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member of the Communist Party until that fact became public
knowledge, there is proof that in 1943 he told Colonel Lansdale that
Weinberg was a Communist Party member.
On first glance, perhaps even on second and third glance, it
is not a pretty picture these charges paint. Even if we rule out of
our minds, as the Commission ruled out of its decision, the entire
matter of Dr. Oppenheimer's position on the H-bomb and confront
only these specific points on which the Commission decided against
clearance, the conclusion would seem warranted that Dr. Oppen–
heimer was condemned on rather substantial evidence against him.
The Chevalier-Eltenton incident seems particularly damaging; and,
indeed, it is this charge which has given the strongest support to
popular sentiment where it has agreed with the decision of the
Commission.
It is my own reaction to the Chevalier-Eltenton incident, how–
ever, that I find in it support not for the case against Dr. Oppen–
heimer but only for the case against the conduct of his defense.
The record of the hearings leaves little doubt in my mind that Dr.
Oppenheimer's sympathy with the Communist movement, in the
period of his admitted participation in Communist activities, was
rather greater than he now likes to think. But it leaves even less
doubt in my mind that his sympathy, in whatever attenuated form,
with both the Communist movement and the Soviet Union remained
with him far longer than he now realizes. It is my belief that if
Dr. Oppenheimer and his lawyers had fully comprehended these
historical facts, the outcome of his hearings, at least so far as the
findings of the Gray Board are concerned, might have been very
different.
Let us supply, for a moment, certain background material to
the Chevalier-Eltenton incident which is so disastrously missing from
the record. The transcript shows us that in discussion of this episode,
the Board frequently raised the question of whether a man is to be
trusted with secret information who puts friendship above the se–
curity of his country: the point refers to Dr. Oppenheimer's ex–
planation that, like an idiot, he withheld Chevalier's name from
security officers and even fabricated a whole tissue of lies about
Chevalier's approach to him because of his reluctance to implicate
his friend and also himself. But Dr. Oppenheimer's explanation here
