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 Frances Tatlock (February 21, 1914 – January 4, 1944) was an American psychiatrist, physician, and journalist. She was active in Communist Party circles in the 1930s and is best known for her romantic relationship with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Her death in San Francisco was officially ruled a suicide, though it has been the subject of later speculation.

Early life and education

Jean Tatlock was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1914. She studied at Vassar College and later completed her medical training at Stanford Medical School, graduating in 1941.

Career and political activity

Tatlock worked as a reporter and writer for the Communist Party USA publication *Western Worker*. She later practiced psychiatry. Contemporary and later sources describe her as politically active in left-wing and communist circles.

Relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer

Tatlock is best known in popular history for her relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer, who later directed the Los Alamos Laboratory in the Manhattan Project. Their relationship has been discussed in biographies and accounts of Oppenheimer's life.

Death

Tatlock died in San Francisco in January 1944 at age 29. Official records and later historical accounts describe the death as suicide, though some later writers have noted speculation and controversy around the circumstances.