In 1950 Scientific American joined the nuclear debate with a four-part inquiry into the hydrogen bomb. In the first installment, scientist Louis Ridenour criticized the decision to build this destructive weapon and condemned the “bankruptcy of our secrecy policy” that stifled public debate. A month later, in the April 1950 issue, physicist Hans Bethe pleaded for finding ways to“save humanity from this ultimate disaster” by reconsidering the president's decision to build the new super bomb. Because he had circulated his draft among colleagues, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had seen the manuscript, and it telegrammed the magazine to bar publication of Bethe's article, which had already gone through part of its press run. When Piel asked for specific objections, the AEC replied that any details could compromise national security. In a closed-door confrontation, the AEC finally agreed to permit publication with some “ritual deletions.”
Piel recalled that at this sensitive juncture, Miller asked the AEC security officers: “Well, what do we do with the 3,000 copies already printed of the magazine?” Miller then suggested: “There are good shredders up there. But then, you know, someone could take the shredded pieces and put them back together again. Maybe it's better to burn it, don't you think?” Oblivious to the symbolism after a war against Nazis who had staged book burnings, the tone-deaf AEC security men agreed. All those 3,000 copies were incinerated—an act almost without precedent in America. Adding gravity to the act, the issue featured an essay by Einstein that propounded a comprehensive field theory that would hold physics together.
Piel's mind was still not at rest, though. His magazine was “a very fragile little institution,” with just over 100,000 circulation. “The Atomic Energy Commission or somebody in it at any time can leak this to the House Un-American Activities Committee or Joe McCarthy,” he thought, “and we'll be cooked. So I called up the New York Times and said I have a story.”
The incident became what Piel called “a nationwide overnight sensation” that protected him from accusations of breaching national security. A Times editorial supported Scientific American, warning that “censors ... run the risk of doing great harm.”
Piel's stance won him public admiration and closer FBI surveillance. Agents reported that Piel and his first wife, then living in Greenwich Village, “were active in the ‘12th Street Neighbors for Peace,' which was connected with the Stockholm Peace Petition,” an advocacy group for a nuclear weapons ban.