The Oppenheimer Case
WE ACCUSE! By Joseph and Stewart Alsop. (Gollancz, 13s. 6d.) THE past five years in American history have a sinister character. They are the years of McCarthyism, a form of political perse- cution which has combined the ugliest features of both modern democracy and the ancien regime: mass hysteria and the secret lettre de cachet which sent a man to ruin without even informing him of the charge. We have known nothing like it since the Popish Plot and the reign of Titus Oates. Even the Dreyfus Affair, since it had but one direct victim, was more limited in its human incidence. If the title of this book implies a comparison with the Dreyfus Affair, that is because the authors are dealing with one only of the many victims of McCarthyism: Dr. Robert Oppen- heimer.
Dr. Oppenheimer is one of the most distinguished living scientists. An American citizen by birth, of Jewish parentage and liberal upbringing, he adopted Left-wing views in the Thirties and discarded them in the Forties. He was never a Communist, and although he had had Communist friends, he impressed those with whom he worked as being loyal and discreet. He became head of the Los Alamos laboratory in which the first atom bomb was made, chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, Director of Advanced Studies at Princeton, chief atomic adviser of the American Government. Such a position was, of course, not attained without careful checks on his loyalty.
Those who checked it knew all the evidence that is now known, with the exception of one completely insignificant detail which happened afterwards: Oppenheimer's acceptance, in Paris, of
an unsolicited invitation to luncheon from a former friend who may have been a Communist. Having seen all this evidence, the Atomic Energy Commission gave Oppenheimer 'full and final' security clearance. One of ILO who thus cleared him was Admiral Lewis Strauss, a banker who had become an Atomic Energy Commissioner. Admiral Strauss was also one of those who nominated Oppenheimer to his Prince' ton directorship. This was in 1947. Five years later the sere Admiral Strauss was appointed chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Meanwhile McCarthy had risen to that position from which he terrorised the whole American Administration. Four days after his appointment to the chairmanship of the Atomic Energy Commission Admiral Strauss initiated that ea, paign of denunciation which has ended in Oppenheimer's powhhc disgrace and flight to England, to the great advantage of OM' bridge University. The authors of this book, the brothers Alsop, are the 051 distinguished of American publicists and there can be no doubt about their responsibility and fair-mindedness. Their accusatiol cogently reasoned and heavily documented, is that AdMinfI Strauss, perhaps to forestall an attack by McCarthy on hinlse't for being 'soft' to Oppenheimer, set out to ruin Oppenheimer' and, for that purpose, exploited personal and professional jealousies and the secrecy which surrounds all atomic questions This point about professional jealousies is of particular !IT: portance. It seems not to have been emphasised in the AlsoPs article in Harper's Magazine, which was referred to by Mr. 10-
A
Hamilton in the Spectator of May 6. But it is evidently fl•aw° mental—more important as a determining cause than any Mo•- differences about the hydrogen bomb. As so often, it is not •41
A a
differences of morality or politics that the beginnings of jun're logical feuds are to be found; departmental rivalries are 10'5 often the beginnings of heresy. Incidentally, they are sometimes also their end; it was the rivalry of the services which ultimately
f
brought McCarthy down. At all events, whatever the origins - n distrust, it seems clear that Dr. Oppenheimer was denied the ordinary legal means of defence. He was not allowed to knevi that he had in fact been cleared on all charges of which he was now accused; he was not allowed to see the 'evidence' against him, or even documents which he had himself written, as beill1/ too secret; and in the end, as a result of twisted facts, malicious insinuations and downright mendacity, he was falsely condemned on a charge of which he had not even been accused. incidentally it also appears that the secret police had been spying on OPPe" heimer, tapping his correspondence and his telephone calls, car eleven years. So much for the Bill of Rights. This is the accusation. I understand that Admiral Strauss 110.s issued a reply. I have not been able to obtain this reply, and if it does exist it is certainly a very inconspicuous document• d ought to be, like the charge, conspicuous, clear and documented Only thus can such a charge be met. Nor will it serve to plea general hysteria. In time of danger men in responsible positions have an absolute duty to resist general hysteria. If some men 1a.! not done so, McCarthyism would not now be, as it mercifully is, at last discredited. It is a pity that more such men were no found among the responsible governors of the United States.
HUGH TREVOR-RL"-
Previous page
