Chapter Ten

1.     The great Albert Einstein is not among them. The theoretical scientist’s pacifist views have made him a security risk; with the exception of some minor work for the US Navy, Einstein has been virtually shut out of the war effort.

2.     Szilard will be thwarted in his efforts to speak to Harry Truman about what he perceives to be an impending arms race. Truman believed Szilard was misguided in wanting to share the A-bomb’s technology with other Allied powers.

3.     Even before the Manhattan Project got under way in 1942, the Soviets knew America was pursuing the bomb. Their code name for this effort was ENORMOZ—“enormous.” German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs and American scientist Theodore Hall were both Los Alamos employees who also spied for the Russians. Fuchs was convicted as a spy in 1950 and sentenced to fourteen years in prison, of which he served nine; Hall was never charged. There were many more spies within Los Alamos. Though their code names are known, their identities have never been discovered.

4.     Known for her fiery, outspoken ways, Katherine Puening Oppenheimer returned to Los Alamos to be with her husband in July 1945. He was not her first spouse; in fact, she had been wed three times before marrying Robert Oppenheimer on November 1, 1940. Among her past husbands was a known Communist Party member who died while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. This led FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to investigate her loyalty to the United States in 1944. She was cleared of all charges. Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer remained married for the rest of his life, years that included frequent marital fighting and her downward spiral into alcoholism.

5.     The gods are collectively known as “Trimurti” in Sanskrit, meaning “having three forms.” This is coincidentally close to Trinity. Later in life, Oppenheimer will also state that the name came from the sonnets of John Donne and the line “Batter my heart, three person’d God.”

6.     Hindu scholars say the passage refers to the god Vishnu, who is trying to persuade a prince to do his duty. Vishnu quotes the line about being a destroyer of worlds while trying to impress the prince with his power by transforming himself into a being with several arms.