Why did the Atomic Energy Commission want to revoke J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance? How did the drama unfold, and how did it end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
J. Robert Oppenheimer was a scientist. But, he had political enemies who, time and time again, raised concerns over his apparent ties with\u2014and leanings toward\u2014communism. This all came to a head in 1953 when his security clearance, and therefore his career, came under threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continue reading to learn about Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Though Oppenheimer had spearheaded the creation of the atomic bomb and served on various committees consulting the government on nuclear policy, he was often targeted by his political enemies after the atomic bomb for his past connections to communism. According to Bird and Sherwin, the animosity toward Oppenheimer culminated in December 1953, when he learned that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) intended to revoke his security clearance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biographers Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin write that the movement to revoke Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance was led by Lewis Strauss\u2014the chairman of the AEC. Bird and Sherwin contend that Strauss\u2019s disdain of Oppenheimer was deep-seated; in his 1949 testimony before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Oppenheimer had embarrassed Strauss by sharply refuting Strauss\u2019s testimony about the importance of isotopes in developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Though historians generally agree that Strauss was responsible for the AEC\u2019s case against Oppenheimer, Harold Green\u2014one of the AEC\u2019s legal advisers in 1954, who resigned because the AEC mishandled the Oppenheimer hearing\u2014claims that the case didn\u2019t occur because of Strauss\u2019s personal vendetta alone<\/a>. Rather, he argues that Eisenhower\u2019s 1953 directive, which ordered the AEC to place a \u201cblank wall\u201d between Oppenheimer and confidential information, spurred on the hearing. Strauss, he claims, would have likely preferred a subtler attempt to discredit Oppenheimer, rather than such a blatantly prejudiced hearing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n After many confrontations with Oppenheimer about nuclear policy in the early 1950s, Strauss began plotting to get Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance revoked. According to Bird and Sherwin, he first contacted William Borden, the AEC\u2019s staff director who felt similarly about Oppenheimer and provided Borden access to Oppenheimer\u2019s security file. On the basis of this file, Strauss helped Borden compose a brief alleging Oppenheimer was likely a Soviet agent. Bird and Sherwin say that this brief led to an FBI report that convinced the Eisenhower administration to conduct an AEC hearing to revoke Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Borden\u2019s legacy was permanently marred by his role in instigating the Oppenheimer hearing\u2014according to President Kennedy\u2019s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, Borden was even prevented from joining the Kennedy administration<\/a> because of his defamatory letter against Oppenheimer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the AEC\u2019s chairman, Strauss had the authority to decide the three members of the AEC panel that would judge Oppenheimer. In addition to this authority, Bird and Sherwin argue, Strauss consistently employed illicit tactics throughout the hearing to predetermine the verdict against Oppenheimer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First, Bird and Sherwin point out that even before the hearing, Strauss actively biased the panel against Oppenheimer<\/strong>. They write that Strauss arranged for the panel members to read Oppenheimer\u2019s FBI security file before the hearing\u2014in the presence of prosecuting attorney Roger Robb, at that. Without Oppenheimer\u2019s defense present, Robb personally guided the board through the most damning portions of Oppenheimer\u2019s security file. As Bird and Sherwin relate, this violated the basic legal principle of tabula rasa<\/em>\u2014that juries approach trials with a clean slate and no preconceived opinions of the defendant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: In the US, the notion of tabula rasa<\/em> often figures heavily into applications of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees defendants in criminal trials the right to trial by an \u201cimpartial jury<\/a>.\u201d For example, in the 1965 case Turner v. Louisiana<\/em>, the US Supreme Court ruled that verdicts in criminal trials must be based exclusively on evidence presented in the trial<\/em><\/a> rather than on the jury\u2019s preconceived beliefs about the defendant. However, because Oppenheimer\u2019s case was a security hearing, not a criminal trial, the requirement of tabula rasa<\/em> didn\u2019t apply.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, Bird and Sherwin observe that Strauss handicapped Oppenheimer\u2019s lawyers by denying them a security clearance<\/strong> while providing one for the prosecuting lawyers. As a result, Oppenheimer\u2019s lawyers often lacked access to the evidence presented to the panel, making it impossible for them to respond to the prosecution\u2019s accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: This hampering of Oppenheimer\u2019s lawyers would not have occurred in a US criminal or civil case, in which all lawyers have the right to discovery<\/em>\u2014the process by which the prosecution and defense must exchange all evidence<\/a> they intend to present, to avoid ambushes in the courtroom and provide ample time to assess the evidence.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Bird and Sherwin write that Strauss had access to illegal FBI wiretaps of Oppenheimer\u2019s conversations with his lawyers<\/strong>. As a result, Strauss could predict the defense lawyers\u2019 legal tactics and relay them to Robb, the prosecuting attorney. These illegal wiretaps not only violated attorney-client privilege but also provided Robb with a strategic edge throughout the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who authorized the illegal wiretaps on Oppenheimer, was often suspected of illegally obtaining information about Americans he thought had communist associations. Notoriously, because he believed the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> was infiltrated by communists, Hoover authorized illegal wiretaps of Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s home<\/a> until 1965, and he also wiretapped the home of King\u2019s lawyer, Stanley David Levison.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bird and Sherwin contend that, in addition to underhanded tricks, the prosecution relied heavily on Oppenheimer\u2019s testimony about the \u201cChevalier incident,\u201d<\/strong> a conversation between Oppenheimer and Haakon Chevalier<\/a>, his close friend and fellow Berkeley faculty member, in late 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Months later, in August 1943, Oppenheimer first gave an account of this conversation to Colonel Boris Pash. Oppenheimer told Pash that he and two other scientists had been approached by an intermediary (later revealed as Chevalier) who was friends with George Eltenton, a physicist with connections to the Soviet Union. Per Oppenheimer\u2019s testimony, this intermediary told Oppenheimer and the other scientists that Eltenton hoped to relay information about the Manhattan Project<\/a> to the Soviets, a suggestion Oppenheimer immediately called treasonous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, in June 1946, FBI agents simultaneously interviewed Eltenton and Chevalier about Chevalier\u2019s discussion with Oppenheimer in 1943, giving them no time to coordinate their answers. They both corroborated Oppenheimer\u2019s previous account, with one glaring exception: They both denied having approached two other scientists, as Oppenheimer claimed. Later, in September 1946, FBI agents interviewed Oppenheimer himself, who admitted to fabricating elements of his original account to protect Chevalier\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bird and Sherwin point out that, in the 1954 hearing, Oppenheimer\u2019s prior false testimony proved damning. <\/strong>Robb compelled Oppenheimer to admit to the AEC\u2019s panel that he had lied to the FBI and waited eight months to disclose a conversation of crucial security information. Moreover, in the heat of the examination, Robb induced Oppenheimer to call himself \u201can idiot\u201d who told \u201ca whole fabrication and tissue of lies.\u201d This testimony, Bird and Sherwin argue, greatly discredited Oppenheimer in the eyes of the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strauss\u2019s efforts to revoke Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance proved successful in May 1954: The panel voted two to one to revoke Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance<\/strong>, deeming Oppenheimer a security risk (though affirming his loyalty to the US). Bird and Sherwin argue that the dissent, written by Ward Evans, captured the true nature of the hearing: It pointed out that nearly all the evidence in the hearing was known in 1947 when Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance was renewed by the AEC. For this reason, Evans thought there was no justification for revoking Oppenheimer\u2019s clearance years later. And, although the ruling was technically a recommendation, Bird and Sherwin note that it was ratified by AEC commissioners in a four-to-one vote in June 1954.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: The panel\u2019s two-to-one ruling represents another key difference between the AEC\u2019s security hearings and US criminal trials, which require juries to deliver a unanimous verdict<\/a>. Similarly, civil trials normally require unanimous verdicts<\/a>, though exceptions exist when the prosecution and the defense agree to allow nonunanimous verdicts. So, by permitting nonunanimous rulings, the AEC\u2019s hearing made it easier to rule against Oppenheimer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bird and Sherwin contend that the loss of Oppenheimer\u2019s security clearance signified his fall from grace in the eyes of politicians and much of the American public. They argue that Oppenheimer effectively underwent a transformation after the security hearing: He was no longer an inside adviser on nuclear policy but instead an exiled intellectual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why did the Atomic Energy Commission want to revoke J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance? How did the drama unfold, and how did it end? J. Robert Oppenheimer was a scientist. But, he had political enemies who, time and time again, raised concerns over his apparent ties with\u2014and leanings toward\u2014communism. This all came to a head in 1953 when his security clearance, and therefore his career, came under threat. Continue reading to learn about Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":111522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,33],"tags":[1245],"class_list":["post-111510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-people","tag-american-prometheus","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nStrauss\u2019s Illicit Tactics Throughout the Hearing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Tactic #1: Biasing the Board<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Tactic #2: Handicapping Oppenheimer\u2019s Lawyers<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Tactic #3: Illegal FBI Wiretaps<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The Presentation of the Chevalier Incident<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The AEC Panel\u2019s Ruling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n