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Featured articleJ. Robert Oppenheimer is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 22, 2005.
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June 12, 2004Featured article candidateNot promoted
February 1, 2005Featured article candidatePromoted
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Toni Oppenheimer suicide

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I removed details of her death[1] footnoted to what appears to be a small-town newspaper. I don't believe that is adequate sourcing even if the details were supported by the source, and they do not. I'm finding websites here and there making that contention, regarding how she was dogged by her father's security clearance denial, quite possibly using Wikipedia as a source; the wording is the same. One [2] saying it was "likely" that was the reason. The FBI does not disclose why it denies security clearances. Perhaps the reason was the emotional instability that led to her suicide? Was her FBI file subsequently released to the public? That seems to be the only way to know why her security clearance was not granted, if indeed it was denied or even required in the first place. I don't understand frankly why the United Nations, a non-U.S. institution, would require a U.S. security clearance for a translator. I think we need better sourcing than what appears to be speculation, especially since this is a somewhat exceptional and rather dubious claim. Figureofnine (talkcontribs) 13:26, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to access relevant information in American Prometheus on Google Books, p. 590, but p. 591, which details the suicide, is not online. If anyone has the book proper, perhaps they can reconfirm the details of the suicide. Figureofnine (talkcontribs) 14:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have a copy. It used to be available on Internet Archive. I have tweaked the article slightly to match the source. It reads on p. 590:

The FBI opened a full field investigation—and dredged up all the old charges about her father. In what must have been a painful and ironic blow to a tender ego, the security clearance never came through.

On p. 684, we have the source for this, which is cited as Oppenheimer's file, Section 59, "Letter to Newark", 22/12/69. I checked the file though [3] and this is not listed in the index. None of the letters are available online. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does p. 591 confirm death by hanging? One website says drowning. Figureofnine (talkcontribs) 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source reads (p. 591):

But clearly, she still had issues with her parents. For a time, she saw a psychiatrist in St. Thomas, and she told her friend Inga Hiilivirta that this experience had helped her to understand “her resentment toward her parents from the way she had been treated as a young child.” She suffered from fits of depression. One day, determined to drown herself, she started swimming out from Hawksnest Bay toward Carval Rock, where Robert’s ashes rested on the sea bottom in an urn. She swam for a long time straight out across the ocean—and then, as she later confided to a friend—she suddenly felt better and turned back to shore.

On a Sunday afternoon in January 1977, she hanged herself in the beach cottage Robert had built on Hawksnest Bay. Her suicide was clearly premeditated. On her bed Toni had left a $10,000 bond and a will deeding the house to “the people of St. John.” She was beloved throughout the island. “Everybody loved her,” Barlas said, “but she didn’t know that.” Hundreds came to the funeral—so many, in fact, that scores had to stand outside the small church in Cruz Bay.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I need to get that book. I checked Newspapers-dot-com and there was no contemporaneous coverage of her death. Figureofnine (talkcontribs) 12:24, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correction Needed

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Articles states that a daughter was born Dec 1944 but that wife Kitty died Jan 1944. 209.252.173.233 (talk) 11:49, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kitty died in 1972. It was Jean Tatlock who died in Jan 1944. AndyBloch (talk) 15:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]