Books: Oedipus at Los Alamos

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE GOD (449 pp.)—Haakon Chevalier—Putnam ($4.95).

The enigma of famed Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lingers on chiefly because he swallowed the key to the Oppenheimer case—his own character. One of the strangest, most mystifying glimpses of that character was furnished by the “Chevalier incident,” which played a substantial part in the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 decision to lift Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Now one of the principals in that incident has written a novel, and there is more than a hint from both author and publisher that the book will explain the Oppenheimer mystery. Because the Oppenheimer case, perhaps second only to the Hiss case, holds lingering drama and significance for Americans, even a fictional deposition is of major interest. But this turgid novel gives no answers; at best it offers further substance for speculation, as well as an insight into the bitter family feuds, the cliches-become-faith and the unrequited political passions of the Left.

The Pantry Version. In 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer, then head of the super-secret atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, testified to Army intelligence officers that in late ’42 or early ’43. Fellow Traveler Haakon Chevalier, at the time Assistant Professor of French at the University of California, sounded out three Los Alamos scientists with a view to transmitting atomic information to Russia. Later, Oppenheimer dubbed this testimony “a cock-and-bull story.” His revised version: Chevalier was approached by a mutual friend and Soviet sympathizer, reported the matter to Oppenheimer, and both men agreed that the suggestion was treasonable (this exchange, Chevalier later said, took place in the pantry of Oppenheimer’s house while the scientist was mixing martinis). To this day there is no conclusive evidence as to which of the two versions is correct, but Chevalier (who has lived in France since 1950) insists on the truth of the second, or pantry, version. In that case, why did Oppenheimer tell the first story?

A similar question is raised about the novel’s hero, Physicist Sebastian Bloch, in whom readers will find it hard not to see at least some Oppenheimer traits: he has “a universal mind,” an otherworldly face and a mesmeric personality. Bloch also belongs to a Communist apparatus, but carries no party card. Young Mark Ampler, a U.S. security agent who enrolls at Bloch’s university to keep tab on the physicist promptly falls under his spell. Pearl Harbor packs Mark off to war and sets Sebastian fervently to work on the Bolt, or the Monster, as Author Chevalier interchangeably calls the atom bomb. At war’s end, a grieving, disbelieving Ampter discovers that Sebastian has made him the butt of something very like the “Chevalier incident.”

The Sellout. In the novel, Mark innocently relays a story that U.S. security agents have concocted with the deliberate purpose of trapping Physicist Bloch in a lapse of loyalty. But the question of why Sebastian indicts his friend with a damaging yarn of his own is only glancingly answered. Chevalier hints that merely working on the A-bomb has corrupted Sebastian’s moral sense. Another suggestion is that he has “sold out” to a nebulous power elite and forgotten the “little people.” This charge reduces itself to guilt by dissociation: Bloch’s crime is not so much libeling a friend as it is ditching his left-wing pals and their causes.

Chevalier’s most tantalizing implication is that Bloch, blind as Oedipus in his pride, believes that only he can control the use and abuse of the superbomb. In this light, Mark Ampter is a human sacrifice to Bloch’s God complex. This^ view may be colored by Chevalier’s personal resentment (although he claims that “this book was written not with hatred but with love,” the novel’s underlying tone suggests an ex-worshipper stomping on a fallen idol). But strangely enough, the Atomic Energy Commission came to a very similar conclusion about Oppenheimer. In its own bureaucratic language, it also spoke about pride and arrogance of judgment: “The record shows that Dr. Oppenheimer has consistently placed himself outside the rules which govern others.”