Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

After hearing forty witnesses through 3,000 pages of typed testimony and perusing an equal quantity of file documents, the board voted 2 to 1 (the scientist member dissenting) to recommend continued suspension of Oppenheimer’s clearance. They concluded that Oppenheimer was loyal and that he was discreet. It would seem, on the face of it, that a person who filled these two qualifications must be secure, but two members of the board had doubts.

These hearings have endless interest to the historian of recent American history because they provide one of the few glimpses we have behind the scenes into the decision-making processes of our recent government. As far as Oppenheimer is concerned, they show that the animosity against him largely originated with the air force and its close or recent associates. The attack on Oppenheimer came chiefly from the former air-force pilot Borden, from a long-term air-force employee, David T. Griggs, and from Edward Teller and his close associates L. W. Alvarez and W. M. Latimer. There was obvious personal resentment against Oppenheimer by this group, and cross-examination showed that the majority of them had no personal knowledge of Oppenheimer’s work in the matter under discussion. This appeared most clearly when they tried to maintain that Oppenheimer opposed or obstructed the H-bomb effort after Truman’s directive to make it had been issued or that he tried to persuade other scientists not to work on the project. The evidence from persons in a position to have personal knowledge of this matter showed that this charge was not true, and the board rejected it. It is clear from the testimony that the real basis for these men’s resentment against Oppenheimer was air-force resentment of Project Vista and its sequels, especially at Oppenheimer’s efforts to provide the American defense forces with a full arsenal of diverse weapons, including tactical nuclear weapons, so that the country would not be forced to rely solely or mainly on strategic nuclear bombing to play its role in world politics.

This point was put very well by Professor Walter G. Whitman of MIT, who was a member of GAC from 1950—and had been chairman of the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense in 1951—1953. He said: “Dr. Oppenheimer was trying to point out the wide variety of military uses of the bomb, the small bomb as well as the large bomb. He was doing it in a climate where many folks felt that only strategic bombing was a field for the atomic weapon. ... I should say he, more than any other man, served to educate the military to the potentialities of the atomic weapon for other than strategic bombing purposes, its use possibly in tactical situations or in bombing 500 miles back. He was constantly emphasizing that the bomb would be more available and that one of the problems was going to be its deliverability, meaning that the smaller you could make your bomb in size perhaps you would not have to have a great big strategic bomber to carry it, you could carry it in a medium bomber or you could carry it even in a fighter plane. In my judgment, his advice and his arguments for a gamut of atomic weapons, extending even over to the use of the atomic weapon in air defense of the United States, has been more productive than any other one individual. You see, he had the opportunity to not only advise in the Atomic Energy

Commission, but advise in the military services of the Department of Defense. The idea of a range of weapons suitable for a multiplicity of military purposes was a key to the campaign which he felt should be pressed and with which I agreed.… The Strategic Air Command had thought of the atomic weapon as solely restricted to its own use. I think that there was some definite resentment at the implication that this was not just the Strategic Air Command’s weapon.”On the basis of the recommendation of the Hearing Board, the AEC voted 4 to 1 (with the scientist Henry D. Smyth dissenting) not to restore Oppenheimer’s clearance. On June 29, 1955, the great scientist’s career in government was ended. But his work had been a success. In the interval before the achievement of the thermonuclear bomb in 1955, atomic weapons had been made so plentiful and diverse that they were available for tactical weapons to defend Europe and in sizes small enough to serve as warheads on American missiles of limited boosting power.

The motivations of the Eisenhower Administration were emotional and complex, and represent a sharp reaction against the forces of rationalization and science which we have discussed. They seem to have been based on three narrowing circles of outlook. Broadest of all was a violent neurotic rebellion of harassed middle-class persons against a longtime challenge to middle-class values arising from depression, war, insecurity, science, foreigners, and minority groups of all kinds. This broad problem will be discussed elsewhere. A second, and narrower, circle of outlook was the basic Republican opposition to all kinds of collective action, including collective security, social welfare, and national security. The third was the obsession of business wealth in the country with the wickedness of unbalanced budgets and high taxes.

The Republican opposition to collective action was, of course, of long standing. It is not generally recognized that it appears frequently as an opposition to national security expenditures, especially to defense expenditures for men rather than for equipment, but often for both. Such opposition by Republicans was generally true in the whole period following 1945, and is clearly shown in their votes in Congress. These votes, however, can be understood only in terms of the whole situation.

This situation involves at least three levels: public opinion, Congress, and the Administration and, in each of these, the two parties. In studying these we have available the information of public-opinion polls, voting records, and formal statements. From these records it is clear that public opinion always supported large defense forces and did not object to higher taxes or government spending to sustain them. Moreover, this support was stronger from persons of lower educational and income levels, although generally found on all levels. In sharp contrast to this, public opinion gave much less support to foreign aid, and such support was less on lower educational or income levels and was reflected in far greater opposition to taxation or government spending for economic foreign aid than for defense forces. These statements are based on the file of public-opinion polls at the Public Opinion Research Center at Williams College, as studied by Professor Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University. This study shows that public-opinion support for stronger armed forces for the whole period 1945-1960 was usually of the order of two to one, and reflected changes in international tensions to a surprisingly limited degree.

In Congress, over the same fifteen years, there was quite a different situation. There we find, just as existed in the decade before Pearl Harbor, strong Democratic support for armed strength and a strong world role for the United States, and fairly consistent Republican opposition both to defense expenditures and to American involvement in world affairs. On the contrary, the congressional Republican Party members, in both periods, were more concerned with what they called “fiscal responsibility” (meaning balanced budgets, reduced government spending, and reduced taxes) than it was with defense or world affairs. Thus the Democratic Party in Congress was much closer in behavior to public opinion than the Republican congressional party was.

Professor Huntington has illuminated this difference by an analysis of congressional voting records over the period 1945-1960. He has examined votes on 79 controversial defense issues in Congress over the 15-year period and found that a majority of Democrats voted pro-defense on 74 of the 79 issues, while a majority of Republicans voted pro-defense on only 39 of the 79 issues. On all these issues, Democratic senators voted 78.8 percent pro-defense and Republican senators voted only 43 percent pro-defense, while Democratic representatives voted 78.4 percent pro-defense and Republican representatives voted 53.8 percent pro-defense. Moreover, the Republican votes in both Houses were less pro-defense in the Eisenhower period than in the Truman period, the Senate Republican pro-defense votes falling from 47.1 to 33 percent with the change in Administration, and the House Republican pro-defense votes falling from 54.8 to 50.4 percent. Moreover, analysis of these votes, on a sectional basis, shows that the Republican pro-defense votes were concentrated in the Northeast and on the Pacific Coast, while the Democratic pro-defense votes were spaced relatively evenly around the country.