Robert Oppenheimer, The Father of Atomic Weapons, and a Communist??

Robert Oppenheimer, an extremely patriotic communist? Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who headed the Los Alamos operations during the Manhattan Project. He is known to be the “father” of the nuclear bomb. (1) He was called to be the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, and would oversee all nuclear activities in the United States. Robert was all for international atomic arms control, being an activist against the ideas of vast nuclear arsenals and large thermonuclear weapons. He himself was an advocate for smaller fission type nuclear weapons, ones in which could be shot by artillery or dropped in droves by bombers. Oppenheimer saw that the development of mass destruction type nuclear weapons were not economically responsible as such a large blast radius would need a target just as large to warrant such development. He also saw the bomb as counterproductive to the American cause, as development and implementation would be more damaging to the U.S. because of its densely population cities. (2)

            But, his voice and views were very contrary to the popular opinion of the American people at the time. He frequently had issues and debates with the Air Force on how far they should push Nuclear weapon technology. He also had another serious issue on his hand, he was a left leaning, atheist, scientist who had in his younger years had run ins and was sympathetic with communism. (3) The man who helped create the nuclear bomb, the most powerful weapon ever created in the history of mankind, is a communist? To many Americans, the idea of a communist being in charge of the development of the most powerful weapons ever assembled was the worst-case doomsday scenario. Having the Soviet Union field their nuclear weapons and spies being ousted from the Manhattan project did not help his case whatsoever.

Was Oppenheimer constantly sabotaging America’s nuclear development while releasing secrets to the Russians? This was an extreme development for Oppenheimer’s political opponents, who saw his liberal, anti-hydrogen bomb stance to be the perfect storm to weed him out as a corrupted communist. One such opponent was Edward Teller, a supporter of high yield nuclear weapons and a scientist who studied and developed fusion based nuclear weapons. Edward Teller was an extreme advocate for the United States keeping nuclear supremacy over the Soviets, which was also a mindset held by the military and a growing number of Americans. Oppenheimer’s aggressive stance against high yield nuclear development also made enemies out of the AEC chairman Lewis Strauss. This, coupled with McCarthy’s doomsday anti-communist witch hunts created a terrible situation for Oppenheimer, who eventually was brought to a committee hearing on April 12, 1954.

Here he was charged on copious charges of being a communist. Here, the ideas of the ZORC conspiracy were finally taking place. In theory, the idea was that Oppenheimer was actually a soviet spy that worked with the communist underground to give nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. (4) The defense also was extremely restricted in how they could respond to the allegations, as anything he could have said could be classified information, which would lead to him being guilty of treason. The defense instead tried to bring into question these conspiracies, which relied on hearsay and cascading logic. Oppenheimer was seen by his friends and family that he was a patriotic man, who even though had prior run ins with communism never had any connections to the Soviet Union himself and never once admitted he was a communist. These hearings, although they did not lead to a legal conviction, resulted in Oppenheimer being revoked of his security clearance, leading to outrage in the scientific community, with some even considering him a martyr of McCarthyism. The conspiracy against him which ruined his political career had numerous flaws which overestimated the political reach of the Soviet Union. But, because of the terrible timing of this hearing and the thirst for communist blood that was the second red scare, evidence was brushed aside and conspiracy and hearsay was put in its place.  

1. https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/j-robert-oppenheimer

2. http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/hbomb/page_02.shtml

3. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/oppenheimer-security-hearing

4. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/was-oppenheimer-soviet-spy-roundtable-discussion