<P> Oppenheimer was diagnosed with throat cancer in late 1965 and, after inconclusive surgery, underwent unsuccessful radiation treatment and chemotherapy late in 1966 . He fell into a coma on February 15, 1967, and died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on February 18, aged 62 . A memorial service was held at Alexander Hall at Princeton University a week later, attended by 600 of his scientific, political and military associates that included Bethe, Groves, Kennan, Lilienthal, Rabi, Smyth and Wigner . His brother Frank and the rest of his family were also there, as was the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the novelist John O'Hara, and George Balanchine, the director of the New York City Ballet . Bethe, Kennan and Smyth gave brief eulogies . Oppenheimer was cremated and his ashes were placed in an urn . Kitty took his ashes to St. John and dropped the urn into the sea off the coast, within sight of the beach house . </P> <P> When Kitty died of an intestinal infection complicated by pulmonary embolism in October 1972, Oppenheimer's ranch in New Mexico was inherited by their son Peter, and the beach property was inherited by their daughter Katherine "Toni" Oppenheimer Silber . Toni was refused security clearance for her chosen vocation as a United Nations translator after the FBI brought up the old charges against her father . In January 1977, three months after the end of her second marriage, she committed suicide at age 32 . She left the property to "the people of St. John for a public park and recreation area". The original house, built too close to the coast, succumbed to a hurricane, but today, the Virgin Islands Government maintains a Community Center in the area . </P> <P> When Oppenheimer was ejected from his position of political influence in 1954, he symbolized for many the folly of scientists thinking they could control how others would use their research . He has also been seen as symbolizing the dilemmas involving the moral responsibility of the scientist in the nuclear world . The hearings were motivated both by politics, as Oppenheimer was seen as a representative of the previous administration, and by personal considerations stemming from his enmity with Lewis Strauss . The ostensible reason for the hearing and the issue that aligned Oppenheimer with the liberal intellectuals, Oppenheimer's opposition to hydrogen bomb development, was based as much on technical grounds as on moral ones . Once the technical considerations were resolved, he supported Teller's hydrogen bomb because he believed that the Soviet Union would inevitably construct one too . Rather than consistently oppose the "Red - baiting" of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Oppenheimer testified against some of his former colleagues and students, both before and during his hearing . In one incident, his damning testimony against former student Bernard Peters was selectively leaked to the press . Historians have interpreted this as an attempt by Oppenheimer to please his colleagues in the government and perhaps to divert attention from his own previous left - wing ties and those of his brother . In the end it became a liability when it became clear that if Oppenheimer had really doubted Peters' loyalty, his recommending him for the Manhattan Project was reckless, or at least contradictory . </P> <P> Popular depictions of Oppenheimer view his security struggles as a confrontation between right - wing militarists (symbolized by Teller) and left - wing intellectuals (symbolized by Oppenheimer) over the moral question of weapons of mass destruction . The question of the scientists' responsibility toward humanity inspired Bertolt Brecht's drama Galileo (1955), left its imprint on Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Die Physiker, and is the basis of the opera Doctor Atomic by John Adams (2005), which was commissioned to portray Oppenheimer as a modern - day Faust . Heinar Kipphardt's play In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, after appearing on West German television, had its theatrical release in Berlin and Munich in October 1964 . Oppenheimer's objections resulted in an exchange of correspondence with Kipphardt, in which the playwright offered to make corrections but defended the play . It premiered in New York in June 1968, with Joseph Wiseman in the Oppenheimer role . New York Times theater critic Clive Barnes called it an "angry play and a partisan play" that sided with Oppenheimer but portrayed the scientist as a "tragic fool and genius". Oppenheimer had difficulty with this portrayal . After reading a transcript of Kipphardt's play soon after it began to be performed, Oppenheimer threatened to sue the playwright, decrying "improvisations which were contrary to history and to the nature of the people involved". Later Oppenheimer told an interviewer: </P>

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