The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962

Chapter 5: A Jesuit Informant: Father Edward A. Conway, S.J., and the National Committee for Atomic Information

180 C H A P T E R 5 A Jesuit Informant Father Edward A. Conway, S.J., and the National Committee for Atomic Information The hearings that resulted in the well-publicized decision not to renew Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance began on April 12, 1954. A week or so into them Father Edward A. Conway, S.J. (1902–1965), wrote a brief memo to his superior: Conway wanted him to know that he had played a part in the prehistory of the drama going on at the Atomic Energy Commission. “In view of the excitement over Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic scientists,” Conway began, “the attached memorandum may be of interest.” Prepared for Archbishop Samuel Stritch of Chicago, the Jesuit explained, and presented orally to the spring 1946 meeting of the administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, it led to Conway’s authorization “to continue as finance chairman and treasurer of the National Committee on Atomic Information [NCAI], with weekly contact with the FBI, which eventually caught up with our ‘Executive Director.’” As a result, “we fired him,” the memo concluded, “and 14 of the 15 office workers, whom he had hired, resigned ‘in protest against our undemocratic procedures.’”1 Conway’s connection of the firing of Daniel Melcher (1912–1985) in July 1946 with the Oppenheimer hearings suggests more than his flair for drama and his penchant for self-promotion. Melcher was a minor player compared to Oppenheimer, but to his detractors, his directorship of the NCAI provided him with the opportunity to advance the USSR’s position A Jesuit Informant 181 or even to betray his country. In Conway’s mind, the Melcher and Oppenheimer matters both involved national security, loyalty, the atomic bomb, Communism, and patriotism. Catholicism, of course, was implicated too—not just the Jesuits, not just the U.S. Church, but the “holy, Catholic, and apostolic” Church, for this was how Conway positioned himself. From his perspective, he had done his duty for country and Church when he played a central role in purging Melcher. The story of Conway’s cooperation with the Bureau takes us deeper into the relationship between the Church and the FBI. In this case both sides took their shared values for granted and set to work, with no apparent equivocation, to intervene directly in the workings of a citizens’ group of no small importance. That each was convinced—and there is considerable evidence on their side—that the stakes were quite high should not keep us from recognizing the undemocratic and deceitful nature of what they did. The situation, though, was a complicated one, for Conway—and through him the FBI—had several significant allies. Working closely but surreptitiously with Michael Amrine, public relations man for the FAS (Federation of Atomic Scientists, subsequently the Federation of American Scientists), and William Higinbotham, the executive secretary of the organization and its liaison with the NCAI, Conway accomplished his task with few having any idea of what had gone on. Without Amrine and Higinbotham’s agreement with Conway that Melcher and his staff were significant security risks, and without the enormous pressure created by the earliest months of the Cold War and the enormity of the atomic bomb, it is hard to imagine such a purge having been pulled off.2 There was nothing in Conway’s career before 1943 to suggest that he could—or would—perform the part he did on the national stage. He received his B.A. from Holy Cross, his M.A. at St. Louis University, and his Ph.D. from the Gregorian Institute in Rome. Ordained in 1936, he was teaching at Regis College in Denver, where he had been since 1938, when he began the ecumenical peace work that provided him with the experiences that not only gave him the necessary qualifications for the NCAI job but also equipped him to play an extraordinarily difficult and complicated role there. From 1943 through 1945 Conway participated in the drafting, publication , and promulgation of “Pattern for Peace” (October 1943), an ecumenical peace statement that gained considerable national attention, as well as Goals for San Francisco (April 1945), a set of recommendations for world government. He also served the Church at the founding conference of the United Nations; while he had Catholic News Service credentials, 182 c h a p t e r f i v e his primary purpose was...