Pandora's Keepers

by Brian Van DeMark

  Once again, Robb tried to deflate the witness by exploiting, and trumpeting, his privileged access to information. Rabi would have none of this prosecutorial bullying. He parried Robb’s jabs with a lively and sharp tongue:

  ROBB: Perhaps the board may be in possession of information which is not now available to you about the [Chevalier] incident.

  RABI: It may be. On the other hand, I am in possession of a long experience with this man, going back to 1929, which is twenty-five years, and there is a kind of seat-of-the-pants feeling [upon] which I myself lay great weight. 45

  Robb persisted by trying to confine Rabi’s opinion of Oppenheimer to the Chevalier incident. Rabi would have none of it. “You have to take the whole story,” he shot back. “That is what novels are about. There is a dramatic moment in the history of the man, what made him act, what he did, and what sort of person he was. That is what you are really doing here. You are writing a man’s life.” 46

  Compton, abroad on a world lecture tour during the hearing, took the time to publicly support the embattled Oppenheimer. Compton told wire-service reporters in Istanbul, Turkey, that he believed one of Oppenheimer’s qualifications for the job was the fact that he was not innocent about communism. “I considered his acquaintance with communism, and his rejection of it as a result of that acquaintance, was a factor in favor of his reliability.” Compton noted he had made a careful personal investigation of Oppenheimer before choosing him to head the bomb theory and design program in April 1942. “I satisfied myself completely that Oppenheimer was reliable and no security risk, and have had no reason since to change my views,” he said. Compton stressed that Oppenheimer’s postwar stance against the superbomb’s development was based on moral grounds. “He did not want the United States to make such a vastly destructive weapon because of the death and suffering to many people, nor did he want people to suspect the United States contemplated its use,” Compton said. “It’s an argument that any person sensitive to human reaction must respect.” 47 Compton elaborated on these points in a detailed affidavit to the Gray Board that resoundingly affirmed Oppenheimer’s loyalty. 48

  A distinguished group of public officials also testified enthusiastically on Oppenheimer’s behalf. David Lilienthal and Gordon Dean, Lilienthal’s successor and Strauss’s predecessor as AEC chairman, swore their confidence in Oppenheimer’s loyalty and reliability. Other such men appeared: George F. Kennan; John J. McCloy; and Sumner Pike, a tough-minded self-made millionaire and former AEC commissioner—one after another praising Oppenheimer and pledging their reputation to his probity.

  Then came the leaders of American science to provide strong endorsements of his character. Vannevar Bush, organizer of the nation’s scientific mobilization effort during World War II, said of Oppenheimer: “More than any other scientist that I know of he was responsible for our having an atomic bomb on time,” and affirmed his faith in Oppenheimer’s loyalty. Bush minced no words in saying that he felt “this board has made a mistake and that it is a serious one.” He spoke eloquently. The AEC charges, said Bush, are “quite capable of being interpreted as placing a man on trial because he held opinions… and had the temerity to express them.” “When a man is pilloried for doing that, this country is in a severe state.” 49 James Conant said that Oppenheimer was one of the three or four scientists whose combination of professional knowledge, hard work, and loyal devotion made possible the development of the bomb. Lee DuBridge said, “I feel that there is no one who has exhibited his loyalty to this country more spectacularly than Dr. Oppenheimer. He was a natural and respected and at all times a loved leader.” 50

  Other eminent scientists who had played leading roles in America’s nuclear weapons program spoke to the same effect. Perhaps the most eloquent was John von Neumann, the brilliant Hungarian émigré mathematician, father of the electronic computer, and friend of both Oppenheimer and Teller. Von Neumann entreated the three-member board to put Oppenheimer’s wartime indiscretions in their proper context. The war years were a time, von Neumann observed, when the atomic scientists—none of whom had been educated or conditioned to exist in such a situation—became sensitive to the threat of espionage and the need for security, and slowly developed the necessary maturity and established the necessary code of ethics.

  * * *

  At the end of April, prosecutor Robb began calling “government” witnesses. The first was Berkeley chemistry professor Wendell Latimer, an ally of Ernest Lawrence who harbored an intense dislike of Oppenheimer. Speaking in a low and barely audible voice, Latimer stoked the board’s suspicions by depicting Oppenheimer as a mesmerist who bewitched scores of intelligent and individualistic young scientists:

  It is just astounding the influence he has upon a group…. He is a man of tremendous sincerity and his ability to convince people depends so much upon this sincerity…. Things started happening immediately after he left Los Alamos. Many of our boys came back from it pacifists. I judged that was due very largely to his influence, this tremendous influence he had over those young men. 51

  Military officers and scientists who worked for the military were the most eager prosecution witnesses. Fervent cold warriors and zealous anticommunists, they had—through their fear, suspicion, and hatred of Oppenheimer as an individual and a political symbol—triggered the case and provided much of the zeal behind the government’s savage prosecution of him. The air force in particular considered Oppenheimer’s removal from influence “an urgent and immediate necessity” and secretly encouraged their contacts on the Hill and in the executive branch—including Borden and Strauss—to go after him. 52 “They had it out for Oppie,” recalled Harold Agnew, a veteran of the Manhattan Project and later the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1970s, who personally knew many of these officers and scientists in the 1950s. 53

  The military men leveled their fiercest attack on Oppenheimer for opposing the superbomb. In their eyes, Oppenheimer had argued against a weapon that would increase America’s military power, and this was by definition a form of treason. Air force major general Roscoe Wilson thought Oppenheimer “might as well go fishing for the rest of his life.” David Griggs, former chief scientist for the air force who had felt the sting of Oppenheimer’s acerbic tongue, was even less inhibited. An intense and zealous man, Griggs recalled “pretty violent” policy controversies in which he and his air force colleagues found themselves arrayed against Oppenheimer. He challenged the physicist’s loyalty and alleged the existence of a scientists’ conspiracy, headed by Oppenheimer, committed to the air force’s destruction. Griggs recalled an occasion when he told Oppenheimer face-to-face that he could not be sure whether or not the physicist was pro-Russian. Oppenheimer “then asked if I had impugned his loyalty to high officials of the Defense Department, and I responded yes. He said I was a paranoid.” 54

  The next witness to appear seated himself in the witness chair with his back to Oppenheimer. He was a figure of considerable importance in political-scientific circles, for he had carried the battle for the superbomb over the head of Oppenheimer’s powerful GAC and had cleared the way for its successful creation. Whatever he said was bound to have a major impact. The heavyset, beetle-browed man was sworn in at 4:00 in the afternoon on April twenty-eighth, a day that he would never forget—but would later come to regret.

  Edward Teller was nervous and afraid about testifying—he knew it would cause a lot of trouble. He had thought about this moment long and hard. An AEC official who had spoken with him a week earlier found him “interested only in discussing the Oppenheimer case.” This official summarized his conversation with Teller in a memo to Strauss, a memo that revealed Teller’s intense animosity toward Oppenheimer:

  Since the case is being heard on a security basis, Teller wonders if some way can be found to “deepen the charges” to include a documentation of the “consistently bad advice” that Oppenheimer has given, going all the way back to the end of the war in 1945….

  Teller said that
“only about one percent or less” of the scientists know of the real situation and that Oppie is so powerful “politically” in scientific circles that it will be hard to “unfrock him in his own church.” (This last phrase is mine [wrote the AEC official] and he agrees it is apt….)

  Teller feels deeply that this “unfrocking” must be done or else—regardless of the outcome of the current hearing—scientists may lose their enthusiasm for the [superbomb] program. 55

  Teller’s personal fears and friendships shaped his politics, and by now he deeply believed that having Oppenheimer in a high advisory role was dangerous for the United States. “Every time you go to Washington and you open a door to go into some high official’s office,” he told another physicist, “you open the door and there’s Oppenheimer, blocking the way. Us good guys who have the correct view of what should be done can’t even get in because Oppenheimer’s there first.” 56 For many years Teller had taken the backseat, but now he had reached a point in his own career where he could challenge Oppenheimer. It was a powerful vendetta. “He was absolutely determined to get Oppenheimer,” recalled a close associate, “and he would say whatever he had to” to accomplish this. 57 Teller’s mind was set on revenge, and he awaited his opportunity.

  The night before his appearance at the hearing, Teller had been the object of a desperate last-minute search by Szilard. Szilard disliked what he considered Oppenheimer’s infatuation with power, but he did not think him disloyal or a security risk. Szilard had seen a threat to all scientists when the AEC revoked Oppenheimer’s clearance, and he had tried to influence the Gray Board in several ways. He had published a letter whose final sentence read: “Classing Oppenheimer as a Security Risk and subjecting him to a formal hearing is regarded by scientists in this country as an indignity and an affront to all; it is regarded by our friends abroad as a sign of insanity—which it probably is.” 58 He had written to scientists who might be called to testify, urging them to support Oppenheimer. He also had helped draft an editorial for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that dismissed the charges as “contrary to both decency and common sense.”

  Szilard took a plane from New York to Washington on the eve of Teller’s scheduled testimony and set out from his hotel to find his friend. According to his wife, Trude, Szilard wanted to save Teller from his own “worst instincts.” He worried that Teller would damage his own reputation by testifying against Oppenheimer. Szilard rode taxis to restaurants and clubs, walked to other hotels, but after hours of searching, finally returned dispirited. “If Teller attacks Oppenheimer,” Szilard grumbled to Trude that night, “I will have to defend Oppenheimer for the rest of my life.” 59

  Szilard did not find Teller, but Bethe did, at the American Physical Society conference at the Wardman Park Hotel. Bethe, serving as the society’s president that year, discovered Teller in one of the hotel’s hallways and beseeched him at length to testify in favor of Oppenheimer—or, at least, not to testify against him. “It was a desperate discussion,” recalled Bethe, “but he was absolutely set in his opinion that Oppenheimer must be eliminated from an advisory role in the government. Teller was immovable.” 60 Teller’s determination to testify against Oppenheimer frightened Bethe, who understood only too well the damage that Teller’s intensity and tenacity—characteristics that seemed so patriotic in 1954—would do to Oppenheimer. A physicist who saw Bethe later that night asked him, “Are [Oppenheimer’s] hearings going badly?” “Yes,” sighed Bethe, “but that is not the worst. I have just now had the most unpleasant conversation of my whole life. With Edward Teller.” 61

  Teller harbored conflicting emotions about Oppenheimer: fond memories of the prewar friendship, the grievances at Los Alamos, the respect he felt nonetheless for Oppenheimer’s intellect. But if Teller felt any remorse that his rival was wounded and struggling for his life, it vanished when Robb showed him a dossier containing items unfavorable to Oppenheimer just hours before he was to testify. The dossier consisted of material from Oppenheimer’s security file and damning excerpts of the Gray Board hearing transcript relating to the Chevalier incident that Teller had never seen before. He read the material with rising agitation and emotion. (Teller later recalled that at this meeting Robb painted Oppenheimer as a devil.) Teller had, of course, known of Oppenheimer’s left-wing past in a general sense, but to be suddenly presented with a mass of detailed information inflamed him. 62 His resentment rose to the surface. The material put Teller “in shock,” as he later said, just as Robb and Strauss had hoped it would. 63

  It was in this agitated frame of mind that Teller entered the AEC hearing room the next afternoon. The atmosphere was expectant. There was a palpable tension in the room as he faced Robb for the first questions. Time seemed almost to be standing still. Jealousy and anger were boiling up inside Teller, but he affected a calm demeanor on the stand. He couldn’t wait to begin. His energies were surging, his heart was pounding with extra adrenaline. This was the moment, and he was the man. Victory was his at last in the great rivalry with Oppenheimer. Today he would dispatch this self-important nuclear pundit. All of Oppenheimer’s special friends—they no longer mattered. The inspiration of liberal and left-wing physicists brought down. Could one ask for a greater victory?

  Teller proceeded to play the reluctant witness, earnest and troubled, anxious not to do an injustice to Oppenheimer:

  ROBB: Dr. Teller,… are you appearing as a witness here today because you want to be here?

  TELLER: I appear because I have been asked to and because I consider it my duty upon request to say what I think in the matter. I would have preferred not to appear.

  ROBB: You stated to me some time ago that anything you had to say, you wished to say in the presence of Dr. Oppenheimer?

  TELLER: That is correct.

  Robb then went straight to the heart of the matter:

  ROBB: To simplify the issues here, let me ask you this question: Is it your intention to suggest that Dr. Oppenheimer is disloyal to the United States?

  TELLER: I do not want to suggest anything of the kind. I know Oppenheimer as an intellectually most alert and a very complicated person, and I think it would be presumptuous and wrong on my part if I would try in any way to analyze his motives. But I have always assumed, and I now assume that he is loyal to the United States. I believe this, and I shall believe it until I see very conclusive proof to the opposite.

  ROBB: Do you or do you not believe that Dr. Oppenheimer is a security risk?

  TELLER: In a great number of cases I have seen Dr. Oppenheimer act—I understood that Dr. Oppenheimer acted—in a way which for me was exceedingly hard to understand. I thoroughly disagreed with him in numerous issues and his actions frankly appear to me confused and complicated. To this extent I feel that I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better, and therefore trust more. In this very limited sense I would like to express a feeling that I would feel personally more secure if public matters would rest in other hands. 64

  Gordon Gray, dissatisfied with Teller’s artful phrase “personally more secure,” put the question directly: “Do you feel that it would endanger the common defense and security to grant clearance to Dr. Oppenheimer?” Teller replied:

  I believe… that Dr. Oppenheimer’s character is such that he would not knowingly and willingly do anything that is designed to endanger the safety of this country. To the extent, therefore, that your question is directed toward intent, I would say I do not see any reason to deny clearance.

  If it is a question of wisdom and judgment, as demonstrated by actions since 1945, then I would say one would be wiser not to grant clearance. 65

  Oppenheimer sat listening as Teller spoke, his face an expressionless mask, scrawling notes on a yellow legal pad:

  Teller—aggressive

  had conscience

  hysterical

  two sides on H-bomb 66

  At the close of his testimony, Teller rose from the witness chair, walked over t
o the leather davenport where Oppenheimer was sitting, and offered his hand. Oppenheimer looked at Teller for a long moment, saying nothing, then shook his hand. “I’m sorry,” Teller said, meeting Oppenheimer’s eyes. Oppenheimer looked at him oddly. “After what you’ve just said,” replied Oppenheimer in a polite but unbelieving tone, “I don’t know what you mean.” 67 Teller turned away, his shoulders heavy, and limped slowly from the room. His innuendoes had their intended effect.

  Ernest Lawrence’s relationship with Oppenheimer had changed after the war. Lawrence thought Oppenheimer took too much personal credit for the collective success of Los Alamos and had become self-important, while Oppenheimer thought Lawrence simply resented his new stature. The growing tension between them became apparent in the press. In response to Oppenheimer’s famous remark “The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose,” Lawrence defiantly replied, “I am a physicist and I have no knowledge to lose in which physics has caused me to know sin.” 68

  A proponent of American nuclear superiority, Lawrence believed Oppenheimer’s persuasive, almost hypnotic, influence made his counsel of restraint dangerous. When Robb visited Berkeley shortly before the hearing, Lawrence complained how others had been “taken in” by Oppenheimer, but—“giving him the benefit of the doubt”—still believed that “everything he did can be attributed to bad judgment.” Lawrence also stressed to Robb that Oppenheimer “should never again have anything to do with the forming of policy.” 69 How much better, Lawrence thought, if only Oppenheimer would recognize that accomplishment in science did not confer political competence. Lawrence also resented what he considered his former friend’s arrogance toward security rules and regulations. “Lawrence was the sort of person,” recalled an associate, “who could say, ‘Well, if you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s nothing to worry about.’” 70 He remembered that in Greek mythology the gods always repaid pride with a fall. It was painful to see a man’s life picked apart and exposed, but Lawrence thought Oppenheimer had asked for it. He was convinced that Oppenheimer’s clearance should be revoked.