THE OPPENHEIMER RIDDLE - New evidence of Communist membership debated by scholars...

SFGate.com ^ | 4/23/04 | Charles Burress - SF Chronicle

[NormsRevenge]

A UC professor says he's solved one of the darkest mysteries in U.S. history: Was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant Berkeley scientist known as "the father of the atomic bomb," a secret member of the Communist Party?

Recently uncovered documents show that Oppenheimer belonged to a hidden Communist Party cell of professionals in Berkeley, according to UC Merced history Professor Gregg Herken.

Charges of Communist associations led to Oppenheimer's downfall during the McCarthyist hysteria of the early 1950s, and he became, in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, "the victim of a witch hunt." In 1954, he was stripped of his security clearance and his position as a high-level U.S. government adviser.

Many colleagues leapt to his defense, saying he was ostracized because of his post-World War II advocacy of arms control and opposition to the hydrogen bomb. Historians ever since have clashed over Oppenheimer's puzzling links to the party.

Herken's findings will face public scrutiny today when a critical mass of Oppenheimer scholars convenes at UC Berkeley. The campus is celebrating the centennial of Oppenheimer's birth with special exhibits and a two-day conference today and Saturday.

[CatoRenasci]

Will wonders never cease? Someone the government thought was a commie actually turned out to be a commie. < /sarcasm>

[sinktheslimes]

this proves that HOLLYWOOD and its bullyfag culture cant be trusted ..and that mccarthy was RIGHT and maligned by the media...

this is the reason the american media isnt to be trusted as their reporting bias is socialist commie de facto...

commies are slime and never to be trusted...

[cinFLA]

I sent an email to the writer notifying him of the error in his statement:

"The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated suspected Communists and blacklisted those who refused to cooperate."

[narby]

McCarthyist hysteria

As far as I'm concerned, McCarthy was a hero, who prevented us from going "pink", as the Euopeans did. Soviet Russia, complete with gulags would still exist had not McCarthy launched the popular effort to marginlize communists here in the US.

This article's use of the phrase "McCarthyist hysteria" is prejudicial.

[ClearCase_guy]

They seem to make that error a lot, don't they? It's right up there with: "Senator McCarthy was a central figure on the House Un-American Activities Committee."

[Common Tator]

Oppenheimer was put in charge of hiring the scientists to work on the atomic bomb.

Several of them were proven to be soviet agents.

To say that Oppenheimer should not have been fired as a result is to say the New York Times was criminal when it fired its editor over the reporting scandal Or that USA Today's witch hunters should be punished for firing the editors who failed to discover that Kelley wrote lies in its news columns.

If McCarthy was a witch hunter then what are the top management of the New York Times and USA today.

[Zack Nguyen]

Does Oppenheimer show up in the Venona intercepts, I wonder?

[nickcarraway]

ping

[Cincinatus]

Oppenheimer's grandson, Charles Oppenheimer of Reno, said he preferred to focus on what had happened to his grandfather in the 1950s rather than the Communist issue. ....

"Whether he was a member or not, it's not against the law to be a Communist," the grandson said

And Oppie wasn't charged with or convicted of breaking any law. He merely had his security clearance revoked -- now I suppose the left will start whining about a constitutional "right" to a clearance.

[LS]

Everyone owes Prof. Herken a vote of thanks for his courage in publishing something that cannot help his career.

[pghkevin]

"...a critical mass of Oppenheimer scholars convenes at UC Berkeley." I hope they don't go nuk-u-ler.

[Hildy]

My Father wrote an article about Oppenheimer for the Saturday Evening Post. When I went through my Dad's things after his death, I found some correspondence between him and Oppenheimer. If I get ambitious later, I'll see if I can scan the article and upload it.

[MegaSilver]

Gee, and we wonder where the Soviets got the atom bomb...

[CatoRenasci]

Absolutely. More Denial by American historians about the reality of the penetration of the US government and academia by the communists in the 1930's - 1960's.

It makes me very glad I am no longer an historian. I like to think they guys I trained under, who were willing to give some of these commies the benefit of the doubt back when there wasn't any evidence to speak of, would not now be among those who refuse to see the truth. But, then I was an intellectual historian, and mostly an 18th and 19th century specialist to boot. I shudder to think what Ranke, Meinecke or even guys like Carl Becker would have made of the most recent generation or two of American historians, who are often political beyond belief.....

[11th Earl of Mar]

Oppenheimer belonged to a hidden Communist Party cell of professionals in Berkeley

Oh... is this the "hidden" Communist Party cell at Berkley that today they call "Faculty"?

[LS]

There are more of us than you think---VD Hanson, Herken, Allan Weinstein (recently nominated to be the Archivist of the U.S.), moi!

[CatoRenasci]

I hope you're right. Hanson, of course, is a classicist, not an historian. I wonder in how many top rate history departments today a reaonably conservative fellow could get his PhD, let alone get a job teaching and then get tenured. I remember all the radicals who were graduate students with me at Santa Barbara in the '70s. The worst ranters doing fashionable left-wing things were the ones who seemed to get jobs (well, Gollin's protege Adams who ended up in Texas was an exception, but I think he was liberal as far as it goes), not to mention old socialist Al Shirk's changing his name to his wife's (Lindemann) out of some sort of misguided something. None of the department were really conservative, even then, except perhaps for old Henry Adams, and maybe Russell Buchanan. Even the guys who were fairly conservative in their historical work (think Hollister, Gollin, Remack, Sonnino, Friesen, Williams, Marsak, etc.) were all liberals. And Kelly turned out to be very liberal in his last book on ethnicity in politics. I regret I didn't have a chance to argue that one with him before he passed away. Oh, well....

[WOSG]

The Closing of The American Mind, eh?

It is sad how the left has destroyed the American intellectual class and made it a sock puppet for their ideology.

The Leftists *did* have an agenda, and denying the reality of these allegiances going way back, ie, creating the 'mccarthyism' myth, is an essential part of the program.

[ckilmer]

Oppenheimer doesn't show up in the venona cables. Several spies were uncovered in the labs by way of the venona intercepts. the NSA however, required of the fbi that they develop their own leads. the fbi did in some cases and in others they did not. the spies the fbi couldn't develop leads on they had to let go. In addition to the spies identified the Cables did show that there were several more spies in the atomic labs. However, the crptographers were unable to associate the alias used by the soviets with particular people in the labs before the trail went cold.

oppenheimer had his security clearance revoked because the gru/kgb always recruited from current and former communists. oppenheimers links in the past to communists--even if a youthful fling--made him too much of a risk in the face of evidence that there were more undetected spies in the bomb labs--and the fact that he knew some of the spies already identified by venona intercepts.

I have read that oppenheimers name subsequently showed up in old kgb/gru files from the 40's when they were opened after the fall of the soviet union.