Force of Nature- The Life of Linus Pauling

by Thomas Hager

  But the damage had been done. Pauling was now nationally infamous as a security threat and a defender of communism while American boys were dying in Korea. He could handle the resulting hate mail—there had been crank letters every so often since the Japanese-American incident at the war's end—but then something more disturbing happened. A letter arrived from the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, a group that Pauling had served as a consultant since 1946.

  In 1949 the company had renewed Pauling's contract for three years and raised his payment to $4,800 annually, a significant sum for the limited consulting he did, but a salary warranted by his "exceptional service." Now, barely a year later, they told him that his contract was being canceled. "No reason was given in the letter," Pauling said. "But I was later told by the assistant director of research and the former director of research that the contract had been cancelled because of my political activities, and that if I were to state that I would in the future refrain from all political activities, it was probable that the contract could be reinstated."

  It was not the only indication that his politics would affect his scientific work. That same year, the head of the chemistry branch of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) had invited Pauling to chair a committee that would review the progress of chemical investigations funded by the ONR and help formulate new directions for research. It was a prestigious post. But the ONR commander in Pasadena protested when he found out about the invitation, sending his superiors a ten-point list of Pauling's Communist-front associations culled from ONR and FBI files. "Having a person of questionable loyalty as the chairman of this ONR committee is most undesirable," the commander wrote, not only because of possible espionage but also because the ONR would be placed "in a most embarrassing position" if a congressional investigation revealed that the Navy had named a "fellow traveler" to a sensitive position. The head of the chemistry branch, greatly embarrassed, was forced to withdraw the invitation.

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  The Caltech internal investigation dragged on through the fall. The Paulings tried to carry on life as usual, but it was increasingly difficult. Pauling took refuge in his molecular structures and newly refined protein models. He and Ava Helen continued to go to faculty functions and parties. Most of their friends saw the political pressure for what it was and tried to help the Paulings laugh it off, but there was a coolness among others, and it was getting worse. After Weinbaum was convicted of perjury and sent to prison, Pauling noticed people looking away when he passed them on campus, becoming distant, especially during the time of the internal investigation. Pauling was a man of many acquaintances but few close friends; still, he depended on being liked and respected by his colleagues. When he saw them avoiding him, it hurt.

  The pressure of being investigated by his own school, the hate mail, the loss of the Lilly contract, the hostility on campus, all began to add up. Pauling never showed his concern in public, but Ava Helen could tell that her husband was suffering. And she was, too. Soon after the McCarthy allegations a friendly former student asked her at a faculty tea how she was doing. For a moment her composure broke, and Ava Helen's eyes filled with tears. "I don't know how my husband can hold up much longer," she said.

  The Caltech internal investigation was finished that fall. The two committees found no evidence of Communist Party membership or malfeasance of any sort. Although some trustees still felt strongly that Pauling should be fired, the faculty committee made a solid case for keeping him on, arguing that discharging him without evidence of wrongdoing would not only lose the school one of the world's leading chemists but would be seen by scientists around the world as disgraceful. From DuBridge's standpoint, the investigation was a success: It both channeled the anger of conservative trustees and gave him what he needed to defend Pauling. When he received yet another letter asking why he did not cleanse his institute of Pauling and other Reds, DuBridge could explain that Pauling had been cleared of wrongdoing and could add, "I hope in this country we have not come to the place where a man is persecuted for holding unpopular political beliefs."

  To Convince Him of His Errors

  But the country had come to such a place—even if Pauling behaved as if it had not. Through 1950 he continued his political activities as if nothing had happened: Raising money for Sidney Weinbaum's defense (although he was out of town for most of the trial, thus avoiding testifying); agreeing to serve as a parole adviser for the Hollywood Ten writer Dalton Trumbo; joining the American Association of Scientific Workers, an offshoot of a leftist international organization headed by the French atomic scientist Frederic Joliot-Curie, who was a Communist; maintaining his leading role in the Progressive Citizens of America and the Arts, Sciences, and Professions board; and continuing to speak widely on the same topics that had gotten him in trouble.

  During this period, he was one of a very small group of American public figures who remained outspoken in their dedication to peace and civil rights causes, taking a personal and professional risk that millions of others easily avoided. And he did this despite a natural tendency to the contrary. He would have loved to have spent his time exclusively on science, avoiding any political controversy in favor of solving nature's puzzles and enjoying the personal satisfaction, stature, money, and accolades it brought him. Scientifically, at least, Pauling was no rebel. He was daring in the way he crossed disciplinary boundaries, but his daring was rooted in the fundamental norms and expectations of his profession. He succeeded not because he battled the scientific establishment but because he worked well within it, laboring harder, publicizing better, and pushing his ideas further than others. He wanted very much, in fact, to be a part of the establishment. He wanted—and in some ways needed—the accolades, the awards and prizes, bestowed by the academy and professional societies. In this way, he would later say, he was a conformist.

  His political work, by contrast, appeared distinctly nonconformist. Here he battled the establishment, openly and defiantly. As he put it, during the McCarthy period "there were two qualities of my personality pushing in opposite directions: the one to conform, and the other to rely on my own assessment of the situation."

  In the political arena, his desire to fit in was overcome by something more powerful: his belief in himself. On one level, he could say simply, as he often did during this period, "I felt that it was my duty as a citizen of the United States of America and as a scientist to take part in politics." But deep within he had to justify the risks he was taking, the stress to which he was subjecting himself and his family. He thought hard about his political convictions, and he thought about them like a scientist.

  Pauling, like all scientists, was a product of the Enlightenment. Like many Enlightenment philosophers, he had replaced God with Reason, and he believed in the steady upward progress of society based on the application of rational thought and the scientific method. Knowledge was the key. Pauling's morality grew out of what he knew to be true; he knew that he was a rational person, and he believed that other rational persons would, with sufficient knowledge, come to conclusions similar to his own.

  His beliefs mirrored those of many other leftists and liberals during the period from the Depression to the early 1960s. A number of scientists flirted with communism and stayed with left-wing politics because these were systems based on reason and rationality. Researchers like Bernal and the Joliot-Curies in France turned to the Left because they found there a scientific approach to human affairs. The socialist idea of greatest good for the greatest number made statistical sense. The Soviet Union might not be perfect in this analysis, but at least it had taken a brave and necessary step on the path of human advancement by applying reason to human affairs, by elevating scientists to the top of the social hierarchy and making rational five-year plans. Capitalism, by comparison, elevated industrialists and rewarded greed.

  Pauling complemented his beliefs in scientific humanism and socialism with a peculiarly American devotion to free speech. Here he operated on a simple theory of politics t
hat he derived in the same way he did his scientific ideas: basing it on a proven body of information, breaking down the problem into constituent parts, focusing on those that were most important, and reassembling them with a new understanding. In politics the underlying information, the received wisdom, he believed, was the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents which he revered as monuments to the philosophy of the Enlightenment. During the McCarthy period, he saw representative democracy and free speech take on special importance, and Pauling analyzed those concepts from a scientific standpoint. The way he saw it, American politics could be thought of, like quantum mechanics, as a matter of statistics. "The principle upon which a true democratic system operates is that no single man is wise enough to make the correct decisions about the very complex problems that arise, and that the correct decisions are to be made by the process of averaging the opinions of all the citizens in the democracy," he wrote. "These opinions will correspond to a probability distribution curve extending from far on the left to far on the right. If, now, we say that all of the opinions that extend too far to the right. . . are abnormal, and are to be excluded in taking the average, then the average that we obtain will be the wrong one. An understanding of the laws of probability would accordingly make it evident to the citizen that the operation of the democratic system requires that everyone have the right to express his opinion about political questions, no matter what that opinion might be."

  That he was now at the far left end of the probability curve therefore did not matter. He was still a valid data point. In America, he had the right to express any opinions he liked. This was, as far as Pauling was concerned, a scientific fact.

  That kept him going. And there was another reason he continued to speak out. "Most other scientists had stopped. I could understand that. I could understand why some thought it was just too much of a sacrifice. They knew they could lose their jobs. They might not be able to continue their scientific work. I felt the same way," he said of the McCarthy period, "but I kept on in order to retain the respect of my wife."

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  In August, Pauling received a letter from representatives of the Berkeley Academic Assembly asking his support in fighting the UC regents' loyalty oaths. "A contagion of fear, hatred and suspicion infects the entire University," they wrote him. "Scholars have been forced by economic necessity to give mute acceptance to something they know destroys the very meaning of their profession and their lives."

  Pauling responded strongly. "The University has already suffered great harm through the introduction by the Regents of a political test, which restricts freedom of thought and the search for truth," he proclaimed in a public statement. "Unless the Regents rescind their earlier actions, the University will never regain its former preeminent position." He sent a copy of his words to the Academic Assembly, with a cover note suggesting that the regents—an appointed board with heavy representation from industrial, financial, and agricultural interests—should be replaced with a group of "intelligent men and women who understand education and scholarship." The Berkeley group made sure his ideas received wide play in the newspapers.

  Eleven weeks later, at nine-thirty on the morning of November 13, 1950, a man walked into Pauling's Caltech office and handed him a subpoena to appear before the California State Investigating Committee on Education in Los Angeles. Pauling read it twice before he realized that his appearance was set for ten-thirty that very day. Still, a subpoena was a subpoena. He canceled his appointments for the day, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the car.

  Pauling thought he had a rough idea of what was going on. The committee was holding hearings on the possible effects of loyalty oaths on public school teachers, and as a well-known opponent of the oaths, he figured he was being called to give expert testimony. The suddenness of the subpoena seemed unusual, but he was eager to let the committee know what he thought. As he drove toward downtown in his Lincoln, he thought about how he might phrase his criticisms.

  What he did not realize was that this committee had been formed out of the Tenney Committee, was chaired by a member of the Tenney Committee, and was counseled by a lawyer for the Tenney Committee. The purpose was not as much to gather expert testimony as it was to hunt Reds.

  At 10:30 A.M., Pauling entered the large hearing room of the State Building in Los Angeles, took an oath to tell the truth, and sat down to give the committee an opening statement. Speaking from the heart, Pauling began, "I think there is nothing more important than preserving our national security by the proper security measures. . . . However, this must be done in such a way as to preserve our individual liberties." He explained the danger of cutting off the far ends of the bell curve of opinion and how, in his opinion, loyalty oaths enforced a dangerous conformity. The loyalty oaths would not help curb subversion, he said, because real subversives would merely sign the oath and go on with their activities. Pauling had by now changed his opinion of the Communist Party, agreeing with the Berkeley faculty that party members were too narrowly doctrinaire to be allowed to teach. "I think that in the case of Communist activities any of them should be brought to the attention of the authorities and a hearing and trial should be held, and if there is evidence that the man or woman involved is a Communist he can be fired," Pauling testified. "I don't think this oath has anything to do really with Communist activities. ... It is only the people who have strong fundamental American convictions, who believe we must preserve democracy and keep to the spirit of our ancestors who fought at the time of the Revolution, who objected to signing it." With an ending flourish, he compared the enforcement of oaths to the forced adoption of Lysenkoism in Russia and the Nazi persecution of scientists in the 1930s.

  The committee then got down to its real business. The committee's counsel asked if Pauling had seen any evidence of subversive activities at Caltech. Pauling answered no. The counsel reminded Pauling about Sidney Weinbaum, a convicted Communist that he had employed. Startled at this shift in the tone of the hearing, Pauling said that Weinbaum had not been convicted of subversion but of perjury. "There was no suggestion that he was disloyal to this country in any way," he said.

  For the next two hours the committee grilled Pauling on his views of communism, how he could stomach the thought of Reds pressing the party line on helpless youngsters, and why he could not agree that saving children was more important than due process. Finally, Pauling had enough:

  Senator Donnelly: I think a good many taxpayers of the state of California feel perhaps we can get along without some of the higher education better than we can by having our children indoctrinated with communism and the professors in a subtle way instilling it into the minds of the children when they are in a formative stage.

  Pauling: Yes. You believe it is not right to adhere to the principles of democracy.

  Senator Donnelly: No, I did not say anything such as that. I don't believe any such thing.

  Pauling: The right decision to be made is from the average decisions of all people without precluding those whom you would suppress because of their opinion and political beliefs.

  Senator Donnelly: That is entirely a different matter, for a person to have an opinion and then to take a position of trust such as teachers have. As one of the professors stated who appeared here today, they are entrusted with the most precious things that parents have in this world, their children, and then to have them teach those children in their underhanded manner the principles of communism when they are not supposed to teach the subject at all, I don't think it is necessary to have that kind of teacher.

  Pauling: Good. Then if you have any case of a teacher of that sort, why not bring them before the board and present evidence?

  The committee, worried that the Caltech professor might be getting the better of them, broke for lunch. Pauling was asked to return at two o'clock.

  The afternoon session was a nightmare. The committee returned to Weinbaum: When did he work for you? Who recommended him? Did you investigate his background?
Why not? They then turned to Pauling's own political work. Armed with the Tenney Committee's file, the chairman began ticking off Pauling's suspect associations. Was he aware that the Progressive Citizens of America, for which he had served as a vice chairman, was found by the California Senate Committee on Un-American Activities to be Communist controlled? What about your support of the Red Dean of Canterbury? Henry Wallace? The Arts, Sciences, and Professions Council? What are your opinions of the tactics of the Communist Party? What about your criticisms of the recent trial of Communist Party leaders? Pauling patiently answered each question.

  And then, late in the afternoon, came the central question.

  Counsel: Dr. Pauling, I have just one more question. Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

  Pauling: Well, now, this sounds like an inquiry into my political beliefs. Of course, it is a foolish question, but I suppose it is part of the routine.

  Counsel: Yes, I would like to have you answer. . . .

  Pauling: It seems to me that as I was thinking about my colleagues at the University of California who were cut off one by one—after thousands of them had voted in opposition to the loyalty oath, they were cut off one by one by the successive advocation of threats that they would lose their jobs and were required to give up their principles as good American citizens, their beliefs—that this was political pressure being imposed, as I have thought about them. Finally, there were left just this little residue of the original number that were finally fired, a hundred or thereabouts. And as I have thought about them, I have tried to decide how long I would stick to my principles about the loyalty oath. I wasn't able to decide how much strength of character I would have. You never know what you will do until the time arrives for you to do it. I saw man after man, who had spoken strongly against this loyalty oath, sign it when it became evident that he would lose his job if he did not sign it. Now, I feel that the same principle applies here, and I find it hard to decide myself whether to subject myself, perhaps legalistically, just because of a principle, to the difficulties that might arise. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the beliefs that I have about the proper working of Democracy, the way that we can save this nation by preserving Democracy against attacks that are being made against it, require that I refuse to answer any question as to my political beliefs and affiliations. And so I say that I shall not answer.