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Professional Status. Condon's name came up again over the Bernard Peters affair. In 1949 Dr. Oppenheimer frankly testified before the Un-American Activities Committee to the dangerous Red tendencies of Dr. Bernard Peters, a physicist (who now denies any connection with Communism). Condon, the board found, wrote Oppenheimer an angry, threatening letter, and, as previously disclosed, also tried to inspire a story that Oppenheimer was 1) losing his mind, and 2) about to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. Instead of showing anger at the Condon letter, Oppenheimer wrote to a newspaper in Rochester, where Peters was teaching, "in effect repudiating his testimony given in secret session." Said the Gray board: "His testimony . . . indicated that he failed to appreciate the great impropriety of making statements of one character in a secret session and of a different character for publication, and that he believed the important thing was to protect Dr. Peters' professional status . . .
"Dr. Condon's letter, which has appeared in the press, contained a severe attack on Dr. Oppenheimer. Nevertheless, he now testifies that he is prepared to support Dr. Condon in the loyalty investigation of the latter . . . Loyalty to one's friends is one of the noblest of qualities. Being loyal to one's friends above reasonable obligations to the country and to the security system, however, is not clearly consistent with the interests of security."
A Vital Doubt. The gravest, newest and most serious finding—regardless of the fact that it seemed deliberately written in vague terms—was that Oppenheimer's conduct on the H-bomb was "sufficiently disturbing to raise a doubt." Items:
¶ Up to as late as the autumn of 1949, Oppenheimer was willing to grant an all-out H-bomb effort "a better than even chance" of success within five years. However "he was aware that the efforts being put forth . . . were relatively meager . . . and if research were continued at the same pace, there would be little likelihood of success for many years."
¶ When, in 1949, † AECommissioner Lewis Strauss* proposed a vigorous attempt to build an H-bomb (after the Russians exploded their first A-bomb), "Dr. Oppenheimer strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb on moral grounds, on grounds that it was not politically desirable," as well as because the H-bomb program would be a drain on the orderly development of the fission bomb program. Said the report: "Until the late spring of 1951, he questioned the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb efforts then in progress."†
¶ In testimony to the board, Oppenheimer insisted that he had opposed only a "crash program" of H-bomb production in 1949. Said the board, after digging through documentary evidence: "The board does not believe that Dr. Oppenheimer was entirely candid . . . in attempting to establish this impression. The record reflects that Dr. Oppenheimer [then] expressed his opinion in writing: 'The superbomb should never be produced.' "