Secrecy had become the handmaiden of ignorant policies, and so Oppenheimer decided to speak out against secrecy. On February 12, 1950, Strauss was angered to see Oppenheimer appear on the first telecast of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Sunday morning talk show and openly challenge the manner in which the hydrogen bomb decision had been made. “These are complex technical things,” Oppenheimer told the television audience, “but they touch the very basis of our morality. It is a grave danger for us that these decisions are taken on the basis of facts held secret.”
