'Echoes' of Oppenheimer: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm addresses public skepticism of scientists

LOS ALAMOS — U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said she sees echoes of Robert Oppenheimer’s mistreatment in the 1950s — when his security clearance was revoked — in the hostility some scientists face today while working to address climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

She made the comparison Friday while speaking to more than 600 employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Oppenheimer served as the first director and led development of the atomic bomb.

In a panel discussion, Granholm was asked about her decision last year to overturn the 1954 determination that revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance. The physicist had been accused of communist sympathies.

It was “utterly clear,” Granholm said Friday, that Oppenheimer’s due-process rights had been violated in closed-door hearings of the Atomic Energy Commission. His clearance had been revoked for political reasons, Granholm concluded, as part of an effort to damage his standing in debate over nuclear weapons policy.

Today’s scientists, she said, have sometimes been vilified for their work on COVID-19 vaccines and climate change.

“We’re seeing those echoes,” Granholm said, drawing a comparison to Oppenheimer. But “we want scientists to speak up and know we have their back.”

The relationship between scientific research and public policy emerged as a theme of Friday’s discussion as students and employees had a chance to question Granholm and others.

Thom Mason, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, said scientists should be mindful of where their expertise ends.

“We need to be a little humble,” he said, and recognize “that other voices need to be heard,” too.

Granholm, for her part, said she hoped to amplify scientific expertise in policy debates. Scientific research is critical, she said, to improving technology and other strategies necessary to combat climate change.

July 2023, she noted, was the planet’s hottest month in recorded history.

Friday marked Granholm’s first in-person visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory. She participated in the discussion after the screening of a new documentary examining Oppenheimer and his legacy.

The film — released by the National Security Research Center — features previously unreleased material.

Granholm and other panelists also shared their thoughts on the “Oppenheimer” film by director Christopher Nolan, which they said had brought increased attention to the lab’s history and nuclear weapons policy.

‘Downwinders’

In an interview after the event, Granholm said she planned to visit Friday with New Mexico families who have sought compensation after enduring cancer and other ailments following nuclear weapons testing.

“We have a responsibility,” Granholm said, “to care for those affected.”

The New Mexico families lived downwind of the first detonation of a nuclear bomb, at the Trinity site in central New Mexico.

The U.S. Senate last month voted 61-37 in favor of expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover New Mexico’s downwind families. But approval is not yet final.

At an event last week in Belen, President Joe Biden said he is prepared to help the families.