General Leslie Groves on Oppenheimer: "He's a genius. A real genius...Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports."
K. D. Nichols, General Manager: (to oppenheimer)
....The Consumers Union was cited in 1944 by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a Communist-front headed by the Communist Arthur Kallet.
....you strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb; (1) on moral grounds, (2) by claiming that it was not feasible, (3) by claiming that there were insufficient facilities and scientific personnel to carry on the development and (4) that it was not politically desirable.
....It was further reported that you were instrumental in persuading other outstanding scientists not to work on the hydrogen-bomb project, and that the opposition to the hydrogen bomb, of which you are the most experienced, most powerful, and most effective member, has definitely slowed down its development.
....In view of your access to highly sensitive classified information, and in view of these allegations which, until disproved, raise questions as to your veracity, conduct and even your loyalty, the Commission has no other recourse, in discharge of its obligations to protect the common defense and security, but to suspend your clearance...
Oppenheimer: (to K. D. Nichols)
Jean Tatlock / death in 1944 / Communist Party memberships
Loyalist cause in Spain / organization of migratory workers
1937, my father died
...teacher's union, which included faculty and teaching assistants at the university, and school teachers of the East Bay. continued until some time in 1941
...Sidney and Beatrice Webb's book on Russia, read in 1936, predisposed me to make much of the economic progress and general level of welfare in Russia, and little of its political tyranny
the purge trials / damning to the Soviet system
Placzek, Weisskopf, and Schein / physicists lived in Russia in the thirties
What they reported seemed to me so solid, so unfanatical, so true, that it made great impression; and it presented Russia, even when seen from their limited experience, as a land of purge and terror, of ludicrously bad management and of a long-suffering people.
Nazi-Soviet Pact / behavior of the Soviet Union in Poland and in Finland
I never accepted Communist dogma or theory; in fact, it never made sense to me. I had no clearly for-mulated political views.
I hated tyranny and repression and every form of dictatorial control of thought.
my wife / member of the Communist Party
I knew of no attempt to obtain secret information at Los Alamos. Prior to my going there my friend Haakon Chevalier with his wife visited us on Eagle Hill, probably in early 1943. During the visit, he came into the kitchen and told me that George Eltenton had spoken to him of the possibility of transmitting technical information to Soviet scientists. I made some strong remark to the effect that this sounded terribly wrong to me. The discussion ended there. Nothing in our long standing friendship would have led me to believe that Chevalier was actually seeking information; and I was certain that he had no idea of the work on which I was engaged.
No serious controversy arose about the super until the
Soviet explosion of an atomic bomb in the autumn of 1949