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Among the factors which led him to this conclusion. Borden wrote, were Oppenheimer's long record of close Communist associations which survived the Russian-Nazi pact of 1939, his financial contributions to Communist causes, his false statements to security officers, his stand on the H-bomb.
Counsel for Oppenheimer declined to cross-examine Borden, on the ground that what he had submitted was not evidence but his own conclusions. On that point Security Board Chairman Gordon Gray agreed, asserting that the board "has no evidence before it that Dr. Oppenheimer . . . has been functioning as an espionage agent."
The Puzzled Banker. The board majority's view was more nearly summed up in Counsel Robb's cross-examination of John J. McCloy, board chairman of the Chase National Bank, former (1941-45) Assistant Secretary of War, who was one of the character witnesses on behalf of Oppenheimer.
Robb: As far as you know, Mr. McCloy, do you have any employee of your bank who has been for any considerable period of time on terms of rather intimate and friendly association with thieves and safecrackers?
McCloy: No, I don't know of anyone . . .
Q: Suppose you had a branch bank manager, and a friend of his came to him one day and said: "I have some friends and contacts who are thinking about coming to your bank to rob it. I would like to talk to you about maybe leaving the vault open some night so they could do it," and your branch manager rejected the suggestion. Would you expect that branch manager to report the incident? A: Yes.
Q: If he didn't report it, would you be disturbed about it?
A: Yes.
Q: Let us go a bit further. Supposing the branch bank manager waited six or eight months to report it, would you be rather concerned about why he had not done it before?
A: Yes.
Q: Suppose, when he did report it, he said this friend of mine, a good friend of mine, I am sure he was innocent, and therefore I won't tell you who he is. Would you be concerned about that? Would you urge him to tell you?
A: I would certainly urge him to tell me for the security of the bank.
Q: Now, supposing your branch bank manager, in telling you the story of his conversations with his friend, said: "My friend told me that these people that he knows that want to rob the bank told me that they had a pretty good plan. They had some tear gas and guns, and they had a car arranged for the getaway and had everything all fixed up." Would you conclude from that it was a pretty well-defined plot?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, supposing some years later this branch manager told you: "Mr. McCloy, I told you that my friend and his friends had a scheme all set up, as I have told you, with tear gas and guns and getaway car, but that was a lot of bunk. It just wasn't true. I told you a false story about my friend." Would you be a bit puzzled as to why he would tell you such a false story about his friend?
A: Yes, I think I would be.
The majority of Gordon Gray's security committee wound up feeling about Oppenheimer the way McCloy felt about Roger Robb's hypothetical bank manager.