The Political Extremism and Radicalism archive provides primary sources on unorthodox movements of both the left and the right across North America, Europe, and Australia throughout the twentieth century. This includes periodicals, campaign literature, government records, oral histories, and a wide range of ephemera. For those interested in the intellectual and cultural history of the post-war United States, this represents a unique resource for examining otherwise hidden moments and groups, such as the Black Panthers or the John Birch Society. The Global Communist and Socialist Movements module contains 21 archive collections that provide insight into how communist and socialist groups saw themselves and the world around them during the major political and social events of the 20th century, such as the rise of the Soviet Union and the Red Scare.

FBI File on J. Robert Oppenheimer

The records on Oppenheimer are in the category of history’s secrets, coming as they do from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and covering a period from 1941 to 1966 during which the Cold War was at its most intense. During these years, as viewers of the recent film will know, Oppenheimer was involved first in The Manhattan Project – to create the world’s first nuclear bomb – and then as Chair of the post-war Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) General Advisory Committee. It was this later position from which he was forced in 1953/4 as one of the most high-profile victims of the ‘Red Scare’. The FBI records offer, therefore, a unique insight into the thinking in the highest reaches of the US government during the pivotal events that would define not only Oppenheimer’s life but the broader course of the Cold War.

Gale offers a set of unique tools for exploring this archive, making it accessible for researchers interested in any number of possible ways to approach the crucial historical events with which Oppenheimer was involved.

Search Filters

Gale's powerful filter and search capabilities allow you to filter on things like date, document type, and language, as well as to search for specific terms across entire collections or various self-selected mixtures of documents.

Term Frequency

A search through the FBI File on J. Robert Oppenheimer collection for the term "communism," for example, could almost serve as an exemplar of the moment of peak McCarthyite panic more broadly. Displaying the search results as a Term Frequency graph, it's apparent that there are very few mentions in the 1940s, with the frequency rising to around 2% of documents in 1953, and suddenly exploding to almost 14% in 1955 -- the year in which Oppenheimer was finally removed from his role as Chair of the AEC's General Advisory Committee. Clicking on the individual years then allows a researcher to examine the documents in detail.

In a different example, compare the extent to which two other names occur in the FBI File on J. Robert Oppenheimer. Lewis Strauss was an AEC Commissioner who we now know was orchestrating the attacks on Oppenheimer. William L. Borden was executive director of the US Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The central roles of Strauss and Borden in the campaign against Oppenheimer can be highlighted through a Term Frequency search of this collection.

Keyword Preview

When looking at the list of results, a researcher can quickly bring up the "keyword preview" to see how the search term is being used inside the document itself. This facilitates rapid searching through large bodies of primary evidence to find relevant information -- long gone are the days of laboriously reading through original documents in a drafty library reading room!

One section of the FBI File on J. Robert Oppenheimer contains a summary of the FBI's interview with William L. Borden, an executive director of the US Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, who wrote a letter in 1953 accusing Oppenheimer of being an agent of the Soviet Union. The interview was held on Febuary 20, 1954. In the FBI's summary of the interview, dated March 18, 1954, they found Borden to be "rambling" and more focused on Oppenheimer's opposition to the H-bom than his supposed espionage.

Despite this, however, Borden did provide a list of further people for the FBI to speak to, many of whom had been leading figures in the Manhattan Project. 

Searching in the collection for William Borden's name surfaces the original letter, dated December 7, 1953, that launched the Oppenheimer investigation and which he sent to the FBI Director at that time, J. Edgar Hoover. This letter includes the infamous line claiming that "more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union." 

Using the tools available through Gale it is possible therefore, to track both qualitatively and quantitively the Red Scare campaign against J. Robert Oppenheimer of the early 1950s, bringing up the key documents that defined that campaign, as well as offering more context and detail from the perspective of the FBI on the key players in the drama.