Archive description
In December 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) suspended the security clearance of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, and after a four-week, closed-door hearing in April and May 1954, formally revoked that clearance. This document contains Volume IIa of the transcripts of the hearings, pages 199-201 contain. The witnesses in this volume include: Mervin J. Kelley.
Document text
Machine-read from the scan, so expect some errors. Lines that couldn’t be read are left out.
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UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION In the Matter Of: CLASSIFIED TESTIMONY OF: ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY ASSOCIATES IN PRINCIPAL CITIES
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Q Doc 4 .. ve before me a photostat from the report of Dec be 29 , 1950., AIsy • t is undoubtedly the report. Q Ent tle "Military Objectives in the Use of A That is ri tht. I would expect that to be the title. Q Submit d o the Atomic Energy Committee of the Research and D v lo ~ nt Board of the Department of Defense. QIw 11 r 11 the excerpt paragraphs I have here: "1. V tory in a genera 1 war in the near future is likely todepe · o r i a ing to bear in a 11 aspects of our military oper ·ions the maximum application of atomic weapons." "3. The ost urgent requirements for research and development 1 e n the field of fission weapons.'' "12. I ive stu~y of thermonuclear warheads as has been esta .is , d that they are more uncertain and much more dif icul of d velopment and if achievable, much more costly in nuclear materials than were thought a year ago. "13. Tl· d termination of the feasibility of thermonuclear ve pons ~s an important but very definitely This ha b en extracted for security reasonso "14. Only a timely recognition of the long range
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character of the would have such leader of Sandi not reached the long report, an had to rely on reach my cogniz had really not did not reach s monuclear program will tend-to make ic tudies of the fission weapon program u . that is there. Those statements 1 ·· mpinging on my memory that I sti 11 sions about it. In the first place, f is, and my expertness and things that I knew as the technical of that time, the thermonuclear had discussion stage at all~ That is a t must be a relatively small part. Any • t s of the thermonuclear I would have there that were in that. I haven't he ~to get over bto things that don't I knew the genera 1 situation and kn' dvisory committe~and so on, but I mind to the thermonuclear problemo It until quite a bit later. with respect to that were there •ho would know, as nuclear physicists be Bacher, Alvarez, and Dr. Oppenheimera t of us would -- prbbably Lauritsen to a -- but all the rest ·of us would ·have been
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that area. Jut o 't r member that part of the delibera~ion • - n y m4nd. If they were in the dy , if I recall, that Dr. i t in this field.