One of the sleeper news items of last week was that the Department of Energy officially vacated the Atomic Energy Commission decision that stripped J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance in 1954. It did come as a surprise to me. I knew that there was a campaign to overturn Oppenheimer’s clearance loss — I had been asked to give representatives from the American Institute of Physics a background talk about it, in order to help them determine whether to take a stance on it — and also knew that there had been previous, unsuccessful efforts in this respect.
“Beyond loyalty, the harsh requirements of security.” TIME magazine’s June 1954 cover after Oppenheimer’s clearance was stripped.
I didn’t really expect the DOE to do anything about it, though, because there would be no real practical consequence or obvious “gain” for them to do so, and I could imagine several plausible reasons why they wouldn’t want to do it, regardless of their opinion about Oppenheimer and the case. To the first point, the pro-Oppenheimer lobby is pretty small these days; this is not a pressing issue for the American public, or even American scientists. The case is nearly 70 years old, and Oppenheimer himself has been dead for over 50 years; anyone who was aware of it while it happened is quite old (this includes my good friend and colleague Ed Friedman, who tried to organize a protest in favor of Oppenheimer while an undergraduate at MIT in 1954, and was told by his professors that he ought to keep his head down if he didn’t want to run into political trouble), and while Oppenheimer is a subject of many biographies (some quite excellent) and some films, popular interest in him doesn’t seem to generally translate into the argument for his (symbolic) restitution. The people who seemed most invested in this appear to me to be Oppenheimer biographers, who are more tied to Oppenheimer’s legacy emotionally and perhaps financially than your average voter. So why do this? “Righting wrongs” is a nice thing to say, though when it has no practical consequence, it tends not to be a governmental priority. Perhaps it is just meant to be some good PR for the DOE, an agency whose mission is surprisingly unknown to the public (and as such makes it the target of small-government conservatives). Perhaps it is meant to coincide in some way with the upcoming Oppenheimer movie by Christopher Nolan. Perhaps it is some internal bureaucratic move — someone angling for something down the line. Perhaps it just came across the right desk at the right time with the right person. I have no inside story here. (If someone does have an inside story, and wants to share, get in touch.)
Why might they not have done this? For one thing, government agencies tend not to second-guess their previous decisions, even if it was a different agency (the DOE is not the AEC, but it is its successor agency; it has been over a decade since I was inside the DOE’s Germantown headquarters, but when I was there, they still had a massive rendering of the AEC seal over the entrance desk). For another, second-guessing security clearance decisions seems even more fraught with problems. Do they really want to create a precedent for reviewing past security decisions? And how would they split the difference on exonerating Oppenheimer, while not necessarily tying their hands in the future when it came to disqualifying people for clearances? And while the Oppenheimer affair is not a hot political topic anymore, attacks that the DOE is “lax” on the subject of nuclear secrecy and security are a perennial political feature of Washington, and garner big (if ignorant) headlines. So why stick your neck out?
This is why I didn’t really think the DOE would bother — on the balance, it seemed more risky than not, and my experience is that in such situations, the bureaucrats go with the “safe” choice, which is to kick it down the road to a successor. But they did it anyway! So I was, again, surprised. The way they tried to avoid the potential problems I brought up is interesting, though it somewhat constrains the impact of the order. Essentially, the conclusion by the DOE is that the AEC’s decision against Oppenheimer could be vacated because the AEC did not, at several points, follow its own guidelines and procedures. In this, they are 100% correct that the AEC did not follow its own rules; if anything, the DOE statement understates the level of perfidy involved by people like Lewis Strauss, who broke not only AEC rules but probably the law in his attempt to punish Oppenheimer. The entire hearing was deliberately and decisively unfair, and prejudged from the start by many involved.
This is a very “safe” way to overturn the judgment: basically overturning it on a technicality. What they have not really done is vindicate Oppenheimer. The statement is very positive towards Oppenheimer, and points out the lack of evidence that he ever did anything disloyal to the United States. But the AEC decision against Oppenheimer was based on the idea that he had “fundamental defects” to his character — notably his lying to security officers — and because his “associations” with Communist and Communist-adjacent people (i.e., most of his friends, students, and family) “extended far beyond the tolerable limits of prudence and self-restraint.” The DOE doesn’t really go against these things, except to point out that his issue with “associations” was already well-known and looked-over in the past. What they aren’t saying is, “the entire case against Oppenheimer was flawed, the charges against him were bunk, he was done totally wrong.” What they are saying is, “the AEC didn’t follow its own rules.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer, from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Which sort of implies, to me, that the DOE is tacitly saying that if the AEC had followed its own procedures (which probably still would have led them, in my view, to revoke his clearance), then the Oppenheimer affair would be fine. I’m not saying they are really saying this, of course. As indicated above, I get it: focusing on procedure gives them an easy “out” of this past decision. If they actually said that the concerns about his “character” were totally inappropriate, they’d be implying that it is OK to lie to security officers. If they said his “associations” were fine, they’d be implying that having half of your entire social network be made up of people who were members of prohibited organizations is fine. These are not precedents they want to, or can, set.
This gets at a very tricky aspect of the Oppenheimer affair. The motivation for the whole thing was entirely a sham. There were no real concerns that Oppenheimer was a danger to the country or a spy. It was pure political character assassination. This is easy to document. And the proceedings were completely stacked against Oppenheimer — and would have been even if the AEC had followed its own rules, because there isn’t the same presumption of innocence in a security clearance hearing as there is a court of law, and because of the very nature of the thing, Oppenheimer didn’t have access to all of the evidence (because his clearance was suspended, he didn’t have access to classified evidence against him). So the whole thing was both unnecessary and unfair, in my view.
But. Once you ask the question, Did J. Robert Oppenheimer comport himself according to the standards for a nuclear security clearance in 1954?, it is, in my opinion, very hard to answer “yes.” This is not a referendum on his contributions as a scientist or advisor, or even a referendum on his personality. It is, perhaps, a referendum on the security standards of the time — one can argue they were overly strict and driven more by a hysterical fear of losing “the secret” than practical security. But Oppenheimer’s actions in the 1930s and 1940s definitely did not set him up for a favorable evaluation in the 1950s.
He did have a lot of Communist and near-Communist “associations.” This is just the truth of the matter. His brother, his wife, his sister-in-law, his ex-girlfriend, his students, his colleagues… there’s a lot of Red and Pink in that list! There are really good historical and contextual explanations for that, and the timing matters (Great Depression, etc.). It doesn’t actually mean Oppenheimer was a Communist — though he did probably have closer connections to the Communist Party of the United States than he ever admitted, even if he doesn’t appear to have ever been a card-carrying member — and definitely doesn’t mean he was a spy. But it’s hard to imagine someone in the middle of McCarthyism looking at all that and saying, “this is fine.” This is more of an indictment of McCarthyism than Oppenheimer, to be sure. But even today it would be hard to imagine a director of Los Alamos having that many “associations” with people in radical groups of any political stripe. If it came out tomorrow that the director of a weapons laboratory had family and friends connected to the Proud Boys, for example, there would be some legitimate cause for concern!
And he did exhibit really questionable judgment from the perspective of security. And not just by the standards of the 1950s! He admitted lying to security officers repeatedly about the Chevalier affair. When asked why he did this, Oppenheimer offered up nothing more than, “because I was an idiot.” That is not a strong defense! (The real answer likely was: “Because I was trying to protect my brother.” Which is still a bad answer, but at least a relatable and plausible one.) He admitted to having had an affair with Jean Tatlock, his ill-fated, Communist-adjacent ex-girlfriend, while running Los Alamos. When asked whether this was “consistent with good security,” Oppenheimer tried to argue that it was, because he didn’t really believe Tatlock was a Communist. This is not a good answer! This is not “consistent with good security”! (Again, one might probe a better answer: Tatlock was troubled, and Oppenheimer was trying to help an old friend, and that’s still not great judgment — one can’t imagine Oppenheimer’s wife found it adequate — but it doesn’t look as bad as his actual testimony makes it look.) Again, it is hard to imagine thinking “this is fine.”
Two frames from a 1961 photo session with Oppenheimer by Ulli Steltzer. “He was shy of the camera and I never got more than 12 shots. It is hard to say which expression is most typical.” More on this image, here.
The best one can do with both of these issues (which is what Henry DeWolf Smyth did in his dissenting opinion on the security clearance case) is say that Oppenheimer was flawed-but-human, and that ultimately he doesn’t represent a security risk. Which was clearly a thinkable opinion at the time (Smyth, for one, thought it), but one can readily see why it was the minority view. Ultimately all of this comes down to how serious you think the standards of security ought to be. If you believe that nuclear secrecy and security is paramount, then you want a high bar. If you believe the “system itself is nothing to worship,” as Smyth puts it, and regard it as a “means to an end,” then you might have been willing to let it slide, especially since Oppenheimer’s clearance was about to expire anyway. But even then, one can see the precedent-setting aspects as problematic. Does one really want to say that it is acceptable to lie to security personnel, for example, or that to object to Oppenheimer on those grounds is just anti-Communist hysteria?
This is what I mean by saying this is “tricky.” I don’t worship the security system, obviously. I don’t think the Oppenheimer affair was anything less than a sham. But I also am not sure that Oppenheimer “deserved” a clearance, just because he put in good service for the country.1 I think once you start to evaluate Oppenheimer’s worst behavior by the standards of the 1950s — and frankly, even by the standards of today — it is pretty hard to find it acceptable. I’m well aware that this is not the perspective of most Oppenheimer biographers and certainly not his popular fans; I make this as a historian who isn’t completely willing to dismiss the fears of the 1950s as “hysteria” and who is not generally a fan of seeing historical figures as either perfect heroes of treacherous villains.
So the Department of Energy vacated the Oppenheimer decision, but didn’t quite vindicate it. This is what I meant when I told William Broad that I didn’t think this went quite as far as the real pro-Oppenheimer people might want — it doesn’t say, for example, that Oppenheimer deserved a clearance on his merits, or because the charges against him were all bunk. It gives it to him on the basis of procedure. Which is important, and totally defensible. But a bit shy of total vindication — for reasons, again, that I can totally understand. Would Oppenheimer have been satisfied with this? I doubt it. He would have wanted more of a positive statement about his loyalty than this offers up.
I’m ultimately fine with the DOE’s action. It doesn’t have any practical impact that I can see. But it does go a bit of a way to right a historical wronging, and the Oppenheimer affair was ultimately a wronging. Oppenheimer didn’t deserve it, even if he was imperfect. And even if righting historical wrongs doesn’t do much directly, it does imply that we are capable, as a people and a society and a government, of reevaluating ourselves and our past and coming to terms with errors and injustices. The vacating of the AEC decision in the Oppenheimer affair is, ultimately, less important for what it does for the DOE or Oppenheimer than what it does, and perhaps says, about us.
- So did Klaus Fuchs, as an aside. As Norris Bradbury liked to put it, Fuchs worked very hard for the USA. The problem was, he also worked hard for the Soviet Union. Obviously the cases of Fuchs and Oppenheimer are separated by the key fact that Fuchs was a spy, and Oppenheimer was not! But I just bring this up as an example of the limits of the “good service” argument. There have been plenty of people who put in good service to the country at one point in their lives, and then did things that worked against it. [↩]
My personal disappointment with Oppenheimer is that he failed to publicly denounce nuclear weapons and make common cause with Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, the Pugwash movement, etc. As a spokesman for nuclear disarmament he might have had an impact. As an insider with a security clearance, he was useless. His secret insider advice was easily ignored, and it wasn’t that good anyway.
By the time of his hearing, he already knew all the secrets. Radiation implosion for thermonuclear weapons, H-Bombs, was the last real nuclear secret, and Oppenheimer knew all about it. I like to fantasize a debate between Oppenheimer and Teller in which Teller would not be able to pull the “if you only knew what I know” trick.
I don’t think the “Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer” was really about his loyalty or his Communist associations. I see it as a Medieval power struggle between two pretenders to the throne, like Sancho II of Castile and his brother Alfonso VI of León, in the time of El Cid. Sancho defeated Alfonso and exiled him, but Alfonso returned to power by assassinating his brother, one of many cases of “kill the king to become the king.” Granted, the 1950s were not Medieval times, but there were aspects.
The defense of Oppenheimer is that he was a true Cold War hawk, and his opposition to Teller’s original H-bomb idea was practical, that it wouldn’t work. When Teller and Ulam came up with a workable plan, Oppenheimer was all in. That much was evident even in the hearing. The reason he lost his clearance was Teller’s final statement, similar to Alfonso assassinating Sancho. While Teller vouched for Oppenheimer’s loyalty, he said, “I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better, and therefore trust more.” (i.e., my own)
It’s too bad Oppenheimer didn’t quit the Manhattan Project after Germany surrendered and devote all his energies to a pre-emptive abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. But he was not that person.
It’s pretty easy to imagine a world in which someone in an Oppenheimer-like role would have said, “screw you, I don’t need your clearance or approval,” and then went on to a productive life outside of the national security establishment, using his legacy, intelligence, and access to push for the causes he believed in. The fact that Oppenheimer instead retreated from public life, and retreated psychologically, is I think a rather profound reflection of the particular psychology he had built up for himself, and how fragile it was in the face of this kind of “rejection.”
Einstein’s verdict on Oppenheimer after the fact remains an matter-converted-into-energy scale burn: “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.” But clearly Oppenheimer wasn’t capable of that.
I’m at a loss as to how to judge a person of Oppenheimer’s historical importance. The role he played is so huge, it’s almost as if the particular human being doesn’t really matter.
Although I’m not religious or particularly superstitious just looking at Oppenheimer’s face, which he obviously had nothing to do with, always brings me to thoughts of “forces beyond”, whatever that might be.
Something about Oppenheimer’s face always causes me to see him as a tiny human pawn in some larger movement of forces beyond any of our understanding. There’s some off kilter out of proportion torment in the physical structure of his face which suggests to me that Oppenheimer was destined to be the Father of the Bomb since before his birth.
No, this isn’t a claim, or even a theory really. There are no logic, facts or evidence involved here.
I can only report what I see when I view that face. I see a human being born in to a curse. It’s as if some Agent Of Destruction selected Oppenheimer to carry the heaviest of human burdens, and his face is crumbling under the weight of it.
I think part of Oppenheimer’s personal tragedy is that he thought he could be a prime mover, but came to find he was a pawn. I don’t think he could really live that down, in the end.
Excellent summation of the problem and the nuances involved in judging it. I would only offer one additional reason for Oppenheimer’s fate: personal and professional envy. There was plenty of each at the Hearings, but Edward Teller’s statement that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with government secrets represented both. Teller’s personal envy of Oppenheimer was based in his recognition that he was the greater scientist yet seemed always subordinate to him. Professionally, Teller was determined to produce the H-bomb, magnitudes more powerful than Oppenheimer’s A-bomb, and Oppenheimer was against the larger weapon. Teller’s legacy depended on the H-bomb. He would not be denied.
I think both Teller and Oppenheimer had pretty complex interpersonal psychologies and yeah, envy, rivalry, insecurity, etc. played a big role in how they operated towards each other and others. Which is just to say, I don’t disagree that that likely played a role with Teller (and Ernest Lawrence, who is often left out of this equation, but was supposed to also testify vociferously against Oppenheimer — but he had a convenient, probably stress-related health flare-up that kept him off the stand), but I would also just note it was not unique to him.
In Berlin, Germany, at the Deutsches Theater, there is a play called “In Sachen J. Robert Oppenheimer” (english: “On the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer”). The play, as far as I understood, consists only of passages of the interviews/interrogations of the AEC commission. See here for more info: https://www.deutschestheater.de/programm/archiv/f-j/robert_oppenheimer/
The play argues that Oppenheimer is against innovation, for he was trying to slow down development of the hydrogen bomb, whereas Edward Teller is for unmitigated, unfettered innovation, which the director seems to like better.
I see it differently: Oppenheimer knew the Russians were also trying to develop hydrogen bombs, but where a bit behind. Oppenheimer was playing for time, trying to slow down the American advantage, so basically both sides had these powerful weapons at the same time (and no one could dominate the other side). Basically, Oppenheimer was for Open Source with respect to these bombs, I think, so no side could gain an advantage.
The H-bomb debate issue is pretty complicated, more complicated the Kipphardt knew or could have known (Oppenheimer was aware of Kipphardt’s play in his lifetime, and hated it, for whatever that is worth). As is the case with Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, the fiction ends up (either intentionally or not) boiling it down to a few simple perspective differences, when it is really a pretty complicated set of factors (some of which were secret for a long time), and Oppenheimer’s approach varied depending on what time you “sample” it (he was for H-bomb research in 1945, he was against a crash program in 1949, he was for building them in 1951, etc.) and what assumptions were reigning at that moment.
Hi Alex, I was hoping you’d comment on this and just saw this post today. Thanks! Just a couple stray thoughts.
First, I think you’re certainly right that Granholm’s order certainly reads like it was thoroughly gone over by DOE’s lawyers to avoid creating any unintended consequences for current policy.
At the same time, I think you’re leaning a bit hard on the idea of DOE as a cautious “bureaucracy” in analyzing the decision as somewhat surprising. Granholm is, of course, not a bureaucrat but the political head of DOE and a former governor of Michigan who has authority to move these sorts of things forward. Moreover, her order notes that almost half the Senate and every living LANL director petitioned for the decision to be reviewed (i.e., not just JRO biographers!) So, those factors alone set up a pretty significant political counterweight to legalistic caution.
Moreover, aside from the question of procedural injustice at the heart of the order, the order also cites the broader notion that the removal of Oppenheimer’s clearance was politically motivated. I think that in some sense has to be read against the recent experiences of the Trump administration and the Biden administration’s political interest in removing grossly inappropriate political influence from bureaucratic decision-making.
Hi Will — Very late reply to this, but I appreciate your comments. It would be interesting to know how much the bureaucratic vs. legal caution played a role here — it’s not something I feel capable of knowing from the outside, but I suspect it is a mixture of things. It really depends on who wrote this, who instigated it, etc., and that’s always hard to see without an “inside” view…!
Isn’t part of the uneasiness here that a security clearance is very different from a conviction? It may seem a lot like a moral judgment, but it’s more of a practical, pragmatic (or cynical) decision. Oppy isn’t going to use his restored clearance, after all, and in as much as it’s not an accusation of spying he’s not been *cleared* of anything. A clearance is a decision to trust someone or not, so what does it mean to posthumously restore one?