have visited the late professor’s corner office on the fourth floor of the Cal Physics block at the University of Berkeley where he confirmed the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. A display case in the Physics building even documents the work of Oppenheimer and a plaque declares, “In these corner offices 1929-1942 J. Robert Oppenheimer created the greatest school of theoretical physics the United States has ever known”.
Oppenheimer, who could see the furthest, loved his country and threw himself into the campaign for international atomic regulation, will be remembered for his humanism as also for his last published words, “Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.”
Dr. Bhuvan Lall is the biographer of Subhas Chandra Bose and Har Dayal. He is also the author of India on the World Stage. He can be reached at [email protected]. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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