I WANT TO TAKE YOU BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF '47 WHEN THE AEC WAS FOUNDED. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT SOME OF THE PROBLEMS THAT IT WAS FACING IN THOSE EARLY DAYS?

The very first problem the AEC was faced with was David Lilienthal's confirmation as chairman. Senator McKellar of Tennessee opposed his...appointment as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and during the first three or four months...of January...we spent most of our time...before the...Joint Committee on Atomic Energy with Senator McKellar acting as the prose-cuter. He opposed Lilienthal for reasons best known to Lilienthal and McKellar...growing out of Lilienthal's days as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority. But it was a...it was a very trying three month period. And...and there was much to be done. That was the sad part of it. Because...though the Manhattan district had done a...absolutely superb job of building plants and getting bomb material...in record time, the program was anything but a thriving, operating, program. Many of the people associated with it during the war ...had left. Many of them wanted to leave. And...there was a tremendous job...facing the commission. And so, I would say, probably six months was lost in having the Atomic Energy Commission focus...on these... on these problems....perhaps the most acute problem at the time was how to convert what was essentially a laboratory weapons program to a production program. To a program where... instead of having each weapon hand crafted by some scientist,...one could get into a production mode. That was perhaps the most critical undertaking the commission had at the time.... another was personnel....scientists and... others were leaving the program in very large numbers. And the uncertainty about clearances also created a very serious problem....as you no doubt know,...many of the scientists at Los Alamos and at a few other places had personnel files that...raised some questions about their political activities. And this gave the commission a lot of pause and great concern. ...the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was looking over the shoulders of the commission. And...it was...a very tense period....We worked very hard to develop a personnel security clearance program that would hopefully protect the governments interest, but at the same time protect the interests of the individuals...who were being screened and passed upon....we had lots of problems... with the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and with other politicians over this program because ...their attitude was, if there's any question raised like Caesar's wife and all that garbage...these people should be denied clearance. And our attitude was quite different. Our attitude was that we had to establish a system that would...not guarantee but...at least assure an individual that he would get a fair hearing....and as I say, there was a lot of controversy over that. As a matter of fact... it was that program in part that led to Senator Hickenlooper's charges of incredible mismanagement against David Lilienthal.

COULD YOU TAKE US THROUGH SOME OF THE PROBLEMS WITH SECURITY THAT BEGAN...

Well, we...with respect to the clearance of personnel in the program...one must remember that during the war, ...General Groves simply gave his blessing and that was it. The individual was clear. And he was employed...the Atomic Energy Act...prescribed very specific conditions for the clearance of individuals for the program. And one of them was a full FBI investigation. And this meant that every individual with access to restricted data and...certainly most of the scientists had access to restricted data — had to go through and FBI investigation. And...in many instances the FBI already had some rather ...fat files on these individuals because of some of their...political activities. Of course, Dr. Oppenheimer was perhaps the classic example of this. And...this created a very burdensome and ticklish administrative situation within the commission....I don't know how much more you want.

COULD YOU JUST EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS WITH OPPENHEIMER.

Yes. In discussing this personnel security problem, Dr. Oppenheimer is probably the classic case. He was brought into the program as you know by General Groves. General Groves was aware when he assigned...Robert Oppenheimer to Los Alamos that Robert Oppenheimer had a bit of a history of...left wing activities...supported the Spanish Civil war, some communication with well-known communists and things of that sort. As I've already said,...though these were important considerations ...General Groves was...the beginning and the end as far as clearance was concerned. And all he had to do was say, clear, and it was clear. But that was not so when the Atomic Energy Commission took over...and...we had to develop a system that would provide...appropriate safe guards for the individuals that we were investigating and... in putting through the clearance process.

WHAT KIND OF PRODUCTION PROBLEMS WERE THERE, PARTICULARLY RAW MATERIAL PROBLEMS?

Well, in so far as raw materials are concerned ...during the war...we attempted to...find out whether or not we had uranium in this country. And the investigations that were conducted in behalf of the Manhattan District by a cover operation of the Union Carbide company seemed to indicate that we were a have not nation c far as uranium was concerned. And so we was... during the war we were dependent almost entirely on the production we received from the Belgian Congo. ...the...

WHEN THE AEC STARTED WAS THERE A PROBLEM WITH URANIUM THEN?

Well, the problem — You mean when the commission first started? Well the problem when the commission took over responsibility for the program was that if they were going to develop a production capacity for atomic weapons, they needed uranium was not that plentiful. And so the commission entered into some rather drastic arrangements to try to promote the development of uranium in this country. As a matter of fact we had a... we had a program — an incentive program to encourage companies to explore...in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. And that incentive program did indeed later bring about the discovery of some very large uranium deposits. But when the commission first took over,...we were thought to be a have not nation and this was a very worrisome thing for an organization that was hoping to go into productions of weapons, but no raw materials.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES IN VEIWPOINTS BETWEEN LILIENTHAL AND GROVES WHEN IT CAME TO CONTROLLING ATOMIC ENERGY?

Well, I suppose the basic difference between them was that General Groves believed in compartmentalization. Namely, an individual was entitled to know only what he needed to know in order to get his job done. And that was a very restrictive mandate that... the general laid down. Lilienthal's approach was very different. Lilienthal's approach was advance can only be accomplished... development can only be accomplished if there's wide exchange of information and ideas and so on. And so their approaches were just at opposite poles in so far as the release of information was concerned.

WHAT WERE THE DIFFERENCES IN VIEWPOINT BETWEEN THE TWO MEN? AND ALSO WHAT EFFECT THIS DIFFERENCE IN VIEWPOINT HAD ON PRODUCTION AND THE AEC.

The difference between General Groves and David Lilienthal...with respect to security and exchange of information and the...collaboration between laboratories was...really at opposite poles. General Groves believed very strongly in a compartmentalized operation...each individual would know, or should know only what he needed to know to get his job done. And he was a stickler on that....it always amazed me during the war how little...people about Oak Ridge knew about any other part of the program. This included General Nichols at times. Lilienthal, on the other hand, came from a background where he believed that the way to advance this program, the way to make sure that we were getting everything that we should be getting from the scientific community, from industry, etc., was to maximize exchange of information and the interchange of ideas.

CAN YOU JUST TELL ME ABOUT DAVID LILIENTHAL'S IDEAS?

David Lilienthal...his background was very different than the Generals and he believed in the lightest kind of exchange of information and cooperation among scientists, among the industrial community....he felt that...getting collaboration and cooperation between and among these different parts of the organization was the way to bring about the greatest progress.

CAN YOU TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT HOW GENERAL GROVES WITHHELD INFORMATION ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE STOCKPILE?

Well, I don't know what you mean.

THE SIZE OF THE NUCLEAR STOCKPILE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PERIOD. DO YOU THINK THERE WAS ANYONE WHO KNEW HOW MANY BOMBS THEY ACTUALLY STORED AT LOS ALAMOS AND THAT INFORMATION WASN'T EVEN KNOWN TO PRESIDENT TRUMAN UNTIL THE APRIL...?

I don't think he wanted to know...

OH OK. BUT THE AEC WANTED TO KNOW AND THEY...

And they found out. They found out.

BUT UNTIL THEN GENERAL GROVES HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL WITHHOLDING...

True....

COULD YOU COMMENT ON THAT? DID THAT SURPRISE YOU?

It didn't surprise me a bit....General Groves ...and this was all part of his notion...about what people needed to know. He just couldn't understand why anybody but himself needed to know how many bombs we had....I don't think there were many people in the...in the War Department that had this kind of information....he certainly would not make it available to the special Committee on Atomic Energy.... they sought that kind of information as well as other information about ...the activities of the Manhattan District and he refused to make it available.

THAT WAS IN 1947 WAS IT?

Beg your pardon?

THAT WAS IN 1947 THAT THE...

'46. When they were yes... This was when the Joint Committee — I mean the Special Committee on Atomic Energy was developing legislation.

DID GENERAL GROVES EVER TALK TO YOU ABOUT SABOTAGING THE CIVILIAN CONTROL OF ATOMIC ENERGY?

Oh I think sabotaging it is too strong....I think...I think by the end of the war...this program had become the General's baby. It was his. And I suppose in many respects one could say it certainly was because...he was the boss. And he was the boss in all respects. Sure he reported to Mr. Stimson through Harvey Bundy who was a special assistant to Mr. Stimson. But... the decisions were his to make. ...he cooperated with and collaborated with Dr. Bush. Vannevar Bush. And Jim Conant....but...basically... what he said was what was done. And so by the end of the war he really had a paternalistic attitude and feeling about this program. And he should...certainly didn't want to let go. ...he encouraged the development of the May Johnson bill which would have provided for continued military participation in the program. One of the provisions of the May-Johnson bill was that, for example, was that members of the commission could be military. It also provided the general manager could come from the military. And I think General Groves in his own mind, no doubt thought who is better qualified to run this program than the man who brought it about. I think it was that simple. And he wrote a book later--you've probably seen the book, And Now it Can Be Told. He tells a somewhat different story in the book. But I think that was the result of maturity and hindsight.

Well, we've been talking about...we have been talking about General Groves and I do want to say that...though I have said and perhaps might say some critical things about him,... one must remember that he really performed an extraordinary service to his country during the war. Unfortunately his temperament and his ego got in the way after the war. And it kind of tarnished this great contribution that he made which I was sorry to see.

DID THESE CUSTODY BATTLES INTERFERE WITH THE WORK OF THE AEC?

It didn't. The work of the AEC was helped in an extraordinary way by the appointment of the General Manager, Carol Wilson. Carol Wilson was the first general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission. And from day one, the commission decided, although there was some disagreement on this point by Louis Strauss nevertheless, the commission decided that the general manager should have the operating responsibility for the program. And the day-to-day operations of the Atomic Energy Commission were his responsibility. The commission acted more as a policy making...body. This gave rise to some very...nasty sessions because Louis Strauss did not agree with this...philosophy. And as a matter of fact, it was this mode of operation that also contributed to Hickenlooper's incredible mismanagement charges because he felt that too much authority had been invested in the general manager and not enough authority was being exercised by the commission.

(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

Mr. Hickenlooper's charges of incredible mismanagement were not against the AEC. His charges were leveled against David E. Lilienthal personally.

WHAT WERE THE CRITICISMS LEVELED AT DAVID LILIENTHAL AND DID YOU THINK THEY WERE JUSTIFIED?

Uh...Senator Hickenlooper's criticism's... really could be summarized as follows: That... there was...there were many problems...that needed attention in the program. And...David Lilienthal was not...exercising the kind of responsibility and ...authority in dealing with those problems that he should as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He felt Lilienthal spent too much time travelling the country, making speeches about the peacetime uses of atomic energy....we did indeed have many problems and there is no question that they required a great deal of attention But I certainly disagreed with Mr. Hickenlooper that these were things that David Lilienthal himself, personally should have become involved in. He certainly was involved in the policy considerations related to these issues....for example, the personnel security clearance program...David Lilienthal ...was very active in supporting the development of that program and he was involved in that because he saw that as an extreme] important policy issue for the commission. If we could not attract the right people to the program...we would be in deep trouble. And he realized that and so he supported the idea....he also supported the idea...which was developed by staff and carried out by the general manager that we should have a fellowship program. He supported the idea that...the fellowship program should not carry with it the security clearance of the fellows who were selected....this too was an issue...with the joint committee...with Hickenlooper.

WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE IN THE HICKENLOOPER HEARING?

Well, I was general counsel of the commission. And ...I was there as legal adviser to Mr. Lilienthal and to others who appeared to testify. And so...unfortunately it was my responsibility to sit there day in day out with whomever the witness was...

LET'S GO OVER THE HICKENLOOPER HEARINGS AGAIN. HOW DID LILIENTHAL FEEL AT THAT TIME?

Outraged. Lilienthal felt outraged....he was accused of lots of things that...he really didn't have responsibility for....in my own case I...as I say I was there as counsel to the commission. I provided legal advice and assistance to the witnesses. On some matters, I was the witness. Like the personnel security program, I was the witness. The granting of emergency clearances. That was another issue that Mr. Hickenlooper...castigated Lilienthal for....we would frequently be faced with a situation where we couldn't wait for a full FBI field investigation. And so we would have a file check made...a file check being a check of "The FBI and the files of intelligence communities such as...National Security Agency, Naval Agency, Army intelligence and so on. And we would have a very quick file check made and then, assuming nothing drastic showed up, we would grant the individual clearance because he had to go to A or some other place to and ge...to perform in connection with a weapons test or something of that sort. Well, Mr. Hickenlooper thought that was a violation of the Atomic Energy Act. And for that I had to answer and...we argued that subject many days.

IF YOU CAN JUST TELL ME AGAIN LILIENTHAL'S REACTION.

Mr. Lilienthal's reaction to the charge of incredible mismanagement, as I've said is, was one of outrage. And...he felt he was being harassed by Senator Hickenlooper...he felt that...Senator Hickenlooper was essentially nitpicking as he was in many instances....and...the...most...the most critical item that developed in the course of the hearings was...this matter of unaccountable material at Oak Ridge....in the course of the hearings it developed that the records show that there was some discrepancy in totaling up the material that was produced in the gases to fusion plant. Well, as it later turned out this was largely a matter of the way in which this plant functioned material had a way of getting lost in this...in the cascades of the gases to fusion plant. But at the time I guess Senator Hickams thought that someone was diverting uranium-235 from Oak Ridge. And we had days and days of hearings on that subject, and this was an area that certainly David Lilienthal had no responsibility for, or on hands activity and Senator Hickenlooper would point out that this was exactly what he meant about incredible mismanagement, good old Dave Lilienthal didn't know that this material was missing at Oak Ridge. Well, it really wasn't missing at all. It was just a matter of accountability.

WHAT WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT FOR YOU AT THE HEARINGS?

The most memorable moment? I don't know what you mean by memorable -- I think I know what memorable means, but Oppenheimer's answer to Admiral Strauss' criticism of the program for foreign distribution of isotopes. The in the early days of the Commission it was decided that it would be helpful in our relations with other countries, to provide some of the tools that could be used in research. And we developed a program for foreign distribution of these isotopes. Admiral Strauss was very much opposed to that program. He voted against it, the vote in the Commission was 4 to 1. It was one of the few times in the history of the Commission when I was there that there was ever a formal vote and there was a dissent. But he voted against it. And it turned up as one of the examples of incredible mismanagement on the part of Mr. Lilienthal. And Admiral Strauss testified. He was asked to testify, and he expressed his misgivings, strong misgivings and indicated in the hearings that these isotopes could be used not only for medical and other scientific research, but also could be used for military purposes. Sort of an outrageous charge. We we put Dr. Oppenheimer on the stand and Dr. Oppenheimer, as sometimes was his habit, instead of just explaining in a calm, clear concise way why this was wrong, he made mincemeat of the Admiral. I mean he pointed out how outrageous this statement was. And as a matter of fact I have said in public before that I think that incident and the H-bomb incident probably had a lot to do with the vindictiveness that Admiral Strauss showed later on in connection with Dr. Oppenheimer's clearance.

WAS THERE ANY...POSITIVE EFFECTS THAT CAME OUT OF THE HICKENLOOPER HEARINGS? [REPEATS QUESTION]

You know, there was a positive effect. The lawyers in the Atomic Energy Commission used to take an awful lot of abuse from the engineers because we used to get kind of sticky about record making and keeping records and having accurate files and so on. We had an assistant manager, his name was Carlton Shugg. I'll never forget him. This fellow was always complaining to me about the lawyers on my staff who would put him through a lot of trouble to explain things and to prepare files and records and so on. And when the hearing was over, Carlton came to me and said, "Joe, I now understand why you fellows insist that we keep accurate records of things. It's a good thing we did." Other than that, I'm not sure I know of any other...anything other that was worthwhile.

I WONDER ABOUT PRODUCTION? CAN YOU TELL ME...

Let me tell you...let me tell you...let me tell you about a very humorous incident during the incredible mismanagement hearings. After some weeks, members of the Committee, including the Republican members began to squirm because they knew and felt that Senator Hickenlooper was barking up a blind alley. And we were having an executive session, let me...let me back up a bit. In the course of the hearings. In the course of the hearings, Senator Hickenlooper wanted to discuss some of the clearances that we had given which he disagreed with. And I maintained that we couldn't do it in public without its having a terrible effect on the individuals involved. And he kept insisting that this was something that the committee had to consider. So I suggested that we have a dry run in executive session, because he felt that there was a way of doing this, and I suggested a dry run in executive session, and we had such a dry run. And that dry run demonstrated how ridiculous the idea was that one could discuss these security clearances in public without its having a very damaging effect on the individuals that might be involved. Well, Senator Milliken, you're too young to remember him, was a Senator from Colorado, and he became so frustrated with Hickenlooper that he finally turned to him and said, "Senator, I can understand mismanagement and I can understand credible mismanagement, but for God's sakes tell me what incredible mismanagement is." And with that everybody laughed and we parted. So there was a bit of humor in some of it.

IF YOU DON'T MIND I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU THAT AND IF YOU'D JUST MAKE IT A LITTLE BRIEFER.

Well, let me...let me try. In the course of the hearings, Senator Hickenlooper asked about some of the security clearances we gave. And we took the position, I took the position that these could not be discussed in public without having a terrible effect on the individuals. And he insisted it could be done, I suggested we have an executive session where we could have a dry run. We had this dry run. It proved how ridiculous the suggestion was that we could do this in public. And Senator Milliken who was one of the senior members of the joint committee and a republican became so frustrated he turned to Senator Hickenlooper and said, "Senator, I understand mismanagement and I understand credible mismanagement, but what in God's name is incredible mismanagement."

WHAT WERE GENERAL GROVES REASONS FOR UNDERESTIMATING THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT WOULD TAKE FOR THE SOVIETS TO BUILD UP THOSE BOMBS?

General Groves frequently said that it would take the Soviet Union somewhere between 15 and 20 years to develop an atomic bomb. And I always thought at the time, and based on some discussions I had with him that he was really convinced that the Soviet Union, just did not have the industrial capability, they did not have the Dupont, Union Carbide, the great engineering firms that we had during the war. He he sort of regarded the Russians as not too sophisticated in these matters and therefore it would take them a tremendously long time, and his estimate was 15 or 20 years. And based on that I think it was his conclusion that no one could repeat the...ah, the performance that the Manhattan District had put on.

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THE DEBATE OVER THE HYDROGEN BOMB? CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS WHEN THE GAC REPORTED BACK TO THE AEC AND YOU HAD SOME PERSONAL DEALINGS WITH OPPENHEIMER AS A LIASON AT THAT TIME. COULD YOU TELL US SOME STORIES ABOUT THAT PERIOD?

Following the testing of the...of the Russian bomb the Joint Committee and the Atomic Energy Commission had numerous meetings on the question of what next. And the Commission had been looking at expansion possibilities. We would, the Commission was talking about the Savannah River Project even before the Soviet Union tested the bomb. The fact that there was a super bomb, a hydrogen bomb possibility was well known. It had been discussed during the war. There had been memoranda written on the subject by the scientists in Los Alamos. There had been considerations of what to do about it by the Interim Committee that was appointed right after the end of the war. So it was not a novel idea by any by any stretch of the imagination, and it immediately surfaced as the next step that should be taken to overcome or to keep this advantage that we had over the Soviet Union. And the Commission asked the General Advisory Committee to perform its duty. It was there under the Atomic Energy Act to advise the commission on matters such as, such as this. And the Committee under Dr. Oppenheimer's chairmanship took up the matter, and shortly thereafter indicated to the Commission that the Committee was of a mind to recommend that we not attempt the development of the superbomb. Actually what this turned out to be after many discussions was not that we should forego the development of a superbomb, a hydrogen bomb, but that it would be a mistake at the time to engage in a crash program, which was what some members of Congress wanted and it was certainly what Admiral Strauss wanted. They recommended against the against a crash program to do that, and the reason was very simple. We were talking earlier about the Atomic Weapons Program and whether or not it had reached a production level and a sort of an assembly line stage. It had not, and we... the Commission in its laboratories was still working on that. And members of the General Advisory Committee were concerned that this activity, initiating a crash program for the Hydrogen bomb would have an impact on the work that was being carried out to develop the Atomic Weapons Program on an assembly line basis.

DO YOU RECALL ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH DR. OPPENHEIMER AND DAVID LILIENTHAL AT THE TIME?

Yes, as a matter of fact I...

CAN YOU TELL ME?

...I had numerous conversations with Dr. Oppenheimer myself. I think I think Dr. Oppenheimer and David Lilienthal felt very strongly that the development of such a weapon... Strike that. That an effort should be made to determine –

LET'S JUST START WITH, "I THINK DR. OPPENHEIMER..."

I had a number of conversations with Dr. Oppenheimer about his position and the General Advisory Committee's position on the hydrogen bomb. I must confess that at times I didn't really understand what their position was. I think the basic concern that they had was that a crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb would create problems for the Commission's program to improve the atomic weapons production There was however, an element in their considerations and I certainly know in Dr. Oppenheimer's consideration that we should try to take a step in this area that perhaps could be used to avoid or forestall the development of this outrageous weapon. And Dr. Oppenheimer at one point made the suggestion that perhaps the United States government should announce that for humanitarian reasons this government would not develop a weapon such as the hydrogen bomb, and call upon Russia to make the same announcement and make the same condition, or accept the same condition. There were many discussions back and forth between Dr. Oppenheimer and David Lilienthal on this point. And David Lilienthal had a certain amount of sympathy for that position. However, other members of the Commission were not of the same mind. And while the...though the crash program and its impact on the conventional A weapons program was a...was an important consideration and a factor they did not, most of the other members of the commission did not accept the idea that we should make a humanitarian gesture. That...that suggestion gave rise to a lot of discussion in the State Department and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and it was characterized as being naive and foolish and a lot of other names as well.

COULD YOU SUMMARIZE DAVID LILIENTHAL'S VIEWS AT THIS TIME WITH REGARD TO ATOMIC WEAPONS AND THEIR PLACE IN US POLICY. HIS RESIGNATION WHAT WAS HIS...COULD YOU JUST SUMMARIZE HIS VIEWPOINT AT THIS PARTICULAR TIME? IN RELATION TO ATOMIC WEAPONS IN GENERAL.

Well for one thing, I think David Lilienthal as is true of most human beings who have had any exposure to the weapon are horrified by it. And Lilienthal because of his background and experience and his sensitivities was not as sanguine about the atomic bomb as say General Groves was. With General Groves this was just another weapon. And in Lilienthal's case this was more than a weapon. This was a modern form of genocide and it was very distasteful to him. He he hoped very much that something could be done to bring about an agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States for control of atomic weapons.

COULD YOU SUMMARIZE FOR ME THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN POLICY DURING YOUR TIME AT THE AEC. JUST IN GENERAL. SORT OF REFLECT ON HOW IT CHANGED OVER THE TIME YOU WERE...

Pardon?

CAN YOU REFLECT BACK ON THE PERIOD YOU WERE AT WORKING AS COUNSEL FOR THE AEC, HOW YOUR... HOW THE ROLE OF ATOMIC WEAPONS CHANGED IN US POLICY? THAT WE STARTED WITH 13 BOMBS AND AT THE END SOMETHING IN THE REGION OF 400, 500, THAT WE HAD THE SUPERBOMB.

Well, I think during the period that I was...that I was with the program, the atomic bomb and particularly as a result of the use of the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was looked upon as a weapon so dreadful that war was unthinkable. I think however that as time went on and as the Commission's laboratories perfected their work in developing tactical weapons as opposed to strategic weapons this attitude changed somewhat. And I don't know whether you're familiar with the Vista Project, but the attitude later became one of the use of nuclear devices for tactical purposes and not just what had earlier been the use of the bomb to destroy cities so I think...I think the outrage and the concerns that existed in the early years of the atomic weapons program though it continued, I think it continued in a way that suggested that perhaps and some people are going to disagree, but I'm sure others share the same view that perhaps there could be a use of nuclear devices without its becoming an all-out nuclear war.

I'D JUST LIKE TO ASK YOU ONE FURTHER QUESTION. THE OPPENHEIMER HEARINGS, WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE OUTCOME OF THESE IN YOUR OPINION?

Let me tell you about the Oppenheimer case. I've told the story a number of times before. Dr. Oppenheimer came to me when he was called in and was told that they wanted his...they wanted him to terminate his consulting arrangement. They wanted him to give up his clearance. He asked me my advice and I told him that since I could not represent him because I had been general counsel of the Commission all, during most of the period that he was Chairman of the General Advisory Committee and certainly during the period of the H-bomb controversy it would not be ethical of me to represent him. And I suggested to him that instead he engage the best criminal lawyer he could find to represent him because I thought he was in for dreadful trouble. It was clear to me that Mr. Strauss and Mr. Nichols meant to terminate his relationship with the program. Instead he sought out Herbert Marks who had been the first general counsel of the Atomic Energy Commission and Herbert Marks with Lloyd Garrison, a New York lawyer, represented him in the hearings. After three days of hearings Lloyd Garrison's law partner, Randolph Paul called me and asked me if I would come to his house in Georgetown where Oppenheimer was staying during the hearings. And I went to his house and he asked Herb Marks and Lloyd Garrison to describe to me what was going on in the hearings. And what they described was an outrage. Roger Robb, the man who had been selected to handle the proceedings was acting as a prosecutor. They were denying witnesses the opportunity to refresh their memories about events. They even denied David Lilienthal access to documents that he had prepared during the H-bomb controversy. And when I heard all this I told him that I, he might want, I told them that they should go back and tell the Commission to shove it and walk out of the hearings. They couldn't possibly come out of the hearings with a victory considering the circumstances. Kitty Oppenheimer was of a mind that's exactly what Robert Oppenheimer should do, but I'm afraid he listened to his counsel and he stayed and the result was, in my opinion in...inevitable, based on what they were doing. One of the reasons I one of the reasons I was outraged by their description of what was going on was that very basic to the personnel security programs that we had developed was that this would not be an adversarial proceeding. The whole proceeding was to be an attempt to develop facts and to bring about an understanding of the circumstances involved with respect to any derogatory information that had been developed. That, plus the fact that Dr. Oppenheimer's background, the Chevalier incident, his association with communists, his support of civil... Spanish Civil War activities, all of that stuff was well known for years. Lewis Strauss knew it. As a matter of fact, when Lewis Strauss was appointed to the Commission I sat with him for a couple of hours one day just going over Robert Oppenheimer's file describing to him the contents of the file, and all the reasons why despite the derogatory information, General Groves had decided to bring him to Los Alamos. The whole situation was really tragic. It devastated Oppenheimer. It destroyed his family, you know, his daughter committed suicide.

THAT WAS FINE. I WONDER WHY THEN, AFTER HOW MANY YEARS THEY'D KNOWN THIS ABOUT OPPENHEIMER'S PAST, THEY SHOULD SUDDENLY DRAG IT OUT NOW?

Well, I think they were fed up with Robert Oppenheimer. I said earlier, I don't know with you or whether it was your...ah, your colleague that Robert Oppenheimer did have a trait that was very disturbing. He was... he was a brilliant man, and he had a very sharp tongue. And frequently he didn't just disagree with someone he destroyed them. You know, he would take them on in a way that would just make them want to kill him. And I'm afraid this is what happened. When...when Oppenheimer testified on the foreign distribution of isotopes, Louis Strauss was sitting in the room, and I was watching him out of the corner of my eye, and I could see his jaws working, and I said to myself, "If that man ever has the opportunity he's...."