The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 16 | Number 5 | Article ID 5454 | Aug 15, 2020

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When the FBI Bugged--as MGM Badgered-- “The Father of theAtomic Bomb”

Greg Mitchell

Abstract: J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientificdirector of the Manhattan Project, became oneof the most famous and influential publicfigures in the world following the emergence ofthe revolutionary new weapon, the atomicbomb, which was dropped over two Japanesecities in August 1945. Soon, however, he wouldbe harassed by a Hollywood studio forpermission to portray him in a big budgetmovie, and shadowed by the FBI because of hislinks to former Communists.

For much of 1946, both the MGM movie studioand the Federal Bureau of Investigation wereclosely monitoring three of the world famousscientists whose work had helped lead to thecreation of the first atomic bombs dropped overHiroshima and Nagasaki seventy-five years agothis month.

MGM was producing a drama, titled TheBeginning or the End, inspired by the pleas ofatomic scientists. They demanded thatHollywood make a major movie urging the U.S.to turn away from building more powerfulweapons, which would likely spark a nucleararms race with the Russians and imperil theentire world. Soon, MGM would launch a big-budget project, with studio chief Louis B.Mayer calling it the "most important" movie hewould ever produce.

In the year that followed, however, the originalmessage of the MGM movie would shift almost180 degrees in the opposite direction, endingas little more than pro-bomb propaganda. Why?

Both President Harry S. Truman (who hadgiven the order to bomb Hiroshima) andGeneral Leslie R. Groves (director of theManhattan Project) were given script approvalrights, and they ordered dozens of cuts andrevisions. Truman even mandated a costly re-take, and got the actor playing him fired.

Groves and Oppenheimer (right)

To even get that far, MGM had to convince thekey people in the bomb project to sign releasesgranting permission to be portrayed in the film.This led to desperate attempts over manymonths to get Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard andthe scientific director of the project at LosAlamos, J. Robert Oppenheimer, to approvetheir portrayal, while promising them (unlike

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Groves) no fee.

Einstein, now leading a public campaign forinternational control of the atom and convincedthere had been no need to use the bombagainst Japan, was so hostile to the idea ofdropping the bomb that he penned a dismissiveletter to MGM's conservative studio bossMayer. “Although I am not much of amoviegoer, I do know from the tenor of earlierfilms that have come out of your studio that youwill understand my reasons,” Einstein wrote. “Ifind that the whole film is written too muchfrom the point of view of the Army and theArmy leader of the project, whose influencewas not always in the direction which onewould desire from the point of view ofhumanity.”

Mayer replied that he “was most anxious tohave the picture made,” adding, “As Americancitizens we are bound to respect the viewpointof our government….It must be realized thatdramatic truth is just as compelling arequirement to us as veritable truth is to ascientist.” Einstein, understandably, stillbalked.

After weeks of pressure, however, Einstein andSzilard, beaten down, finally succumbed, evenwhile believing the movie's script was poor.However, the ever-conflicted Oppenheimer, theso-called "Father of the Atomic Bomb,"resisted.

While this was transpiring, the FBI was alsochasing the three men, with a quite differentmotive.

J. Edgar Hoover suspected each of them ofbeing a security risk, even sympathetic with theSoviet Union, due to their general leftwingviews and association with liberal groups. So,in 1946, agents monitored Einstein's mail andphone calls in Princeton, New Jersey. Agentstracked his writings, speeches, and broadcastsas well as his role with political and scientificgroups, sometimes via informants who

attended meetings. FBI director J. EdgarHoover was known to have called Einstein an"extreme radical."

Einstein (left) and Szilard

Agents tailed Szilard in the street--leading tosome amusing chases and capers--and alsoopened his mail, as General Groves sought tobar him from current and future nationalsecurity programs. An Army colonel at the WarDepartment asked J. Edgar Hoover to open afull probe of Szilard, as "he has constantlyassociated with known 'liberals'...and has beeno u t s p o k e n i n h i s s u p p o r t o f t h einternationalization of the atomic energyprogram."

One of the many reports from agents in his FBIfile for 1946 admitted that the scientist was"well aware that he has been watched closelyinasmuch as the post office inadvertentlyadvised SZILARD and [Enrico] FERMI thatGeneral GROVES had ordered all their mail tobe opened."

Agents followed Oppenheimer locally and onhis many cross country trips--and tapped thephone at his Berkeley home. In obtaining

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approval for the phone tap, Hoover had citedthe need to determine "the extent of his contactwith Soviet agents, and for the additionalpurpose of identifying other espionage agents."

J. Edgar Hoove Memorandum onOppenheimer to the Attorney General

"Oppie," as he was known to friends, was ofcourse, especially vulnerable as his wife andbrother (and his late mistress) had all beenmembers of the Communist Party, as wereseveral of his current or former associates. Yetfor all their searching and harassing, theagents could not find evidence of his disloyalty.Still, the Oppenheimer probe would eventuallylead to the hearings several years later that ledto the loss of his vital security clearance.

The following excerpt from my new book TheBeginning or the End: How Hollywood--andAmerica--Learned to Stop Worrying and Lovet h e B o m b(https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollyw o o d - L e a r n e d -Worrying/dp/1620975734/?tag=theasipacjo06-20) finds the producer of the MGM movievisiting Oppenheimer at his home in April,1946, to finally nail down his permission to beportrayed in the movie. Oppenheimer'sresponse would be recorded by the FBI, with atranscript, which appears here, revealed for thefirst time in the book.

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O n A p r i l 1 8 , 1 9 4 6 , S a m M a r x s e n tOppenheimer a copy of the screenplay for TheBeginning or the End, with the hope he would“glance through it” before they met three dayshence in Berkeley. That Saturday night Marxarrived at Oppenheimer’s rambling one-storyvilla, high up on Eagle Hill with an expansiveview of three canyons, the bay, and sunsetsover the Golden Gate.

After dinner, Oppie spoke about the script, withhis usual frankness. In a letter to his friend J.J.Nickson he would recount much of thisdiscussion:

Oppenheimer: “Some of the themes in themovie are sound, but most of the supposedlyreal characters like Bohr and Fermi and myselfare stiff and idiotic. When Fermi hears offission he says my what a thrill and my mostcharacteristic phrase was gentlemen,gentlemen, let us be calm....Most of the troublerests in ignorance and bad writing, rather thanin anything malign.”

Oppenheimer would tell Nickson that he foundhis visitor from Hollywood “sympathetic.” Marxseemed “honestly eager to get the scriptimproved,” but even after the revisions, Oppiepredicted “It won’t be very good.” At least inthe current story, he added, the scientistsseemed to be treated as “ordinary decent guys,that they worried like hell about the bomb, thatit presents a major issue of good and evil to thepeople of the world.” He concluded: “I hope Idid right. I think the movie is a lot better for myintercession, but it is not a beautiful movie, or awise and deep one. I think it did not lie in mypower to make it so.”

He seemed uncharacteristically insecure,however. “Let me hear from you,” he said toNickson, “particularly if you think I did wrongor want me to try again.” He had other things

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to worry about. The FBI had started tappingthe phone in his Berkeley home and recordingthe conversations.

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When Sam Marx returned to Hollywood heimmediately began revising the script. Fawningover his new friend, Marx assured him in aletter that he had impressed on the film'swriter “that the character of J. RobertOppenheimer must be an extremely pleasantone with a love of mankind, humility and apretty fair knack of cooking.”

He closed: “We are as eager for the truth asyou are. . . . I would rather see you pleasedwith this picture than anyone else who hasbeen concerned with the making of the atombomb.” Marx may well have been sincere abouttha t , bu t i t never hur t t o appea l t oOppenheimer's vanity.

Two weeks later, near the end of a lengthyphone conversation—taped as usual by theFBI—Kitty Oppenheimer informed her husband,who was in the east, that he had received aletter from a "Hugh Cronin" (as the name wasrecorded in the transcript), "explaining why hewould like to be you."

Oppie asked: "Bill Cronin?" Kitty: "HughCronin—that bloke that belongs to MGM." Thiswas Hume Cronyn, who had agreed to portrayOppenheimer in the movie.

"Well, I ' l l tell you what I did on this,"Oppenheimer replied, then referred to GeneralGroves' top aide. "This very ugly creature,[Colonel W.A.] Consodine, called me and saidthat Marx had said it was all right and would Isign the release, and I said sure. I got therelease and I signed it with a paragraph writtenin saying that all of this is subject to my receiptof a statement from Mr. Sam Marx that hebelieves the changes that have been made are

satisfactory." Possibly to re-assure his wife, hepointed out that their friend David Hawkinswas still at the studio checking on things forhim.

Kitty: "Oh."

Robert: "Well, I didn't think there was anythingelse to do. I don't want anything from them andif I can work on his conscience, that is the bestangle I have. It just isn't worth anythingotherwise, darling."

At this juncture, the call faded in and out. "TheFBI must have just hung up," Robert quipped.

The transcript recorded Kitty's response as:Giggles.

Then Robert concluded: "The only thing we cando there is to try to persuade them to do adecent job."

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The Beginning or the End movie poster

The movie would flop when released thefollowing February. Oppenheimer declined toattend the premiere in Washington and even ascreening closer to Berkeley. The Beginning orthe End would fade from importance, but FBIsurveillance of Oppenheimer would continue offand on for years.

The drawn, grey, haunted visage of J. RobertOppenheimer in his later years came tosymbolize a true expression of the atomic ageand the decision to make and then use arevolutionary new weapon against two cities.His face appeared mask-like, but as always itwas impossible to tell what was behind themask, what was hidden or most deeply felt.

The investigations of his security lapses, begun

even before Trinity, came to fruition as the RedScare mounted in America and top-levelresentment of Oppenheimer's lukewarmreaction to developing the hydrogen bombfestered. It's a long, complicated story, so thebare outline will have to suffice here. Hissecurity clearance (which Leslie Groves oncestuck out his neck for) was finally revoked in1953, a decision sustained after a contentioushearing the following year. During thatprocess, the FBI once again listened in on hiscalls, this time featuring regular chats with hisattorneys.

Oppenheimer was likely doomed when headmitted that he had lied a decade earlierabout an approach to him by his friend HaakonChevalier to find out if he might pass secrets tothe Soviets. While he had refused that offer, hehad behaved like "an idiot," he admitted, inmisleading the FBI about it. Among those whotestified against him at the hearings wereLeslie Groves, Edward Teller and E.O.Lawrence.

Stripped of the clearance, he managed to stayactive lecturing and writing but the heartseemed to go out of him. He did not join thenuclear control efforts of Einstein and others,though he was by no means hostile to them. Hisviews on making and using the bomb againstJapan remained maddeningly inconsistent whenthey weren't impossible to decipher (which isprobably what he preferred). He said, "There isno doubt we were hideously uncomfortableabout being associated with such slaughter,"yet later declared, "About the making of thebomb and Trinity, I have no remorse." Heconfessed that physicists had "known sin" butalso "I understand why it happened andappreciate with what nobility those men withwhom I'd worked so closely made theirdecision." Even his opposition to the hydrogenbomb--or "the Super"as it was called--was farfrom clear and forthright.

Shortly before his death he told The New York

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Times, "I never regretted, and do not regretnow, having done my part of the job....I alsothink that it was a damn good thing that thebomb was developed, that it was recognized assomething important and new, and that itwould have an effect on the course of history."

Urged by Oppenheimer's friends, and EdwardTeller, to signal some measure of rehabilitation,

J o h n F . K e n n e d y i n 1 9 6 3 a w a r d e dOppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award, whichcame with a $50,000 check. It was presented tohim after the president was assassinated (hiswidow Jackie went out of her way to attend andasked to meet him). He died four years later, atthe age of sixty-two, after a long bout withthroat cancer.

Greg Mitchell's The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to StopWorrying and Love the Bomb (https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734/?tag=theasipacjo06-20)was published in July by the New Press. It is his twelfth book. He is theformer editor of Editor & Publisher and longtime daily blogger for The Nation(https://www.thenation.com/).