Rare government image of J. Robert Oppenheimer (in light colored hat with foot on tower rubble), General Leslie Groves (large man in military dress to Oppenheimer's left), and others at the ground zero site of the Trinity test after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (some time after the actual test). It should be noted that most photographs of this event available are taken by wire press sources and are not public domain; this one however is in the public domain as a government photograph (United States Army Signal Corps/1945)
On December 16, 2022, Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm vacated an order issued by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1954 that removed Julius Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Because Oppenheimer’s work in high-energy physics including nuclear fusion required a security clearance, the AEC’s action effectively ended the career of one of our nation’s most brilliant physicists and a national leader in our development of nuclear energy.
Granholm said:
In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer’s security clearance through a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.
Granholm’s action corrects a historic wrong and shows how previous generations’ cancel culture has overreached and is harming academia today.
Many Americans encountered either communist and socialist movements during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, either directly or through friends or relatives. It was about as common as people joining a “Black Lives Matter” protest during the summer of 2020.
During World War II, President Roosevelt authorized a top secret Manhattan Project to become the first nation to build the atom bomb. The government recruited the brightest and best Americans for this important task. At least 38 Cornellians worked on the Manhattan Project, primarily in Los Alamos, NM, with Oppenheimer heading the Los Alamos lab. Oppenheimer wisely selected Cornell Professor Hans Bethe (for whom Bethe House is named) to head its Theory Division, and Bethe had the nation’s top physics graduate students working under him.
The project culminated in the successful detonation of “Trinity,” a test atomic bomb, followed by the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. This brought the war to a quick conclusion and avoided millions of potential deaths. With the existence of the bomb now public knowledge, the scientists at Los Alamos publicly debated the moral implications of what they had done and whether atomic energy should remain in the control of the United States as opposed to the United Nations. In fact, at least one Russian spy had infiltrated the Los Alamos lab, and the Cold War arms race began, including a race to develop the more powerful hydrogen bomb.
Oppenheimer continued to work for the government on nuclear energy and weapons while Bethe returned to Cornell and brought many of the Los Alamos physicists with him, turning Cornell into the top college for physics during the post-WW II era.
Oppenheimer questioned the political wisdom of building the more-powerful hydrogen bomb as chair of the AEC’s General Advisory Committee. His team struggled to build a hydrogen bomb until they had a sudden breakthrough in 1951. Some people accused Oppenheimer of slowing down development for political reasons and labeled him a traitor who should be canceled. In 1954, the AEC held a secret hearing on whether his security clearance should be removed, and Bethe was asked to testify. Bethe said:
I am certainly happy to do this. I have absolute faith in Dr. Oppenheimer’s loyalty. I have always found that he had the best interests of the United States at heart. I have always found that if he differed from other people in his judgment, that it was because of a deeper thinking about the possible consequences of our action than the other people had. I believe that it is an expression of loyalty – of particular loyalty – if a person tries to go beyond the obvious and tries to make available his deeper insight, even in making unpopular suggestions, even in making suggestions which are not the obvious ones to make, are not those which a normal intellect might be led to make.
I have absolutely no question that he has served this country very long and very well. I think everybody agrees that his service in Los Alamos was one of the greatest services that were given to this country. I believe he has served equally well in the [General Advisory Committee] in reestablishing the strength of our atomic weapons program in 1947. I have faith in him quite generally.
Unfortunately, other witnesses testified against Oppenheimer, some perhaps out of personal jealousy, according to a book edited by Cornell professor Richard Polenberg. The AEC removed Oppenheimer’s security clearance, and he lost his role as Chair of the AEC’s General Advisory Committee and as the nation’s lead scientist on nuclear matters.
Meanwhile, anti-communist McCarthyism swept the nation, and Cornell was no exception. Cornell faculty debated enforcing loyalty oaths (that were already required by NY State law). In 1953, one Los Alamos physicist who followed Bethe back to Cornell — Phillip Morrison – was subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee about his past student Communist Party membership. Trustees and alumni mounted pressure on Theodore Paul Wright, the Acting President of Cornell, to fire Morrison, but Bethe remained supportive, and Robert R. Wilson (who pioneered the Cornell Synchrotron and Fermilab) declared that Morrison had “demonstrated his patriotism by the distinguished role he played in the wartime development of the atomic bomb.” The incoming Cornell President Deane Malott allowed Morrison to keep his faculty post, but had him shift from nuclear physics to study other topics. Others, such as Visiting Professor Harry C. Steinmetz, were outright canceled. Both the Oppenheimer and Morrison cases demonstrate how cancel culture, mob rule, and moral panic can spread within academia even in the face of stiff and principled opposition.
Granholm’s belated action to correct a historic wrong should be a valuable lesson for Cornell as it finds itself within the grip of a new moral panic: the crusade to enforce loyalty to anti-racism and DEI. Cornell should follow the example of Bethe and other brave faculty of the 1950s to fight such attacks on academic freedom. If we continue to recklessly cancel people for ideological nonconformity, who knows? Perhaps it will take another 70 years before our successors can reverse our costly mistakes.
This article was written by a member of the Cornell community who requested to stay anonymous.
