THE OPPENHEIMER CASE
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seems to me to be clearly a misapprehension, or a seriously incom–
plete comprehension, of his own motives. Obviously he would have
wanted to protect his friend and himself, but this does not necessarily
mean that self-interest or friendship was his only or even major
concern.
It
is my opinion that it was not loyalty to a friend which
Dr. Oppenheimer put above loyalty to his country but loyalty to
that amorphous but compelling entity called "the movement." It was,
if you will, loyalty to his own still-recent past.
In 1943, America had been .at war for two years, and Dr.
Oppenheimer was completely identified with the patriotic effort. He
no longer thought of himself as committed to the radical movement,
he was committed to America. But still he must have retained, as
every radical does in the long period of weaning himself away from
his former ties, a certain loyalty to what he might have described
as the radical spirit. Not unless his break with Communism is sudden
and violent, and sometimes not even then, does the former Com–
munist or fellow-traveler immediately free himself of all the emotions
which once attached to the radical cause. In fact, there is nothing
he fears more than that in his separation from his former commit–
ments he will go to the other political extreme and become a reac–
tionary. Almost inevitably, for a long time he retains an unfounded,
unspecified loyalty to some generalized radical idea, if only to prove
to himself that he has not betrayed that good part of his own past
which first brought him to Communism.
This is very different, however, from a sympathy with one's own
radical past which would embrace tolerance of overt anti-American
action on the part of a Communist, such as was represented for Dr.
Oppenheimer by George Eltenton. Dr. Oppenheimer did report EI–
tenton to the government because he suspected Eltenton of being a
spy. He had no reason-he tells us-from his knowledge of Chevalier
to suspect that Chevalier was a spy. It is my reconstruction of Dr.
Oppenheimer as he was in 1943 that he would have considered him–
self not merely a disloyal friend-that would not have been so im–
portant to him-but a disloyal human being-disloyal, that is, to the
idealistic aspect of his former radicalism and to himself-had he
named Chevalier without being forced to. It is also my belief that
he felt he had totally discharged the duties of patriotism and con–
science while at the same time retaining his self-respect when, on
