"A must-read... No details are spared in exploring whether the hydrogen bomb’s development could have been averted and history possibly changed, nor in examining the jealousy and deception that ultimately destroyed Oppenheimer."

--Lori Valigra, The Christian Science Monitor

America reeled in 1954 when Robert Oppenheimer was charged with violating national security. Could the director of the Manhattan Project, the visionary who led the effort to build the atom bomb, really be a traitor? Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified documents, Priscilla J. McMillan, author of the bestselling Marina and Lee, exposes for the first time the conspiracy that destroyed one of America’s most illustrious scientists and helped draw the nation into decades of East-West brinkmanship. A chilling tale of McCarthy-era conspiracy, this groundbreaking page-turner rewrites the history of the Cold War. With the nuclear threat growing daily, this book is essential reading.

Introduction

PART ONE: 1945-1949

cHAPTER ONE: David Lilienthal’s Vacation

CHAPTER TWO: The Maneuvering Begins

CHAPTER THREE: The Halloween Meeting

CHAPTER FOUR: The Secret Debate

CHAPTER FIVE: Lost Opportunities

PART TWO: 1950

CHAPTER SIX: Fuchs’s Betrayal

CHAPTER SEVEN: Fission versus Fusion

CHAPTER EIGHT: Teller

CHAPTER NINE: Olam

PART THREE: 1951-1952

CHAPTER TEN: Teller’s Choice

CHARTER ELEVEN: The Second Lab

CHAPTER TWELVE: A New Era

PART FOUR: 1952-1954

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Sailing Close to the Wind

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Strauss Returns

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Two Wild Horses

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The BlankWall

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Hoover

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Hearing Begins

CHAPTER NINETEEN: Smyth

CHAPTER TWENTY: Borden

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Caesar’s Wife

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Do We Really Need Scientists?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Oppenheimer

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: We Made It-and We Gave It Away

Postlude

Acknowledgments

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index