On the afternoon of October 24, 1958, Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Katherine went to the headquarters of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It wasn't just any Friday. Pau Casals was playing again in the United States after not having done so in the last thirty years due to the policy of collusion of the countries allied with the Franco dictatorship. The Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, had invited him to play on the thirteenth anniversary of the Organization's foundation and the musician had accepted, considering it his neutral territory. It was the first time that the vendrelenco played at the United Nations. He would still do it on two more occasions, in 1963 and 1971.
From the seating area, the American theoretical physicist of Jewish origin listened as Casals, at the age of 81, performed together with the pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski the Sonata No. 2 in D Major for cello and piano by his admired Bach .
Oppenheimer – protagonist of the biographical film directed by Christopher Nolan that is sweeping the cinemas – observed the musician who had taken a stand against the nuclear arms race that spring.
At the beginning of May Casals had supported the manifesto of his friend Albert Schweitzer. The French-German musician and theologian, Nobel Peace Prize winner five years ago, had called to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
"It is incredible that civilized men can continue to build new and more destructive weapons instead of putting their energy into making this a happier and more beautiful world," Casals had said. Adding that it would not affect either the United States or the USSR if they did not sign a disarmament agreement. Having created the first atomic bomb in July 1945 with the Manhattan project, Oppenheimer, at the age of 54, was the one who could best understand the danger of not putting a stop to it.
After the performance, the cellist gave a short speech. "Never before has the world been closer to catastrophe. The extraordinary scientific discoveries that, in the course of our century, have achieved several great intellects in their search for knowledge, are now exploited by the manufacture of instruments whose capacity for destruction is monstrous”. The concert and the parliament, broadcast by CBS and rebroadcast by more than seventy broadcasters on five continents, solidified the image of Pau Casals as a symbol of peace.
After the event, the Oppenheimers, impressed by the convictions of that frail-looking musician, went to greet Casals and his Puerto Rican wife Marta Montañez.
From the start they had a point in common. The musician had been living on the island of Puerto Rico for two years, after leaving Prada de Conflent. The physicist was one who had bought a plot of land in Saint John, one of the US Virgin Islands, less than two hundred kilometers away. What they had created during their professional careers was very different, but the recognition of each other's talent created an attraction between the two.
The physicist at that time, moreover, was a despised man. In the middle of the witch hunt of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, he had been accused of ties to communism because of his past friendships and, among other things, for having sent money to Spanish Republican exiles. Removed from his position as political adviser on nuclear affairs and banished from the American administration of President Dwight Eisenhower for his criticism of nuclear proliferation and the hydrogen bomb program.
Oppenheimer concentrated on classes, research and traveled the world lecturing. At the beginning of 1960, the University of Puerto Rico invited him to give a talk at the Río Piedras campus. Just knowing, he wrote to the musician. La Vanguardia has located in the Oppenheimer collection of the Library of Congress of the United States, in Washington, and in the Casals collection of the National Archives of Catalonia, the unpublished correspondence between the two from this time.
On January 14, the physicist from the Institute of Advanced Studies that he directed at Princeton reminded Casals that after the "great occasion" of the concert in New York, they were going to visit him in Puerto Rico. And he announced that he would be there on February 15. "I have heard that your health has not been good, but if you allow a visit, it would be an honor and a great pleasure for us to meet you." The musician responded enthusiastically at the end of the month. "It will be a pleasure and an honor to receive him any day and time that suits you. We look forward to seeing you. With admiration and cordial greetings”.
Oppenheimer lectured in Río Piedras on February 17 on the role of science in society, but under unfavorable circumstances. The university's auditorium had deplorable acoustics that the local press, such as The Island Times, complained about.
To make matters worse, the governor of the associated free state of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín, the great supporter of physics, was absent due to commitments in Washington, as evidenced by the correspondence between the two that is kept in the latter's his homonymous foundation in San Juan.
Oppenheimer himself, moreover, was not well. A stoned pipe smoker, seven years later he would die of throat cancer. “It was a shame and a sense of loss that I had to put aside the high honor and great pleasure of calling him last week. The doctor wouldn't let me do anything beyond the minimum required for my visit to the University, and I was really too sick to be a good guest." The physicist thus apologized to Casals, on February 25, already returned to Princeton.
To make matters worse, the musician himself, who lived in Isla Verde, on the outskirts of San Juan, had not been in a position to go and listen to him either. "I wasn't feeling too well myself", replied Casals four days later. The place also brought back bad memories. In April 1957 he had suffered a heart attack while rehearsing with the orchestra. "I was sorry that he was not in condition during his visit. And of course I was very disappointed not to see him. I hope that next time will be different and I will have the honor and pleasure of your visit", he added.
What at first seemed like a simple matter did not materialize due to health reasons for both. Oppenheimer conveyed to Casals that the University of Puerto Rico had insisted that he return the following year and hoped that the meeting would be possible then. It wasn't. Governor Luis Muñoz maintained a continuous correspondence with the physicist with the intention of creating in the state an equivalent to the Institute that he directed in Princeton.
Oppenheimer even prepared budgets, but his death left the project unfinished. It is unknown if the American visited the musician from the Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico afterwards.
There is also no evidence that the physicist and the musician met again in the United States. Oppenheimer was not on the list of attendees at the White House in 1961 at the Casals concert, invited by the new president John F. Kennedy—rehabilitator of the physicist's public figure—nor is it known that he went to the headquarters of Nations United in 1963. As if fate wanted to convey some message, the man who represented the most deadly destruction and the one who symbolized peace had not been able to meet calmly to get to know each other in depth.
