[on top of the leader head LP writes:]

The Murphy grandson is going to Reed next year. Why not get Amos as ass't to Fritschman?

AN Richards said that he is accelerating toward death.

Thursday, 10 ^oo PM

Dearest little love:

Many people have asked for you. Chaney said that the greatest attraction of the APS meeting was missing this year. Mrs Beams, Mrs Murphy, Aydelotte, AN Richards, RT Birge, Mrs Boring, Mrs Bridgman, Karl Darrow, Dobzhansky, Sam Goudsmit + Mrs G., Walter Miles, Mrs Shaffer, Shull + Mrs Shull, Mrs Hugh Taylor, + others asked why you weren't here.

I met Felix Frankfurter. He talked this morning-not too well. Judge Briggs gave an excellent talk, about crime + insanity. I pre-sided this afternoon. The program was only passable. Bob R.'s talk was not bad (He is going back into Gov't work.) Unfortunately Carl Cori didn't turn up-perhaps Gerti is too sick.

I sat with Bernadotte E. Schmitt, who said that he used to be in the

over

[page 2]

State Dep't, but wouldn't go back now-also with the Murphys , the Sioussats ( Mrs S. used to be Mrs Dillon. She is lively, for ~ 75. She used to travel in the Western Wilds), Moes. The Wendell Stanleys are here. They have sat by me several times-they say Linda probably knows more about Wendell's situation than they do. Wendell seemed to feel that young W. is sensible in attacking his problems, such as the draft.

Paul Weiss is moving to N.Y.-the Rockefeller Institute.

Warren Weaver is in good shape. He gave a fine talk on Lewis Carroll.

Your two letters arrived this morning. I had finished my Nation article + mailed it at 2:30 AM, but I think the stone information would not have caused me to write differently.

I bought three books @ 15¢ at Leary's Bookstore + am reading them.

Last night a Weizmann Institute man came + asked me to speak at " " Fund-raising dinners in Tucson, May 27, + Tulsa, June 6. I agreed, of course, although it means two more short trips.

I adore you. I wish you were here.

Paddy.

Sent to The Nation. 22 April 1954

The suspension of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, as a security risk, from his advisory activities to the Atomic Energy Commission, constitutes a disgraceful act on the part of the government of the United States. This display of ingratitude toward a man who has been foremost among the scientists of the country in unselfish service to the nation cannot be justified by any rational argument. His reputation has been seriously damaged; and it will remain damaged, no matter what is the outcome of his loyalty hearing.

The members of the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, all of whom know Dr. Oppenheimer well, have described the action of the Government as "contrary to decency and common sense," and have summarized their opinion in the following words:

"It seems to us a breach of faith on the part of the Government to call upon a man to assume such heavy responsibilities in full knowledge of his life history and then, after he has demonstrably done his best and given the most valuable services to the nation, to use the facts which were known all the time to cast aspersions on his integrity."

There is no question about Dr. Oppenheimer's loyalty. It is stated, and he has himself announced, that in the 1930's he had among his friends some who were interested in communism and social and political questions, and who may have been communists. In the 1940's and 1950's he devoted most of his time, energy, and extraordinary ability in outstanding service to the nation. Throughout this recent period he has sacrificed his own career as a productive scientist in order to perform a public service. Few men have better deserved the nation's highest award to civilians, the Presidential Medal for Merit, which was presented to him by President Truman at the end of the war.

[This paragraph was struck through by Pauling] He has since 1940 been closely associated with the leading men in the government and the armed services. His appointment as director of the Atomic Bomb Laboratory at Los Alamos was made by General Groves with full knowledge of his earlier associations.

The conclusion that Dr. Oppenheimer is a loyal and patriotic American must be reached by any sensible person who considers the facts. It must have been reached by the officials of the AEC, and by President Eisenhower himself. We are accordingly forced to conclude that the recent action is the result of political considerations, that Dr. Oppenheimer has been sacrificed by the Government to protect itself against McCarthyism.

This action is sure to have serious consequences to the nation. It may be expected that many thoughtful scientists will decide that it is dangerous to make an important contribution to the national welfare, and that they should not accept employment in government agencies, or should be careful that their contributions are not outstanding.

It has been said that Dr. Oppenheimer opposed the H-bomb program at the time, 1949, when the initiation of this program was under consideration. The members of the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have commented on this point in the following words: "So far as his objections (to making a hydrogen bomb) were moral and political, he was entitled to his opinion as a man, and it would be absurd to say that all doubts on these scores have been resolved or can ever be resolved."

[This paragraph was struck through by Pauling] Moreover, his opinions about the H-bomb program were expressed in connection with his advisory duties to the Government. Are we entering that dangerous period in the history of a nation when, after a political or administrative decision is made, government officials and citizens are to be punished for having advanced opposing arguments during the discussion preceding the decision?

Dr. Oppenheimer is to be commended if he advanced moral and ethical arguments against the manufacture of that greatest of all weapons of mass destruction, the H-bomb. Nine years ago atom bombs were used, without warning, to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians - men, women, and children, innocent except for being citizens of an enemy country. The use of H-bombs will permit the slaughter not of hundreds of thousands, but of millions of innocent people, in a single explosion. There is no conceivable system of ethical and moral principles that would permit A-bombs and H-bombs to be used by a nation to force other nations to accept political decisions or to attempt to benefit itself at the expense of the rest of the world.

In 1949, when scientists knew that H-bombs could be made, the Government might have followed the course of initiating vigorous negotiation with the rest of the world to achieve a system of general disarmament, abolition of atomic weapons, and settlement of differences between nations through arbitration, with use of strengthened UN. Now, when hydrogen bombs have been made and exploded, there no longer remains even the slightest doubt that their use in war would be a catastrophe for the world, would cause the end of civilization. Instead of raising trivial questions about Dr. Oppenheimer's loyalty, which he has demonstrated time and again since 1940 through his deeds, the Government should be asking him to use his great intellectual ability, in collaboration with many other outstandingly able physical scientists, social scientists, and specialists on international relations and other aspects of the world problem, to find a practical alternative to the madness, the evil, of atomic barbarism.

The world is now ready for peace - permanent peace. Charles E. Wilson, the Secretary of Defense, said on April 19 that "the Russians are more afraid of us than we are of them, and their build-up has been a defensive build-up." Great Britain, France, and other nations are apprehensive of atomic war. The world problems that must be solved are great ones, but they can be solved if man's intelligence and ingenuity are used for this purpose rather than for devising new methods of waging war. I would be proud to see the United States take the lead in bringing sanity into the world, abolishing the terrifying threat of a hydrogen-bomb war and its destruction of civilization, and initiating a future of world-wide law and order.