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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Kai Bird
Read between
May 25 - June 30, 2023
Bundy and Oppenheimer conceded that a “nuclear stalemate� between the Soviets and the United States might evolve into a “strange stability� in which both sides would refrain from using these suicidal weapons. But if so, “a world so dangerous may not be very calm, and to maintain the peace it will be necessary for statesmen to decide against rash actions not just once, but every time.� They concluded that “unless the contest in atomic armaments is in some way moderated, our whole society will come increasingly into peril of the gravest kind.�
In an implicit rebuke to those who thought that a powerful, nuclear-armed America could act unilaterally, Oppenheimer intoned, “The problem of doing justice to the implicit, the imponderable, and the unknown is of course not unique in politics. It is always with us in science, it is with us in the most trivial of personal affairs, and it is one of the great problems of writing and of all forms of art. The means by which it is solved is sometimes called style. It is style which complements affirmation with limitation and with humility; it is style which makes it possible to act effectively, but
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At the inaugural talk, 1,200 people packed Harvard’s largest lecture hall, Sanders Theater. Another 800 people listened to the lecture piped into a nearby hall. Anticipating protests, armed police stood at the doors. A large American flag hung on the wall behind the lectern, giving the scene an oddly cinematic aura. By coincidence, Senator Joe McCarthy had died four days earlier and his remains were lying in state that very afternoon in the Capitol. As Oppenheimer rose to speak, he hesitated, and then walked over to a blackboard and wrote, “R.I.P.� As some in the audience murmured with
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