Clearance Quotes
The military security people were so used to ferreting out communists in the 1930s that they had a hard time adjusting to the fact that the security risks or people who might have German connections or backgrounds. Many immigrant scientists were recruited for work on the Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb and they only did security clearances. The military security people kept checking on any communist background they might have had as opposed to possible connections with fascist organizations. By the end of the war they had adjusted but then had to go back to looking for communists as the Cold War evolved.
The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer, like most sophisticated intellectuals and scientists of the time had acquaintances who were communists or Communist sympathizer in Oppenheimer's case his brother and wife were both members of communist organizations. They too severed their connections. At the time Russia was on major ally in the war against Hitler and fascism. However since the Communist Revolution of 1917 there had been an animus between the American and Russian governments. The work on the atomic bomb was so secret that everybody was a potential suspect and security risk, even our allies. In the final analysis it was a spy in the Manhattan project who was there as part of the British contribution to the project. The security people were chasing after all the scientists who had friends or acquaintances who were communists and missed the real spy who had no such connections.
The security system at Los Alamos while the atomic bomb was being developed was absurd. Scientists from all over the country had to be hired quickly. Many of them had friends and relatives who had various left-wing associations; some came from Germany or had German connections. A number of the key scientists were German refugees from Hitler's persecution. The military security people, using their traditional standards, would not clear people if they had any left wing friends or associates or they came from Europe and there were no records to prove that they were not fascists or communists. Most of the refugees got out with their lives and had no records, but they were among the best scientists in the world. J Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director, and General Leslie Groves needed the scientists as the work had to be done. Groves approved important personnel for hire pending security clearance which never came and which Groves knew would never come. Nonetheless the people were working by the time intelligence officers outside the project realized what was going on. People without clearance had some of the most sensitive jobs at Los Alamos. Not a single one of those people turned out to be a security risk or a spy. There was a spy however who had come the English scientific delegation, but the security people had cleared him. Barnett however, as Oppenheimer’s personal assistant had access to almost everything having to do with the development of the bomb. She never did get cleared for her job.
