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: *
ROBB: Did you tell Pash the truth about this thing?
OPPENHEIMER: No.
ROBB: You lied to him?
OPPENHEIMER: 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:
ROBB: So that we may be clear, did you discuss with or disclose to Pash the identity of Chevalier?
OPPENHEIMER: No.
ROBB: Let us refer then, for the time being, to Chevalier as X.
OPPENHEIMER: All right.
ROBB: Did you tell Pash that X had approached three persons on the project?
OPPENHEIMER: I am not clear whether I said there were three Xs or that X approached three people.
ROBB: Didn’t you say that X had approached three people?
OPPENHEIMER: Probably.
ROBB: Why did you do that, Doctor?
“Because,” said Oppenheimer, dropping his voice, “I was an idiot.”
ROBB: Is that your only explanation, Doctor?
OPPENHEIMER: I was reluctant to mention Chevalier.
ROBB: Yes.
OPPENHEIMER: 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.
ROBB: 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?
OPPENHEIMER: 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:
ROBB: Did you find out why she had to see you?
OPPENHEIMER: Because she was still in love with me….
ROBB: You spent the night with her, didn’t you?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes.
ROBB: That is when you were working on a secret war project?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes.
ROBB: Did you think that consistent with good security?
OPPENHEIMER: 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
After Groves finished testifying, Oppenheimer returned to the stand, this time to face questioning about his stance on the superbomb. The weather outside the hearing room had changed—a rainstorm now beat against the windows—and so had Oppenheimer’s bearing from the previous day. No longer subdued, uncertain, and slow to respond, he was now confident, combative, and quick to reply. His upper lip was tense and coldly resolved. Misery had turned to indignation. Robb brought up Oppenheimer’s reference to Lawrence and Teller as “two experienced promoters” in a letter he wrote shortly before the October 1949 GAC meeting. Oppenheimer’s irritation and resentment toward both men—once friends and now enemies who would speak against him—was apparent:
ROBB: Would you agree, Doctor, that your references to Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Teller and their enthusiasm for the superbomb… are a little bit belittling?
OPPENHEIMER: Dr. Lawrence came to Washington. He did not talk to the Commission. He went and talked to Congressmen and to members of the military establishment. I think that deserves some belittling.
ROBB: So you would agree that your references to those men in this letter were belittling?
OPPENHEIMER: No. I pay my great respects to them as promoters. I don’t think I did them justice.
ROBB: You used the word “promoters” in an invidious sense, didn’t you?
OPPENHEIMER: I promoted lots of things in my time.
ROBB: Doctor, would you answer my question? When you used the word “promoter” you meant it to be in a slightly invidious sense, didn’t you?
OPPENHEIMER: I have no idea.
ROBB: When you use the word now with reference to Lawrence and Teller, don’t you intend it to be invidious?
OPPENHEIMER: No.
ROBB: You think that their work of promotion was admirable, is that right?
OPPENHEIMER: I think they did an admirable job of promotion. 37
Robb then suggested, rather darkly, that Oppenheimer had had qualms about the building of the superbomb. By this time Oppenheimer understood in his bones that moral objection was very bad form in the corridors of power that he loved to stroll, and during cross-examination he desperately fought to conceal his qualms. But Robb goaded and pressed until he extracted from Oppenheimer a confession of at least a certain ethical queasiness about the superbomb:
OPPENHEIMER: I could very well have said this is a dreadful weapon…. I have always thought it was a dreadful weapon. Even [if] from a technical point of view it was a sweet and lovely and beautiful job, I have still thought it was a dreadful weapon.
ROBB: And have said so?
OPPENHEIMER: I would assume that I have said so, yes.
ROBB: You mean you had a moral revulsion against the production of such a dreadful weapon?
OPPENHEIMER: This is too strong….
ROBB: Which is too strong, the weapon or my expression?
OPPENHEIMER: Your expression. I had a grave concern and anxiety.
ROBB: You had moral qualms about it, is that accurate?
OPPENHEIMER: Let us leave the word “moral” out of it.
ROBB: You had qualms about it.
OPPENHEIMER: How could one not have qualms about it? I know no one who doesn’t have qualms about it. 38
That night Oppenheimer met with his legal advisers to talk about the case. They invited Joe Volpe to join them. Volpe had warned all along about ploys that Robb might use. Now he listened as Oppenheimer and Garrison recounted what had occurred during the first few days of the hearing:
Robert said to me, “Joe, I would like to have these fellows describe to you what’s going on in the hearing.” I don’t think the others liked it very much, but finally they got around to telling me and honestly I was outraged. I was the one who had drawn up the procedures for these hearings when I was General Counsel and they were very definitely not meant to be an adversary procedure, and this one was. What’s more, they told me that they were withholding documents, which was utterly ridiculous…. This behavior gave me great concern, and so after an hour or so, I finally said, “Robert, tell them to shove it, leave it, don’t go on with it because I don’t think you can win.” 39
Oppenheimer listened closely to Volpe, weighing his advice carefully, but in the end he rejected it. Said Volpe:
He had always known that if someone, someday, wanted to bring all that stuff out and really make an issue of it, he could be made a victim. He lived with this sword of Damocles always suspended over his head; he knew he was deliberately taking risks in putting himself and his ideas forward in all these… groups and plans that made him powerful enemies. But he went on anyway, knowing the possible consequences and ready to face them if they came. 40
Brilliant, amusing, and attractive, Oppenheimer had a way of getting into morally uncomfortable positions from which he hoped to extricate himself without anyone noticing. He had also resigned himself to play the game according to the rules. Like many people who resign themselves in this way, Oppenheimer did so too thoroughly. For most of his time in Washington, this did not affect him; but when he found himself in a situation where the rules were broken, he was at a loss, and he surrendered too easily. A less-disciplined person might have made more of a row, upset the applecart, played to the court of public opinion. For Oppenheimer, however, it was psychologically inconceivable: fighting back wasn’t good manners. He had made a place for himself—and, to an extent, from himself—in the corridors of power that was precious to him. In the long run, he could not break away. Any behavior that Washington officials would condemn, even if they sympathized with him, he could not manage. Anything they would not do, he would not do either.
One by one, through the rest of April, an A-list of witnesses testified on behalf of Oppenheimer’s character and loyalty. His friends came first, including Bethe, Fermi, and Rabi. These supreme rationalists were the most emotional of the witnesses, because they were depressed and angry. They had talked with some of the other witnesses as they left the hearing room and were shown parts of the testimony. They could see how things were going; it was clear to them that Oppenheimer was going to be judged harshly. And yet, when their time came to take the stand, each of them described why he believed in Oppenheimer’s loyalty. Bethe spoke movingly of Oppenheimer as the driving force at wartime Los Alamos, the person who was recognized as “superior in judgment and superior in knowledge to all of us.” He explained that when he had to decide whether to join Teller on the superbomb project, it was from Oppenheimer that he had sought advice. Robb did not attempt to challenge Bethe’s faith in Oppenheimer but instead tried to undermine his credibility by exposing Bethe’s own vulnerability:
ROBB: Doctor, how many divisions were there at Los Alamos?
BETHE: It changed somewhat in the course of time. As far as I could count the other day, there were seven, but that may have been eight or nine at some time.
ROBB: What division was Klaus Fuchs in?
BETHE: He was in my division which was the Theoretical Division.
ROBB: Thank you. That is all. 41
“A long dark room”—so thought Rabi on entering the hearing room on the morning of April twenty-first. “The board were stationed in front, then Robb, then Oppenheimer in the back. It made me rather indignant to see him there,” he reflected afterward. 42 Robb’s bullying tactics had unsettled and confused many witnesses, but not Rabi. That testifying for Oppenheimer might jeopardize his own advisory role to the government was of no concern to him. Rabi was confident in himself and his conviction that the hearing was a farce and a travesty. In
his view, whatever Oppenheimer’s politics before the project, however arrogant Oppenheimer appeared to some, it was nonsense to brand him a security risk. Rabi understood what was happening and was ready for the rough Robb. 43
Rabi made his points forcefully. First, he urged the board to keep in mind the times in which the Chevalier incident had occurred. While a Soviet espionage approach would be “horrifying” in 1954, a similar approach in 1943—a time when Russia was an ally and before the Cold War had begun—would not, in Rabi’s judgment, have required notifying authorities. Second, Rabi stressed that Oppenheimer’s shortcomings should be judged against his much larger wartime contributions. Oppenheimer had given the United States the most powerful weapon in the history of the world up to that time, a weapon that had helped it to successfully end the war against Japan. Something took hold of Rabi’s throat. His voice choked and turned guttural with anger. “What more do you want,” Rabi asked, his voice dripping with outraged sarcasm, “mermaids?” “This is just a tremendous achievement. If the end of that road is this kind of hearing, which can’t help but be humiliating,” he added, “I think it is a pretty bad show.” 44
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