J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was an American theoretical physicist. During the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer was director of the Los Alamos Laboratory and responsible for the research and design of an atomic bomb. He is often known as the “father of the atomic bomb.”
By the time the Manhattan Project was launched in the fall of 1942, Oppenheimer was already considered an exceptional theoretical physicist and had become deeply involved in exploring the possibility of an atomic bomb. Throughout the previous year he had been doing research on fast neutrons, calculating how much material might be needed for a bomb and how efficient it might be.
Although Oppenheimer had little managerial experience and some troublesome past associations with Communist causes, General Leslie Groves recognized his exceptional scientific brilliance. Less than three years after Groves selected Oppenheimer to direct weapons development, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. As director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer proved to be an extraordinary choice.
Robert Oppenheimer first appeared in LIFE magazine in 1945, the year the first atomic bombs were dropped. The pictures here show Oppenheimer with General Leslie Groves, who led the Manhattan Project that developed the bombs, and also addressing reporters who came to New Mexico to see the site of the first atomic bomb detonation.
Oppenheimer returned in LIFE’s Dec. 29, 1947 issue, as part of a larger story on Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. Oppenheimer was its new director, and the photos by LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt showed Oppenheimer in conversation with Albert Einstein, one of the institute’s founding professors, thus capturing two of the most influential figures of 20th-century physics in one frame.
LIFE’s biggest and most defining story on Oppenheimer came in the Oct. 10, 1949 issue, when the scientist appeared on the cover of the magazine. The story was written by Lincoln Barnett, a former LIFE editor who that year had produced a major book about Einstein. The photos, again by Alfred Eisenstaedt, depicted Oppenheimer’s softer side—in one his young son is giving him a noogie.
Oppenheimer would go on to oppose the creation of the next generation of nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb. Is it a tribute to the artistry of Eisenstaedt that his various portraits of Oppenheimer, shot across the years, reflect the story of his life through the subject’s eyes.
| J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke to New York Times reporter William Laurence (left) during a press visit to the A-bomb blast site, 1945. (Fritz Goro/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock) |
| General Leslie Groves (left) and J. Robert Oppenheimer, key figures in the development of the first atomic bomb, 1945. (Marie Hansen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock) |
| Manhattan Project officials, including Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer (white hat) and, next to him, General Leslie Groves, inspected the detonation site of the Trinity atomic bomb test, the first detonation of an atomic weapon, 1945. (LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY/Life Picture Collection) |
| American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1947. (Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock) |
| J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey, 1947. (Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock) |
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