Oppie Was A Commie

Accuracy In Media ^ | June 27, 2003 | Notra Trulock

[Petronski]

Einstein was a admirer of the gulag system of government too. Which is why the Army kept him at arm's length.

I'd love to see a citation for this claim.

[Stultis]

Sorry, cut 'n paste didn't work on those links due to local page referencing. Corrected:

Tailgunner Joe--Where Have You Gone, Joe McCarthy?
various FR links | 06-26--03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

Venona Project Homepage, NSA (Decrypted Soviet Cables, Coulter source for Treason book)
National Security Agency ^ | July 1995 (Documents Made Public)

[maestro]

Your# 4.........100% Correct!!

Was McCarthyism good for the United States?

The T.V. McCarthy ....?....'Hearings'...??

Nothing but a 'New/Old Media' version of,...'Wag the Dog'....!!

(You know,....like...'Cuba'.)

/sarcasm

[maestro]

Thanks for the...'ping'.

Please,....check out Post# 63.......

(63?....'It was a very good year'...?)

/sarcasm

[Buckeye Bomber]

1) There were fears of Communism, many of them founded.

2) McCarthy knew this and exploited it into election gains by exaggerating and making wild accusations, so many that often they turned out true.

3) This created a culture of fear and mistrust of everyone left of center.

4) Which led to the excesses, such as renaming the Cincinnati Reds.

So my answer is, he found raw fear, polished it, and turned it into an angry, patriotic fury.

[liberallarry]

"whiny, tempermental scientists"

Normally I like your posts but you're way off the mark on this one. These guys figured out that a bomb could be made, got the government to fund the project, and did it. If they'd been chosen on the basis of their politics instead of their ability where would we be?

You also seriously misrepresent their politics. For the most part they figured the public - the world over - to be a bunch of boobs with very few worthwhile ideas about anything. They were very worried about putting an atomic weapon in such hands. Most of them were torn about the work they were doing but felt they had no choice - the genie was out of the bottle and our opponents might get the weapon before we did.

[liberallarry]

Einstein was a long term cohort of Szilard, another nuclear physicist who was found to be a spy

A perfect example of McCarthyism. Szilard figured an atomic bomb could be made, got Einstein to write his famous 1939 letter to Roosevelt, and deserves credit for the whole project. There's also no evidence whatsoever that he was a spy.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Taft also would have won in 1952 except that Eisenhower got the Republican delegates in alliance with Earl Warren (the guy who locked up American citizens of Japanese descent over the objections of John E. Hoover.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Stan Ulam too.

Stan was the darling of the Kennedy's. (I still think he's the best mathematician I've known.) I never heard Stan say anything political though. I think the Kennedy's just used him to oppose Teller.

[Petronski]

I do not disagree, on a political level. In fact, I only bring Ulam in to point out that he sharpened the point on the theory developed first by Teller...the theory for building the Super.

In further point of fact, to this moment, I had never considered the politics of Ulam. I only remember the quote from his wife, which I will paraphrase from memory: "I remember finding him in the living room, standing and looking out the window, very still. I said 'what is it?' and he turned to me and in a matter-of-fact tone said 'I figured out how to do it. It can be done.'"

A very chilling moment in history.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Most of the guys I know seem to have the opinion that it would have been better if it couldn't have been done. Having said that though, they still thought "better us than them."

[liberallarry]

...a regime worse than Nazi Germany

You're full of shit.

[Hildy]

My Dad wrote an article about Oppenheimer for LIFE Magazine. If there's enough people who want, I'll key it in. It's a long article. They became friendly and I have some correspondence from him that my Dad had in his belongings. Anyone interested?

[Pharmboy]

Bingo.

[Petronski]

I agree with 'most of the guys.' It would be better if Oppy had won and the project had been left on the shelf.

But it would never be left there: the physics and mathematics betrayed the possibility, and as wise as Teller and Ulam were, their conclusions followed logically and would have been discovered eventually, by someone.

Better us than them.

Have you ever seen the recently-declassified "Mike films?" That business about the plywood tunnel filled with helium baloons always makes me laugh out loud.

[Exit148]

When you wrote---"...it wasn't until I read the first few lines of this article that I realized that it was Oppie - not OPIE."--- I was going to say that you are spelling it wrong ---- It's OPPIE - not Opie! - OPPIE, as in Oppenheimer. (Just kidding --LOL!)

[Petronski]

Anyone interested?

I'm not just interested in this article, I'm aroused.

[Hildy]

Are you joking...because I've had a long day and I'm cranky.

[Petronski]

No Hildy, I am before all other things a History Junkie, and my favorite fix is WWII. I have read fewer volumes about Manhattan than about, say, Axis military dynamism and economic/political evolution and/or American industrial/economic recoil and response, but I genuinely thirst for all info about this era.

I am a very sarcastic personality, but be assured, in this matter I am quite serious.

[Petronski]

No Hildy, I am before all other things a History Junkie, and my favorite fix is WWII. I have read fewer volumes about Manhattan than about, say, Axis military dynamism and economic/political evolution and/or American industrial/economic recoil and response, but I genuinely thirst for all info about this era.

I am a very sarcastic personality, but be assured, in this matter I am quite serious.