People of the AEC: William Borden

Yale University in Connecticut.

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Quick Facts

Significance:

Borden influenced the Atomic Energy Commission and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, wrote the letter to the FBI that resulted in the Gray Committee hearings on Robert Oppenheimer’s loyalty, and testified at those hearings.

Place of Birth:

Washington, DC

Date of Birth:

1920

Place of Death:

Watertown, NY

Date of Death:

October 8, 1985

Place of Burial:

Chaumont, NY

Cemetery Name:

Cedar Grove Cemetery

Although William Liscum Borden (1920-1985) was not a part of the Manhattan Project during World War II, he became a powerful influence on its successor, the Atomic Energy Commission. He graduated from Yale in 1942 and enlisted as a bomber pilot. Based in England, he flew thirty night missions, dropping spies, saboteur teams, and resistance supplies over Germany and occupied Europe. One night he saw something that would greatly affect his future thinking: a German V-2 rocket. He said, “It resembled a meteor, streaming red sparks and whizzing past us as though the aircraft were motionless … I became convinced that it was only a matter of time until rockets would expose the United States.” Before entering Yale Law, he wrote a book, There Will Be No Time, on the strategic implications of atomic weapons.

In 1947 US Senator Brien McMahon, who had been instrumental in passing the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and was a prominent member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, hired Borden as his legislative secretary. When McMahon became committee chair, Borden became executive director. He worked toward increasing the US atomic weapon stockpile and influenced McMahon into supporting the “super” bomb. His own choice for an ideal weapon was a nuclear-powered airplane carrying thermonuclear weapons. However, due to changes in Congress and an incident with secret documents, by May 1953 Borden was no longer on the committee. He went to work in the Atomic Power Division at Westinghouse. Borden had become concerned with Robert Oppenheimer’s stances on nuclear policy and spent considerable time with the scientist’s security file. In November 1953, Borden sent the FBI a long letter. It began, “The purpose of this letter is to state my own exhaustively considered opinion, based upon years of study of the available classified evidence, that more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.” Although it supplied little evidence, and many considered its accusations extreme, it led to the Gray Committee hearings in April-May of 1954. Borden testified at the Gray Committee hearings. Although most agreed that Oppenheimer was loyal to his country, his security clearance was removed.

Borden’s role in the hearings led to him never being employed in government or having political influence again. He continued with Westinghouse, and later worked in a private law firm in Washington, D.C.