Oppenheimer: The Minnesota connection

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While Universal Pictures' ambitious new biopic, "Oppenheimer," deals with the life and times of its title character, another member of the Oppenheimer family, J. Robert's younger brother Frank, was caught up in his own political drama that played out on the University of Minnesota campus and provided ammunition to J. Robert's critics.

In 1947, Frank Oppenheimer, an acclaimed physicist in his own right, joined the U faculty as a member of the school's physics department. University President James Morrill welcomed the younger Oppenheimer to campus, declaring that he was destined to become "one of America's outstanding nuclear physicists."

Then, four months later, Morrill and the rest of the university community were shocked by a dramatic front-page story in the conservative Washington Times Herald alleging that the newly hired faculty member had joined the Communist Party in 1937 under the alias Frank Folsom.

These allegations were particularly unsettling because Oppenheimer had been involved in highly sensitive work related to the development of the atomic bomb in nuclear laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and at Los Alamos, N.M., where he worked with his brother, J. Robert, on the Manhattan project.

Now, having just arrived in Minnesota, the young physicist, then 35 years old, responded to the charges almost immediately. "I am at a loss to account for such a trumped-up story," Oppenheimer told the Minneapolis Times. "There is not a word of truth in that, except for my physics background and association with the Manhattan project."

Oppenheimer's colleagues in the university's physics department sprang to his defense. In a statement signed by nine department members, including the chair, J.W. Buchta, the group declared, "It is our belief that the charges made are unsubstantiated, and our confidence in the personal integrity of Dr. Oppenheimer is so great that we do not question his denial." University President Morrill issued his own somewhat more guarded statement of support, noting that Oppenheimer had received security clearance from the federal government to work on the atomic bomb project.

In July 1947 the university's leaders lined up publicly in support of Oppenheimer. But privately, one high-ranking official had doubts about the physicist's claim of innocence. Malcolm M. Willey, the university's academic vice president, would become the school's "point person" in the Oppenheimer affair. Behind the scenes, Willey would engage in a genteel struggle with Oppenheimer's faculty supporters, who resisted the vice president's efforts to probe their colleague's veracity.

In a letter to Morrill, Willey raised the specter of a possible "red witch hunt" on campus, noting that former Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen had just given a speech declaring that there was no place for any communist on the payroll of any public agency in this state.

Willey was suspicious of Oppenheimer's denial. The young physicist had rejected the Times Herald charges, but he also said he was not going to file libel charges against the newspaper. Willey wondered why. If Oppenheimer had not been a Communist he would have had a strong case against the right-leaning newspaper.

Working quietly to investigate Oppenheimer's background, Willey was unable to come up with any clear-cut evidence that would prove or disprove Oppenheimer's claims of innocence.

But then, on June 14, 1949, the university vice president's suspicions were confirmed when the news broke from Washington. Testifying under oath before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Oppenheimer admitted that he had, in fact, been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s. But the young physicist said he had resigned from party in the early 1940s after becoming disillusioned with its aims. Oppenheimer maintained that his previous party membership in no way affected his work at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos and that he was not a security risk.

Knowing he was about to be exposed at the HUAC hearing, Oppenheimer had drafted a letter of resignation to University President Morrill before leaving for Washington, hoping it would never be used. But Morrill wasted no time announcing to the press that Oppenheimer's resignation had been accepted, once word reached Minnesota about the HUAC hearing.

Later, when asked why he had put university officials in an awkward position by lying about the initial Washington Times Herald's charges, Oppenheimer could only stammer that "sometimes a person's actions are difficult to explain."

While his admission of guilt continued to roil the university campus, Oppenheimer and his family quickly left Minnesota and retreated to a ranch in the Colorado foothills he had recently purchased as a summer home. Slowly, the former university physics professor was able to rehabilitate himself and return to teaching. When Oppenheimer died at the age of 72, his obituary in the San Francisco made no mention of his difficult times in Minnesota.

Frank Oppenheimer and the University of Minnesota were both victims of the red scare that haunted postwar era America. Oppenheimer paid a huge personal price for his earlier association with the Communist Party and his futile effort to hide from it. For its part, the university was victimized by the red baiting that would continue to stalk the halls of its Twin Cities campus for several more years after the young physics professor with the famous name was forced to leave this state.

Iric Nathanson writes about local history.