A Matter of Character

(See Cover)

The question that hung for eight weeks over the shabby, drab little hearing room in Washington's Temporary Building III held a burning implication for virtually everyone who walked through the door. For the thin, angular man with the chill blue eyes and the close-cropped hair, it was a challenge that demanded a desperate fight, even though he might have retired quietly on his honors without fighting. To many of the 40 great names of American atomic science and education, who flocked from their farthest retreats to testify to J. Robert Oppenheimer's character, it implied a special kind of suspicion aimed at one of their distinguished colleagues--and perhaps, they believed, at them as well.

For the three citizens who sat in judgment behind a big, horseshoe-shaped table, it symbolized one of history's most thankless tasks: to decide between a demonstrably great and compelling public figure and an impersonal something called the security of the U.S. One of the three, Ward V. Evans, 71, was a professor emeritus of chemistry at Loyola University of Chicago; a second, Thomas Morgan, 66, was a successful retired man of business; the third was a former Secretary of the Army, and a substantial pillar of liberal education in his own right, President Gordon Gray, 45, of the University of North Carolina (see box). Through the eight weeks they read transcripts, studied FBI reports, questioned witnesses, listened to examinations and cross-examinations by counsel. Then, one day last month, they were ready to answer the question: Is J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who directed the creation of the world's first atom bomb a decade ago, now to be denied access to classified information because he is a risk to the security of the U.S.?

The chemist scornfully said no; the businessman and the university president, carrying the authority of the majority, said yes.

The Hard Way. The majority's "yes" was firm and unequivocal, but regretful and full of understanding of what "yes" would mean to Dr. Oppenheimer, to the legions of Oppenheimer partisans, and to the other legions who would read only the headlines. Moreover, they said "yes" the hard way; they absolved Physicist Oppenheimer of any charges of present-day disloyalty, or of any "attachment to the Soviet Union"; they commended his "high degree of discretion, reflecting an unusual ability to keep to himself vital secrets." Their verdict lay in a new and carefully reasoned proposition: beyond loyalty and discretion lie certain harsh requirements of security that Robert Oppenheimer, as an individual, does not measure up to.

The majority's conclusions:

1) "We find that Dr. Oppenheimer's continuing conduct and associations have reflected a serious disregard for the requirements of the security system.

2) "We have found a susceptibility to influence which could have serious implications for the security interests of the country.

3) "We find his conduct in the hydrogen bomb program sufficiently disturbing as to raise a doubt as to whether his future participation, if characterized by the same attitudes, in a Government program relating to the national defense would be clearly consistent with the best interests of security.

4) "We have regretfully concluded that Dr. Oppenheimer has been less than candid in his testimony before this board . . .

"There can be no tampering with the national security, which in times of peril must be absolute, and without concessions for reasons of admiration, gratitude, reward, sympathy or charity. Any doubts whatsoever must be resolved in favor of the national security. The material and evidence presented to this board leave reasonable doubts with respect to the individual concerned. We, therefore, do not recommend reinstatement of clearance."

Conduct, Character & Association. The majority report was a stunning blow to Oppenheimer, even though its impact was muffled by certification of his personal loyalty. When his clearance was quietly picked up last December under terms of President Eisenhower's executive order redefining security, it was Oppenheimer who first released the text of the Administration's charges to the press (TIME, April 19), along with a lengthy and eloquent accounting of his own personal life that he believed would explain his past errors. He had gone into the hearings before the Gray board flanked by four attorneys and all the character support his friends could muster. Now on the very points of "conduct, character and association," the Gray board rejected him.

As a starting point, the board examined the old charges that Oppenheimer had been in intimate contact wih Communist leaders through his wife, his brother and his sister-in-law--all onetime party members--in the six years before he took over the direction of the atomic bomb project in 1943. It found most of these charges true, agreed with Oppenheimer's own description of himself as a onetime "active fellow traveler."

The board, however, was willing to excuse these past connections. The reasons: 1) as soon as Oppenheimer took over the Manhattan Project, he accepted the fact "that current involvement with Communist activities was incompatible with service to the Government," and 2) "the board had before it eloquent and convincing testimony of Dr. Oppenheimer's deep devotion to his country in recent years, and a multitude of evidence with respect to active service in all sorts of governmental undertakings to which he was repeatedly called."

Arrogance of Judgment. What the board could not excuse (and therefore made the basis for its first finding against Oppenheimer) was that "he has repeatedly exercised an arrogance of his own judgment with respect, to the loyalty and reliability of other citizens to an extent which has frustrated and at times impeded the workings of the [security] system."

In practice this seemed to mean that Oppenheimer had continued to see and advise certain friends whom he knew to have highly suspicious Communist backgrounds. (And presumably in places where the FBI found it difficult to monitor his conversations.) Most notorious of these friends is Haakon Chevalier, a specialist in French literature, who knew the Oppenheimers intimately before the war at the University of California.

Chevalier is now well known to all security agencies as the man who, in the early days of the A-bomb project, tried to get Oppenheimer to give him details of the atomic program. Chevalier made this effort as a conscious agent of the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. Oppenheimer sternly refused Chevalier's request, but he did not report this significant attempt at Soviet espionage to Army intelligence for at least six months. It was another four months before he would admit to Army intelligence that Chevalier was involved.

What bothered the Gray board was that Oppenheimer has since been seeing Chevalier. Last December the Oppenheimers dined in Paris with Chevalier. Wrote the majority: "It is not important to determine that Dr. Oppenheimer discussed with Chevalier matters of concern to the security of the U.S. What is important is that Chevalier's Communist background and activities were known to Dr. Oppenheimer. While he says he believes Chevalier is not now a Communist, his association with him, on what could not be considered a casual basis, is not the kind of thing that our security system permits on the part of one who customarily has access to information of the highest classification."

Sense of Outrage. The finding of "susceptibility to influence" revolved around Oppenheimer's contacts with Dr. Edward U. Condon. Condon is the former chief of the National Bureau of Standards (now director of research and development for Corning Glass Works), who got into a headline row in 1948 with a House investigating subcommittee after the subcommittee called him "one of the weakest links" in the U.S. security chain. Early in the atomic program, Oppenheimer got a job at the University of California Radiation Laboratory for a young physicist with a known Communist background, one Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz. In 1943 the Army notified Lomanitz that he was to be drafted. Dr. Condon wrote Oppenheimer about this, as Oppenheimer put it, "in a great sense of outrage." Oppenheimer protested Lomanitz draft call (to no avail), and later tried to get Lomanitz released from the Army to return to his job.

As late as 1949, just before Lomanitz and another Oppenheimer friend, David Bohm, were to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Oppenheimer met them on a sidewalk in Princeton, N.J., (by chance, he testified), and discussed what they would say to the committee. Oppenheimer says he told them to tell the truth, but on the stand both refused to say whether they had been Communists on the usual constitutional grounds that their answers might tend to incriminate them.

Professional Status. Condon's name came up again over the Bernard Peters affair. In 1949 Dr. Oppenheimer frankly testified before the Un-American Activities Committee to the dangerous Red tendencies of Dr. Bernard Peters, a physicist (who now denies any connection with Communism). Condon, the board found, wrote Oppenheimer an angry, threatening letter, and, as previously disclosed, also tried to inspire a story that Oppenheimer was 1) losing his mind, and 2) about to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. Instead of showing anger at the Condon letter, Oppenheimer wrote to a newspaper in Rochester, where Peters was teaching, "in effect repudiating his testimony given in secret session." Said the Gray board: "His testimony . . . indicated that he failed to appreciate the great impropriety of making statements of one character in a secret session and of a different character for publication, and that he believed the important thing was to protect Dr. Peters' professional status . . .

"Dr. Condon's letter, which has appeared in the press, contained a severe attack on Dr. Oppenheimer. Nevertheless, he now testifies that he is prepared to support Dr. Condon in the loyalty investigation of the latter . . . Loyalty to one's friends is one of the noblest of qualities. Being loyal to one's friends above reasonable obligations to the country and to the security system, however, is not clearly consistent with the interests of security."

A Vital Doubt. The gravest, newest and most serious finding--regardless of the fact that it seemed deliberately written in vague terms--was that Oppenheimer's conduct on the H-bomb was "sufficiently disturbing to raise a doubt." Items:

P: Up to as late as the autumn of 1949, Oppenheimer was willing to grant an all-out H-bomb effort "a better than even chance" of success within five years. However "he was aware that the efforts being put forth . . . were relatively meager . . . and if research were continued at the same pace, there would be little likelihood of success for many years."

P: When, in 1949, /- AECommissioner Lewis Strauss* proposed a vigorous attempt to build an H-bomb (after the Russians exploded their first A-bomb), "Dr. Oppenheimer strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb on moral grounds, on grounds that it was not politically desirable," as well as because the H-bomb program would be a drain on the orderly development of the fission bomb program. Said the report: "Until the late spring of 1951, he questioned the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb efforts then in progress."/-

P: In testimony to the board, Oppenheimer insisted that he had opposed only a "crash program" of H-bomb production in 1949. Said the board, after digging through documentary evidence: "The board does not believe that Dr. Oppenheimer was entirely candid . . . in attempting to establish this impression. The record reflects that Dr. Oppenheimer [then] expressed his opinion in writing: 'The superbomb should never be produced.' "

P: After President Truman ordered an H-bomb go-ahead in 1950, Oppenheimer "did not oppose the project in a positive or open manner, nor did he decline to cooperate." But his 1949 views in opposition "became widely known among scientists, and since he did not make it known that he had abandoned these views, his attitudes undoubtedly had an adverse effect on recruitment of scientists . . . In other words the board finds that if Dr. Oppenheimer had enthusiastically supported the thermonuclear program . . . the H-bomb project would have been pur sued with considerably more vigor."

In the context of the atomic arms race with Russia, the board's conclusion was as grave an indictment as has ever been brought against an influential American since the cold war began: "The opposition to the H-bomb by many persons connected with the atomic energy program, of whom Dr. Oppenheimer was the most experienced, most powerful and most effective member, did delay the initiation of concerted effort which led to the development of a thermonuclear weapon . . . We cannot dismiss the matter . . . simply with the finding that [Oppenheimer's] conduct was not motivated by disloyalty, because it is our conclusion that, whatever the motivation, the security interests of the U.S. were affected."

To this the Gray board majority appended a cryptic statement that seemed to refer to Oppenheimer's strenuous, behind-the-scenes efforts to turn U.S. air power away from an emphasis on offensive power to one based on defense. "We are concerned . . . that he may have departed his role as scientific adviser to exercise highly persuasive influence in matters in which his convictions were not necessarily a reflection of technical judgment, and also not necessarily related to the protection of the strongest offensive military interests of the country. In the course of the proceedings, there developed other facts which raised questions of such serious import as to give us concern about whether the retention of Dr. Oppenheimer's services would be clearly consistent with the security interests of the U.S."

A Black Mark. Troubled reaction to the findings began right on the board, with Dr. Evans' minority report. "[Oppenheimer] did not hinder the development of the H-bomb, and there is absolutely nothing in the testimony to show that he did," he wrote. "His statements in cross-examination show him to be still naive but extremely honest, and such statements work to his benefit in my estimation . . . No one on the board doubts his loyalty . . . and he is certainly less of a security risk than he was in 1947 when he was cleared [by a Truman loyalty board] . . . His judgment was bad in some cases, and most excellent in others, but, in my estimation, it is better now than it was in 1947, and to damn him now and ruin his career and his service, I cannot do it . . . I personally think that our failure to clear Dr. Oppenheimer will be a black mark on the escutcheon of our country . . . I am worried about the effect an improper decision may have on the scientific development in our country."

Oppenheimer's attorneys, in a prompt appeal to the Atomic Energy Commission, turned their professional attention especially to the area where the Gray board tried to assess Oppenheimer's decisions and influence on the H-bomb program.* From the specific case of Oppenheimer, they reasoned a general plea for all scientists. Items: .

P: On the charge of Oppenheimer's lack of enthusiasm: "How can a scientist risk advising the Government if he is told that at some later day a security board may weigh in the balance the degree of his enthusiasm for some official program? Or that he may be held accountable for a failure to communicate to the scientific community his full acceptance of such a program?"

P: On the board's finding that asserted political and moral considerations influenced Oppenheimer's H-bomb recommendations: "Does this mean that a loyal scientist called to advise his Government does so at his peril unless, contrary to all experience, he can guarantee that his views are unaffected by his heart and his spirit?"

P: On Oppenheimer's alleged opposition to the nation's offensive military interests: "Does this mean that a loyal scientist called to advise his Government does so at his peril, if he happens to believe in the wisdom of maintaining a proper balance between offensive and defensive weapons?"

The lack of connection between the Gray .board's findings and the attorneys' replies was obvious. The Gray board implied peculiar attributes of character that now put Oppenheimer in opposition to the basic elements of U.S. security; the attorneys took the more general ground that standards of conduct set up by the board could not be met by any scientist because these standards hampered the free play of opinions and ideas in the search for truth. Most editorial writers who leaped in to take sides in the argument took sides on this big difference, whether they were aware of it or not.* And future argument would only be really relevant in so far as it served to clear up this difference.

Scientists in a Vacuum? In a notable section of "General Considerations" (see box), the Gray board attempted to answer in advance the criticism that was bound to come. Some of their criteria raised new questions; some would be the bases for endless argument. Example: the board's dictum that a scientist's advice should be "uncolored and uninfluenced by considerations of an emotional character" suggested that scientific advisers should act and move in a political and moral vacuum--when, in fact, scientists should be among the first to understand the ideological struggle that demands their diligent research on weapons.

If, on the other hand, the board meant that no scientific expert should be allowed to give a scientific veto to such a vital project as the H-bomb, simply because he has political misgivings about it, then the board was right, for a scientific adviser cannot usurp the power of decision that rightfully belongs to the nation's political leaders.

Hard Requirements. In and between the lines of the majority report was woven a strong thread of sadness. "It seemed to us," said the majority, "that an alternative recommendation would be possible, if we were allowed to exercise mature practical judgment without the rigid circumscription of regulations and criteria established for us. In good sense, it could be recommended that Dr. Oppenheimer simply not be used as a consultant and that therefore there exists no need for a categorical answer to the difficult question posed by the regulations, since there would be no need for access to classified material."

But, turning to AEC for guidance, the board found that failure to cancel Oppenheimer's clearance would mean that he would continue to receive classified documents, and would be accorded continued clearance in other Government departments by virtue of his uncontested, top-level AEC clearance.

"The hard requirements of security, and the assertion of freedoms, together thrust upon us a dilemma not easily resolved. In the present international situation our security measures exist, in the ultimate analysis, to protect our free institutions and traditions against repressive totalitarianism and its inevitable denial of human values. . . We share the hope that some day we may return to happier times when our free institutions are not threatened and a peaceful and just world order is not such a compelling principal preoccupation. Then security will cease to be a central issue . . . there will be no undue restraints upon freedom of mind and action, and loyalty and security as concepts will cease to have restrictive implications.

"This state of affairs seems not to be a matter of early hope."

*AEC Chairman Strauss and Oppenheimer have a professional relationship besides the atom: Oppenheimer is director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; Strauss is president of its board of trustees.

/-The U.S. exploded its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952; Russia, in August 1953. As a matter of actual fact (which neither Dr. Oppenheimer nor any other physicist could have predicted), H-bomb development proved to be no strain on the fission bomb program.

*Oppenheimer was represented (without fee) by the Manhattan firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and by Herbert Marks, onetime general counsel for the AEC. Famed Constitutional Lawyer John W. Davis, fresh from his defeat in the school segregation cases, joined in writing an appeal brief to the AEC, which has final jurisdiction in the case.

*Notable exception: Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop, long-standing Oppenheimer partisans. They implied that Gordon Gray's findings were part of a plot by AEC Chairman Strauss to even an old personal grudge against Oppenheimer, a point that conveniently overlooked the matter of Gray's record and integrity.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.