J. Robert Oppenheimer

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             Oppenheimer became interested in politics with the rise of Hitlerism in Germany. He sided with the republic during the Civil War in Spain in 1936. He became acquainted with Communist students that he taught which was not unusual at the time. He withdrew his associations (he never joined) with the Communist Party when he learned of the suffering caused by Stalin on Russian scientists and toughened his liberal democratic philosophy.
             In 1939, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard cautioned the U.S. government against the danger of Nazis making nuclear bombs. Inspired, Oppenheimer began to search a way to separate uranium-235, which is the sum needed to maintain a chain reaction, from natural uranium and the mass needed of uranium to make a nuclear bomb. .
             When German armies invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, it became apparent that Germany was rapidly becoming a threat to democratic countries, including America. The United States government began to speculate about weapons that would make use of the discovery of fission, the splitting of the atom. .
             In August of 1942, the U.S. Army was given the task of systematizing the efforts of U.S. and British physicists to find a way to use nuclear energy for the military. This became known to be the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer brought together a group of theoretical physicists that were thought to be some of the best in the country. They were to design the first atomic bomb. The army officer in charge of the Manhattan project was General Leslie Groves. He named Oppenheimer the scientific director of the whole program and they both decided, in 1943, that Los Alamos, New Mexico would be the site for the nuclear weapons laboratory. .
             Soon, the original staff of 30 scientists grew to 5,000. Their goal was to finish the bomb before the Germans could.
             In 1942, Oppenheimer commenced discussions with military security agents that concluded with the insinuation that some of his friends had ties to and were agents of the Soviet government.