Oppenheimer and other unwelcomes

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: August 4, 2005 4:07:53 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Oppenheimer and other unwelcomes


Against the back drop of increased secrecy and the attempts to  
prevent “foreigners” from coming to the US there’s an interesting  
interview about Robert Oppenheimerhttp://www.itconversations.com/ 
shows/detail539.html (it’s not new -- 27-May-2005, I’m just slowly  
catching up on my podcasts).



The importance of people who would be classified as enemies and  
traitors in the development of the atomic bomb is very interesting.  
Germans who were not US Citizens and those who learned organization  
techniques from participating in Communist activities were essential  
to the effort. After the war paranoia dominated. Today …



There was an interview with Sergei Khrushchev on C-Span a while ago.  
He’s the son of Nikita Khrushchev who took over after Stalin. Sergei  
is now a US citizen. He spoke of traveling with his father and how  
his father was surprised at how hostile the US was and felt he had to  
take a most adversarial position. As an aside, I remember watching  
Khrushchev from Hunter College across the street where my mother  
taught. In elementary school I was him in a school play banging my  
shoe on the desk.



I don’t claim to be an expert on all the politics involved nor all of  
the historic details so don’t want to read too much into this but it  
is at least worth thinking about the price we pay for viewing others  
simply as enemies. It’s understandable that we saw Khrushchev’s  
Soviet Union (strange, having worked so hard to avoid referring to  
them as Russians Russia is back again but it was indeed the USSR  
then) as if it were still Stalin’s country.



If anything we seem even more hostile towards the rest of the world  
than we did in the 1950’s … it was also the same time we added “in  
God we Trust” to the Pledge of Allegiance.



History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself but we should be aware of  
echoes.



Bob Frankston

http://www.frankston.com





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