SCIENTISTS OF CONSCIENCE'

...But you don't understand," Buell said...

...It was 2 A.M...

...He disappeared...

...I would ask...

...Everything was there — his acknowledgement that, after having examined the open literature, he had found that the H-bomb secret "is not so secret anymore...

...A great deal of the damage may now be irreversible since there is a possibility that some other press organ will secure and reprint any deletions you might make...

...I called Kidder and he agreed to see me at the lab the next day...

...All through the weekend John Buell and Publisher Ron Carbon and Associate Editor John McGrath and I put telephone calls through to the scientific community...

...There followed a twenty-four hour standoff (first at Livermore, then at Berkeley) while the lawyers in Madison and Washington argued how Kidder II could be transmitted to the Federal courthouse in Milwaukee before Monday morning's hearing without violating Livermore's security rules...

...He reluctantly agreed...

...physics department, had agreed to take a look...

...Scientific freedom and responsibility, indeed...

...So we turned to those whom we should have thought of first...

...And Noyes, who was willing, had not yet received his clearance — even though forty-eight hours by then had elapsed since submission of his name, date of birth, and Social Security number to the Department of Justice...

...I decided to return to the two documents contained classified information...

...As a staff member of the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory, he was already cleared for top secret data...

...It was with utter disbelief that I read a telegram the next day from three long-time colleagues who form the directorship of the Federation of American Scientists: "Your effort to publish an article whose draft title was 'How a Hydrogen Bomb Works' is not in the interest of nonproliferation but quite the reverse...

...By mid-afternoon the next day I got the word from our attorney: It would be six to eight weeks before Dittmann, Cooperman, and Noyes could be cleared...

...The volunteer was Hugh DeWitt...

...I called Fankhauser at the Livermore director's office and told him I was returning to Livermore the next day...

...We discussed the subject at length, then he asked for more time to consider it...

...I asked for permission to complete the interview that had been begun on Tuesday — Kidder's...

...A guard, Richard Perkins, was stationed outside the room to make sure there were no breaches of security...

...With help from Ted Postal, Hugh DeWitt, Ray Kidder, and a few other "scientists of conscience," we were prepared to meet the Government on our own scientific turf...

...It struck us as ironic that those who cite such concepts — and their views are widespread in the scientific community — should be importuning us to accede to governmental edict in matters involving the very spirit of science...

...DeWitt was out of his office — gone to the dentist...

...He offered to sign them and then seal them in an envelope...

...He went into Martin and Janet Brown's sunroom and closed the door behind him...

...As a matter of principle I will not submit to security clearance...

...It's the wrong issue...

...Perkins, the security guard, was waiting...

...And the unfortunate precedent of Government restraints of freedom of the press is in the process of being made...

...We had the backing of scientists, first at Argonne and now at Liver-more, who did not necessarily agree with our politics (some are decidedly opposed), or even with our attitude toward secrecy, but who were willing to stake their reputations and even their careers on affirming publicly what their eyes and their minds told them...

...By 7 P.M., DeWitt and a third scientist, Ralph Hager, had followed...

...From a letter from Albert Einstein January 22, 1947 reaction, it became clear to me for the first time why the Government had reacted so violently to the Morland article...

...Sunday, March 18...

...First came Hugh DeWitt...

...Or Leo Szilard, who persuaded Einstein to write the letter that launched the Manhattan Project and then persuaded his fellow scientists, once the bomb was built, to alert the world to the frightful consequences of nuclear fission...

...Postol told me that his three Argonne colleagues, Alexander DeVolpi, George Stanford, and Gerald Marsh, who had read the Morland article in its early stages but had been reluctant to side publicly with us, were now preparing affidavits in our behalf and would file them through the American Civil Liberties Union...

...This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalism...

...Day is not authorized to carry classified information...

...Where was science itself in the unstated assumption that judgments are best rendered not on the evidence but on hearsay...

...Postol, Boone, and I arrived at Liver-more and set up shop in the West Pass Office, where the laboratory had set aside a small private room for our use...

...But what in the world are you up to, anyway...

...The others departed, leaving me alone with DeWitt and the Browns...

...The atomic scientists of conscience...

...Kidder poked his head in the door, said he would be back with his affidavit already typed, then pedaled up ten minutes later on his bicycle...

...I am already cleared for top secret...

...The answer was that there were no clearances yet — even though more than seventy-two hours had now passed...

...The dispute was resolved when a high Energy Department official agreed to release of the document if a courier with security clearance could be found to take it to Madison by hand...

...The last of the affidavits went into the court record a few hours before Judge Warren read his historic decision in Milwaukee on March 26...

...Then we were interrupted by a knock on the door...

...We found no one...

...He took a long time to read the Morland article and the supporting material...

...Would you like to judge the story for yourself...

...It was not from the words of these scientists but from the deeds of others...

...Which scientists, indeed...

...Only once did I slam down the telephone...

...I called Kidder to find out the name of DeWitt's dentist...

...The next day, Monday, we met at the Berkeley home of a notary public, Rebecca Boone...

...There was a long pause — a three-hour pause — and then the laboratory acquiesced...

...But it was only the first of many blows I and others at The Progressive took during that long, grueling, and disheartening Samuel H. Day Jr., managing editor of The Progressive, formerly edited the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...

...Think it over and we'll meet tomorrow," I said...

...All through the weekend and into the next week I called scientists on the telephone...

...Theodore A. Postol of the Argonne National Laboratory, who concluded that the basic scientific principles underlying the design of the H-bomb are already in the public domain...

...the Justice Department had not yet granted clearance to these two — even though we had asked thirty-six hours earlier and the Department had promised to provide clearances in about twenty-four hours...

...We went into the private room, and then Perkins, the guard, sprang to a telephone and called the security office...

...These were the very men on whom we had staked our case...

...I spoke to Jeremy Stone and Frank von Hippel of the Federation of American Scientists and to Henry Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists and to many more in the liberal scientific establishment...

...I read him the "security rites" from the package provided me by the Justice Department, then gave him the Morland article...

...He was troubled by the fact that the laboratory might misinterpret what he was doing, and he wanted me to meet first with a friend of his who held a senior post at the Liver-more lab and was willing to see me at his home that evening...

...He explained there had been a change in policy: There would be no more interviews...

...We scientists recognize our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of the simple facts of atomic energy and its implications for society...

...By noon that day I was in the Oakland living room of Martin Brown, a University of California agricultural economist (formerly a physicist) and friend of Charles Schwartz...

...I put Kidder I in my briefcase and asked for time to call our lawyer in Madison, giving Kidder II to Perkins to hold until the dispute could be resolved...

...They all amounted to "no...

...Why, sure...

...Could it be that the Department of Energy was so immersed in secret/restricted data that no one there was aware of the contents of public libraries across the country...

...He borrowed Janet Brown's typewriter and began to type, slowly and grimly, alone with his thoughts...

...There was a score of different responses to that offer: "I'd really like to, but under the circumstances I'd better not...

...It can only lead to a bad precedent...

...By now the tide seemed ready to turn...

...But we urge you in the name of the atomic scientists of conscience who founded our organization to do whatever you can to mitigate the damage this action has caused...

...I asked...

...We reviewed the material again, then he returned to his office to retrieve the affidavit he had already signed...

...In short order Charles Schwartz of Berkeley, long a burr under the saddle of the University of California (contractor for the two nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore), put us in touch with his friends...

...It was Kenneth Sebrell, the security chief, and Jeff Garberson, the public information officer...

...I can read it only if invited to do so by the court...

...I can't get involved...

...DeWitt handed his statement to me and I gave it back to him...

...Of course not," they would say...

...Watching his Einstein on secrecy Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire...

...It was incredibly powerful...

...On short notice, at our request, he prepared a preliminary survey and discussion of the literature, helped us identify interested scientists, and stood by to answer questions from scientists who could be cleared by the Justice Department to read the Morland article...

...I could not legally proceed to take their affidavits...

...Government and Progressive magazine over the publication of an article bearing on the workings of a hydrogen bomb has brought home to us the desirability of settling cases like this without litigation____We would prefer to have these sensitive issues resolved by voluntary editorial changes by the publisher after discussions with the Government, if necessary...

...I shouted back...

...Will you give me an affidavit to that effect...

...That's it," he cried...

...The first was Calvin G. Andre, a close friend of DeWitt...

...I can't do it, but why don't you try so-and-so...

...Kidder told me he was ready to sign an affidavit...

...It was all downhill from there...

...We went to Harvard, M.I.T., the University of Wisconsin, searching for physicists and other scientists willing to read the article, as had Dr...

...So I flew on to Oakland, California...

...Like any solicitor, I could use the facilities at the West Pass Office, which is open to the public...

...1 couldn't help smiling with pleasure...

...He flashed a wry smile, shrugged, and said, "Looks to me like it's all out there in the open...

...For there is no secret and no defense...

...I asked him to step first into the private room so he could read aloud from the unclassified parts and give me the general drift...

...If I don't agree with you I'll come out against you...

...Tuesday, March 20 — the first battle of Livermore...

...Did they really think The Progressive had gone mad and was intent on publishing a how-to-do-it manual for the H-bomb...

...They were not able to read the article, but like Postol they agreed that the basic scientific concepts are already in the public domain...

...In the following two weeks, Ted Postol helped us research the open literature on thermonuclear fusion and bring it to the attention of the scientific community...

...The hearing on our preliminary injunction had been postponed ten days (to March 26) and I was off on a plane to see seven scientists — all I could find in the short time allotted us — who had agreed to read the Morland article to see if the Government had made its case that publication would irreparably harm the United States...

...Where was responsibility to be found in the notion that science's highest obligation is to the state...

...All through Monday I badgered our attorney, Earl Munson, in Madison, who in turn badgered the U.S...

...Kidder nodded...

...I must remain neutral...

...Ron Carbon caught a plane late that Sunday and came back thirty-six hours later with half a dozen affidavits from scientists in California and Colorado...

...I give you fair warning," he had said...

...Is it not a fact," asked Sebrell, looking at Kidder, "that you are turning over classified information...

...I wanted to know what I would be taking back to Madison...

...Meanwhile, in Madison, we were still hearing from other scientists who preferred that editors and Government officials settle such questions in private...

...I arrived with Rebecca Boone at the West Pass Office shortly before noon, the appointed hour for completion of the Kidder interview...

...Next came Ray Kidder...

...Day is not authorized to carry classified information' Madison, but first, on a hunch, I called DeWitt to see if there were further prospects at Livermore...

...It can be done through special arrangement with the Justice Department...

...But there was a problem: Schwartz and Brown had decided, upon reconsideration, that they could not on principle submit to security clearance...

...I spent five hours that Saturday afternoon in Tsipis's office, pacing back and forth as he retired to his private room, slowly read the article, laboriously composed his affidavit, summoned a typist, then signed the paper in the presence of the notary public I had hired for the purpose...

...My first stop was Cambridge, where I received my first welcome in the liberal scientific establishment...

...We will need your date of birth and Social Security number so that we can receive special clearance for you to read the article...

...I was with two other scientists — physicists Roger Dittmann and Edward Cooperman of California State University at Fullerton...

...There had been no problem getting security clearance for him — and for a simple reason...

...It was a few minutes before six on the evening of March 9 — the day Judge Robert Warren restrained The Progressive from publishing its article about H-bomb secrecy — and above the clatter of our crowded editorial office I heard the voice of John Buell, an associate editor...

...I called one of our attorneys, Earl Munson Jr., in Madison...

...He read the Morland article, then the Postol affidavits, taking his time...

...I felt I had been hit on the head...

...Or James Franck, the Nobel laureate who gave his name and prestige to the postwar effort to free nuclear science and all science from the bonds of secrecy and narrow nationalism...

...I was armed with the article itself, with Ted Postol's supporting affidavits, and with a protective order that permitted me to show those secret documents to the scientists if the Government would clear them in time...

...That evening the secret affidavit turned up in the suitcase of a volunteer courier who had decided to accompany me on the weekend's last available plane to Wisconsin...

...physicist whose battle against official secrecy in atomic energy is legendary, had been the first scientist to spring publicly to our defense...

...Then an inspiration: Frustrated by the Government's roadblock on security clearances, I called the Liver-more laboratory and asked for permission to interview scientists there for the purpose of collecting affidavits...

...He's just made a statement on the news...

...She typed the statement, notarized his signature, and handed the paper to me...

...Kosta Tsipis, a stubborn Greek in the M.I.T...

...The affidavit, it turned out, was still in his office...

...It was not until he had read some of the supporting documents that he realized nothing in Morland's article was secret...

...I. It was our 'I must advise you that Mr...

...He has just been on television about it...

...We walked out to the street, and then DeWitt asked for it back...

...there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world...

...DeWitt emerged three hours later...

...The only remaining candidate was Hugh E. DeWitt, a physicist (also a friend of Charles Schwartz) who had volunteered only at the last moment on Friday...

...I told them I would be there the next morning...

...It came as no surprise to me to learn that Henry Kendall, the M.I.T...

...One of their telegrams read: "The dispute between the U.S...

...Kidder sealed the affidavits and handed them to me...

...He's turning over classified information...

...I don't see how I can properly read the article without running the risk of revealing secrets myself...

...Another two hours passed before DeWitt was ready to show me his statement...

...Where was freedom to be found in the suggestion that scientists let non-scientists decide what people may know...

...I summoned Rebecca Boone, and she notarized both papers...

...The acting laboratory directory, Chester Fankhauser, and his security chief, Kenneth Sebrell, were polite but correct...

...It's Henry Kendall," Buell cried out...

...He had agreed to read the Morland article, as had the others in the room — Schwartz and Henry Pierre Noyes, a former nuclear weapons designer who now works in physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center...

...And your effort to invite and even induce a temporary restraining order on publication is not in the interest of freedom of the press but quite the reverse again...

...I'm with you, but I really can't get into a fight over this...

...and I was in a bungalow somewhere in Los Angeles...

...He strode to a front desk in the West Pass Office with two affidavits in hand, put them face up with just the signature lines showing, and explained in a loud voice he was doing this because one of most powerful instrument to date...

...On Wednesday, March 21,1 flew to Los Angeles, then took an airport bus to Disneyland, the closest stop to Fullerton, only to find that Dittmann and Cooperman still had not received security clearance (now more than five days after the request had been submitted) . I returned by bus to Los Angeles late that night, found a motel room in Santa Monica, and decided to wait there until the Justice Department had decided to clear our three Californians...

...Friday, March 23 — the second battle of Livermore...

...The answers were friendly, sometimes plaintive, sometimes embarrassed, almost always sympathetic...

...Albert Einstein, who knew that there were no secrets in science, and who said that the only defense against atomic annihilation was not secrecy but the aroused understanding and insistence of the people of the world...

...His affidavit and others are excerpted beginning on Page 36...

...I had no argument with that answer...

...There were two more interviews to go...

...He had worked for years, with towering success, to bring the hazards of nuclear power and nuclear weapons into the open...

...I called DeWitt, and he agreed to spread the word at Livermore...

...weekend of March 10-11, when we learned that many of the nation's most distinguished public-interest scientists — some of them our close friends — had rushed to judgment on the basis of the Government's allegations...

...In that case, I must advise you that Mr...

...Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, Frank Tuerkheimer, about security clearances for our California three — Dittmann, Cooperman, and Noyes...

...Tremendous...

...As founder and chairman of the Cambridge-based Union of Concerned Scientists, Kendall had been the first to challenge the old Atomic Energy Commission in its cover-up of negligence in its nuclear reactor safety program...

...I was stalemated...

...It was signed by the eleven distinguished members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science who make up its "Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility...

...Inside the private room, Kidder read me his unclassified affidavit, later to be known as Kidder No...

...I turned to DeWitt and asked if he was ready to turn over his own affidavit to me...

...Kendall has come out against us...

...In this lies our only security and our only hope — we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not death...

...I called Rebecca Boone, the notary public, and she agreed to go with me to Livermore...

...He says this was an irresponsible act...

...This from a former weapons designer now turned arms-control advocate who had labeled us irresponsible on network television...

...I returned the affidavit to DeWitt and made ready to meet that night with Ray E. Kidder...

...Saturday, March 17...

...You should drop the case...

...Within half an hour I had the first Liver-more affidavit, Andre's, in my briefcase...

...In recent weeks we have learned much about scientific freedom and responsibility...

...I read the affidavit hurriedly, puzzling over its elaborate but carefully constructed logic (Kosta Tsipis was not one of our more lucid writers at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), thanked him cordially, and left posthaste for the airport...