Oppenheimer was a Greek tragedy character, a brilliant scientist and a tormented intellectual who gradually came to a self realization that he had "sold his soul" to the military establishment. He naively thought he could come out unscathed in the Faustian bargain. In an effort to prove loyalty, Oppenheimer in 1942 had initiated discussions with military security agents that culminated with the implication that some of his friends and acquaintances were agents of the Soviet government (officially an ally). This led to the dismissal of a personal friend on the faculty at the University of California.
Having served with distinction in wartime by leading the development of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer presumed inaccurately that his resultant scientific stature was transferable to the moderating and rationalizing of military strategy after the war, but instead was mercilessly humiliated and destroyed by his naive attempt. Behind the whole affair was the system message to the intellectual community that the proper role for science was to serve the national purpose but not to determined or influence it.
The AEC stated in its case against Oppenheimer: "We are concerned, however, that he (Oppenheimer) may have departed his role as scientific adviser to exercise highly persuasive influence in matters in which his convictions were not necessarily a reflection of technical judgment, and also not necessarily related to the protection of the strongest offensive military interests of the country" (p. 30).
The Strategic Air Command, under General Curtis Lemay, the kernel from which the military-industrial complex had since grown, devoured Oppenheimer who had done the most to give it super-agency status. The American establishment, obsessed with communism as an omnipresent, diabolical force, feared the largely imaginary conspiracy of a few intellectuals at home (who had already sold their souls and who now apparently were trying to redeem them by using the very rewards of the oringinal transaction). SAC feared this more than it feared the Soviet military threat.
A little noted but highly significant fact abut the Oppenheimer hearings was that everyone, the distiinquished panel members, the leading scientists testifying as witnesses, the lawyers defending Oppenheimer, even Oppenheimer himself, accepted without challenging it the totalitarian underpinning set for the proceedings by the vocal forerunners of McCarthyism who had initiated the hearings.
The only protest came from Vannevar Bush, engineer and physicist, Vice President and Dean of Engineering at MIT, President of the Carnegie Institution and Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in the War Department, and a key bomb scientist.
Bush appealed to the panel to reject the "letter of particulars" with which General Nichols of the AEC had opened the case, which Bush argued only accused Oppenheimer of expressing "wrong opinions", but not committing "wrongdoing", adding that this was as "un-American" as a violation basic freedoms and civil rights.
So strong was the spell of anti communist hysteria at that time that no one, not even the minority panel members who eventually voted against Oppenheimer's censure by the majority, nor Oppenheimers lawyers built strongly on the argument.
Lloyd K. Garrison, Oppenheimer's attorney, wrote in a reponse letter to the AEC: "We quite agree with the Board's view that, "because the loyalty or security risk status of a scientist or any other intellectual may be brought into question, scientists and intellectuals are ill-advised to assert that a reasonable and sane inquiry constitutes an attack upon scientists and intellectuals generally" (p. 26)." Garrison went on to argument of limits of abuse rather than fundamental rights.
The true reason for the proceeding that led to the denial of further security clearance for Oppenheimer was not his prewar association with "communist front" organizations, or the past Party membership of his one-time fiancee, his wife, and his brother, all of which General Groves and his security organs were fully aware before Oppenheimer was recruited as director of Los Alamos Lab. Digging up the the events of the 30s was only a pretext for destroying the influence of Oppenheimer's ideas on nuclear strategy in the 50s which was at variance with the national interest.
What bothered SAC most was Oppenheimer's role in project "Vista" (1951) and the Lincoln Lab "Summer Study" (1953) which called for strengthening the tactical and defensive aspects of nuclear war, a classic Hawk position in nuclear scholastics. SAC, too dumb to understand the full implication, saw Oppenheimer as a threat to its aspired role as the key keeper of U.S. nuclear superiority. Oppenheimer, a Hawk was being wrongly persecuted as a Dove by an unthinking SAC using truped up charges of Communist sympathy. SAC's own deficiency in scientific intelligence caused it to wrongly accuse Oppeheimer of being a security threat to military intelligence. The official rehabilitation of Oppenheimer by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson who in 1963 presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award of the Atomic Energy Commission. It signaled the victory of Hawks in nuclear politics, rather than a triumph of civil rights.
The structural argument for a military-industrial complex was that America could no longer rely on an armament drive after the breakout of a conflict. It must not only be constantly ready, but the readiness will eliminates the repeat of a Munich disaster. Only nuclear parity will deter war in a nuclear age.
Oppenheimer never held a total nuclear disarmament view except as a vague philosophical muse in a moment of personal guilt. In practice, he was arguing for keeping the nuclear age inside the pre-nuclear womb, after he already delivered the new born, by advocating tactical nuclear weapons over the further development of more massive destructive weapons, such as the coming H-bomb. It was a position that was neither scientifically consistent nor politically realistic. It was merely guilt and remorse driven atonement. The following is an excerpt form Oppenheimer's lawyer, Lloyd K. Garrison, to the AEC:
"(4) That after the national policy to proceed with the development of the H-bomb had been determined in January 1950, he (Oppenheimer) "did not oppose the project in a positive or open manner, nor did he decline to cooperate in the project" (p. 20).
(5) That the allegations that he urged other scientists not to work on the hydrogen bomb program were unfounded (p. 20)." The denial of further security clearance amounted to intellectual execution. Thereafter, Oppenheimer ceased to be a significant voice in nuclear strategy.
It is highly distorting for Kennan to imply in his statement that Oppenheimer's opposition to the development of the H-bomb was in any way related to a movement toward nuclear disarmament. Oppenheimer was making a plead for arms control through an attempt to neutralize the technological imperative for the H-bomb. And all disarmament activists know that arms control is the deadliest enemy of disarmament.
Henry C.K. Liu
"Henry C.K. Liu" wrote:
> http://www.hkstandard.com/online/news/001/opinion/news004.htm
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> Peril of rejecting nuclear `no first use'
>
> THE press reports of the new German government's recent interest in
> the question of ``first use of nuclear weaponry'' in Nato policies
> bring to my memory certain happenings of a period just short of half a
> century ago.
>
> At the end of 1949, as I ended my period of duty as director of
> General George Marshall's policy planning staff, the US government was
> just confronting the question of whether to proceed to the development
> of the hydrogen bomb to replace the less destructive one we had used
> against the two Japanese cities. Robert Oppenheimer and I, having both
> been involved with certain of the inner-governmental discussions of
> this subject, both felt that before taking this fateful step, our
> government should pause and ask itself where the adoption and
> cultivation of this new form of weaponry might lead us. We both
> recognised that if weapons of mass destruction were to be built into
> our regular military posture, we might find ourselves deeply committed
> to this sort of imagined warfare, and our commitment might stand in
> the way of further progress in the elimination of such weapons.
>
> In the first days of January 1950, I wrote a personal letter to the
> new secretary of state, Dean Acheson, describing the question as I
> then saw it: Would we develop this weapon and build our defence
> posture around it? Or would we regard it as something to be held in
> reserve for use only in response to a nuclear attack against us,
> freeing us to go as far as the other nuclear powers were prepared to
> go in efforts to eliminate this form of weaponry from international
> arsenals?
>
> Our public position, I wrote, should be this: ``We deplore the
> existence of all weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction. We regret
> that we were ever obliged to make use of one. We hope never to have to
> do so again. We do not propose ever to do so, unless we are forced to
> it by the use of such weapons against us. Meanwhile, we remain
> prepared to go very far, to show considerable confidence in others,
> and to accept a certain risk for ourselves, in order to achieve
> international agreement on (the removal of such weapons) from
> international arsenals; for we can think of nothing more dangerous
> than a continued international competition in their development.''
>
> I argued that no victory or security would be won for our people by
> the sort of destruction these devices were capable of working. The
> results they could produce would mean at best only a deterioration of
> civilisation for people everywhere, including ourselves. The victories
> that mattered would never be real victories unless they involved
> changes leading toward greater tolerance and forbearance and
> hopefulness in the minds of men, and such changes could never be
> brought about by sheer destruction, particularly the destruction of
> innocent life on so vast and indiscriminate a scale.
>
> I can recall no reply from Mr Acheson, but some days later, on 15
> January 1950, President Truman announced our government's intention to
> proceed with developing the new nuclear weapon.
>
> Were I to be asked how the statements of that letter might appear to
> me today, I would have to say that not only do I stand by every word,
> I also consider their reasoning to have been richly confirmed,
> reinforced and strengthened by the events of the intervening
> half-century.
>
> I commend the insight and courage shown by the new German government
> in bringing this subject once more to international attention. I hope
> that all the major nuclear powers will ask themselves today where our
> rejection of the principle of ``no first use'' has led us to date, and
> what effect it promises to have on the future development of
> international security.
>
> George Kennan is a retired American diplomat and historian.
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