And unlike Brennan there WERE significant (if exaggerated) security issues involved in Oppenheimer's case. It wasn't just Teller not liking his judgment, which was probably the weakest part of the AEC case against Oppenheimer anyway.
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Both rely heavily on Chevalier's later recollections, which are sketchy and can be interpreted different ways. Chevalier said that it was more of a "discussion group" than a "closed unit."
Chevalier says JRO never paid any dues, and it was only 6 or 7 people, they took no orders, and did not think of themselves as CP members. He is impressively vague on what it was or wasn't: "We both were and were not." I rank that as fellow traveler, personally.
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I’m less sure about this, partly because the culture of membership denial ran so deep and was such an important tactical defence. This kind of indeterminacy was carefully maintained which not to say I think JRO was a member but the vagueness is handy.
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Chevalier had no problem in essentially implicating himself and many other members of the "discussion group" — it is only JRO that he gives a special, "not really a member" status to. I think that is significant, esp. since this was after JRO's death.
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I suspect if Chevalier thought JRO was a clean-cut member (or at least as clean-cut as Chevalier considered himself, which is not too clean-cut) he would have said so. Which is to say, my read is that JRO probably deliberately avoided crossing any kind of clear "membership" line.
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Which again, just to be clear: Chevalier is definitely wishy-washing on the status of the "discussion group," but it is clear he thinks that he and most of the others crossed a line into a sort of CP membership, but on JRO there are several differences, e.g. the lack of dues.
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So interesting. I face the same indeterminacy with Caltech’s Unit 122 which is identically framed: ‘discussion group' (+music). Lots of denials and evasions, but evidence from FBI files & resurfaced correspondence, diaries etc points to actual membership over fellow travelling.
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For me all this comes down to is 1) JRO wasn't perjuring himself in any real way when he claimed he wasn't a CP member, and 2) they never took any orders/discipline so who cares anyway? Beyond that I think it just becomes kind of academic semantics.
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I recall Bird & Sherwin + others also making the "ultimately, why does the CP membership matter in the end now" point. That's the line I take when teaching the topic with the more relevant question being "why did it matter then?"
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