THE OPPENHEIMER CASE
635
not an absolute matter; anyone who is human is a risk.
It
is a relative
matter; it is relative to what we have a right to expect of a man
and what we expect of other men in whom we do place our trust.
It seems to me that the very strict standards by which Dr. Oppen–
heimer is now judged are standards by which virtually anyone might
fail. Is Mr. Griggs, who reports minutes of meetings where minutes
apparently do not exist or who, apparently alone of some 50 to
100 people, remembers that Dr. Zacharias wrote ZORC on a black–
board, a more reliable character than Dr. Oppenheimer who reports
a fact differently in 1950 than he did in 1943 or who multiplies one
person into three? Is Mr. Borden, who has accused a man of being
a spy without evidence to support it, a better character than Dr.
Oppenheimer who changed
his
evidence against a man when he was
told it was mistaken? Or to take an example from the side of the
defense: Is Dr. Conant, who does not remember a letter from Dr.
Oppenheimer before the famous October 1949 meeting, any the
less suspect for this lapse than Dr. Oppenheimer who does not re–
member a letter from Dr. Seaborg before the same meeting?
It is my guess that everyone around Dr. Oppenheimer has been
much educated by Dr. Oppenheimer's experience. But so has Dr.
Oppenheimer himself been educated, and not only by the experience
of his own investigation but by his total political experience of recent
years. There was a time, before Dr. Oppenheimer had come to
understand the true nature of the Soviet Union, when surely it was
the gravest of risks to trust
him
with secrets which the Soviet Union
wanted so badly. But he never told those secrets then, and to have
granted him clearance at that time only to take it away from him
now, when at last he has learned the error of his way, seems to me
at best to be tragic ineptitude. In effect, it constitutes a projection
upon Dr. Oppenheimer of the punishment we perhaps owe to our–
selves for haying once been so careless with our nation's security.
I am afraid that in concentrating on what seem to me to be the
main lines of investigation of Dr. Oppenheimer's situation, I have
done but poor justice to the case in all its complexity of content and
implication. I urge the readers of this article to read the transcript
of the hearings
for
themselves-but carefully and fully, and not
merely to find documentation for a preconceived judgment of Dr.
Oppenheimer's deeds and motives.
