95. Ibid.; Childs (1968), 319–20.
96. Army records from 1943 indicate that an “investigation of the Subject (Robert Oppenheimer) was made by the administration of the University of California several years ago.” Army MID report on Robert Oppenheimer, Aug. 27, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC.
97. By May 1941, both Oppenheimer and Chevalier were on FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s “preventive detention” list of persons to be rounded up in the event of a national emergency. FBI field report, Mar. 28, 1941, box 1, JRO/AEC; Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Little, Brown, 1998), 106; and Barton Bernstein, “The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered,” Stanford Law Review, July 1990, 1391.
98. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1941, sec. 1, Haakon Chevalier file, no. 100–18564, FBI.
99. The government would later try, unsuccessfully, to deport Schneiderman. Schrecker (1998), 103; summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, 196, COMRAP file, FBI.
100. Folkoff: Summary memo, Dec. 15, 1944, 85–88, COMRAP file, FBI; author interview with Philip Bowser, San Mateo, Calif. May 21, 1997. Bowser, the FBI’s “wire man” in San Francisco, claimed that he found the wiretaps on Schneiderman and Communist Party headquarters already in place when he arrived at the office in early 1941.
101. In May 1940, President Roosevelt overrode the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing wiretapping, authorizing the FBI to use wiretaps and bugs in cases of “persons suspected of subversive activities against the Government of the United States.” Schrecker (1998), 106. The legal status of the wiretaps—and, specifically, whether they would be considered admissible evidence in a courtroom trial—remained unclear, however. Author interview with Robert King, Eugene, Oreg., Mar. 26, 1997; Branigan to Miller, “Major Intelligence Programs,” May 31, 1972, House Un-American Activities Committee file, no. 61–7582, FBI.
102. King and Bowser interviews (1997); “Re: Installation of Microphones and Technical Survelliance,” Nov. 24, 1942, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.
103. Author interview with Philip Scheidermayer, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1998.
104. King interview (1997).
105. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1941, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.
106. San Francisco field report, Feb. 10, 1943, box 1, JRO/AEC; ITMOJRO, 183.
107. Summary report, Jan. 31, 1947, CINRAD file, FBI.
108. San Francisco field report, Apr. 23, 1943, vol. 1, Nelson file, FBI.
109. Steve Nelson: “Report on Soviet Espionage in the United States,” Nov. 27, 1945, 30, entry 11, Central Intelligence Agency records, RG 233, National Archives (CIA/NARA); “Memorandum for the file: ‘COMRAP,’” Feb. 6, 1948, Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939–1957 (Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), 105–6; John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale University Press, 1999), 229; Nelson file, vol. 1, and summary report, Dec. 15, 1944, 58–61, COMRAP file, FBI.
110. Nelson and Oppenheimer: San Francisco field report, Sept. 19, 1946, vol. 3, Nelson file, FBI; Stern (1969), 30–31; Steve Nelson, James Barrett, and Rob Ruck, Steve Nelson: American Radical (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 240, 268. Nelson and Kitty: ITMOJRO, 574–75.
111. Nelson et al. (1969), 251–65.
112. Smith and Weiner (1980), 220.
113. ITMOJRO, 9.
114. Pieper to Hoover, Jan. 26, 1942, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.
115. San Francisco field report, May 19, 1942, sec. 1, Chevalier file, FBI.
116. The OSRD questionnaire, dated Apr. 28, 1942, is in box 1, JRO/AEC.
117. Lawrence: “To Whom It May Concern,” Jan. 15, 1943, series 8, box 110, MED/NARA.
118. Lansdale diary, Feb.–Mar. 1942, and “John Lansdale, Jr.—Military Service” (unpublished manuscript), 14–22.
119. Lansdale, “Military Service,” appendix; author interview with John Lansdale, Galesville, Md., Sept. 6, 1996.
120. Lansdale, “Military Service,” 16; Barrett (1951), 11.
121. Segrè (1993), 173.
122. Ernest and John Lawrence, engaged in negotiations with a potential funder for expansion of the Donner Laboratory, were unavailable when Lansdale dressed down the boys.
123. Lawrence to Bush, Apr. 20, 1942, box 46, Lawrence folder, Bush papers, Library of Congress.
124. Seaborg (1992), vol. 3, 51.
125. Lawrence to Conant, May 23, 1942, folder 20, carton 27, EOL.
126. Rhodes (1986), 407.
127. Hewlett and Anderson (1990), 70–71.
128. “Diary Notes of Donald Cooksey,” folder 23, carton 4, EOL.
129. E. O. Lawrence to Bush, June 15, 1942, box 46, Lawrence folder, Bush papers, Library of Congress.
130. Seaborg (1992), vol. 1, 77; Jones (1985), 53, 70.
131. Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build An Atomic Bomb (University of California Press, 1992), xxix.
132. Segrè believed that Oppie’s students deliberately walked flat-footed—“an infirmity of their master’s”—just as he and others among Fermi’s students had unconsciously mimicked Fermi’s intonation. Segrè (1993), 138.
133. Author interview with Rossi Lomanitz, Sackett’s Harbor, N.Y., July 15–16, 1996; army MID report on Rossi Lomanitz, July 15, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.
134. Author interview with Arthur Rosen, San Luis Obispo, Calif., Mar. 11, 1997; army MID report on Arthur Rosen, Aug. 5, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA.
135. Weinberg: San Francisco field report, Aug. 19, 1949, box 6, JRO/AEC; army MID report on Joseph Weinberg, Aug. 2, 1943, Weinberg file, no. 100–190625, FBI; Michaelmore (1969), 51.
136. Bohm: David Bohm file, May 23, 1952, no. 100–17787, FBI; F. David Peat, Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm (Addison-Wesley, 1997), 39–60.
137. Friedman: Army MID report on Max Bernard Friedman, Aug. 21, 1943, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; Lomanitz interview (1996).
138. Peat (1997), 58; transcript of Mar. 29, 1943, wiretap, entry 8, box 100, MED/NARA; Lomanitz interview (1996).
139. Lomanitz interview (1996); Peat (1997), 49–50.
140. Eldred Nelson interview (1999).
141. “Uranium was never mentioned. It didn’t need to be.” Lomanitz interview (1996).
142. ITMOJRO, 126, 275–76; Lomanitz interview (1996).
143. Oppenheimer told the FBI in 1946 that Weinberg “ha[d] an extremely nervous temperament and for this reason, he disapproved his employment at Los Alamos.” San Francisco field report, Sept. 19, 1946, vol. 3, Nelson file, FBI.
4: An Adventurous Time
1. Breit: Rhodes (1986), 410; Allan Needell, Science, Cold War, and the American State: Lloyd V. Berkner and the Balance of Professional Ideals (Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), 49.
2. ITMOJRO, 11.
3. Serber (1998), 25–27.
4. Ibid., 11–13, 46–47; Teller (2001), 151.
5. Serber (1998), 51.
6.
