commencement of the hearing, Gray stated the hearing was "strictly confidential", and pledged that no information related to the hearing would be released. Contrary to this assurance, a few weeks after the conclusion of the hearing a verbatim transcript of the hearing was released by the AEC. Oppenheimer and Garrison also breached the confidentiality of the hearing, by communicating with New York Times journalist James Reston, who wrote an article on the hearing that appeared on the second day of the hearing. Garrison applied for an emergency security clearance prior to the hearing, as one had been granted to Robb, but no clearance was granted during the course of the hearing, which meant that Oppenheimer's attorneys had no access to the secrets that Robb was able to see. On at least three occasions, Garrison and his co-counsel were barred from the hearing room for security reasons, leaving Oppenheimer unrepresented, in violation of AEC regulations. During the course of the hearing, Robb repeatedly cross-examined Oppenheimer's witnesses utilizing top-secret documents unavailable to Oppenheimer's attorneys. He often read aloud from those documents, despite their secret status. The AEC's former general counsel Joseph Volpe had urged Oppenheimer to retain a tough litigator as his attorney; Garrison's demeanor was gentle and cordial, but Robb was adversarial. Garrison voluntarily provided the board and Robb with a list of his witnesses, but Robb refused to extend the same courtesy. This gave Robb a clear advantage in his cross-examination of Oppenheimer's witnesses. One observer commented that Robb "did not treat Oppenheimer as a witness in his own case, but as a person charged with high treason." Members of the hearing panel met with Robb prior to the hearing to review the contents of Oppenheimer's FBI file. The 1946 Administrative Procedure Act included a legal principle known as "the exclusivity of the record" or the "blank pad rule". This meant that a hearing could only consider information that had been formally presented under the established rules of evidence. However, while the act applied to the courts and to administrative hearings held by agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, it did not apply to the AEC. Garrison asked for the opportunity to review the file with the panel, but this was rejected. Scope of testimony As outlined in the 3,500-word Nichols letter, the hearing focused on 24 allegations, 23 of which dealt with Oppenheimer's Communist and