YES, he was a good manager: “I think Oppenheimer did a very good job. There is no doubt about it at all. It was somewhat to my surprise because we generally thought of Oppenheimer as a rather impractical theorist… But when he came to managing that project, he really did awfully well. He communicated well with Segre and all the other group leaders, and he managed to communicate well with the generals, General Groves and so forth. I’d say he did very well. I certainly couldn’t find any fault that I know with Oppenheimer’s management.” [Owen Chamberlain. Physicist at Los Alamos, Berkeley Professor, 1950-1989, And Nobel Laureate. An Interview Conducted by Graham Hale in 1976. Regional Oral History Office/History of Science and Technology Program, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2000]
This was J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director, Los Alamos, 1942-1945: “Despite reservations about his fitness to direct the weapons lab, Oppenheimer proved to be an excellent director. One oft-appreciated administrative choice he made was avoiding the compartmentalization that could inhibit scientific work at secret facilities… Through relatively free discourse and weekly progress review meetings, Oppenheimer hoped to in some ways replicate the academic environment most comfortable for his personnel and most conducive to innovative thinking — even at a secret military laboratory.” [https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/People/Administrators/robert-oppenheimer.html]
This managerial excellence was harnessed because the United States of America was racing against the Nazis in inventing the most devastating weapon of World War II: Nukes. The United Kingdom (Tube Alloys Consultative Council) and Hirohito’s Japan (Ni-Go and F-Go) were also in the arms race, but it was the USA that became “the first country to develop nuclear weapons, detonating the first fission device in 1945. Seven years later the United States successfully tested the first hydrogen bomb during ‘Operation Ivy’.” [https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-nuclear-weapons-work] The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would, of course, not allow itself to be left behind (especially since the Soviets bore the brunt of the Fascist aggression), and this situation was the toxin that imperiled Prof. Oppenheimer’s role as a public intellectual: “There remains little doubt that from late 1936 or early 1937 to probably April 1942, Dr. Oppenheimer was deeply involved with many people who were active Communists. The record would suggest that the involvement was something more than an intellectual and sympathetic interest in the professed aims of the Communist Party. Although Communist functionaries during this period considered Dr. Oppenheimer to be a Communist, there is no evidence that he was a member of the party in the strict sense of the word.” [United States Atomic Energy Commission, Findings and recommendation of the Personnel Security Board in the case of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Washington, D.C., May 27, 1954]
‘This managerial excellence was harnessed because the United States of America was racing against the Nazis in inventing the most devastating weapon of World War II: Nukes.’
Those Americans equated any interest in Marxism and/or friendliness toward socialists with the USSR and un-American activities. Such mistrust of and hostility toward an ally in the Anti-Fascist War even as world peace hung in the balance: “The Manhattan District had one mandate — to build an atomic bomb as quickly as possible. Fears that Germany would build an atomic weapon first and possibly win the war thereby spurred the Manhattan District in what was felt to be a race against the German effort. Communist Russia was also fighting Germany at that time.” Given the circumstances surrounding Dr. Oppenheimer’s appointment as head of the Los Alamos Laboratory: “He was selected in spite of the fact that he was considered a ‘calculated risk.’ He would not have been chosen had he not been considered virtually indispensable to the atomic bomb program…Security officers opposed the clearance of Dr. Oppenheimer and it was not until July of 1943, after he had participated in the program for many months, that the decision to clear him was made by General Groves.” [Recommendations of the General Manager to the United States Atomic Energy Commission in the Matter of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Washington, D.C., June 12, 1954]
Irony! “The man who helped the United States develop the world’s first nuclear bombs was accused of being a communist.” [https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-science/2023-summer/in-the-matter-of-j-robert-oppenheimer/]
And from the actual Left, what had been said? “So great already is the destructive power of atomic explosives that man-made disasters produced by their use will henceforth make pale by comparison the havoc of all known natural catastrophes (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tidal waves, famines, plagues, etc.). Thus, J.R. Oppenheimer, one of the leading men in the development of the atom bomb, estimates that in the next war, 40 million Americans might be killed in one night.” [Review of the Month: The Scientists and the Atom Bomb, Fourth International, March 1946]
“It is now little more than a year since a statement of the Atomic Energy Commission concluded that ‘Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer is hereby denied access to restricted data.’ In that year an immense volume, the transcript of Oppenheimer’s hearing before an AEC security board appointed by Lewis Strauss, had been released followed by a Niagara of articles, letters, and books on the subject. One of the books on the Oppenheimer case came out shortly after the scientist’s clearance was lifted: We Accuse! by Joseph and Stewart Alsop. Reading it, one can readily see why We Accuse! has suffered a virtual blackout in the press. It is scathing in its indictment of the government, the AEC, the Air Force Generals, the security system. The Alsop’s accusations are made furiously, but also factually; their mood is one of outrage and indignation which does not impinge on their style which is direct and lucid.” [Julius Falk and Abe Stein, New International, Vol. XXI No. 2, Summer 1955]
With all of these considered, here is the best recap of Oppenheimer’s legacy: “Often called the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ for his work as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory–had a complex legacy…crucial in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, its testing in New Mexico, and its use in Japan. However, following the war, he joined in attempts to diminish the threat of nuclear weapons. He called for nuclear weapons and technology to be placed under international control, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and advocated for an ethic that acknowledges both the social benefits and potential dangers of scientific advancement.” [Rachel Bronson (President and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Statement on the Energy Department’s Oppenheimer decision, July 17, 2023]
The US Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm ordered last December 16, 2022 the vacating of the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission Decision: In The Matter Of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
