The Secretary of Energy nullified a 1954. decision to remove the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a top government scientist who led the making of the atomic bomb in World War II but fell under suspicion of being a Soviet spy.
The Energy Secretary stated that the Atomic Energy Commission's decision to bar the clearance was the result of a flawed process.
She said that more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to.
The vacating order was praised by historians as a milestone.
Kai Bird is a co-author of "American Prometheus" which won the Pulitzer Prize.
There was a black mark on the honor of the nation because of what happened to Oppenheimer. The students of American history will be able to read the last chapter and see that what happened to Oppenheimer was not the end of it.
Christopher Nolan has a movie coming out that is based on two books. The trailer for the film was released Thursday.
Alex Wellerstein is a historian at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
He said that it doesn't go as far as the family would have liked. It goes a long way. This doesn't change the injustice done to Oppenheimer. Even if it's decades too late, it's nice to see some response.
After 19 days of secret hearings, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked the security clearances of several people. His career was ruined when the action prevented him from accessing the government's atomic secrets. He was a hero of American science until he died at the age of 62.
The commission's secret hearings were declassified by the Obama administration. The testimony said that he was not disloyal.
Historians and nuclear experts who studied the declassified material said it didn't offer any damning evidence against him, and that the testimony seemed to exonerate him.
Richard Polenberg, a historian at Cornell University who edited an earlier version of the commission's hearings, said it was difficult to see why it was classified.
An eccentric genius fond of pipes and porkpie hats, he graduated from Harvard after attending the Ethical Culture School. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
He crashed his car while racing a train and left his girlfriend unconscious. The man gave the woman a drawing.
His brother, his wife, and his former fiancée were all members of the Communist Party.
He was in charge of the scientific effort that created the atomic bomb. He was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission's main advisory body.
Cold War fears over Soviet strides in atomic weaponry and Communism at home led to the downfall of Oppenheimer. A former congressional aide wrote to the F. B.I. that the celebrated physicist was a soviet spy.
The president ordered a blank wall between the two.
The hydrogen bomb, which could explode with 1,000 times the force of an atomic bomb, was a key element in the case against the man. Edward Teller told the 1954 hearing that he distrusted the judgement of the man who had long advocated a crash program to create such a weapon. If public matters were left to other hands, he would feel more secure.
There was no proof to support the spy charge. The security board found that the hydrogen bomb had an adverse effect on the recruitment of scientists.
According to the declassified material, the opposition to the hydrogen bomb project was based on technical and military reasons.
Richard Rhodes, author of the 1995 book "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb", said that the records showed that making fuel to test one of Teller's early H-bomb ideas would have forced the nation to forgo up to 80 atomic bombs.
Mr. Rhodes said in an interview thatppenheimer was worried about war in Europe. There was a need for a large amount of weapons that could be used to turn back the Soviets.
The experts who looked at the transcripts said they shed light on the case. 12 pages of testimony from Lee A. DuBridge, a friend and colleague of Oppenheimer, had remained secret for 60 years.
According to Dr. Polenberg, a difference of opinion isn't disloyalty. It is hard to understand why it was blacked out.
There are 45 pages of testimony from Walter G. Whitman, an M.I.T. engineer and member of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Mr. Whitman said that his advice and arguments for a wide range of atomic weapons, extending even over to the use of the atomic weapon in air defense of the United States, has been more productive than any other individual.
He said that he was completely loyal and that he had an opinion on how security risks should be viewed.
As a successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission, Ms. Granholm said her department had been given the responsibility to correct the historical record.
The Atomic Energy Commission made a decision in the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
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