Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, was an important and significant disciple of the Pax Universalis sect. There is strong evidence that Oppenheimer was one of those responsible for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. This contention, long considered to be a product of the Red Scare, was supported by the testimony of Pavel Sudoplatov, a member of the Soviet Union’s intelligence services. Sudoplatov had been head of Department S, a joint GRU-NKVD project to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the nuclear bomb. Sudoplatov’s 1994 autobiography, entitled Special Tasks, covers this period of time in detail and covers Sudoplatov’s recruitment of Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Szilard, and Klaus Fuchs, all major minds behind the Manhattan Project (Breindel). Sudoplatov claimed that Fuchs met with Soviet couriers while the other three scientists “deliberately left important information in places where it could be discovered by agents Sudoplatov had insinuated into the laboratories” (ibid). Fuchs would later confess and serve time in a British prison for his crime while the other three were able to avoid discovery (ibid).
While Oppenheimer was able to avoid discovery, however, he was not able to avoid suspicion. Both the FBI and military intelligence expressed concern about Oppenheimer during the war and the scientist would be stripped of his security clearance several years after the war concluded (ibid).
Critics of Sudoplatov have claimed that his autobiography was the product of an old man who was relying on a poor memory to reconstruct events that occurred years ago. The same critics also are quick to point out that the available Soviet archives do not contain documentation supporting Sudoplatov's claims concerning Oppenheimer (ibid). While these criticisms are legitimate, Eric Breindel is quick to point out that oral history “is an altogether legitimate form” and that Sudoplatov's version of the events in question may still be verified by files that have yet to be declassified and released for public consumption (ibid). Furthermore, it appears that members of the Soviet elite actually believed Sudoplatov's claims. Shortly after Stalin's death, Sudoplatov found himself on the wrong side of history when he became the target of a purge conducted by Nikita Khrushchev (ibid). After spending years in numerous prisons, Sudoplatov made an appeal for rehabilitation in 1982 (ibid). The appeal, which was directed to then-KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, included Sudoplatov's collection of nuclear secrets from Oppenheimer as one of his “achievements” (ibid). Breindel points out that the appeal “was not intended for Western consumption” and that neither Andropov or Sudoplatov could have known that the appeal was going to be publicized 12 years later (ibid). Breindel also states: “It doesn't seem likely that someone seeking rehabilitation would make utterly false claims to the head of the KGB; Andropov was in a position to verify Sudoplatov's 'achievements'” (ibid).
Sudoplatov's claims are also supported by Oppenheimer's friendship with University of California, Berkely Professor Haakon Chevalier. On July 23, 1964, Chevalier informed Oppenheimer that he was preparing his memoirs for publication and that the manuscript would reveal that both men had been members of a secret underground unit of the Communist Party's professional section from 1938 to 1942 (“Chevalier to Oppenheimer, July 23, 1963”). According to historian Gregg Herken, Barbara Chevalier, Haakon's widow, allowed him “to read a journal and memoir she had begun writing in the 1980s” (“The Oppenheimer Case: An Exchange”). In the manuscript, Barbara revealed that Haakon “had approached Oppenheimer to spy for the Soviet Union during the war” (ibid). Barbara also wrote: “Oppie's membership in a closed unit was very secret indeed” (ibid). In the very least, this evidence suggests that Oppenheimer was either a communist or a fellow traveler who might have been willing to pass nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union if he were asked.
While Oppenheimer was, in all likelihood, an ideological communist, he might have passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union to serve a cause that ran deeper than the Stalinist agenda. Oppenheimer may have hoped that by internationalizing the bomb, he was increasing the probability that the Soviet Union would submit to an international regulatory agency in order to avoid an arms race. Oppenheimer was the chief scientific consultant to the Acheson-Lilienthal special advisory committee that called for the creation of the Atomic Development Authority (“The Acheson-Lilienthal and Baruch Plans, 1946”). Oppenheimer hoped that the Atomic Development Authority would provide a major stepping stone to world government. He expressed this contention in a May 16, 1946 lecture on “Atomic Explosives” before the George Westinghouse Centennial Forum in Pittsburgh. During the lecture, Oppenheimer stated:
For Oppenheimer, the field of atomic energy and the proposed Atomic Development Authority were supposed to contribute to the death of the nation-state system. Oppenheimer may have assisted with the acceleration of the Soviet Union's nuclear program in order to realize this goal. If so, it was a major miscalculation, because Oppenheimer did not anticipate the nationalist trajectory Stalin would take with the close of the war.
While cults have proven to be effective as elite conduits, they usually have very short life spans. Wells wanted to make a permanent contribution to the oligarchs’ crusade for world government, so he used science fiction to weave his cult into the very fabric of culture itself. Groups such as the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, the Jesuits, and others have all been effectively suppressed by different nations at different times. Yet, how does a national government effectively suppress a cultural phenomenon? History has shown that attempts to do so, more often than not, are met with failure.
Wells’ cult of the superweapon spread like wildfire, mimicking Dostoevsky’s “fire in the minds of men” perfectly. That fire spread to Wells’ fellow elitists, engendering them with an undying devotion that mirrored the most ardent religious fanatic. Given the amount of institutional cover A.Q. Khan received, it is very likely that his network as a product of the cult of the superweapon. Perhaps the world’s bluebloods had felt that the psychological impact of the “communist bomb” had diminished. Thus, it was time to unleash upon humanity the menace of the “Islamic Bomb.” If this is the case, Bhutto may have had no idea what she was up against when she promised to expose Khan to the light of scrutiny. Perhaps the cult of the superweapon even mutated, becoming a cult of assassination, when the elite realized that Bhutto had become a threat. As this essay has demonstrated, such morally repugnant acts are not beyond consideration for the cult of the superweapon. Assassination would be mere child’s play for those who blackmailed the world with the bomb.
