---
title: "J. Robert Oppenheimer"
chunk: 14/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:07:13.473219+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Starting in 1954, Oppenheimer lived for several months of each year on the island of Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 1957, he purchased a two-acre (0.8-hectare) tract of land on Gibney Beach, where he built a spartan home on the beach. He spent considerable time sailing with his daughter Toni and wife Kitty.
Oppenheimer's first public appearance following the stripping of his security clearance was a lecture titled "Prospects in the Arts and Sciences" for the Columbia University Bicentennial radio show Man's Right to Knowledge, in which he outlined his philosophy and his thoughts on the role of science in the modern world. He had been selected for the final episode of the lecture series two years prior to the security hearing, though the university remained adamant that he stay on even after the controversy.
In February 1955, the president of the University of Washington, Henry Schmitz, abruptly canceled an invitation to Oppenheimer to deliver a series of lectures there. Schmitz's decision caused an uproar among the students; 1,200 of them signed a petition protesting the decision, and Schmitz was burned in effigy. While they marched in protest, the state of Washington outlawed the Communist Party, and required all government employees to swear a loyalty oath. Edwin Albrecht Uehling, the chairman of the physics department and a colleague of Oppenheimer's from Berkeley, appealed to the university senate, and Schmitz's decision was overturned by a vote of 56 to 40. Oppenheimer stopped briefly in Seattle to change planes on a trip to Oregon and was joined for coffee during his layover by several University of Washington faculty, but Oppenheimer never lectured there. Oppenheimer gave two lectures on the "Constitution of Matter" at Oregon State University during this trip.
Oppenheimer was increasingly concerned about the danger that scientific inventions could pose to humanity. He joined with Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Joseph Rotblat, and other eminent scientists and academics to establish what would eventually, in 1960, become the World Academy of Art and Science. Significantly, after his public humiliation, he did not sign the major open protests against nuclear weapons of the 1950s, including the Russell–Einstein Manifesto of 1955, nor, though invited, did he attend the first Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in 1957.
In his speeches and public writings, Oppenheimer continually stressed the difficulty of managing the power of knowledge in a world in which the freedom of science to exchange ideas was more and more hobbled by political concerns. Oppenheimer delivered the Reith Lectures on the BBC in 1953, which were subsequently published as Science and the Common Understanding.
In 1955, Oppenheimer published The Open Mind, a collection of eight lectures that he had given since 1946 on the subject of nuclear weapons and popular culture. Oppenheimer rejected the idea of nuclear gunboat diplomacy. "The purposes of this country in the field of foreign policy", he wrote, "cannot in any real or enduring way be achieved by coercion."
In 1957, the philosophy and psychology departments at Harvard invited Oppenheimer to deliver the William James Lectures. An influential group of Harvard alumni led by Edwin Ginn that included Archibald Roosevelt protested the decision. 1,200 people attended Oppenheimer's six lectures, "The Hope of Order", in Sanders Theatre. In 1962, Oppenheimer delivered the Whidden Lectures at McMaster University, which were published in 1964 as The Flying Trapeze: Three Crises for Physicists.

Deprived of political influence, Oppenheimer continued to lecture, write, and work on physics. He toured Europe and Japan, giving talks about the history of science, the role of science in society, and the nature of the universe. Oppenheimer was warmly received during his three-week lecture tour in Japan in 1960, just 15 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He indicated interest in seeing Hiroshima, but the Japan Committee for Intellectual Interchange, which sponsored the tour, decided it would be best not to stop at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. In 1963 he spoke about the importance of studying the history of science at the dedication of the Niels Bohr Library and Archives of the American Institute of Physics.
Oppenheimer continued to visit academic institutions throughout his final years. He remained a controversial figure to students, faculty, and communities. In November 1955, Oppenheimer became the inaugural week-long visiting fellow at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.
In September 1957, France made Oppenheimer an Officer of the Legion of Honor, and on May 3, 1962, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in Britain.