Senator Joseph McCarthy's call for a tough anti-Communist drive at that year's convention received a standing ovation. A key component of the Republican Party platform in 1952 was the need to rid the Federal Government of "subversives" who had supposedly infiltrated the system, along with an overhaul of loyalty and security programs. Oppenheimer's troubles were further exacerbated by the onset of the McCarthy Era. By early December, AEC representatives had removed all secret papers and documents pertaining to the General Advisory Commission from Oppenheimer's Princeton office. His outspoken opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb-accomplished on November 1, 1952-did little to allay suspicions, and the AEC was compiling a mounting file of Oppenheimer's alleged questionable activities. The physicist had several Communist acquaintances dating back to the 1930s, and had implicated some of his friends as Soviet agents during an inquiry back in 1942-testimony which he later admitted was "a tissue of lies". So it is an odd quirk of history that the former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and former chair of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) should find himself accused of disloyalty and being a national security risk, sparking a high-profile hearing culminating in the loss of the scientist's security clearance.ĭespite his long history of service on behalf of the US government, there was growing suspicion of Oppenheimer by the early 1950s. Robert Oppenheimer made not just to physics, but to the national security interests of the United States. (AIP Emilio Segrh Visual Archives, Marshak Collection )įew would dispute the vital contributions physicist J.
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