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Nuclear Weapons of the Atomic AgeReduced facsimile of back of Robert Oppenheimer photograph on previous pageOppenheimer directed the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, and was among those who observed the first atomic-bomb blast at the Trinity site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. He later became chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Oppenheimer actively lobbied for international control of nuclear power to avoid an arms race with the Soviet Union, and he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. These views, along with youthful associations with people affiliated with the Communist Party, led to the revocation of his security clearance. Yet, he continued to lecture, write, and work in physics. President Lyndon Johnson presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation. A chronic chain smoker, he died of throat cancer in 1967 at the age of 62.