American Prometheus (131 page)

441
“exceedingly ambivalent”:
Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, p. 1415.

442
“wisdom of our war plan”:
Ibid.

442
“I carried away”:
Ibid.

443
Strauss “devoted a good part”:
Extract from JCAE staff memo written by Borden, concerning conversation with Commissioner Strauss, 8/13/51, Philip M. Stern Papers, JFKL. See also Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, pp. 1413–14.

443
“technically sweet”:
Wheeler,
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam,
p. 222.

443
“delayed or attempted to delay”:
FBI memo, Albuquerque, 5/15/52, declassified 9/9/85 and 10/23/96, JRO FBI file.

444
“
would do anything possible
”:
Edward Teller, interview by FBI, report made at Albuquerque, 5/15/52, nine pages, declassified 10/23/96, JRO FBI file.

444
“serious questions as to”:
JRO hearing, p. 749.

444
“That was the goddamnedest”:
Dyson,
Weapons and Hope,
p. 137.

444
Chapter Five of the report:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
pp. 182–85.

445
briefing was a “success”:
Ruth Tolman to JRO, 1/15/52, box 72, JRO Papers. In an early draft of chapter 5, Oppenheimer advanced the ethical argument that tactical weapons should replace strategic weapons—but this passage was eventually deleted (Herken,
Counsels of War,
p. 67).

445
“went straight through”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 185.

445
“ever since Oppenheimer”:
Lewis Strauss to Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, 9/19/52, “H-bomb,” AEC series, box 39, Strauss Papers, HHL.

445 The Air Force’s: William L. Borden, memo to JCAE chairman, 11/3/52, p. 2, box 41, JCAE, no. DCXXXV, RG 128, NA.

445
“bringing the battle back”:
Oppenheimer was right to regard the ten- and twenty-megaton hydrogen bombs carried by SAC aircraft as both genocidal and militarily useless weapons. But he did not realize that, in just a few years, technical developments would make it possible to design low-yield hydrogen weapons small enough to mount on intercontinental ballistic missiles—or in an artillery shell (Herbert York, e-mail to Howard Morland, 3/5/03).

445
“are not policy weapons”:
Thorpe, “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Transformation of the Scientific Vocation,” dissertation, pp. 450–51.

446
“the bulk of the B-47 fleet”:
Steven Leonard Newman, “The Oppenheimer Case: A Reconsideration of the Role of the Defense Department and National Security,” dissertation, New York University, February 1977, p. 48.

446
“Finletter was filled with wrath”:
Ibid., p. 53. Newman’s source is a letter to him from Col. Charles J. V. Murphy, 9/17/74. Murphy was the author of the Fortune magazine attack on JRO.

446
“pro-Russian or merely confused”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
pp. 190–91.

447
“rude beyond belief”:
Ibid., pp. 191–92.

447
“whether [Oppenheimer] was a subversive”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 253.

447 “In dealing with the Russians”: William L. Clayton Papers, 6/7/51, p. x, HSTL; see also “A Statement on the Mutual Security Program,” April 1952, Committee on the Present Danger, Averell Harriman Papers, Kai Bird Collection.

447
“Oppie’s line”:
Stewart Alsop to Martin Sommers, 2/1/52, “Sat. Evening Post Jan.–Nov. 1952” folder, box 27, Alsop Papers, LOC. Yoder,
Joe Alsop’s Cold War,
p. 121; JRO hearing, p. 470.

448
“I think it does”:
“Meeting for Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer,” 2/17/53, p. 28, Council on Foreign Relations Archives.

448
“Some of the ‘boys’ ”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
p. 600.

448
“Physics is complicated”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 251; JRO to Frank Oppenheimer, 7/12/52, “Weinberg Perjury Trial, 1953” folder, box 237, JRO Papers.

449
“I find it hard to thank you”:
Bird,
The Color of Truth,
p. 113; Bundy correspondence, box 122, JRO Papers.

449
“problem of survival”:
Minutes, mtg. of 5/16–18/52, Panel of Consultants on Arms and Policy, Princeton, box 191, JRO Papers; Bird,
The Color of Truth,
p. 113.

449
“while the more significant fact”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
pp. 602–4, 902; Bird,
The Color of Truth,
p. 114.

450
“it seems to us”:
David Holloway,
Stalin and the Bomb,
p. 311.

450
“any such idea”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
p. 605; minutes of mtg., NSC, 10/9/52, FRUS 1952–54, vol. 2, pp. 1034–35.

450
“I no longer have”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
p. 605.

450
Oppenheimer sat grimly:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 257.

451 “Some people in the Air Force”: Lee DuBridge, interview by Sherwin, 3/30/83, p. 23.

451
This document was forwarded:
Mac Bundy published the declassified version of this report in the journal
International Security
(Fall 1982) under the title “Early Thoughts on Controlling the Nuclear Arms Race.” See also Bundy’s essay “The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb,”
New York Review of Books,
5/13/82, p. 16.

451
“should tell the story”:
Bird,
The Color of Truth,
p. 115.

452
“The Missed Chance”:
McGeorge Bundy, “The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb,”
New York Review of Books,
5/13/82, p. 16.

452
“enemy archives”:
Leffler, “Inside Enemy Archives: The Cold War Re-Opened,”
Foreign A fairs,
Summer 1996.

452
“never believed that”:
Bird, “Stalin Didn’t Do It,”
The Nation,
12/16/96, p. 26; Alperovitz and Bird, “The Centrality of the Bomb,”
Foreign Policy,
Spring 1994, p. 17. See also Arnold A. Offner,
Another Such Victory,
and Carolyn Eisenberg,
Drawing the
Line.

452
“would mean the destruction”:
Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov,
Inside
the Kremlin’s Cold War,
pp. 166–68.

452 But in practice: David S. Painter, The Cold War, p. 41.

452
“I couldn’t sleep”:
Holloway,
Stalin and the Bomb,
pp. 340–45, 370; William Taubman,
Khrushchev,
p. xix.

453
Yet no less a Sovietologist:
Charles E. Bohlen,
Witness to History,
pp. 371–72.

Chapter Thirty-two: “Scientist X”

454
“entirely cooperative”:
JRO, interview by FBI, 5/3/50, sect. 8, JRO FBI files.

454
“So there was a cloud”:
Joseph Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, pp. 20–21.

454
“My God,” he thought:
Ibid., p. 22.

455
Fortunately for Weinberg:
J. Edgar Hoover, FBI memo, 5/8/50, JRO FBI files, sect. 8.

455
By April 1950:
A. H. Belmont to D. M. Ladd, FBI memo, 4/14/50, Crouch affair, JRO FBI file.

455
“They were fools”:
Weinberg, interview by Sherwin, 8/23/79, pp. 22, 30.

455
“we would want a transcript”:
Transcript of conference between Oppenheimer, Marks, Arens, and Connors, 12/13/51, box 237, JRO Papers.

456
“that no such persons”:
Keith G. Teeter, FBI memo, 11/18/52, re: 5/20/52 interview of JRO and Crouch, JRO FBI file, sect. 14, p. 3. Oppenheimer did volunteer that he vaguely recalled that someone, perhaps Ken May, had asked permission to use his home for “a meeting of young people.” But he could not recall whether he had given his permission or even where he had been living at the time of this request.

456
“to see if he would recognize”:
Ibid. The FBI memo claims that Crouch was not forewarned of Oppenheimer’s presence. According to Crouch, he had not seen Oppenheimer since their one encounter in July 1941. Even so, anyone who read the newspapers would have seen photographs of Oppenheimer.

457
“Dr. Oppenheimer stated”:
Ibid.

457
This might be regarded:
The FBI later learned that Hiskey was employed until 8/28/41 by the TVA in Knoxville, TN; TVA records showed that Hiskey had not left Knoxville until the end of August (A. H. Belmont to D. M. Ladd, FBI memo, 7/10/52, declassified 7/22/96, JRO FBI file).

457
In fact, Oppenheimer’s lawyers:
Excerpts from Gordon Dean’s diary, 5/16/52 to 2/25/53, History Division, Department of Energy.

458
“It will be Oppenheimer’s word”:
Dean to Truman, 8/25/52, and Truman to Dean, 8/26/52, D folder, PSF general file, box 117, HSTL.

458
“Oppie will have to”:
Gordon Dean diary, 11/18/52, History Division, Department of Energy.

458
“government prosecutors said”:
Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, p. 1426;
San Francisco Chronicle,
12/2/52.

458
“Such a miserable”:
Ruth Tolman to JRO, 1/2/53, box 72, JRO Papers.

458
“it seemed a terrible thing”:
Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, p. 1426.

459
“isn’t some natural”:
Ibid., pp. 1426–27.

459
“this case can be cut”:
Gordon Dean diary, 2/25/53.

459 Oppenheimer had to go: Criminal docket, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, criminal no. 829-52, chronology of United States v. Joseph W. Weinberg.

459
“felt so worn out”:
Ruth Tolman to JRO, Sunday, 3/1/53, box 72, JRO Papers.

459 Since the prosecution was: Affidavit of Joseph A. Fanelli, United States v. Joseph W. Weinberg, criminal no. 829-52, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, filed 11/4/52.

459
“the court does not”:
NYT, 3/6/53, p. 14.

459
“With so many mean”:
Lilienthal to JRO, 3/1/53, box 46, JRO Papers, LOC, cited in Barton J. Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, p. 1427.