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As a witness to the star-chamber “security hearing” Oppenheimer had endured, Smyth fully comprehended the travesty that had been committed: “Such a wrong can never be righted; such a blot on our history
ROBERT OPPENHEIMER WAS AN ENIGMA, a theoretical physicist who displayed the charismatic qualities of a great leader, an aesthete who cultivated ambiguities.
to start a small company to import men’s suit linings. The company did extremely well serving the city’s flourishing new trade in ready-made clothing.
Just days before their marriage, Ella wrote to her fiancé: “I do so want you to be able to enjoy life in its best and fullest sense, and you will help me take care of you? To take care of someone whom one really loves has an indescribable sweetness of which a whole lifetime cannot rob me. Good-night, dearest.”
155 Riverside Drive,
Ella ran the household to exacting standards. “Excellence and purpose” was a constant refrain in young Robert’s ears.
Three live-in maids kept the apartment spotless.
Julius was a conversationalist and extrovert. He loved art and music and thought Beethoven’s Eroica symphony “one of the great masterpieces.”
Because young Robert himself was frequently ill as a child, Ella became overly protective. Fearing germs, she kept Robert apart from other children. He was never allowed to buy food from street vendors, and instead of taking him to get a haircut in a barber shop Ella had a barber come to the apartment.
Ella encouraged Robert to paint—he did landscapes—but he gave it up when he went to college.
More than most boys, Robert grew up feeling torn between his mother’s strict standards and his father’s gregarious behavior.
“Julius’s articulate and sometimes noisy pride in Robert annoyed him greatly,” recalled a childhood friend.
“It was clear,” Robert recalled, “that one of the great joys in life for him was reading, but he had probably hardly been to school.”
Benjamin decided to give him an encyclopedia of architecture.
Long afterward, Robert recounted that he had no interest in the geological origins of his rocks, but was fascinated by the structure of crystals and polarized light.
By the age of twelve, he was using the family typewriter to correspond with a number of well-known local geologists about the rock formations he had studied in Central Park.
Julius had no qualms about encouraging his son in these adult pursuits. He and Ella knew they had a “genius” on their hands.
One day, Julius gave Robert a professional-quality microscope which quickly became the boy’s favorite toy.
As he grew older, even his mother on occasion worried about her son’s “limited interest” in play and children his own age.
“Man must assume responsibility for the direction of his life and destiny.”
