American Prometheus (90 page)

Oppenheimer: “Oh, but she wasn’t.”

Robb: “How did you know?”

Oppenheimer: “I knew her.”

Having suffered the indignity of testifying to an affair with Tatlock three years into his marriage to Kitty, Oppenheimer was then asked by Robb to name the names of his lover’s friends, and to state which of them were Communists and which were merely fellow travelers. It was a pointless question with respect to the purpose of the hearing, but it was not a question without a point. This was 1954, the apogee of the McCarthy years, and forcing former communists, fellow travelers and left-wing activists called before congressional committees to name names was precisely the McCarthyites’ political game. It was a humiliating experience in a culture that despised a “snitch,” a Judas, and that was the point: to destroy a witness’ sense of personal integrity.

Oppenheimer gave Robb the names: Dr. Thomas Addis he thought was close to the Party, but he didn’t know if he had ever been a member; Chevalier was a fellow traveler; Kenneth May, John Pitman, Aubrey Grossman and Edith Arnstein were communists. Well aware of the degrading nature of the exercise he was being subjected to, Oppenheimer sarcastically asked Robb, “Is the list long enough?” As was often the case, the names were known. Robb’s relentless hammering was taking its toll. He was beginning to respond unthinkingly, “the way a soldier does in combat, I suppose,” he later recalled to a reporter. “So much is happening or may be about to happen that there is no time to be aware of anything except the next move. Like something in a fight—and this was a fight. I had very little sense of self.”

Years later, Garrison would recall Oppenheimer’s mood during these torturous days: “From the beginning, he had a quality of desperation about him. . . . I think we all felt oppressed by the atmosphere of the time but Oppenheimer particularly so. . . .”

ROBB GAVE STRAUSS daily reports on what was happening inside the privileged hearing room, and the AEC chairman was pleased with the way things were going. He wrote President Eisenhower: “On Wednesday, Oppenheimer broke and admitted, under oath, that he had lied. . . .” Gleefully anticipating victory, he informed Ike that “an extremely bad impression toward Oppenheimer has already developed in the minds of the Board.” Ike cabled him in reply from his Augusta, Georgia, retreat, thanking him for his “interim report.” He also informed Strauss that he had burned his interim report, apparently not wanting to leave any evidence that he or Strauss was inappropriately monitoring the security hearing.

ON THE MORNING of Thursday, April 15—four days into the hearing— Gen. Leslie Groves was sworn as a witness. Questioned by Garrison, Groves praised Oppenheimer’s wartime performance at Los Alamos, and when asked whether he was capable of consciously committing a disloyal act, he said emphatically, “I would be amazed if he did. . . .” When asked specifically about the Chevalier incident, Groves testified: “I have seen so many versions of it, I don’t think I was confused before, but I am certainly starting to become confused today. . . . My conclusion was that there was an approach made, that Dr. Oppenheimer knew of this approach. . . .”

Groves went on to explain that when he first learned of the story, he thought Robert’s reticence could be explained by “the typical American schoolboy attitude that there is something wicked about telling on a friend. I was never certain as to just what he was telling me. I did know this: that he was doing what he thought was essential, which was to disclose to me the dangers of this particular attempt to enter the project, namely, it was concerned with the situation out there near Berkeley—I think it was the Shell Laboratory at which Eltenton was supposedly one of the key members— and that was a source of danger to the project and that was the worry. I always had the impression that Dr. Oppenheimer wanted to protect his friends of long standing,
possibly
his brother. It was always my impression that he wanted to protect his brother, and that his brother
might
be involved in having been in this chain. . . .”

Groves’ testimony “possibly” expanded the cast of characters associated with the Chevalier affair. Frank “might be involved,” Groves speculated, surely without malice and probably without a full realization of the potential consequences of his hypothesis. For if Frank
had
been involved, then not only had Robert lied to Pash in 1943, but he had lied to the FBI in 1946 and was lying now to the hearing board in 1954. Regardless of the extenuating circumstances—Robert’s desire to protect his younger brother, whom he knew to be innocent of any wrongdoing—Groves’ conjecture further undermined Robert’s veracity and, in the end, despite the lack of any evidence pointing to Frank’s participation, it deepened the mystery surrounding—and therefore the hearing board’s interest in—the Chevalier affair.

Any effort to explain the source and tentative nature of Groves’ testimony connecting Frank to Chevalier leads back to what was recorded in Oppenheimer’s FBI dossier during the war. From there our attention will fast-forward ten years to a series of FBI interviews conducted in December 1953 in preparation for Oppenheimer’s appearance before the AEC’s Personnel Security Board. The interviewees were John Lansdale and William Consodine, wartime assistants to General Groves, Groves himself, and Corbin Allardice, who had succeeded William Borden as staff director of Congress’ Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE).

These interviews played a critical role in shaping Groves’ testimony, for both Consodine and Lansdale reported to him what they had told the Bureau’s agents. Their recollections were disconcerting for Groves, who in several important ways had a different memory of what Oppie had told him. Furthermore, their communications with the FBI put him in a compromising position which forced him to acknowledge to the hearing board that in 1954 he could not support renewing Robert’s security clearance.

As noted earlier, the first documented reference to Frank’s association with Chevalier to appear in the FBI’s files was in a memo of March 5, 1944, by agent William Harvey. Harvey had no independent information about the Chevalier affair but in composing a summary of it he identified Frank as the “one person” approached by Chevalier. However, Harvey failed to cite any evidence for this conclusion, an oversight that would baffle senior agents a decade later, when they reported to Hoover: “File review failed to reflect any info that Frank Oppenheimer was approached for data concerning MED [Manhattan Engineer District] project or that such info was ever reported by J. Robert Oppenheimer to MED or Bureau.”

But on December 3, 1953—several weeks after Borden’s letter had been mailed—Frank’s name was again brought to the attention of the FBI by another purveyor of hearsay. Corbin Allardice, who was an AEC employee prior to replacing Borden at the JCAE, was apparently encouraged by someone unfriendly to Oppenheimer to rekindle the suspicion that Frank was Chevalier’s contact. Allardice reported having been “informed by a source whom he believed to be extremely reliable that J. Robert Oppenheimer had stated that his contact in the Eltenton–Haakon Chevalier espionage apparatus had been his own brother, Frank Oppenheimer.” Allardice further stated—which suggests that his informant had some familiarity with Oppenheimer’s FBI dossier—that he didn’t think this information was in the FBI’s record on the case. He suggested that if the FBI wished to check out his tip, they should interview John Lansdale, who was then practicing law in Cleveland.

Lansdale was interviewed on December 16. But the day before, another of Groves’ wartime assistants, William Consodine (Allardice’s friend and therefore most likely his “reliable” informant), spoke to an FBI agent.

The FBI summary, written on December 18, has Consodine telling the following story:

The day after General Groves returned from Los Alamos, “where he had induced [Oppenheimer] to identify [Eltenton’s] intermediary,” he held a conference in his office with Lansdale and Consodine. After announcing to them “that the intermediary had been identified by Oppenheimer, General Groves pushed a yellow pad toward both Consodine and Lansdale and asked them to write down three guesses as to the identity of the intermediary. Lansdale wrote down three names which Consodine cannot now recall. Consodine stated he wrote down one name only, that of Frank Oppenheimer. General Groves expressed surprise at this guess and said it was correct. General Groves asked Consodine how he selected the name Frank Oppenheimer. Consodine said he explained to the general that he thought it was Frank Oppenheimer because J. Robert Oppenheimer would probably be more likely to be reluctant to involve his brother.

“According to Consodine, General Groves then informed [them] that he had obtained the admission after J. Robert Oppenheimer exacted a promise that the general would not identify Frank Oppenheimer as the intermediary to the FBI. In concluding Consodine stated . . . that he had not been in communication with Lansdale concerning this matter but that he had discussed the matter on the telephone with General Groves during the past few days.”

On December 16 Lansdale told a modified version of Consodine’s story to his FBI interviewer. He clearly had no recollection of Consodine’s “yellow pad” story (and neither did Groves). What Lansdale did recall was an impression he received from the general that after Groves asked Oppenheimer to fully disclose Eltenton’s contacts, “Oppenheimer told Groves that an approach had been made to Frank Oppenheimer by Haakon Chevalier.” In conclusion, however, “Lansdale stated that
General Groves was of the
opinion that an approach had been made directly to J. Robert Oppenheimer
but Lansdale felt that the approach was made to Frank Oppenheimer. Lansdale advised that to his knowledge, only he and General Groves knew about the incident.” When Lansdale was asked point-blank by Garrison whether it was possible that Groves, “told you that he
thought
it was Frank—rather than it
was
Frank,” Lansdale conceded, “Yes, it is possible.”

On December 21, 1953—the day on which Oppenheimer was informed that his security clearance was suspended—another FBI agent interviewed Groves in his Darien, Connecticut home.

Until then, Groves had refused to talk with the FBI about Oppenheimer and the Chevalier affair. He had not even bothered to reply to the FBI’s initial queries on this topic in 1944. And then, in June 1946, as the Bureau was about to interview both Chevalier and Eltenton, FBI agents asked Groves what he knew about the affair. Groves brushed them off, saying he really couldn’t talk about it because Oppenheimer had talked to him in “strict confidence.” Groves said that “he could not break faith with ‘Oppie’ and tell us the name of the man that the Shell Development representative approached.” The FBI agents replied that they knew the Shell man was Eltenton and that they were about to interview him. In an extraordinary demonstration of his continuing loyalty to Oppenheimer, Groves said he “did not want us to confront Eltenton with this matter as it might get back to Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer would know Groves had broken confidence with him.” Groves bluntly told the FBI agents that he was “hesitant to furnish any further information.”

Hoover must have been astonished to learn that an American army general was refusing to cooperate with an FBI investigation. On June 13, 1946, Hoover personally wrote Groves, asking him to reveal what Oppenheimer had told him about George Eltenton. Groves replied on June 21, politely declining to furnish this information, “as it would endanger” his relationship with Oppenheimer. Not many men in Washington defied a direct request from the director of the FBI, but in 1946 Groves had a lot of prestige and self-confidence.

But now, in 1953, forewarned by Consodine and Lansdale of their having informed the FBI that Frank was the contact in the Eltenton-Chevalier incident, Groves felt compelled to incorporate their recollections into his own account. The problem was that he himself couldn’t remember what exactly Oppenheimer had told him in 1943–44. But, prompted by his former assistants, Groves now told his interviewer that late in 1943 he had finally ordered Oppenheimer to “make a full disclosure” about who had approached him for information about the project. To encourage Robert to be forthcoming, Groves had assured him that he would not make a formal report on the incident, or “to put it very bluntly, it would not get to the FBI.” With that promise, Groves reported that Robert told him that “Chevalier had made the approach to Frank Oppenheimer,” and that Frank had asked Robert what he should do. According to Groves, Robert had told his brother “to have nothing to do” with Eltenton, and he had also spoken directly to Chevalier and given him his “comeuppance.” Groves further explained that “it was Eltenton who wanted the information and that the intermediaries [Chevalier and Frank] were innocent of the intent to commit espionage.”
²¹

Groves said further that he thought “it was natural and proper for Frank Oppenheimer to do what he did despite the fact that he should have notified the local security officers.” The Oppenheimer brothers were very close, and it only made sense that the younger brother—“much perturbed about the visit” from Chevalier—would immediately contact the older brother and tell him about the incident. “He [Groves] said it was a technical violation of security to have handled it the way he [Frank] did, but that he had in fact done all that could be reasonably expected. . . . The General said it was obvious that the subject [Oppenheimer] wanted to protect his brother, Chevalier and the subject [Robert himself].”

But then Groves went on to “speculate” whether Robert had “invented Frank as a party in order to justify his delay in reporting the original approach or whether Frank had, in fact, been involved.” In other words, while Groves clearly had said something in 1943 about Frank which led Lansdale and Consodine to believe that Chevalier had contacted Frank, Groves himself had serious doubts on this point. Groves’ confusion about Frank’s role never abated. As late as 1968, he confessed to a historian, “Of course, I wasn’t sure just who the man was he [Oppenheimer] was protecting. Today I would
guess
it was probably his brother. He didn’t want his brother involved.”