“Open Book”: The Hearing In The Matter Of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Abstract The chief puzzle surrounding Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing is why it had not happened earlier. Despite Truman’s approval of the Super project in 1950, its supporters had neither forgiven nor forgotten Oppenheimer’s opposition. As Cold War anxieties rose, many key H-bomb supporters had grown increasingly anxious about his continued influence on atomic weapons development. Oppenheimer was neither the only eminent scientist to oppose the Super nor the only one to do so on moral grounds: in 1949, Compton, Conant, Fermi, and Rabi, among others, had signed on to documents that articulated powerful practical and moral objections to the Super’s development. But this did not cause its proponents to question the integrity of these scientists, nor to fear that they were spies. Oppenheimer was different. No one else with that much access and influence had that much of a leftwing past. No one else with that much of a leftwing past had that much access and influence. Oppenheimer’s opposition to the Super’s development coupled with his past leftwing activities to magnify the suspicion and determination of his adversaries. Their fear of each intensified their fear of the other.