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Air Force Major General Roscoe Charles Wilson, who held research and new weapons assignments during and after World War II, testified that Oppenheimer opposed detection devices to such an extent that "the overall effect was to deny the Air Force the mechanism which we felt was essential to determine when this bomb went off." As a result of this and other actions by Oppenheimer, General Wilson testified: "I felt compelled to go to the Director of Intelligence to express my concern over what I felt was a pattern of action that was simply not helpful to national defense." A Unique Scope. The testimony ranged all the way to those who bluntly questioned his loyalty. David Tressel Griggs, professor of geophysics at the University of California at Los Angeles, new weapons consultant for the Air Force during World War II, told the board: "I want to say, and I can't emphasize too strongly, that Dr. Oppenheimer is the only one of my scientific acquaintances about whom I have ever felt there was a serious question as to their loyalty."
The most direct attack on Oppenheimer's loyalty before the board came from William Liscum Borden of Pittsburgh, assistant to the manager of the Westinghouse atomic-power division, who was executive director of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy from 1949 to 1953. He testified that he had written FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover a letter last November, expressing opinions that he still holds. Said his letter:
"As you know, [J. Robert Oppenheimer] has for some years enjoyed access to various critical activities of the National Security Council, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Research and Development Board, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Resources Board, and the National Science Foundation. His access covers most new weapons being developed by the armed forces, war plans at least in comprehensive outline, complete details as to atomic and hydrogen weapons and stockpile data, the evidence on which some of the principal CIA intelligence estimates is based, United States participation in the United Nations and NATO, and many other areas of high-security sensitivity.
"Because the scope of his access may well be unique, because he has had custody of an immense collection of classified papers covering military intelligence and diplomatic as well as atomic-energy matters, and because he also possesses a scientific background enabling him to grasp the significance of classified data of a technical nature, it seems reasonable to estimate that he is, and for some years has been, in a position to compromise more vital and detailed information affecting the national defense and security than any other individual in the United States ... As chairman or as an official and unofficial member of more than 35 important Government committees, panels, study groups and projects, he has oriented or dominated key policies involving every principal United States security department and agency except the FBI.
"The purpose of this letter is to state my own exhaustively considered opinion, based upon years of study of the available classified evidence, that more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union."