Broadcast: November 14, 2004
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
I'm Sarah Long.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we
report about two scientists, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, who
helped lead the world into the nuclear age.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
It is July Sixteenth, Nineteen-Forty-Five. All is quiet in an American desert
at Alamogordo, New Mexico. Suddenly there is a terrible explosion. A huge
cloud rises from the Earth. The sky turns purple and yellow.
The first atomic bomb has been exploded. It is a test of the most deadly
weapon ever known. American officials are considering using this weapon to
try to end World War Two.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer is the head of the Los Alamos laboratory. It is the
creative center of the secret Manhattan Project, which made the explosion
possible. As the cloud rises, Mister Oppenheimer remembers words from the
Hindu holy book, the Baghavad Gita. He says: "For I am become death, the
destroyer of worlds."
VOICE TWO:
Less than one month after the test at Alamogordo, the United States dropped
atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. President Harry Truman announced to the
world about the first bomb:
ACT ONE: TRUMAN READING ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DROPPING OF THE BOMB AT
HIROSHIMA. (15 secs)
The Japanese soon surrendered. World War Two ended.
VOICE ONE:
Enrico Fermi had been the first to use a neutron to produce the radioactive
change of one element to another. He was a refugee from Fascist Italy. He and
other refugee scientists were worried that Germany was working to develop an
atomic bomb. They urged the United States government to pay for a secret
scientific effort, called the Manhattan Project, to create the bomb. Mister
Fermi helped Mister Oppenheimer prepare the Alamogordo bomb test.
Yet later both Mister Oppenheimer and Mister Fermi spoke against further
development of nuclear weapons. Both men opposed the hydrogen bomb.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
J. Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City on April Twenty-Second,
Nineteen-Oh-Four. Even as a boy, he showed he had unusual intelligence. As a
young man he attended Harvard University, in the eastern United States, and
Cambridge University in England.He earned his doctorate in physics at
Gottingen University, Germany, in Nineteen-Twenty-Seven. There he worked with
the famous scientist, Max Born. By Nineteen-Thirty, Mister Oppenheimer was
teaching at two top universities on the American West Coast. His fame as a
teacher spread. Soon he was teaching the best students of physics in the
United States.
VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Forty-Two, Mister Oppenheimer joined the American government's
project to develop the atomic bomb. He was appointed head of the Los Alamos
Laboratory. Many of his former students worked for him on the project.
One year after the bombs were dropped on Japan, he received the Presidential
Medal of Merit for his work . In Nineteen-Forty-Seven, he began to direct the
Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University on the East Coast.
VOICE TWO:
At the same time, Mister Oppenheimer became chairman of the advisory
committee to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used the position
to try to make the public recognize the dangers of nuclear power as well as
its possibilities for good.
He regretted that work was being done to develop the hydrogen bomb. He felt
it was bad for both scientific and humanitarian reasons. However, extreme
tension existed between the United States and the Soviet Union at the time.
So in Nineteen-Forty-Nine President Truman decided that work on nuclear
weapons should continue.
VOICE ONE:
J. Robert Oppenheimer's life and work were affected deeply by Americans
intense fear of Communism in the Nineteen-Fifties.
Mister Oppenheimer made an easy target for suspicious critics. His wife had
once been a Communist. Some of his friends were former Communists. Years
earlier he had suggested sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviets. He opposed
developing the hydrogen bomb.
In Nineteen-Fifty-Four, the Atomic Energy Commission and a special security
committee moved against Mister Oppenheimer. They did not question his loyalty
to the United States. However, they said his personal life made him a threat
to national security.
VOICE TWO:
Mister Oppenheimer had directed one of America's most important secret
scientific projects. Now this famous physicist was barred from secret work
for the government.
He published several books during this difficult period of his life. One of
the best known was "The Open Mind." The books contained his thoughts about
science. He continued teaching at Princeton University. Again he taught many
of the most important scientists of our century.
