
FBI files on Richard Feynman   - 001sky
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#366875-responsive-documents
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PhasmaFelis
None of the controls on the document viewer are sufficient to see anything but
the two-page cover letter. After several minutes of head-scratching, I figured
out that you have to click on the tiny, illegible thumbnails under the viewer
to see the actual FBI file.

Fantastic UI here.

~~~
morisy
Thanks for the feedback. Would love to hear about better embedded options. As
far as we can tell, they almost all have drawbacks.

~~~
gumby
> Would love to hear about better embedded options

How about just posting an image of the first page with an href to the raw pdf?
I could then simply read the pdf in my browser. The embedding adds nothing.

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plantain
#178: "the applicant's wife was suing him for divorce charging him with
'playing the bongo drums too much and studying physics the rest of the time'"

#184: "a deeply ingrained belief that he had a superior intellect and that he
could do no wrong. <redacted> self-centered, opinionated, dogmatic and
extremely egotistical. <snip> She said that her personal feeling is that
FEYNMAN is without character or acceptable moral fiber." Seems not everyone
was a fan of Mr. Feynman.

Multiple references to The Communist Party and statements from anonymous
informants within the party around #170. More about the Young People's
Socialist League at #245

~~~
lectrick
> Acquaintances state appointee and wife divorced over year ago and have no
> reason to question moral character of either. Pertinent news articles re
> appointee set forth including article reporting divorce result of
> appointee's interest in calculus and African drums and his choking wife and
> smashing furniture when interrupted by wife.

I kind of have to wonder if Feynman would have been diagnosed with ADD in this
day and age. ADD folks tend to hyperfocus on stuff like that, and
unfortunately it jars relationships (ADD people have a 50% higher divorce
rate)

~~~
mieses
In the present day war on boys and brains, our institutions would have had
Feynman locked up and medicated at age 5.

~~~
dreyfiz
"War on boys and brains" and "locked up" are rather florid characterizations
of the ADHD condition and its treatments.

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WestCoastJustin
Here is the direct PDF link for anyone interested @
[http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/366921/responsive-
docu...](http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/366921/responsive-
documents.pdf)

~~~
CamperBob2
I wonder which prominent physicist tried to throw him under the bus in the
letter beginning on page 110? Teller, maybe?

~~~
gjm11
Given the following passage

> There are many able and eminent physicists [...] Some of these persons are
> practical physicists--with a very thorough knowledge of creative as well as
> theoretical physics and of the scientific world--not mere mathematicians as
> is the case of theoretical physicists.

(these people, if one reads on, being considered by the author as better
candidates than Feynman) I'd have guessed someone with a less theoretical
background than Teller. It could just be an attempt to appear impartial, I
guess.

~~~
Simp
Accusing someone of being a communist is hardly impartial.

~~~
gjm11
I wasn't for an instant suggesting that the person who wrote that anti-Feynman
screed _was actually_ impartial, nor that they expected to be thought not
hostile to Feynman.

But a theoretical physicist might have thought their attack would look less
like a matter of professional jealousy if they couched part of it in terms of
how much more appropriate an _experimental_ physicist would be.

(I don't think that's very likely. I think the person who wrote this was
probably not a theoretical physicist. That's why I think it was unlikely-ish
to have been Edward Teller. I was simply pondering possible reasons why a
theoretical physicist like Teller _might_ have written those words about
theoretical versus not-so-theoretical physics.)

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breck
Interesting story on pages 207 and 208. Feynman is giving a lecture entitled,
"What one scientist thinks of religion", and gets into a debate with the head
of the School of Religion at Caltech.

A few interesting quotes including this one:

"No one can be sure of anything. We must frankly admit we don't know. It keeps
our minds open...We must think about what the universe means without man. If
we can't, it makes us 'the center of the universe...hard to believe.'"

~~~
sanoli
This makes me thankful for digital culture/internet in general. If it were
today, that lecture would be available, very likely free for everyone on
youtube. Instead, it's lost forever.

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Crito
One of the hazards of extreme paranoia is that occasionally your paranoia will
_create_ that which you fear:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen)

~~~
moocowduckquack
Was good they did as well given the situation with NASA and launch vehicles,
at least it means that some folk are going back to the moon.

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RK
From page 151:

is so unpredictable that "you cannot determine what his reaction would be in
any particular set of circumstances." ____ stated that FEYNMAN was known at
Los Alamos as a reactionary, because he was so conservative in his ideas and
would not go along with the ideas of many of the people there of the same
profession who were much less conservative in thetr thinking than he was.
________ stated he considers FEYNMAN to be a person of good character and
completely loyal to the United States.

...

____ stated that FEYNMAN is not the type to be influenced by people such
_______ as he makes up his own mind concerning every problem and a inclined to
make a decision although this decision will not be popular with the group with
which he is in contact.

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Simp
All these references to his atheism. As a European, it's hard to believe that
that was/is so important.

~~~
sanoli
As a South American (Brazilian, biggest catholic nation by numbers), it's the
easiest thing for me to believe. Outside intellectual/academic/art circles,
stating you are an atheist = stating you are a satanist, almost.

~~~
VLM
No not satanist, communist. The communists had a bit of a "thing" for atheism
and the general public is pretty stupid about the use and care of Venn
diagrams, so for them its close enough that a commie is an atheist so an
atheist must be a commie, right? And even worse, the communists did have
operatives in the Manhattan project, it wasn't just paranoia.

The other part that really pisses off law enforcement is church members are
expected to provide great references for each other. And every clearance
"disaster" involved an agent or whatever clearing a bad guy, which is kinda
bad for that agent. So when its review time for the security officer who Fed
up, he really, really wants to be able to say something like "Well, yes, he
did turn out to be an axe murderer. And yes, there were bloodstains in the
carpet of his pleasure dungeon and the neighbors did report occasional
screams. But his religious leader is just one step away from God himself, and
he said he was a great fellow who tithed generously and who are we to declare
ourselves more holy than gods representative on earth so clearly I shouldn't
be disciplined because either a direct representative of St Peter was also
fooled OR disciplining me would be an insult against religion itself" Just a
big exercise in CYA.

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acqq
Read how much paper was spent on trivial and basic details, then imagine how
much more and how much easier they'd be able to dig up using the electronic
surveilance of today.

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arca_vorago
Skimmed through it, seems fairly routine given the SOP of the time. What I did
find interesting that I was previously unaware about was his association with
Oppenheimer and what is blanked out but is likely some sort of communist
organization. Followed that rabbit hole and learned that Oppenheimer had his
security clearance revoked (which is why here his association is referenced as
notable.)

~~~
maaku
He and Oppenheimer worked together on the Manhattan project. Why would that be
surprising?

~~~
rz2k
I've seen interviews where Feynman talks about how everyone else was
intimidated by Oppenheimer, while he was too excited about the physics and
ideas to realize he should be intimidated. I also think the PBS documentary
"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"[1] was really excellent.

However, I can just easily imagine not having come across either of these
before.[2]

[1]
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/oppenheimer...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/oppenheimer/)

[2] [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

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larrys
For a site (muckrock) dedicated to transparency I'm wondering why there is no
easy way to find out (without apparently signing up) what they charge to make
these requests on someone's behalf. [1]

[1]
[https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/login/?next=/accounts/buy_...](https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/login/?next=/accounts/buy_requests/)

~~~
morisy
$20/one time to file 5 requests. $40/month for 20 requests plus additional
features. Full info here:

[https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/](https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/register/)

Slowly working on our registration flow, which is admittedly somewhat
confusing now.

~~~
larrys
Thanks.

You should place a link at the top which clearly says "pricing". And putting
that link in the faq and all the other obvious places.

Another thing I would suggest (and I can help with this actually) is a
different name for the actual requests. I suspect that some people in
government might take this more seriously (not that they aren't) if the
requests came from a different (more serious) entity name. I can't back this
up with anything other than being in business for a long time and knowing
human nature and from my own experience.

When I saw the first think you did I though it was some kind of comedy or non
serious organization trying to just stir up trouble. Even if only 10% of the
recipients feel the same way as I do that's an issue.

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r2
For those interested in a summary, here's MuckRock's article on these files:
[https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/jun/06/feynman-f...](https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/jun/06/feynman-
files-professors-invitation-past-iron-curt/)

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Simp
"I do not know--but I believe that Richard Feynman is either a Communist or
very strongly pro-Communist--and as such is a very definite security risk.
This man is, in my opinion, an extremely complex and dangerous person, and a
very dangerous person to have in a position of public trust,"

Page 110

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mojoe
So how does (did) a special inquiry like the one that was performed on Feynman
work? It looks like publications were searched and people were interviewed,
but does anyone know how those searches were prioritized? I've googled a bit
and haven't been able to determine if there's any established procedure that
doesn't rely heavily on the discretion of the officials performing the
investigation.

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darkhorn
So some Christian FBI agents hated him because he was not Christian but
atheist?

