Evening star., 1954-04-30
Acc Ex-CounseI
Hits Disgrace Of
0ppenheimer Case

Robert Oppenheimer, jr., the
atomic scientist, are a national
disgrace" Joseph Volpe, jr., for
mer general counsel for the
Atomic Energy Commission, said
last night.
Mr.. Volpe addressed meet
ing of the Washington Chapter
of the Federation of American
Scientists in the Cosmos Club.
He was joined in the defense of
DR.. Oppenheimer by several
prominent physicists and others.
To subject a man like DR.. OPP
penheimer to such burden and
pain is a disgraceful episode"
Mr.. Volpe declared.
Sees Nothing New.
s'These charges have been for
years investigated and reinvesti-
gated, haShed and rehashed,
considered and reconsidered,"
he said. II don't know what the
people in the Atomic Energy
Commission can find out about
Oppenheimer that they have
not known for a long time"
DR.. S. A. Goudsmit, senior
scientist at Brookhaven National
Laboratory, Patchogue. N. Y,
and for long a personal friend
of DR.. Oppenheimer, decried the
attitude of some who talk as if
the case already had been de-
cided as unfavorably involving
DR.. Oppenheimer'S loyalty.
This is a deplorable attitude,
similar to the much despised
trial by headline" he said.
This attitude condemns in ad-
vance the members of the
Aces Personnel Review Board,
as we'll as the commission it
self 1t moreover weakens the
belief in Oppenheimer'S loyalty.
Early Association Considered.
I'VE know that his early asso-
citations had been carefully con-
sidered in the past by hard
boiled Government leaders. who
did not find grounds to disqualify
him. The allegation that he OBJ
Structed the H-bomb is indeed
very serious, if true, and should
have been handled by strict ad-
ministrative measures. But only
a mind dominated by fear or
jealousy can conclude from this
that Oppenheimer is disloyal,
which means that he willfully
helped our enemies"
Referring to the recent inves-
tigation by the Mccarthy COM
mittee of Communist spying at
Fort Monmouth, DR.. Goudsmit
said:
I'VE are all likely to make
such errors in judgment as made
by those who condemn Open
heimer, often forgetting that
difficult problems, like higher
order equations, may have many
solutions. The Fort Monmouth
affair must have seriously Grip
pied our radar research, thus
aiding the enemy. There may,
therefore, be people who believe
that the only explanation for
Senator McCarthy'S actions in
this affair is the preposterous
assumption that he, too, is on the
side of our enemy"
Sees Rights Violated.
Another speaker was DR.. Err
nest c. Pollard. Yale University
physicist and chairman of the
Scientists Committee on Loyal
ty and Security. DR.. Pollard
said his committees thorough
investigation of the Fort Mon
mouth case showed clearly that
the rights of about 40 employees
of the important radar labora-
tory, accused of subversive &C
tivity, had been violated.
Also speaking was Alfred
Friendly, assistant managing edi-
tor of the Washington Post
Times Herald. He said the sci
entists should have expressed in
unmistakable terms the sense of
outrage at the facts disclosed by
the report.
"A United States Senator with
malice and deceit horned in on
a routine security investigation"
he said, "and made it appear
through distortion that a nest
of spies existed"
Mr.. Friendly also stated that
Counsel Ray Jenkins. in the Nc
Carthy hearings now under way,
seems to have been taken in
hook line and sinker by every
thing Senator Mccarthy wanted
him to believe about the Fort
Monmouth case" even though
the true facts, Mr.. Friendly said,
have been made clear to the
public.