American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

The question of Oppenheimer’s precise connection to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) loomed over his entire public career. Although it remains impossible to know with certainty whether he ever formally joined the Party, Bird and Sherwin conclude that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests he did not and that he simply had typical left-wing beliefs. However, Oppenheimer associated with many Communists, at least during his younger adult life. Jean Tatlock, probably his first love, introduced him to her circle of Communist friends. His brother, Frank, and sister-in-law, Jackie, joined the Party, as did Haakon Chevalier, a literature professor and Berkeley colleague who always maintained that Oppenheimer was a secret Party member. Likewise, an astonishing number of his students belonged to the Party. Kitty never formally joined, but in her early twenties belonged to the Youth Communist League. Thus, much circumstantial but seemingly powerful evidence connected Oppenheimer to the Communist Party.

In the 1930s and early 1940s US, however, ordinary left-wing activism often raised suspicions of an association with the CPUSA. Bird and Sherwin thus describe Oppenheimer’s CPUSA connection as “hazy and vague” (135). The problem was that Party membership often had no precise implication; Chevalier, for instance, appears in the book as an ardent leftist who supported the Soviet Union but also comes across as a minor figure in left-wing politics who was eager to inflate his importance. When Sherwin interviewed Chevalier in 1982 and asked what made him a Communist Party member, Chevalier replied, “I don’t know. We paid dues” (138). When pressed on whether he took orders from the Party, Chevalier conceded, “No. In a sense we weren’t [regular Party members]” (138). This implies that taking orders from the Party sometimes constituted the only sure sign of membership. Another possible indication of this is that Kitty gained entrance to the Young Communist League only after demonstrating commitment by distributing Marxist literature to steelworkers. By this standard, it’s unlikely that Oppenheimer (or any of his friends or family members) ever joined the Party.

Some hold that Communist Party membership in the 1930s and early 1940s meant devotion to the Soviet Union. Oppenheimer had sympathy for Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War and often donated to left-wing causes through the Communist Party, but if he harbored any illusions about the Soviet regime, he did not cling to those illusions for long; in fact, Bird and Sherwin show that as early as 1938 Oppenheimer received unfavorable reports from scientists who had visited Russia.

By far the most significant historical factor, however, is that in the 1930s and early 1940s, Communist Party membership did not have the sinister connotation it later assumed. Depression-era Communists did face the threat of police violence when trying to organize unions, but left-wing intellectuals generally flaunted their Communist associations without fear of reprisal. Everything changed in the late 1940s, however, when the US and the Soviet Union became rival superpowers: Even innocuous Communist connections forged in the previous decade suddenly raised suspicions. John Lansdale, former Army chief of security for the atomic bomb project, noted this historical absurdity while testifying at Oppenheimer’s 1954 hearing, stating that “the fact that associations in 1940 are regarded with the same seriousness that similar associations would be regarded today is a manifestation of hysteria” (524).

Although he always followed security protocols while serving as director at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer opposed the intense secrecy surrounding the US postwar nuclear weapons program. During the war, Oppenheimer raised few objections to Army security at Los Alamos. He worked remarkably well with the security-conscious Gen. Groves. Other scientists there complained about the Army not because of petty grievances but because they felt a “desperate sense of urgency” to build the bomb before the Nazis did, and appeasing the Army’s “plodding bureaucracy” meant “wasting precious time” (227). The US had to protect its atomic secrets and move swiftly to defeat Nazi Germany.

After the war, however, the argument for secrecy vanished—at least in Oppenheimer’s mind—for two reasons. First, he believed that only complete openness could allay international suspicions and prevent a catastrophic arms race. He particularly chafed at what he perceived as the foolishness and arrogance of policymakers who jealously guarded the US atomic monopoly. In October 1945, in what proved a disastrous meeting with President Harry Truman, Oppenheimer begged the president “first to define the international problem” (331). Truman dismissed the suggestion and predicted that the Soviets would never develop a bomb of their own. Second, Oppenheimer feared that intense secrecy would undermine self-government. Ordinary people could not form opinions about atomic policy when every relevant discussion occurred behind closed doors, and “excessive secrecy had kept Americans complacent and ignorant of the nuclear peril” (451). Furthermore, the US government’s obsession with secrecy had developed so suddenly that no one had time to process the change. No one voted for it, yet wartime necessity had become a permanent peacetime condition. At Oppenheimer’s 1954 security clearance hearing, mathematician Johnny von Neumann reminded the review board of how quickly this change had occurred, testifying that “before 1941, I didn’t even know what the word ‘classified’ meant” (531). When writing or giving speeches on atomic policy, Oppenheimer always had to restrain himself for this reason. People needed to hear the facts, yet “the facts were classified” (464). This circumstance alone made self-government impossible. After all, those who decided what to classify were the same people whose decisions were thereby kept secret. In this sense, proliferation of classified documents meant that government agents could act without public knowledge—or public approval.

Ironically, the most humiliating experience of Oppenheimer’s life hinged on whether he should continue to have security clearance. The outcome of his 1954 hearing before a special review board was never in doubt; political enemies had stacked the deck against him. The entire proceeding had the character of an extralegal inquisition. Still, in one fundamental respect the hearing had nothing to do with whether Oppenheimer posed a security risk based on his past associations and present opinions: Oppenheimer defended himself against particular charges, but the thing to which he most objected was secrecy itself. Although he argued for maintaining his security clearance, Oppenheimer in fact opposed the entire security regime that made such clearances necessary. His persecutors, of course, considered that security regime essential.