Judging from the near-universal critical acclaim for the hit movie Oppenheimer — not to mention the $552.9 million it has so far taken in since its recent release — this powerful biopic of the scientist considered the father of the atomic bomb and, with it, America's modern era as a nuclear power, is a box office sensation.
Already, the decibel level in Hollywood is growing on talk of Academy Award nominations for Cillian Murphy, in the starring role as J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Emily Blunt, as his wife, Kitty, and a certain Oscar for director Christopher Nolan, whose meshing of atomic explosions with scenes of intense conversation between the principles is, to say the least, gripping.
But there is another powerfully done part of Oppenheimer that is disturbing to many viewers: its less-than-fully accurate portrayal of Lewis Strauss (pronounced "Strawwz"), retired U.S. Navy admiral and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s. As brought to life by the very talented Robert Downey Jr., we come to see Strauss as a malevolent figure who holds a personal grudge against Oppenheimer.
He helps to deny him a top-security clearance and then in 1959, Strauss himself is rejected by the U.S. Senate for confirmation as U.S. secretary of commerce.
The problem with this high drama, however, is that none of it is true.
In his memoir Men and Decisions (1962), Strauss recalls a relationship with the scientist that began in 1945 and he notes that, as head of the trustee committee to find a new director for the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, he offered the job to Oppenheimer, who eventually accepted it.
A key part of the film focuses on Strauss, while at Princeton, spotting Oppenheimer talking to Dr. Albert Einstein — whereupon the legendary physicist walks away without speaking to Strauss and thus leaves Strauss with a suspicion that Oppenheimer "poisoned the well" between the two.
There is no actual evidence that any of this ever happened.
Strauss, in fact, wrote of a most friendly private visit with Einstein to seek his advice on the directorship at Princeton that he eventually offered to Oppenheimer. Einstein, "dressed in his familiar costume of tennis sneakers, gray slacks, and sweatshirt," smiled and told Strauss that "you should look for a very quiet man who will not disturb people who are trying to think."
But the acceleration of the film's portrayal of Strauss' supposed vendetta against Oppenheimer comes with the then-Atomic Energy Commission chairman's vigorous opposition to the atomic scientist's retention in 1953 as a member of the General Advisory Committee of the AEC with a top-secret security clearance.
Again, most of this is moonshine.
A man named William Borden — identified only by name in the movie but actually former staff director of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy — wrote a letter to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in November, 1953, raising serious charges about Oppenheimer. Hoover forwarded copies of the letter to President Dwight Eisenhower as well as to Strauss and the other members of the AEC.
Strauss wrote that at a meeting in the White House of December 3, 1953, Eisenhower "directed that a 'blank wall' should be placed between Dr. Oppenheimer and any further access to secret or top-secret information until a hearing [on his status as a consultant to the AEC] had been completed."
Although the movie acknowledges that Oppenheimer's wife and brother were members of the communist party and that Oppenheimer was sympathetic to the Soviet Union, it never actually fingers him as a communist.
Never mentioned in the movie is that in March, 1941, the scientist was placed on a "custodial detention" list by the FBI as one to be picked up by the Bureau if a national emergency developed. It was written at the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact when Germany and Russia were considered enemies of the U.S.
Subsequent reports described Oppenheimer's "tendency" as "communist" and even included transcripts of discussions by American communists that described Oppenheimer as a "comrade" and secret member of the party.
But with the U.S. and Russia allied against Germany, Oppenheimer's communist ties were no doubt viewed as a risk worth taking.
Gen. Leslie Groves, military overseer of the Manhattan Project, hired Oppenheimer with full knowledge of the FBI reports. But during the hearing of a special panel in 1954 appointed by Strauss and chaired by former Democrat Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray, Gen. Groves testified that "I would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today" on the basis of his interpretation of the security portion of the Atomic Energy Law.
Oppenheimer himself admitted to the "Gray Panel" he had lied to an officer of military intelligence on a matter concerning friend and fellow scientist Haakon Chevalier, a known communist.
The panel recommended against reinstatement of Oppenheimer's clearance. The full AEC — seven commissioners out of nine, including Strauss — voted not to restore Oppenheimer's clearance for access to security operations. But Strauss also wrote that while considering Oppenheimer's continuance with the AEC was not "clearly consistent with the interests of national security … this did not mean that I considered him unsuited to continue his academic position as director of the Institute for Advanced Study [and] I not only voted for his re-election after the hearings and the decision, but I offered the motion myself."
When turbulent Senate Commerce Committee hearings on Strauss' nomination to be secretary of commerce began in 1959, the Oppenheimer affair was certainly brought up. As the movie points out, a group of scientists signed a letter opposing confirmation of Strauss based on his support of denying a top-security clearance to Oppenheimer.
But a reading of contemporaneous accounts of the 16-day Senate hearings shows that this was a very small part of the broadside faced by the nominee. As AEC chairman and a frequent witness before Senate committees, Strauss had made some formidable enemies — notably Sen. Clinton P. Anderson, D-N.M., incoming chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy.
Anderson pilloried Strauss over a number of issues on which they had clashed. These included such esoteric matters as objecting to the export of an isotope of iron to Norway for research to withholding information from Congress. Strauss also ran afoul of former President Harry Truman by claiming he had convinced Truman to support the H-Bomb. An irritated Truman sent a letter to Anderson disputing this claim.
The committee favorably reported out the Strauss nomination by 9-to-8, but the full Senate rejected him by 49 to 46. Among the 49 were 47 Democrats — including 1960 presidential hopefuls John F. Kennedy, D-Mass., Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., and Stuart Symington, D-Mo., — and two Republicans — Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine, reportedly upset over not enough federal largess for her state, and William Langer, R-N.D., always unpredictable.
President Eisenhower was upset about Strauss becoming the second of three cabinet nominees in the 20th Century to be denied confirmation that, according to historian Irwin Gellman, "he never spoke to Smith or Langer again."
The denial of a security clearance to Oppenheimer was certainly important, but not, as the movie suggests, something that was critical to the defeat of Strauss' nomination or that was part of some vendetta against the scientist.
In Strauss' words, "[the denial of a security clearance to Oppenheimer] was agonizing also for the men who had to make it, but for them the oath of office [to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"], which each had taken solemnly, left no choice."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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