Pandora's Keepers (48 page)

On Monday, April 12, 1954, shortly before 10:00
A.M.
, the various parties began to make their way to room 2022. It was springtime in Washington, and the cherry trees lining the
Tidal Basin just south of the Mall were in full and glorious bloom. Upon arrival, the hearing board members took their places
at the table. Before each of them lay not a blank notepad but a thick binder of material from the FBI files and investigative
reports that they had been studying throughout the previous week. Oppenheimer, his wife, Kitty, and Garrison made an inauspicious,
but highly symbolic, entrance. Nervous and strained by her husband’s ordeal, Kitty had fallen down some stairs, and she had
her leg in a cast and was on crutches. The Oppenheimers and their attorney arrived late and the board was irritated with them.
²³

“The hearing will come to order.” With these words, chairman Gray opened the proceeding “in the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.”
The atmosphere of the Cold War pervaded the hearing room. A week earlier, Senator McCarthy, who had been on the scent of Oppenheimer,
had alleged in a nationally televised speech that communists in government had delayed research on the superbomb by eighteen
months, effectively pressing the Gray Board to produce a culprit. This made it all the harder for Oppenheimer’s judges to
evaluate him fairly. It was almost as if the Gray Board members were peering at those earlier days through the wrong end of
a long telescope. Here were three men of a prosperous, communist-hating, fear-ridden America of the Cold-War 1950s sitting
in judgment on Oppenheimer’s radical associations and activities in the Depression-ridden 1930s, when the U.S. economy was
in total collapse, when fascism was spreading across Europe, and when American communists—far from being treated as political
lepers, as they were in 1954—were openly allied with the noncommunist American Left. It was a dark irony that the proceedings
the three led resembled nothing so much as a Stalinist show trial.

Gray began the hearing by reading the AEC letter of charges and Oppenheimer’s written reply into the record. It was a self-accusing
and self-abasing document. He admitted his political näiveté before the war, acknowledged his association with Communist Party
causes, but denied—perhaps falsely—that he had ever belonged to the party, and in effect repudiated his left-wing past.
^24
*
Summing up, Oppenheimer wrote: “What I have hoped was, not that I could wholly avoid error, but that I might learn from it.
What I have learned has, I think, made me more fit to serve my country.” Gray then ventured some observations on the nature
and ground rules of the hearing. First, said Gray, he wanted to “remind everyone concerned that this proceeding is an inquiry,
and not in the nature of a trial. We shall approach our duties in that atmosphere and in that spirit,” he asserted.
²⁵
Gray added that the hearing would not be subject to the strict rules and procedures that governed courtroom trials. His implication
was that the informality of a hearing worked to Oppenheimer’s advantage, affording him more flexibility in meeting the charges—yet
later in the hearing, Gray announced that Oppenheimer’s witnesses would be heard at times suited “to the convenience of this
board, and not the convenience of the witnesses, as would be true in most [judicial] proceedings in the American tradition.”
²⁶

Now came Garrison’s turn. Tall and stately in appearance and manner, Garrison had a reputation for integrity and dedication
to good causes, but he was not a litigator who was at home in the ringlike atmosphere of the courtroom. In his opening remarks,
Garrison spoke softly and carefully—almost gingerly—as if convinced that if he could just avoid any abrasive actions that
might offend the hearing board members, he would be able to persuade them to use the rule of reason in judging “the whole
Oppenheimer,” and thus find in his client’s favor.

Garrison put Oppenheimer on the stand that afternoon. He tried to minimize his client’s left-wing past as an indiscretion
of youth and ignorance, and by stressing his later patriotic service. Oppenheimer spoke easily and confidently, as though
he were addressing a friendly gathering, but there was a quality of desperation about him. He felt oppressed by the unfriendly
atmosphere of the proceeding and kept his distance even from his own attorney. He told the facts about his life and career;
what he left out were the motives and context. Similar ambiguities exist in the lives of all individuals; they are not usually
exposed to harsh examination and judgment. Nevertheless, the board felt something was left out, and it was unlikely to fill
the gap with a generous, sympathetic picture that Oppenheimer himself failed to draw.

The next morning Mervin Kelly, president of Bell Telephone Laboratories, took the stand as the first pro-Oppenheimer witness.
When Garrison finished his questions, those in the hearing room got their first glimpse of Robb. It quickly became clear that
he was not a fact-finder but a ruthlessly aggressive prosecutor. Robb cross-examined Kelly in a manner deliberately calculated
to intimidate Oppenheimer. The prosecutor turned to Gray and said, “Mr. Chairman, I would like to read the witness something
from the report which is classified.” For the next few minutes, Oppenheimer remained in the hearing room alone, his attorney
having been dismissed from the room. The psychological impact—the demonstration of power that Robb had, based on his privileged
access to Oppenheimer’s security file—must have unnerved the lonely and embattled physicist. “When I saw what they were doing
to Oppenheimer,” said another witness, “I was ready to throw chairs. How can a lawyer defend his client’s interests if he
isn’t even in the hearing room? There hadn’t been a proceeding like this since the Spanish Inquisition.”
²⁷

Oppenheimer resumed the stand later that day. He talked at length about his service to the country at Los Alamos during the
war and in Washington since. He also talked about his fondness and protectiveness toward his younger brother, Frank. Frank,
it was recalled, had wed Jacquenette Quann in September 1936. A Canadian majoring in economics at Berkeley who was active
in the campus Young Communist League, Jackie had done for Frank what Jean Tatlock had done for Robert: she had opened his
eyes to the suffering in the world around him and had turned his attention to left-wing politics. Shortly after their marriage,
Frank and Jackie had joined the Communist Party. Later, in Pasadena, where Frank was studying physics at Caltech, the younger
brother had invited Robert to attend a Communist Party meeting at his house—the only thing “recognizable as a Communist Party
meeting” that Robert allegedly ever recalled attending.

Robb began his interrogation of Oppenheimer the next morning. The prosecutor and the physicist were vastly different: Oppenheimer
was intellectual and reflective; Robb was aggressive and combative. Robb, convinced of the physicist’s guilt, took a quick
and strong personal dislike to Oppenheimer: “My feeling was that he was just a brain and as cold as a fish, and he had the
iciest pair of blue eyes I ever saw.”
²⁸
Vigorous and bludgeoning, the fleshy, shovel-jawed prosecutor was intent on taking full advantage of Oppenheimer’s predicament
by impelling him to testify from sheer memory about long-past events, while secretly holding in reserve documents containing
the facts about these events. Robb mercilessly interrogated Oppenheimer, casting the physicist on the defensive and making
him seem imprecise and evasive.

Robb quickly turned to the “Chevalier incident.” Sometime in late 1942 or early 1943 (before Oppenheimer moved to Los Alamos),
Haakon Chevalier, one of his closest friends and a communist professor at Berkeley, had approached the physicist (and perhaps
others, including his younger brother, Frank) on behalf of a West Coast British engineer and communist named George Eltenton.
Chevalier had told Oppenheimer that Eltenton could pass secret information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union.
Chevalier had gone back to Eltenton almost immediately and had told him, as Eltenton later said, “that there was no chance
whatsoever of obtaining any data and Dr. Oppenheimer did not approve.”
²⁹

Although Oppenheimer had rebuffed this espionage approach, he had—seeking to protect his friend Chevalier and perhaps his
brother, Frank—delayed reporting the approach to Manhattan Project security officer Colonel Boris Pash, identified Chevalier
as the intermediary only after being specifically ordered to do so by Groves, and later changed the details of his story.
Oppenheimer was unaware, however, that Pash had secretly recorded his 1943 revelation. With access to these 1943 recordings
(access denied to Oppenheimer and his attorneys), Robb—instead of stressing the essence of the matter: that Chevalier got
nothing from Oppenheimer and that Oppenheimer had taken the initiative to give the warning about Eltenton—hammered away at
the story that Oppenheimer had made up in order to tip off security officers to espionage feelers without implicating those
close to him:
^*

R
OBB
: Did you tell Pash the truth about this thing?

O
PPENHEIMER
: No.

R
OBB
: You lied to him?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Yes.
³⁰

Oppenheimer’s last response was barely audible. Anguished and surprisingly inarticulate, he slumped in the witness chair.
He felt like a man sliding helplessly down a slope toward the sheer cliff that would finish him. His heart was pounding. He
rubbed his hands between his knees, his head bowed, the color drained from his face:

R
OBB
: So that we may be clear, did you discuss with or disclose to Pash the identity of Chevalier?

O
PPENHEIMER
: No.

R
OBB
: Let us refer then, for the time being, to Chevalier as X.

O
PPENHEIMER
: All right.

R
OBB
: Did you tell Pash that X had approached three persons on the project?

O
PPENHEIMER
: I am not clear whether I said there were three Xs or that X approached three people.

R
OBB
: Didn’t you say that X had approached three people?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Probably.

R
OBB
: Why did you do that, Doctor?

“Because,” said Oppenheimer, dropping his voice, “I was an idiot.”

    R
OBB
: Is that your only explanation, Doctor?

    O
PPENHEIMER
: I was reluctant to mention Chevalier.

    R
OBB
: Yes.

    O
PPENHEIMER
: No doubt somewhat reluctant to mention myself.
³¹

Smelling blood, Robb confronted Oppenheimer with section after section of the 1943 recordings. Then he made Oppenheimer go
back over the details of what he forced him to admit was a cock-and-bull story.

R
OBB
: Isn’t it a fair statement today, Dr. Oppenheimer, that according to your testimony now you told not one lie to Colonel Pash,
but a whole fabrication and tissue of lies?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Right.
³²

Even after this, Oppenheimer’s ordeal was not over. There was one added humiliation to be suffered that day: intimate questions
about his relationship with Jean Tatlock—in particular, his overnight stay with her at her apartment on Montgomery Street
in San Francisco on June fourteenth and fifteenth, 1943—three years after he had married Kitty and three months after he had
become director of the secret laboratory at Los Alamos. Robb asked Oppenheimer why he had to see Jean. Oppenheimer explained
that his former fiancée was being treated for depression at a San Francisco hospital and had sent word to Los Alamos that
she wanted to see him.
^*
Robb continued to probe, pitilessly and relentlessly:

R
OBB
: Did you find out why she had to see you?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Because she was still in love with me….

R
OBB
: You spent the night with her, didn’t you?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Yes.

R
OBB
: That is when you were working on a secret war project?

O
PPENHEIMER
: Yes.

R
OBB
: Did you think that consistent with good security?

O
PPENHEIMER
: It was, as a matter of fact. Not a word—it was not good practice.
³³

Oppenheimer’s blurred, stumbling reply showed that Robb had crushed him. Some in the hearing room thought Oppenheimer might
have a nervous breakdown or even commit suicide that night. He did not. In fact, Oppenheimer’s friends were astonished at
his resilience during the pressure-filled proceedings. Back in Princeton over the weekend breaks, he attended to physics and
institute business. Oppenheimer’s friends did, however, notice a change in him: his self-confidence gave way to melancholy.
He paced his bedroom floor at night. He felt trapped. To this pressure was added the burden of media scrutiny. Journalists
hounded him for interviews, followed him and Kitty as they came and went from the hearing, and dug deep into their newspaper
files for background information to add to sketches for their daily reporting. One newspaperman found himself on the same
train with Oppenheimer and Kitty between Washington and Princeton. Stuck with the reporter over dinner, Oppenheimer gently
but steadfastly refused to comment while the hearing was under way. The reporter was surprised to see two security “shadows”
following Oppenheimer’s every move on the train.

The day after Robb’s withering interrogation about the Chevalier incident and the night with Jean Tatlock, Groves, wartime
commander of the Manhattan Project and now a businessman in Connecticut, took the stand. He reaffirmed his 1943 decision to
appoint Oppenheimer as head of Los Alamos because his overriding objective had been “to produce an atomic bomb in the shortest
possible time.” Groves added that he would be “amazed” if Oppenheimer would ever be disloyal. He dismissed Oppenheimer’s reluctance
to divulge Chevalier’s name to him as “the typical American schoolboy attitude that there is something wicked about telling
on a friend.”
³⁴
Oppenheimer had said no to the espionage approach and had named Eltenton—those were the essential things as far as Groves
was concerned.
^*
Robb cleverly asked Groves whether he would clear Oppenheimer now. (Robb already knew the answer to this question because
Strauss, by threatening Groves for having withheld information from the FBI during the war, had compelled the general to submit
a letter that stated: “If I am asked whether I think the [AEC] would be justified in clearing Dr. Oppenheimer, I will say
‘no.’ If I am asked if I think he is a security risk, I will say ‘yes’”—thereby compromising the defense’s most important
witness.)
³⁵
Groves dutifully replied that he “would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today” under his interpretation of new and tougher security
standards. Thus Groves had covered himself, and the value of his testimony to Oppenheimer had been diminished considerably
³⁶