science · 12 April 1954 · 70 years ago
In 1954, the American Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began hearings to revoke Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance, thereby severing him from the commission's work. Although he had led the scientists making the atomic bombs during the WW II Manhattan Project, he had been affected by the bombs' death toll and chilling descriptions of radiation sickness. When the Soviet Union detonated an atom bomb in 1949, Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence lobbied feverishly to develop the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer chaired the General Advisory Committee AEC, repudiated the hydrogen bomb as a weapon of “genocide.” In May 1953, when Lewis Strauss accepted the chair of the AEC, he regarded Oppenheimer as a security risk, and wanted him to be dismissed.
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