The General and the Genius

Kunetka's audiobook provides the listener a concise and clear history of the events that led to the creation of the first atomic bomb, and a portrait of the two disparate personalities that led its development. Narrator Malcolm Hillgartner's timbre, intonation, and clarity suggest those of a radio announcer from the early twentieth-century period in which these events take place. Authoritarian General Leslie Richard Groves and physicist Robert Oppenheimer represent two seemingly incongruent approaches to the goal of building the vital weapon before the Nazis. Hillgartner's delivery is confident and direct as General Groves advocates a no-nonsense military approach, and Professor Oppenheimer focuses on the minute scientific details. S.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

May 11, 2015
Timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the detonation of the first atomic bomb, Kunetka shares the story of its development. Having previously written on the subject (1978’s City of Fire and 1981’s Oppenheimer, Year of Risk), Kunetka here uses original records and correspondence to produce a fast-paced recounting of the two and a half year Manhattan Project. He sets this narrative apart by focusing on the relationship between the two key leaders of the project: Gen. Leslie Richard “Dick” Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. Groves was from a middle-class family, authoritarian, brusque, and focused on his mission. Oppenheimer was wealthy, charismatic, liberal, and focused on academic understanding. Despite the tremendous pressures of war, these two very different men worked together in relative harmony. Kunetka highlights the unlikeliness of their positive relationship and attributes it to the qualities they shared: both were intelligent, self-aware, patriotic, and capable of prodigious amounts of work. He also simplifies the physics to be understandable to lay readers. This is an entertaining and informative account of a time of great tension, great discovery, and great accomplishment.