Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucsfcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!arnold
From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Arndt, Galileo, and Physics
Message-ID: <443@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 14:57:14 EST
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.443
Posted: Sat Feb  9 14:57:14 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 05:17:33 EST
References: <20274@lanl.ARPA> <279@ihu1m.UUCP>
Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 68
Summary: 

In article <279@ihu1m.UUCP> gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly) writes:
>For the record, J Robert Oppenheimer was *NEVER* a member of
>the Communist Party. ...
>                              Oppenheimer's alleged communism
>was a vicious lie perpetrated by that scum crypto-Nazi, the real
>"Dr. Strangelove", Edward Teller, in his lust for power in the
>post WW II scientific community.
>
>ken perlow

I am far from being a fan of Teller, but I think this is not
correct.  I have never heard him call Oppenheimer a Communist.
What he did say to the A.E.C. Personnel Security Board was that
he though Oppie was a threat to security.  ("Robb" is Mr. Robert Robb,
one the Board's counsel; "Teller" is Dr. Edward Teller.)

Robb:	Is it your intention in anything which you are about to
	testify to, to suggest that Dr. Oppenhiemer is disloyal
	to the United States?

Teller:	I do not want to suggest anything of the kind.  I know
	Oppenheimer as an intellectually most alert and a very
	complicated person, and I think it would be presumptuous and
	wrong on my part if I would try in any way to analyze his
	motives.  But I have always assumed, and I now assume that he
	is loyal to the United States.  I believe this, and I shall
	believe it until I see very conclusive proof to the opposite.

Robb:	Now a question which is the corollary of that.  Do you or do you
	not believe that Dr. Oppenheimer is a security risk.

Teller:	In a great number of cases I have seen Dr. Oppenheimer act --
	I understood that Dr. Oppenheimer acted -- in a way which for
	me was exceedingly hard to understand.  I thorougly disagreed
	with him in numerous issues and his actions frankly appeared to
	me confused and complicated.  To this extent I feel that I
	would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands
	which I understand better, and therefore trust more.

	[ "In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Transcript of Hearing
	  before Personnel Security Board."  U.S. Government Printing
	  Office, 1954 ]

This is the line Teller has held to (publicly) ever since.  Teller's
actions were grievously harmful, since they were primarily a
misconstrual of scientific and policy differences as "questionable and
hard to understand".  They were difficult for him to understand because
he could not (and still can't, as far as I can tell) see the world in
any light but his own; could not see that honest people can come to
different conclusions.  This inability of his to see another's point of
view led to the scientific and personal destruction of Oppenheimer and
his family.  It stripped him of not only his security clearance, but
his pride, and embittered his final years, which were almost
undoubtedly shortened by frustration and anger.

This is (I hope obviously) not to defend Teller's actions at the
hearing or after, but I don't think it is accurrate to claim he
invented or promulgated the idea that Oppenheimer was a Communist.
This is simply (as far as I can tell) a common misinterpretation of the
accusation (which was made, though not explicitly by Teller) that he
was a Communist Sympathizer, which in the McCarthy era, was quite bad
enough.
-- 

		Ken Arnold
=================================================================
Of COURSE we can implement your algorithm.  We've got this Turing
machine emulator...