In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Security Clearance Hearing 9781501729515

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction: "All the Evil ofthe Times"
The Setting and the Participants
Part I: The Hearing
Monday, April 12
Kenneth D. Nichols: "The Commission has no other recourse ... but to suspend your clearance until the matter has been resolved"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "The items of so-called derogatory information ... cannot be fairly understood except in the context of my life and my work"
Gordon Gray: "An inquiry and not ... a trial"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Exploding one of these things as a firecracker over a desert"
Tuesday, April 13
Gordon Gray: "Strictly confidential"
Gordon Gray: "Those who are not cleared ... will necessarily be excused"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it"
Wednesday, April 14
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Both an older brother and in some ways perhaps ... a father"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "In the case of a brother you don't make tests"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Then I invented a cock-and-bull story"
Roger Ross: "You spent the night with her, didn't you?"
Thursday, April 15
General Leslie R. Groves: "I would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "One can be mistaken about anything"
Roger Robb And J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Your memory is not refreshed by what I read you?" "No, on the whole it is confused by it"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Of the known leakages of information, Fuchs is by far the most grave"
Friday, April 16
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "I would have done anything that I was asked to do ... if I had thought it was technically feasible"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "I am not sure the miserable thing will work ... [but it] would be folly to oppose the exploration of this weapon"
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "The program in 1951 was technically so sweet that you could not argue about that"
John Lansdale: "We kept him under surveillance whenever he left the project. We opened his mail. We did all sorts of nasty things"
Monday, April 19
Gordon Dean: "A very human man, a sensitive man, ... a man of complete integrity"
Hans A. Bethe: "Only ... when the bomb dropped on Japan, ... did we start thinking about the moral implications"
Tuesday, April 20
George F. Kennan: "It is only the great sinners who become the great saints"
James B. Conant: "Dr. Oppenheimer's appraisal of the Russian menace ... was hard headed, realistic, and thoroughly antiSoviet"
Enrico Fermi: "My opinion ... was that one should try to outlaw the thing before it was born"
David E. Lilienthal: "Here is a man of good character, integrity, and of loyalty to his country"
Wednesday, April 21
Isidor I. Rabi: "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?"
Thursday, April 22
Norris E. Bradbury: "A scientist wants to know. He wants to know correctly and truthfully and precisely"
Hartley Rowe: "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"
Lee A. DuBridge: "Dr. Oppenheimer ... was a natural andrespected and at all times a loved leader"
Friday, April 23
Roger Robb: "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"
Vannevar Bush: "Here is a man who is being pilloried because he had strong opinions, and had the temerity to express them"
Monday, April 26
Katherine Oppenheimer: "I was emotionally involved in the Spanish cause"
Charles C. Lauritsen: "I think there is a great deal of difference between being a Communist in 1935 and being a Communist in 1954"
Jerrold R. Zacharias: "I am afraid that wars are evil. ... But the question of morality ... you do not have time for when you are trying to think how you fight"
Robert F. Bacher: "Dr. Oppenheimer's individual contribution was the greatest of any member of the General Advisory Committee"
Tuesday, April 27
John Von Neumann: "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"
Wendell M. Latimer: "I kept turning over in my mind ... what was in Oppenheimer that gave him such tremendous power over these men"
Wednesday, April 28
Roscoe C. Wilson: "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"
Kenneth S. Pitzer: "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"
Edward Teller: "I feel that I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better, and therefore trust more"
Thursday, April 29
John J. McCloy: "He used the graphic expression like two scorpions in a bottle, that each could destroy the other"
David Tressel Griggs: "ZORC are the letters applied by a member of this group to the four people: Z is for Zacharias, 0 for Oppenheimer, R for Rabi, and C for Charlie Lauritsen"
Luis W. Alvarez: "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"
Friday, April 30
Lloyd K. Garrison: "The adversary process which we seem to be engaged in should be carried out to the fullest extent"
Boris T. Pash: "Dr. Oppenheimer knew the name of the man, and it was his duty to report it to me"
William L. Borden: "More probably than not,J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union"
Monday, May 3
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "I wish I could explain to you better why I falsified and fabricated"
Tuesday, May 4
Katherine Oppenheimer: "I left the Communist Party. I did not leave my past, the friendships, just like that"
Wednesday, May 5
J. Robert Oppenheimer: "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"
Thursday, May 6
Lloyd K. Garrison: "His life has been an open book"
Part II: The Decision
The Personnel Security Board Reports, May 27
Gordon Gray And Thomas A. Morgan: "We have ... been unable to arrive at the conclusion that it would be dearly consistent with the security interests of the United States to reinstate Dr. Oppenheimer's clearance"
Ward V. Evans: "Our failure to dear Dr. Oppenheimer will be a black mark on the escutcheon of our country"
Lloyd K. Garrison's Reply to Kenneth D. Nichols, June 1
Lloyd K. Garrison: "How can this be?"
Kenneth D. Nichols's Recommendations to the AEC, June 12
Kenneth D. Nichols: "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"
Publishing the Transcript, June 13-15
Decision and Opinions of the AEC, June 29
Lewis L. Strauss: "We find Dr. Oppenheimer is not entitled to the continued confidence of the Government ... because of the proof of fundamental defects in his 'character'"
Eugene M. Zuckert: "This matter certainly reflects the difficult times in which we live"
Joseph Campbell: "The General Manager has arrived at the only possible conclusion available to a reasonable and prudent man"
Thomas E. Murray: "Dr. Oppenheimer failed the test . ... He was disloyal"
Henry De Wolf Smyth: "There is no indication in the entire record that Dr. Oppenheimer has ever divulged any secret information"
Conclusion: "An Abuse of the Power of the State"
Suggested Reading
Index