THE OPPENHEIMER
CASE
239
era's rare triumphs of the liberal spirit over organized injustice." And
in the name of this liberal spirit they can condemn the action against
Dr. Oppenheimer as a "shocking miscarriage of justice," which "dis–
honored and disgraced the high traditions of American freedom."
Now emotive language like this may be overly dramatic and not
fitting for the pages of
PRo
But this is as little to the point as the
question of whether the Alsop brothers are right or wrong. What I
wish
to show is how differently the critic in
PR
proceeds in her pre–
sentation of the case, and what are the consequences. Mrs. Trilling sets
out, first, to discuss Oppenheimer's opposition to the H-bomb and then
deals, in the longer, concluding part of her article, with the personal
charges. In other words, she accepts (while the Alsop brothers reverse)
the official order of separating the thought-crime from the personal
charges. She does say that they are "intimately connected"; and at one
point she admits that Oppenheimer "was reinvestigated because he rep–
resented a way of thinking and even of being which was antipathetic
to a dominant faction and because the political climate of our times
had prepared an appropriate ground for his defeat." But if Mrs. Trill–
ing thinks the political climate of our times is relevant to this case, or
why it is, she has
nothing
more to say about it in the entire article. She
has nothing more to say about what it means that this political climate
provided an
appropriate
ground for Oppenheimer's defeat. She does
not assign any signifigance to these contemporary problems looming
in the background. She does say that the final AEC report by Admiral
Strauss "evaded the very issue" of Oppenheimer's opposition to the
H-bomb; but she does not say what this evasion means. In other words,
she herself evades any issue which might possibly be of current interest.
As
far as her analysis is concerned, it is as if we were not dealing with
any contemporary problem at all.
Thus her only comments on the report by the Gray Board are that
"public reaction ... was intensely unfavorable" and that "liberal senti–
ment was outraged," because a man seemed to be condemned for his
opinions. Was he? Mrs. Trilling does not, or will not, say. Was liberal
sentiment
justifiably
outraged by what looked like punishment for a
thought-crime? Or does Mrs. Trilling's phrasing imply that she really
believes liberal sentiment, once again, indulged in liberal sentimentality?
The Alsop brothers print excerpts from this report. It affirmed Dr. Op–
penheimer's "loyalty," "high degree of discretion" and the public debt
owed to him for "loyal and magnificent service." The Board then de–
clared Dr. Oppenheimer a security risk; and the Alsop brothers ask the
naive question, what standards of security and justice were employed
