★ DON IDDON'S
'THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 1954.
DIARY ★
The Very Strange Life
D
Of Dr
New York, Tuesday. D Robert Oppenheimer, who is known here as the man who made the atom bomb, talked to his doctor the day the headlines screamed. He wasn't worry-
Already he ΚΩΛ
Oppenheimer
wrliten
+
was a professor at the California his life, and says: "If it had not This been for this date, Indispensable 13-page answer to the charges, Institute of Technology. donying that he had lobbied is one of the strange periods of education I could not have done against hydrogen-bomb develop a very strange life.
the atom job at Los Alamos at mont and stating, in an eloquent
ali," plea, "What I have learned hus, I think, made me more fit to SCTVO my country."
ד
the
ing about himself, although Until the (xplosive charges ho has just been suspended appeared
newspaper Oppenheimer had by the Atomic Energy Com- front pages, mission, pending review of not been much in the news in the past year or two. Since his security file. He was 1947 he has been Director of worried about his wife who the is ill with measles and has a broken ankle.
in
It was typical of the man
concern that his main this, the great crisis of his life, was with the welfare of his wife rather than himself,
Study
In his mid-twenties he cut
himself off from the outer In 1939 Oppenheimer, who world.
In his reply to charges wha
Katherine then 35, mot against him he wrote the other Harrison, A tiny German-born **I studled and read brunette who had been married day:
to a radiologist and was herself Sanskrit.
a scientist. A year later he married her.
Became social
Institute of Advanced Research Centre at Princeton, and other scientists, OPPENHEIMER didn't worry ubout material things-all other namca, wcrc un the his life he has never had to. Its public's tongues.
father was German-Jewish who made Д great migrant deal of money as a textile in-
Oppenheimer's bigest inia ston was achieved on July 18, of the test ex- 1945-the day plosion of the
world's first nuclear bomb in New Mexico. The man who had made the ex- Oppenheimer a lean. band-
plosion was then 41 years old. some man,
Ploneer aged 50, is warm-
work in flesion had hearted and loaded with charm.
been done by others, but it was He Is
absent - minded. Oppenheimer who actually matte eccentric, or "long-haired," in
the weapon. He was less modest jest thuse the tradition of scientists and in
days. Inclined professors.
arrogance he sometimes boasted of his brilliance as a linguist, of his fabulous inemory, und of his gifts as a poet,
HE
Friends rally
111
A mineralogist
LD
be a scientist. When he was
has as many friends as any professor 111 The United States, and they are rallying to his side. To the red brick
PPENHEIMER was meant to house, Olden Manor, in Prince- ton, New Jersey, where Oppen- only live years old, visiling his helner, his wife, and their two grandfather in Germany, he was children live, rame & stream of given a little box of minerals as messages of support from his a present, and he began a collec-
Dr Vannevar Bush, tkm colleagues.
which
Alled his Dr James Conant, and Pro nursery. He sometimes says: fessor Albert Einstein head the "I Was A fully. (ledged list of prominent wientists who mineralogist by the time I was are backing Oppenheimer against eight.
L
ROUT
the charges that he is a securlly "When he was 11 Oppenheimer risk becouse of his alleged os- was elected a member of the sociations with Communists in the pust.
The most effective defender of Oppenheimer's record will be the distor himself. He is a lighter.
When the Government told him.
weeks ago, that charges of associathing with Com munists and hiring Communists for scientific projects were to be made against him he was given
the chance of resigning rom
New York Mineralogient
Club,
and ut 12 he read his first paper at one of its meetings. He was
very assured youth. a very
Fran minerals he switched to chemistry and from chemistry to more intricate science.
"It ly p very exciting ex- parience," he said not long ago, when 1 first learned of the atomie theory.
and
was
porter.
Dr Oppenheimer has admitted, in answer to the charges against him, that his wife had been previously married 10 a Com-
oficial munist Party
who had died fighting in Spain.
Outstanding work
Alter the period of shutting
from the world 15 work himself away
OK 3 scientist in
Oppenheimer (his nickname Colifornia was to outstand- is Opple) ing that not many people were among his intimates became social. There was surprised when Major-Generni period when he went in for fast Leslie Groves chose him to head cars, very dry Martinis, elaborate the new setentie laboratory at food and parties, and then his Los Alames, and, in short, make conscience began to trouble him. the atom bomb.
He worried about the De- At Los Alamos he poured aut pression
and seeing fine young his energy and his genius. scientists break because they
the Jews.
He
Then, worried
un July 18. 1045, be couldn't get jobs. about the Nazi outrages against saw the culmination of his work the atomic explosion. As he watched the blast he told later that two lines ran through his mind:
Za
woke up." he says. "to
that recognition
politics I became a whs & part of life. real Left-Winger, joined the Teachers' Union, had lots of Communist friends."
Oppenheimer has never tried to conceal that radical period in
" had become Death.
"The shatterer of the world."
For years he has tried to keep Today he has out of politics. been plunged deeply into them.
HENRIETTA LAYS
AN ATOMIC EGG
By CHAPMAN PINCHER
A
n
WHITE LEGHORN called Henrietta hus lold a radioactive Easter
egg worth
At the Ethical Culture School
Harvard he and at prodigy In his lato teens he £200 so that an atom scientis! went to Europe for further study and a London doctor could find
about how Goettingen, out more
people his posts as member of President Cambridge Elsonhower's Science Advisory Leyden, Zurich-adding modern build up resistance to germs. Committee and adviser to the languages 10 his Latin und Departments of State and De- Greek. fence and the National Security By the time he was 24-"I was Council, but he chose to fight. bursting with knowledge" he
4
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DE 71, $1700
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i
B
No egg was ever handled so And the radioactive carefully, albumon from this egg is being used in the anti-germ experi-philosopher
ments,
What happened to Henrietta? She was unharmed by experiment, but she was never theless killed-in the taxpayers" interest.
tury
FRENCH SALUTE
10
미미
EUROPEAN
ARM)
World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian
THE BOMB
Where Do We Go From Here?
the
BERTRAND RUSSELL, mathe- matician, philosopher, answers questions that everyone is asking (in an interview with Robert Waithman)
too
·HE FORETOLD IT...
IN November 1945, in a speech in the House of Lords on the atomic bomb, BERTRAND RUSSELL sold: "It is possible that some mechanism, analogous to the present atomic bomb, could be used to set off a much more violent explosion which would be obtained if one could synthesise heavier elements out of hydrogen. All that must take place if our scientific civilisation goes on, if it does not bring itself to destruction; all that is bound to happen."
the Yet that is what we must
think about.
these experiments are
don't think ERTRAND RUSSELL dangerous, I
sat very upright in we have reached that point his armchair, smok- yet. ing a curved pipe and If there were a hydrogen- talking gently about the bomb war it is quite clear hen carbon 14 that it was valued o hydrogen bomb. But there that practically everybody was nothing gentle about in London would perish. A shower of hydrogen bombs his conclusions.
Britain's greatest living would almost certainly large agricultural (portrait sterilise
and above), whose mind and areas,
the resulting intellectual courage have famine would be fearful.
cen- the moved the twentieth
But we are talking of the think that, so long as since its beginning, current tests, in peace-time. explosions are few, marine is now 81. His hair is I do not expect disaster life will be grievously affect- white and his voice is soft; from them. I think those ed. and his opinions, as always, who may have been shower-
a ed with radio-active
It is affected now expressed memorable clarity. I put a whose fishing catches have oil pollution, isn't
to been damaged or destroy- though that is much succession of questions him and he answered them ed, undoubtedly have every dramatic a story? thus:
right to complain.
But I do not foresee Is there any justification
Do you think that a feel- for alarm at the thought rain of radio-active ash, ing of dread and uncer that some disastrous mis- comparable with the pheno- tainty at the back of calculation may occur in the mena
the people's minds might have Baw after H-bomb tests?
explosion of the Krakatoa an evil social effect? THOUGH, obviously, there Volcano in 1888 (which I
leaders I do not WELL, you know, it isn't an will come a time when remember well),
WEL
Dr J, R. Catch, tho atom scientist, "fed" green pond plant with a gus containing the costly radioactive substance car- bon 14. This was at the Gov- ernment's radiochemical centre al Amersham, Bucks.
For she still contained much
of the carbon 14, which is now being extracted for further The process was so expensive experiments. that an amount of the plant to
sixpence
NOTE: cost £300.
In the British 1951 to the film "Mr Drake's Duck," Mr This amount was sent
for Medical Drake (Yolande Donlan) bought National Institute
a duck which laid an egg which Research at Mill Hi
went "boinng" when hi
cover
血
There Dr John Humphrey fed in the the plant to Hearletta most expensive meal ever given to a hen. The next egg she laid was not radioactive, but the one after contained 50 much
The egg turned out to contain uranium, whereupon Mr Drake (Douglas Fairbanka jun.) found his farm doclared a prohibited
area.
аге
By SEFTON DELMER
MY HAT LEADS TO
H
with
we
aah,
TROUBLE
the
trappings AT trouble is what an angry and scurrilous attack evitably produced the reaction and all
today which is militarist Nazi propaganda. I'm having and in on me over my "How Dead is in Germany
Hitler?" series" draws D. por- causing me such misgivings.
what le
two places at the trail showing me in
Bame Hamburg.
of
+
of
No change In my opinion the whole time: London and obviously a Gestapo man's hat.
our denazlacation polley-loft 10 not imagine that if Franco largely to the Germans them-D falls and he is succeeded by
In London readers have protested that the
smart
black soluch which
some-
The headline says:-
"Wie tot lat Sefton Delmer?"
dead The means; "How times decorates this Sefton Delmer?" column makes me look
S
In my
now
So to
1
selves was appallingly muddled.
of
Government
In
to
by
it
less
As
effect that lasts long. with the atom bomb at ärst, people get into a state; but after a little while they forget it.
you
You see no virtue in any proposal that the experi ments should be stopped?
wo
ONE whatever, unless Nhave
way of causing the Russian experiments
found
to be stopped, too.
In my opinion, there is only e way. It is to convince the Russians beyond doubt that they can win no victory: that they cannot ever Communine the world with the hydrogen borsh
Perhaps they are beginning to feel that. It seems to me to be significant that the Russian ders are now allowing the Russian people to know of the devastation to be expected from an atomic war.
But I would hasten the procces I would invite all the governments of the world, and have perpetually particularly the Russians, to mounting crises, of course, it send observers to see the results will be different. The truth is, of the American tests. It ought though, that the thought of un to be made as plain as it can be old peril, however great, whl m le. not distract people from dally jobs.
their
There is one more thing we should do, We should diminish the anti-Communist tirades that You will have observed that are now so freely indulged in. since the first atom bombs were We should try hard to bring about a return to International exploded the birth' rate has con- good manners. That would be a tinued to go up. That is a re- great help. Hablo tert.
I should say
And for when the that the fear Russians are convinced?
between Russia and
sill
a Left-wing On the one hand we excluded Spain we shall hear any less of unemployment, which
claims Spanish whole categories
persons about
something everyone understands, I THINK it ought to be poS- sible to lessen the tension trom employment--I remember Gibraltar.
has a much greater social effect and to satisfy the Russians that a German Air Force colonel who Indalecio Prieto, whom I well than the fear of atom bombs.,
there is no promise for them in be remember as the portly Prime
atomic. WET. Then the first, liko gangster.
I have stopped wearing a hat. Was not even allowed to
employed an a chauffeur, and Minister in charge of Red Spain
And the International vital step will have to be taken.
We shall have t please them I bought a
to set up an But even that "Gestapo" hat shot himself when I could not during the civil war, has made sure that we should be. under bowler. A larger and more has not stepped Germans writ. get the ban lifted.
no illusions. From his exile in effects? Do we seem to you/arrangement under which curly-brimmed bowler than ing to me about my *articles.
On the other hand we 00-
indictment of flaming most.
Nine out of 10 letters tell me cepted the most ludicrous white Buenos Aires he has written a to have reached a strategic autonable raw material is owne the stalematel is there now a ed by an international authority, of Gibraltar new basis for discussion by that authority, No
and is only mined and that I am right. Quite a number washing judgment from Ger- British
man denazlacation tribunals for the
newspaper bowler. I
ike or individual, must have access claim that the revival of mill- which thus prepared the sallied forth into Berkeley tariam and Nazism,
way Espena Republicans.
to fasionable raw material, which is for the employment of Nazis in
His diatribe culminates in West? Street. On the opposite beginning to manifest itself in key posts,
the accusation that the British corner stood a man also Germany „today, is as much the wearing bowler. He fault of the British and Ameri Most interesting letter of all have no senso of humour.
Hans Dy
J.
"Shaw," he says, "was their grimmed at me. I grinned can "re-educators"
comes from
G. last humorist, and he was an and Paul Schrimp'N'
Irishman." cheerfully back, thinking the Germany.
Klusmann of Munster, who tell ho was someone I should
me they are writing at the in- Now I know it is a national stance
of of a small group know.
vice of the Germans to excuse students and scientists. They Ho dashed across the stroot, themselves in this way and put saya
for their pushed a slip of paper into my responsibility pocket, said: "Pul", "those on shortcomings on to others, for me," and vanished.
so it is of
OWN
Their cut
་
E
And there.would have to be an international inspectorate to ensure that this law in main= tained.
The Ruslans have a morbla
be
THINK the existence of the
hydrogen bomb presents perfectly cleur alternative to all the governments of the world. fear of being inspected. W Will they submit to an inter- shall have to help them to ovBÉN national authority, or shall the comet. For until they. Men agreeable to it nothing can be human reco, die out?,
effectively done,
H-bomb, tests: müst The "We are once more in Ger- FEEL safo in prophesying
that there will be a fall in I am afraid that most govern- helping to many glorifying the so-called Three-names were on that But, this time, I think they soldierly virtue which in the Soviet expenditure on ments and most individuals will Hence to put off the pa slip. I discovered they wererers on more solid ground in Germany mean herd obedienes military defence in the next refuse to face that alternative, simply be to put on the
Why? Because They so dislike the idea of in agreement. Bovlet Budget. and military arrogance,"
ng that three horses due to rin at New attacking our allied postwar
the Soviet Union has just resternational government that market Hint 'afternoon.”
In Hamburg the weakly Die Dolby or have enouraged As evidence they enclose a duced the price of petrol by 40 they dodge the Lesus" whenever
chier they can present trends in Germany, Our copy of the Stabibelm news par vent. One ot Zeit, top and authority, to swift 30 tramition
O paper of the steel-helmet me on any defesion and wholesale organisation which in hill of petrol for the IF BA
Hillarsete krustrere military onthe takim forced By: the almple"!
of the three horses son-merart of German,
and diplomata v to,
I