634
PARTISAN REVIEW
denied clearance. True, when Dr. Bacher hired the Communist or
once-Communist Morrison for Los Alamos or when Dr. Lauritsen
calmly states that he would gladly visit at the present time with the
Communist or once-Communist Serbers, there is no previous Com–
munist affiliation on the part of Dr. Bacher or Dr. Lauritsen as
there is on Dr. Oppenheimer's part to suggest that their carelessness
might stem from a possible Communist preference. We must bear
it in mind, however, that with the exception of Mr. Murray, none
of Dr. Oppenheimer's judges considers Dr. Oppenheimer disloyal.
We have several times been assured that Dr. Oppenheimer's lack
of candor, his carelessness and susceptibility to influence and his con–
tinuing association with Communists
1
are not to be construed as
evidence or even suspicion that Dr. Oppenheimer is now a man of
divided political allegiance. But if the Commission sincerely believes
that Dr. Oppenheimer's mistakes and indiscretions and discrepancies
of testimony are unconnected with his Communist past, and if it truly
believes that his conduct in the matter of the H-bomb is irrelevant
to the
dispositi~n
of his case, why has it not undertaken to reinvesti–
gate all the people who have security clearance in order to determine
whether they deserve to be considered better risks than Dr. Oppen–
heimer? Can their characters and conduct any more than Dr.
Oppenheimer's sustain the kind of probing to which his has been
submitted?
When we rid Dr. Oppenheimer's case of the personal-profes–
sional interests in which it is so thoroughly entangled and when we
have eliminated from its consideration Dr. Oppenheimer's differences
with present dominant military-scientific opinion, there remains of
course only a single matter for decision: On the basis of the evidence
which we have before us, is or is not Dr. Oppenheimer the kind
of man whom we can now trust with our secrets? Clearly, this is
1 The word is used in the plural but only a single instance is cited by
the Commission-namely, Dr. Oppenheimer's continuing association with Che–
valier. Specifically, this refers to the fact that Dr. Oppenheimer twice met
with Chevalier in Paris in late 1953. One of these meetings, however, was for
the purpose of going with Chevalier to visit Malra ux, and anyone who knows
Malraux's political history must have the gravest doubt that Malraux would
receive Chevalier if he thought Chevalier was still a Communist. In other
words, Dr. Oppenheimer would seem to have had Malraux's seasoned political
judgment to support his own opinion that in continuing his association with
Chevalier he was not continuing an association with a Communist.
