On one occasion, someone threw a theme party: “Come As Your Suppressed Desire.” Oppie came dressed in his ordinary suit, with a napkin draped over his arm—as if to imply that he wished merely to be a waiter. It was a pose no doubt designed to reflect a studied humility rather than any real inner longing for anonymity. As the scientific director of the most important project in the war, Oppenheimer was actually living his “suppressed” desire.
