to the mindless conformism of the day. Though never formally prosecuted for any wrongdoing, this once-celebrated scientist was widely discredited in the public sphere for his 'humanistic' viewpoint. For Panofsky the case spoke volumes in regards to the anti-intellectualism and the narrowness of the national-political consensus in America at the time." Controversy over John von Neumann's computers John von Neumann and others developed the architecture of modern computers (the concept of a "stored program computer") while working at the Manhattan Project. After the war, his team built some of the very first computers at the Institute for Advanced Study. This was controversial and Cherniss later recounted that he was one of the humanists who opposed von Neumann's project: "In hindsight, there were certainly very good reasons for building the machine. I was nonetheless against it. The computer had nothing to do with the purpose for which the Institute was founded. The computer was a practical undertaking but the Institute was not conceived of as a place for anything practical." After von Neumann's death in 1957, the faculty organized a committee to terminate the project. All the permanent faculty met in Oppenheimer's living room. As Cherniss explained, "This was back when we used to do things right. Everything was informal." After the final decision was made, Cherniss elaborated "But we passed a more general motion. It was a declaration to have no experimental science, no laboratories of any kind at the Institute." In his history, Regis remarked "And so it has been ever since. The Platonic-heavenly fathers [i.e., advocates of the Institute's abstract and theoretical approach] had triumphed." Another faculty member, the physicist Freeman Dyson, said simply "The snobs took revenge." Later years The literary theorist George Steiner recalled an anecdote about his visit to the Institute for Advanced Study that gives insight into Cherniss's years there: So I went to lunch with [the diplomat] George Kennan and Erwin Panofsky and the great Plato scholar Harold Cherniss. Afterwards Cherniss invited me to his beautiful office and, as we started chatting, Oppenheimer came into the room and sat on the table behind us. This is one of the most cruel, brilliant tricks: it makes you master of the situation, and the people who can't see you as you speak to them are completely helpless. Oppenheimer's mastery of these histrionic moves was incredible. Cherniss was showing me how he was editing a passage