American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

Earlier in 1953, the British Broadcasting Corporation had invited him to give the prestigious Reith Lectures, a series of four talks broadcast to millions of people around the world. He and Kitty planned to stay in London for three weeks in November and then go to Paris in early December. The invitation was a considerable honor; previous Reith lecturers had included Bertrand Russell, who spoke on “Authority and the Individual,” and, just the past year, Arnold Toynbee, who had lectured on the grand topic of “The World and the West.” Robert labored over his chosen theme, “to elucidate what there is new in atomic physics that is relevant, helpful and inspiriting for men to know.” Most BBC listeners were probably overwhelmed by Oppenheimer’s studied ambiguity. “His glittering rhetoric,” wrote one critic, “held his listeners in a web of absorption that was often less attentive than trance-like.” His performance was nothing if not mystical. “For all my trouble,” he later admitted, “I was told I was impossibly obscure.”