American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

In the very near future, he said, “we may anticipate a state of affairs in which the two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own.” And then, in a chilling turn of phrase that startled everyone who heard it, Oppenheimer quietly added, “We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”

here was the father of the atomic era declaring that the fundamental assumptions of the country’s defense policy were laced with ignorance and folly. The nation’s most famous nuclear scientist was calling upon the government to release heretofore closely guarded nuclear secrets, and to discuss candidly the consequences of nuclear war. Here was a celebrated private citizen, armed with the highest security clearance, denigrating the secrecy that surrounded the nation’s war plans. As word spread through Washington’s national security bureaucracy of what Oppenheimer had said, many were appalled. Lewis Strauss was seething.

and let me point out that we never had any of this hysterical fear of any nation until atomic weapons appeared upon the scene.” Later in his presidency, Eisenhower would feel compelled to rebuke a panel of hawkish advisers, caustically observing, “You can’t have this kind of war. There just aren’t enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.”

Openness, he thought, would serve no purpose other than to relieve “the Soviets of trouble in their espionage activities.” So Strauss now took every opportunity to sow suspicion in Eisenhower’s mind about Oppenheimer. The new president later remembered someone—he thought it was Strauss—telling him that spring that “Dr. Oppenheimer was not to be trusted.”

In December 1952, just a month after Borden wrote his investigative report, Strauss sent him a four-page letter outlining his own view that the H-bomb had been delayed by three years. Not only had Oppenheimer’s GAC dragged their feet on the Super, but it was now clear that the Russians had benefited from atomic espionage. “In sum,” Strauss told Borden, “I think it would be extremely unwise to assume that we enjoy any lead time in the competition with Russia in the field of thermonuclear weapons.” And there was no doubt in either of their minds that Oppenheimer was largely responsible for this dangerous situation.

during the seven months between April and December 1953, Lewis Strauss—with considerable help from William Borden—accomplished the “great deal of preliminary spade work” that he and J. Edgar Hoover had agreed was necessary before a successful assault could be launched against Oppenheimer. They had diverted Senator McCarthy from the attack, knowing that he was too unreliable to prepare the case carefully. In July 1953, according to AEC staff lawyer Harold Green, “Strauss had promised Hoover that he would purge Oppenheimer.”

Earlier in 1953, the British Broadcasting Corporation had invited him to give the prestigious Reith Lectures, a series of four talks broadcast to millions of people around the world. He and Kitty planned to stay in London for three weeks in November and then go to Paris in early December. The invitation was a considerable honor; previous Reith lecturers had included Bertrand Russell, who spoke on “Authority and the Individual,” and, just the past year, Arnold Toynbee, who had lectured on the grand topic of “The World and the West.” Robert labored over his chosen theme, “to elucidate what there is new in atomic physics that is relevant, helpful and inspiriting for men to know.” Most BBC listeners were probably overwhelmed by Oppenheimer’s studied ambiguity. “His glittering rhetoric,” wrote one critic, “held his listeners in a web of absorption that was often less attentive than trance-like.” His performance was nothing if not mystical. “For all my trouble,” he later admitted, “I was told I was impossibly obscure.”

he spoke briefly about the nature of communism: “It is a cruel and humorless sort of pun that so powerful a present form of modern tyranny should call itself by the very name of a belief in community, by a word, ‘communism,’ which in other times evoked memories of villages and village inns and of artisans concerting their skills, and of men learning [to be] content with anonymity. But perhaps only a malignant end can follow the systematic belief that all communities are one community; that all truth is one truth; that all experience is compatible with all other; that total knowledge is possible; that all that is potential can exist as actual. This is not man’s fate; this is not his path; to force him on it makes him resemble not that divine image of the all-knowing and all-powerful but the helpless, iron-bound prisoner of a dying world.”

he had been attracted in those years by the vision and rhetoric of social justice promoted by the American Communist Party. Integrating public swimming pools in Pasadena, arguing for better working conditions for farm laborers, organizing a teachers’ union—these were all intellectually and emotionally liberating experiences. But much had changed. Now, in pleading for a different “brave new world,” he was reconstituting on an intellectual level the deepest instincts and the highest values he had been committed to as a young man. His call for an open society was, to be sure, connected to his concerns about the dangerous and stultifying effects of secrecy on American society. But it was also connected to the cause of social justice in America, a goal he had worked for before Hiroshima, before Los Alamos and before Pearl Harbor. Communism’s role in America had changed; Robert’s role as a responsible American citizen had changed; but his deepest values were unaltered. “The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance,” he said in one of his Reith Lectures, “these are what may make a vast, complex, ever-growing, ever-changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world nevertheless a world of human community.”

Eisenhower said that he wasn’t going to worry about McCarthy—but the Oppenheimer case should be brought to the attention of Attorney General Herbert Brownell. He told Wilson they “certainly will not assassinate [Oppenheimer’s] character unless we can gain substantiating evidence.” Wilson told Ike (erroneously) that both Oppenheimer’s “brother & wife are Communists; this fact, plus his past relations, make him a bad risk if we have trouble with Communists.”

The attorney general would have to judge whether an indictment was warranted, but Ike noted, “I very much doubt that they will have this kind of evidence.” But in the meantime, he was going to cut Oppenheimer off from all contacts with those in government. “The sad fact is that if this charge is true, we have a man who has been right in the middle of our whole atomic development from the very earliest days. . . . Dr. Oppenheimer was, of course, one of the men who has strongly urged the giving of more atomic information to the world”—a suggestion, Eisenhower failed to note in his diary, of which he had approved.

Eisenhower noted in his diary that in the “brief time” he had to read over the “so-called ‘new’ charges” he had quickly realized that “they consist of nothing more than the receipt of a letter from a man named Borden. . . .” He then correctly assessed its contents: “This letter presents little new evidence. . . .” The president had been told, he confided, that the “vast bulk” of this information had been “constantly reviewed and re-examined over a number of years and that the over-all conclusion has always been that there is no evidence that implies disloyalty on the part of Dr. Oppenheimer. However, this does not mean that he might not be a security risk.” Eisenhower understood that Oppenheimer might well be the victim of scurrilous charges. But having ordered an investigation, he was not about to stop the process. Such a move would leave him vulnerable to a charge from McCarthy that the White House was shielding a potential security risk. So, the president sent a formal note to the attorney general, ordering him “to place a blank wall” between Oppenheimer and classified material.

Oppenheimer’s old Los Alamos friend and colleague, Adm. William “Deke” Parsons, learned of Eisenhower’s “blank wall” directive. Parsons knew all about Oppie’s left-wing associations, and thought them meaningless. Earlier that autumn, Parsons had written a “Dear Oppy” letter in which he observed, “The anti-intellectualism of recent months may have passed its peak.” Now he knew otherwise. That afternoon he met his wife, Martha, at a cocktail party and she could see that he was “extremely upset.” After telling her the news, he said, “I have to put a stop to it. Ike has to know what’s really going on.” At home that evening he told her, “This is the biggest mistake the United States could make!” When he said he had decided to get an appointment with the secretary of the Navy the next morning, Martha said, “Deke, you’re an admiral, why can’t you go to the president?” “No,” he told his wife, “the secretary of the Navy is my boss. I can’t go around him.” That night, Admiral Parsons experienced chest pains. The next morning he looked so pale that Martha drove him to Bethesda Naval Hospital. He died that day of a heart attack, which Martha always believed was brought on by the news about Oppie.

Rogers briefly suggested they should simply do what Truman had done to Harry Dexter White—call Oppenheimer before an open congressional committee and grill him about the derogatory information in his security file. White, however, had dropped dead of a heart attack after the ordeal—and now Jackson and everyone else jumped all over the idea. At that, “Rogers smilingly withdrew the suggestion.” Instead, they gravitated toward Strauss’ notion of appointing a panel to conduct an administrative review of Oppenheimer’s security clearance. It would not be a trial in the formal sense. The scientist would be offered a choice: He could quietly leave or he could appeal the suspension of his security clearance before a panel to be appointed by Strauss.

Thirty-five minutes after entering Strauss’ office, Oppenheimer rose to leave, telling Strauss that he was going to consult with Herb Marks. Strauss offered him the use of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac and Oppenheimer—distraught (outward appearances to the contrary)—foolishly accepted. But instead of going to Marks’ office, he directed the driver to the law offices of Joe Volpe, the former counsel to the AEC who together with Marks had given him legal advice during the Weinberg trial. Soon afterwards, Marks joined them and the three men spent an hour weighing Robert’s options. A hidden microphone recorded their deliberations. Anticipating that Oppenheimer would consult with Volpe, and unconcerned about violating the legal sanctity of client-lawyer privilege, Strauss had arranged in advance for Volpe’s office to be bugged.

“Dear Lewis.” Oppenheimer strongly implied that Strauss had encouraged him to resign. “You put to me as a possibly desirable alternative that I request termination of my contract as a consultant to the Commission, and thereby avoid an explicit consideration of the charges. . . .” Oppenheimer said he had earnestly considered this option. “Under the circumstances,” he wrote Strauss, “this course of action would mean that I accept and concur in the view that I am not fit to serve this government, that I have now served for some twelve years. This I cannot do. If I were thus unworthy I could hardly have served our country as I have tried, or been the Director of our Institute in Princeton, or have spoken, as on more than one occasion I have found myself speaking, in the name of our science and our country.”

After more than one drink, he rose and announced that he was retiring upstairs to the guest bedroom. A few minutes later, Anne, Herb and Kitty heard a “terrible crash” and Anne was the first to the top of the stairs. Robert was nowhere to be seen. After knocking on the bathroom door and then shouting his name, with no response, she tried to open the door. “I couldn’t get the bathroom door open,” she said, “and I couldn’t get a response from Robert.” He had collapsed on the bathroom floor and his unconscious body was blocking the door. The three of them together gradually forced the door open, pushing Robert’s limp form to one side. They then carried him to a couch and revived him. “But he sure was mumbly,” Anne recalled. Robert said he had taken a sleeping pill, a prescription drug Kitty had given him. Anne called a doctor—who said, “Don’t let him go to sleep.” So for an hour they walked him back and forth, coaxing coffee down his throat until the doctor arrived.

Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. FRANZ KAFKA, The Trial

The inclusion of Oppenheimer’s opposition to the Super reflected the depth of McCarthyite hysteria that had enveloped Washington. Equating dissent with disloyalty, it redefined the role of government advisers and the very purpose of advice. The AEC’s charges were not the kind of narrowly crafted indictment likely to bring a conviction in a court of law. This was, rather, a political indictment, and Oppenheimer would be judged by an AEC security review panel appointed by the chairman of the AEC, Lewis L. Strauss.

Strauss later portrayed himself as a man under siege, but in truth he knew he held the advantage. The FBI was feeding him daily summaries of Oppenheimer’s movements and conversations with his lawyers, thereby allowing him to anticipate all of Oppenheimer’s legal maneuvers. He knew Oppenheimer’s FBI file contained information that Oppenheimer’s lawyers would never see—because he was going to make sure that they were not given the necessary security clearance. Moreover, he was going to select the members of the hearing board.

Garrison learned that the members of the hearing board were going to spend a full week studying raw FBI investigative files on Oppenheimer. Worse, Garrison learned to his dismay that the AEC’s “prosecuting” attorney would be present to help guide the board members through the derogatory items in the FBI file and answer their questions. Garrison had a “sinking feeling” that after a week’s immersion in the files, the board members would become prejudiced against his client. But when he asked for the same privilege, to be present during this weeklong briefing, he was flatly rebuffed. Simultaneously, Garrison tried to get an emergency security clearance for himself, so that he might at least read some of the same material. But Strauss told the Justice Department that “under no circumstances should we grant emergency clearance.” In Strauss’ view, neither Oppenheimer nor his lawyer had any of the “rights” afforded to a defendant in a court of law; this was an AEC Personnel Security Board Hearing, not a civil trial, and Strauss was going to be the arbiter of the rules.

Strauss was unfazed by the extraconstitutional nature of things he was doing to undermine Oppenheimer’s defense. He knew, but did not care, that the FBI wiretaps were illegal, telling one agent “that the Bureau’s technical coverage on Oppenheimer at Princeton had been most helpful to the AEC in that they were aware beforehand of the moves he was contemplating.”

When an FBI agent in Newark suggested discontinuing the electronic surveillance on Oppenheimer’s home “in view of the fact that it might disclose attorney-client relations,” Hoover refused.

He told the AEC’s general counsel, William Mitchell, that “if this case is lost, the atomic energy program . . . will fall into the hands of ‘left-wingers.’ If this occurs, it will mean another Pearl Harbor. . . . if Oppenheimer is cleared, then ‘anyone’ can be cleared regardless of the information against them.” With the country’s future at stake, Strauss reasoned, normal legal and ethical constraints could be ignored.

Unless the physicist’s reputation was smeared, Strauss feared that Oppenheimer would use his prestige to become a vocal critic of the Eisenhower Administration’s nuclear weapons policies. To foreclose that possibility, he proceeded to orchestrate a “star chamber” hearing guided by rules that would assure the elimination of Oppenheimer’s influence.

Einstein suddenly appeared and Oppenheimer stopped to chat with him. Hobson sat in the car while the two men talked, and when Oppie returned to the car, he told her, “Einstein thinks that the attack on me is so outrageous that I should just resign.” Perhaps recalling his own experience in Nazi Germany, Einstein argued that Oppenheimer “had no obligation to subject himself to the witch-hunt, that he had served his country well, and that if this was the reward she [America] offered he should turn his back on her.” Hobson vividly remembered Oppenheimer’s reaction: “Einstein doesn’t understand.” Einstein had fled his homeland as it was about to be overwhelmed by the Nazi contagion—and he refused ever again to set foot in Germany. But Oppenheimer could not turn his back on America. “He loved America,” Hobson later insisted. “And this love was as deep as his love of science.”

Einstein, of course, didn’t think America was Nazi Germany and he didn’t believe Oppenheimer needed to flee. But he was truly alarmed by McCarthyism. In early 1951 he wrote his friend Queen Elizabeth of Belgium that here in America, “The German calamity of years ago repeats itself: People acquiesce without resistance and align themselves with the forces of evil.” He now feared that by cooperating with the government’s security board, Oppenheimer would not only humiliate himself but would lend legitimacy to the whole poisonous process. Einstein’s instincts were right—and time would demonstrate that Oppenheimer’s were wrong. “Oppenheimer is not a gypsy like me,” Einstein confided to his close friend Johanna Fantova. “I was born with the skin of an elephant; there is no one who can hurt me.” Oppenheimer, he thought, clearly was a man who was easily hurt—and intimidated.

Robert received a letter from his old friend Victor Weisskopf who, having learned of his predicament wrote to express support and encouragement: “I would like you to know that I and everybody who feels as I do are fully aware that you are fighting here our own fight. Somehow Fate has chosen you as the one who has to bear the heaviest load in this struggle. . . . Who else in this country could represent better than you the spirit and the philosophy of all that for which we are living. Please think of us when you are low. . . . I beg you to remain what you always have been, and things will end well.”

Allan Ecker, recalled how stunned Robert’s attorneys were to see that each member of the security review board had those bound books in front of them. “This was the shock of the day,” Ecker recalled, “and the shock of the case, because the classical notion of the legal system is the tabula rasa. There is nothing in front of the judge except that which is put in front of the judge openly and with an opportunity of the person accused or charged to respond. . . . They had examined [those books] in advance; they knew what was in there. We did not know what was in there. We did not have a copy; we had no opportunity to challenge whatever documents were not brought forward. . . .

What was the source of these specific allegations? These individuals had not talked to the authorities. When summoned before HUAC, Nelson and others always had refused to name names. Obviously, these charges were based on illegal FBI wiretaps that were transcribed in those black binders stacked on the table before the hearing panel judges. Not admissible in a court of law, these unevaluated transcripts would be used with impunity in the Gray Board’s “inquiry.” All three Board members had read the FBI’s summary of these ten-year-old conversations—yet Oppenheimer’s lawyers were barred from seeing them and therefore were unable to challenge their contents.

When Pais explained his mission, Einstein chuckled loudly, and then said, “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him—the United States government. . . . [T]he problem was simple: All Oppenheimer needed to do was go to Washington, tell the officials that they were fools, and then go home.” Privately, Pais may have agreed, but he felt this would not serve as a statement to the press. So he persuaded Einstein to draft a simple statement in support of Oppenheimer—“I admire him not only as a scientist but also as a great human being”—and got him to read it to a United Press reporter over the phone.

Robb’s relentless questioning had backed Robert into a corner. He didn’t recall his conversation with Pash at the level required to respond adequately to Robb’s interrogation. And so he accepted his tormenter’s selective presentation of the transcript. Had Garrison been an experienced trial-room counsel he would have insisted earlier that his client answer no further questions about his interview with Pash until he had had an opportunity to review the transcript, and he also would have objected to Robb’s strategic use of the transcript to ambush Oppenheimer. But Garrison left the door to the interview wide open, and Oppenheimer stoically walked through it. But Oppenheimer need not have capitulated so easily. There was an explanation for the convoluted story he had told Pash that was far less damaging than the interpretation that Robb maneuvered him into accepting. Recall that Eltenton told the FBI in 1946 that the Russian consular official, Peter Ivanov, had initially suggested that he contact three scientists associated with the Berkeley Rad Lab: Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez. Eltenton knew only Oppenheimer, and not well enough to ask him about sharing information with the Russians. But it seems entirely reasonable to suppose that Eltenton would have mentioned the three names to Chevalier—and that Chevalier might very well have specifically mentioned them to Oppenheimer, or at least noted that Eltenton had mentioned two (unspecified) others.

This was 1954, the apogee of the McCarthy years, and forcing former communists, fellow travelers and left-wing activists called before congressional committees to name names was precisely the McCarthyites’ political game. It was a humiliating experience in a culture that despised a “snitch,” a Judas, and that was the point: to destroy a witness’ sense of personal integrity.

ROBB GAVE STRAUSS daily reports on what was happening inside the privileged hearing room, and the AEC chairman was pleased with the way things were going. He wrote President Eisenhower: “On Wednesday, Oppenheimer broke and admitted, under oath, that he had lied. . . .” Gleefully anticipating victory, he informed Ike that “an extremely bad impression toward Oppenheimer has already developed in the minds of the Board.” Ike cabled him in reply from his Augusta, Georgia, retreat, thanking him for his “interim report.” He also informed Strauss that he had burned his interim report, apparently not wanting to leave any evidence that he or Strauss was inappropriately monitoring the security hearing.

In an extraordinary demonstration of his continuing loyalty to Oppenheimer, Groves said he “did not want us to confront Eltenton with this matter as it might get back to Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer would know Groves had broken confidence with him.” Groves bluntly told the FBI agents that he was “hesitant to furnish any further information.”

Hoover must have been astonished to learn that an American army general was refusing to cooperate with an FBI investigation. On June 13, 1946, Hoover personally wrote Groves, asking him to reveal what Oppenheimer had told him about George Eltenton. Groves replied on June 21, politely declining to furnish this information, “as it would endanger” his relationship with Oppenheimer. Not many men in Washington defied a direct request from the director of the FBI, but in 1946 Groves had a lot of prestige and self-confidence.

But then Groves went on to “speculate” whether Robert had “invented Frank as a party in order to justify his delay in reporting the original approach or whether Frank had, in fact, been involved.”

On this basis, and given Oppenheimer’s past associations, “I would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today if I were a member of the Commission on the basis of this interpretation.” That’s all Robb wanted or needed the general to say. And why had Groves turned against the man he had hitherto defended so resolutely? Strauss knew. He had made it clear to the general, in a not so subtle fashion, that he, Strauss, would make certain that there would be grave consequences for Groves if he did not cooperate.

“Did you subsequent to the President’s decision in January 1950 ever express any opposition to the production of the hydrogen bomb on moral grounds?” Oppenheimer: “I would think that I could very well have said this is a dreadful weapon, or something like that. I have no specific recollection and would prefer it, if you would ask me or remind me of the context or conversation that you have in mind.” Robb: “Why do you think you could very well have said that?” Oppenheimer: “Because I have always thought it was a dreadful weapon. Even [though] from a technical point of view it was a sweet and lovely and beautiful job, I have still thought it was a dreadful weapon.”

“My feeling was,” Robb recalled, “that he was just a brain and as cold as a fish, and he had the iciest pair of blue eyes I ever saw.” Oppenheimer felt only revulsion in Robb’s presence. During a brief recess one day, the two men happened to be standing near each other when Oppenheimer suddenly had one of his coughing spells. As Robb indicated his concern, Oppenheimer cut him off angrily and said something that caused Robb to turn on his heel and walk away.

I am very distressed, as I assume you are, over the Oppenheimer matter. I feel that it is somewhat like inquiring into the security risk of a Newton or a Galileo. JOHN J. MCCLOY to President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Garrison was allowed to call a parade of more than two dozen defense witnesses to vouch for Oppenheimer’s character and loyalty. They included Hans Bethe, George Kennan, John J. McCloy, Gordon Dean, Vannevar Bush and James Conant, among other eminent figures from the worlds of science, politics and business. By far one of the most interesting of these was John Lansdale, the Manhattan Project’s former chief of security, and now a partner in a Cleveland law firm. That the Army’s key security officer during the Los Alamos years was testifying for the defense should have carried great weight with the hearing panel. Moreover, unlike Oppenheimer, Lansdale immediately knew how to fend off Robb’s aggressive tactics. Under cross-examination, Lansdale said he “strongly” felt Oppenheimer to be a loyal citizen. And then he added, “I am extremely disturbed by the current hysteria of the times, [of] which this seems to be a manifestation.”

Having thus established his anticommunist credentials, Lansdale went on to say that, “We are going through today the other extreme of the pendulum, which is in my judgment equally dangerous. . . . Now, do I think this inquiry is a manifestation of hysteria? No. I think the fact that so much doubt and so much—let me put it this way. I think the fact that associations in 1940 are regarded with the same seriousness that similar associations would be regarded today is a manifestation of hysteria.”

McCloy’s testimony produced some memorable exchanges as he tried to raise issues that bore directly on the very legitimacy of the hearing. He began his defense of Oppenheimer by questioning the Gray Board’s definition of security: “I don’t know just exactly what you mean by a security risk. I know that I am a security risk and I think every individual is a security risk. . . . I think there is a security risk in reverse. . . . We are only secure if we have the best brains and the best reach of mind. If the impression is prevalent that scientists as a whole have to work under such great restrictions and perhaps great suspicion in the United States, we may lose the next step in this [nuclear] field, which I think would be very dangerous for us.”

McCloy responded that the Gray Board ought to weigh Oppenheimer’s willingness to lie in order to protect a friend against his value to the country as a theoretical physicist. This line of argument, of course, greatly unsettled the Gray Board, for it suggested that there could be no absolutes in matters of security, that a value judgment had to be made on the merits of each individual—which AEC security regulations did, in fact, recommend.

I might think twice before I let him go, because I would balance the risks in this connection.” When it came to the mind of Dr. Oppenheimer, he said, “I would accept a considerable amount of political immaturity in return for this rather esoteric, this rather indefinite, theoretical thinking that I believe we are going to be dependent on for the next generation.”

How should a man be judged, by his associations or by his actions? Can criticism of a government’s policies be equated with disloyalty to country? Can democracy survive in an atmosphere that demands the sacrifice of personal relationships to state policy? Is national security well served by applying narrow tests of political conformity to government employees?

In Oppenheimer, he said, we were faced with “one of the great minds of this generation of Americans.” Such a man, he suggested, could not “speak dishonestly about a subject which had really engaged the responsible attention of his intellect. . . . I would suppose that you might just as well have asked Leonardo da Vinci to distort an anatomical drawing as that you should ask Robert Oppenheimer to speak . . . dishonestly.” This provoked Robb to ask Kennan under cross-examination if he meant to suggest that different standards should be used when judging “gifted individuals.” Kennan: “I think the church has known that. Had the church applied to St. Francis the criteria relating solely to his youth, it would not have been able for him to be what he was later. . . . it is only the great sinners who become the great saints and in the life of the Government, there can be applied the analogy.”

would say that when gifted individuals come to a maturity of judgment which makes them valuable public servants, you are apt to find that the road by which they have approached that has not been as regular as the road by which other people have approached it. It may have zigzags in it of various sorts.” Seeming to agree, Dr. Evans responded, “I think it would be borne out in the literature. I believe it was Addison, and someone correct me if I am wrong, that said, ‘Great wits are near to madness, closely allied and thin partitions do their bounds divide.’ ” At this, Dr. Evans took note that “Dr. Oppenheimer is smiling. He knows whether I am right or wrong on that. That’s all.”

Robb had some documents in hand that had been kept from Lilienthal. After leading him on to recount his memory of Oppenheimer’s 1947 security review, Robb suddenly produced memorandums that made it clear that Lilienthal had himself recommended “the establishment of an evaluation board of distinguished jurists to make a thorough review” of Oppenheimer’s case. Robb: “In other words, you recommended in 1947 that the exact step which is now being taken, be taken then?” Flustered and angry, Lilienthal foolishly admitted that had been the case, when, in fact, he had suggested something quite different from the star chamber proceeding that was now under way. As Robb pressed him relentlessly, Lilienthal at one point protested that “. . . a simple way to secure the truth and accuracy would have been to have given me these files yesterday, when I asked for them, so that when I came here, I could be the best possible witness and disclose as accurately as possible what went on at that time.”