Conversations: 1951

February 26, 1951

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILE

SUBJECT: Conversation with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer

In view of recent developments in my conversations with Drs. Kelly and Buckley it seemed appropriate to talk again with Dr. Oppenheimer and I therefore called on him at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, spending from noon until 4:00 p.m. with him.

First we talked about a matter he has been asked to undertake by Louis Ridenour and Secretary of the Air Force Finletter, which he has under consideration. He told me that he had talked with Bernard Brodie [Professor of International Relations, Yale University] several times within the last few days when he was in Washington. He also attended a meeting of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences on Saturday night and Sunday [February 24 and 25] and Dr. Buckley spoke with him privately during that period as well as at the Council meeting.

We talked briefly about the National Science Foundation, he being aware of and gratified that the Foundation had swung around to a decision to keep out of the defense and other applied research business. We also talked somewhat about the Research and Development Board, but inconclusively. The principal talk had to do with matters related to an Advisory Committee on Defense Scientific Research to which incidentally Mr. Charles Wilson had devoted a paragraph in his Friday [February 23] night radio speech which was reported in full in Saturday's New York Times.[1] I shall not attempt to report the conversation in detail but we covered the subject rather thoroughly. I told him of Kelly’s refusal of the Chairmanship; he esteems Kelly very highly. I also told him of the Thomas matter[2] and we recognized that any conversation might prove academic subject to Thomas’ decision, although depending on the latter there were still questions of committee composition, function, reporting etc. which would be germane.

As to the Committee, he thought about names of possibilities for the chairmanship after we discussed qualifications and he also brought out the list of members of the National Academy and looked through that. It seems pretty clear that barring Charles Thomas consideration must be given to a part-time Chairman with a competent full time Executive Secretary and we discussed this aspect a bit. On such a basis there would be a wide field of choice for Chairmanship, that is on a part-time basis. As to the full-time Executive Secretary, thinking was in terms of someone like Larry Hafstad [Atomic Energy Commission] or Dr. Alan Waterman. Incidentally, going back to the National Science Foundation matter, Oppenheimer thought that either Dr. Roger Adams or Dr. Alan Waterman would be excellent choices for the Director. He also mentioned Hugh Dryden [Administrator of the National Advisory Board on Aeronautics] as the kind of person who might be quite effective as the full-time Executive Secretary.

As to the size of the Committee, he thought that anything short of 20 would be all right and that 12 would be by no means too large a number. This seemed to be his idea offhand of the optimum number. As to names,, the following were mentioned: Oppenheimer, DuBridge, [W. Albert] Noyes [University of Rochester], [Alan] Gregg [the Rockefeller Foundation], Bush, Conant, Kelly; the foregoing were ones which I mentioned Then he went on: [Charles] Lauritsen [California Institute of Technology], [Crawford] Greenewalt [the Du Pont Company], [Jerrold] Zacharias [MIT], Rabi, George Beadle and/or Wendell Stanley, both of whom he described as very great biologists; the former is of Cal Tech, formerly of Stanford. Stanley is the discoverer of the tobacco mosaic virus. To be continued: [John] von Neumann [Institute for Advanced Study], [George] Kistiakowsky, the [Harvard] physical chemist; and Clark Millikan [Cal Tech] or von Karman. He spoke very highly of Greenewalt, which was interesting in view of the latter's industrial rather than scientific distinction. The foregoing names were not meant be exhaustive but were rather offhand. He pointed out that there was a very large field to select from for membership on the Committee.

He asked about the relationship of intelligence and wondered whether among the ex-officio members whom I had named General [Walter] Bedell Smith [Director, Defense Department Intelligence Agency] should not sit. There was also talk about the relationship of this Committee to the National Security Council and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He pointed out that of the latter two organizations should perhaps be the principal consumers of certain of the Committee’s recommendations. Much of our talk was about the function and functioning of the Committee and was of a rambling rather than a conclusive nature.

I said I would post him on the outcome of the Charles Thomas discussion and we agreed to talk again as might be appropriate. He mentioned, incidentally, that he knew Charlie Thomas very well, that the latter had been at Los Alamos for a large part of the Manhattan District time and that both of them had sat on the Acheson--Lilienthall Report committee.[3]

William T. Golden

____________________________

1. The February 24 edition of the New York Times featured the radio address on its front page with the headline, "Wilson Ties Safety of Free World to Vast U.S. Output." In the paragraph Golden refers to Thomas stated: "The mobilization efforts of science and research will be centered in an Advisory Committee on Defense Scientific Research to be created by the President. I am confident that the group of scientists, already set up to do this work, will be as successful as they have been in the past." (ed.)
2. Charles Thomas, Vice President of the Montsanto Chemical Company, was sounded out about his availabiity for the chairmanship of the SAC following Kelly's refusal, but declined to accept. (ed.)
3. This report was prepared in 1946 under the joint responsibility of Dean Acheson, then Undersecretary of State, and David Lilienthal, first Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. It provided the basis for the so-called Baruch Plan, although only after substantial revision. According to the terms of the latter plan, which was rejected by the Soviet Union, the United States would have agreed to declassify a great deal of information underlying nuclear weapons development in exchange for strictly enforced international safeguards. (ed.)