J. Robert Oppenheimer

(1904 - 1967)

Born in New York City, the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer ran the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II; when the first atomic bomb was successfully tested in 1945, he said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” His government security clearance was revoked in 1954 after a hearing focusing on his Communist ties; in 2022, the decision was nullified by the U.S. Secretary of Energy, as “more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.”