"What I really was under such circumstances is far deeper than you are likely to understand."
— Richard P. Feynman (Los Alamos ID Badge Photo)
Early History
Richard Phillips Feynman was born on May 11, 1918.
His parents were Lucille Phillips Feynman born in America, and Melville Arthur Feynman born in Minsk, Russia. Feynman grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. He studied undergraduate physics at MIT, graduating in June 1939. He went on to Princeton University for his PhD. In late
fall 1941 Feynman was asked to work on an atomic research experiment at Princeton funded by the civilian agency, Office of Scientific Research and
Development (OSRD). The project, called the Isotron, was an electromagnetic method for isolating the uranium isotope 235. This and other
projects for the separation of highly fissionable uranium isotopes came under the purview of OSRD’s S-1 Uranium Committee. In its oversight of
these programs, the focus of the S-1 Committee—also known as S-1 Rapid Rupture Section—was the potential military application of atomic energy,
as opposed to civilian power generation. [1]
In the first half of 1942 major changes took place in
America’s nascent atomic energy program. First, the coordination and control of all atomic research was consolidated at the University of
Chicago Metallurgical Lab headed by Arthur Compton. This centralization included projects at academic research institutions such as Princeton, Columbia, the
University of Wisconsin and others. Second, the U.S. Army was put in charge of the S-1 Rapid Rupture project, giving it authority over such
matters as Contracts, Construction, Employment and Security. Funding at this point now came out of the Defense Department budget. By the end of spring 1942,
the Isotron experiment was effectively shelved in favor of Ernest Lawrence’s Calutron project at Berkeley which evinced a significantly greater
U235 concentration rate. Feynman, however, continued to work on S-1 studies at Princeton. More significant, however, is the fact that he attended S-1 Committee meetings in New York where he met such
physics luminaries as Richard Tolman, Arthur Compton, Harold Urey, I. I. Rabii and Robert Oppenheimer. The subsequent close relationship with
Oppenheimer would be of seminal importance in Feynman’s life. [2]
By 1942 many accomplished physicists had
taken temporary leave from their universities to participate in the atomic research at the Met Lab. One of these was Feynman’s advisor and
mentor at Princeton, physicist John Wheeler. Although absent from Princeton he remained Feynman's advisor and, in March 1942, refocused him on
completing his thesis, The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics. In April 1942, while the Army
initiated a preliminary security background check on him, Feynman contracted to work as a consultant on S-1 research under the auspices of the Met Lab. In June 1942
the Army renamed the S-1 uranium project "DSM," an innocuous covername acronym standing for the meaningless Development of Substitute
Materials. Also in June, Mr. Feynman became Dr. Feynman. Within days of his June 16 Doctorate at Princeton, the Army partial security clearance
was completed and Feynman accepted a full-time employment offer from the DSM office at the Met Lab. On or about December 1942, Feynman along
with others in the atomic group at Princeton were personally recruited by Robert Oppenheimer to join the new atomic lab at Los Alamos. To secure
the services of Feynman, Oppenheimer lined-up a placement in a TB sanatorium in Albuquerque for Feynman’s wife, Arlene. Feynman and his wife
departed Princeton by train for Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the very end of March 1943. Improbably, 24 year old, newly-minted physicist Richard
Feynman became a member of the elite first team at Los Alamos. [3]
The above Feynman quotation is a curious
statement from a self-styled curious character. The “circumstances” in question were in reference to his time at Los Alamos. The reason the
statement is prima facie curious is that, after several autobiographical memoirs and numerous biographies, all highlighting Feynman's tenure at Los
Alamos, it begs the question: Exactly what aspect of Feynman at Los Alamos remains such a deep mystery? For whatever reason, it is a
secret Feynman was not inclined to reveal. The photo above shows Feynman wearing his signature white shirt for his Los Alamos ID badge. [4]
Other Curiosities—A Sampler
Brazil 1949
After the war Richard Feynman accepted a position at Cornell University in the
Physics Department headed by Hans Bethe, his boss at Los Alamos. Beginning in 1949, and into the 1950’s, Feynman was a frequent visitor to
Brazil. The following chronology concerns events preceding his first visit in 1949. At the end of November 1948, Feynman was
invited to give a series of nine lectures (three per week) on his QED theory at the University of Michigan Physics Summer School beginning in
June 1949. Feynman’s lectures began on July 11, 1949, and ran through the end of the month. On August 10,
1949, there was an announcement in the Rio de Janeiro newspaper Diario de Noticias captioned, “A course in ‘Quantum
Electrodynamics’ to be developed by two prominent theoretical physicists, under the auspices of the Brazilian Center for Physics Research
[CBPF].” The two physicists were Richard Feynman and Cecile Morette, a French physicist then a visiting professor at Princeton. The article
went on to state, “Professor Feynman was invited by the University of Michigan to teach a course on his theory, which was attended by the
most important scientists in the United States.” In late August 1949, following the Michigan Summer School, Feynman traveled to Harwell,
England, to participate in a Reactor Safeguards Conference in early September. At this conference Feynman would meet John Wheeler, his faculty
advisor and mentor at Princeton, and also Klaus Fuchs, his former associate at Los Alamos. As further noted in the Rio de Janeiro press,
Feynman’s six-week lecture series at the CBPF began on Thursday, September 8, 1949, and ran through the end of
October. Feynman returned to Ithaca, NY, in early November 1949. [5]
The foregoing information
is not consistent with the literature on Feynman covering this period. The reason stems primarily from Feynman’s autobiography, “Surely
Your’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” (Adventures of a Curious Character). In this memoir, Feynman described the impetus for his first visit to
Brazil as follows: “Sometime later I was at a Physics Society meeting in New York, and I found myself sitting next to Jaime Tiomno, from
Brazil, and he asked, 'What are you going to do next summer?' Feynman replied, 'I'm thinking of visiting South America.' To which Tiomno
replied, 'Oh! Why don't you come to Brazil? I'll get a position for you at the Center for Physical Research.” The Physics Society meeting where
this happened was the American Physical Society meeting held in New York City on January 26-29, 1949. In Surely Your're
Joking, Feynman did not give the exact dates of his trip to Brazil. But because of his reference to “South America” and “next summer,” all
Feynman biographers have placed this first visit to Brazil in the summer, to wit: “in the summer of 1949;” “By the end of the summer;”
“in July 1949 Feynman went to Rio de Janeiro;” “the six week visit to Rio, in July and August 1949, was a huge success;” et al.
Although it is not reported exactly when Feynman received an official invitation to lecture in Brazil, it almost certainly was
after he had accepted the Michigan Summer Physics School engagement. The fact that his passport for Brazil was issued on
July 7, 1949, suggests the formal invitation from the CBPF came toward the end of the academic year at Cornell, May-
June 1949. [6]
There are significant curiosities regarding Feynman’s 1949 trip to Brazil. The first is that the late 1948 invitation to present his QED theory at the renowned Michigan Physics Summer Symposium in 1949 was a career milestone of the first importance. If Feynman did not accept forthwith, he was certainly aware of the opportunity at the time of the purported conversation with the Brazilian Tiomno in January 1949. That Feynman would consider forsaking participation in the Michigan Physics Summer School in favor of a nebulous holiday in South America is preposterous. Professional protocol required him to give Michigan University a timely answer by the end of 1948, or early 1949 at the latest. He, of course, did accept, attend the Symposium and, over several days, lecture on his QED theory. Thus, in authoring Surely You’re Joking, it is untenable that Feynman would not recall where he was in July 1949, or his trip to England the following month on classified government business. Feynman’s decision to give a bogus account of his first visit to Brazil, omitting his QED seminar at the Michigan Summer School, is more than curious. Furthermore, beginning September 6, 1949, then Associate Professor Feynman was scheduled to teach Statistical Mechanics and Theoretical Physics Reading Course to graduate students at Cornell. It is not clear why these duties would be subservient and sacrificed to physics education in Brazil. [7]
In a nutshell, Richard Feynman wittingly misrepresented a select period in his life. Given the significant nature of the events in question, the Michigan Physics Symposium and a professional sabbatical to Brazil, it is reasonable to surmise that there was an unknown but overriding imperative for his obfuscation.
Lost Year 1950
On July 23, 1950, the Los Angeles Examiner,
reported that Richard Feynman had joined the faculty at the Cailfornia Institute of Technology. To woo Feynman, Caltech gave him his first year
as a sabbatical year (a year earlier than he was due at Cornell to boot) and also made him a full Professor. He was a listed professor in the Caltech
Physics Department catalog for academic year September 1950 to June 1951. Reflecting his sabbatical, no courses were assigned to him
with the exception of a Theoretical Physics seminar co-led with professors Robert Christy and Paul Epstein. The following academic year, 1951-
1952, Feynman went to Brazil as a visiting professor, verified by his FBI FOIA file: “Passport renewed on June 15, 1951, for a proposed one
year trip to Brazil as a participant in the Department of State Education Exchange Program as Visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics,
University of Brazil, for the academic year 1951-1952.” [8]
The above information, however, is contrary
to Feynman's account in his memoir, Surely You’re Joking, to wit: “Caltech wrote back ... we'll give you your first year as a
sabbatical year ... so my first year at Caltech was really spent in Brazil. I came to Caltech to teach on my second year. That’s how it
happened.” Actually, no, that is not how it happened. Records clearly show Feynman’s first year in California was his
sabbatical year (1950-1951), and his second academic year (1951-1952) was spent in Brazil. At least one Feynman biographer sketched
this period correctly, stating that he spent his first year at Caltech. From John and Mary Gribbins' book, Richard Feynman, A Life in
Science: "Feynman didn't really settle in Pasadena during his first year out west, the academic year 1950-51. He still
wasn't sure that Caltech was going to be a permanent home, and still thought he might move back east, or (more likely) find a way to persuade
the Brazilians to offer him a permanent post. He stayed for the entire year at the faculty club on campus, the Athenaeum, and deliberately
didn't try to put down roots." Further, consistent with Gribbins, Feynman was a listed Professor in the Caltech catalog for 1950-
1951, but had no courses assigned. This was the promised sabbatical year. The next year he was on reduced pay leave from Caltech while he was a
United States sponsored visiting professor at the University of Brazil. Thus it was academic year 1952-1953, his third year at CALTECH,
that was Feynman's first teaching year at Caltech.
[9]
It is curious that Feynman both understated and misstated his first year in California,
omitting such circumstances as living at the Faculty Club, being a lecturer that year at the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA, applying
for employment as an Expert Consultant on a classified military project, then notifying the U.S. Civil Service Commission in the middle of the
background investigation required for that position of his desire to withdraw his application, etc. And once again, as with Cornell, it is
curious that Caltech would subordinate its own interests to a new whim or demand from Feynman, namely that he be allowed to teach in Brazil for
the academic year following his sabbatical. Effectively then, Feynman was on Caltech's payroll for two years with no services rendered by him. [10]
Japan
1952
As previoulsy covered, Richard Feynman applied for and received a grant under the U.S. Smith-Mundt Program to
serve as a Visiting Professor of Physics at the Brazilian Center for Physical Research (CBPF), Universtiy of Brazil, from September 1951 to
June 1952. The CBPF, created in January 1949, was a major advancement in Brazilian higher education. To mark and publicize the achievement, the
CBPF hosted an international physics conference from July 15 to July 29, 1952. Feynman teamed up with Brazil’s leading
physicist, J. Leite Lopes, to prepare an important research paper for the conference, On the Pseudoscalar Meson Theory of the Deutron.
In 1988 in recognition of Feynman’s death, Leite Lopes published a short retrospective on him, Richard Feynman in Brazil:
Recollections. Lopes’ memoir contained the following anecdote: “The Symposium on New Research Techniques in Physics was held
from July 15 to July 29 [1952] in Rio and Sao Paulo and as Feynman had left on June 1952 to go to Japan I presented our paper – that
is why my name was written before that of Feynman in the publication.” [11]
Feynman’s
year in Brazil is well-documented in all Feynman biographies, especially his own. In Surely You’re Joking, he had this to say about
the end of his visiting professorship in Brazil and his trip to Japan: “Near the end of the year I was in Brazil I
received a letter from Professor Wheeler which said that there was going to be an international meeting of theoretical physicists in Japan, and
might I like to go? … The meeting in Japan was in two parts: one was in Tokyo, and the other was in Kyoto. I told my friend Abraham Pais about
the Japanese-style hotel, and he wanted to try it. We stayed at the Hotel Miyako … That was the first time I was in
Japan.” Virtually all Feynman biographies discuss Feynman’s participation, along with over 60 other foreign scientists,
in the first postwar scientific conference in Japan. The problem with Feynman’s version, however, is that the international Physics conference
in Japan was held in September 1953, not 1952. Apparently then, Feynman's attendance at the 1953 international
conference was his second visit to Japan. [12]
Leite Lopes’ anecdote can hardly be incorrect.
The Lopes-Feynman paper is a fact and is cited to the Brazilian Physics Symposium of July 1952. Order of authorship is relevant in academia and
Lopes was at pains to explain why he was named in precedence to Feynman, a more celebrated physicist at the time. Further, Lopes’ reminiscence
includes the claim that Feynman did not attend the July Symposium at all, he left Brazil in June before the Symposium began. It seems most
unusual that Feynman would skip this event entirely. Another curiosity relates to the symbolism of Japan and a Los Alamos physicist, and not
just any physicist. If one 'finger-lists' the most important scientists at Los Alamos on one hand, Richard Feynman is one of those five fingers. Such
a physicist does not forget or misplace his first visit to the country that was defeated by the first use of the atomic bomb. It is therefore
most curious that Feynman chose never to discuss or even mention going to Japan in 1952.
The
Jokester Jokes
As is well known, Richard Feynman exhibited and cultivated the image of a jokester. Indeed, Exhibit
A is his first book, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Biographers of Feynman follow suit, variously referring to him as a
serial faker, joker, prankster, buffoon, etc. Often mentioned are his actions to ridicule Army security at Los Alamos. Perhaps the one most
retold relates to a photograph of Feynman safecracking an office file drawer. Another example of his jokester ways is the reported facetious
argument he had with Klaus Fuchs over who would make the better spy. As the story goes, it was finally agreed between them that it would be
Feynman, because he could travel at will to Albuquerque to see his sick wife. Feynman and Fuchs were friends and roommates at Los Alamos. Given
the reality of Fuchs, their joking about being spies is ironic to say the least. One could expect to read such a witty reminiscence in Surely
You’re Joking (published in 1985), but Feynman does not recount it. He briefly mentions Klaus Fuchs as a friend whose car he occasionally borrowed to go to
Albuquerque. With no connection to their outlandish joke, his only comment is, "He was the spy." This seems a missed opportunity to
burnish his jokester reputation by sharing his Fuchs spy-joking anecdote with readers and ending with the punch line, ‘Klaus was the spy, not me!' ?
July 1949
Generally speaking, coincidences can be considered
curiosities—sometimes, to say the least. In that regard, the month of July 1949 contains a number of coincidences that in the aggregate must be considered not merely curious but provocative and significant:
· In that month, Klaus Fuchs missed his backup meeting with his control officer in London and was thus officially a
blown agent (never to be heard from again);
· in that month, a passport was issued to Richard Feynman for travel to Brazil;
· in that month, the FBI's Soviet Message Unit was officially fielded at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D. C.;
· in that month, after a three year hiatus in contact with Soviet intelligence, Harry Gold received a letter requesting a
meeting.
· in that month, Kim Philby, head of British intelligence in Istanbul, Turkey, received a transfer to Washington, DC,
as SIS's liaison to the FBI. [13]
Supreme Irony
What makes the foregoing truly ironic is the following story from Feynman’s friend and mentor John Wheeler in his memoir, Geons,
Black Holes & Quantum Foam: "In early September 1949 I had taken part in a meeting of the U.S. Reactor
Safeguards Committee, meeting jointly with British Counterparts at Harwell, in England ... Sitting across the table from me as I spoke was
Klaus Fuchs, soon to be unmasked as a Soviet spy. … Among my good friends at that meeting were Edward Teller and Dick Feynman—but of course we
had no reason yet to speak of the Soviet bomb [announced by Truman on 23 September 1949]. ... Thirty years later, in 1979, the
centenary of Einstein’s birth, I undertook to deliver six lectures in Europe on Einstein’s legacy, and one of them was in East Berlin. My
audience, mostly government officials, included Klaus Fuchs, by then released from prison and working in East Germany. At a coffee break, I
asked an attendant to take me to meet him. I approached him with a coffee cup in one hand and a notebook in the other so that I would not have
to shake hands." [14]
Autobiography
The best biography of Feynman the physicist is Beat of a Different Drum
by Jagdish Mehra. The best biography of Feynman the man is Genius by James Gleick. Feynman died in 1988 (age 70). Gleick never met
him. Nevertheless Gleick was able to get a sense of Feynman's attitude toward biography. As Gleick records, skepticism and avoidance gradually
turned to consideration as Feynman's standing as a world renowned scientist solidified:
"Feynman had begun to have autobiographical thoughts around the time of the Nobel Prize. ...An MIT historian, Charles Weiner, persuaded him to cooperate in what became the most thorough and serious of his interviews. For a while Feynman considered collaborating with Weiner on a biography. ...Ralph Leighton, the son of another Caltech physicist had begun taping their [drum] sessions, and then he began taping the stories Feynman would tell. ...Gradually a manuscript began to take shape. Leighton transcribed the tapes and presented them to Feynman for editing. Feynman had strong views about the structure of each story. [Leighton and Feynman] knew they had a remarkable central figure, a scientist who prided himself not on his achievements—these remained deep in the background—but on his ability to see through fraud and pretense and to master everyday life. ...Feynman chose as a title the odd phrase uttered by Mrs. Eisenhart at his first Princeton tea when he asked for both cream and lemon: 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!' W.W. Norton bought the manuscript for an advance payment of fifteen hundred dollars, a tiny sum for a trade book. Its staff did not like Feynman's title at all. ...But Feynman would not budge. ...Despite himself, [Feynman] was stung by the occasional criticism of Surely You're Joking. ...Others saw through to the essence of what they loved in Feynman. Phillip Morrison, writing in Scientific American, said, 'Generally Mr. Feynman is not joking; ...This is a book of a powerful mind honest beyond everything else, a specialist in spade-naming.' ...Feynman nonetheless upbraided people who called the book his autobiography. He wrote in the margin of a science writer's draft manuscript about modern particle physics: 'Not An Autobiography. Not So. Simply A Set of Anecdotes.' " [15]
~ The foregoing is opinion, research and analysis by the author and
is not intended to imply facts beyond those explicitly stated as such. ~
1. "Los Alamos badge photo": Richard Feynman ID badge.png found on multiple Internet websites, one of which is Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Feynman_ID_badge.png). Wikipedia credits the image to the Los Alamos National Laboratory citing that the image is in the public domain and requires the following text: "Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the University of California, operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor the University makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information."
patronym A patronym is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. Each is a means of conveying lineage. In Russia, the patronymic is an official part of the name, used in all official documents, and when addressing somebody both formally and among friends. Individuals are addressed by their given name followed by patronymic (e.g. 'Mikhail Nikolayevich') in many situations including on formal occasions, by colleagues at work, by acquaintances, or when addressed by someone younger in age. The ending -ovich, -yevich, -yich is used to form patronymics for men. For example, in Russian, a man named Ivan with a father named Nikolay would be known as Ivan Nikolayevich or 'Ivan, son of Nikolay' (Nikolayevich being a patronymic). Feynman was of Russian descent on his father’s side and his father’s name, Melville Arthur Feynman, contains the family patronymic Arthur or Arturovich. Any Russian man greeting or referring to Feynman would use the family patronymic, Richard Arturovich or Richard Arturovich Feynman.
“In the Fall of 1941 … OSRD”: Genius, p. 139-45; FBI FOIA File 116-26773, Serial 2, dated August 27, 1947.
Note FBI document 116-26773-2 is a Personnel Security Questionnaire (PSQ) completed by Richard Feynman for consultant employment at Brookhaven National Laboratories and associated universities. In this document Feynman listed his Isotron employment at Princeton as from 12/41 to 3/42. Also of note were his Organizational Memberships, listed as, American Physical Society, Association for Advancement of Science, Phi Beta Delta Fraternity, Sigma Xi Research Society, Federation of Atomic Scientists, Young Peoples Socialist League (“a few months around 1933-34, Far Rockaway”).
The experiment, called the Isotron ... civilian power generation: The New World, 1939 / 1946, Volume 1 of a History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Richard, G. Hewlett / Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., 1962, University Park, Pennsylvania, The State University Press., p. 24-81.
Sky Platform On August 15, 1945, following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies. Soon after that a majority of the scientists at Los Alamos returned to their former Universities. Feynman stayed on at Los Alamos for seveal months until he landed an associate professorship at Cornell University brokered by his mentor Hans Bethe. (To the pronounced chagrin of Robert Oppenheimer who wanted Feynman at Berkeley.) Feynman’s short continuance at Los Alamos was facilitated by a work assignment from the US Army unrelated to the atomic bomb, but nonetheless highly classified. Feynman had become very adept at using Los Alamos’ rudimentary computers to crunch big numbers. Feynman’s task was to work out the theory and mathmatics for placing an object in earth orbit. The name of Feynman’s ad hoc assignment was Sky Platform. The more descriptive terms, space satellite, were not yet imagined by the United States. This was not the case, however, in the Soviet Union. Unknown to US intelligence the Soviets not only appreciated the theory but had undertaken an experimental program to put an object into space. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launnched the first earth satellite, Sputnik 1. (Sputnik is a Russian word meaning “satellite” or literally “fellow traveler.”) The Russian success caused a national security crisis of major proportions in the US. This was at the height of the “Cold War” and the same Russian rocket that launched Sputnik could send a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. In September 1949 the Soviet Union had successfully tested an atomic bomb, 4 to 5 years before US intelligence judged they would have that capability.
"before Sputnik" In March 2011 author Peter Pesavento posted an announcement on Intelforum regarding the forthcoming publication of his article “What Western Intelligence Units knew about Soviet Rocketry before Sputnik” in the journal Space Chronicles. Another writer on the Internet characterized Pesavento's 'before Sputnik’ phrase as “provocative” because before Sputnik there was the U.S. Army research program Sky Platform: “This project was assigned to one of the physicists at Los Alamos immediately following Trinity and the end of the war with Japan. The fact, nature and military sponsor of this research was passed to the Soviet Union by Julius Rosenberg. The derivative source of Rosenberg's knowledge was a Los Alamos scientist, not Klaus Fuchs and certainly not David Greenglass (not a scientist). Interested readers may consult the index of R. Radosh's Rosenberg File under 'sky platform.' The significance of these facts is that Sputnik was a Soviet intelligence coup, not a result of Russian technological or educational superiority as asserted by the feeble American press on various Sputnik anniversaries. The real issue is not what Western Intelligence knew about Soviet rocketry before Sputnik, but what Soviet Intelligence knew about U.S military research and intentions beginning in 1946-7.” These comments by an unknown author only serve to strengthen the argument and conclusion of this website’s essay, Rosenberg Case: Not Closed.
2. “In the first months … Calutron project at Berkeley.”: Ibid.
“Feynman, however … , Robert Oppenheimer.”: Beat of a Different Drum, p.151; Genius, p. 144; Reminiscences of Los Alamos 1943-1945, Studies in the History of Modern Science, Editors Lawrence Badash, J.O. Hirschfelder, H.P. Broida, 1981, p. 105-7. (Richard P. Feynman, Los Alamos from Below)
3. “Physicist John Wheeler … completing his thesis”: Genius, p.146-7, 157; QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga, Silvan S. Schweber, 1994, p. 652, n. 60.
"In April 1942 Feynman contracted ... a preliminary background check.": FBI FOIA File Serials 77-7860-4, 78.
“Within days of his Princeton graduation, the Army partial security clearance was completed and Feynman received a full-time employment offer from the DSM office at Chicago.": FBI FOIA File.
“Army partial security clearance completed”: FBI FOIA File Serial 77-7860-4 (“G-2 files reflect FEYNMAN was subject of two partial background investigations completed 6/18/42 and 8/27/43 also a National Agency check completed 3/3/58.”)
"On or about December 1942, Feynman along with others in the atomic group at Princeton were recruited by Robert Oppenheimer for the new atomic lab at Los Alamos.”: The New World, p. 74.
“Subsequent to receiving … at the University of Chicago.”: FBI FOIA Files, HQ 116-26773, HQ 77-78660, WFO 77-63389.
4. "Richard Feynman ... a self-styled curious character.": Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character), Richard P. Feynman, as told to Ralph Leighton, W.W. Norton & Company, 1985.
"What I really was ... likely to understand.": The Second Creation, Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann, 1986, p.135, 446, n.18-9; Genius, James Gleick, 1992, p.414.
“What I really was ...” In February 1985 Richard Feynman gave an interview to two science writers, Robert Crease and Charles Mann. These authors were engaged in a book project to tell the story of contemporary physicists’ concerted effort to go the last mile in particle physics, i.e. to extract a final ‘Theory of Everything’ from quantum mechanics. From a history of modern physics perspective, this represented a ‘second creation’, hence the title. Feynman would have a prominent place in the book not only because of his science but also because of his extroverted personality and high public profile. He was a particularly ‘rich’ subject due to what others had written about him and what he had written about himself. In addition to their interview of Feynman, one of Crease and Mann’s primary sources was Feynman’s own best-selling book, Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character). The foundational period in Feynman’s life was undoubtedly his three years working on the atomic bomb project, 1942-1945. Not only was the physics absolutely leading edge but he was a sprout working shoulder to shoulder with the giants of his field. Two aspects of Feynman’s Los Alamos period are always mentioned in the literature: his young wife Arlene’s death from tuberculosis in an Albuquerque sanatorium, and his flaunting disrespect of Army authority and Manhattan Project security measures. In later life, Feynman recounted episodes of the latter to hype his iconoclast public image. Toward the end of their book project, Crease and Mann sent Feynman a copy of their manuscript for review and comment. Regarding Feynman at Los Alamos, the authors had written: “He was, at that time, a curiously tragic joker.” Crease and Mann regarded this statement as fair and non-pejorative. But Feynman did not. He took strong exception to this comment and, probably hoping to have the characterization expunged, annotated the manuscript as follows: "What I really was under such circumstances is far deeper than you are likely to understand." Authors Crease and Mann did not alter their manuscript and ”curiously tragic joker” stayed in the book (page 135). A later Feynman biographer, James Gleick, evidently privy to the manuscript, noted the Feynman quip and found it curious or cryptic enough to include in his biography, Genius, to wit: “And when he came across a sentence describing him at Los Alamos, as a ‘curiously tragic joker,’ he scrawled angrily, ‘What I really was under such circumstances is far deeper than you are likely to understand.’” Ostensibly, a fit of pique loosed a demon in Mr. Feynman. Another curiosity biographer Gleick found noteworthy was Feynman's penchant for white shirts. They are nearly ubiquitous in photographs of Feynman.
5. “At the end of November 1948 …. beginning July 11, 1949, … through the end of July.”: The Beat of a Different Drum, The life and science of Richard Feynman, Jagdish Mehra, 1994, p. 298-300. (“At the end of November 1948, David M. Dennison had invited Richard Feynman to give a series of nine lectures, beginning 11 July 1949 (three lectures per week) on his space-time formulation of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics at the Symposium on Modern Physics at the University of Michigan summer school. Feynman gladly accepted this invitation and gave lectures on his work and experience in the field of quantum electrodynamics, which Dennison wanted him to do. By the summer of 1949, Feynmans’s work in this field had been completed and he gave a full report on it at the symposium. The other speakers at the symposium in Ann Arbor were Gregor Wentzel, Bruno Rossi, Frederick Seitz, and Louis Alvarez. In the summer of 1948 Julian Schwinger had given a series of lectures on his formulation of the theory of quantum electrodynamics.”)
“during the month of August, … John Wheeler, his former Princeton advisor.” Geons, Black Holes, & Quantum Foam, A Life in Physics, John Archibald Wheeler with Kenneth Ford, 1998. p. 188.
“On August 10, 1949, there was an announcement … most important scientists in the United States.”: Diario de Noticias, Rio de Janeiro, August 10, 1949. (Caption: "A course in Quantum Electrodynamics to be developed by two prominent theoretical physicists, under the auspices of the Brazilian Center for Physics Research"; ..."In compliance with the plan it had outlined, the Center made efforts to bring to Brazil the leading world authorities in physics and mathematics. Recently these efforts have met with success with the arrival of two great physicists. They are French physicist Cecille Morette and U.S. physicist Richard P. Feynman. Both are theoretical physicists and have come, at the invitation of the Center to teach a course in nuclear physics and to conduct weekly conferences. Cecill Morette is one of the most prominent theoretical physicists in France and is currently at Princeton in the United States. Richard Feynman is a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in the United States. He has become famous for having, in the past two years, developed a new theory of magnetic fields: quantum electrodynamics. This new theory has sparked great interest. Prof. Feynman was invited by the University of Michigan to teach a course on his theory, which was attended by the most important scientists in the United States. Both Morette and Feynman are expected to arrive in a few days and subsequently start work on the course and conferences in the Center.")
"The six-week lecture series at the CBPF began on Thursday, September 8, 1949.": Diario de Noticias, Rio de Janeiro, September 7, 1949. (“7 de Setembro de 1949), Caption: Seminar This Week, ... Tomorrow, 9am, Quantum Electrodynamics, Richarde P. Feynman, 10am, Interaction of Elementary Particles, Cecile Morette.”)
“Feynman returned … November.”: Feynman letter to Ted Welton, November 16, 1949.
6. “Sometime later … Jaime Tiomno … visiting South America … Center for Physical Research.”: Surely Your’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 199-202.
Brazilian Center for Physics Research The Brazilian Center for Physics Research (Portuguese: Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, CBPF) is a physics research center in the Urca neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro sponsored by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology. CBPF was founded in 1949 from a joint effort of Cesar Lattes, José Leite Lopes, and Jayme Tiomno. Throughout its existence, CBPF became an internationally renowned research institution, organizing several international meetings and hosting many renowned physicists, like Richard Feynman and J. Robert Oppenheimer. (Wikipedia)
“American Physical Society meeting … New York City on January 26-29, 1949”: Physics Today, September 1996, p.48.
“all Feynman biographers … “in the summer of 1949;”… By the end of the Summer he had persuaded…;” … “in July 1949 Feynman went to Rio de Janeiro;” … “the six week visit to Rio, in July and August 1949, was a huge success.” Genius, p.278; Beat of a Different Drum, p.333; Richard Feynman, Gibbins, p.140.
“passport for Brazil was issued on July 7, 1949”: FBI FOIA Files.
7. “In authoring … the following month”: Physics Today, May 1949, p.28. (“The University of Michigan’s 1949 Summer Symposium on contemporary physics is scheduled to be held from June 27 to July 30. Guest lecturers will include Luis Alvarez of the University of California, R. P. Feynman of Cornell University …”)
CBPF Feynman Lectures 1949 CBPF Feynman Lectures 1949 The University of Michigan Summer Physics Symposium, covering about 6 weeks, was a traditional event on the Physics calendar. In summer 1948 the major guest lecturer had been Julian Schwinger, whose new theory of Quantum Electrodynamics rivaled Feynman's. The invitation to Feynman in November 1948 to lecture the following summer would be a career watermark. Professional courtesy required Feynman to reply within several weeks, if not immediately. It is clear that in January 1949 when Feynman discussed visiting Brazil with Tiomno he had either committed to Michigan or was holding them off. The latter possibility, that a summer vacation to South America or teaching Brazilian grad students took precedence over presenting QED to his peers and seniors is patently absurd. The CBPF was only founded in January 1949, and its location and facilities were not yet established. By the time Feynman received an official invitation from the CBPF, he had two prior commitments for summer 1949, Michigan and England. The facts and circumstances in this matter strongly suggest that Feynman wanted to go to Brazil and the CBPF was willing to accommodate his earliest availability, which was in the Fall at the expense of Cornell.
“beginning September 6, 1949, … Statistical Mechanics and Kinetic Theory and Theoretical Physics Reading Course”: Cornell University, Graduate School, Announcement for 1949-1950 Sessions.
8. “The following academic year, 1951-1952 … Visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Brazil, for the academic year 1951-1952.”: FBI FOIA Files.
9. “Caltech wrote back … That’s how it happened.”: Surely You’re Joking, p. 233; CALTECH Archives, Historical Interviews of Robert F. Bacher, June-August 1981, February 1983, Interviewed by Mary Terrall; Genius, p. 277-278, 476.
Robert Bacher Robert Bacher was a Cornell professor in 1943 when he was recruited to go to Los Alamos as head of the Experimental Physics Division. He returned to Cornell after the war. In the first half of 1949 he was recruited by CALTECH for the Chairmanship of their Physics, Math and Astronomy Department. In this capacity he undertook several staffing initiatives, one of which was an approach to Richard Feynman, whom he was aware might be available. In the summer of 1949 Bacher and his wife were vacationing in Michigan prior to their move to Pasedena. Knowing that Feynman was lecturing at the Summer Physics Symposium in Ann Arbor he contacted him to discuss a position at Caltech. He described these events in a series of recorded historical interviews at Caltech in June-August 1983. An excerpt: "We had arranged to rent a house at Crystal Lake in Northern Michigan ...This was a real vacation, and I had time to think over plans for the future. ...While at Crystal Lake, I thought about the other staff members and remembered that Feynman, whom Bethe and I had persuaded to go to Cornell from Los Alamos, had separated from his wife and might just consider moving from Ithaca as a consequence. A few calls located him at the summer session in Ann Arbor. I persuaded him to visit us at Crystal Lake for a weekend. I had some long talks with him about the future. He did feel very unsettled in Ithaca and had already promised to spend a year in Brazil. After some calls to Pasadena, it was arranged--I don't quite remember how--that we would offer him an appointment underwriting his leave to Brazil. ...This took some time to work out, but his coming to Caltech was strongly supported in Pasadena."
~ Comment/Analysis If Robert Bacher's remembrance is accurate, then it certainly compounds the curiousness of the Feynman-Brazil relationship. This writer consulted Genius by Gleick hoping to find clarity. The biography does not reference the Caltech-Terrall interviews of Bacher. However, Mr. Gleick interviewed Bacher himself and cites that interview as basis for the following narrative: "An old Los Alamos acquaintance, Robert Bacher, after serving on the new Atomic Energy Commission, was moving to Caltech, where he was charged with rebuilding an obsolete-looking physics program. He was swimming in a lake during a summer vacation in northern Michigan when Feynman's name came into his head. He rushed back to shore, tracked Feynman down by telephone, and within a few days had him there visiting." It must be a given that in his conversation with Bacher, Gleick became aware, if he was not already, that Feynman was lecturing on QED at the University of Michigan in July 1949. But he does not mention this noteworthy Feynman event in Genius. Why? The most logical explanation is that, since it conflicted with existing Feynman dogma, e.g. Surely You're Joking, it was ommited to avoid a conumdrum that would subvert the next 20 or so pages of his book. Feynman was back in Brazil in June 1953. In July 1953 he was issued a U.S. passport at Rio De Janiero ostensibly for later travel that summer to Japan. The known facts raise significant questions about Feynman during the period 1949 to 1953. In the absence of reasonable answers, it can be hypothesized, if not inferred, that Feynman had an undisclosed, ulterior motive for going to Brazil. The ‘Bacher story’ is further evidence that Feynman could absolutely not have forgotten where he was in July 1949. Therefore, when authoring Surely Your Joking in the 1980’s and supplying the answer to the purported question from Tiomno, “What are you going to do next summer?,” Feynman well-knew the true answer was that the Physics Summer School lecture invitation had taken precedence over any thoughts of a summer vacation to South America. If, indeed, there had been such.
“Feynman didn't really settle in … put down roots”: Richard Feynman, A Life in Science, John and Mary Gribbin, 1997, p. 142.
10. “such circumstances … a lecturer at the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA … employment there as an Expert Consultant … background investigation [Loyalty Review] required for the position.”: FBI FOIA Files.
11. “Feynman applied for … from September 1951 to June 1952.”: FBI FOIA Files
“The Symposium on New Research Techniques in Physics … before that of Feynman in the publication.”: Richard Feynman in Brazil: Recollections, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas (CBPF-CS-013/88), J. Leite LOPES. Rio De Janeiro, 1988, p. 4.
12. “Near the end of the year I was in Brazil … That was the first time I was in Japan …September 1953, not 1952.”: Surely You’re Joking, p. 236-244; A Tale of Two Continents, Abraham Pais, 1997, p. 121-2: Genius, p. 309.
13. “Another example of his jokester ways … his sick wife.”: Genius, p. 185; Klaus Fuchs - Atomic Spy, Robert Chadwell Williams, 1987, p. 77.
"Feynman does briefly mention ... He was the spy." Surely You’re Joking, p. 129.
"There is another curiosity ... never to be heard from again.": KGB File 84490, v.1 ("Bras" - "Charles"), p. 424, A. Vassiliev, Yellow Notebook #1, trans., p. 83. ("Meeting with Ch. 1.4.49. (Last Meeting) ... p.468 - N-xt meeting - 25.06.49 ... Backup - 2.07.49 -did not show up.")
Alexander Feklisov KGB Officer Alexander Feklisov served two tours in the United States assigned to the USSR's Foreign Service mission, affording him diplomatic immunity. His first tour was from 1941 to 1946. During this period, he was the case officer for numerous agents, some still unknown. The most prominent, however, was Julius Rosenberg. After the war, Feklisov was posted to the Soviet Embassy in London with the specific assignment of control officer for Klaus Fuchs. In 2001 Feklisov published an english language memoir, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs, which provided significant new information about Fuchs. From September 1947 to April 1949, Feklisov had 6 clandestine meetings with Fuchs in the London area. Their schedule was to meet every three or four months; at the end of each rendezvous they establishd the date, time and location for their next meeting, as well as those for a backup meeting should either party miss the primary. According to Feklisov, during this period Fuchs missed the primary meeting twice, but in each case made the backup. Feklisov stated that his last meeting with Fuchs was April 1, 1949, a Friday. He did not mention the date that was set for the next meeting. The Vassiliev Notebooks (2009), however, corroborated April 1, 1949, as the last Feklisov-Fuchs meeting, and also provided the date of their next meeting and its associated backup: The Feklisov-Fuchs meeting after April 1 was scheduled for 25 June 1949, a Saturday; the back up was set for the following Saturday, 2 July 1949. As is known, Fuchs did not show up for the primary at the end of June, he did not make the backup a week later and nor did he ever execute other prescribed re-contact procedures. In his memoir Feklisov makes clear that he never understood why, after eight years of faithful service, "the perfect agent" went 'awol' without the slightest forewarning; and especially, why, after Fuchs was released from prison and returned to East Germany, he was not allowed to participate in the debrief of his former agent.
"July 1949 Richard Feynman ... passport for travel to Brazil.": FBI FOIA Files
"July 1949 ... Soviet Message Unit ... at Washington, D. C.": Essays on Espionage, essay Soviet Message Unit, paragraph Bureau Source Five.
"after a three year hiatus ... letter requesting a meeting.": The Haunted Wood, Allen Weinstein and Alexander Weinstein, 1999, p. 318. (See Below)
Curious Coincidence The coincidence of events in July 1949 is even more striking: three of them occurred in the first week of July 1949: July 2, Fuchs a no-show for back-up meeting; July 7, Feynman passport for Brazil; July 7, SA Ernest Van Loon arrived in Washington DC to join Robert Lamphere as a Supervisor in the FBI's Soviet Message Unit.
Harry Gold Eleven days later, on July 18, 1949, Gold received a letter requesting a meeting: "Dear Harry, Just got back to New York and am going to stay here for about three weeks. Will be very glad to see you if you suggest when you can come. Yours sincerely, John." Gold did not respond to this letter ostensibly because after three years he had forgotten the tradecraft protocol for executing the meeting. "John" was the field covername of Gold's last control officer, Anatoly Yatskov. It is not definitively known whether Yatskov had in fact returned to New York to hold a critical meeting with Gold in the face of a possible Fuchs defection. Receiving no response from Gold, the NY station sent operative Ivan Kamenev to Gold's Philadelphia residence in September 1949. Kamenev learned two things, one good news, the other distinctly problematic. The good news was that Gold reported no contact by the FBI relative to Fuchs and, moreover, he was still a committed Communist and Soviet agent. The troubling news was that Gold was extremely vulnerable, a weak link, due to the fact that he was strongly connected in FBI files to Abe Brothman, Jacob Golos and Elizabeth Bentley. There matters stood until Fuchs's arrest on February 3, 1950. Within days a report was forwarded to Stalin by the First Directorate section responsible for Fuchs and Gold. This report concluded that more probably than not Gold had betrayed Fuchs, thus causing his arrest. This belief remained orthodoxy within most echelons of the KGB until present times, as evidenced by the 2001 memoir of Fuchs's last control officer, Alexander Feklisov. From Man Behind the Rosenbergs: "Therefore we have reason to believe that, despite Western statements to the contrary, Gold had started talking as early as 1948. ... I feel Harry Gold may have told everything he knew as early as the beginning of 1949." The reality, however, is otherwise. Stalin had known at least several months prior to Fuchs's arrest that the FBI had launched an investigation of Fuchs in September 1949, that British intelligence had joined the investigation and, most significantly, the investigation was based on decrypted Soviet wartime messages. The source of Stalin's knowledge was the ultra compartmented KGB operation that was running the Cambridge Five (C5), specifically Kim Philby. In September 1949, preparatory to his posting to the United States as MI6 station chief, Philby was briefed in London on the joint American/British decryption project (Venona/Bride) that had been achieving significant results since the beginning of that year. Among other items, Philby learned that the investigation was focused on a Soviet spy ("leakage") at Los Alamos during the war. Thus, prior to departure for the U.S., Philby was in a position to alert his London control officer, Yuri Modin, of this dramatic advance in an intelligence program the Soviets were aware of through their agent in America, William Weisband (and undoubtedly also Donald Maclean). Ostensible evidence for the KGB's virtual real time knowledge of the REST/GUS investigation is that in October 1949 Julius Rosenberg warned his brother-in-law that it might be necessary for him and his wife to leave the U.S. permanently. The grounds: Fuchs (Rest) led to Gold (Gus), and Gold led to Greenglass. On arrival in the U.S., Philby was a frequent visitor to the FBI's SOVME Unit office where he pulled up a chair and thumbed the Fuchs file with complete discretion. Philby also had access to Venona crypto-linguist Meredith Gardner. At the end of October 1949 the Bureau received a pivotal memo from the combined MI5-MI6 intelligence office in Washington. This document, certainly read if not written by Philby, concluded with the statement, "in the light of information supplied by you [FBI] Fuchs has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt to be identical with the Soviet agent REST." Philby needed to pass this super critical information to the Soviets as soon as possible, and would have done so either through his Soviet contact in Washington or communication with Burgess in London. By November 1949, then, Stalin and Beria were informed on the train of events that was the true basis/cause of Fuchs's arrest—it was not Harry Gold. The questions and mysteries that result from such circumstances are innumerable. For example, what caused Fuchs to abruptly stop going to his meets with Feklisov and what caused the KGB to suddenly reach out to Gold, two closely timed occurrences? Did the first (Fuchs) beget the second; was there some other incident that engendered both; or were both totally unconnected? Answers to these questions would likely shed light on the mystery of why Feklisov (separate note above) was never allowed to meet Fuchs after his release and return to East Germany: Would he have learned, and been outraged, that the Centre knew going into summer 1949 that Fuchs was in grave danger yet did not inform him or take steps to emergency exfiltrate him? For greater depth, see The Haunted Wood, Weinstein and Vassiliev, p.318-9; Spies, Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev, p.128-135; The Man Behind the Rosenbergs, chaps. 30-31; essay on espionage, FUCASE (Venona-Rest/Charles); The Sword and the Shield, p. 155-7, 603 n.117, 123; My Silent War, Philby, p.186; My Five Cambridge Friends, Yuri Modin, p.184; Venona, Benson and Warner, xxvii-xxviii; The Rosenberg File, Radosh and Milton, p.74.
14. "In early September 1949 I had taken … I would not have to shake hands.": Geons, Black Holes & Quantum Foam, John Archibald Wheeler, 1998, p. 188.
15. "Feynman had begun ... Set of Anecdotes.": Genius, p. 408-414.
~ The foregoing is opinion, research and analysis by the author and is not intended to imply facts beyond those explicitly stated as such. ~
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