In writing about the new Oppenheimer film (Research, July/August issue), the reporter mentions that the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography on which the movie is based was co-authored by Professor Martin Sherwin (left). Marty deserves far more than a passing nod. He taught and researched at Princeton from 1973 to 1980, and during that time I had the joy of having him as both my policy conference leader and my thesis adviser.
Marty was a gifted teacher as well as an exceptional researcher and talented writer, having already produced A World Destroyed (1975), the award-winning definitive history of the development and decision to drop the A-bomb. In typical modest fashion, when Marty and co-author Kai Bird won the Pulitzer for the Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus, he told The Tufts Daily, “I think the Pulitzer Prize and a dollar twenty-five gets me on the metro.” I am sure I am not the only Princetonian who will take special pleasure while watching the movie in remembering Marty’s long impact on our lives.