The Loss of Scientific Intellect: How McCarthyism Led to the Othering of Nuclear Weapons Physicists

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As McCarthyism enveloped the United States during the 1940s and 1950s, more people were scrutinized by the government for their possible ties to communism. Groups were created within the government, including the House Un-American Activities Committee, to help them discern, through inquiry and observation, who was and was not a Communist.[1] With spreading word of Soviet scientists’ work on nuclear weapons, scientists found themselves on the chopping block. According to David Kaiser, these scientists were “repeatedly subjected to illegal surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), paraded in front of the House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC), charged time and again in the media as well as in federal courts with being the ‘‘weakest links’’ in national security, and widely considered to be more inherently susceptible to Communist propaganda than any other group of scientists or academics.[2] Rising McCarthyism during the Cold War led to the condemnation of scientists working to create and produce nuclear weapons technology.

The first Red Scare, the fear of communism spreading and communists secretly being all around, centered around World War I. The trepidation of communism did not readily leave the minds of Americans when the war ended. When the Great Depression struck, doubt about the reliability of capitalism caused “many thousands of Americans” to consider communism as an option and “membership in the American Communist party soared.”[3] This was followed by the creation of a committee to examine, analyze, and probe disloyalty to United States and activities that undermined the American capitalist system – the HUAC.[4] The Red Scare had fully embedded itself in the minds of American citizens and the aversion to communism grew exceptionally influential in the United States government.

World War II reinforced the feelings of panic about the advancement of communism. Suspicions about communists infiltrating America were widespread. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin saw as an opportunity this part of the Cold War era.[5] In 1950, at a speaking engagement in Wheeling, West Virginia, McCarthy held up a list, declaring it contained the names of communists within the State Department.[6] He expressed, “The government is full of communists. We can hammer away at them.”[7] He pointed to many in delicate or sensitive positions within the United States and urged for them to be investigated as un-American and treacherous. His statements would gather the support of many. As H.W. Brands stated in American Dreams: The United States since 1945, McCarthy clearly tapped into anxieties current in the American psyche. Some of the anxieties were perfectly rational. Soviet communism was a threat. Spies did exist. Other emotions evoked by McCarthy were less directly connected to the communist question but no less effective in mobilizing political support.[8]

In addition to the reemergence of anticommunism during World War II, the American government saw fit to fund, examine, and eventually create atomic bombs. To do so, the government (mainly the military) needed to guarantee the employment of honest, trustworthy, and reliable scientists for the project. Among the security evaluations was a questionnaire including questions of political leanings and tendencies toward certain political ideas.[9] One by one, chemists, theoretical physicists, nuclear physicists, and other scientists were gathered for the mission. The directive was called the Manhattan Project, a top-secret operation to create a bomb with the ability to destroy all in its path.[10]

J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist, headed the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.[11] He and his group of scientists successfully tested the first atomic bomb.[12] It was this group’s discovery that aided in ending World War II. When bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, both in Japan, it was only a matter of time before the Japanese surrendered. However, in a memo to President Truman just two months before the bombs were to be dropped in 1945, Oppenheimer and three of his colleagues, Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi, stated that their opinion was that the weapons should be used to “promote a satisfactory adjustment of our international relations” while also emphasizing that they knew they were obliged to “use the weapons to help save American lives in the Japanese war.”[13] The scientists expressed to Truman that he should inform other countries, including Russia and Japan, of the advancement of the American atomic weapons project and notify them that the weapons could predictably be used in this very war, so as to urge the warring sides to “cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.”[14]

Moreover, a group of scientists came together in July 1945 to write a petition to Truman regarding their worries about the new atomic bomb and its capabilities. This petition was led by Leo Szilard, a physicist who “developed the idea of the nuclear chain reaction in 1933,” the idea that was the basis of the atomic bomb.[15] The petition failed at the Los Alamos post but gained some traction in both the Chicago and Oak Ridge posts.[16] The main objective for the petition was “for President Truman to read his petition and consider the moral questions raised by the use of the atomic bomb.”[17] As the petition was passed around, General Leslie Groves received it and did not send it until August 1945 and subsequently, “upon receiving the petition from Groves, [Henry] Stimson’s assistant simply filed it “Secret,” and it never reached Stimson or Truman.”[18]

Both Oppenheimer and Szilard would come under scrutiny for un-American acts. Groves generally disliked Szilard and attempted to penalize him.[19] Groves tried to find evidence that Szilard discussed classified data with members of the British government but failed to do so, and all other instances of Groves’ search for treasonous acts on Szilard’s part came up empty.[20] Oppenheimer and many of his colleagues, as well as several of Szilard’s cosigners would not be so lucky.

In 1954, Oppenheimer found his security clearance suspended at the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and his name called for a hearing with the HUAC to determine his “suitability as a consultant for the AEC.”[21] The charges against Oppenheimer and most other scientists can best be described as unnecessary and likely part of the communist witch hunt known as McCarthyism. Oppenheimer was known to have “enemies within the military and intelligence branches of the government from his earliest days in the wartime.”[22] His enemies included Lewis Strauss, chairman of the AEC.[23] Oppenheimer and Strauss had worked together on and off for many years and on many different assignments, including the Manhattan Project, and they had been known to repeatedly disagree with one another.[24] According to a fellow commissioner, “If you disagree with Lewis about anything, he assumes you’re just a fool at first. But if you go on disagreeing with him, he concludes you must be a traitor.”[25] Oppenheimer never regained his clearance security.

It also happens that Oppenheimer taught many of the scientists who would also come to be scrutinized under the HUAC, as well as being colleagues with many others who were indicted. Many of the scientists also shared parallel lives, including that “Most were Jewish; several had been active in labor organizing before or during the war; a few had flirted with the Communist Party in their youth; many were active in other leftwing political organizations after the war.”[26] Indeed, on the security questionnaire Oppenheimer responded to for the Manhattan Project, he stated that he “probably belonged to every Communist-front organization on the west coast.”[27] Yet, he was given security clearance and permitted to work on the massive undertaking. Additionally, many who worked on the Manhattan Project were foreign-born, a fact that “alarmed” conservative members of Congress.[28] Congress members emphasized America’s place in the atomic bomb’s success with one stating, “I am not giving the principal credit for the production of the bomb to the scientists,’’ who (he continued) would have been unable to do anything useful had it not been for ‘‘the trained fingers of the technician. . . . —in other words, American knowhow produced the atomic bomb.”[29]

Many other scientists were also called to hearings to analyze their alleged risks to American security and potentiality as traitors. David Bohm was identified in the HUAC’s Report on Soviet Espionage Activities in Connection with the Atomic Bomb as a “member of a Communist cell at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory” which also identified scientists Joseph Weinberg, Giovanni Lomanitz, and Irving David Fox.[30] It was believed that the scientists at Berkeley had been part of passing to Soviet go-betweens a formula related to the creation of the atomic bomb.[31] At first, Bohm was suspended with pay from his teaching job at Princeton University but dismissal turned to his dismissal sometime later.[32] In May 1951, he was acquitted of all charges.[33] Nevertheless, the damage to his reputation had already been done. There were “dismal prospects for finding another position in the midst of academic McCarthyism.”[34] Furthermore, “the political ostracism…placed Bohm in an isolated position from which he had little chance of rejoining the scientific mainstream or receiving feedback about his ideas.”[35]

Matters were not helped by scientist Klaus Fuchs’s confession to working as a Soviet spy while working at the Oak Ridge and Los Alamos posts of the Manhattan Project.[36] Other allegations and admissions followed Fuchs’s confession including the aforementioned Weinberg and others at the purportedly communist Berkeley Laboratory.[37] The political leanings of scientists continued to be a subject of “general fascination and comment.”[38] This led to the idea of “ideological espionage,” by which “ideological traitors, the educated, sophisticated thinkers… were inclined to act against the country on principle rather than for money or fame.”[39] Journalist Waldemar Kaempffert went so far as to say, “scientists’ mode of thought encouraged them to ‘‘turn a Marxian proposal this way and that, so view it in all its aspects, and sometimes accept it. The communistic argument appeals to younger scientists.”[40] The radiation scientists were all acquitted but Fuchs and many others were not.

As anticommunist apprehension continued the HUAC expanded their list of “weak links” and held hearings “into supposed Communist activities and atomic espionage during the wartime Manhattan Project.”[41] According to David Kaiser, “Thousands of scientists and engineers were affected by McCarthyism.”[42] Theoretical physicists were under enormous scrutiny under HUAC, as “The committee devoted no fewer than twenty-seven hearings to investigations of theorists and their ‘‘Communist infiltration’’ of weapons projects and educational institutions during this period.”[43] In fact, “More than a dozen theoretical physicists suffered publicly—and often over long durations—in the vise-grip of postwar anticommunism” including Edward Condon, Joseph Weinberg, Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, David Bohm, Max Friedman, I. David Fox, Byron Darling, Bruce Dayton, Philip Morrison, Bernard Peters, Wendell Furry, Albert Einstein, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.[44]

It goes without saying that “American scientists bore the brunt of “loyalty-security” investigations during the Cold War era.”[45] Increasing McCarthyism throughout the Cold War generated denunciation and vilification of the scientists employed by America to design and develop atomic weapons technology. The greatest minds of the time—Oppenheimer, Bohm, Weinberg, and even Einstein—had been cast from opportunities and teaching because of their associations with communism and disloyalty. Some, such as Einstein, were able to recover. Others, like Bohm, were never able to recover from the labels which had been affixed to them. The vast majority of scientists accused of un-American acts were acquitted of their charges because there was no evidence or not enough evidence to indicate that they played a role in trading atomic secrets with the Soviets. McCarthyism reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, alongside World War II and the development of atomic weapons. The fear of communism reemployed by Joseph McCarthy for his own selfish gains impacted the lives of the scientists and the progress that could be made in science, thereby also negatively impacting the American people.

[1] H.W. Brands, American Dreams: The United States since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 50.

[2] David Kaiser, “The Atomic Secret in Red Hands? American Suspicions of Theoretical Physicists During the Early Cold War,” Representations, 90(1) doi: 10.1525/rep.2005.90.1.28, 28.

[3] Brands, 50.

[4] "House Un-American Activities Committee," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, Accessed February 10, 2019, https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/huac.cfm, para. 1.

[5] Brands, 50.

[6] Brands, 50.

[7] Brands, 52.

[8] Brands, 53.

[9] Jeffrey J. Crow, ‘The Paradox and the Dilemma’: Gordon Gray and the J. Robert Oppenheimer Security Clearance Hearing,” The North Carolina Historical Review 85, no. 2 (2008): 163, http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23523398&site=eds-live&scope=site, 167.

[10] Brands, 8.

[11] Crow, 163.

[12] Crow, 163.

[13] Compton, Arthur H., Ernest Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Enrico Fermi, Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons, PDF file, June 16, 1945, https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3913487/Memorandum-by-J-R-Oppenheimer-Recommendations-on.pdf, 2.

[14] Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi, 2.

[15] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," Atomic Heritage Foundation, July 15, 2016, Accessed February 10, 2019, https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/leo-szilards-fight-stop-bomb,

para. 1.

[16] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," para. 9.

[17] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," para. 10.

[18] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," para. 11.

[19] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," para. 13.

[20] "Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb," para. 14.

[21] Crow, 163.

[22] Kaiser, 29-30.

[23] Crow, 167.

[24] Crow, 168-169.

[25] Crow, 168.

[26] Kaiser, 29.

[27] Crow, 167.

[28] Kaiser, 35.

[29] Kaiser, 35.

[30] Olwell, Russell, "Physical Isolation and Marginalization in Physics: David Bohm’s Cold War Exile," Isis 90, no. 4 (1999): 738-56. doi:10.1086/384509, 743.

[31] Olwell, 743.

[32] Olwell, 744.

[33] Olwell, 746.

[34] Olwell, 748.

[35] Olwell, 755.

[36] Kaiser, 39.

[37] Kaiser, 39.

[38] Kaiser, 44.

[39] Kaiser, 44.

[40] Kaiser, 44.

[41] Kaiser, 37.

[42] Kaiser, 29.

[43] Kaiser, 29.

[44] Kaiser, 29.

[45] Kaiser, 28.

Bibliography

Brands, H. W. American Dreams: The United States since 1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

Compton, Arthur H., Ernest Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Enrico Fermi. Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons. PDF file. June 16, 1945. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3913487/Memorandum-by-J-R-Oppenheimer-Recommendations-on.pdf.

Crow, Jeffrey J. ‘The Paradox and the Dilemma’: Gordon Gray and the J. Robert Oppenheimer Security Clearance Hearing.” The North Carolina Historical Review 85, no. 2 (2008): 163. http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23523398&site=eds-live&scope=site.

"House Un-American Activities Committee." The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project. Accessed February 10, 2019. https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/huac.cfm.

Kaiser, David. "The Atomic Secret in Red Hands? American Suspicions of Theoretical Physicists During the Early Cold War." Representations 90, no. 1 (2005): 28-60. doi:10.1525/rep.2005.90.1.28.

"Leo Szilard's Fight to Stop the Bomb." Atomic Heritage Foundation. July 15, 2016. Accessed February 10, 2019. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/leo-szilards-fight-stop-bomb.

Olwell, Russell. "Physical Isolation and Marginalization in Physics: David Bohm’s Cold War Exile." Isis 90, no. 4 (1999): 738-56. doi:10.1086/384509.

Szilard, Leo. A Petition to the President of the United States. PDF file. July 17, 1945. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php?action=pdf&documentid=79.