34. New York field report, Dec. 29, 1943, sec. 21, Haakon Chevalier file, no. 100–18564, FBI.
35. In a 1964 letter to Oppenheimer, Chevalier wrote that he and Oppie had been members “in the same unit of the CP from 1938 to 1942.” Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1964, Chevalier folder, box 200, JRO.
36. Haakon Chevalier, The Man Who Would Be God (Putnam, 1959), 80. Chevalier intended to call his autobiographical novel Flight Is Ended. Dec. 11, 1933, diary entry, Chevalier papers.
37. In Mar. 1940, the FBI listed the house as “one of those to be used as a ‘hide-out’ by Communist Party members in case of an emergency.” Chevalier (1965), 31; undated field report, sec. 1:2a, Chevalier file, FBI.
38. Jenkins (1991), 25; Dec. 24, 1933, and July 13, 1934, entries, Chevalier diary, Chevalier papers.
39. Schwartz (1998), 290.
40. “Subject: Jean Tatlock,” June 29, 1943, records of the Personnel Security Board, U.S. AEC Division of Security, box 1, RG 326 (JRO/AEC), National Archives, Washington, D.C.
41. Teachers union: Chevalier (1965), 25; ITMOJRO, 8, 156; Goodchild (1980), 32.
42. Through his association with Tatlock and Chevalier, Oppenheimer also met key figures of California’s radical political scene, including labor leader Harry Bridges and journalist Lincoln Steffens. Jenkins (1991), 23; Serber (1998), 31; author interview with Richard Criley, Carmel, Calif., Sept. 21, 1998.
43. Serber (1998), 31.
44. Lofgren interview (1998).
45. In a 1973 letter, Chevalier identified those members of “the secret C.P. unit” who had since died. Chevalier to Beeferman, Apr. 25, 1973, “Correspondence, 1972” folder, Chevalier papers.
46. In 1964, Chevalier wrote to member Lou Goldblatt, asking him to confirm that Oppie also belonged to the group: “I had originally planned to reveal the fact that O. had been, from 1937 to 1943, a CP member, which I knew directly. On thinking it over, I decided that I shouldn’t, even though the fact is of considerable historical importance.” Goldblatt, hinting at his own concern with self-incrimination, sent a noncommittal reply. Possibly because he feared the legal consequences of doing otherwise, Chevalier described it as “a discussion group” in his memoirs. In a letter to Chevalier, Oppenheimer denied ever being a member of the Communist Party. Oppenheimer subsequently sent a copy of his letter and Chevalier’s letter to his lawyer. Chevalier to Beeferman, Apr. 25, 1973, “Correspondence, 1972” folder, and Chevalier to Goldblatt, Aug. 25, 1964, “Correspondence, 1964” folder, Chevalier papers; Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1964, and reply of Aug. 7, 1964, Chevalier folder, box 200, JRO; Chevalier (1965), 19, 207; draft of “The Bomb,” unpublished manuscript, 39, Chevalier papers.
47. The epigram was from the poet’s “September 1, 1939”: “Hunger allows no choice / To the citizen or the police; / We must love one another or die.” W. H. Auden, Another Time (Random House, 1940). The first report took the Soviet Union’s side in the war against Finland and deplored attacks upon the Communist Party in this country. Copies of both reports were sent to President Sproul’s office by concerned administrators on other campuses. My thanks to Bancroft archivist Bill Roberts for locating the two reports in the university archives. William Roberts, Feb. 21, 2000, personal communication.
48. There were evidently earlier broadsides that Oppenheimer had a hand in. Phillip Morrison, Oppie’s then-graduate student, remembered arranging the printing of a glossy pamphlet that Oppenheimer wrote and which argued against intervention in the so-called winter war between the Soviet Union and Finland. The publication was prepared in response to a speech by Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk in Berkeley’s Greek Theater on Charter Day, Mar. 23, 1939. As with the subsequent reports, Oppenheimer paid for the cost of printing and distributing the 1939 broadside. Morrison interview (2000) and personal communication, Dec. 8, 2000.
49. Thomas Powers, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (Knopf, 1993), 173; author interview with Hans Bethe, Ithaca, N.Y., 1996; Schweber (2000), 108; ITMOJRO, 441.
50. “I think we’ll go to war—that the Roosevelt faction will win over the Lindbergh.… I see no good for a long time: & the only cheerful thing in these parts is the strength & toughness & political growth of organized labor.” Smith and Weiner (1980), 217.
51. Transcript of interview with Robert Oppenheimer, box 2, Childs papers.
52. Transcript of interviews with Luis Alvarez and Philip Abelson, box 1, Childs papers.
53. Rhodes (1986), 314–17.
54. Teller (2001), 149; Blumberg and Owens (1976), 100–101; Rhodes (1986), 335–37.
55. Bethe interview (1996).
56. Childs (1968), 299; “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL.
57. “Nobel Prize Awarded to Lawrence for Invention of Cyclotron,” Daily Californian, Mar. 1, 1940, Bancroft Library.
58. Stassen to Lawrence, Mar. 29, 1940, folder 46, carton 16, EOL.
59. Transcript of telephone conversation, folder 30, carton 15, EOL.
60. Jewett to Compton, June 24, 1940, folder 5, box 139, Karl Compton papers, MIT.
61. “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL; Childs (1968), 302; Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis, “Biographical Memoirs (National Academy of Sciences, 1980), vol. 51, 327.
62. Rhodes (1986), 361; Childs (1968), 309; O. Lundberg to F. Stevens, Sept. 23, 1940, folder 18, carton 46, EOL; Lawrence to Compton, July 21, 1940, folder 10, carton 4, EOL.
63. Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (University of California Press, 1999), 315–17.
64. Childs (1968), 302–3.
65. Lawrence to K. Compton, May 21, 1940, folder 3, box 133, Compton papers; “Vast Power Source in Atomic Energy Opened by Science,” New York Times, May 5, 1940.
66. Childs (1968), 301; Heilbron and Seidel (1989), 444–45.
67. Rhodes (1986), 298.
68. Childs (1968), 328; Alvarez and Oppenheimer to Furman, June 5, 1944, Los Alamos National Laboratory archives, Los Alamos, N. Mex. (LANL).
69. Richard Hewlett and Oscar Anderson, Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, vol. 1, 1939–46 (University of California Press, 1990), 33–34; Rhodes (1986), 348–50.
70. “I am
