Free 109 East Palace by Jennet Conant Page A

usefulness to the government.” Oppie did not succeed in silencing the FBI’s doubts about him, however, and the close surveillance that was kept up throughout the war years would later come back to haunt him.
    From the very outset, Oppenheimer was regarded as a complex, problematic, and controversial character. Even as a scientist, he was an unlikely choice. As Manley had earlier pointed out to Compton, one of his principal reservations about Oppenheimer was that he “had essentially zero laboratory experience” and although “he did understand laboratory techniques, almost anybody would have had more experimental experience.” He lacked the stature, the administrative skills, and, given his previous lack of interest in mundane affairs, possibly even the temperament for the job. There was nothing in his background or résumé to indicate that he was suited for a position of such awesome responsibility. He was second-best by any measure, but according to Groves, by then it had become apparent that they “were not going to find a better man.” With few alternatives left to him by the end of that October, Groves named Oppenheimer director of the bomb project.
    Given the prevailing sentiment at the time about Oppies weaknesses, the general’s decision did not inspire confidence. “To most physicists it came as a great surprise,” said Isidor I. Rabi, the formidable Columbia University physicist who was, at the ripe old age of forty-four, regarded as an elder statesman by the young researchers he worked with on the radar project, adding that he considered Oppenheimer to be “a most improbable appointment.”
    Years later, when asked why he was chosen as director of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer would say simply, “By default.” He would add that it was not a job anyone wanted. “The truth is, that the obvious people were already taken and that the project had a bad name.”
    In that moment, pressed to make a decision, Groves must have glimpsed some potential in Oppie—the same innate authority he had observed time and again in men who had taken an unruly group of soldiers and molded them into a disciplined unit—that would ultimately prove invaluable in bringing the atomic task to successful completion. He may also have thought he saw in Oppie something of himself. There was, after all, the same intense ambition, the same presumption of excellence—from themselves above all, and by extension anyone associated with them—that made them both demanding and compelling leaders. Oppenheimer, like Groves, did not suffer fools gladly, and both men had made their share of enemies in the course of their careers. Perhaps as a consequence, in spite of strong records and impressive credentials, neither had advanced to the highest level of his profession. Oppenheimer had majored in chemistry in college and had specialized in mathematical theory late in his training. He had made important contributions in the 1930s in the field of cosmic rays and stellar objects—later known as neutron stars and black holes—but was too diverse in his interests to mine one narrow band of research. He was already past his prime as a theoretician and was generally regarded as a better critic than original thinker. Groves had lingered too long at the rank of lieutenant and, at forty-six, was considered long in the tooth for an army colonel. Now that his overdue promotion to brigadier general had finally come through, it was pegged to what he regarded as a minor administrative post, another desk job, and not to the overseas combat assignment, and glory, he desired.
    Here was an opportunity for both men to prove themselves and, in doing so, make a significant contribution to the war. The atomic weapons project was a highly risky proposition, and failure would certainly end their careers. But in their own ways, both Groves and Oppenheimer realized that in working together to build the bomb, they might achieve the greatness that had eluded