American Prometheus (130 page)

429
“For heck’s sake”:
Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
p. 481.

429
“promote a debate”:
JRO hearing, p. 898.

429 “didn’t [resign]”: Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 482 (Conant to William L. Marbury, 6/30/54).

429
“You don’t look jubilant”:
Goodchild,
J. Robert Oppenheimer,
p. 204; Pfau,
No Sacrifice Too Great,
p. 123. Pfau cites an interview with Strauss for this incident.

430
“These are complex”:
Lewis Strauss to R. Adm. Sidney Souers in the White House, 2/16/50, folder “H-bomb,” AEC series, box 39, Strauss Papers, HHL.

430
“that these decisions”:
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
July 1950, p. 75.

430
“the whole rotten business”:
Acheson,
Present at the Creation,
p. 346.

Chapter Thirty-one: “Dark Words About Oppie”

431
“our large and ill-managed”:
Davis,
Lawrence and Oppenheimer,
p. 316.

431
“You probably do not”:
Kennan to JRO, 6/5/50, box 43, JRO Papers.

431
“What stands out”:
Kennan, interview by Sherwin, 5/3/79, pp. 4, 6.

431
“I, who owe to your”:
Kennan to JRO, 6/26/66, box 43, JRO Papers.

432
“not, so far, an historian”:
John von Neumann to JRO, 11/1/55, Strauss Papers, HHL.

432
“They resented Kennan”:
Freeman Dyson, interview by Sherwin, 2/16/84, p. 19; Harold Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 14. Stern, “A History of the Institute for Advanced Study, 1930–1950,” p. 683, unpublished manuscript, IAS archives.

432
But less than six months:
Kennan to Barklie Henry, 9/9/52, box 43, JRO Papers (Kennan asked Henry to forward a copy of this letter to Oppenheimer); Kennan to JRO, 10/14/52, box 43, JRO Papers.

432
“he knew of no ‘niche’ ”:
Hixson,
George F. Kennan,
p. 117.

433
“nuclear power for planes”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 133.

433 “I know,” recalled Lee DuBridge: DuBridge, interview by Sherwin, 3/30/83, p. 16.

433
“had all the facts”:
Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen,
Rickover,
p. 138.

433
Placing his hand:
John Manley, interview by Alice Smith, 12/30/75, p. 12; Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 195.

433
“very cruel”:
Cherniss, interview by Sherwin, 5/23/79, p. 3.

433
“These are not happy”:
Strauss to William T. Golden (Strauss’ assistant in the AEC), 7/21/49, Strauss Papers, HHL.

434
“to the effect”:
Strauss to Golden, 9/15/49, Strauss Papers, HHL.

434
“effrontery for anyone”:
Strauss, memos for the record, 1949–1950, box 39, Strauss Papers, HHL.

434
“a general who did not”:
Pfau,
No Sacrifice Too Great,
p. 132; Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
p. 1414; McGrath,
Scientists, Business, and the State, 1890–1960,
p. 146.

434
“It is important to realize”:
Leslie Groves to Strauss, 10/20/49 and 11/4/49, Strauss Papers, HHL.

435
“prefer defeat in war”:
Strauss to Kenneth Nichols, 12/3/49, Strauss Papers, HHL.

435
On the afternoon:
Strauss, memo to file, 2/1/50, box 39, Strauss papers, HHL.

435
“only fortifies the wisdom”:
Robert Chadwell Williams,
Klaus Fuchs,
pp. 116, 137.

435
“Have you heard”:
Anne Wilson Marks, interview by Bird, 3/5/02.

435
“would set them back”:
Pais,
A Tale of Two Continents,
p. 258.

436
“lack of honesty”:
Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, p. 1408.

436
“I . . . think it was right”:
Ibid.

436 “It resembled a meteor”: Herken, Counsels of War, pp. 10–14; Herken, Brotherhood
of the Bomb,
p. 194.

436
“Borden was like a new dog”:
Wheeler,
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam,
p. 284.

437
“It is a dangerous”:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 195.

437 By 1949, Strauss and Borden: See Lewis Strauss correspondence with William L. Borden, 2/4/49, 2/24/49, 12/10/52, 10/11/54, and 2/3/58, and other letters, William L. Borden, box 10, AEC series.

437 “I think he had”: William W. Prochnau and Richard W. Larsen, A Certain Democrat, p. 114.

437
Now, for the first time
and subsequent notes:
Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, pp. 1409–10.

437
“every time he came to Washington”:
Priscilla McMillan,
The Ruin of J. Robert
Oppenheimer,
p. 175.

437
“fueled Borden’s doubts”:
Ibid., pp. 154–55.

438
“Until now,” Jackson said:
Robert G. Kaufman,
Henry M. Jackson,
p. 55.

438
“[h]e never forgot”:
Ibid., p. 56.

438
“session of a top-drawer”:
Stern,
The Oppenheimer Case,
p. 164; FBI memo, 8/18/50, pp. 18–20, sect. 10, JRO FBI file.

439
“West Coast Whittaker Chambers”:
Newspaper clippings from
San Francisco
News, San Francisco Call-Bulletin,
and
Oakland Tribune,
5/9/50, contained in JRO FBI file, sect. 8. For more on the Hiss case, see Sam Tanenhaus,
Whittaker Chambers;
Allen Weinstein,
Perjury
; Alger Hiss,
Recollections of a Life;
Victor Navasky, “The Case Not Proved Against Alger Hiss,”
The Nation,
4/8/78; John Lowenthal, Venona and Alger Hiss,”
Intelligence and National Security
15, no. 3 (2000); and Tony Hiss,
The View from Alger’s Window: A Son’s Memoir.

439
“I have never been”:
Statement by JRO, 9:45 p.m., 5/9/50, JRO FBI file sect. 8.

439
“How utterly nauseating”:
Lilienthal to JRO, 5/10/50, box 46, JRO Papers.

439
“inherently believable”:
Borden, memo to file, 8/13/51, JCAE records, doc. 3464, cited in Barton J. Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,”
Stanford Law Review,
July 1990, pp. 1409–11.

439
“I am in the habit”:
Victor Navasky,
Naming Names,
p. 14.

439
Curiously, Crouch was pardoned:
Memo re: Herbert Marks, 12/1/50, sect. 44, doc. 1817, JRO FBI file.

440
“they had formulated”:
Oakland Tribune,
5/9/50; Navasky,
Naming Names,
p. 14. Marshall Tukhachevsky was executed on 6/12/37, during one of Stalin’s early purges.

440
“He spent a lot of his time”:
Cedric Belfrage,
The American Inquisition,
pp. 16, 168; Nelson, et al.,
American Radical,
p. 332. Fred J. Cook,
The FBI Nobody Knows,
388; Joseph and Stewart Alsop, WP, 7/4/54. Crouch testified against Harry Bridges, the famous union leader who had been indicted on perjury charges. In the course of the 1949–50 trial, Bridges’ lawyer presented evidence that Crouch had perjured himself. (Charles P. Larrowe, Harry Bridges, pp. 311, 322.)

440
“had been talking”:
FBI memo, 4/18/50 (Paul Crouch interview), JRO FBI file, sect. 8; see also Paul Crouch, unpublished memoir, chapter 29, Crouch Papers, Hoover War Institute Archives, Stanford, CA, courtesy of Andrew Meier.

441
Oppenheimer later documented:
Dorothy McKibbin found a hospital record for the X-ray dated July 25 (FBI memo, 11/18/52, p. 46, JRO FBI file, sect. 14).

441
Crouch was either mistaken:
Herken,
Brotherhood of the Bomb,
p. 231. Herken speculates that Oppenheimer may have had a reason to drive the 2,200-mile round-trip journey between his ranch and Berkeley during the three-day window between Friday, July 25, and Monday afternoon, July 28—when Kitty crashed the car. Even today, the trip would take more than eighteen hours of straight driving in each direction. In 1941 such a drive would have taken considerably longer. Dorothy McKibbin found bills from a Santa Fe grocery store charged to the Oppenheimers for July 12, 14, 25, 28 and 29, 1941—indicating that the Oppenheimers had not left New Mexico in late July (FBI memo, 11/18/52, JRO FBI file, sect. 14, p. 45). Furthermore, Oppenheimer was at that time negotiating to buy a home at One Eagle Hill in Berkeley. On 7/26/41, Oppenheimer signed a letter sent from Cowles, New Mexico, to the real estate agent, Robinson, saying, “As for the furniture, we would, I think, be just as content to have everything taken from the house.” So this indicates that they did not comply with the home owner’s cabled request to meet them July 26 or 27 to dispose of the furniture. Oppie also says, “There is a chance that we shall be back in Berkeley before we had planned, perhaps within a week. . . . If you do not hear from us by Wednesday, you may assume that we shall be back about the 13th of August.” Finally, on 8/11/41, the Title Insurance Co. received a check for $22,163.87 in payment for the Eagle Hill house. Kitty is identified as the “deliverer of the check” (sect. 44, doc. 1805, 6/25/54, JRO FBI file).

441
Over time, Crouch:
Fred J. Cook,
The Nightmare Decade,
p. 388; Cedric Belfrage,
The American Inquisition,
pp. 208, 221–22.

441
Later, Crouch’s testimony:
Robert Justin Goldstein,
Political Repression in Modern
America,
p. 348; Navasky,
Naming Names,
p. 14.

441
Eventually, Crouch’s lies and theatrics:
When Crouch named as communists the well-known lawyer and former FCC commissioner Clifford Durr and his wife, Virginia (Justice Hugo Black’s sister-in-law), Virginia responded that Crouch was a “grinning, lying dog.” Years later, she described Crouch as “a dirty piece of Kleenex about to disintegrate—such a wreck of a man that even while he was destroying you anyone would feel sorry for him.” The usually mild-mannered Clifford Durr was so incensed by what Crouch said about his wife that he once tried to punch Crouch in the nose. Navasky,
Naming Names,
p. 14.

441
“if my reputation”:
Belfrage,
American Inquisition, 1945–1960,
pp. 227–28; Edwin M. Yoder, Jr.,
Joe Alsop’s Cold War,
p. 129.