1954-04-22 — Page 4

★ 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