PJ Grisar
The Jewish News of North California, July 19, 2023
“Nolan frames the biography with two inquisitions: Oppenheimer’s infamous AEC hearing in 1954, which saw him lose his security clearance; and Strauss’ 1959 grilling in the Senate, where he was denied confirmation as Eisenhower’s secretary of commerce — largely due to his treatment of Oppenheimer.”
A sprawling green campus is shown in stark black and white as a fastidious man in glasses prepares to meet a god among men.
The man in the glasses is Lewis Strauss, a trustee for the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. The god is J. Robert Oppenheimer, erstwhile leader of the Manhattan Project, whom Strauss is courting to direct the Institute in 1947. Their introduction gets off to a rocky start.
“Mr. Strauss,” Oppenheimer says by way of greeting — the address is wrong on two counts. Strauss is a Navy Reserve admiral, and he pronounces his name “Straws,” in the Southern fashion. Strauss gently corrects him.
Never at a loss for a quick retort, the father of the atom bomb, haughty in his porkpie hat, says, “Ah-penheimmer, Oh-penheimmer. No matter how you pronounce it they know it’s Jewish.”
Strauss answers that he’s president of Temple Emanu-el. Oppenheimer presses for more credentials — is he a scientist himself? No, he’s more of a hobbyist. In fact, before becoming a financier, he made his money selling shoes.