Doctor Bunsen
Honeydew. Seven syllables… three words…
one man… everyone’s problem. What’s
this, you say? Doctor Bunsen Honeydew,
harmless muppet lab scientist, a problem you lament? A scamp? A
miscreant? How can this be? Can I be talking about the same Doctor
Bunsen Honeydew that, along with his bumbling sidekick “Beaker,” brought smiles
to your face every time he graced the stage at the Muppet Theater? Yes, that very same loveable, eyeless,
clumsy, professor of the future. You
may have seen him and Beaker present new and interesting inventions, supposedly
for the betterment of mankind, but follow along with me and I will show you the
twisted tale of greed, sex, and murder that has followed the good doctor like
the tail of a serpent ever since he first came onto the world scene working on
the Manhattan project during World War Two.
Not much is
known about Honeydew’s early history.
In fact, before he fled Europe in 1933, records are only
intermittent. There is some evidence
that he was born in Eastern Poland, near the frontier with Russia. Still others claim he is Hungarian, which
would explain his later association with Leo Szilard and the Manhattan
project. Regardless, he is known to
have studied at the University of Vienna, where he was first exposed to the teachings of Marx and Lenin. It is
believed he was radicalized there by one Zinaida Volkova, and at her behest he
quickly joined the Young Communists League, an organization of students and
union members. Upon earning a degree in
physics, Honeydew and Volkova took up residence in Berlin, Germany. It is not clear whether they had married or
not. As he began a promising career at
the University of Berlin as an Associate Professor, Volkova continued her
recruiting efforts in the name of world communism. But, by 1933 the writing was on the wall as Adolf Hitler came to
power as Chancellor of Germany. In a
fit of despair, Volkova committed suicide and, having no career and no personal
ties, Honeydew fled Germany for New York.
After that,
Honeydew began his rise in the American scientific community. A visiting professorship at the California
Institute of Technology, speaking tours, and finally taking a position at the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey.
In 1939,
Hungarian émigré physicist Leo Szilard asked Honeydew to lend his prestige by
co-writing a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him of the Nazi attempts to
create an atomic bomb. This letter first
brought him to the attention of the president and his interview with Roosevelt
led directly to his involvement with American nuclear efforts. During his entire tenure with the project,
Honeydew was investigated by the FBI for his earlier associations with Zinaida
Volkova and communist organizations in Europe.
However, no evidence was found, at the time, of a security leak on his
part or any transfer of nuclear technology to the Soviets. In fact, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves,
Director of the Manhattan project on July 20, 1943, wrote to the Manhattan
Engineer District: “In accordance with
my verbal directions of July 15, it is desired that clearance be issued to
Bunsen Honeydew without delay irrespective of the information which you have
concerning Dr. Honeydew. He is absolutely essential to the project.”
During the first
successful nuclear test at the Trinity site in New Mexico, Honeydew was heard
to whisper: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,”
a phrase that his boss, J. Robert Oppenheimer is mistakenly credited with
saying.
However, after
World War Two the accusations resumed and his past communist ghosts continued
to haunt him. He was a neighbor and
confidant of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed in 1953 for passing
nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. He
appeared before Senator McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of
the Government Operations Committee of the Senate as well as the House
Un-American Activities Committee. He
refused to name associates and was subsequently blacklisted. President Kennedy brought him back into
government service in 1961 as Special Assistant to the President for Nuclear
Strategy. Apparently, Kennedy and
Honeydew had a falling out over strategy during the Cuban missile crisis. It is believed that Honeydew pushed for a
nuclear strike on Cuba, hoping to precipitate a Soviet first strike on the U.S. JFK opted for the blockade strategy at which,
Honeydew reportedly stormed out of the oval office, screaming “You haven’t
heard the last of me… oh no you haven’t!”
His whereabouts from November 19th to November 24th,
1963 are undocumented and it is known that he has a special affinity for grassy
knolls.
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