ScienceWeek

EDWARD U. CONDON (1902-1974) AND PHYSICS IN POLITICS

During the last 40 years of his life, in various roles, the physicist Edward Condon became known as an educator and as a liaison between the physics community and the US government. In physics, Condon is perhaps best known for his early contribution [in his PhD dissertation (1926)] to the so-called "Franck-Condon principle", the principle that in any molecular system the transition from one energy state to another is so rapid that the nuclei of the atoms involved can be considered to be stationary during the transition. In 1928, Condon and Ronald Gurney proposed a quantum tunneling interpretation of alpha-particle emission, an interpretation later developed independently by George Gamow, the idea considered a considerable theoretical breakthrough in understanding radioactive decay. In 1943, Condon worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer in recruiting scientists to Los Alamos for the atom bomb project. Early in the "Cold War" that followed World War II, Condon found himself hounded by red-baiting members of the US Congress -- a dark time not only for Condon but for many US scientists.

The following points are made by Jessica Wang (Physics Today 2001 December):

1) On March 1, 1948, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) fired the opening shot in what was then the most public Cold War political attack on a scientist. On that day, HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas (Republican, New Jersey) issued a report that labeled Edward Condon, then director of the National Bureau of Standards, "one of the weakest links in our atomic security." The allegations immediately made headlines across the nation. For physicists, the news confirmed that the binding of the Cold War to the nuclear age had extended the anti-communist search for disloyal and subversive Americans into their community.

2) The rise of US physicists to political prominence during and after World War II developed in parallel with the ascendance of the nation to superpower status. The emergence of the Cold War and the ever-increasing demands of national security assured physicists continued visibility and influence. But those same conditions also brought severe restrictions on the freedom of action of physicists. As domestic anti-communism reemerged after World War II, protection of classified scientific information became a national priority, and the specialized knowledge of scientists a carefully guarded commodity. Secrecy and security requirements, originally temporary wartime measures, became permanent features of the lives of physicists. Scientists who advocated arms control, international cooperation in science, greater US-Soviet accommodation, civil rights, labor unionism, and other causes outside the circumscribed boundaries of Cold War politics soon found their political commitments closely scrutinized for evidence of subversive intent.

3) Condon's unabashed liberalism, his energetic advocacy of arms control and internationalism in science, and his high-level government profile placed him on a collision course with HUAC during the formative years of the post-World War II "red scare". For Condon, confrontation with HUAC meant years of public scrutiny and political harassment. For science as a whole, his ordeal exemplified the larger struggles between science and politics that became a part of the lives of physicists during the Cold War era.

4) In a career that ultimately spanned 5 decades, Condon published more than 90 papers in such diverse fields as atomic physics, solid-state physics, and the physics of microwaves and radio waves. He also co-authored several well-known textbooks, including the first English-language textbook on quantum mechanics (with Philip Morse in 1929), and the classic _The Theory of Atomic Spectra (with G.H. Shortley in 1936).

5) By the end of 1948, Condon emerged unscathed and victorious from his confrontation with HUAC, with President Truman himself publicly defending Condon. J. Parnell Thomas won his congressional race that year but was indicted for payroll padding shortly thereafter. Thomas pleaded no contest, resigned from Congress in disgrace, and spent 9 months in federal prison. In later years, Condon delighted in referring to J. Parnell Thomas as "ex-convict Thomas".

Editor's note: As in this case, history often provides a sense of justice done. The post-World War II, "red scare", however, persisted long after J. Parnell Thomas under the aegis of Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, and many scientists -- physicists, chemists, biologists -- had their careers destroyed by politicians essentially more "un-American" than any of the scientists they publicly attacked.