"A must-read... No details are spared in exploring whether the hydrogen bomb’s development could have been averted and history possibly changed, nor in examining the jealousy and deception that ultimately destroyed Oppenheimer."
--Lori Valigra, The Christian Science Monitor
America reeled in 1954 when Robert Oppenheimer was charged with violating national security. Could the director of the Manhattan Project, the visionary who led the effort to build the atom bomb, really be a traitor? Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified documents, Priscilla J. McMillan, author of the bestselling Marina and Lee, exposes for the first time the conspiracy that destroyed one of America’s most illustrious scientists and helped draw the nation into decades of East-West brinkmanship. A chilling tale of McCarthy-era conspiracy, this groundbreaking page-turner rewrites the history of the Cold War. With the nuclear threat growing daily, this book is essential reading.
Introduction
PART ONE: 1945-1949
cHAPTER ONE: David Lilienthal’s Vacation
CHAPTER TWO: The Maneuvering Begins
CHAPTER THREE: The Halloween Meeting
CHAPTER FOUR: The Secret Debate
CHAPTER FIVE: Lost Opportunities
PART TWO: 1950
CHAPTER SIX: Fuchs’s Betrayal
CHAPTER SEVEN: Fission versus Fusion
CHAPTER EIGHT: Teller
CHAPTER NINE: Olam
PART THREE: 1951-1952
CHAPTER TEN: Teller’s Choice
CHARTER ELEVEN: The Second Lab
CHAPTER TWELVE: A New Era
PART FOUR: 1952-1954
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Sailing Close to the Wind
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Strauss Returns
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Two Wild Horses
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The BlankWall
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Hoover
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Hearing Begins
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Smyth
CHAPTER TWENTY: Borden
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Caesar’s Wife
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Do We Really Need Scientists?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Oppenheimer
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: We Made It-and We Gave It Away
Postlude
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
