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The claim of the article is not about Oppenheimer's ideology. Rather, its claim is that he was at one point a member of a specific organization, the Communist

The claim of the article is not about Oppenheimer's ideology. Rather, its claim is that he was at one point a member of a specific organization, the Communist Party USA, despite denying this later. His security investigation was something of a conflict between guys like Boris Pash, who saw communists everywhere and wanted to purge them, and John Lansdale, who defined a communist as "someone more loyal to Russia" than to the United States. This is described endlessly in "Lawrence and Oppenheimer" (written in the 1960s) and the more recent Oppenheimer biography "Inside the Center" by Ray Monk. I expect American Prometheus goes into all of it too, but I haven't read it. The Monk biography leaves open the possibility that Oppenheimer was once a CPUSA member and covered it up. He might have been, but his own hiring policy at Los Alamos was he willing to hire ex-CPUSA members as long as they were not current members.

rbanffy 3y ago
I find treating members of the CPUSA as second-class citizens appalling and an affront to the freedom of speech and of political association, both cornerstones of any democracy. This is the reason for my comment - his political views towards how an economy should be organized are irrelevant. Would it be fair to deny security clearances (and this limit the kind of contribution they could make to society) to people who think healthcare should be universal and free, or that any anti-drug policy based on repression of the users is doomed to fail?
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  The CPUSA was an organization with definite ties to the USSR and that might be why membership in it was treated as special. It was part of the Communist International (Comintern) that was headquartered in Russia. Its cells in some circumstances did actual spy operations on instructions from Moscow. So membership was a little bit closer to being a foreign agent than merely holding a viewpoint would make you. That article doesn't leave me with any idea what CPUSA membership actually was though. I know from another Oppenheimer bio that the organization had actual membership cards (thus "card carrying member"), but it sounds possible to be a member without a card. If yes, were you still on a membership list somewhere, like at the Comintern? Did you have to promise allegiance to the party, etc.? Idk.

rbanffy 3y ago

I find treating members of the CPUSA as second-class citizens appalling and an affront to the freedom of speech and of political association, both cornerstones of any democracy. This is the reason for my comment - his political views towards how an economy should be organized are irrelevant. Would it be fair to deny security clearances (and this limit the kind of contribution they could make to society) to people who think healthcare should be universal and free, or that any anti-drug policy based on repression of the users is doomed to fail?

throwaway81523 3y ago
The CPUSA was an organization with definite ties to the USSR and that might be why membership in it was treated as special. It was part of the Communist International (Comintern) that was headquartered in Russia. Its cells in some circumstances did actual spy operations on instructions from Moscow. So membership was a little bit closer to being a foreign agent than merely holding a viewpoint would make you. That article doesn't leave me with any idea what CPUSA membership actually was though. I know from another Oppenheimer bio that the organization had actual membership cards (thus "card carrying member"), but it sounds possible to be a member without a card. If yes, were you still on a membership list somewhere, like at the Comintern? Did you have to promise allegiance to the party, etc.? Idk.