[OPPENHEIMER, J. Robert]. UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION. United States Atomic Energy Commission: In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of hearing before personnel security board.

Oppenheimer and Atomic Paranoia

[OPPENHEIMER, J. Robert]. UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION. United States Atomic Energy Commission: In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of hearing before personnel security board. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. 1954.

8vo. Contemporary red cloth, lettered in gilt to spine; pp. [2], 993, [1 (blank)]; spine sunned, pushing to spine ends, a little toning to edges of textblock; previous owner’s name (‘Ronald N. Lev?’) in blue biro to front free endpaper; very good.

First edition of the transcript of the hearing of J. Robert Oppenheimer, held at the height of McCarthyism and resulting in the removal of his security clearance over his alleged Communist sympathies.

Since the 1940s, Oppenheimer, often called ‘the father of the atomic bomb’, had been under surveillance: the FBI bugged his phone, and government informers inside the Communist Party suggested that he had ties to the organisation. In 1949, the House Un-American Activities Committee ruled that he had associations with the Party, revoking his security clearance as a result. Despite his political leanings, and his grave doubts about the H-Bomb, there was no evidence he was a spy, and the allegations arose only from the paranoid (and self-protective) testimony of his colleagues such as Edward Teller.

In 2022, the revocation of his security clearance was posthumously reversed, and in 2023 Christopher Nolan released the film Oppenheimer based upon the events detailed in the transcript.

SKU: 2123681