Richard Feynman's FBI Files Released 181
v3rgEz writes "The FBI files of noted physicist, esteemed author and all-around geek Richard Feynman have been released. Feynman and the FBI had an extended encounter after the Bureau discovered he had been invited to speak at the USSR, which set off a flurry of investigations into his loyalty — even as he pestered the State Department for guidance on whether he should or shouldn't go, guidance they only gave belatedly. Of particular interest to the FBI was his avid devotion to the art of lock picking, his high school membership in a socialism club (for social reasons, he swore), and the fact that he was a godless scientist who loved his bongo drums. Original documents are available. One other element? A seven-page letter detailing a conspiracy theory that Feynman was a sleeper agent for enemies unknown, but probably communist ones."
During the Cold War (Score:5, Funny)
The summary forgot this was during the height of the Cold War. Stuff like this doesn't happen today. The government wouldn't waste time doing a background check just because you flew to modern-day Democratic Russia.
hahahahahahahahahahahaaha
I kill me.
Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, they'd already know what you were up to from having taped all your phone calls first.
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"taped" reminisce nostalgic
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Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they wouldn't. Actual background checks take too long and return far too much information. Today, your visit is recorded in a database, correlated with the fact that your plane had held a suspected terrorist in its last flight, so the conclusion is that you must be the recipient of a secret package hidden inside your seat cushion. That's enough to get a GPS tracker on your car and addition to the no-fly list.
Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> the conclusion is that you must be the recipient of a secret package hidden inside your seat cushion.
>>>That's enough to get a GPS tracker on your car and addition to the no-fly list
That's enough to get you thrown in jail without a right to trial under the NDAA which Congress passed by ~65% and Obama vetoed..... ooops, I mean signed. (I would have vetoed.)
Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Funny)
the NDAA which Congress passed by ~65% and Obama vetoed..... ooops, I mean signed.
Yeah, but he didn't WANT to sign it, see. Or, at least, that's what he says when he's running for reelection.
Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Funny)
Those damn mind control pens!
Re:During the Cold War (Score:4, Informative)
Re:During the Cold War (Score:5, Insightful)
So? Veto it anyway. Make them declare themselves to be for the reasons that he vetoed the bill.
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283 out of 435 is only 65%, not 66.7%. AND if the President vetoed the bill, I bet almost all the Democrats would have switched their "ayes" to "no" on the override vote, which would give approximately 200-219 and fail.
Then it would go back to committee, the jailtime-without-trial clauses removed, and the NDAA v.2 passed. (Of course the reason Obama didn't veto the vote is because he ASKED those two senteces to be added. He wanted them there.)
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I for one welcome overlord Obama's new right to throw anyone in jail that displeases him.
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The government wouldn't waste time doing a background check just because you flew to modern-day Democratic Russia.
Now they just do it whenever you buy an airplane ticket?
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The government wouldn't waste time doing a background check just because you flew to modern-day Democratic Russia
no, they would now do it if you flew to yemen or china
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Re:During the Cold War (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I'm sure that removing the few restrictions that corporations have on them and letting them do whatever they want, with absolutely NO ONE to stop them will make everything better. Certainly that's a better idea that trying to actually fix the government so it's NOT owned by the corporations.
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You do realize that a lot of Libertarians, myself included, are anti-corporation. If I were voted dictator the first thing I would do is outlaw them. Also Corporations in their current form couldn't exist without a government. Similar to copyrights and patents. I only found out recently that plants are patentable. It's governments that make such things possible.
surely they're joking (Score:5, Funny)
surely they're joking
Re:surely they're joking (Score:4, Funny)
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Taste the WHOOSH
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Does it come in grape?
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The woosh is on you, son. You never saw Police Squad?
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While I do understand the Police Squad reference, I am absolutely sure original joke was in reference to the eponymous phrase of the book: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" the story of which I find funnier as a matter of opinion.
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When I see references like this, I am reminded of Airplane! (which predates Police Squad by 2 years). Of course both feature Leslie Nielsen, so there you go.
"Surely you can't be serious."
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."
Re:surely they're joking (Score:4, Informative)
I will help you along...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!
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Yeah, surely it was his failed attempt to get to Tuva that should have raised the real big red flag!
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No they're serious, and don't call me Shirley.
So who wrote that letter? (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting question is, who wrote that letter? Not an FBI agent; an FBI agent wouldn't write to Hoover directly, outside of channels. That came from some outside source with a political agenda. But the source has been "redacted".
Jelious co-worker. (Score:4, Insightful)
Envious people cause a lot of trouble; especially when you provide them outlets to express such emotions.
Modern day witch hunts are no better, people exploit the idiocy of the time to their own ends. We've not evolved any, we just like to think we are better than people thousands of years ago.
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We've not evolved any, we just like to think we are better than people thousands of years ago.
Well, we probably haven't evolved physically; wait... yes we have. Europeans evolved the ability to digest cow's milk, for one. But societies have evolved greatly. We no longer have crucifiction or burning at the stake, for example. Technology has evolved to a huge extent as well.
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We no longer have crucifiction or burning at the stake, for example.
Why would you do that when shooting people in the head is so much less effort?
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Probably it was one of those "more security-minded" scientists.
I say, there's a grain of truth to it. You can
Re:So who wrote that letter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it funny that the term "security-minded" is used when describing the scientists upset by Feynman's lock picking, when the impression I got from reading his memoirs and biography was that he was not concealing it and was indeed pointing out security vulnerabilities at Los Alamos. He was able to open a colonel's office safe using the default combination, if I recall correctly. After all, it's not like Feynman was letting the Germans or Japanese know about the weakness of the locks, let alone about the existence of the Manhattan Project. It's basically the same problem as seen in computer security today: people who point out vulnerabilities in a non-destructive way still get criticized (or worse, ignored).
Re:So who wrote that letter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it funny that the term "security-minded" is used when describing the scientists upset by Feynman's lock picking, when the impression I got from reading his memoirs and biography was that he was not concealing it and was indeed pointing out security vulnerabilities at Los Alamos.
"Security-minded" people always hate it when holes in their security systems are pointed out. It's practically a law of nature.
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Sad, but true.
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We were gathered together to discuss a
report that was in the fella's safe -- a secret safe -- when suddenly he
realized that he didn't know the combination. His secretary was the only one
who knew it, so he called her home and it turned out she had gone on a
picnic up in the hills.
While all this was going on, I asked, "Do you mind if I fiddle with the
safe?"
"Ha, ha, ha -- not at all!" So I went over to the safe and started t
Re:So who wrote that letter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly someone like Klaus Fuchs [wikipedia.org]. Secrets are being leaked. Counter intelligence is certain to find out and come looking for an insider source. Better to divert attention towards a plausible suspect than have them spot you.
Law enforcement (in general) seems to develop a theory of a crime and then go looking for supporting evidence rather than keeping an open mind. So if you give them a plausible hypothesis, they'll stop their wider investigation. Its an old trick and still works quite well.
Re:So who wrote that letter? (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting question is, who wrote that letter?
I doubt that really matters (but from a cursory read of the redacted FBI notes, I'd guess it was a woman). Everyone was encouraged to be suspicious of everybody else. I'd be surprised if no-one had bothered to point a finger at him.
Feynman was an oddball iconoclast and would have stood out as fairly strange at anytime. His wife divorced him because he was constantly solving calculus problems even while driving, and flew into violent rages (including choking her) when she interrupted him during it or while he was playing the drums. He made a habit of tweaking the noses of censors and the security people, for fun.
Back then, if you weren't a frothing at the mouth Commie hater like Curtis LeMay or Edward Teller, you looked suspicious, and the US' security apparatus at the time was encouraged to be nutbar paranoid. Look at what happened to Oppenheimer. This was the McCarthy era. Read Vasilli Mitrokhin's history of the KGB, and you'll see the Soviets were practically level-headed sensible in comparison. Besides, there was a large contingent of scientists who thought the whole thing should end once the Nazis were beaten. Feynman was just the village oddball (and a terrific physicist).
Tuva, or bust!
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His wife divorced him because he was constantly solving calculus problems even while driving, and flew into violent rages (including choking her) when she interrupted him during it or while he was playing the drums.
His second wife. His first wife died of TB. His third marriage was happy and lasted until he died.
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Oh ....so.... you know how the world works...
Guards, seize this man.
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True Fact: Actually, Los Alamos was one big wife swapping party....
Plausible Inference: that's where we got the next generation of geniuses from.
Sleeper agent? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sleeper agent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Divulge nuclear secrets that would otherwise provide America an upper hand in the nuclear arms race. Essentially, something close to another Klaus Fuchs.
Alternatively, be in a position of trust to be able to recruit young and impressionable 'up and coming' physicists that might have better access to the current cutting edge military tech than he would have. The USSR already had most of the data from his generation, so using him to run a next generation network makes sense.
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...so using him to run a next generation network makes sense.
Only on Slashdot would someone post this and get moderated Insightful. If you wonder where all the paranoid people on the interwebs hang out, you've come to the right place...
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And then there was "sleeper" agent Anna Chapman... Hard to forget about that one ;^)
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The weird part of it is his life was much more classified when he was young. All his anecdotes about the Manhattan project, etc. ... directly.
Once he got older, there's not much he can do
On the other hand, numerous students of his probably went on to some interesting projects, and maybe he was politically advising them in addition to academically advising them...
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Wouldn't a Theoretical Physicist (not under government contract) make a really crappy "sleeper agent"? When you activate him, what is he going to do, change Relativity?
Theoretically.
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In any case since even Feynman himself didn't know he was a sleeper agent, the guys who were controlling him must have been pretty good.
FREEDOM!!! (Score:2)
More proof that if you have nothing to hide everything will be fine. Another success for team Freedom!imwatchingyou.
the lockpicking hobby was a bit more involved (Score:5, Interesting)
While the lockpicking hobby might've scared the FBI just in itself, more problematic to them was that he had used it in a "stole the atom bomb secrets" prank. He really did break into the safe that had the atom bomb secrets! But he didn't leak them. But: not everyone was sure of that.
Here's the story from an interview (from p. 51 in this book [amazon.com]):
Fortunately, FBI agents apparently were more reasonable even during the Cold War than they are in the War on Terrorism, because he'd probably be in jail for that prank today.
Re:the lockpicking hobby was a bit more involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, FBI agents apparently were more reasonable even during the Cold War than they are in the War on Terrorism, because he'd probably be in jail for that prank today.
Its not so complicated as an individual's judgment call, its simpler; back then we were the good guys. Not so much now.
Re:the lockpicking hobby was a bit more involved (Score:5, Interesting)
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Old school (Score:2)
Today, the Gove will just put you on the "google Glass" beta test list, as a ubergeenerd you will wear them everywher in hopes of people oogling at you. yet you are feeding a steady feed back to CIA headquarters....
"Anything new on subject 47?"
"no sir, he made it to Moscow, but is spending all his time in the hotel room looking at Russian porn and it seems that he is shaking a lot."
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A bit off topic, but when I saw the number 47, I immediately thought of a bald assassin.
Different era (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a whole different era; government was different, indeed, human nature was entirely different.
There is NO chance of another generation looking back at all the surveillance of every Muslim community picnic and shake their heads in wonder at our paranoia. All of our investigations are justified and wise.
Re:Different era (Score:4, Insightful)
To quote from a previous generation's songwriter, Tom Paxton:
I learned our government must be strong.
It's always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.
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It was? Probably the name Qian Xuesen wont ring a bell, but in the madness of McCartismthey did a lot of funny things, from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen):
"During the 1940s Qian was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory[2] at the California Institute of Technology. During the Second Red Scare of the 1950s, the United States government accused Qian of having communist sympathies, and he was stripped of his security clearance[3] in 1950. Qian then decided to return to Chin
7 pages, typed... (Score:2)
Re:7 pages, typed... (Score:4, Interesting)
Edward Teller testified against Oppenheimer's security clearance. Could he have been against Feynman as well?
Then there's what they did to Heisenberg (Score:3)
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Well, in 1952 there was a Conservative government in the UK (the first purely Conservative government since before the war); presumably they could have dropped his prosecution but didn't.
As a side note, Gordon Brown issued an apology in 2009, but David Cameron has ruled out a pardon.
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"'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
-The Holy Bible, the unerring Word of God, as asserted by conservatives.
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Ahh what do I win when my opponent proves beyond all dispute that he's too stupid to know use how to use Google?
Leviticus 20:13 KJB
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stupid == believing god wrote the bible as opposed to many different, fallible human beings
(and if fallible human beings are god's instruments to write the bible, then god also wrote the quran, the book of mormon, the i ching, the necronomicon, every episode of general hospital, and the unabomber manifesto)
opponent !== one who wishes to verify a proclaimed "fact" rather than assume it's true on hearsay
why do
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Uh let's see. Conservatives think homosexuality is, variously, a disease, a sin, a perversion and at any rate virtually all conservatives agree such people are unworthy of equal rights before the law.
As a matter of fact this being against gay marriage is one of the platform planks of the conservative movement, with a very few notable exceptions, Olsen and Krauthammer amongst them.
And yes, this is unchanged from the 1800s. Why do you THINK they call themselves "conservatives" while their opposition call
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Why would conservatives feel slandered? There's nothing wrong with the 1800's.
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You get that all the calls on this thread to slaughter religious people and ban religion would effect nearly 100% of conservatives and anyway the anger is implicitly directed towards a distinctly conservative brand of proselytizing religion - both Islamic and Christian- and not, say the Zen Buddhist enthusiast down the road or even the peaceable Amish or Shaker Christian sects. I mean, you are capable of discerning the implicit cultural context in which we're all living... right?
I mean, if I was going t
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Oh oh oh I get it now. You think that i should sit back and not even mock, sneer at, deride, shame and parody that segment of the American population who is deconstrcuting the basis Western civilization - science, rationality and the Enlightenment and dragging us back into the Dark Ages WHILE AT THE SAME TIME actively working to ensure that the whole cultural debate becomes moot when civilization deconstructing climate change - which BTW conservatives also deny- not is fully realized, but only becomes on
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What did they do to Heisenberg? Looking over his bio it doesn't seem he suffered anything terrible after Germany's defeat, and had quite a decent career post-war.
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One of these people you get notified had "added you as an enemy" no doubt.
Who does that? Who adds someone as an "enemy"?
If I had programmed the "add enemy" button, it would work like this:
1 "add enemy"
2 immediate dissolution of your account
3 follow up note saying "thanks, but you're not the type of person we want at Slashdot. Good day.
If he was a sleeper agent for some enemy (Score:2)
then the US certainly for the best end of that deal.
On the FBI files, Feynman would have asked . . . (Score:2)
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?"
The pathetic twistiness of law enforcement minds (Score:2)
...shows up in the heavily redacted original documents. It would be funny, if the writer wasn't so unintentionally creepy and didn't take himself so seriously. It has the hallmark of an individual totally incapable of self-reflection.
Tannu Tuva (Score:5, Interesting)
Feynman had a bit of an obsession with a small Asian nation called Tannu Tuva. He badly wanted to visit, and at the time Tannu Tuva was part of the USSR. As part of an arrangement with the USSR government, he would be allowed passage to travel there, but in exchange he would have to give some lectures in Moscow, I think.
Nova has a wonderful documentary about this, and it can be watched in its entirety on youtube.
The Last Journey of Genius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4_40hAAr0/ [youtube.com]
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Was he a pedo? Did he want to go there to bone the natives? Sex tourism? Seems shady to me...
I'm sure you're trolling, but... uh, no. Feynman happened to come across recordings of Tuvan "throat-singing", an obscure tribal artform. Tuvan singers figured out some kind of crazy vocal technique which allows one singer to produce two notes (bass and a falsetto high note) at the same time. Feynman became obsessed with it, and wanted to meet Tuvan throat singers. (This wasn't Feynman's only musical obsession. He had a lifelong passion for drumming, and got good enough as an amateur to perform in publ
Beautiful mind this is (Score:5, Interesting)
Technical ability to review scientific data
And then there is:
Experience in formulating and laying out the groundwork for complex patterns of activity that extend well into the future
and
A practical aptitude for dealing with mechanical and electronic devices
The funny part is that this is exactly the kind of things that would send you to a camp if you were in the soviet block at that time. And people on the other side of the iron curtain were writing exactly the same letters but substituting 'communist' for 'imperialist'.
Any bongo playing genius will do (Score:2)
Surely someone is joking (Score:4, Insightful)
Are we sure the director of the FBI at the time wasn't some dress wearing conspiracy nut?
Feynman has always been my favorite Nobel prize winner. This just takes him up a notch.
Only the Good Get Arrested (Score:4, Interesting)
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But really, thinking of Stallman as some hacker sleeper agent locksmith god of the USSR is strangely kickass.
I'm reminded of the Dennis Rodman joke at the end of MiB: "Not much of a disguise."
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