Talk:Jean Tatlock

Physicist?

Studying psychology she's a physicist? --Alien4 04:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No, she's not a physicist, though I suppose in terms of her biography content she's more of interest to physicists than psychologists. --Fastfission 16:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Image

Doesn't anyone have a photo? 10:45, 19 October 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.74.219.48 (talk)

Date of Death

Does anyone have a Verifiable trusted Reference for her date of death?

I found one newspaper article that says: January 4, 1944

But, I don't trust it completely without some more confirmation.

- 4.240.165.183 (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• _ _ I don't know if i was the first to put "July" into the article, but i recognize the Google Books (apparently facsimile) scan of Einstein and Oppenheimer by Silvan S. Schweber, page 353, note 16, last sentence, as the (probably single) source i relied on. I also get

  37 for "Jean Tatlock" "July 1944".

which is supposed to leave out apparent dupes but still includes a lot of what look like WP-derived pages.
_ _ My understanding is that Google Books documents are not acceptable sources (or not citable ones, if there is a distinction), even tho i understand the in-practice less feasibly verifiable citation of a hardcopy work of this quality, based on the citing editor's claim to have read the same page from the hardcopy, to be acceptable. I have not made whatever effort would be required to get my head around the basis for that distinction (perhaps there is a corps of major-library based editors who verify paper citations by less-trusted editors?), but i declined to provide a citn for my edit on the basis of that understanding of that guideline or policy.
_ _ IMO the info from the reliable-looking GBks source makes the article more valuable than no date, but i would not complain abt a fact tag on it, nor removal.
--Jerzy•t 00:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is one of the big problems with Wikipedia: You put in something, like "July 1944" and all of these spam sites copy the text (with errors included) and it appears to give it confirmation.

One thing that can help is in the search box, say at Yahoo!, put in:

• "Jean Tatlock" "July 1944" (13 hits)

Then try:

• "Jean Tatlock" "July 1944" -wiki -wikipedia (8 hits)

But you still have to look at the text to see if it was copied without the words "wiki" or "wikipedia" in it.

Once you do that, you get ONE site, and that is www.cvnc.org/reviews/2007/112007/LoveSong.html a review about a play, and you know that they just pulled it off of somewhere else. It is amazing you'll have "x" amount of hits, but if you start looking at the sentence, they are all the same text.

If you search on Google ("Jean Tatlock" "July 1944" -wiki -wikipedia) you 73 hits, but once you change it to: "Jean Tatlock" "July 1944" -wiki -wikipedia -"Donne primarily through his former girlfriend" -"Tatlock suffered from severe depression" -- You get ONE. That same www.cvnc.org, so the Internet yields virtually ZERO hits of good references. All of the "July 1994" references on the Internet appear to come from either Wikipedia or Simon Tanutama.

If you search Google on: "Jean Tatlock" "January 1944" -wiki -wikipedia -"Donne primarily through his former girlfriend" -"Tatlock suffered from severe depression" , you get 25 hits, and they look better:

• American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000%5C000%5C005%5C661yvvkb.asp)
• J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life - Abraham Pais, Robert P. Crease - 2006 - (Google Books)
• Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect - Charles Thorpe - 2006 - (Google Books)
• Physicists in Conflict: From Antiquity to the New Millennium - Neil A. Porter - 1998 - (Google Books)
• Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer - Gregg Herken - 2003 - (Google Books)
• Notes for Chapter Seven - Brotherhood of the Bomb - www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbmedia/notes_chap7.doc
• Brotherhood of the Bomb: "... Jean died on January 5, 1944, according to the San Francisco coroner." - (link.aip.org/link/?AJPIAS/71/647/1) - G Herken - 2003
• About J. Robert Oppenheimer - www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ai/aboutopp.htm (From American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Copyright © 1999 by the American Council of Learned Societies.)

So, I think that is January 5, 1944 is correct. It might be one of those things were it was late night January 4th, and the body discovered on Jan. 5th.

I think Google Books are an acceptable reference. At least you referenced a work, and the books are scanned on scanners, so if there is an error it is with the writer/editor/publisher of the printed book. - 4.240.159.57 (talk) 05:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, i don't think your research is as exhaustive as you're suggesting in your tone.
  1. One problem is that "July 1944" precludes hits in most pages that mention specific days in that month.
  2. The reliance on sources dated 1998 thru 2006 (and an undated one or two), for a 65-year-old event, suggests a sample bias of some sort. Maybe there's been an Oppenheimer renaissance following declassification, maybe not; or maybe the excitement of the new has obscured valid earlier scholarship with less flash.
  3. Maybe the problem is with me, but i think my experience is that Google tests with multiple NOT conditions are likely to be inconsistent with simpler ones. (Or am i thinking of multiple OR conditions?)
  4. I'm nonplussed by your reference to a specific person by name; perhaps i am missing your point.

But -- excuse me for quoting a whole damn 'graph of my own authorship from higher on the page -- i said

My understanding is that Google Books documents are not acceptable sources (or not citable ones, if there is a distinction), even tho i understand the in-practice less feasibly verifiable citation of a hardcopy work of this quality, based on the citing editor's claim to have read the same page from the hardcopy, to be acceptable. I have not made whatever effort would be required to get my head around the basis for that distinction (perhaps there is a corps of major-library based editors who verify paper citations by less-trusted editors?), but i declined to provide a citn for my edit on the basis of that understanding of that guideline or policy.

To put that in perspective, my devotion to the Mop and Bucket has not created occasion for me to pay enuf attention to distill what i've heard into something more definite.
But i think that should be understood as an assertion that WP policy and guidelines and policies of verifiability must be consulted and cited in this matter. You responded

I think Google Books are an acceptable reference.

which indicates no interest in going beyond throwing your acceptance of GBks against the wall and claiming that it sticks.
IMO you've seriously damaged the credibility of your judgment in this matter: you've created a reasonable presumption that

1. you are ignorant of our standards and
2. that doesn't bother you.

I suggest you study V and NOR before you go any further.
What you'll learn hopefully will include that WP's watchword is established human knowledge. In this case, the sources cited here show that there is

one scholarly-sounding source that denies both January dates,
a presumably relevant journalistic source that may or not be ambiguous in saying "4th", and
a significant # of sources for the 5th that i have not seen any scholarly-looking footnotes from.

That still provides the basis for the article asserting 1944 in the lead, and i am reducing my assertion to that.
I see no sign that info beyond the year is of enuf value to assert even a month in the absence of clear evidence that the discrepancies have been resolved by evidence, convincing to scholars, of what explains the apparent contradictions. (And IMO special caution is called for in light of the persistence in the article for the last 7 months of mention of a cloak-and-dagger theory of the death.)
Probably Schweber couldn't read his own hand-written notes on the date, and transcribed "J???y" as "July". Maybe he says that, or at least changed it in the paperback. Or, if someone has stated that possibility, and someone has examined the sources he cited to show that they don't support July, and they've both said that (where Oppenheimer scholars discuss the literature) and the only explanations by anyone with credentials seem to show that one of the January dates is correct, that doesn't prove January is correct. But it probably shows that January is the accepted month, the established knowledge. If none of those apply, we should say that at least one authority, if that's what he is, (namely Schweber) uses July as the date, and that a number of others use January, or just give the year, but avoid asserting that there is established knowledge abt that.
--Jerzy•t 08:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead an remodeled the article. I was doing it while you posted your note here, so I was in mid-editing and didn't see it. The main point is; it is referenced now, and the references meet Verifiable - References. I added a lot more detail and made the article more acceptable toward Wikipedia Bios. - Thanks - 4.240.159.57 (talk) 11:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• The existence of {{Google books}} certainly indicates my impression was somewhere between badly exaggerated and completely wrong; issues similar to those raised at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 17#Using Google Books as an appropriate reference may have confused me. The treatment of the date as verified by 4's OR is entirely another matter.
  --Jerzy•t 01:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
  

Chronology of WP's account of death date

I am reproducing in full the initial article Jean Tatlock, submitted by 129.93.65.62 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 19:23, 6 December 2004.
(There are no deleted revisions in the edit history; while i have checked only one other article's history for similar text suggesting that this text was cut and pasted from another article, i suggest that the

misspellings of 2 proper names, "commited", and "involvent",

the typo "staudent", and

two syntactic errors,

are hallmarks of a first draft and evidence against an earlier WP version.
Altho editing on J. Robert Oppenheimer was steady in the weeks preceding, mention of JT in it was limited to

In 1936 he became involved with Jean Tatlock, who sparked his interest in politics.

That sentence was added in February of that year, and appears to have been the only mention there for the entire period until the JT article was created.)

1. Here's the intial text:

   Jean Tatlock briefly dated Manhatten Project leader J Robert Oppenhiemer while she was a graduate staudent at The University of California, Berkley. Tatlock's interest in radical politics haunted Oppenhiemer throughout his life, and his involvent with her was seen by many as evidence that Oppenhiemer might was spying for the Russians. Some historians believe that Oppenhiemer had an extramarital affair with Tatlock while Oppenhiemer was working The Manhatten Project. Tatlock commited suicide in July of 1945.

2. User:Fastfission changed the date [1] from "July of 1945" to "July 1944" in an edit that also quoted JRO as saying "Between 1939 and her death in 1944..."
3. I worked on the sentence containing "July 1944", and miscopied the date into the lead sent as "July 1943".
4. User:Jonxwood corrected my mistranscription.
5. In response to the concerns of the 4.240.165.183 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) i dialed back the precision of the mention that by now held my attention, to simply "1944".
6. 4.240.159.57 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (who insinuates elsewhere being the same person as 4.240.165.183) did a major and no doubt valuable expansion, changing the first mention of the date to "January 5, 1944" and the second to "January 1944".

Now, here's an example of what i was talking about when i referred to OR, something we sometime have to do, even tho it can't end up in the article:

Fat Man and Little Boy is a 1989 film featuring JRO & mentioning JT's suicide. (BTW, our article discusses, w/o being specific, dates consistent with the January death in the film's article's "Basis" section.) At Goofs for Fat Man and Little Boy on IMDb we find (supposedly having been reviewed by the IMDb editors)

Factual errors: The telegram to Oppenheimer states that Dr. Jean Tatlock committed suicide 5 January 1945. She actually committed suicide a year earlier, in January 1944.

That "error" would have substantial value by bringing the romance tragedy later in the rising tension of the main plot. Especially if that was exploited, but even if not intentional, it is understandable if some viewers vividly recall RJO reading the telegram in the month of Trinity, July 1945. This would explain our early use of that date, and an editor who knew the correct year but not the specific date would probably make the shift i've cited, to July 1944.
I suppose that Schweber may have relied on our article for his footnoted book. But we may have something to learn in general about how hard it is to get these things right. I found in Herken

... Groves tentatively scheduled a test of the implosion bomb for Independence Day, in the New Mexican desert near Alamogordo, 200 miles south of Los Alamos.

For reasons that Oppenheimer decided to keep obscure, he had named the test site Trinity — a secret tribute to Jean Tatlock, who had committed suicide at her San Francisco apartment the previous January.

and said, wait a minute, that's another curveball: am i just being an asshole, isn't the January previous to a given July the one in the same year, not the January in the previous year? He's saying January 1945!

That's from the GBks page for the

Edition: illustrated

Published by Macmillan, 2002

I was still playing Is This Anything? with myself when i stumbled on (emphasis added by me) the fact that Herken chose to reword, to

For reasons that Oppenheimer decided to keep obscure, he had named the test site Trinity — a secret tribute to Jean Tatlock, who had committed suicide at her San Francisco apartment in January 1944.

for the

Edition: reprint, illustrated

Published by Macmillan, 2003

(The changed sentence is footnoted in both editions, but the corresponding page of footnotes is suppressed on GBks for the first edition; for the 2nd (paperback, i assume), the note reads

54. Teller (2001), 149; Blumberg and Ownes (1976), 100-101; Rhodes (1986), 335-37.

I haven't explored whether those sources document Herken's date.)

I think my asshole-ism ration doesn't extend so far as to cover further editing on this aspect of the article, but i intend to stretch it close to exhaustion by stating my continued belief that

January 1944 is a good date (which i'd express January 4/5 1944, FWIW), which is useful, and

what the IP has done is to put OR into the article, which is not our job.

Some may respond that the evidence is clear enuf that it's not useful to reflect the bad dates that are out there. My view is that it's not more useful than having the consensus date in the lead sent, but it is useful to others doing their own OR for purposes other than editing WP -- including satisfying themselves that we're aware of the fact that there is evidence against the consensus, and they probably haven't just found the hidden truth. Thus the footnote's contents should be expanded to enumerate, at its end, the influential (presumable) errors:

Herken's miswording (paired with his tacit self-correction),

Schweber's July date, and

the fact-based film's 1945 date (without comment on whether intentional or inadvertent).

--Jerzy•t 07:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jean Tatlock/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: 凰兰时罗 (talk · contribs) 03:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Hawkeye7:

First of all, thank you for your work on the article. I appreciate your positive, constructive, and extensive contribution.

I offer my comments below with a disclaimer: I do not want you to make changes to the article that you don't want to make. My comments may sound terse or opinionated, but don't fall for that: in fact, I am open to discussion. So, if you disagree with something, rather than make reluctant edits (while gritting your teeth), talk to me. I'm easy to convince (or so I fancy). Moreover, I'm learning this whole process myself, so my comments are not condescending instructions set in stone, rather opening lines for a dialog.

Let's work together to make this article a GA :) 凰兰时罗 (talk) 06:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	I believe that the lead section is too small and doesn't adequately summarize the article.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I've got a couple of notes here: I do not believe that Martin (2016) is a reliable source — it needs to be removed. A minor inconsistency in the format of citations in item 24 of notes. (Everywhere else items' titles are spelled out.) Please double check your sources on the years of Jean's father in Stamford. I believe the years should be 1915—1925, not 1914—1924. Years in Harvard also need to be adjusted accordingly.
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	I believe that such an extensive citation from Bird & Sherwin (2016) is unjustified. I think it needs to be removed completely, and position of Bird & Sherwin (2016) needs to be accurately summarized.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I do not believe that this statement: There has been, at times, speculation as to whether her death was truly a suicide or not, as it has some suspicious circumstances surrounding it,[38] but in their review of all of the arguments for and against such a scenario, historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin concluded that there is simply not any conclusive evidence of foul play:[39] is (a) neutral in Wikipedian sense (b) an accurate summary of Bird & Sherwin (2016). I'm not a promoter of conspiracy theories by any means, however, the usage of Bird & Sherwin (2016) to contradict "There has been, at times, speculation as to whether her death was truly a suicide or not, as it has some suspicious circumstances surrounding it" — I'm referring to your "but" there — is highly questionable, for this source is actively speculating along the same lines, which is even visible from the citation that I suggest to remove. Given the controversy here, I suggest summarizing arguments on both sides, instead of alluding to a scientific consensus for the suicide. BTW, many newspapers at the time of her death quoted a part of her alleged suicide note: "I am disgusted with everything" which you might want to include here as well.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Let's hold on till the issues are fixed/discussed.

1. I have expanded the introduction a little. Let me know if there are additional points that you think should be added.
2. Martin (2016) has been removed.
3. I have adjusted the years that her father was at Harvard and Stanford.
4. I have paraphrased the quote from Bird and Sherwin, but now WP:NPOV comes into play as I am speaking in Wikipedia's voice.
5. Added the suicide note

Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Hawkeye7:

Thank you for your efforts. Two finer points that remain:

1. It seems to me that the new version of the intro might lead some readers to conclude that the suicide was the result of FBI surveillance. Maybe some minor rephrasing?
2. As to NPOV issue that you raised: Bird and Sherwin's position could be paraphrased with the lead "Bird and Sherwin noted/suggested/speculated that...", followed by their thoughts that cast doubt on suicide. You may conclude with something like "However, they admit that there not enough evidence to doubt..." or something like that. I don't want to be too prescriptive on the text/style of the section, you should have latitude in this area. Please take my example as one possible way to address NPOV issue. The key thing here is that I do not believe that there is no middle ground between a direct quote and omniscient Wikipedia voice which might compromise NPOV. There are ways you could introduce Bird and Sherwin's ideas fully, at least to greater extent that you did it so far. Thoughts? 凰兰时罗 (talk) 19:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

1. I had tweaked the wording of the lead slightly to avoid this
2. I have rewritten the Death section. Is it acceptable now?

Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: I'm not 100% sure that you take my suggestions wholeheartedly :). Just in case, I repeat: if you disagree with something that I write in here, please tell me, let's figure it out. If I don't make myself clear (which unfortunately happens every once in a while), please don't hesitate to ask. On the other hand, if my impression is wrong, and you are okay with my suggestions:

1. I do not see much improvement. Now the whole depression thing seems like the result of FBI actions...
2. I think that "odd" in "which was an odd thing to do if one intends to drug and drown oneself" should not come from omniscient Wikipedia voice and has to be attributed to those who find it odd. Otherwise, NPOV is at risk, because an opinion is stated as fact. So, you may want to use a formula similar to the one that I suggested above.

Thoughts? 凰兰时罗 (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

1. There's not much that can be done in the lead, as the facts have to appear in this order. I have moved her death into a separate paragraph.
2. I've removed the "odd" bit. The whole conspiracy theory is isolated in the second-last paragraph. Don't be surprised if another editor comes along and deletes it under WP:FRINGE. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you mention this future hypothetical editor. Do you think that the theory deserves a mention? I thought the answer to that was a yes, because initially you had a big citation that was introducing it...

Of course I did! That's why I included it in the article. But I did the same in another article, and it was removed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe that if two accredited historians speculate about it, the theory is not fringe. I think that it's an unsubstantiated speculation that cast some small shadow on the mainstream conclusion, and this is what the current version of the article reflects. This speculation comes from a credible source, and I do not believe that there is sufficient basis to delete it entirely.

However, I think we already moved beyond GA criteria. As far as I'm concerned, I think that the article certifies the criteria. Thank you for your efforts! 凰兰时罗 (talk) 01:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your review! Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

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Edith Arnstein Jenkins' memoir

The current version of the article mentions this, but does not provide an actual citation or even mention the title. Wouldn't it be better to source a claim about the memoir from the memoir itself? Jenkins is mentioned nowhere else in the article, so it would also be good to say who she was and hence why her memoir contained relevant information. 208.59.185.238 (talk) 04:14, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

The article writer misunderstood. I have rewritten that passage. The fact is indeed from Bird and Sherwin, which quotes interviews. I have added a reference to Edith Arnstein Jenkins's book though, with a link so it can be viewed by the reader, but it is far more coy. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:54, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Psychoanalyst?

This article states of Jean Tatlock “As a psychoanalyst in the 1940s, she saw her homosexuality as a pathological condition to be overcome, which may have led to her eventual suicide.” However, I can find no other reference on this page to psychoanalytic training. To become an analyst at this time, one would have had to study for a number of years at a psychoanalytic institute after medical school and psychiatry residency. Did she do this? 71.251.129.181 (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

The source says:

The newspapers reported that a $732.50 bill from her analyst, Dr. Siegfried Bernfeld, was found in the apartment, evidence that she had "taken her own troubles to a psychologist." Actually, as a psychiatrist in training, Jean was required to undergo analysis and pay for it herself... Robertson and many other friends were unaware that Tatlock was struggling to cope with issues surrounding her sexual orientation. Jackie Oppenheimer later reported Jean as telling her that her psychoanalysis had revealed latent homosexual tendencies. At the time, Freudian analysts regarded homosexuality as a pathological condition to be overcome.

— Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 251

I have rewritten this bit accordingly. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:46, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Adding "(disputed)" after suicide as cause of death in infobox

User Dannymcfab changed "Suicide" to "Ruled suicide. Suspected assassination by U.S. Government." as the cause of death in the infobox in this edit: [2]. I went ahead and reverted this edit. I did, however, add "(disputed)" after "Suicide" as there is discussion in the "Death" section about possible foul play. Because this article has "GA" status and my edit could be controversial, I want to state ahead of time that I will not object to anyone removing this edit I made regarding "(disputed)" status to her cause of death from the infobox and returning it to just "Suicide". Thanks! Wikipedialuva (talk) 03:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)