Pandora's Keepers (49 page)

After Groves finished testifying, Oppenheimer returned to the stand, this time to face questioning about his stance on the
superbomb. The weather outside the hearing room had changed—a rainstorm now beat against the windows—and so had Oppenheimer’s
bearing from the previous day. No longer subdued, uncertain, and slow to respond, he was now confident, combative, and quick
to reply. His upper lip was tense and coldly resolved. Misery had turned to indignation. Robb brought up Oppenheimer’s reference
to Lawrence and Teller as “two experienced promoters” in a letter he wrote shortly before the October 1949 GAC meeting. Oppenheimer’s
irritation and resentment toward both men—once friends and now enemies who would speak against him—was apparent:

R
OBB
: Would you agree, Doctor, that your references to Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Teller and their enthusiasm for the superbomb… are
a little bit belittling?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Dr. Lawrence came to Washington. He did not talk to the Commission. He went and talked to Congressmen and to members of
the military establishment. I think that deserves some belittling.

R
OBB
: So you would agree that your references to those men in this letter were belittling?

O
PPENHEIMER
: No. I pay my great respects to them as promoters. I don’t think I did them justice.

R
OBB
: You used the word “promoters” in an invidious sense, didn’t you?

O
PPENHEIMER
: I promoted lots of things in my time.

R
OBB
: Doctor, would you answer my question? When you used the word “promoter” you meant it to be in a slightly invidious sense,
didn’t you?

O
PPENHEIMER
: I have no idea.

R
OBB
: When you use the word now with reference to Lawrence and Teller, don’t you intend it to be invidious?

O
PPENHEIMER
: No.

R
OBB
: You think that their work of promotion was admirable, is that right?

O
PPENHEIMER
: I think they did an admirable job of promotion.
³⁷

Robb then suggested, rather darkly, that Oppenheimer had had qualms about the building of the superbomb. By this time Oppenheimer
understood in his bones that moral objection was very bad form in the corridors of power that he loved to stroll, and during
cross-examination he desperately fought to conceal his qualms. But Robb goaded and pressed until he extracted from Oppenheimer
a confession of at least a certain ethical queasiness about the superbomb:

O
PPENHEIMER
: I could very well have said this is a dreadful weapon…. I have always thought it was a dreadful weapon. Even [if] from a
technical point of view it was a sweet and lovely and beautiful job, I have still thought it was a dreadful weapon.

R
OBB
: And have said so?

O
PPENHEIMER
: I would assume that I have said so, yes.

R
OBB
: You mean you had a moral revulsion against the production of such a dreadful weapon?

O
PPENHEIMER
: This is too strong….

R
OBB
: Which is too strong, the weapon or my expression?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Your expression. I had a grave concern and anxiety.

R
OBB
: You had moral qualms about it, is that accurate?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Let us leave the word “moral” out of it.

R
OBB
: You had qualms about it.

O
PPENHEIMER
: How could one not have qualms about it? I know no one who doesn’t have qualms about it.
³⁸

That night Oppenheimer met with his legal advisers to talk about the case. They invited Joe Volpe to join them. Volpe had
warned all along about ploys that Robb might use. Now he listened as Oppenheimer and Garrison recounted what had occurred
during the first few days of the hearing:

Robert said to me, “Joe, I would like to have these fellows describe to you what’s going on in the hearing.” I don’t think
the others liked it very much, but finally they got around to telling me and honestly I was outraged. I was the one who had
drawn up the procedures for these hearings when I was General Counsel and they were very definitely not meant to be an adversary
procedure, and this one was. What’s more, they told me that they were withholding documents, which was utterly ridiculous….
This behavior gave me great concern, and so after an hour or so, I finally said, “Robert, tell them to shove it, leave it,
don’t go on with it because I don’t think you can win.”
³⁹

Oppenheimer listened closely to Volpe, weighing his advice carefully, but in the end he rejected it. Said Volpe:

He had always known that if someone, someday, wanted to bring all that stuff out and really make an issue of it, he could
be made a victim. He lived with this sword of Damocles always suspended over his head; he knew he was deliberately taking
risks in putting himself and his ideas forward in all these… groups and plans that made him powerful enemies. But he went
on anyway, knowing the possible consequences and ready to face them if they came.
⁴⁰

Brilliant, amusing, and attractive, Oppenheimer had a way of getting into morally uncomfortable positions from which he hoped
to extricate himself without anyone noticing. He had also resigned himself to play the game according to the rules. Like many
people who resign themselves in this way, Oppenheimer did so too thoroughly. For most of his time in Washington, this did
not affect him; but when he found himself in a situation where the rules were broken, he was at a loss, and he surrendered
too easily. A less-disciplined person might have made more of a row, upset the applecart, played to the court of public opinion.
For Oppenheimer, however, it was psychologically inconceivable: fighting back wasn’t good manners. He had made a place for
himself—and, to an extent, from himself—in the corridors of power that was precious to him. In the long run, he could not
break away. Any behavior that Washington officials would condemn, even if they sympathized with him, he could not manage.
Anything they would not do, he would not do either.

One by one, through the rest of April, an A-list of witnesses testified on behalf of Oppenheimer’s character and loyalty.
His friends came first, including Bethe, Fermi, and Rabi. These supreme rationalists were the most emotional of the witnesses,
because they were depressed and angry. They had talked with some of the other witnesses as they left the hearing room and
were shown parts of the testimony. They could see how things were going; it was clear to them that Oppenheimer was going to
be judged harshly. And yet, when their time came to take the stand, each of them described why he believed in Oppenheimer’s
loyalty. Bethe spoke movingly of Oppenheimer as the driving force at wartime Los Alamos, the person who was recognized as
“superior in judgment and superior in knowledge to all of us.” He explained that when he had to decide whether to join Teller
on the superbomb project, it was from Oppenheimer that he had sought advice. Robb did not attempt to challenge Bethe’s faith
in Oppenheimer but instead tried to undermine his credibility by exposing Bethe’s own vulnerability:

R
OBB
: Doctor, how many divisions were there at Los Alamos?

B
ETHE
: It changed somewhat in the course of time. As far as I could count the other day, there were seven, but that may have been
eight or nine at some time.

R
OBB
: What division was Klaus Fuchs in?

B
ETHE
: He was in my division which was the Theoretical Division.

R
OBB
: Thank you. That is all.
⁴¹

“A long dark room”—so thought Rabi on entering the hearing room on the morning of April twenty-first. “The board were stationed
in front, then Robb, then Oppenheimer in the back. It made me rather indignant to see him there,” he reflected afterward.
⁴²
Robb’s bullying tactics had unsettled and confused many witnesses, but not Rabi. That testifying for Oppenheimer might jeopardize
his own advisory role to the government was of no concern to him. Rabi was confident in himself and his conviction that the
hearing was a farce and a travesty. In his view, whatever Oppenheimer’s politics before the project, however arrogant Oppenheimer
appeared to some, it was nonsense to brand him a security risk. Rabi understood what was happening and was ready for the rough
Robb.
⁴³

Rabi made his points forcefully. First, he urged the board to keep in mind the times in which the Chevalier incident had occurred.
While a Soviet espionage approach would be “horrifying” in 1954, a similar approach in 1943—a time when Russia was an ally
and before the Cold War had begun—would not, in Rabi’s judgment, have required notifying authorities. Second, Rabi stressed
that Oppenheimer’s shortcomings should be judged against his much larger wartime contributions. Oppenheimer had given the
United States the most powerful weapon in the history of the world up to that time, a weapon that had helped it to successfully
end the war against Japan. Something took hold of Rabi’s throat. His voice choked and turned guttural with anger. “What more
do you want,” Rabi asked, his voice dripping with outraged sarcasm, “mermaids?” “This is just a tremendous achievement. If
the end of that road is this kind of hearing, which can’t help but be humiliating,” he added, “I think it is a pretty bad
show.”
⁴⁴

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:

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

R
ABI
: 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.