Host for this panel discussion. J. Robert oppenheimer. An evolving legacy as one of the most complicated figures in history. Decades may pass before historians come to some consensus about the details of oppenheimers life and what those details mean. Last summer witnessed the release of Christopher Nolans oppenheimer, arguably most elaborate and most costly cinematic exploration of the academic vocation. Just prior to the release of the first trailer for that film in december 2020 to the United States department, energy issued an order vacating. The 1954 Atomic EnergyCommission Decision in the matter of j. Robert oppenheimer. The decision that resulted in oppenheimer being stripped of his security clearance. Our panelists will grapple the status of oppenheimers legacy in the wake of that order. The release of the film and ultimately turn their attention to the nature, the relationship, the Scientific Community shares with the federal government. Our panel this evening includes three distinguished guests who, in their own ways are arguably better situated than anyone to come to grapple with those questions. First, kai bird is the director of the Leon Levy Center for biography at the City University of new yorks graduate center. The author of numerous books burden his coauthor, martin j. Sherwin, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2006 for american prometheus the triumph and tragedy of j. Robert oppenheimer. Nolans film was inspired by build upon bernard shermans magisterial account of oppenheimers life, an account that surged back into the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list last summer. Second, Narayan Subramanian is an advisor. The secretary of the United StatesDepartment Energy, an expert in Sustainable Energy policy. Narain is an attorney by training and was tasked with this research informed the secretary of energys 2022 order vacating the Atomic Energy decision in the matter of j. Robert oppenheimer. Third, j. D. Sun is a national for the Washington Post. Her own grandmother, chienshiung wu, was a Nuclear Physicist and a at Columbia University who worked on the manhattan project. Jada is author of unleashing oppenheimer inside. Christopher nolans atomic age thriller, a book scheduled for release by Insight Editions on october 24th. At the end of our panel, you can find a qr code you can use to purchase a discounted copy of jadas book. Our moderator this evening is colleague at indiana wesleyan university, warren f rogers. Warren appointed to the blanchard chair in physics in 2016. Two years later. He won the American Physical Society for a faculty member for research in an undergraduate institution, warren conducts accelerator Nuclear PhysicsResearch Funded by the National Science foundation with indiana wesleyan students on the iwg campus at the facility of four rare isotope beams at Michigan State university and at oppenheimers own Los Alamos National laboratory is thus my pleasure to entrust this conversation. J. Oppenheimer an evolving legacy to warrant. Thank you, dr. Collega, for your warm welcome and for providing us the context for our conversation this evening on the evolving legacy of Robert Oppenheimer. Its my honor to serve as moderator for this conversation with our distinguished guests, our evening will be guided by a series of questions posed by students at indiana wesleyan university. So well ahead and begin with our first question. J. Robert oppenheimer believed atomic bombs, in his words, dreadful weapons and fully understood the devastating impact they would have on a large civilian. And yet, he continued, be involved in its development. Ultimately with spectacular success. When development the Hydrogen Bomb was later proposed debated, he strongly opposed its development use. Why was his response to the development of each weapon so different . Well, thank you, warren. Ill take question. Thank you. I you know, i think Robert Oppenheimer, an extremely ambivalent. He was a scientist who knew that you could not stop doing science, that human beings are not going to be dissuaded from discovering the physical world around them. And so, you know, by 1939, decision was known and therefore he understood that, that these there was a possibility that these that this gadget could be and neared and he feared that the german physicists were going to give it to hitler and that fascism would triumph because of atomic weaponry. So he was willing to do this in the first instance, but he was very ambivalent about it. And then when it came to the Hydrogen Bomb, after the he argued against its development. He argued, we didnt need bigger weapons. And in fact, he was arguing that these weapons were weapons for aggressors. They were defensive weapons. There weapons of terror. He said this explicitly in a public speech october of 45, just three months after hiroshima. So he was, you know, philosophically, extremely and ambivalent about what he had done. On the one hand, he knew it necessary. And on other hand, he understood the human tragedy that was going to befall the victims the cities. And ill just end this answer with an anecdote that comes right out of american prometheus i to track down and interview oppenheimers last secretary kerry at los alamos, a woman named and wilson ma and and wilson was living in georgetown just a couple miles from my home here in washington, d. C. And she was still alive and 23. I went over and interviewed her. And at one point in the interview, she said, you know, i was walking to work one day with a neighbor and she suddenly she started muttering those poor Little People, poor Little People who would. And she stopped him and said, robert, what are you talking about . And he explained, well, you know, we just successfully had the trinity test. We know the gadget works, and now its going to be used on a japanese city because there is no military target large enough, a demonstrated and the victims are going to be women and children and old man and a city of poor Little People saying about story is that when i went back and told my coauthor, martin sherwin, about this, he said, well, thats same week that he was meeting with the bombardiers who are going to be on the airplane, the enola gay. And he was instructing them at exactly what altitude to deploy to, release the weapon and at what altitude it should be exploded to have the maximum destructive. So he was his duty as the scientific director of this secret city, los alamos, to this weapon. And he was painfully of the consequences. I think what struck me a lot about, the manhattan project, was that so many were either were jewish or they were fleeing, you know, theyd fled from europe or they were hearing stories about what was happening in nazi germany, a my grandmothers side, my grandmother, chienshiung wu was came over from china just before the rape of nanking, which just destroyed that city and was incredibly horrible with the japanese. And i think there was some impetus among the scientists at that time for the atomic bomb that like that that they were going to prevent more destruction and more death. These were horrible weapons. They were going to prevent so much more. And you get to the Hydrogen Bomb, its like you already have an incredibly destructive weapon. So why do you an even more destructive weapon . Whats whats the point . I really appreciate how the distinction between the two elevates it from a very fierce bomb to a bomb of genocide. The Hydrogen Bomb is really just a bomb of mass destruction, and its hard to imagine how that would into a military strategy other than just obliteration. Would you would you care speak a bit about Edward Teller. Edward teller was was so positive. So eager to pursue that project. And he and oppenheimer see eye to eye about that. Would you care to Say Something about their relationship and whether or not also how affected oppenheimers attitude, the Hydrogen Bomb . Well, yes, you know, they were colleagues. They were both quantum physicists. They knew each other before war. Oppenheimer to recruit teller brought him to los alamos. But they were they were like oil and water in their personalities and in their politics. You know, oppenheimer was a man of the left, Edward Teller was an immigrant from hungary. As a young man, he had witnessed communist, brief communist revolution. At the end of world war one. He was fiercely anticommunist, very conservative. And, you know, he was also a brilliant physicist. And he realized, like oppenheimer did by 1942, he understood oh, yes, of course. The atomic bomb easily built. Theres no no, no physics to be learned is just an engineering problem. Oppenheimer understood this to and so edward wanted to work on something more interesting, more difficult or he was trying to work on the hydrogen when they still hadnt even, you know, built and tested. Yeah. Is a an atomic weapon and need an atomic weapon to ignite a hydrogen weapon. Anyways, teller was very difficult, but oppenheimer were, you know, patiently put up with some evil at los alamos. But then after the war, they really had a falling out because oppenheimer wanted nothing to do with building more weapons. He is said to have remarked at one point, well, we should give los alamos back to the indians. And teller wanted to work on on more weaponry to build up a nuclear arsenal, to be able to face down the soviet empire. And he was eager to build the hydrogen and. So he he was appalled when oppenheimer clearly went out publicly against the building of the hydrogen after 1949, when the russians tested their own atomic bomb. So they they you know, they became enemies. And Edward Teller testified against oppenheimer in the 1984 trial, sort of stabbing him in the back. It was it a rocky relationship . Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I interviewed benny, who plays in the movie, and he said he sort of i think bob, he and chris had sort of figured out that he was sort of the petulant teen, the petulant guy in the back of the room throwing paper airplanes, completely bored with this project that they had going in because he really wanted to work on something else. Well one of the things that strikes me about oppenheimers experience was, and in the reading, chis and martins very, very fine book, its where ive learned what i know. Its very interesting that oppenheimer, with an optimism about science, people will listen to science if we have good arguments that are on scientific fact, we can make an impact in this in this environment where science and politics are coming. And i read into it a certain naivete on his part about how well people would listen to him and how well the logic and sense he might present. And its a relationship between science and politicians that was very complicated back then. So how can we understand complicated relationship between science and government and politics that existed the forties and fifties . Ethics were not. Im happy to take that one. When secretary Jennifer Granholm issued a Statement Last december vacating the Atomic Energy commission of 1954 decision to revoke dr. Dr. Oppenheimer security clearance, she she made it about the fact that that decision in 1954 had a Chilling Effect on freedom of expression within the Scientific Community. You very much if you read the order that that she published she emphasized the fact that as time has passed, its become clearer and clearer that oppenheimers loyalty and love of country that had come clear and. My casebook among other things, have given further evidence of the procedural plot and how that theory went and the impact that had on the Scientific Community and one additional book that i would i would mention that really does a good job of bringing this down is a book written by two former department of energy, Richard Hewlett and jock hall and the theory the books called atoms war and peace where they had access. I want to state for about 30 years they had access to all the primary source materials from the manhattan project. And they published this book in 1989. And looking back at the oppenheimer hearing and, all the events that led up to that hearing and, one of the things that they emphasized in the book, in the chapter about the hearing is oppenheimer. By the time of the hearing, be the security clearance hearing had come to represent the the austin of science in american life. And that was their quote. And he went when the Energy Commission were going through oppenheimer its record and whether he deserved to have a security clearance. You heard a lot of warning signs from the Scientific Community. It marched the American Physical Society put a letter. The federation of american blind to put out alert. And there were all unanimous in and saying that this is going to have a real Chilling Effect on on the comfortability. Scientists feel with expressing opinion that go against the great with the sun. And if you do this all that the dreams that you have in federal government promoting American Innovation are going to be undermined by the fact that. I just want to come works. I mean obviously you know the National Laboratory enterprises have exploded in part because of people like Robert Oppenheimer. And in spite of the hearing. But that being said, when you look back retrospectively, you can definitely the in the 1950s and 1960 distrust the built toward the government at large and specifically from the time. So i think the thing of the secretary has really wanted to emphasize this order came out is that this has contemporary significance today in the midst of the attacks that climate scientists are facing, that Public Health official and generally public intellectual are facing, the attacks generally that the country is seeing happy right now. It came clear to her that its more important than ever for the Department Energy, the department that oversees the National Laboratory that is at the heart of American Innovation today needs to put out a very stern statement. And by as scientist and i, in the really, really important takeaway oppenheimer story and, something worth correcting and amplifying today. Thank you. Now, i would just want to add, you know, this is really important point where were a society that is drenched in technology and science, and yet we have a citizenry that is surprisingly distrust for scientists and for chiefs. And of course, we saw this as narayen just pointed out, during the pandemic was dr. Anthony fauci and where his his authenticity and his is integrity was questioned and conspiracy. These theories were put out about him and you know, this is this is a terrible a weakness of our society that we seem to seemingly so these strains of antiintellectual ism sort of pop up every few decades. And we saw this blatantly in the mccarthy period when Robert Oppenheimer became, the chief celebrity victim of the mccarthy era. But this antiintellectual ism haunts us today, is it explains why, you know, science is so distrusted. You made the same point when i when i talk to you for the book and you also linked it to climate deniers that Climate Change deniers, theres a lot of distrust, theres Scientific Evidence and you can just say, no, its its its not true. I grew up in los alamos, new mexico, which is a town that would not exist. But for the military and other complex. And my my dad was is was employed there. I mean, he just retired like two weeks ago. One and so its 75 but and he was hes a Nuclear Physicist and. It is the most conservative other than the south of new mexico, which is ranchland. Its the most conservative, most republican place in, northern new mexico. And a lot that is because because republicans spend defense and democrats dont as much. So peoples jobs are tied up into, you know, whether or not the government is being hawkish at the time. And i and i just i sort of remember sort of times the funding went away because of a new administration. And, you know, pink slips were being handed out. And everybodys jobs were on the line. And its that kind of tenuous this makes it hard for. Scientists want to speak up. And if youre a Nuclear Physicist, theres not a lot of place other than defense. Theres not a lot you to be working on. And and these National Labs are sort of where you can work. I think thats why my dad stayed in the business so long, because if you lo