Science and McCarthyism

Minerva

Volumn 38, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 53-80

  Badash, Lawrence ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0038347524     PISSN: 00264695     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1026516820931     Document Type: Article

References (130)

1. See, for example, John E. Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999);
2. Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1997);
3. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994);
4. Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995);
5. Robert Chadwell Williams, Klaus Fuchs: Atom Spy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987);
6. Walter and Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965);
7. Rebecca West, The New Meaning of Treason (New York: Viking, 1964).
8. Vernon Loeb, 'U.S. Accused of Using Race to Target China Spy Suspect', Los Angeles Times (17 August 1999), A17.
9. 'Justice Dept. Report Faults FBI in Scientist Spy Case', Los Angeles Times (19 May 2000), A26.
10. Nick Anderson, 'Spy Scare Taints Labs' Atmosphere, Asian Americans Say', Los Angeles Times (21 May 1999), A12.
11. See also William Rempel, 'Group Warns Against Prosecution of Fired Scientist', Los Angeles Times (12 August 1999), A21.
12. Bob Drogin, 'Asian American Lab Employees Fear Repercussions of Spy Inquiries', Los Angeles Times (12 June 1999), A10.
13. Robert L. Park, 'Council: National Security and the Open Conduct of Science', What's New (21 May 1999), an electronic newsletter of the American Physical Society at whatsnew@aps.org.
14. Sheila Melvin, 'Salvaging the Strategic Sino-American Link', Los Angeles Times (4 June 1999), B7.
15. One reporter compared Lee's treatment to the Dreyfus case: Robert Scheer, 'Government Owes Wen Ho Lee an Apology', Los Angeles Times (5 October 1999), B9.
16. Michael Bromwich, 'Politics Colors Pursuit of Wen Ho Lee', Los Angeles Times (17 December 1999), B9.
17. For this period, see, for example, David Caute, The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge under Truman and Eisenhower (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978).
18. Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986);
19. and Victor S. Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking, 1980).
20. See also Bernard Gordon, Hollywood Exile or How I Learned to Love the Blacklist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).
21. There is a substantial literature on the political activities of scientists, including Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists Movement in America, 1945-1947 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965);
22. parts of William Lanouette, Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard: The Man Behind the Bomb (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992);
23. Daniel Kevles, 'Cold War and Hot Physics: Science, Security, and the American State, 1945-1956', Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 20 (1989), 239-264;
24. and Zuoyue Wang, 'American Science and the Cold War: The Rise of the US President's Science Advisory Committee' (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1994).
25. For the troubles of scientists in the national security state, the literature is more sparse, but it includes Jessica Wang's excellent American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999)
26. and her paper, 'Science, Security, and the Cold War: The Case of E.U. Condon', Isis, 83 (June 1992), 238-269;
27. Martin D. Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics: A Memoir of the Nuclear Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);
28. and many studies of J. Robert Oppenheimer. These include Joseph and Stewart Alsop, We Accuse! The Story of the Miscarriage of American Justice in the Case of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954);
29. Philip M. Stern, The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial (New York: Harper and Row, 1969);
30. US Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1954; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970);
31. and Barton Bernstein, 'The Oppenheimer Loyalty-Security Case Reconsidered', Stanford Law Review, 42 (July 1990), 1383-1484.
32. See, for example, John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1992);
33. Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997);
34. William Dudley (ed.), The Cold War: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1992). The 'victim hood' and 'stupidity' quotes are from a referee who turns a good phrase.
35. Eisenhower Library (Abilene, Kansas), Dwight David Eisenhower Papers, James Hagerty Diaries, 7-11 April 1954, quoted in Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 89.
36. 'McCarthy Insists Truman Oust Reds: 57 Communists Still are on Job at State Department Despite Loyalty List, Senator Says', New York Times (12 February 1950), 5.
37. The timing of McCarthy's charge may have been chosen to maximize public apprehension of communism, for atomic spy Klaus Fuchs had quite recently confessed, and his trial in London was headline material just the day before. See Raymond Daniel, 'Fuchs Admits Giving Soviet Atom Secrets from 1942 on, But Says He Quit Year Ago', New York Times (11 February 1950), 1.
38. National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, DC), Office of Science and Technology Subject Files, Record Group 359, box 97, 'International-Visa' folder, S. Gorodetzky, Institut de Recherches Nucleaires, to Jack V. Kane, Bell Telephone Laboratories, 4 August 1961; J. V. Kane to J. S. Coleman, National Research Council, 17 August 1961; J. V. Kane to Jerome Wiesner, president's science adviser, 28 August 1961; David Z. Beckler, assistant to Wiesner, to J. V. Kane, 31 August 1961.
39. I. F. Stone, The Haunted Fifties (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), 35. From an article originally published 7 March 1953.
40. Einstein letter of November 1954, quoted in Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich (eds.), The Harper Book of American Quotations (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 92.
41. Stone, op. cit. note 15, 59. Originally published 3 October 1953.
42. Stone, op. cit. note 15, 85. Originally published 15 November 1954.
43. Albright and Kunstel, op. cit. note 1.
44. Elizabeth Hodes, 'Precedents for Social Responsibility Among Scientists: The American Association of Scientific Workers and the Federation of American Scientists, 1938-1948' (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1982).
45. Walter Gellhorn, 'In Defense of American Activities', American Scholar, 17 (Spring 1948), 143.
46. Dexter Masters and Katharine Way (eds.), One World or None (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946).
47. 'Science Without Borders', American Physical Society News, 8 (December 1999), 2.
48. University of California Library (San Diego), Harold Urey Collection, box 29, folder 21, Harrison Brown, news release, 6 September 1948; Cabell Phillips, 'Scientists Ponder Jobs on the Atomic Project', New York Times (19 September 1948), IV7. See also Wang, American Science, op. cit. note 10, 175-176.
49. William L. Laurence, '12 Physicists Ask U.S. Not to be First to Use Super Bomb', New York Times (5 February 1950), 11.
50. Whether the bombs ended the war or merely hastened the end is, of course, a hotly contested issue. See Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz (eds.), Hiroshima's Shadow (Stony Creek, Conn: Pamphleteer's Press, 1998).
51. Caute, op. cit. note 8, 479.
52. 'Passport Revocations or Denials on the Ground of National Security and Foreign Policy', Fordham Law Review, 49 (1981), 1178-1196.
53. See also 'Passport Refusals for Political Reasons: Constitutional Issues and Judicial Review', Yale Law Journal, 61 (Feb. 1952), 171-203;
54. US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Passports and the Right to Travel: A Study of the Administrative Control of the Citizen (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1958).
55. See, for example, the many works on the FBI by Athan G. Theoharis, including (with John S. Cox), The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).
56. Jon Wiener, 'The Secret Word on Groucho', Nation, 267 (28 September 1998), 23-24, esp. 23.
57. Ralph Spitzer letter to the editor of the New York Times (5 October 1950), 30.
58. See also 'U.S. Voids Passport of Savant Abroad', New York Times (19 September 1950), 25.
59. Kamen, op. cit. note 10; 'A-Scientist Gets Passport After 8 Years', San Francisco Chronicle (7 July 1955), 11.
60. Linus Pauling, 'My Efforts to Obtain a Passport', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 253-55, esp. 253.
61. Franklin H. Portugal and Jack S. Cohen, A Century of DNA: A History of the Discovery of the Structure and Function of the Genetic Substance (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1977), 252.
62. UN Department of Public Information, booklet entitled 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights', DPI/876/4091/Nov. 1988/100M.
63. Fordham Law Review, op. cit. note 28. See also Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982).
64. Bodleian Library (Oxford), Rudolf Peierls Papers, F1-11, Eric Burhop to Peierls, 27 August 1951, cited in Greta Jones, Science, Politics and the Cold War (London: Routledge, 1988), 79.
65. Leon Wildes, 'Review of Visa Denials: The Absolute Consul as 20th Century Absolute Monarch', San Diego Law Review, 26 (1989), 887-909;
66. Jamie Kalven, 'U.S. Visa Policy: The Machinery of Exclusion', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 43 (May 1987), 21-30.
67. Edward A. Shils, 'America's Paper Curtain', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 212;
68. R. E. Peierls, 'Some British Experiences. II', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 229-230;
69. M. L. Oliphant, 'Some British Experiences. III', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 230.
70. Michael Polanyi, 'Some British Experiences. I', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 223-228, esp. 224.
71. Shils, op. cit. note 39; Victor F. Weisskopf, 'Report on the Visa Situation', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 221;
72. Jacques Monod, 'Some French Experiences. I', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 236;
73. Lawrence Schwartz, 'Some French Experiences. III', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 238;
74. Jacques Hadamard, 'Some French Experiences. V', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 (October 1952), 240.
75. John E. Burchard, 'Immigration Laws and the Foreign Visitor', Science, 123 (13 April 1956), 615.
76. George W. Beadle, 'H. J. Muller and the Geneva Conference', Science, 122 (28 October 1955), 813;
77. 'Muller's Paper Barred', Science, 122 (28 October 1955), 822.
78. University of California, Bancroft Library (Berkeley), Ernest O. Lawrence Collection, 72/117/c, carton 32, folder 8, Kenneth Pitzer, director, AEC Division of Research, to Nathaniel Furman, chair, Chemistry Department, Princeton University, 22 March 1951. See also 'Joint Statement by the Department of the Navy and the United States Atomic Energy Commission', Science, 112 (15 December 1950), 727.
79. E. O. Lawrence Collection, carton 32, folder 12, Glenn T. Seaborg to Lawrence, 15 March 1955.
80. California Institute of Technology Archives (Pasadena), Lee A. DuBridge Collection, file 108.10, letter signed by more than 100 Chinese students aboard the steamship President Wilson en route to Hong Kong, to DuBridge, president of Caltech, 19 September 1950; United Press Service news ticker statement, 29 November 1950.
81. Milton Viorst, 'The Bitter Tea of Dr. Tsien', Esquire, 68 (September 1967), 125-129, 168-170;
82. Iris Chang, Thread of the Silkworm (New York: Basic Books, 1995).
83. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, op. cit. note 10; John Major, The Oppenheimer Hearing (New York: Stein and Day, 1971). See also other citations in note 10.
84. Wang, 'Science, Security, and the Cold War', op. cit. note 10.
85. Robert A. Divine, Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 218. For the faculty statement, see DuBridge Collection, file 190.5. McCone became AEC chairman in July 1958.
86. David P. Gardner, The California Oath Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).
87. Carl E. Taeusch, 'The Unlisted Freedom: Science', Scientific Monthly, 75 (July 1952), 12-18.
88. National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, DC), Bureau of the Budget Records, RG 51, series 52.1, box 6, folder 4-1 1952-1956', Sherman Adams, assistant to the president, to Detlev Bronk, president of the NAS, 11 January 1955. This letter is reproduced in Science, 121 (11 February 1955), 7A.
89. Bureau of the Budget Records, series 52.1, box 6, folder 'E4-1 1952-1956', Russell R. Larmon, acting secretary, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to Sherman Adams, 30 August 1954.
90. See, for example, Dael Wolfle and 'B. P.', 'Control of Unclassified Information', Science, 121 (4 March 1955), 7A;
91. Wolfle, 'Security Stirrings', Science, 121 (25 March 1955), 9A;
92. Wolfle, 'In Defense of the Nation', Science, 124 (3 August 1956), 201;
93. 'Loyalty-Security Program', Science, 124 (3 August 1956), 210-212;
94. Graham DuShane, 'Reform in Security?' Science, 124 (31 August 1956), 383;
95. 'The White House and Unclassified Research', Science, 124 (31 August 1956), 398;
96. 'Government Security', Science, 126 (19 July 1957), 114-115.
97. Graham DuShane, 'Security', Science, 126 (26 July 1957), 149.
98. National Archives and Records Administration (College Park, MD), Investigative Records Repository, Army Intelligence and Security Command, Records of the Army Staff, Record Group 319, Albert Einstein File.
99. Urey Collection, box 121, folder 14, Urey to Stewart Alsop, 1 February 1955.
100. Scientists' Committee on Loyalty and Security, of the Federation of American Scientists, 'The Fort Monmouth Security Investigations, August 1953-April 1954', (New Haven: SCLS, 1954).
101. Barbara J. Bachmann, 'Statement on Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship', Science, 112 (29 September 1950), 364-365.
102. John T. Edsall, 'Government and the Freedom of Science', Science, 121 (29 April 1955), 615-619.
103. 'Science News', Science, 121 (8 April 1955), 490-491. See also Oppenheimer references in note 10.
104. California Institute of Technology Archives (Pasadena), Caltech Oral History Project, interview of Joseph B. Koepfli by Elizabeth Hodes, 8 November 1983, 73-82.
105. Wang, Isis, op. cit. note 10; Chet Holifield, speech in the House of Representatives entitled 'Sabotage of American Science: The Full Meaning of Attacks on Dr. Condon', 9 March 1948 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948).
106. DuBridge Collection, folder 109.3, George B. Pegram regarding the APS to DuBridge, 5 March 1948; Urey Collection, box 3, folder 11, P. W. Bridgman, et al. to Academy fellows, 18 March 1948.
107. Wang, American Science, op. cit. note 10, 184-196.
108. Russell Olwell, 'Physical Isolation and Marginalization in Physics: David Bohm's Cold War Exile', Isis, 90 (December 1999), 738-756.
109. Wang, Isis, op. cit. note 10; DuBridge Collection, folder 109.3, Alvin E. Eurich, vice president of Stanford University, telegram to DuBridge, 6 June 1947, and DuBridge's reply, 7 June 1947.
110. 'Security System Hit', Science, 126 (20 December 1957), 1280.
111. Peter J. Westwick, 'The National Laboratory System in the U.S., 1947-1962' (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1999).
112. See, for example, DuBridge Collection, folder 109.3, DuBridge letter to Chet Holifield, 9 April 1948.
113. American Civil Liberties Union, Free Trade in Ideas: A Constitutional Imperative (New York: ACLU, 1984).
114. 'Government as Nanny', editorial, Los Angeles Times (16 July 1984), 114; ACLU, op. cit. note 72.
115. Ashley Dunn, 'U.S. Blacklist Outlives the Cold War', Los Angeles Times (6 October 1991), A1.
116. Robert E. Marshak, 'APS and the International Physics Community in 1983', Physics Today, 37 (June 1984), 44-45;
117. 'AIP Insists on Freedom of Information', Physics Today, 38 (September 1985), 70-71;
118. 'Stumbling on Superconductors', Science, 237 (31 July 1987), 477; ACLU, op. cit. note 72.
119. See also Steven Aftergood, 'Government Secrecy After the Cold War', Physics and Society, 27 (July 1998), 9-10.
120. Norman R. Ramsey letter to the editor, entitled 'APS Should Not Police Physics', American Physical Society News, 1 (May 1992), 15-16.
121. 'CIFS Rallies to Aid of Cuban Scientists Denied U.S. Visas', American Physical Society News, 6 (May 1997), 1; Dunn, op. cit. note 74.
122. 'The China Syndrome', The Nation, 268 (5-12 April 1999), 5.
123. Invin Goodwin, 'Los Alamos Director Talks About Security Problems, Morale, and Recruiting Young Scientists at Lab', Physics Today, 53 (February 2000), 46-48.
124. Walter Pincus, 'Nuclear Official's Future Uncertain', Washington Post (25 June 1999), A10;
125. Steven Aftergood, 'How Not to Combat Chinese Espionage', Los Angeles Times (4 July 1999), M2.
126. Melvin, op. cit. note 6; Angela E. Oh, 'Spy Charges Fueled Search for Scapegoats', Los Angeles Times (21 June 1999), B5.
127. Anderson, op. cit. note 3.
128. Personal discussions with Greg Whitesides.
129. Smith, op. cit. note 10.
130. Hodes, op. cit. note 20.