On Tuesday, March 11, Lilienthal, Volpe, and Bush went to the White House to inform the president of the latest charges against Oppenheimer—not realizing that Oppie’s dossier had preceded them. Finding Truman preoccupied with a crisis in the Mediterranean, the trio met instead with aide Clark Clifford, who suggested having a panel of esteemed jurists, including retired Supreme Court justices, evaluate the evidence. Lilienthal was cheered to find Clifford seemingly untroubled by the Oppenheimer case and supportive of his decision to withhold Oppie’s file from Hickenlooper.19
Hoping to defuse the Oppenheimer matter with Hoover, Lilienthal met with the FBI director at the end of the month. AEC security officials had meanwhile concluded that the case against Oppie was too thin to deny the physicist a security clearance.20
While conceding that Oppenheimer’s contribution to the atomic bomb project had been “unique,” and that the scientist had “steadily moved away” from former left-wing associates, Hoover insisted—“with some emphasis,” an aide noted—that he was still not “completely satisfied in view of J. Robert’s failure to report promptly and accurately what must have seemed to him an attempt at espionage at Berkeley.”21 When the discussion turned to Oppie’s brother, Hoover warned that he would personally oppose any effort on the commission’s part to renew Frank’s security clearance.22
Since Lilienthal believed that his meeting with Hoover had put the flap over Oppie behind him, he was alarmed to get another letter just two weeks later from the FBI director, who claimed to have new and even more damaging evidence against Oppenheimer.23
The commissioners met a final time on Oppenheimer’s clearance in late summer.24 Most found persuasive the testimony of John Lansdale, who “was absolutely certain of the present loyalty of J. Robert Oppenheimer, despite the fact that he doubtless was at one time at least an avid fellow-traveler.”25 Based largely upon the strength of Lansdale’s endorsement, the commissioners—including Strauss—voted on August 11, 1947, to grant Oppenheimer a top-secret “Q” clearance.26 This time Hoover had no choice but to accept the AEC’s verdict.27
* * *
By now aware of the storm flags flying, Oppenheimer had taken steps to distance himself from his past. He had already broken with the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, the radical organization which had once listed him as vice chairman on its letterhead.28 The FBI knew, from its wiretaps, that Oppie was also refusing entreaties to speak on behalf of controversial causes.
The physicist had even seemingly given up on what Fermi called “Oppie’s favorite idea”—the international control of atomic energy. Oppenheimer’s disillusionment with the internationalist cause had seemingly been both sudden and complete—the result of the dramatic deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations that followed the peace and heralded the coming of the Cold War.29 That spring, Oppenheimer had held an urgent meeting with Baruch’s replacement at the UN, Frederick Osborn. Oppie’s pressing message—which he had flown out from California to deliver, he told Osborn—was that America should abandon its negotiations with the Russians on the bomb, lest the nation be lured into an unenforceable ban on the weapon.30
Stymied in his campaign to oust Oppenheimer from the GAC, Hoover meanwhile turned his attention elsewhere. In January, the FBI director had asked Branigan to expand and update his 1946 CINRAD report. Branigan’s latest “memorandum” grew to a document some 400 pages long and included personal details on more than a dozen Berkeley scientists.31
That March, Hoover forwarded Branigan’s report to the attorney general, along with a request that Clark “furnish the Bureau with a prosecutive opinion on the possible violations of the espionage laws appearing in this summary.”32 Hoover hoped, once again, to prod the Justice Department into indicting those involved in the Bay Area spy ring—in particular, Steve Nelson and Joe Weinberg. But, once again, the attorney general refused to rise to the bait; as Clark pointed out, the evidence behind the charges (gathered mostly by wiretaps and bugs) would likely be inadmissible in any prosecution.33
* * *
At Berkeley, the FBI’s investigation was interfering with Frank’s efforts to find a permanent job. Another apprentice at the Rad Lab, Edward Lofgren, had recently gotten a faculty post at the University of Minnesota, where Joseph Weinberg would also soon go. Lawrence sent a glowing letter of recommendation on Frank’s behalf to William Buchta, chairman of the physics department at Minnesota.34 Buchta hired Frank for the spring of 1947.
At Alvarez’s request, Oppie’s brother agreed to continue as a consultant on the Linac, which remained a classified project at the lab. Before leaving Berkeley, Frank filled out one of the AEC’s new personnel security questionnaires. The “PSQ” was part of the expanded security procedures that the commission had recently adopted. Under organizations to which he had once belonged, Frank listed the Bach Society and the American Federation of Teachers, but not his prior membership in the Communist Party.
In early March 1947, Frank, Jackie, and their two children drove out of Berkeley on their way to Minneapolis, stopping off at Death Valley for a brief vacation. The family moved into temporary quarters at St. Paul’s Curtis Hotel while Jackie looked for a house. An FBI wiretap followed them cross-country, to the hotel room and eventually to their new home.35
Frank’s new career as an assistant professor of physics was initially uneventful—despite the occasional presence of FBI agents in the classroom.36
But on July 12, 1947, the Washington Times-Herald published a front-page story identifying him as “a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.” The article, by James Walter, a reporter with ties to the bureau, had obviously come from FBI files, since it included such details as Frank’s Communist Party card number and his party alias, Frank Folsom.37 While the newspaper printed a disclaimer that its story on the younger Oppenheimer “in no way reflects on the loyalty or ability of his brother,” Walter noted that Frank,
