PRINCETON, N.J. -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb who was later branded a security risk, died Saturday night of cancer. He was 62.
Oppenheimer who was director of the Los Alamos atomic bomb project, died at his home at Olden Farms here.
He had been director of the Institute of Advances Studies at Princeton University since 1947.
The shy, soft-spoken nuclear physicist had been considered a security risk since 1954, when Atomic Energy Commission suspended his clearance for past "disregard for the requirements of the security system."
Oppenheimer then was denied security clearance, but he was partially restored to public honor in 1963 when President Johnson awarded him the AEC's Enrico Fermi Award for his "far-ranging" and profound contributions to theoretical physics and the military and peaceful uses of atomic energy.
