Jean Tatlock

Jean Tatlock was an American psychiatrist, physician, and journalist who was active in Communist Party circles in the 1930s and is also known for her relationship with J.

Jean Tatlock was an American psychiatrist and physician active in Communist Party circles. She is best known for her relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer and her death in 1944, ruled a suicide.

What it is

Jean Tatlock (1914–1944) was a psychiatrist, physician, reporter, and writer. She studied at Vassar College and Stanford Medical School, graduating in 1941. She was a member of the Communist Party USA and wrote for its publication *Western Worker*.

Political activity and career

Tatlock worked as a reporter and writer for the Communist Party USA's *Western Worker* and later practiced psychiatry. Contemporary sources describe her as politically active in left-wing and communist circles, which later drew scrutiny during the McCarthy era.

Relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer and death

Tatlock is widely known for her romantic relationship with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who later directed the Los Alamos Laboratory in the Manhattan Project. She died in San Francisco in January 1944 at age 29; the official ruling was suicide, though some later accounts question the circumstances.