J. Robert Oppenheimer and Nuclear Arms Control
As mere mortals our time on this earth is limited.
But some mortals create ideas that continue long after their journey on this earth. Although his life was filled with controversy and drama, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s ideas still hold relevance today. Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist, led the Los Alamos Laboratory in World War II – a secret institution established by the Manhattan Project, the research and development undertaking that produced the first nuclear weapons.
When a test atomic bomb was detonated in Alamogordo, N.M. during the Manhattan Project, two different verses from the Hindu religious text Bhagavad Gita raced through his head: “if the radiance of a thousand suns were burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one” and “I am death, destroyer of worlds.” These thoughts were just the beginning of Oppenheimer’s activism on behalf of nuclear arms control.
After his work with the Department of War in World War II, Oppenheimer taught at Caltech for a short time and then became director at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. The IASP brought some of the greatest minds in science together for cutting edge research. Nuclear physics became more important around the world as various nation-states rushed to develop nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer advocated for international control over both nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear energy.
As a member of the board of consultants appointed by President Harry Truman, Oppenheimer strongly influenced the Acheson-Lilienthal Report which advocated for an International Atomic Development Authority that would own all fissionable material, and the means of production, such as mines and laboratories, as well as nuclear energy producing atomic power plants. Political consultant Bernard Baruch included these ideas in the Baruch Report, a report presented to the United Nations. The Baruch Report included many provisions for enforcement and a provision for the inspection of the Soviet Union’s mining resources.
When the Atomic Energy Commission came into being in 1947 to control nuclear weapons and research issues, Oppenheimer was named Chairmen of the General Advisor Committee of the AEC. In this position, the theoretical physicist advocated for government funding of basic science and international nuclear arms control.
Oppenheimer recommended against developing the hydrogen bomb, an atomic weapon based on nuclear fusion. He thought such a weapon could only be used against civilian targets that would result in millions of deaths. The United States would go on and develop and hydrogen bomb.
As the Cold War heated up, Oppenheimer’s past political beliefs came under scrutiny. His wife, Kitty Oppenheimer, his former girlfriend, Jean Tatlock, and his brother, Frank Oppenheimer, had all been members of Communist Party USA at some time in their lives. During the Great Depression, J. Robert Oppenheimer did support some political ideas that were alleged to be Communist by some in the government and his security clearance was revoked. He immediately lost his position at the AEC.
Although he fell out of favor with his government, Oppenheimer continued to speak and write on the matters that concerned him. He often talked of the need to manage knowledge in a world where science and the freedom to exchange ideas were hobbled by political concerns.
His reputation was rehabilitated in the early 1960’s when President John F. Kennedy awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award, an award given to international scientists. A little over a week after the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson presented the award to Oppenheimer in a ceremony. The great scientist/arms control advocate passed away in 1967.
However, his ideas have lived on in various treaties, in one prominent organization, and in advocacy by former government officials in the State Department and Defense Department. The 1963 Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the 1968 Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the 2003 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, and the 2010 New Start Treaty present a history of nuclear arms control that Oppenheimer would have approved of. Most, except for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, were bilateral deals between the U.S. and Russia, two nation-states that control most of the world’s nuclear arms. Although these treaties didn’t bring about international control of nuclear weapons, they did eliminate lots of nuclear arms.
In 2007 the Australian-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was established to fight for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a treaty that abolishes nuclear weapons. The treaty passed in the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 with 122 countries in favor and one against. However, all nuclear-armed states boycotted the talks. ICAN hopes the treaty will act as a catalyst and bring those states that rejected it into the fold. The organization received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts.
Establishment figures such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1973-1977), former Secretary of State Colin Powell (2001-2005), former Secretary of State George Schultz (1982-1989), and former Secretary of Defense William Perry (1994-1997) have all come out for the abolition of nuclear weapons. It doesn’t look like the ideas of J. Robert Oppenheimer will end anytime soon.
