Haakon Chevalier
Encyclopedia
Haakon Maurice Chevalier (September 10, 1901 — July 4, 1985) was an author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, translator, and professor of French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...

 at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 best known for his friendship with physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom he met at Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

 in 1937.

Oppenheimer's relationship with Chevalier, and Chevalier's relationship with a possible recruiter for Soviet intelligence, figured prominently in a 1954 hearing
Oppenheimer security hearing
The Oppenheimer security hearing was a 1954 inquiry by the United States Atomic Energy Commission into the background, actions and associations of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who had headed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb for the United States during World War...

 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission on Oppenheimer's security clearance. At that hearing, Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked.

Early life

Chevalier was born September 10, 1901 in Lakewood Township, New Jersey
Lakewood Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 60,352 people, 19,876 households, and 13,356 families residing in the township. The population density was 2,431.8 people per square mile . There were 21,214 housing units at an average density of 854.8 per square mile...

 to French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 and Norwegian parents.

Work

In 1945, he served as a translator for the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

.

He translated many works by Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...

, Vladimir Pozner, Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...

, Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...

 and Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...

 into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

Relationship with Oppenheimer

Chevalier met Oppenheimer in 1927 at Berkeley while he was an associate professor of Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

. Together, Chevalier and Oppenheimer, would found the Berkeley branch of a teachers' union, which sponsored benefits for leftist causes.

Chevalier was accused of approaching Oppenheimer in 1942 and seeking information about nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

 for the Soviet Union on behalf of George Eltenton. This encounter would later become one of the key issues in Oppenheimer's security hearings in front of the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities in 1947 which resulted in the revocation of his security clearance. The June 29, 1954 decision of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...

 decision states:
The dissenting opinion of Henry DeWolf Smyth
Henry DeWolf Smyth
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat who played a number of key roles in the early development of nuclear energy. Educated at Princeton University and the University of Cambridge, he was a faculty member in Princeton's Department of Physics from 1924 to...

 attached to the decision states:
According to Chevalier's letters from the 1960s, both he and Oppenheimer joined a secret unit of the American Communist Party composed of Berkeley professors. In one letter from July 1964, Chevalier informs Oppenheimer that he was planning to write about their membership in the same unit of the Communist Party from 1938 to 1942 in his upcoming memoir, promising to "do his best" to respect Oppenheimer's wishes if he objects. Oppenheimer did in a letter to Chevalier, which denied his membership, and a few weeks later Chevalier wrote that he had decided not to reveal Oppenheimer's membership in a letter to Lou Goldblatt, another member of the unit. In March 1965, according to the Oppenheimer papers at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

, Oppenheimer talked to a lawyer about the possibility of enjoining the publication
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...

 of the memoir.

Chevalier is interviewed in The Day After Trinity
The Day After Trinity
The Day After Trinity is a 1980 documentary film directed and produced by Jon H. Else in association with KTEH public television in San Jose, California. The film tells the story of J...

(1981), an Oscar-nominated documentary about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb.

Later life and death

After the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities hearing, Chevalier lost his job at Berkeley in 1950 and was unable to find another professorship in the United States and thus moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where he continued to work as a translator.

Chevalier returned to the United States briefly in July 1965 to attend his daughter's wedding in San Francisco.

Chevalier died in 1985 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the age of 83. The cause of death was not reported.

Chevalier's letters, discovered after his death, form the basis for several books about Oppenheimer.

Translations

  • Vladimir Pozner. 1942. The Edge of the Sword (Deuil en 24 heures). Modern Age Books.
  • Vladimir Pozner. 1943. First Harvest (Les Gens du pays).
  • Malraux, André
    André Malraux
    André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...

    . 1961. Man's Fate. Random House Modern Library. ASIN B000BI694M
  • Aragon, Louis
    Louis Aragon
    Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...

    . 1961. Holy Week
    La Semaine Sainte
    La Semaine Sainte is an historical novel by French writer Louis Aragon published in 1958. It sold over 100,000 copies.An English translation by Haakon Chevalier was published in 1961 under the title Holy Week by Hamish Hamilton, London, to mixed reviews:"It is a very bad book, so bad that one...

    . G. P. Putnam's Sons. ASIN B000EWMJ3A
  • Dali, Salvador
    Salvador Dalí
    Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

    . 1986. The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. Dasa Edicions, S.A. ISBN 84-85814-12-6
  • Maurois, Andrei. 1962. Seven faces of love. Doubleday. ASIN B0007H6IX4
  • Michaux, Henri
    Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...

    . 1963. Light Through Darkness. Orion Press. ASIN B0007E4GJ0
  • Vasarely, Victor
    Victor Vasarely
    Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...

    . 1965. Plastic Arts of the Twentieth Century, Volume 1. Editions du Griffon. ASIN B000FH4NZG
  • Fanon, Frantz
    Frantz Fanon
    Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...

    , A Dying Colonialism 1965

External links

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