Jump to content

Talk:Oppenheimer security clearance hearing/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1

Expansion

I've fished out my copy of the Stern book and the JRO hearing transcript, and hope to flesh out the article in coming days. Figureofnine (talk) 01:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Omission: Stern's book, which is my primary source on the hearing, doesn't talk about the illegal wiretaps, or at least I can't find any references to them as of yet. Can someone else supply a source? They were referred to in a Time magazine book review but I hate to use that as a source. Figureofnine (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

See page 231 in the hardback. It's the section where Oppenheimer first seeks legal counsel after being informed of the AEC's allegations against him. SBHarris 02:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I did see that they taped him at Volpe, but wasm't the illegal taping with his counsel more extensive than that? I vaguely recall reading somewhere that a number of conversations were bugged. Figureofnine (talk) 23:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

A few things

Just a few things as someone who has read a few recent books about Oppenheimer.

  • There should be more care taken in what exactly Herken says about his alleged Party membership. Herken suggests that Oppenheimer and Chevailer were "member of a secret or so-called closed unit of the Communist Party’s professional section in Berkeley." That is not quite the same thing as being an official member of the CP (he was not a "card-carrying member" if it was secret and closed, and would not have been under Party discipline), and is more subtly worded than the current description in the article. Most of the debates over his CP membership at the moment are, I gather from the literature, hair-splitting over whether he was technically a member of a closed unit. The relevant point here is that there really is no strong evidence that Oppenheimer was a Communist in the sense that his detractors alleged, and any CP activity he had would have been much earlier in the 1930s. It should also be separated out from the discussions of espionage. Being a CP member (in whatever form) is not the same thing as being a spy. Something probably ought to be said about the Sudoplatov accusations, and the fact that there is no evidence supporting them.
  • McMillan's book alleges, based on documents, that Strauss heavily tipped the outcome of the board in his favor, using such illegal methods as tapping conversations between Oppenheimer and his lawyer, and then feeding that information to the prosecution.

Also, the "background" as it currently stands seems to imply that Livermore developed the H-bomb. This is not true. Teller developed the H-bomb idea with Ulam at Los Alamos in 1951. Livermore was not founded until 1952. In the meantime, the first successful H-bombs were all developed at Los Alamos by Los Alamos personnel. In fact, Livermore's first designs—including its first thermonuclear—were all duds. Now one need not see that as a fault against Teller or the lab—they were purposefully trying to do "cutting edge" work that was outside of the tried-and-true—but the conception that Teller left "to work on the H-bomb" is very wrong indeed, which was a key point of dispute at Oppenheimer's security hearing. I think a little bit more on Oppenheimer's stance on the H-bomb (e.g. really discussing what the 1949 GAC report on the Super says) would help the article, because he was not really a "dove" at all on the issue. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:58, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

These are all important points and I am especially interested in beefing up the illegal wiretap aspects. Figureofnine (talk) 21:20, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
One last, recent thought: it would also be nice if there could be some ferreting out of why it was published, especially since it was originally not going to be published, as the article points out. I seem to recall something on this in McMillan and Bird/Sherwin. Surely there is some story about this. I seem to recall from one of these sources that they turned the whole thing around in 48 hours or something else that was quite remarkable. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
There's something about it in Stern. Strauss was annoyed about the leaks to the press from the Oppenheimer people. Figureofnine (talk) 01:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Crouch

I apologize for not checking this out earlier. Crouch's testimony, dramatically taken from executive sessions of a congressional committee in "1953" and supposedly not discovered (eureka!) until a half century later, was actually a subject of much publicity in 1950 (see [1] and he was discredited. See American Prometheus, p. 440-441, [2] Oppenheimer was somewhere else at the time of the supposed closed Communist party hearing. I guess this explains why Crouch's allegations did come up during the hearing, but they went nowhere and he was not called as a witness. Our lengthy quote of his discredited testimony, particularly in the manner in which it was used, has no place in the article. It needs to be dramatically re-adjusted in the main JRO article too. Figureofnine (talk) 16:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest you consider that Crouch's false allegations very much do have a place in this article, as they convey the atmosphere of "witch hunt" that was going on in the hearings. Not pages and pages, but a para is very apropos. Billyshiverstick (talk) 00:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Nice post

Nice post, and I totally agree, but the article comes across to the casual observer as Hoover "saving America from Commie spies". It needs some more delicate phrasing, especially in the background. Billyshiverstick (talk) 00:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Limited, or Biased Article Tone

Hi - there is a lot of good information in the Wiki articles on the bomb development, and scientists involved.

Reading this article as polished up for main page display, I find the tone a bit limiting in its discussion of the unique role of scientists in the war effort. There was a reason Hoover went after Oppenheimer, and the "background" does not really cover it. The articles on Oppenheimer and Teller are better.

A lot of this was a clash between scientific culture and the military industrial complex that Eisenhower himself so decried just a few years later. As well, historically, "Communism" and "Socialsim" were much broader human endeavours than Senator MaCarthy knew about.

Just saying, imho, the choice of "facts" on display comes off as a bit biased.

best regards, and sorry I forgot my sig on my edit Billyshiverstick (talk) 00:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

The FBI had reason to investigate Communists and "fellow travelers" because there was evidence that some of them were involved in espionage. The pursuit of Oppenheimer when he was known to be loyal is harder to fathom. At the time, people did not believe that science and political beliefs could be separate, and there was a general feeling among the wider population that science led to atheism, humanism and cosmopolitanism, all antithetical to the American way of life. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:34, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Last paragraph in the intro - sources?

I, like a number of readers today, came to this article due to its listing on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/), which focuses on the final sentence in the last paragraph in the intro. Admittedly, I'm no wiki expert, but I'm pretty surprised that a featured article can have a paragraph that contains such sweeping declarations, and possible opinion/synthesis, without having any citations. Maybe I don't understand the featured article standards well enough (I've only ever brought anything up to GA status), but am I off the mark in thinking that a citation might be due there? Couldn't anyone just show up and legitimately cut all that nice verbage out without one? Please know that I mean no disrespect to those editors who watch over this article and clearly have put a ton of good work into it. Buddy23Lee (talk) 23:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

As a general rule, the lead should summarise the article, which should be fully cited to reliable sources. Therefore anything in the lead should be supported by the cited information in the main body of the article. If that's not the case then there would be reason to either cite the statements in question that appear in the lead, or remove them, or ensure that further cited material is added to the main body to support the lead. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
Alright, I think I got it. The intro can contain contain the type of (seemingly) uncited synthesis and conclusions I'm seeing, based on the cited content further down in the article. I'm just going to assume the vetted FA status means it is well established elsewhere. Thank ya. Hopefully any further content debates this question may or may not start, work in the best for the article and all who view it. Buddy23Lee (talk) 04:27, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
I was going to post the same thing myself. I see that this is sourced to American Prometheus, which is a book exclusively about Oppenheimer, so I wouldn't be shocked if it overplayed its own topic's importance. "All scientists working within the government were on notice that dissent was no longer tolerated?" Is this a quote from the back cover of a sci-fi dystopia novel? Don't get me wrong, the mistreatment of Oppenheimer was terrible. It couldn't possibly mean that "dissent" was now forbidden and all Americans marched in perfect lockstep. Being in "academic exile" and not getting invited to certain conferences is very far from "dissent is no longer tolerated." There were absolutely still communists in 1950s America, and moreover it did not become some kind of deferential classist society where lessers obeyed their betters or something. Heck, the very next paragraphs talk about Kennedy rehabilitating Oppenheimer, so clearly it didn't last THAT long.
More productively, I think the passage could be changed to something like "Historians Sherwin & Bird argue that...", or otherwise talk about a "chilling effect" on free speech among scientists perhaps, but right now it's terribly overwritten. SnowFire (talk) 00:16, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppenheimer's Q clearance being revoked ended his career, as he could have no further involvement in nuclear weapons development. His "rehabilitation" was symbolic, not practical; his Q clearance was never reinstated. Communists were not allowed to have Q clearances in the 1950s. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:20, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Is there any other kind of rehabilitation? I don't think he particularly wanted to go back to advising the government by then anyway, since he would die in ~3-4 years... anyway, I'd have no complaints about saying that Q clearance was locked down on a political basis, but that's a far cry from "scientists were forbidden to dissent" (in general), which isn't something I'd say even about the Soviet Union at the height of the purges. That's either magazine-article exaggeration, or ludicrously false. I'm sure you can find for yourself a large, large number of left-wing American scientists in the 50s... SnowFire (talk) 02:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Bird and Sherwin were summing up the consensus of historians and sociologists:
The quote from Bell is from a 1964 paper. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:56, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
First of all, as I said before, Sherwin & Bird are slightly biased sources with specific regards to the importance of the incident they were writing about. No historian wants to write a book and end it with "this whole thing you just read about didn't matter at all and it was forgotten." This is nothing personal to those two, it applies to everyone and is in fact healthy; I'd expect books on a topic to extensively research all the ways that topic did matter. And quoting 1 person doesn't necessarily mean that's a "consensus of historians and sociologists." But fine, let's ignore this. The quote you brought up looks fine! You'll note I didn't edit very much the sentence that reflected how the role of scientist-as-noble-sage was adversely affected. The line I'm taking issue with, which I see you've restored, is:
"all scientists working within the government were on notice that dissent was no longer tolerated."
1, is there a quote from "American Prometheus" (or elsewhere) more directly on that topic? 2, even if there is, it's a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. That or there's a semantics difference on what exactly "dissent was no longer tolerated" implies. To me, this sounds like some kind of state-of-emergency, 1st amendment is suspended deal and all American scientists were required to mouth good anti-communist slogans. But... that is blatantly false. In fact, in this very article it discusses continuing support for Oppenheimer, that leftitst scientists existed and spoke out in his favor, and that the President of the United States would later give him an award. People who aren't "tolerated" rarely get awards! The line reads as some kind of bizarre revisionist history that claims leftism entirely disappeared among American science which, as I've said above, is blatantly false and really easily checked. I'd like to revert back to my version, but perhaps either you mean something different by this line (in which case it should be clarified) or there's actually some source that talks about how secretly leftist US scientists were thrown in the Gulag and silenced or something. SnowFire (talk) 02:08, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7:, any thoughts on the above? SnowFire (talk) 00:06, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I replaced the line in the article with the block quote from Bird and Sherwin, who say that scientists working within the system could not dissent from government policy. So we are only talking about the lead, which is a summary of the quote. The quote does reflect the consensus among historians, including Bird, Sherwin, Day, Bell, Berstein, Herken, Kaiser, Monk and Stern. It doesn't say that "the 1st amendment is suspended deal" (although, in fact, it doesn't always apply to government employees) or that "all American scientists were required to mouth good anti-communist slogans" (although, in fact, this did happen to some). It is true that Oppenheimer was rehabilitated by President Johnson, but that was nearly a decade later. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

(de-indent) @Hawkeye7: First off, a quick side note: great work on the article! It is an interesting and solid read, and I'm glad you're giving this terrible incident the attention it deserves. (Figured I should say this lest I come off as too hostile here. :) )

It sounds like we have a semantics difference after all. You are saying that it doesn't mean "the 1st amendment is suspended." Well, great, you read the sources and know that, but my point is that the line in question is a catchy, punchy magazine tagline precisely because it DOES imply something like that. It's shocking! Whoa, scientists weren't allowed to be anything but perfect anti-communists! (Check out the Reddit comments.) Except... and again, I feel on fairly solid ground because I'm quoting this very article you helped write...

I would be interested in reading the Reddit comments; I don't know where to find them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
"Many top scientists, as well as government and military figures, testified on Oppenheimer's behalf. Among them were Fermi, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Hans Bethe, John J. McCloy, James B. Conant and Bush, as well as two former AEC chairmen and three former commissioners.[68] Also testifying on behalf of Oppenheimer was Lansdale..."

I don't know what to say other than this doesn't add up. Let me put it to you this way: if you were reading through an article about a trial of a Soviet scientist who was eventually "exiled", and it said "dissent would no longer be tolerated", how do you think a reader would interpret it? Would they think that lots of scientists would be speaking up in their favor and not getting hassled or imprisoned or the like? It's going to mean something a lot more extreme than scientists no longer being able to easily comment on certain affairs. Like I said, I'm totally fine with the part about "it became harder for scientists to disagree with government policy about stuff like the export of radioactive isotopes." I don't see what's wrong with the version I used, which says "there was a chilling effect on the speech of scientists employed by the government." Isn't this accurate to what the sources say? Your quote uses "dissent", sure, but in a much narrower context: expecting to serve on advisory boards afterward. Dissent being "no longer tolerated" with no qualifiers and no context implies, at best, being on a research station in Siberia and ignored, or in prison or executed at worst. That's a huge difference.

Surely there's some phrasing that we can both agree on that's clear about what's exactly being claimed about the status of American government scientists? SnowFire (talk) 02:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I habitually use words precisely and with their narrowest meanings. So by "dissent" I mean "the holding or expression of opinions at variance with those officially held"; whereas if I say "chilling effect" I mean "the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of legal rights by the threat of legal sanction". The former is correct. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I strongly agree with SnowFire. This article is clearly very well written and structured, and I respect and appreciate the work that all the relevant editors have put into that. However, after having read only the lead and not the rest yet, my experience was finding most of it very good (I'm not used to not seeing at least some minor copy error to edit, for a start) and then the last paragraph shockingly editorial-like. I actually came to this talk page to add a section on my opinion that that paragraph does not line up with Wikipedia's neutrality policy and should be amended, before seeing this, and was very surprised to see that it was a featured article after having seen that paragraph.
Again, the rest of the article seems very good, and I hate how this is probably sounding quite rude and dismissive regarding the effort put in and the high quality article which genuinely resulted from that. Having read this discussion, I now understand how that paragraph could be added not just in a mistaken good faith effort but very understandably, based on a different, and defensible, view of what phrases like "dissent was no longer tolerated" would imply. However, I would like to add my voice to the others suggesting that at least some people, and I would imagine actually the majority, would read that as meaning something much larger than what it sounds like you intend for it to mean, Hawkeye7.
I think this issue can be fairly readily resolved, as well. The content is good and the point made is valid. I think all that needs to be done is to make some phrasings more just about the facts, letting them speak for themselves, rather than using the sort of language that feels like a hero's journey or terms that come with connotations and possible greater implications - even if just some people will take those implications, that's still unnecessarily misleading. For example, "He became an academic exile, cut off from his former career and the world he had helped to create" could be replaced with something like "He became cut off from much of the academic world, from his former career, and from involvement in many of the works and innovations his efforts had contributed to." (I am not an expert on the subject at all; this is unlikely to be an optimal encapsulation of the exact events. I'm just trying to show the sort of thing that would be required to, in my view, resolve the issue and make it so that no one would take from this an overly extreme implication - however much that's not intended - as well as making this read in a manner that's more encyclopedic and less sensationalist - however genuinely compelling and well-written.)
I think the second sentence is perfectly good. As for the third, I second SnowFire's suggestions that it would be much assisted by something like "X argues that" and/or making it clearer what precisely is meant by "dissent was no longer tolerated". I see the word dissent as very fitting here, but think that "no longer tolerated" is a very vague phrase that could mean a lot of things. It could just be specified what the consequences for dissent were not expected to be, in terms of explicit or legal consequences, more generalised social consequences, and whatever else. I don't at all dispute that there would be consequences, but "dissent was no longer tolerated" doesn't make it clear what sort of things that might mean, leaving it open to interpretations anywhere from a government official making a grumpy comment to the press about an instance of dissent to the dissented being thrown in the aforementioned gulags.
Does that seem a reasonable set of suggestions for the sort of changes that could be made here? I could do them myself, but, seeing as there's already a discussion and Hawkeye7 is clearly a very beneficial and reasonable contributor to the discussion and the article, I would of course want to raise the idea first. Regardless, I imagine you would do a better job of it, given you clearly know the subject better than I.
(Also, as a side note/disclaimer, any motivated reasoning on my part would actually lead me to want to believe the grand form of these claims, as a leftist believer in the importance of information and of science being unbiased by any political interference, and thus someone who wants to see as many faults in McCarthyism as I can get my hands on. But still, that viewpoint should only be allowed to materialise to the extent the world supports it - and regardless, the specific, clear, and unemotionally-stated facts here would do that anyway, in my view; no need for anything contestable.) BreakfastJr (talk) 10:55, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
I really don't see the bias, as the last paragraph sums up what is in reliable sources, the lead itself is reasonably neutral and the entire article is both detailed and even-handed. Why not tweak it and see how it flies? Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
I have linked "dissent" to make its meaning clearer. The "X argues that" form was not used because (1) it is not normal in the lead, which is a summary; (2) because it is cumbersome; (3) but mostly because it might give the impression that it represents a minority view, when in fact is is the unanimous agreement of our reliable sources. I fear that a re-wording process would not lead to "compelling and well-written" material, but what Eric Corbett would call grey goo.
As a side note, the idea of "science being unbiased by any political interference" was unheard of in 1954, when there was widespread concern then that science, particularly physics, would lead to socialism. Such concerns persist today; scientists say that we will wreck the planet unless we change our way of life - an unacceptable political position. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
I concur with Hawkeye7 on this. I've slacked off in my Wiki-participation and frankly was shocked to see such a long and impassioned discussion here. Having trouble grasping the problem. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

illegal wiretaps , violation of attorney client

when I point out faults that means those needed to be included in article, FBI broke law, tainted evidence was allowed, due process was not followed, attorney phone calls tapped, Lansdale more than Groves knew oppenheimer loyalty better. Groves was aspiring for hire position. no link to transcripts Juror1 (talk) 17:41, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to share with us your sources for that material. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 23:28, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Great article

I just want to note that this is a remarkably well-written and balanced article (I am a long-time Cold War and JRO fan who has contributed about 30-40% to the Wikipedia JRO entry over the last several years). I think it brings out the essence of the security hearing quite accurately. I think it also quite fairly conveys Oppenheimer's character: a brilliant scientist and patriot who nonetheless was a very complex and flawed man. Kudos on a job well-done. I also see discussions about Oppenheimer's communist associations which seem to remarkably endure. I think the facts are quite straight by now; as far as I know, except for Gregg Herken, no major JRO historian (and I would consider Rhodes, Bird & Sherwin, Cassidy and McMillan in this category) believes that JRO was a member of the communist party. As with other aspects of his personality, his communist ties were also complicated; it was more of an intellectual interest than anything else, and it's also worth noting that stories of Stalin's purges and the Nazi-Soviet pact quickly disillusioned him of communism quite early, even after these things failed to sway his left-leaning associates and students. I also realize that Wikipedia has a very reasonable NPOV policy, and some people seem to think that discussions of JRO's security hearings somehow are filled with left-wing views of the whole matter. However, I think that the sum of all evidence uncovered until now makes it quite clear that his hearing was carefully orchestrated by right-wingers in the government on the basis of less-than-convincing evidence. I think most serious historians agree by now that he made some mistakes, but those weren't a reason for the kind of shameful hearing that resulted. This is simply a factual assessment of the matter, not some overly liberal interpretation. Ashujo (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your very kind thoughts on this. If you can help fill in any of the blanks, especially on the surveillance of JRO, it would be very helpful. Figureofnine (talk) 02:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Oppenheimer security hearing/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Djmaschek (talk · contribs) 02:35, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Review

Just a few typos so far. Djmaschek (talk) 02:35, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Here are more. Djmaschek (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Postwar conflicts, paragraph 4: "developing the Super". I was born in the USA in 1953 but had no idea what "Super" meant. It later dawned on me that this must be "H-bomb" in American English. Please decipher this for American readers. Suggest: "Super (H-bomb)"
    checkY It's a long story, with an article of its own. They worked on it through the Manhattan Project and into the 1950s. Oppenheimer, Bethe, Goeppert-Mayer and Fermi all had a go at it. Eventually Ulam and Teller figured it out. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Postwar conflicts, paragraph 5: "referred top" (to)
    checkY Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Scope of testimony, last paragraph: "Robb to testified" (testify)
    checkY Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The board's decision, paragraph 2: "conduct reflect" (reflects or reflect[s], since it's inside a quote)
    checkY Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

That's all - just small stuff. Very good article. Djmaschek (talk) 03:29, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your review! Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
this is NOT a great article - did you pay someone to write that ?

history shows that people lied and the FBI broke the law, the man did not get a fair hearing it was COMPLETeLY rigged! at least LBJ showed true courage.Juror1 (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

@Juror1: If you have any concrete suggestions for the improvement of this article, please place them in a new section at the bottom of the page. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

It's good, but the phrase "scientists working in government were on notice that dissent was no longer tolerated. ", is needless editorializing. And in any case oppenheimer was a government contractor, not a government scientist. It doesn't belong in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.227.35 (talk) 11:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Neutral point of view

Since the US government nullified the AEC decision in 2022, is the introduction of the article really neutral? I think it has become pretty clear that the hearings were in fact an expression of McCarthyism and not a neutral hearing with regards to national security. I would argue it gives a false false balance in the beginning, leaving open the option that it was in fact a fair hearing. PhotographyEdits (talk) 15:22, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I've made it clearer at the ending of the lead section that the fairness of the proceeding has been contested for years. That does need to be there. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:03, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Communist sympathies??

Oppenheimer had sympathies with many left-liberal causes that were also being pushed by Communists in the 1930's (like old-age pensions and universal health insurance), but this is not to say he was in any sense a Communist. Indeed he reported that he'd read Marx's Capital, thought it made no sense, and decided the whole thing was nonsense. His brother Frank, however, was a Communist.

Remember, that back in the 1930's, civil rights was a Communist Plot, as was government-tax-supported health care for retirees. Nowadays in the US, as any Republican retiree will tell you, government-run health care is only a Communist plot when it involves younger people. ;) That's kind of the situation Oppenheimer was in. SBHarris 00:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The hearings were not about his opinions on old-age pensions. Oppenheimer had many Communist ties and sympathies. There is a lot of evidence that he was a member of the Communist Party, and held Party meetings in his house. Roger (talk) 03:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
None of his latest biographers (Pais, Thorpe, and my favorite, Bird) agree with you. So where are you getting this information? The main guy who testified about Oppenheimer's communist membership at the trial was not in the least believable given his other history, and at one point specifically put a communist meeting in Oppenheimer's house at a particular date, when he and his wife were demonstrably in New Mexico (as proven by a road accident). Nor has there been any new evidence after the opening up the former Soviet Union, as we have gotten with (say) the Rosenbergs. Basically, it's a bust. Worst still, it's the shearest hypocrisy to talk about Oppenheimer's contacts with Communists in the 1930's, long before the US became Stalin's bosom ally and began shipping him massive amounts of weapons. Then, decided he was an enemy again, and now it's fair to dig up 15 year-old associations and look at them in retrospect, with "modern" 1953-4 eyes. Shouldn't we have done that for all the weapons we had sent to Stalin since that time? Are government consultants supposed to waffle on their personal political beliefs according to what's officially fashionable, in any given year? That's a serious question.

As to your second point, in fact, the hearing very quickly degenerated into matters far beyond Oppenheimer's connections with the Commies in the 1930's, and his refusal to rat out his friend in 1943. For example, the prosecution allowed Teller to testify that he thought Oppenheimer's loyalty was not the problem, so much as his judgement about development of the H-bomb. But that's not a security issue, it's technical issue. So what's it doing in a security hearing? If you want your consultants to give you the answers you want about development of new weapons systems, you should pick your consultants from among military contractors! There are always plenty of them. And if you don't like the answers you're getting from a given consultant about the development of some superweapon that hasn't been demonstrated (some Starwars system, in todays' terms) you need to talk to many physicists, not just some guy who's the major grant-winner for the weapons system from the Air Force. (Take a look at the MIRACL laser: This problem hasn't gone away, you know, but we don't remove the security clearances of nay-sayers)

It didn't help that Truman had announced a push for the H-bomb in early 1950 (rather like Reagan and Starwars, again). But just because the president says it should be done, ala JFK, doesn't mean it can be done (think of Bush deciding to go to Mars on an Earth-orbit budget). Presidents can be fools and it's the job of their advisors to tell them when their great dreams can't be realized for the money they have to spend. From what we know of the history of the H-bomb (read Rhodes' Dark Sun), Oppenheimer opposed H-bomb development when given designs that would not have worked (and actually didn't work-- the "alarm clock/layer cake"), but changed his mind when presented with a design that had a chance to work (Teller-Ulam implosion). That's what you pay consultants for, not to be true-believers like Teller, who push for something maniacally, whether it has a chance or not.

If you know anything about Oppenheimer and Teller's relationship in the Manhattan project, you can see that Oppenheimer's worst piece of judgement was not firing Teller for insubordination in 1944, and sending him packing to any university that would have him. Teller would NOT help with the atomic bomb, which he considered boring. He was only interested in the hydrogen bomb. And Oppenheimer, when faced with this primadona that he didn't have to put up with (nobody should have to put up with such a man on a desperately short and time intensive project like Manhattan) actually paid Teller to work on the H-bomb, and allowed him a precious bit of his Manhattan director's time, each week! Incredible. And his thanks for this kindness to Teller, who was a narcissist of the first water, was to have Teller accuse him of unpatriotically bad judgement!

You couldn't make this kind of thing up-- they'd say you had made bad, unbelievable fiction, ala Ayn Rand. But it really happened just this way. I would suggest reading The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb which is a bit dated, but tells a lot of this tale. Also Rhodes' first book. SBHarris 04:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

evidence ? you mean wiretaps? Doubtful - you cite statements by biased persons! Juror1 (talk) 08:30, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
JRO was all in favor of bombs as long as the USSR was an ally, and against them when the USSR was an enemy. Yes, that was very suspicious. Some of his many Communist ties are detailed over at J. Robert Oppenheimer. Explain this Teller stuff all you want, but the hearings were about JRO Communist ties, of which there were dozens. Roger (talk) 17:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Did you actually read the section? At a number of points it says JRO was not a party member, but a "fellow traveler". Since this is the late 1930's, so what?

As to the other, you have your facts wrong. JRO switched from opposing the H-bomb in 1949 (the year the Soviets demonstrated their own atomic weapon, but before it had happened), to supporting it in 1951 (after the president had announced developement in 1950, a workable design had been put forward in 1951, and when it was clear that the Soviets would develop their own H-bomb soon). And the Soviets were even farther from being allies in 1951-- you will remember that they'd stomped out of the U.N. security council when the Korean war started in 1950, thus allowing the U.N. police action to take place against the coummunist-supported North Korea, over the USSR's stated oppostion. So your facts are not only wrong, but completely bass-ackwards. JRO opposed the bomb when the Soviets were toothless former allies, but supported it once the Soviets became a nuclear power in open support of Communist aggression in Korea.

I quote from the JRO article, which sums it up: "Oppenheimer's critics have accused him of equivocating between 1949, when he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and 1951, when he supported it. Some have made this a case for reinforcing their opinions about his moral inconsistency. Historian Priscilla McMillan has argued,[50] however, that if Oppenheimer has been accused of being morally inconsistent, then so should Rabi and Fermi, who had also opposed the program in 1949. Most of the GAC members were against a crash hydrogen bomb development program then, and in fact, Conant, Fermi and Rabi had submitted even more strongly worded reports against it than Oppenheimer. McMillan's argument is that because the hydrogen bomb appeared to be well within reach in 1951, everybody had to assume that the Russians could also do it, and that was the main reason why they changed their stance in favor of developing it. Thus this change in opinion should not be viewed as a change in morality, but a change in opinions purely based on technical possibilities." This is what JRO himself said. SBHarris 19:20, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to argue about whether JRO deserved to lose his clearance. I just want the article to be historically accurate. JRO was a commie fellow traveler who lied about his commie connections, and people like that always lost their clearances, as far as I know. I think that it is very misleading to make a big deal out of Teller and these other side issues, when JRO was going to lose his clearance anyway if he were subjected to the same standards as everyone else. Roger (talk) 00:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
if he wanted to lie about commie (such juvenile use of the slang)connections he would not even have brought up fact that someone had tried to get info from him via his freind, all he did was try to hide his 1st degree contact but still tell Security that a probe had been made, and while you write nonsense I have subject matter expertise, you do not. Juror1 (talk) 08:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
The problem with that argument is that the prosecution didn't introduce any new information about Communist connections past 1943, which was the time the government ought to have decided whether to give JRO "clearance" or not. They knew all this stuff-- it was old hat. They made him the head of the atom bomb program. Yes, they tried to somehow tie it in with JRO's actions WRT the H-bomb later, but as noted, a lot of not at all Commie people like Conant, Fermi and Rabi felt the same way about that program, so it's a difficult argument to make. JRO's opposition had very good other reasons, just as his fellow scientists' had, but nobody gave him the benefit of the doubt. Considering his service record to his country, a science and technical and political balance act that probably nobody else could have done, I think he merited the benefit of the doubt, to say the least.

If your last point is that there was due process because McCarthyism was unfair and JRO got treated no more unfairly than anybody else in the country, it's not valid. A lot of unfair institutions from the witchhunts to the inquisition to slavery have affected many people over the ages. Their victims are still worth studying. JRO as much as (say) Galileo. SBHarris 02:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not here to argue USA security policy. I think that your opinions are quite extreme, and I am just arguing for a balanced article. Roger (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
WP is not here for "balance" if you mean we should have the same amount of space arguing that Stalin was a nice guy, as that he was not a nice guy. WP:NPOV means that views are to be presented in rough proportion to their number of supporters, scholarship, and quality/reputation. If you examine the many scholarly sources on this trial, you will find that the vast preponderance of views of people who have published on this, think JRO got a very bad shake, even by the standards of the time (as, BTW, did almost all JRO's collegues from all parts of the political spectrum; Teller was ostricized. In fact, politically Lewis Strauss also paid dearly and never held public office again). This article should thus present that as the majority view, since it IS the majority view. MY view doesn't count and (in the nicest possible way) neither does yours. But if you read up on this subject, you'll find that the scholars agree with me. My opinion here is not "extreme" but is the majority view by far. You're welcome to introduce sources that support YOUR view. Good luck. SBHarris 00:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The article says that there is "substantial evidence" that he was in the CPUSA. I think that this needs to be directly supported by an inline footnote. I don't have access to the book cited that evidently is the source, but the Google Books excerpts don't show this. In various other ways this article has been a bit slanted against JRO, and I have tried to fix. Figureofnine (talk) 19:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that some references to the many pieces of evidence should be included. But you just removed one piece of evidence from the JRO article yourself! If you want to see the evidence, then please stop removing it. [3] Roger (talk) 19:41, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
You're referring to the Crouch testimony, which I removed because it was identical, word for word, to what is in this article. It remains here. Are you saying that sentence on "substantial evidence" is sourced to Crouch? Figureofnine (talk) 19:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
No. There are many pieces of evidence for JRO's Communist sympathies. His friends, his relatives, the meetings at his house, the essays he wrote, his politics, etc. There are even those who say that there is evidence that JRO was a Communist spy. Here is a book that discusses his commie ties. [4] Roger (talk) 21:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Attribution added. Figureofnine (talk) 22:06, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Communist or a "Commie"?

Apart from the latter-day Dr Strange Loves or hard-right cheerleaders, how many people now use the term "commie"? Almost as if the Cold War never ended? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.147.153.97 (talk) 16:22, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Nation Hero or "Cry Baby"?

"Time magazine literary critic Richard Lacayo, in a 2005 review of two new books about Oppenheimer, said of the hearing: "As an effort to prove that he had been a party member, much less one involved in espionage, the inquest was a failure. Its real purpose was larger, however: to punish the most prominent American critic of the U.S. move from atomic weapons to the much more lethal hydrogen bomb." After the hearing, Lacayo said, "Oppenheimer would never again feel comfortable as a public advocate for a sane nuclear policy."

So, despite the seemingly endless debate, is not the defence of the US atomic policy a major reason for for such Character Assassination? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.147.153.97 (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Oppenheimer_security_clearance_hearing/Archive_1&oldid=1250824029"