Editing J. Robert Oppenheimer (section)

=== Politics===
During the 1920s, Oppenheimer remained uninformed about world affairs. He claimed that he did not read newspapers or popular magazines and only learned of the [[Wall Street crash of 1929]] while he was on a walk with Ernest Lawrence six months after the crash occurred.<ref>{{harvnb|Herken|2002|p=12}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Childs|1968|p=145}}</ref> He once remarked that he never cast a vote until the [[1936 United States presidential election|1936 presidential election]]. From 1934 on, he became increasingly concerned about politics and international affairs. In 1934, he earmarked three percent of his annual salary—about $100 ({{Inflation|US|100|1934|fmt=eq|r=-2}})—for two years to support German physicists fleeing [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name=":0" /> During the [[1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike]], he and some of his students, including Melba Phillips and Serber, attended a [[longshoremen]]'s rally.<ref name="Bird 2005 104–107">{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|pp=104–107}}</ref>

After the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out in 1936, Oppenheimer hosted fundraisers for the [[Spanish Republican]] cause. In 1939, he joined the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, which campaigned against the persecution of Jewish scientists in Nazi Germany. Like most [[liberalism|liberal]] groups of the era, the committee was later branded a [[communist]] front.<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Cassidy|2005|pp=184–186}}</ref>

Many of Oppenheimer's closest associates were active in the Communist Party in the 1930s or 1940s, including his brother Frank, Frank's wife Jackie,<ref>{{cite magazine|access-date=May 22, 2008|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,800436,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121210619/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,800436,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 21, 2007|title=The Brothers|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=June 27, 1949 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Kitty,<ref>{{cite web|access-date=December 16, 2013|url=http://vault.fbi.gov/Katherine%20Oppenheimer/Katherine%20Oppenheimer%20Part%201%20of%201|title=FBI file: Katherine Oppenheimer|date=May 23, 1944|publisher=[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]|format=PDF|page=2|archive-date=May 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130525101636/http://vault.fbi.gov/Katherine%20Oppenheimer/Katherine%20Oppenheimer%20Part%201%20of%201/|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Jean Tatlock]], his landlady Mary Ellen Washburn,<ref>{{cite web|access-date=May 22, 2008|url=http://ohst.berkeley.edu/oppenheimer/exhibit/text/ch2page2.html|title=A Life|publisher=[[University of California, Berkeley]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127210103/http://ohst.berkeley.edu/oppenheimer/exhibit/text/ch2page2.html |archive-date = November 27, 2007}}</ref> and several of his graduate students at Berkeley.<ref name="Haynes 2006 147">{{harvnb|Haynes|2006|p=147}}</ref> Whether Oppenheimer was a party member has been debated. Cassidy states that he never openly joined the [[Communist Party USA]] (CPUSA),<ref name=":0" /> but Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev state that he "was, in fact, a concealed member of the CPUSA in the late 1930s".{{sfn|Haynes|Klehr|Vassiliev|2009|p=58}} From 1937 to 1942, Oppenheimer was a member at Berkeley of what he called a "discussion group", which fellow members [[Haakon Chevalier]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1964 |url=http://www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/document1.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812215545/http://brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/document1.html |archive-date=August 12, 2011 |access-date=February 24, 2011 |publisher=Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Excerpts from Barbara Chevalier's unpublished manuscript |url=http://www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/new_evidence_2.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812220343/http://brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/new_evidence_2.html |archive-date=August 12, 2011 |access-date=February 24, 2011 |publisher=Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller}}</ref> and Gordon Griffiths later said was a "closed" (secret) unit of the Communist Party for Berkeley faculty.<ref>{{cite web |title=Excerpts from Gordon Griffith's unpublished memoir |url=http://www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/new_evidence_3.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821231219/http://www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/bhbsource/new_evidence_3.html |archive-date=August 21, 2011 |access-date=February 24, 2011 |publisher=Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller}}</ref>

The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) opened a file on Oppenheimer in March 1941. It recorded that he attended a meeting in December 1940 at Chevalier's home that was also attended by the Communist Party's California state secretary, [[William Schneiderman]], and its treasurer, [[Isaac Folkoff]]. The FBI noted that Oppenheimer was on the executive committee of the [[American Civil Liberties Union]], which it considered a communist front organization. Shortly thereafter, the FBI added Oppenheimer to its [[Custodial Detention Index]], for arrest in case of national emergency.<ref>{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|pp=137–138}}</ref>

When he joined the Manhattan Project in 1942, Oppenheimer wrote on his personal security questionnaire that he had been "a member of just about every Communist Front organization on the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]]."<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Teukolsky |first1=Rachel |date=Spring 2001 |title=Regarding Scientist X |url=http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles/issue1/scientistx.pdf |magazine=Berkeley Science Review |issue=1 |page=17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901083938/http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles/issue1/scientistx.pdf |archive-date=September 1, 2006}}</ref> Years later, he claimed that he did not remember writing this, that it was not true, and that if he had written anything along those lines, it was "a half-jocular overstatement".<ref>{{harvnb|United States Atomic Energy Commission|1954|p=9}}</ref> He was a subscriber to the ''[[People's World]]'',<ref>{{cite web |author=Oppenheimer, J. R. |date=March 4, 1954 |title=Oppenheimer's Letter of Response on Letter Regarding the Oppenheimer Affair |url=http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/oppenheimer-robert/corr_oppenheimer_1954-03-04.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514020045/http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/oppenheimer-robert/corr_oppenheimer_1954-03-04.htm |archive-date=May 14, 2008 |access-date=May 22, 2008 |publisher=[[Nuclear Age Peace Foundation]]}}</ref> a Communist Party organ, and testified in 1954, "I was associated with the communist movement."<ref>{{harvnb|Strout|1963|p=4}}</ref>

In 1953, Oppenheimer was on the sponsoring committee for a conference on "Science and Freedom" organized by the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]], an anti-communist cultural organization.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scott-Smith |first=Giles |date=2002 |title=The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the End of Ideology and the 1955 Milan Conference: 'Defining the Parameters of Discourse' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3180790 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=437–455 |doi=10.1177/00220094020370030601 |jstor=3180790 |s2cid=153804847 |issn=0022-0094 |access-date=December 30, 2023 |archive-date=December 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230191750/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3180790 |url-status=live }}</ref>

At his 1954 security clearance hearings, Oppenheimer denied being a member of the Communist Party but identified himself as a [[fellow traveler]], which he defined as someone who agrees with many of communism's goals but is not willing to blindly follow orders from any Communist Party apparatus.<ref>{{harvnb|Cassidy|2005|pp=199–200}}</ref> According to biographer [[Ray Monk]]: "He was, in a very practical and real sense, a supporter of the Communist Party. Moreover, in terms of the time, effort and money spent on party activities, he was a very committed supporter."<ref name=":1">{{harvnb|Monk|2012|p=244}}.</ref>