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which include the wish to punish Dr. Oppenheimer for his past mis–
takes and the wish to discredit liberalism.
But I do not have to tum to the Alsops to find my readiest example
of an evasion of truth for the sake of expediency; or for the sake of
liberalism, as Mr. Meyerhoff would call it. Mr. Meyerhoff provides a
striking instance in his own communication, in his summary of the
Chevalier-Eltenton incident. This pressing matter is simply not as Mr.
Meyerhoff reports it. I do not believe that either Dr. Oppenheimer or
liberalism is served by the inaccuracy in which Mr. Meyerhoff indulges
in his eagerness to give Dr. Oppenheimer a real liberal defense as op–
posed to my illicit brand. Dr. Oppenheimer did not merely suppress
Chevalier's identity and name Eltenton. And when he finally revealed
Chevalier's name, he did not confess to the lies he had told in protecting
his friend. What he did do was suppress both Chevalier's part in the
affair and his own. He named Eltenton but he told the security people
that Eltenton's intermediary had approached three people and that the
intermediary had spoken of microfilm and contact with the Soviet con–
sulate. And even after he was forced to disclose Chevalier's identity, he
never corrected the rest of his story, he never confessed to these lies,
until the Gray Board hearings. This is the truth of this incident, and
very inconvenient for those of us who come to Dr. Oppenheimer's de–
fense. But I do not share Mr. Meyerhoff's political morality which ap–
parently dictates that a defender of Dr. Oppenheimer, if she would
qualify as a liberal, must hide such inconvenient truths.
There is much I could wish to say on the general and very im–
portant subject of truth and liberalism. I could wish to point out the
large part which evasion of truth has played in the discrediting of lib–
eralism as a vital cultural and political force in the modem world–
and specifically the evasion of truth about Communism. I could wish
to argue the political inexpediency-as demonstrated in the history of
the last decades-of evading truth in the supposed interest of expediency.
But such ventures must wait another occasion. But I do want to say
just a word on Mr. Meyerhoffs charge that I betray the liberal respon–
sibility by paying such small attention to the political climate of our
own time.
It would no doubt have been pious of me and have won Mr.
Meyerhoffs pious approval
if,
instead of trying to reach a rational and
uncompromised understanding of Dr. Oppenheimer's complex situation, I
had treated the decision against Dr. Oppenheimer as a manifestation
of McCarthyism. But the annoying fact is that while I share Mr. Meyer–
hoffs opposition to McCarthyism and while I happen to think that it
