Testimony of Richard Courant, head of Mathematics Institute, NYU
(VI. Courant 53)
Q. How long have you known Dr. Flanders, and how well?
A. I can't state it by the date. I had been in this country before. I emigrated definitely, and we came , landed in New York, in August 1934. Flanders, whom I didn't know, but who was a professor at New York University, came to the pier to greet me. Immediately afterwards we became good friends on the basis of mutual musical interests. I think we played string quartets two days afterward also.
I have seen him all of the time, very regularly, as long as we were together at NYU.
Then, during the war I was--when the Los Alamos Laboratory was organized they came to me and asked for a recommendation of somebody who could conduct computing work. Very reluctantly, because we needed Flanders by that time for our work, but it was urgent, by some of the original founders of Los Alamos Laboratories, I mentioned Flanders, and he was selected.
Through these years something very strange happened to me which I found a little bit funny. He came on official business to New York. He saw us, but although I was perfectly aware of what was going on, he never said, he avoided talking about his work. Once I was even consulted by the Los Alamos Laboratory on specific questions. I was willing to stop there on my way to the West Coast, where I had some business. I remember that Flanders asked me not to come to Los Alamos, but to stay in a hotel
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room, in Albuquerque, and visited me there. He asked measured questions about equations, and that was all. He left for Los Alamos.
Q. What is your opinion as to his discretion, honesty, sense of right and wrong,loyalty to principles of our government?
A. It is very difficult to talk about the character of somebody in his presence. I would say he is unpleasantly discreet. If he feels he shouldn't talk about something, even if it is vital for the man who asks, he would not, it is impossible even to get an indication from him of what it is all about. I can really say I have never met anybody who is so discreet to the degree of being, making life difficult for his friends.
His character, I think Flanders, there still exist people whom you might call puritans. Flanders is a prototype of a puritan, and you can read about that in history books. He is upstanding, puritanical. This of course is very admirable and we all love and admire him for that. It makes it sometimes difficult. I could tell you of many instances.
One thing I always tell about Flanders, when I want to characterize him. If he has some obligation or feels he has some obligation, he takes it so seriously. I don't know of anybody--as a teacher at the university he taught undergraduate classes. Problems are assigned. The students hand in homework problems,little tests which have to be graded.
Now Flanders wants to be absolutely fair, so it takes him, it took him, we found out--I still remember the figures--17 minutes for each miserable little paper. Since there were hundreds of them, the consequences was that piles of papers accumulated, and even 24 hours a day, seven days a week, would not suffice for him to catch up with his backlog. It made him really miserable. He couldn't compromise. He thought it was his duty. Ordinary professors would take a minute or two for each paper and shake it off, and this became a major oppression.
I must say that his inability to cope with all of these various obligations made him feel that he ought to go to a place where he had one thing to do, like Los Alamos or Argonne, where he could concentrate on one thing and not have to assume obligations he couldn't discharge according to his senses.
Q. You mean inability to slough them off, get rid of them?
A. Inability to compromise in a way a normal practical person would do it and does it. I have seen nobody that would take such an amount of energy on discharging even trivial obligations.
Q. He has the obligation, he discharges it?
A. He does, to the extent that it will ruin his health?
Q. You pictured piles of blue-books uncorrected? You are shocking a dean, Doctor.
A. He did. Certainly he shocked the Dean. He worked day and night, including Saturdays and Sundays, just to get this off. If you would like me to say, I remember one incident when he went to Los Alamos. At that time Los Alamos was just starting. I thought it was questionable he should tie into--shut himself off from the laboratory. That was understood in the beginning, it was meant that people shouldn't be permitted to telephone.
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I told Flanders, "Would you accept such a job that would really shut you off from your friends, every body, potentially for years?"
He said, "Well, I must say that since I have found that I cannot go and become a monk in a monastery, the next place would be a prison where I am absolutely confined to something I have to do and don't have to cope with all of those complications."
Q. You would have no human doubt of his discretion, his keeping a secret?
A. I have not met many people in government work or confidential work, including very high jobs, but I have met nobody who could even compare with Flanders in this respect. I can say that with absolute deepest conviction.
Q. Would his conduct in seeing Alger Hiss at some unspecified time in the future change your opinion in any way about his discretion, his keeping of his oath as to secrecy and classified information?
A. It would not have the slightest effect on my opinion, but I would like---as in the Hiss case--I would like to say a few words about it.
In the first place, I disagree definitely with my friend Flanders and also his wife as far as my judgment is concerned. I think, I don't want to offend anybody, if I had been on the jury, on the basis of the evidence that I have read in the paper, I would have voted for conviction. I want to say that clearly. I cannot escape, I cannot escape impressions that it was on that basis. However, I want to say also that I met Hiss. I met him through Flanders. My interest in Hiss was when he was a member of the Carnegie group. We wanted very much to have financial support for the institute. The Carnegie Institute--when I learned that Flanders knew Hiss so well I thought--on very friendly terms--I thought it would be a good opportunity of getting at the Carnegie people. Flanders invited me for dinner once with Hiss. I saw Alger several times. In the school matters he tried to help us. I had several meetings with Hiss for lunch and in my office on this problem.
I didn't know any thing about Hiss except he had been with the State Department. He was highly repected, and when I met him I was very much impressed that such a big shot should be such a straight-forward pleasant, easy-going individual. We mostly talked about educational questions. I don't remember that any political problem was touched.
Then I remember one day I opened the newspaper and I saw this accusation. I was just perfectly--it was unbelievable to me. For a long time I was convinced that it was all nothing.
I will say, following the first trial I became doubtful. I always waited for something to come from Hiss which would clear up the case, at lest show that he was fully cooperating in clearing g up the record. When this did not happen, I changed my mind. The fact that Flanders did not change his mind, in my opinion, change his mind about the facts, that is one of the disagreements of opinion. I think I am right. But I would not hold it against him, and certainly I would consider it just as one of these inconvenient consequences of his puritanism. His loyalty is so strong that it takes a little more to shake it than it does for a normal person.
I understood he still feels friendly for him, and it is just a consequence of the same quality which makes him such a particularly good security risk.
Now you asked me what would happen when he would meet Hiss. I don't know. I could conjecture. I personally think either he would be disappointed and see
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the difference in one he has known, and it would be a painful experience for him, or he would be by the strength of his puritanism, would be convinced he should still cooperate in bringing out the whole truth. I don't think the trial has brought out all the aspects of the case. There are many questions I would have to ask before I would pretend to understand it. I think that Flanders, in future contacts, would have respect for the public as a whole. It would have absolutely no bearing on his security matters.
Q. You mean because his obligation is absolute on security matters?
A. It is perfectly unthinkable for me that Flanders would ever disclose anything to anybody, including his nearest friends, including people who have been cleared completely, but the rules are you must not disclose classified information. He didn't talk to me about it, although I had atomic energy clearance. He know that this subject is free to discuss. So I think, I am certainly not the only one, but anyone who know Flanders would be just as strong to convince as this. I think it is very deplorable if people have misjudged situations. What you think the situation is, everything is clear. But this has nothing to do with this; no leak can be possible.
Q. What is his mathematical ability.
A. Well, this is just the point which makes me think this way. I think Flanders is a very unique phenomenon in the whole structure of mathematics in atomic energy research and so on. His qualities of puritanic meticulous devotion to a job, together with very broad scientific competence and broad knowledge of many fields, engineering, mathematics, fields themselves that are involved in the atomic energy program. He is quite unique. He has a key job. In this whole field of mathematical computation for scientific purposes, it is coming into its own. Everybody has read in the papers about the machines, exaggerated statements, but if you boil it down to what it really amounts to, it is still very important. It has become recently, and will even more so be of extreme importance.
There are absolutely very few people in this country who can do this kind of job. Now, if one of them should be knocked out, it would be really a very great blow to the whole program. I am not talking through my hat. The project, which I indicated, is just this direction. He will be charged with the pioneering, setting up such facilities in an effective way, and we have been looking around, where there are people to help us. There are just two or three people in the country to whom we could turn, and one of them is Flanders. We have been tormenting our brains, discussing things with people in Washington, and the Navy, and AEC, and it is very difficult.
Maybe in three or four years other people will have grown into such a situation, but at the moment I would consider it a great tragedy if a man like Flanders should be prevented from being perfectly free in dealing with these problems. I would feel, if there was any serious risk for security, there was nothing one can do about it. Since I feel so strongly there is not, I volunteered to come here to testify, though it is quite inconvenient for me.
During the last two weeks, AEC asked us, my institute, through me, to step into this field and do some pioneering, set up some facilities in the university. My interest in his remaining active in the field has been very enhanced by the responsibilities I have undertaken recently.
Q. Are you a citizen, Doctor?
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Yes, sure. I have been a citizen--as you can hear from my accent--I was naturalized in 1940.
Q. Are you anti-Nazi? Are you a Communist?
A. Of course I am anti-Nazi, certainly. I have had a very personal experience with communists, and I have been immunized before anybody else was immunized by very close--I had a very close view of the communists in politics, and some reading of Russian communism.
When I was a professor immediately after the Russian revolution, a Russian mathematician came to visit Gottingen. He was one of the leading Bolsheviks. He was to be sent as ambassador to Brazil, but Brazil did not visit Russia. He waited, brushed up on his mathematics. He used to be a mathematics professor in Leningrad. He was the son of a bishop. He became an Arctic explorer. We were interested in what was happening in Russia. He told us frankly. It was so repugnant, and gave such a deep insight, that everybody who had any association with this man--it was in 1921 or 1922--was immunized for the rest of his life.
Also, people who lived in Germany before the Nazis came could observe how the communists, by trickery and lies, really brought about the Nazi revolution. They and the Nazis are the same brand. They cooperated. Each of them was waiting for the other to cut his throat, but they cooperated just as the Russians did with the Nazis in 1939. I am very much anti-communist.
Q. Do you now know any communists in the the United States?
A. At the moment not knowing--I don't think so. I think my last contact with a communist was--we played chamber music at my house. My wife met violinists and invited them to come. There was a violinist who I found out, my wife found out he was a communist. Ever since then we discontinued. That was before the war.
Q. There apparently isn't any antagonism between music and communism?
A. Communism in anything else except in my opinion--communism, well I don't understand the mentality Whether communism is a whole field of politics, social problems, human relations, standard of ethics in which the western civilization has been built, it just doesn't exist. But the communist is perfectly capable of playing the flute or violin quite well.
Q. You have read some of the stories involving unauthorized disclosure of atomic energy material such as the Rosenberg case?
A. I have seen it in the papers. I even received letters recently from a lawyer in New York who collected money or signatures for some appeal in the Rosenberg case. I must be on the list for some of those people. I threw them in the wastepaper basket. If people want to be martyrs for some nonsense, one can't help them.
Q. Have you any opinion as to why Fuchs did what he did. He fled out of Germany.
A. I think he was a communist, as it turned out. These people are fanatics, and our ethical standards on behavior are not valid, for lying and deceiving is a measure of warfare against the capitalist society for them. Otherwise, they allow it. It is not conceivable to me that a human being, as we know them, and like them, could have such a double, such a duplicity in his attitude. I have no psychological explanation.
I have talked about this very problem with people who have met communists. There is just a barrier between our way of looking at things and the communist attitude. As a matter of fact, I now recall a long conversation I had with Dr. Flanders when I visited him on his farm. We talked about his fact, that it is impossible to trust communists, and his statement and attitude, because they just do not act according to the ethical standards, as they are valid for us.
Q. What are your politics?
A. I have no secrets about that. Two weeks ago when the campaign started I favored Eisenhower. Then I gradually went over to the Stevenson side. When Stevenson was defeated I was one of those who was not very unhappy. That is exactly what I thought.
I have very good friends who are on the right wing side of the Republican party as a matter of fact, and quite prominent. I have met Herbert Hoover and have had lunch with him.
Q. Are you descended from a Jewish family, and was that connected with your leaving Germany in 1933?
A. Yes, that was the only thing. As a matter of fact, I was immediately, when the Nazis took power, I had a rather big position then. I was Dean. I was a natural target. But then some people brought out that I had been in the war in high command on the general staff, and had done certain things, so my dispatch was rescinded. I was reinstated. But I preferred to leave, and so I resigned then and went to England.
Q. Was Fuchs a communist?
A. I think Fuchs probably, you see that happens so often in life. You criticize something and if somebody else also criticizes the same conditions, then you identify yourself with this guy. Now Fuchs certainly as a young boy had been very anti-Nazi. Since the communists also profess to be anti-Nazi, he thinks it is good company to be in. That is probably in many cases, has been the beginning of communist infiltration. They find some points, some common interest, some common political attitude, and take over.
In my case,, I was very much anti-communist from the beginning, because I have seen so much of it from an early start. If young people, who don't know any better, are captured for a while, they are very vulnerable. When they have the moral strength and the interest to cut loose after this, it is all right. I don't think it does them any lasting damage. But I must way that I have very little experience. Fortunately my children never had any such leanings.
Q. Is there any thing you would like to add?
A. I would say that I can perfectly understand that if people here knew of his friendship with Alger Hiss, they may be startled. It may be a shock. Very few people still believe in his absolute innocence, but I can understand that. I feel that when on know Flanders, it can be interpreted the other way. It is just a symptom of the fact that he is loyal.
I want to say that Flanders' loyalty to Hiss may not stand the test of another meeting. That is my personal opinion. But his loyalty, trust, is an outcome of the same puritanism that makes him such a good security risk in other ways. That is my opinion.
Q. What about his judgment in arranging a trip to visit the wife of a man
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who had just been convicted of a very serious offense affecting the security of the United States?
A. Well, I would separate the two things. I would say that human sympathy and friendship should be independent of judgment about guilt. I must say that I have known people who have stolen money from me and other things, and I did not afterwards, didn't feel, as a matter of fact, they were very good servants. I thought, all right, it is too bad, but I know now, and we did not dismiss the girl. I don't see why somebody who is such a good Christian as Flanders, though he might not admit it, why he should not be friendly to somebody who is guilty of otherwise. That is one thing.
Now, if this would imply any violation of trust than of security is this case, this would be quite a different story. So I would see no harm in it. I think it is not very prudent for somebody who is being observed all of the time, but I don't think Flanders would do things in a hidden way. He probably would tell everybody very frankly, and if he would be told not to do that, he would gladly comply, as he did during the war. He did not see his friends, and so on. I think if people in charge of security had told him, "We know what your situation is with Hiss, would you please be a little reticent and keep away from that contact, " he would consider it and probably would comply. If he wouldn't he would say so. I don't know whether he has been warned. I don't think you can say that is his judgment. It may be an uncomfortable puritanic attitude, but one has to put up with that.
Q. You realize that association is one of the factors considered in security?
A. I know, but it is not up to me to say something However, I would say, it is my opinion that the association with the same person may mean something quite different for different individuals. If I were to associate, I am not of such a strong puritanic character as Flanders, so I am more careful. I say that. I would be reluctant in associating with people who I suspect have connections with the other side of the fence. But somebody who is so clean and puritanical as Flanders, he is not touched by these things.
Testimony of Sara M. Flanders