THE OPPENHEIMER
CASE
609
But this barely suggests the nature of the professional and per–
sonal biases involved in Dr. Oppenheimer's case as they reveal them–
selves in the testimony of only a single witness. For example, there
is the moment when Mr. Griggs is being cross-examined about the
membership of a certain State Department panel with whose recom–
mendations he differed. Citing the minutes of the panel as the source
of his information, first Mr. Griggs mentions "Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr.
DuBridge, Dr. Bush and others" as members. Asked to repeat the
names, he mentions "Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. DuBridge, Dr. Conant
and others." (These are ali, of course, defense witnesses.) Asked to
repeat the names yet again, this time Mr. Griggs omits Dr. Conant's
name and, questioned about the omission, acknowledges that his
memory is not clear. Finally he is confronted with the information
that Dr. DuBridge was not a member and that there are no minutes
of the panel. As I shall presently indicate, Dr. Oppenheimer's own
memory is no less fallible than Mr. Griggs's, though there will be an
observable difference between the kind of judgment passed on Dr.
Oppenheimer for his mistakes of recollection and the kind passed on
Mr. Griggs for his. It is the pattern of error in Mr. Griggs's faulty
memory that I call attention to here. Because the conclusions of the
panel were of a sort with which he did not agree, Mr. Griggs gives
the panel a composition of the sort with which he would not agree–
the sort like Dr. DuBridge and Dr. Conant who could be presumed
to have opinions like Dr. Oppenheimer's.
Or there is Mr. Griggs's testimony, under oath, that it was Dr.
Zacharias (who initiated the Lincoln Summer Study) who told him
what patently is a grave distortion of Dr. Oppenheimer's position, that
Dr. Oppenheimer advocated giving up the Strategic Air Arm for
the sake of world peace and, too, that it was Dr. Zacharias who wrote
on the blackboard of a public meeting the letters ZORC to indicate
that Zacharias, Oppenheimer, Rabi and Charles Lauritsen were in
such agreement that they could be thought of in this cabalistic form.
Not only does Dr. Zacharias, also under oath, deny the fact that he
ever wrote these letters on a blackboard but, of the fifty to a hundred
persons supposedly present at the meeting, not one is produced by
the prosecution to support Mr. Griggs's testimony.
Or there is Mr. Griggs's disconcerting evidence that in conver–
sations with Commissioner Murray, Murray confirmed his suspicion
