U.S. says Oppenheimer wrongfully stripped of security clearance

The Biden administration reversed a decades-long decision to revoke the security clearance of Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist honored for his leadership in the World War II Manhattan Project Known as the father of the atomic bomb.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the AEC’s 1954 decision was made using “flawed procedures” that violated the commission’s own rules.

Ms Granholm said in a statement: “Over time, evidence has mounted that the process Dr Oppenheimer went through was biased and unfair, while his loyalty and devotion to his country The evidence will only be further confirmed.”

Oppenheimer, who died in 1967, led the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

In stripping Oppenheimer of his clearance, the AEC did not allege that he leaked or mishandled classified information or question his loyalty to the state, according to Ms. Granholm’s order.

However, the committee concluded there were “fundamental flaws” in his character.

Years later, an attorney for the Atomic Energy Commission concluded after an internal review that “the system had failed” and that “a grave injustice had been done to loyal Americans” under the secretary’s order.

Ms Granholm said the committee’s decision was motivated by a desire by its political leadership “to discredit Oppenheimer in the public debate on nuclear weapons policy”.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont applauded the reversal, saying the 1954 decision came after “a patently unjust and immoral hearing that will be strongly condemned today.”

“This decision reaffirms that government scientists, whether they be high-profile figures like Oppenheimer or technologists with day-to-day jobs — including those willing to raise security concerns or voice unpopular opinions on matters of national security — Free to do so, their cases will be fairly reviewed based on facts rather than personal animosity or politics,” Mr Leahy said in a statement.

The decision comes as Oppenheimer’s story is being adapted for the big screen.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer film is expected to hit theaters in July.

It is based on Kay Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and stars Cillian Murphy .