The Oppenheimer Alternative Read online

  “Well, then, how about this? Ever since Trinity, Stan Ulam has been wondering aloud whether instead of using missiles to deliver bombs one might instead use bombs to propel missiles.”

  “Spacecraft pushed along by atomic explosions?”

  “That’s what he’s suggested. Regardless, one way or another, people will get to Mars or the moons of Jupiter or Saturn prior to the solar purge.”

  “Where they’d freeze to death, suffocate, or both.”

  “Perhaps,” replied Edward, “although I’ve talked it over with Wigner; he’s more sanguine than you. But, anyway, that issue is a mere aside. An escape into the outer solar system is, shall we say, the ‘fission bomb’ of solutions, the easy answer. What’s perhaps called for here is the equivalent of a fusion bomb, a breakthrough vastly more ingenious and powerful than rocketing to Mars or Saturn—a ‘super’ of salvation, if you will.”

  “And just what form might that take?”

  “Who knows? Who could have predicted before we began our work here that Neddermeyer’s notion of implosion would be the key to the plutonium bomb?” The unkempt eyebrows lowered. “Certainly not you, Robert.”

  Oppie paused to light his pipe by way of response. Teller waved the smoke away. “These luminaries you have gathered will soon all disappear into academia or industry. You heard what Truman said: the great marvel was the thing our scientific brains managed to make work. As he said, it’s doubtful another such combination could be gathered ever again anywhere in the world. He called it—you remember, don’t you?—‘The greatest achievement of organized science in history.’”

  “A bomb,” said Oppie bitterly, as a small lizard scampered out of their way.

  “Yes, yes, a bomb—this time. But, as the magicians say, ‘And now for my next trick ...’”

  Oppie blew out smoke. “We’re not magicians.”

  “No? We’ve already turned one element into another.”

  “Edward ...”

  “And who knows what else we could come up with—if we stay together, that is. But we’re losing people every single day. It’s an exodus.”

  “It is time I let my people go,” said Oppie. “They have lives to return to, careers.”

  “Indeed yes. But my son is almost three now, and Mici and I are trying for another child. And you, Robert, you have two children already. We may not live long enough to be eliminated by your photospheric purge, and, indeed, they might not—but our grandchildren could.” He shook his head. “I love my son; if I’m so blessed, I’ll surely love my eventual grandchildren. And I want more for them than ...” He trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “More than what their great uncles, their great aunts, and countless others got at the hands of Hitler.” Teller shrugged a bit. “It’s a long time since you’ve had close relatives in Europe; not since your childhood, I imagine. But still, surely you must have some sense that this is not the way it should all end.”

  “The sun is a thermonuclear-fusion device,” Oppie said. “How would such an ending be different from the sort of holocaust your super might cause?”

  “The super is to prevent war; it will never be used in battle. But to be snuffed out by the sun’s caprice? We—and our children—deserve better than that. Your daughter Tyke deserves better than that.” Oppie had seen Teller play with his own son Paul; he’d seen him sing to the boy, play patty-cake with him. Hell, he’d seen him play patty-cake with Tyke, a huge silly grin on the Hungarian’s heavy face. And Edward often had sweets in his pocket for youngsters he happened to pass while walking to his office on the mesa.

  Robert had told Pat Sherr that he wasn’t the “attached” kind. Peter’s conception had been an accident back when he and Kitty had been having their affair. Oppie had a flashback to the summer of 1940 when he’d called Kitty’s then-husband, a medical doctor she’d married less than two years previously, explaining the situation. “I suppose you’d like me to arrange for a divorce,” the doctor had said without a hint of ill-will. “Yes, please,” Oppie had replied, “and thank you.” All so academic, so civil, so very modern.

  Maybe Teller did feel things more deeply than Oppie did. But his argument was wrong—or, at least, Oppie thought, the wrong one to sway him. A species doomed, a civilization incinerated? That was a scale he could contemplate. But his actual children? Their hypothetical spawn decades hence? Please.

  And yet even on the larger canvas, why should he care? “The Nazis,” he said slowly, “gave the world death camps. We gave the world atomic weapons. There are no good guys.” He pointed up at the bright blue sky; he and Teller knew the stars were there even if they were currently washed out in the solar glare. “Maybe this answers Enrico’s question.”

  Teller frowned. “What question is that?”

  “The absence of beings from other worlds; the fact that no extra-terrestrial entities have ever come here.”

  “Oh. The ‘Martian problem.’ It is perplexing, isn’t it?”

  Oppie sucked on his pipe as they continued along. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “You doubt more advanced civilizations exist?”

  “More advanced? Perhaps not. As advanced as us? Yes, they probably come into existence from time to time—but they might not persist.”

  Teller’s mouth turned downward beneath his green lenses. “Ah. You think they all eventually unleash the power of the atom and soon after destroy themselves.”

  Oppie felt his eyebrows going up; that notion actually hadn’t occurred to him. “No, I think perhaps they are destroyed.”

  “By what?”

  “Gerling says the earth and therefore the sun are 3.2 billion years old, right? And the solar anomaly we’ve detected had its roots in 1938, the year Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered nuclear fission.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s a remarkable coincidence, isn’t it, that, on a cosmic scale, essentially simultaneous with our discovery of atomic power, our sun will destroy this planet. Maybe when a planet’s inhabitants begin to comprehend the true nature of the atom and all the energy it contains they become too dangerous to be allowed loose in the universe.”

  “Allowed?” repeated Teller as if confused by the word.

  “And so perhaps the universe conspires to wipe them out.”

  They were approaching Bathtub Row. “You’ve got to stop reading all that Eastern mysticism, Oppie.”

  Robert smiled. “Maybe.”

  “Even so, there should be a fight,” said Teller. “If the universe wishes to defeat us, we must instead defeat it. And to do that, using this group of brains you have here is the best starting point. You can lead us in this pursuit.”

  “I’m sorry, Edward, but no. I tried saving the world once already, and—”

  “Oppie, please. This”—he waved to encompass the mesa again—“can’t end here.”

  “For me, it already has. It may, or may not, be time for humanity to let go, but it’s certainly time for me to do so.” He paused, but the news would be out soon, anyway: “I sent Groves my resignation notice this morning.”

  #

  A low platform lay before Fuller Lodge like an alligator basking in the autumn sun. Behind it, flags of all forty-eight states hung limply from poles in the still air. General Groves, clad in his dark brown Army Service uniform and cap, stood at the podium in front of the vast crowd, all here to say goodbye to Oppenheimer. The first few hundred people were on folding chairs. The rest stood, the craggy pine-covered Sangre de Cristo mountains behind them.

  “And here’s another accolade,” Groves bellowed into the trio of microphones while raising a meaty hand, “on top of the Army-Navy Award of Excellence.” He smiled down from the dais at Oppie. “I have here a Certificate of Appreciation from Mr. Patterson, the Secretary of War.”

  Oppie glazed over while Groves read the scroll aloud. He hadn’t writt
en an acceptance speech and was composing remarks in his head. He’d trusted that the right words would come in time, and perhaps they still would, but he’d slept poorly last night, his dreams haunted by the faces of Japanese children who would never grow up. There had been—there really had been—a point to bombing Hiroshima, damn it all, but Nagasaki was ... what? He sought a term for it but none existed in any of his six languages and so he coined one: overkill.

  “Robert?”

  He wasn’t sure if that was the first or second time Groves had called for him, but Oppie snapped out of his reverie and hoisted himself from the chair. He’d meant to stride confidently to the podium but found himself shuffling, the bottoms of his too-long gray trousers touching the ground. After climbing the three steps, he took the ornate scroll from Groves and let his hand be engulfed by the general’s for a firm shake. When it was free again, he raised that hand and the applause died. “It is with appreciation and gratitude,” he said, leaning down toward the microphones after Groves had moved aside, “that I accept from you this scroll for the Los Alamos Laboratory, for the men and women whose work and whose hearts have made it.” He gestured at the assembled group. “It is our hope,” he continued, “that in years to come we may look at this scroll, and all that it signifies, with pride.”

  His gaze roamed over the crowd. The thousand scientists who still remained on site were all present, but so were hundreds of uniformed men and women as well as many locals, mixed between Indians and Spanish, who had worked here as domestics or general laborers. On the dais were Ken Nichols, Deak Parsons, University of California president Robert Sproul, and others.

  “Today,” continued Oppie, “that pride must be tempered with a profound concern. If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will ...” He paused, considering whether the word that popped into his head was too much, too soon. But no: “... will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”

  There was a ripple through the crowd; no one had expected him to say such a thing, he supposed. But this was a unique opportunity, with the press for the first time being allowed to cover an event on the mesa, and with the brass who had accompanied Groves from Washington seated in the front row. Oppie knew he’d lost friends recently here over his support of the War Department’s May-Johnson Bill, rushed before Congress two weeks ago. If passed, it would effectively give American control of atomic energy to the military rather than having it in civilian hands. But he, J. Robert Oppenheimer, already being touted as “the father of the atomic bomb,” had a wider vision, and this was the perfect chance to articulate it. The inner solar system might not survive another century, but humanity wasn’t going to check out early due to atomic weapons—not if he could help it. “The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish. This war that has ravaged so much of the earth has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand.”

  Everyone was silent; only the rustling of aspen leaves and the occasional lonely call of a hawk could be heard.

  “Other men have spoken these same words in other times, of other wars, of other weapons. They have not prevailed. There are some, misled by a false sense of history, who hold that they will not prevail today.” He lifted his head, bringing his eyes out of the shadow of his porkpie’s wide brim. “It is not for us to believe that. By our works we are committed—committed to a world united, before this common peril, in law and in humanity.”

  He stepped down from the podium as the crowd rose in a standing ovation, the people in front blocking the Sangre de Cristo, the blood of Christ at last gone from his view.

  Chapter 19

  I never saw a man in such an extremely nervous state as Oppenheimer. He seemed to feel that the destruction of the entire human race was imminent.

  —Henry A. Wallace

  “Now, this is a dinner party!” declared Leo Szilard. Oppie, overhearing him, looked at the short Hungarian, not sure if he meant the great spread of food that had been laid out before them here in Washington or the stellar guest list. Besides Szilard and Oppie, also present were Nobel laureates Enrico Fermi and Harold Urey as well as Ed Condon, a half-dozen United States senators, and former vice president Henry A. Wallace. Hosting was Watson Davis of the Science Service news agency.

  The purpose of the dinner was to educate the senators, and although Charles Tobey, a Republican from New Hampshire, opened by saying, “It looks as if we have a nonpartisan issue,” heated debate soon erupted—but among the scientists rather than the politicians. Fermi had joined Oppie in supporting the May-Johnson Bill while Urey, Condon, and, most vociferously, Szilard were against it.

  The dinner—Waldorf salad, Maine lobster, and porterhouse steak—was consumed with much gusto amid spluttering, and it soon became clear to Oppie that Leo’s side was winning. It didn’t help that the two of them hadn’t really spoken since their angry meeting in Virginia back in May. The aftertaste of that, plus Szilard’s certain knowledge that Oppie had vetoed the circulation of his petition calling for a demonstration of the bomb, seemed to be giving even more force than usual to Leo’s flamboyant protestations. Oppie tried his standard suave maneuvering, but the senators, perhaps sick of that from their own daily lives, were clearly warming to the excitable Hungarian.

  When dinner was over Oppie sidled over to Szilard, who was standing by a window, looking at the nighttime lights of the nation’s capital. “We should talk.”

  “We have talked, Robert.”

  “There’s ... more. Which hotel are you in?”

  “I always stay at the Wardman Park.”

  “I’ll walk you back there.”

  “Shall we bring Urey as referee?” snapped Szilard.

  Although Urey was a chemist, it was Szilard who served as a catalyst, his massive creativity sparking similarly profound insights in others. “Just you and me, Leo.”

  Szilard considered for a long moment then nodded. “I’ll get my coat.”

  #

  Oppenheimer had felt comfortable talking in low tones as he and Leo walked along Woodley Road, confident that no one would hear enough of their conversation, in German, to make sense of it. But once they reached the hotel they found the bar crowded, and so they decided to head up to Szilard’s suite. Oppie noted that it was nicer than his own at the Statler; the Hungarian was known for his decadent tastes. The bathtub, he saw through the open bathroom door, was filled with steaming water; Leo must have had a standing evening order with the chambermaid.

  There was a hugely padded chair by the window and an elegantly carved wooden one by the writing desk. Leo took the former leaving Oppie the latter. The curtains were drawn back and the window was open, letting in a cool October breeze.

  “I’ve washed my hands of it myself,” said Oppie, “but there’s a matter you should know about.”

  “Oh?” said Szilard.

  “Yes, it’s ...” Oppie trailed off. “Funny,” he said, at last. “It’s an odd thing to put into words. So stark. But here it is: the world is coming to an end.”

  “Almost certainly,” agreed Szilard, “if we let the military control atomic matters.”

  “No, no. It has nothing to do with the military or the bomb. It has to do with the sun. We discovered it at Los Alamos: there’s an explosion working its way outward from the sun’s core, which had contained a degenerate neutron mass. It will erupt through the surface in eighty-odd years, pushing the photosphere and corona outward. The total loss of solar mass will be minor, but superheated plasma will wash over the inner solar system, destroying everything out to earth’s orbit.”

  “There must be an error.”

  “I wish there was. But let me go over the evidence.”

  Szilard sat perfectly still as Oppie recounted what was known. The Hungarian’s eyes were rolled slightly
up and his pupils were tracking left and right as if he were visualizing equations as Robert described them. “Are you sure?” he said at last.

  “Bethe has confirmed it; so has Fermi. And Teller, too.”

  “My God,” Leo said. “It’s—my God.” His normally florid cheeks had lost their color. “Have you read my friend H.G. Wells?”

  “Of course.”

  “In the last pages of The Time Machine, the time traveler leaves the year 802,701 A.D. and goes many millions of years further into the future, to witness the end of our world. And that’s where it’s supposed to be—far, far down the road! Not something that, were I to eat right and exercise, I myself might almost live long enough to see!”

  “I know,” said Oppie. “I wish it wasn’t true.”

  “Over! The whole she-bang!” Leo snapped his fingers. “Like that!”

  “Like that,” said Oppie softly. “But Teller thinks physicists should work together to try to find a solution.”

  Leo’s tone calmed a bit. “It is, as you’d say, a sweet problem.”

  “It’s not sweet,” Oppie said. “It’s bitter. The ashes of futility.”

  “Well,” said Leo. “We probably won’t survive that long, anyway, as I said, if we let the military control atomic matters.”

  “I know the May-Johnson Bill is shit—”

  “That’s what you said about the atomic bomb.”

  “—and I’ll be happy if they come up with something better, but I still say politics is a matter for politicians.”

  “We shall never agree on that,” said Leo. “But this—saving the world!—is a matter for intellectuals, for scientists. Not brutes, not soldiers. Everyone knew our Manhattan Project would last at most a few years. Either we would succeed or Hitler and Heisenberg would, but it was a race that was bound to be completed by 1944 or 1945. No one expects us to be working together in 1946, let alone the 1950s.”

  Oppie sucked on his pipe, which, out of deference to Leo, he’d let go out before they’d gotten up to his room. “We aren’t going to be working together. I’ve resigned.”