Oppenheimer and Sakharov and the Cold War

Oppenheimer and Sakharov and the Cold War J. Robert Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov are both considered leaders of nuclear physics during the World War II and the Cold War. The two men had astonishingly similar lives, achievements and views on nuclear weapons. Andrei Sahkarov (1921-1989), a Soviet nuclear physicist, is said to be the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and an advocate of human rights. In 1948, he was drawn to a top-secret scientific and …

…the moral ramifications of their chosen professions. Although they worked for opposite teams, both physicists spoke out against nuclear war and fought for mutual disarmament. As scientists, they were torn between their duties to the state and their duties to humanity. As Oppenheimer states, “I begin to wonder whether we were not perhaps traitors to the spirit of science when we handed over the results of our research to the military, without considering the consequences.”