Editorial
EDITORIAL Dr Oppenheimer Charges of enormous gravity have been leveled against Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer as we go to press. The Oppenheimer case, as finally disclosed through the journalistic...
...One can see how tangled the path of "objective guilt" becomes: the notion has no place in a case involving political loyalty...
...One must recognize, here at the start, that in one vital respect the Administration has played into his hands...
...3. West Berlin recently allowed two meetings: one of the notorious Stahlhelm, the other to hear Nazi General Hasso von Manteuffel...
...These doubts are, in effect, made grounds for suspicion of his loyalty because the Commission now believes that those who doubted the "Super" project were wrong...
...Yet, it seems doubtful that the demagogues will restrain themselves...
...Oppenheimer is completely cleared, an entire body of scientists and officials will have been seriously intimidated...
...How surely can we now bank on this ally...
...therefore...
...Will neo-Fascists and Monarchists now taint the democratic cause throughout Italy...
...Oppenheimer's defense and arrive at a final decision...
...It is tragic that it has been injected here, for even if Dr...
...Oppenheimer's views are suspect...
...How many German officials now care very much about the totalitarian revival...
...Future Headlines While front pages treat Indo-China and the McCarthy-Stevens probe, ominous items on the back pages promise real trouble in the future...
...Here are four such items: 1. In a legislative election in East Pakistan, the ruling Moslem League was swept out by the United Front party, which includes Communists...
...therefore, Bukharin and Rykov objectively aided our enemies...
...it comes very close, not only to McCarthy logic, but to the Bolshevik idea of "objective guilt...
...We doubt very much if the policy of "massive retaliation" will contribute anything to their solution...
...Among the United Front's first demands was revocation of Pakistan's pact with the U.S...
...it should be permitted to do its work in an atmosphere free from partisan hysteria...
...This is dangerous logic...
...At stake is not only the reputation of a brilliant man who has held high responsibilities, but the repute of his many colleagues and superiors through the years...
...The choice was finally imposed by President Truman upon the advice of Secretary of State Acheson after a concerted press campaign led by the Alsop brothers...
...Will this be another Guiana...
...The late Mayor Ernst Reuter would never have permitted either meeting: his successors announced, after one meeting had been heckled by demonstrators, that "Communists" were responsible...
...We believe that each of these problems has the makings of many sad future headlines...
...Those who prepared the AEC brief seem to say: "The H-bomb strengthened our defenses...
...This section links the charges of Communist affiliations made against Dr...
...Oppenheimer date back a dozen years and because they have been investigated a dozen times by high authorities, the judgment either of those who cleared him then or of those who suspend him now is open to serious criticism...
...Presumably, his speech in Texas this week will open a full-scale drive to picture himself as the chastiser of "traitorous" intellectuals who have "sold out" the country...
...Oppenheimer thought other measures more practical...
...Oppenheimer with his expressed doubts in 1949 about the feasibility or desirability of building the H-bomb...
...4. Some U.S...
...2. In next week's election in British Honduras, the party favored to win is the People's United party, which has been heavily infiltrated by local Communists and has received support from pro-Red Guatemala...
...Yet, all these people—who reversed Oppenheimer--have been denounced by the McCarthyists as "left-wingers" or worse...
...It is also a case in which it is easy to jump quickly to far-reaching conclusions...
...Obviously, it now behooves the American people, the American Government and the American press to exercise the maximum of judiciousness and sobriety...
...Bukharin and Rykov opposed those policies...
...Because the charges made against Dr...
...The Oppenheimer case, as finally disclosed through the journalistic enterprise of James Reston of the New York Times, is an event with enormous political ramifications...
...An able special committee, headed by Gordon Gray, has been appointed to hear Dr...
...We refer to the concluding section of the Atomic Energy Commission's letter suspending Dr...
...Senator McCarthy's reference on the Ed Murrow show to "traitors" who "delayed" the building of the hydrogen bomb must now be read as an indication that he already knew of the Oppenheimer suspension and was ready to make political capital of it...
...Lame-duck Moslem Leaguers from East Pakistan now bold 45 of the 72 seats in the National Assembly and form the basis of the present government...
...These two groups actually picked up not only the 2.8 per cent of the vote lost by the Communists, but also many votes which had previously gone to the Christian Democrats...
...The Bolsheviks reasoned in 1938: "Collectivization and industrialization strengthened us against our enemies...
...The fact is, a majority of scientists and AEC members, weighing a number of alternatives in 1949, declined to choose the "Super" project as the best of them...
...newspapers rejoiced when the Communists recently lost a local election in Sicily, even though it had been recorded (in small type) that the "anti-Communist" coalition included Monarchists and neo-Fascists...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 16
