clearance. A hearing followed in April–May 1954 and Oppenheimer lost his security clearance. This national scandal produced a lasting rift between American scientists and the military. Historians with access to the American and Russian evidence have since concluded Oppenheimer was never involved in espionage for the Soviet Union and did not betray the United States, though in the late 1930s he had been a supporter of the Communist Party. After Oppenheimer's downfall, Cherniss was instrumental in preventing his dismissal from the Institute. Lewis Strauss sought to have Oppenheimer fired: In July, Strauss told the FBI that he believed eight of the Institute's thirteen trustees were ready to dismiss Oppenheimer – but he decided to postpone a vote on the matter until Autumn so that it would not appear that Strauss as chairman was acting out of personal vindictiveness. This proved to be a miscalculation, because the delay gave members of the faculty time to organize an open letter in support of Oppenheimer… Strauss was forced to back off, and later that Autumn the trustees voted to keep Oppie as director. According to Bird and Sherwin, "Oppenheimer's old friend Harold Cherniss took a lead in organizing the effort. After talking with a few trustees, Cherniss had realized that Oppenheimer's job was in doubt." Cherniss and other faculty members of the Institute for Advanced Study published an open letter affirming his loyalty on Thursday July 1, 1954 in both The New York Times and The Herald Tribune and in the September Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: We, who have known [Dr. Oppenheimer] as a colleague, as director of our own institute, and as a neighbor in a small and intimate community, had from the first complete confidence in his loyalty to the United States, his discretion in guarding its secrets, and his deep concern for its safety, strength, and welfare. Our confidence in his loyalty and patriotic devotion remains unimpaired as our admiration for his magnificent public service is undiminished. The letter was signed by H. F. Cherniss, A. Einstein, Freeman Dyson, K. Gödel, E. Panofsky, J. von Neumann, Hermann Weyl, Chen Ning Yang, and others. Cherniss's close friend and colleague, the art historian Erwin Panofsky, "considered the case a symbolic and sorry indictment of American society. In Panofsky's eyes Oppenheimer had been attacked for assuming the responsibility and for having the courage to proffer an independent voice of reason in response