Bohm in American Prometheus
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Weinberg quickly became a devoted member of Oppenheimer’s inner circle. “He knew that I adored him,” Weinberg said, “as we all did.” Philip Morrison, Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, David Bohm and Max Friedman were some of the other graduate students who regarded Oppenheimer as their mentor and role model during these years. These were unconventional young men who, in the words of Morrison, prided themselves on being “self-conscious and daring intellectuals.” All of them were studying theoretical physics. And all of them were active in one or another Popular Front cause. Some, like Philip Morrison and David Bohm, have acknowledged that they joined the Communist Party. Others were merely on the fringe. Joe Weinberg was probably in the Party for at least a brief time.
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“We were all close to communism at the time,’ Bohm recalled. Actually, until 1940-41, Bohm didn’t have much sympathy for the Communist Party. But then, with the collapse of France, it seemed to him that no one but the communists had the will to resist the Nazis. Indeed, many Europeans
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appeared to prefer the Nazis to the Russians. “And I felt,’ Bohm said, “that there was such a trend in America too. I thought the Nazis were a total threat to civilization. . . . It seemed that the Russians were the only ones that were really fighting them. Then I began to listen to what they said more sympathetically.”
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In November 1942, just as the Russians opened up an offensive to push the Nazis back from the outskirts of Stalingrad, Bohm began attending regular meetings at a Berkeley chapter of the Communist Party. Typically, fifteen people might show up. After a while, Bohm found the meetings “interminable,” and decided that the group’s various plans to “stir up things on the campus” didn’t amount to much. “I had the feeling that they were really rather ineffective.” Gradually, Bohm just stopped attending. But he remained a passionate and enthusiastic intellectual Marxist, reading Marxist texts together with his closest friends at the time, Weinberg, Lomanitz and Bernard Peters.
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David Hawkins came to Berkeley in 1936 to study philosophy. Almost immediately, he fell in with a number of Oppenheimer’s students, including Phil Morrison, David Bohm and Joe Weinberg. Hawkins encountered Oppenheimer one day at a meeting of the Teachers’ Union; they were discussing the plight of underpaid teaching assistants and Hawkins recalled being struck by Oppenheimer’s eloquence and sympathetic demeanor: “He was very persuasive, very cogent, elegant in language and able to listen to what other people said and incorporate it in what he would say. I had the
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OPPENHEIMER BACKED OFF from the union in the autumn of 1941, but the notion of organizing the scientists in the Rad Lab did not die. A little more than a year later, in early 1943, Rossi Lomanitz, Irving David Fox, David Bohm, Bernard Peters and Max Friedman, all Oppenheimer students, did join the union (FAECT Local 25). The usual motivations for forming a union were conspicuously absent. Lomanitz, for one, was making $150 a month at the Rad Lab—more than double his previous salary. No one had
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By the autumn of 1942, it was more or less an open secret around Berkeley that Oppenheimer and his students were exploring the feasibility of a powerful new weapon associated with the atom. He had sometimes talked about his work, even to casual acquaintances. John McTernan, an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, and a friend of Jean Tatlock’s, ran into Oppenheimer one evening at a party and vividly recalled the encounter: “He talked very fast, trying to explain his work on this explosive device. I didn’t understand a word he was saying. .. . And then, the next time I saw him he made it clear that he was no longer free to talk about it.’ Almost anyone who had friends in the physics department might have heard speculation about such work. David Bohm thought that “many people all around knew what was going on at Berkeley... . It didn’t take much to piece it together.”
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A young graduate student in the psychology department, Betty Goldstein, arrived on campus fresh from Smith in the autumn of 1942 and befriended several of Oppenheimer’s graduate students. The future Betty Friedan began dating David Bohm, who was writing his doctoral dissertation in physics under Oppie’s supervision. Bohm—who decades later became a world-famous physicist and philosopher of science—fell in love with Betty, and introduced her to his friends, Rossi Lomanitz, Joe Weinberg and Max Friedman. They all socialized on weekends and sometimes saw each other in what Friedan characterized as “various radical study groups.”
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to Steve Nelson. Initially, Pash’s investigation focused on Lomanitz, merely because Pash had information that Lomanitz was a Communist Party member. A tail was put on Lomanitz, and one day in June 1943 he was observed standing just outside U.C. Berkeley’s Sather Gate with several friends. They were posing, with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders, for a photographer who routinely sold his services to students on campus. After the photo was taken and Lomanitz and his friends walked away, a government agent walked up to the photographer and bought the negative. Lomanitz’ friends were quickly identified as Joe Weinberg, David Bohm and Max Friedman—all of them Oppie’s students. From that moment on, these young men were marked as subversives.
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Lieutenant Colonel Pash testified that his investigators “determined in the first place that these four men I mentioned were very frequently together.” Without divulging “investigative techniques or operational procedures,” Pash explained that “we had an unidentified man and we had this photograph. As a result of our study we determined and were sure that Joe was Joseph Weinberg.” He also claimed that he had “sufficient information” to name both Weinberg and Bohm as Communist Party members.
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Pash was convinced that he had stumbled upon a sophisticated ring of wily Soviet agents, and he felt that any means necessary should be used to break the suspects. In July 1943, the FBI field office in San Francisco reported that Pash wanted to kidnap Lomanitz, Weinberg, Bohm and Friedman, take them out to sea in a boat and interrogate them “after the Russian manner.” The FBI noted that any information gathered in such a fashion could not be used in court, “but apparently Pash did not intend to have anyone available for prosecution after questioning.” This was too much for the FBI: “Pressure was brought to bear to discourage this particular activity.”
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IN THE SPRING OF 1943, just as David Bohm was trying to write up his thesis research on the collisions of protons and deuterons, he was suddenly told that such work was classified. Since he lacked the necessary security clearance, his own notes on scattering calculations were seized and he was informed that he was barred from writing up his own research. He appealed to Oppenheimer, who then wrote a letter certifying that his student had nevertheless met the requirements for a thesis. On this basis, Bohm was awarded his Ph.D. by Berkeley in June 1943. Although Oppenheimer personally requested the transfer of Bohm to Los Alamos, Army security officers flatly refused to give him clearance. Instead, a disbelieving Oppenheimer was told that because Bohm still had relatives in Germany, he couldn’t be cleared for special work. This was a lie; in fact Bohm was banned from Los Alamos because of his association with Weinberg. He spent the war years working in the Radiation Lab, where he studied the behavior of plasmas.
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Although barred from working on the Manhattan Project, Bohm was able to continue his work as a physicist. Lomanitz and several others were not so fortunate. Shortly after Ernest Lawrence appointed him to serve as the liaison between the Rad Lab and the Manhattan Project’s plant at Oak Ridge, Lomanitz received a draft notice from the Army. Both Lawrence and Oppenheimer interceded for him, but to no avail. Lomanitz spent the remainder of the war years in various stateside Army camps.
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of Jean’s phone but had also proposed to interrogate Weinberg, Lomanitz, Bohm and Friedman “in the Russian manner” and then dispose of their bodies at sea.
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Joe Weinberg, Rossi Lomanitz, David Bohm and Max Friedman were some of Oppie’s acolytes at Berkeley. “They copied his gestures, his mannerisms, his intonations,” recalled Bob Serber.
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Pais soon had a chance to observe Oppenheimer in action. For three days in June 1947, twenty-three of the country’s leading theoretical physicists gathered at the Ram’s Head Inn, an exclusive resort on Shelter Island, at the eastern tip of Long Island. Oppenheimer had taken the lead in organizing the conference. Among others, he brought Hans Bethe, I. I. Rabi, Richard Feynman, Victor Weisskopf, Edward Teller, George Uhlenbeck, Julian Schwinger, David Bohm, Robert Marshak, Willis Lamb and Hendrik Kramers to discuss “The Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.” With the end of the war, theoretical physicists were finally able to shift their attention back to fundamental issues. One of Oppenheimer’s doctoral students, Willis Lamb, gave the first of the conference’s many remarkable presentations, outlining what would soon become known as the “Lamb shift,” which in turn became a key step to a new theory of quantum electrodynamics. (Lamb would win a Nobel Prize in 1955 for his work on this topic.) Similarly, Rabi gave a groundbreaking talk on nuclear magnetic resonance.
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Not everyone applauded Oppenheimer’s performance. David Bohm recalled thinking that Oppie was talking too much. “He was very fluent with his words,” Bohm said, “but there wasn’t much behind what he was saying to back up that much talking.” Bohm thought his mentor had begun to lose his insightfulness, perhaps simply because he hadn’t been doing anything of any substance in physics for many years.
“He [Oppenheimer] didn’t sympathize with what I was doing in physics,’ Bohm recalled. “I wanted to question fundamentals, and he felt that one should work on using the present theory, exploiting it and trying to work out its consequences.” Earlier in their relationship, Bohm had had tremendous regard for Oppenheimer. But over time he found himself agreeing with another friend who had worked with Oppenheimer, Milton Plesset, who expressed the view that Oppie was “not capable of genuine originality, but that he is very good at comprehending other people’s ideas and seeing their implications.”
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DAVID BOHM
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OPPENHEIMER MaAy have hoped to inoculate himself against congressional investigators, but in the spring of 1949 HUAC launched a major investigation of atomic spying at Berkeley’s Rad Lab. Not only Frank but Robert himself was a potential target. Four of Oppenheimer’s former students— David Bohm, Rossi Lomanitz, Max Friedman and Joseph Weinberg—were served with subpoenas requiring them to testify. HUAC’s investigators knew that Weinberg had been overheard on a wiretap talking to Steve Nelson in 1943 about the atomic bomb. But while this evidence appeared to implicate Weinberg in atomic spying, HUAC’s counsel knew that a warrantless wiretap would not stand up in court. On April 26, 1949, HUAC brought Weinberg face-to-face with Steve Nelson. He flatly denied having ever met
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Nelson. HUAC’s lawyers knew Weinberg had perjured himself—but proving it was going to be difficult. They hoped to build their case with testimony from Bohm, Friedman and Lomanitz.
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Bohm was not sure whether he should testify, and if so, whether he should be willing to testify about his friends. Einstein urged him to refuse to testify, even though he might have to go to jail. “You may have to sit for a while,” the scientist told him. Bohm didn’t want to take the Fifth Amendment; he reasoned that being a member of the Communist Party was not illegal, and therefore there was nothing he could incriminate himself about. His instinct was to agree to testify about his own political activities but refuse to testify about others. Aware that Lomanitz had received a similar subpoena, Bohm contacted his old friend, who was teaching in Nashville at the time. Lomanitz had had a rough time since the war; each time he found a decent job, the FBI would inform his employer that Lomanitz was a communist and he would be fired. His future seemed particularly bleak, but he found the wherewithal to visit Bohm in Princeton.
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Soon after his arrival, the two old friends were walking on Nassau Street when Oppenheimer emerged from a barbershop. Robert hadn’t seen Lomanitz for years, but they had kept in touch. In the autumn of 1945, he had written Lomanitz. “Dear Rossi: I was glad to get your long, but very melancholy letter. When you are back in the States and free to do so please come and see me... . It is a hard time, and especially hard for you, but hold on—it won’t last forever. With all warm good wishes, Opje.” Now, after exchanging pleasantries with Oppie, Bohm and Lomanitz explained their predicament. According to Lomanitz, Oppenheimer became agitated and suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, my God, all is lost. There is an FBI man on the Un-American Activities Committee.” Lomanitz thought this “paranoiac.”
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Oppenheimer later characterized this encounter with his former students as a brief two-minute conversation. He said he had merely advised them to “tell the truth,’ and they had responded, “We won’t lie.” In the event, Bohm testified before HUAC in May and again in June 1949. On advice of his counsel, the legendary civil liberties lawyer Clifford Durr, he refused to cooperate, citing both the First and Fifth amendments. For the time being, Princeton University, where he was then teaching, issued a statement supporting Bohm.
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Peters had it easy compared to Bohm and Lomanitz. More than a year later, they were both indicted for contempt of Congress; after Bohm was arrested on December 4, 1950 (and released on $1,500 bail), Princeton suspended him from all his teaching duties and even barred him from setting foot on the campus. Six months later, he was tried and acquitted. Even so, Princeton decided not to renew Bohm’s teaching contract when it expired that June.
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While there was little Oppenheimer could have done to protect his former students, he sometimes behaved as if he was truly frightened of any association with them. Their company represented a link to his political past and therefore a threat to his political future.
He was clearly scared. After Bohm lost his job with Princeton, Einstein suggested that he be brought to the Institute for Advanced Study to work as his assistant. The great man was still interested in revising quantum theory, and he was heard to say that “if anyone can do it, then it will be Bohm.”
But Oppenheimer vetoed the idea; Bohm would be a political liability to the Institute. By one account, he also reportedly instructed Eleanor Leary to keep Bohm away. Leary was subsequently heard telling the Institute’s staff, “David Bohm is not to see Dr. Oppenheimer. He is not to see him.”
오펜하이머는 이전 학생들을 보호하기 위해 할 수 있는 일이 거의 없었지만 때로는 그들과의 관계를 정말로 두려워하는 것처럼 행동했습니다. 그들의 회사는 그의 정치적 과거와 연결되어 그의 정치적 미래에 대한 위협을 나타냈습니다. 그는 분명히 겁을 먹었습니다. 봄이 프린스턴에서 직장을 잃은 후, 아인슈타인은 그에게 고등연구소에 가서 조교로 일할 것을 제안했습니다. 그 위대한 사람은 여전히 양자 이론을 수정하는 데 관심이 있었고, “누구든지 할 수 있다면 그것은 봄이 될 것”이라는 말을 들었습니다. 그러나 오펜하이머는 그 아이디어를 거부했습니다. Bohm은 연구소에 대한 정치적 책임이 될 것입니다. 한 설명에 따르면 그는 Eleanor Leary에게 Bohm을 멀리하라고 지시한 것으로 알려졌습니다. 나중에 Leary는 연구소 직원에게 다음과 같이 말하는 것을 들었습니다. “David Bohm은 Oppenheimer 박사를 만날 수 없습니다. 그 사람은 만나면 안 돼.”
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As a matter of expediency, Oppenheimer had every reason to distance himself from Bohm. On the other hand, when Bohm heard of a teaching opportunity in Brazil, Oppenheimer wrote him a strong letter of recommendation. Bohm spent the rest of his career abroad, first in Brazil, then in Israel and finally in England. He had once deeply admired Oppenheimer, and though over the years those feelings had turned to ambivalence, he never held Oppie responsible for his banishment from America. “I think he acted fairly to me as far as he was able to,” Bohm said.
편의상 오펜하이머는 봄과 거리를 둘 충분한 이유가 있었습니다. 한편, Bohm이 브라질에서 가르칠 기회가 있다는 소식을 들었을 때 Oppenheimer는 그에게 강력한 추천서를 썼습니다. Bohm은 남은 경력을 처음에는 브라질, 그다음에는 이스라엘, 마지막으로 영국에서 해외에서 보냈습니다. 그는 한때 오펜하이머를 깊이 존경했으며, 수년이 지나면서 그러한 감정은 양가감정으로 바뀌었지만, 결코 오피에게 미국에서 추방된 책임을 묻지 않았습니다. “나는 그가 할 수 있는 한 나에게 공정하게 행동했다고 생각합니다.”라고 Bohm은 말했습니다.
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Bohm knew Oppenheimer was under a great deal of strain. Shortly after the news broke about his HUAC testimony against Peters, Bohm had a candid conversation with Oppie. He asked why he had said such things about their friend. “He told me,’ Bohm recalled, “that his nerve just gave way at that moment. That somehow the thing was too much for him.... I can’t remember his words, but that’s what he meant. He has this tendency when things get too much, he sometimes does irrational things. He said he couldn’t understand why he did it.” Of course, it had happened before—in his interview with Pash in 1943 and his meeting with Truman in 1945—and it would happen again during his security hearing in 1954. But, as Bernard Peters observed to Weisskopf, “He [Oppenheimer] was obviously scared to tears of the hearings, but this is hardly an explanation. . . . I found it a rather sad experience to see a man whom I regarded very highly in such a state of moral despair.”
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claimed that after being shown photographs by the FBI, they could place David Bohm, George Eltenton and Joseph Weinberg at the same meeting. Sylvia named Weinberg as “Scientist X,” the individual labeled by the House Un-American Activities Committee as someone who gave atomic bomb secrets to a communist spy during the war. The California papers played these allegations as a “bombshell.” Paul Crouch was described as a ‘West Coast Whittaker Chambers,’ a reference to the Time magazine editor and former communist whose testimony had led, on January 21, 1950, to the perjury conviction of Alger Hiss.
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Gray spent the morning reading aloud the AEC’s letter of “indictment” and Oppenheimer’s reply. Over the next three and a half weeks, Gray repeatedly insisted that the proceedings were an “inquiry,” not a trial. But no one could listen to the AEC’s letter of charges without thinking that Robert Oppenheimer was on trial. His alleged crimes included joining numerous Communist Party front organizations; being “intimately associated” with a known communist, Dr. Jean Tatlock; associating with such other “known” communists as Dr. Thomas Addis, Kenneth May, Steve Nelson, and Isaac Folkoff; being responsible for the employment in the atom bomb project of such known communists as Joseph W. Weinberg, David Bohm, Rossi Lomanitz (all former students of Oppenheimer’s) and David
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The clearest and most convincing explanation of why Oppenheimer presented Pash with such an elaborately confused representation of his kitchen conversation with Chevalier was offered by Oppenheimer himself the day before his security hearing was concluded. His explanation not only conforms with the most compelling known facts, but it also conforms with Oppenheimer’s character—especially, as he had confessed to David Bohm five years earlier, “his tendency when things get too much” to say “irrational things.” Responding to Chairman Gray’s query whether he might have been telling the truth in 1943 to Pash and Lansdale, and was, in fact, fabricating today about the Chevalier incident, Oppenheimer replied:
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THE NEXT DAY, Friday, April 16, Robb resumed his cross-examination of Oppenheimer. He grilled him about his relationships with the Serbers, David Bohm and Joe Weinberg, and late in the day he got around to asking the physicist about his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb. After nearly five full days of intense interrogation, Oppenheimer must have been physically and mentally exhausted. But on this day—his last in the witness chair—he nevertheless mustered his razor-sharp wit. Wary from experience at being ambushed, and crystal clear about the issue, he was more adept at parrying Robb’s questions.
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In early December 1966, Oppenheimer heard from his former student, David Bohm, who had spent most of his career in Brazil and later, England. Bohm wrote to say that he had seen the Kipphardt play and a television program on Los Alamos in which Oppenheimer had been interviewed. “I was rather disturbed,’ Bohm wrote, “especially by a statement you made, indicating a feeling of guilt on your part. I feel it to be a waste of the life that is left to you for you to be caught up in such guilt feelings.”
He then reminded Oppenheimer of a play by Jean-Paul Sartre “in which the hero is finally freed of guilt by recognizing responsibility. As I understand it, one feels guilty for past actions, because they grew out of what one was and still is.” Bohm believed that mere guilt feelings are meaningless. “I can understand that your dilemma was a peculiarly difficult one. Only you can assess the way in which you were responsible for what happened. . . .”
1966년 12월 초, 오펜하이머는 자신의 경력 대부분을 브라질과 이후 영국에서 보낸 그의 전 제자 데이비드 봄(David Bohm)으로부터 소식을 들었습니다. Bohm은 Kipphardt 연극과 Oppenheimer가 인터뷰한 Los Alamos의 TV 프로그램을 보았다고 썼습니다. Bohm은 이렇게 썼습니다. “특히 당신이 죄책감을 느꼈다는 진술을 했을 때 오히려 마음이 불안했습니다. 그런 죄책감에 사로잡혀 있는 것은 당신에게 남겨진 인생의 낭비라고 생각합니다.” 그런 다음 그는 오펜하이머에게 Jean-Paul Sartre의 연극을 상기시켰습니다. “여기에서 영웅은 책임을 인식함으로써 마침내 죄책감에서 해방됩니다. 내가 이해하는 바에 따르면, 사람은 과거의 행동에 대해 죄책감을 느낍니다. 왜냐하면 과거의 행동이 과거와 현재의 상태에서 성장했기 때문입니다.” Bohm은 단순한 죄책감은 의미가 없다고 믿었습니다. “나는 당신의 딜레마가 유난히 어려운 문제였다는 것을 이해합니다. 오직 당신만이 일어난 일에 대해 당신이 책임을 지는 방식을 평가할 수 있습니다. . . .”
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숙제 마첬습니다.
책 <American Prometheus>에 Bohm 이름이 Index는 포함하지 않고 70번 나오고요.
그 중 중요한 부분을 세군데 구글 번역했습니다.
이 내용을 보면, 학생들과의 관계 만 가지고도 하나의 커다란 이야기가 되는 것 처럼 보입니다
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1] Page 400
While there was little Oppenheimer could have done to protect his former students, he sometimes behaved as if he was truly frightened of any association with them. Their company represented a link to his political past and therefore a threat to his political future.
He was clearly scared. After Bohm lost his job with Princeton, Einstein suggested that he be brought to the Institute for Advanced Study to work as his assistant. The great man was still interested in revising quantum theory, and he was heard to say that “if anyone can do it, then it will be Bohm.”
But Oppenheimer vetoed the idea; Bohm would be a political liability to the Institute. By one account, he also reportedly instructed Eleanor Leary to keep Bohm away. Leary was subsequently heard telling the Institute’s staff, “David Bohm is not to see Dr. Oppenheimer. He is not to see him.”
오펜하이머는 이전 학생들을 보호하기 위해 할 수 있는 일이 거의 없었지만 때로는 그들과의 관계를 정말로 두려워하는 것처럼 행동했습니다. 그들의 회사는 그의 정치적 과거와 연결되어 그의 정치적 미래에 대한 위협을 나타냈습니다. 그는 분명히 겁을 먹었습니다. 봄이 프린스턴에서 직장을 잃은 후, 아인슈타인은 그에게 고등연구소에 가서 조교로 일할 것을 제안했습니다. 그 위대한 사람은 여전히 양자 이론을 수정하는 데 관심이 있었고, “누구든지 할 수 있다면 그것은 봄이 될 것”이라는 말을 들었습니다. 그러나 오펜하이머는 그 아이디어를 거부했습니다. Bohm은 연구소에 대한 정치적 책임이 될 것입니다. 한 설명에 따르면 그는 Eleanor Leary에게 Bohm을 멀리하라고 지시한 것으로 알려졌습니다. 나중에 Leary는 연구소 직원에게 다음과 같이 말하는 것을 들었습니다. “David Bohm은 Oppenheimer 박사를 만날 수 없습니다. 그 사람은 만나면 안 돼.”
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2] Page 400
As a matter of expediency, Oppenheimer had every reason to distance himself from Bohm. On the other hand, when Bohm heard of a teaching opportunity in Brazil, Oppenheimer wrote him a strong letter of recommendation. Bohm spent the rest of his career abroad, first in Brazil, then in Israel and finally in England. He had once deeply admired Oppenheimer, and though over the years those feelings had turned to ambivalence, he never held Oppie responsible for his banishment from America. “I think he acted fairly to me as far as he was able to,” Bohm said.
편의상 오펜하이머는 봄과 거리를 둘 충분한 이유가 있었습니다. 한편, Bohm이 브라질에서 가르칠 기회가 있다는 소식을 들었을 때 Oppenheimer는 그에게 강력한 추천서를 썼습니다. Bohm은 남은 경력을 처음에는 브라질, 그다음에는 이스라엘, 마지막으로 영국에서 해외에서 보냈습니다. 그는 한때 오펜하이머를 깊이 존경했으며, 수년이 지나면서 그러한 감정은 양가감정으로 바뀌었지만, 결코 오피에게 미국에서 추방된 책임을 묻지 않았습니다. “나는 그가 할 수 있는 한 나에게 공정하게 행동했다고 생각합니다.”라고 Bohm은 말했습니다.
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3] Page 400
Bohm knew Oppenheimer was under a great deal of strain. Shortly after the news broke about his HUAC testimony against Peters, Bohm had a candid conversation with Oppie. He asked why he had said such things about their friend. “He told me,’ Bohm recalled, “that his nerve just gave way at that moment. That somehow the thing was too much for him.... I can’t remember his words, but that’s what he meant. He has this tendency when things get too much, he sometimes does irrational things. He said he couldn’t understand why he did it.” Of course, it had happened before—in his interview with Pash in 1943 and his meeting with Truman in 1945—and it would happen again during his security hearing in 1954. But, as Bernard Peters observed to Weisskopf, “He [Oppenheimer] was obviously scared to tears of the hearings, but this is hardly an explanation. . . . I found it a rather sad experience to see a man whom I regarded very highly in such a state of moral despair.”
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claimed that after being shown photographs by the FBI, they could place David Bohm, George Eltenton and Joseph Weinberg at the same meeting. Sylvia named Weinberg as “Scientist X,” the individual labeled by the House Un-American Activities Committee as someone who gave atomic bomb secrets to a communist spy during the war. The California papers played these allegations as a “bombshell.” Paul Crouch was described as a ‘West Coast Whittaker Chambers,’ a reference to the Time magazine editor and former communist whose testimony had led, on January 21, 1950, to the perjury conviction of Alger Hiss.
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Gray spent the morning reading aloud the AEC’s letter of “indictment” and Oppenheimer’s reply. Over the next three and a half weeks, Gray repeatedly insisted that the proceedings were an “inquiry,” not a trial. But no one could listen to the AEC’s letter of charges without thinking that Robert Oppenheimer was on trial. His alleged crimes included joining numerous Communist Party front organizations; being “intimately associated” with a known communist, Dr. Jean Tatlock; associating with such other “known” communists as Dr. Thomas Addis, Kenneth May, Steve Nelson, and Isaac Folkoff; being responsible for the employment in the atom bomb project of such known communists as Joseph W. Weinberg, David Bohm, Rossi Lomanitz (all former students of Oppenheimer’s) and David
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The clearest and most convincing explanation of why Oppenheimer presented Pash with such an elaborately confused representation of his kitchen conversation with Chevalier was offered by Oppenheimer himself the day before his security hearing was concluded. His explanation not only conforms with the most compelling known facts, but it also conforms with Oppenheimer’s character—especially, as he had confessed to David Bohm five years earlier, “his tendency when things get too much” to say “irrational things.” Responding to Chairman Gray’s query whether he might have been telling the truth in 1943 to Pash and Lansdale, and was, in fact, fabricating today about the Chevalier incident, Oppenheimer replied:
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THE NEXT DAY, Friday, April 16, Robb resumed his cross-examination of Oppenheimer. He grilled him about his relationships with the Serbers, David Bohm and Joe Weinberg, and late in the day he got around to asking the physicist about his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb. After nearly five full days of intense interrogation, Oppenheimer must have been physically and mentally exhausted. But on this day—his last in the witness chair—he nevertheless mustered his razor-sharp wit. Wary from experience at being ambushed, and crystal clear about the issue, he was more adept at parrying Robb’s questions.
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In early December 1966, Oppenheimer heard from his former student, David Bohm, who had spent most of his career in Brazil and later, England. Bohm wrote to say that he had seen the Kipphardt play and a television program on Los Alamos in which Oppenheimer had been interviewed. “I was rather disturbed,’ Bohm wrote, “especially by a statement you made, indicating a feeling of guilt on your part. I feel it to be a waste of the life that is left to you for you to be caught up in such guilt feelings.”
He then reminded Oppenheimer of a play by Jean-Paul Sartre “in which the hero is finally freed of guilt by recognizing responsibility. As I understand it, one feels guilty for past actions, because they grew out of what one was and still is.” Bohm believed that mere guilt feelings are meaningless. “I can understand that your dilemma was a peculiarly difficult one. Only you can assess the way in which you were responsible for what happened. . . .”
1966년 12월 초, 오펜하이머는 자신의 경력 대부분을 브라질과 이후 영국에서 보낸 그의 전 제자 데이비드 봄(David Bohm)으로부터 소식을 들었습니다. Bohm은 Kipphardt 연극과 Oppenheimer가 인터뷰한 Los Alamos의 TV 프로그램을 보았다고 썼습니다. Bohm은 이렇게 썼습니다. “특히 당신이 죄책감을 느꼈다는 진술을 했을 때 오히려 마음이 불안했습니다. 그런 죄책감에 사로잡혀 있는 것은 당신에게 남겨진 인생의 낭비라고 생각합니다.” 그런 다음 그는 오펜하이머에게 Jean-Paul Sartre의 연극을 상기시켰습니다. “여기에서 영웅은 책임을 인식함으로써 마침내 죄책감에서 해방됩니다. 내가 이해하는 바에 따르면, 사람은 과거의 행동에 대해 죄책감을 느낍니다. 왜냐하면 과거의 행동이 과거와 현재의 상태에서 성장했기 때문입니다.” Bohm은 단순한 죄책감은 의미가 없다고 믿었습니다. “나는 당신의 딜레마가 유난히 어려운 문제였다는 것을 이해합니다. 오직 당신만이 일어난 일에 대해 당신이 책임을 지는 방식을 평가할 수 있습니다. . . .”
