When Arts, Entertainment and Family Law Collide: Oppenheimer Is All Around Us!

In the 2023 movie “Oppenheimer”, renowned physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”, Robert J. Oppenheimer, participated in an administrative hearing in 1954 before the Atomic Energy Commission in an effort to retain his security clearance. As it abundantly made clear in the film (and in the real-life events which were portrayed in the file), the hearing wasn’t conducted in the manner that most of us would imagine that a hearing would be conducted. Why? Because the hearing was an “administrative” hearing and the normal rules don’t apply to administrative hearings and you might be surprised to learn that administrative hearings are more common than you think

On December 21, 1953, Oppenheimer was told by Lewis Strauss that his security file had been subject to two recent re-evaluations because of new screening criteria, and because a former government official had drawn attention to Oppenheimer’s record. Strauss said that his clearance had been suspended, pending resolution of a series of charges outlined in a letter, and discussed his resigning his AEC consultancy. Given only a day to decide, and after consulting with his attorneys, Oppenheimer chose not to resign, and requested a hearing instead. The charges were outlined in a letter from Kenneth D. Nichols, general manager of the AEC. Pending resolution of the charges, Oppenheimer’s security clearance was suspended. Oppenheimer told Strauss that some of what was in Nichols’ letter was correct, some incorrect.^[56][57]