Richard Feynman's FBI Files Released

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."

Comments

During the Cold War

[cpu6502]

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

[i kan reed]

Nah, they'd already know what you were up to from having taped all your phone calls first.

Re:During the Cold War

[Sarten-X]

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

[cpu6502]

>>> 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.)

surely they're joking

[Anonymous Coward]

surely they're joking

So who wrote that letter?

[Animats]

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".

Re:So who wrote that letter?

[The Mister Purple]

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).

the lockpicking hobby was a bit more involved

[Trepidity]

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):

Interviewer: Is it true that you broke the Los Alamos security code and opened a safe containing top-secret documents? Then left behind a note that said "Guess Who?"

Feynman: When I was at Los Alamos one of my hobbies was to try to open safes and locks, a sort of locksmith-type hobby. Practicing opening locks, I at one point opened the lock of the safe that contained all the secrets of the atom bomb, and the whole business behind them. There were nine filing cabinets containing all the documents at Los Alamos. I opened three of them to check if they all had the same combination. I left notes in them to tell the guy that he shouldn't have locks with all the combinations the same, and stuff like that. And that I'd taken the documents out. And there were certain jokes in my notes. I was standing in the office there playing with the safes in the full light of day. The guy who was running the office was a friend of mine. And he was very upset when he found the safes had been opened. They probably changed the combinations after that.

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

[History's Coming To]

He later revealed that they didn't change the combinations, instead they sent a memo out instructing that Prof. Feynman was not to be left alone with a safe. "Security by missing the point entirely" I believe it's called.

Tannu Tuva

[fliptout]

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/