In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer

by Polenberg, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780801437830
• ISBN10: 0801437830
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

At the end of World War II, J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of America's preeminent physicists. For his work as director of the Manhattan Project, he was awarded the Medal for Merit, the highest honor the U.S. government can bestow on a civilian. Yet, in 1953, Oppenheimer was denied security clearance amidst allegations that he was "more probably than not" an "agent of the Soviet Union." Determined to clear his name, he insisted on a hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission's Personnel Security Board.

In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer contains an edited and annotated transcript of the 1954 hearing, as well as the various reports resulting from it. Drawing on recently declassified FBI files, Richard Polenberg's introductory and concluding essays situate the hearing in the Cold War period, and his thoughtful analysis helps explain why the hearing was held, why it turned out as it did, and what that result meant, both for Oppenheimer and for the United States.

Among the forty witnesses who testified were many who had played vitally important roles in the

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction: ``All the Evil of the 'Times''	xv
The Setting and the Participants	xxix
PART I THE HEARING
Monday, April 12	3	(32)
``The Commission has no other recourse...but to suspend your clearance until the matter has been resolved''	3	(7)
Kenneth D. Nichols
``The items of so-called derogatory information...cannot be fairly understood except in the context of my life and my work''	10	(19)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``An inquiry and not a trial''	29	(1)
Gordon Gray
``Exploding one of these things as a firecracker over a desert''	30	(5)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Tuesday, April 13	35	(14)
``Strictly confidential''	35	(3)
Gordon Gray
``Those who are not cleared...will necessarily be excused''	38	(3)
Gordon Gray
``When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it''	41	(8)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Wednesday, April 14	49	(26)
``Both an older brother and in some ways perhaps...a father''	49	(4)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``In the case of a brother you don't make tests''	53	(8)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``Then I invented a Cock-and-bull Story''	61	(11)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``You spent the night with her, didn't you?''	72	(3)
Roger Robb
Thursday, April 15	75	(19)
``I would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today''	75	(6)
General Leslie R. Groves
``One can be mistaken about anything''	81	(4)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``Your memory is not refreshed by what I read you?'' ``No, on the whole it is confused by it''	85	(8)
Roger Robb
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``Of the known leakages of information, Fuchs is by far the most grave''	93	(1)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Friday, April 16	94	(26)
``I would have done anything that I was asked to do...if I had thought it was technically feasible''	94	(5)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``I am not sure the miserable thing will work...[but it] would be folly to oppose the exploration of this weapon''	99	(9)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``The program in 1951 was technically so sweet that you could not argue about that''	108	(3)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
``We kept him under surveillance whenever he left the project. We opened his mail. We did all sorts of nasty things''	111	(9)
John Lansdale
Monday, April 19	120	(19)
``A very human man, a sensitive man,...a man of complete integrity''	120	(6)
Gordon Dean
``Only when the bomb dropped on Japan,...did we start thinking about the moral implications''	126	(13)
Hans A. Bethe
Tuesday, April 20	139	(27)
``It is only the great sinners who become the great saints''	139	(9)
George F. Kennan
``Dr. Oppenheimer's appraisal of the Russian menace...was hard headed, realistic, and thoroughly anti-Soviet''	148	(5)
James B. Conant
``My opinion...was that one should try to outlaw the thing before it was born''	153	(3)
Enrico fermi
``Here is a man of good character, integrity, and of loyalty to his country''	156	(10)
David E. Lilienthal
Wednesday, April 21	166	(13)
``He is a consultant, and if you don't want to consult the guy, you don't consult him period....We have an A-bomb...* * * and what more do you want, mermaids?''	166	(13)
Isidor I. Rabi
Thursday, April 22	179	(15)
``A scientist wants to know. He wants to know correctly and truthfully and precisely''	179	(6)
Norris E. Bradbury
``I don't like to see women and children killed wholesale because the male element of the human race are so stupid that they can't...keep out of war''	185	(3)
Hartley Rowe
``Dr. Oppenheimer...was a natural and 'respected and at all times a loved leader''	188	(6)
Lee A. DuBridge
Friday, April 23	194	(13)
``Mr. Chairman, unless ordered to do so by the board, we shall not disclose to Mr. Garrison in advance the names of the witnesses we contemplate calling''	194	(5)
Roger Robb
``Here is a man who is being pilloried because he had strong opinions, and had the temerity to express them''	199	(8)
Vannevar Bush
Monday, April 26	207	(21)
``I was emotionally involved in the Spanish cause''	207	(9)
Katherine Oppenheimer
``I think there is a great deal of difference between being a Communist in 1935 and being a Communist in 1954''	216	(5)
Charles C. Lauritsen
``I am afraid that wars are evil....But the question of morality...you do not have time for when you are to think how you fight''	221	(4)
Jerrold R. Zacharias
``Dr. Oppenheimer's individual contribution was the greatest of any member of the General Advisory Committee''	225	(3)
Robert F. Bacher
Tuesday, April 27	228	(16)
``All of us in the war years...got suddenly in contact with a universe we had not known before...; we suddenly were dealing with something with which one could blow up the world''	228	(9)
John von Neumann
``I kept turning over in my mind...what was in Oppenheimer that gave him such tremendous power over these men''	237	(7)
Wendell M. Latimer
Wednesday, April 28	244	(21)
``My feeling is that the masters in the Kremlin cannot risk the loss of their base. This base is vulnerable only to attack by air power''	244	(5)
Roscoe C. Wilson
``I would not rate Dr. Oppenheimer's importance in this field very high for the rather personal reason...that I have disagreed with a good many of his important positions''	249	(3)
Kenneth S. Pitzer
``I feel that I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better, and therefore trust I more''	252	(13)
Edward Teller
Thursday, April 29	265	(18)
``He used the graphic expression like two scorpions in a bottle, that each could destroy the other''	265	(6)
Join J. McCloy
``ZORC are the letters applied by a member of this group to the four people: Z is for Zacharias, O for Oppenheimer, R for Rabi, and C for Charlie Lauritsen''	271	(5)
David Tressel Griggs
``I realized that the program that we were planning to start was not one that the top man in the scientific department of the AEC wanted to have done''	276	(7)
Luis W. Alvarez
Friday, April 30	283	(26)
``The adversary process which we seem to be engaged in should be carried out to the fullest extent''	289	(2)
Lloyd K. Garrison
``Dr. Oppenheimer knew the name of the man, and it was his duty to report it to me''	291	(7)
Boris T. Pash
``More probably than not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union''	298	(11)
William L. Borden
Monday, May 3	309	(18)
``I wish I could explain to you better why I falsified and fabricated''	311	(16)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Tuesday, May 4	327	(6)
``I left the Communist Party. I did not leave my past, the friendships, just like that''	327	(6)
Katherine Oppenheimer
Wednesday, May 5	333	(12)
``I felt, perhaps quite strongly, that having played an active part in promoting a revolution in warfare, I needed to be as responsible as I could with regard to what came of this revolution''	333	(12)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Thursday, May 6	345	(10)
``His life has been an open book''	346	(9)
Lloyd K. Garrison
PART II THE DECISION
The Personnel Security Board Reports, May 27	355	(11)
``We have...been unable to arrive at the conclusion that it would be clearly consistent with the security interests of the United States to reinstate Dr. Oppenheimer's clearance''	355	(7)
Gordon Gray
Thomas A. Morgan
``Our failure to clear Dr. Oppenheimer will be a black mark on the escutcheon of our country''	362	(4)
Ward V. Evans
Lloyd K. Garrison's Reply to Kenneth D. Nichols, June 1	366	(5)
``How can this be?''	366	(5)
Lloyd K. Garrison
Kenneth D. Nichols's Recommendations to the AEC, June 12	371	(5)
``I have given consideration to the nature of the cold war...and the horrible prospects of hydrogen bomb warfare if all-out war should be forced upon us''	371	(5)
Kenneth D. Nichols
Publishing the Transcript, June 13-15	376	(2)
Decision and Opinions of the AEC, June 29	378	(17)
``We find Dr. Oppenheimer is not entitled to the continued confidence of the Government...because of the proof of fundamental defects in his character'''	378	(5)
Lewis L. Strauss
``This matter certainly reflects the difficult times in which we live''	383	(2)
Eugene M. Zuckert
``The General Manager has arrived at the only possible conclusion available to a reasonable and prudent man''	385	(1)
Joseph Campbell
``Dr. Oppenheimer failed the test....He was disloyal''	386	(2)
Thomas E. Murray
``There is no indication in the entire record that Dr. Oppenheimer has ever divulged any secret information''	388	(7)
Henry De Wolf Smyth
Conclusion: ``An Abuse of the Power of the State''	395	(4)
Suggested Reading	399	(2)
Index	401