Post War, Princeton

    After working at Los Alamos, the nuclear physics lab in northern New Mexico, Robert Oppenheimer took a position as head of The Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.  During his stay Oppenheimer spoke out against the development of the hydrogen bomb which the Air Force strongly supported.  Oppenheimer stated that a bomb of those proportions would be used to level large metropolitan area.  “The new weapon, should it ever prove feasible, could be designed to carry unlimited destructive power.  It would be a weapon not of warfare but, quite possibly, of genocide.” 

    In publicly denouncing the H-bomb, Oppenheimer established powerful political enemies that would later come to haunt him.  Inconsistent testimonies and a history with communism lead to the suspicion of Oppenheimer as a Soviet spy.  A letter to J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director at the time, did not help Oppenheimer’s image as it stated he was, “more probably than not” working with or for the USSR.  At this time the United States and Russia were engaged in a cold war.  Senator McCarthy, of Wisconsin, initiated many hearings against hundreds of suspected communist.  All of these events piled up to eventually end Oppenheimer’s role with the Atomic Energy Commission.   

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