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The McGee Effect: Oppenheimer, Strauss, and Senate Politics #550: Gale W. McGee Papers

Wyoming Public Radio

Published December 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM MST

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Photograph of Gale McGee at a farewell party given for him in Casper, Wyoming, before he headed to Washington D.C. for his first term as a U.S. senator, 1958. Box 12A, Gale W. McGee papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

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Photograph from left to right of Senators Joseph O'Mahoney (D-Wyo), Clinton Anderson (D-N.M.), Wayne Morse (D-Ore) and Gale McGee (D-Wyo) as they share a celebratory handshake at the Ohio Clock outside the US Senate Chamber after leading the effort to defeat the nomination of Lewis Strauss to be U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Image ah09800_003608, Gale W. McGee papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

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The front page of the “Report of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on the Nomination of Lewis L. Strauss of New York to be Secretary of Commerce”, June 4, 1959. Box 986, Gale W. McGee papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

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A page of Gale McGee’s FBI file, with an article from The Washington Post titled “Nixon Stops Attack on Strauss” which discusses McGee’s speech on the Senate floor addressing Strauss’s testimony before the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, 1959. Box 986, Gale W. McGee papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

The film Oppenheimer was a runaway summer success. It has been nominated for thirteen Oscars. And Wyoming’s own Senator Gale McGee played a pivotal role in the movie.

McGee was elected in 1958. As a new senator, he was assigned to the Senate’s Commerce Committee. The committee was tasked with the confirmation hearings of Lewis Strauss. Strauss had been nominated by President Eisenhower for Secretary of Commerce. It was McGee’s 44^th birthday when the committee was gaveled into order on March 17, 1959.

Strauss had been chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He had also been the driving force behind a vindictive campaign to revoke Robert Oppenheimer’s high level security clearance.

At the Senate hearings, McGee’s questions were probing. McGee and his staff had put in long hours developing lines of inquiry. They even worked with Oppenheimer, who came in to McGee’s office under cover of darkness to assist. When questioned, Strauss was evasive. Listen to McGee discuss some of his concerns:

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“But I think that the real issue at stake here is not whether Mr. Strauss is wrong or whether he is right, but rather, whether he will permit a free interchange of ideas and differences of opinion to try to arrive at the truth. This man has demonstrated a capacity to take vindictive revenge on those who have dared disagree with him, and I think this is unhealthy in any free society.”]

The Senate Commerce Committee hearings lasted 16 days. In committee, McGee voted against confirming Strauss. But by a single vote majority, the committee recommended Strauss to a vote on the Senate floor. In the Senate, there was raucous debate. McGee urged his colleagues to reject Strauss’s nomination. In the end, the nays prevailed. Strauss would not become Secretary of Commerce. President Eisenhower was sorely disappointed.

To learn more, see the Gale W. McGee papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.