Oppenheimer heard from his brother Frank, Hans Bethe and Victor Weisskopf, all of them expressing pained astonishment that Oppie would attack a friend that way. Both Weisskopf and Bethe wrote that they could not understand how he could have said such things about Peters, as Weisskopf put it, and they urged him to “set this record straight and do what is in your power to prevent Peters’ dismissal. . . .” Bethe wrote him that “I remember you spoke in the most friendly terms to me about the Peterses, and they certainly have considered you their friend. How could you represent his escape from
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