240
PARTISAN REVIEW
in
this
ruling. Mrs. Trilling does not ask any questions. To say that a
man deserves the thanks of the fatherland and to humiliate
him
in the
same breath-is that absurd or not? Mrs. Trilling does not, or will not,
say. Again, it is the Alsop brothers who cite the striking comment by
the physicist Leo Szilard (not a friend of Oppenheimer's): "Unfor–
tunately for all of us, [Gray and Morgan] are as good men as they come,
and if they are affected by the general insanity which is more and
more creeping up on us, who can be counted on to be immune?" Who
indeed?
This is the first criticism to be made of Mrs. Trilling's analysis:
that she evades or avoids any reference to anything that might possibly
have any meaning for the liberal culture of our times. The second
criticism, I think, is more serious: to wit, insofar as she discovers any
significance in the case, this refers exclusively to the personal charges,
which formed the basis of the verdict by Admiral Strauss, and in such
a way as to
implicate
the liberal tradition itself in these charges. In
other words, this meaning does not reflect, in any way, upon the prose–
cution and what it stands for in the social and political climate of to–
day, but only upon the record of liberal thought and action in the re–
cent past. Now I submit that, regardless of whether the Alsop brothers
are right or wrong, this is a remarkable reading of the case by a liberal
critic.
It is instructive to see how this peculiar meaning is imputed to the
case by Mrs. Trilling's treatment of the personal charges. The crucial
test is the incident involving Oppenheimer and Chevalier in 1943.
2
It will be recalled that, in this incident, Oppenheimer stands as a self–
admitted liar. He did turn down a suggestion made to him by Chevalier
to transmit scientific information to the Soviet Union saying "this
sounds very wrong to me." And he did, on his own initiative, notify the
security officer at Berkeley about Chevalier's contact-a Communist
union official named Eltenton. So far, so good. But he did not name
Chevalier himself, a close personal friend of the Oppenheimers. And
to conceal the identity of Chevalier, he told a series of lies. And that, of
course, looks bad. It must be added, however, that he was in this state
of sin for a short time only, because he made a full confession within
a few months.
Nevertheless, this incident needs to be explained, because it is the
2 There are four personal charges referring to the year 1943. But since
this is not another review of the case as a whole, I only mention the Chevalier
incident. The transcript, incidentally, makes perfectly clear that this was the
crucial test of Oppenheimer's character.
