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9 • 189 ATOMIC SECRETS, 1953–1954 In 1953 and 1954 Crouch was a part of two trials that had to do with allegations of spying, or at least misconduct, by leading scientists in the Manhattan Project. The first centered on Dr. Joseph Weinberg; the second on Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. As important as these cases are in and of themselves, they also demonstrate the continued willingness of the U.S. government to use former Communist informants in significant court cases and the continued willingness of Crouch to participate. Most important, these trials demonstrate the growing realization by some in power that Crouch, despite his adamant opposition to Communism , might not be the most useful, or truthful, of informants. Both cases began in the late 1930s with the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent research into the potential of atomic weapons. The University of Chicago; Columbia University; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and the University of California, Berkeley, were key centers of the American research effort, but three factors set UC Berkeley apart from the other locations. The first was the presence of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who would lead the scientific and engineering effort to build the bomb. The second was the presence of the Radiation Laboratory on the UC Berkeley campus, with its array of brilliant scientists and technicians who would play key roles in the creation of the bomb. The third was the presence of Communists in and around the UC Berkeley campus and Radiation Lab. While the first two factors were fundamental to the creation of the atomic bomb, it was this final factor that became the focal point in the years after the war. The presence of Communists on the UC Berkeley campus was known from early in the war. In 1940 the University of California Board of Regents fired Kenneth May, a teaching assistant in the mathematics department and son of the dean, for his open and avowed Communism. 190 • THE LIFE AND LIES OF PAUL CROUCH The firing did not stop May from continuing his association with Communism or those who were still working at Berkeley. Indeed, according to Ellen Schrecker, the meetings of the Communists in the Berkeley area, including those still working at the Radiation Lab, “were open to party members and outsiders alike. They were no secret. Certainly the security men on the Manhattan Project must have known that they were taking place, for [Steve] Nelson, as well as the Radiation Lab scientists , was under surveillance.”1 Even the effort of scientists and lab technicians to form a local of the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians union (FACET), raised the attention of the security forces, so oversight certainly was not lacking. Little came of the surveillance during the war, but as the Red Scare and McCarthy era emerged, HUAC and other groups decided to revisit Berkeley and the whole Manhattan Project. Dr. Joseph Weinberg was the first one to feel the pressure. Weinberg was the son of Polish immigrants who had settled on the lower east side of Manhattan in the early 1900s. Weinberg attended City College and then went on to the University of Wisconsin for graduate studies in physics. He was dismissed from Wisconsin by his professor Gregory Breit “who told him that Berkeley was one of the few places in the world where ‘a person as crazy as you could be acceptable.’” Weinberg protested that he did not want to study at UC Berkeley because there he would have to work with Oppenheimer, whose scientific papers he did not understand.2 Breit assured him that he would do fine and, despite his fear, by 1941 Weinberg was at UC Berkeley studying for his PhD. He even had impressed Oppenheimer enough to be made teaching assistant for his physics class.3 Weinberg did not spend all his time in the lab or the classroom, however . He also was an active and open Communist. He had joined the party in 1938 and quickly found a thriving group of Communists on and around the Berkeley campus. Those Communists did more than just talk: several actively were engaged in espionage. Indeed, in 1943 an illegal FBI bug on Steve Nelson’s house in Berkeley recorded the known Communist talking with someone new—at least new to the FBI. The individual was named Joe, who arrived at the Nelson home late on the evening of March 29, 1943. Nelson was not in, and his wife...

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