1 00:00:15,232 --> 00:00:18,601 - In 1945, a frail looking scientist 2 00:00:18,603 --> 00:00:22,039 drove this road on his way to the Trinity Site. 3 00:00:23,207 --> 00:00:25,307 It's a sad and depressing stretch 4 00:00:25,309 --> 00:00:29,612 of vast unforgiving desert in New Mexico, 5 00:00:29,614 --> 00:00:31,413 but in colonial times, 6 00:00:31,415 --> 00:00:34,486 it was the sorry end of many travelers' dreams. 7 00:00:35,820 --> 00:00:38,554 He was an ivory tower academic, 8 00:00:38,556 --> 00:00:42,892 a multilinguist, a polymath, an undoubted genius, 9 00:00:42,894 --> 00:00:46,061 had never managed more than a handful of students, 10 00:00:46,063 --> 00:00:48,631 and had spent all of his professional life 11 00:00:48,633 --> 00:00:51,803 surrounded by books, blackboards, and theorem. 12 00:00:53,738 --> 00:00:58,641 Now he had built an isolated secret city in the sky 13 00:00:58,643 --> 00:01:01,677 where a scientific community of over 6,000 people 14 00:01:01,679 --> 00:01:03,111 lived and worked 15 00:01:03,113 --> 00:01:06,549 on the most expensive military scientific project 16 00:01:06,551 --> 00:01:08,316 ever attempted. 17 00:01:08,318 --> 00:01:10,018 He had done in months 18 00:01:10,020 --> 00:01:13,489 what other global powers had failed to do in years, 19 00:01:13,491 --> 00:01:16,626 and now he stood on the edge of discovering 20 00:01:16,628 --> 00:01:19,396 if all his efforts would come to fruition. 21 00:01:20,865 --> 00:01:25,066 Just days before, he had taken delivery of the plutonium, 22 00:01:25,068 --> 00:01:27,037 which was essential to his bomb. 23 00:01:28,405 --> 00:01:32,911 He'd signed a receipt for hundreds of millions of dollars. 24 00:01:33,778 --> 00:01:34,977 It was the fruits of the labors 25 00:01:34,979 --> 00:01:38,079 of hundreds of thousands of unwitting workers 26 00:01:38,081 --> 00:01:41,819 spread in secret locations across the United States. 27 00:01:43,488 --> 00:01:46,354 In this rundown old ranch house, 28 00:01:46,356 --> 00:01:48,290 the elements were assembled 29 00:01:48,292 --> 00:01:50,762 then taken to the test site tower. 30 00:01:58,168 --> 00:02:02,672 As the lightning crackled in the sky and the wind howled, 31 00:02:02,674 --> 00:02:05,007 he lay on the floor of the canyon, 32 00:02:05,009 --> 00:02:07,242 waiting for the detonation. 33 00:02:10,748 --> 00:02:13,348 He knew that the fate of his nation, 34 00:02:13,350 --> 00:02:16,117 the lives of millions of people, 35 00:02:16,119 --> 00:02:19,524 and the future of the world lay in his hands. 36 00:02:20,959 --> 00:02:25,360 From somewhere, a few words formed in his mind. 37 00:02:25,362 --> 00:02:28,965 - "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." 38 00:02:40,344 --> 00:02:42,011 - Robert Oppenheimer grew up 39 00:02:42,013 --> 00:02:45,246 in a very privileged circumstance. 40 00:02:48,620 --> 00:02:53,290 He lived in a 10-room apartment on the Upper West Side. 41 00:02:55,994 --> 00:02:59,129 His parents had made by that time quite a bit of money. 42 00:03:00,965 --> 00:03:05,233 He had a limousine with a chauffeur. 43 00:03:05,235 --> 00:03:07,435 They had servants. 44 00:03:07,437 --> 00:03:10,608 They had a house in Long Island. 45 00:03:13,443 --> 00:03:15,745 They had a small sailing yacht, 46 00:03:15,747 --> 00:03:20,449 which he named the Trimethy, after the chemical compound. 47 00:03:20,451 --> 00:03:22,752 - When Oppenheimer was growing up, 48 00:03:22,754 --> 00:03:27,089 more or less his only models were his parents. 49 00:03:27,091 --> 00:03:29,659 He was brought up in isolation until he went to school, 50 00:03:29,661 --> 00:03:34,032 and he went to school comparatively late. 51 00:03:37,101 --> 00:03:40,136 And anything Oppenheimer showed an interest in, 52 00:03:40,138 --> 00:03:43,873 his parents would buy things to satisfy that interest. 53 00:03:43,875 --> 00:03:45,841 If he showed any interest in painting, 54 00:03:45,843 --> 00:03:50,012 they would buy him an easel and some paints. 55 00:03:50,014 --> 00:03:53,883 One thing he showed a very keen interest in was geology 56 00:03:53,885 --> 00:03:56,986 and so they furnished him with a collection of rocks, 57 00:03:56,988 --> 00:03:59,187 he then went on trips. 58 00:03:59,189 --> 00:04:01,857 He actually did, at the age of 13, 59 00:04:01,859 --> 00:04:03,693 original research in geology 60 00:04:03,695 --> 00:04:06,662 and joined the New York City geology society 61 00:04:06,664 --> 00:04:08,731 and was invited by them, 62 00:04:08,733 --> 00:04:11,534 they didn't know that he was just some kid. 63 00:04:11,536 --> 00:04:14,369 He was invited by them to give a research paper. 64 00:04:14,371 --> 00:04:17,439 So what was life like? 65 00:04:17,441 --> 00:04:21,944 It was very privileged but very intense, 66 00:04:21,946 --> 00:04:25,781 and he always felt that there was something 67 00:04:25,783 --> 00:04:28,216 sad about his parents. 68 00:04:28,218 --> 00:04:31,620 His mother had a withered hand 69 00:04:31,622 --> 00:04:35,191 and she kept it very secret, 70 00:04:35,193 --> 00:04:38,359 and no one was allowed to mention it. 71 00:04:38,361 --> 00:04:42,330 And the general emotional atmosphere 72 00:04:42,332 --> 00:04:44,667 in the Oppenheimer household 73 00:04:44,669 --> 00:04:46,702 was rather repressed. 74 00:04:46,704 --> 00:04:48,804 - It was very sheltered. 75 00:04:48,806 --> 00:04:51,372 It was extremely privileged. 76 00:05:45,563 --> 00:05:50,568 He was, you know, surrounded by culture and art. 77 00:05:52,003 --> 00:05:56,574 His mother was an artist and a collector of modern art, 78 00:05:57,575 --> 00:05:59,644 you know, Van Gogh paintings. 79 00:06:00,812 --> 00:06:04,246 He once said that his life as a child 80 00:06:04,248 --> 00:06:08,918 offered no normal, healthy way to be a bastard. 81 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:11,854 - He went to a private school, the Ethical Culture School. 82 00:06:11,856 --> 00:06:16,424 You know, he was a very sheltered privileged young man. 83 00:06:16,426 --> 00:06:21,431 - His fellow schoolmates, one of them remembers him saying, 84 00:06:22,332 --> 00:06:24,466 "Ask me a question in Latin, 85 00:06:24,468 --> 00:06:26,936 and I will reply to you in Greek," 86 00:06:26,938 --> 00:06:29,805 which was an enormously impressive thing to do 87 00:06:29,807 --> 00:06:32,241 at the age of 13 88 00:06:32,243 --> 00:06:34,543 but not perhaps the best way to win friends. 89 00:06:34,545 --> 00:06:39,550 - The Ethical Culture School was Jewish but not Jewish. 90 00:06:40,985 --> 00:06:44,753 It came out of Judaism, founded by a Reform rabbi, 91 00:06:44,755 --> 00:06:48,292 but it was very much a sort of turn of the century creation. 92 00:06:51,462 --> 00:06:56,031 - Although he was finally with other children his age, 93 00:06:56,033 --> 00:06:58,534 he didn't end up making any friends. 94 00:06:58,536 --> 00:07:02,671 And until Francis Fergusson arrived, 95 00:07:02,673 --> 00:07:05,207 who arrived from the other side of the country, 96 00:07:05,209 --> 00:07:08,409 he was from the Southwest, he was from New Mexico, 97 00:07:08,411 --> 00:07:13,416 came from rather a grand old New Mexican family, 98 00:07:14,552 --> 00:07:16,118 but unlike almost all the other children 99 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:18,487 at the Ethical Culture School, 100 00:07:18,489 --> 00:07:20,823 Francis Fergusson did not come 101 00:07:20,825 --> 00:07:24,462 from the Jewish community of the Upper West Side. 102 00:07:25,463 --> 00:07:27,363 And I think that had a lot to do 103 00:07:27,365 --> 00:07:31,033 with the bond that Oppenheimer formed with him. 104 00:07:31,035 --> 00:07:33,235 It's very difficult to know why exactly, 105 00:07:33,237 --> 00:07:36,071 but Oppenheimer from a very young age, 106 00:07:36,073 --> 00:07:40,476 made efforts to distance himself from the description 107 00:07:40,478 --> 00:07:43,078 that almost everybody would've given of him. 108 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:45,716 To almost everybody, he would've been a German Jew. 109 00:07:47,151 --> 00:07:50,686 He insisted he was neither German nor Jewish. 110 00:07:50,688 --> 00:07:52,721 And so, 111 00:07:52,723 --> 00:07:57,493 he was at odds with the perception of him, 112 00:07:57,495 --> 00:07:58,727 which I think is also part 113 00:07:58,729 --> 00:08:00,829 of his enormously complicated makeup. 114 00:08:00,831 --> 00:08:02,831 - And I think this was very much bound up 115 00:08:02,833 --> 00:08:04,500 with an attempt to escape 116 00:08:04,502 --> 00:08:09,507 from a particularly Jewish identity and to be an American, 117 00:08:12,510 --> 00:08:14,643 whatever that meant. 118 00:08:14,645 --> 00:08:17,146 And that very much influenced Oppenheimer 119 00:08:17,148 --> 00:08:19,915 and he was always uncomfortable 120 00:08:19,917 --> 00:08:24,286 with being identified as Jewish. 121 00:08:24,288 --> 00:08:26,922 - But, you know, he had a good childhood. 122 00:08:26,924 --> 00:08:30,826 He had no traumatic experiences. 123 00:08:30,828 --> 00:08:33,462 He was very privileged. 124 00:08:33,464 --> 00:08:36,534 He went horseback riding in Central Park, 125 00:08:38,269 --> 00:08:40,369 and he fell in love increasingly 126 00:08:40,371 --> 00:08:44,039 at the Ethical Culture School, with science. 127 00:08:44,041 --> 00:08:46,642 He focused a lot on chemistry. 128 00:08:46,644 --> 00:08:50,779 - Later interest in New Mexico, 129 00:08:50,781 --> 00:08:52,984 his horse riding, his sailing, 130 00:08:54,418 --> 00:08:58,387 his sort of adventurousness and risk taking in a way, 131 00:08:58,389 --> 00:09:03,327 very clearly was a reaction against this highly controlled, 132 00:09:04,428 --> 00:09:07,531 almost luxurious prison of his childhood. 133 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:13,170 - I think he had a big ego, yes. 134 00:09:15,006 --> 00:09:17,072 He had a strong ego, 135 00:09:17,074 --> 00:09:18,909 he knew he was intelligent, 136 00:09:20,177 --> 00:09:22,311 and he was always very ambitious. 137 00:09:22,313 --> 00:09:25,647 - He was a little bit precious in a way 138 00:09:25,649 --> 00:09:29,418 and that led him to be bullied by other children. 139 00:09:29,420 --> 00:09:32,021 There was an incident at a summer camp 140 00:09:32,023 --> 00:09:36,994 where he was really quite nastily bullied, 141 00:09:40,264 --> 00:09:43,632 but I do think that he was aware 142 00:09:43,634 --> 00:09:46,235 of his intellectual abilities 143 00:09:46,237 --> 00:09:49,940 and was extremely ambitious. 144 00:09:52,243 --> 00:09:57,112 He wanted to do something special. 145 00:09:57,114 --> 00:10:02,119 - So he had a year of enforced leisure 146 00:10:03,220 --> 00:10:05,421 because he became ill, 147 00:10:05,423 --> 00:10:10,428 and for the first time, 148 00:10:11,295 --> 00:10:12,995 he became a troublesome boy 149 00:10:12,997 --> 00:10:17,366 and his parents didn't know what to do with him. 150 00:10:17,368 --> 00:10:18,367 He was difficult. 151 00:10:18,369 --> 00:10:19,301 He was fed up. 152 00:10:19,303 --> 00:10:20,302 He didn't want to be at home. 153 00:10:20,304 --> 00:10:21,570 He wanted to be at Harvard. 154 00:10:21,572 --> 00:10:24,440 He wanted to be with super bright people. 155 00:10:24,442 --> 00:10:27,144 He wanted to be studying chemistry and physics. 156 00:10:28,379 --> 00:10:30,813 And partly, I think, to get rid of him, 157 00:10:30,815 --> 00:10:35,250 his parents approached a teacher at his school called Smith 158 00:10:35,252 --> 00:10:39,221 and asked Smith to take Robert on a trip out West. 159 00:10:41,560 --> 00:10:44,726 Now, the connection with New Mexico 160 00:10:44,728 --> 00:10:46,962 was provided by Francis Fergusson, 161 00:10:46,964 --> 00:10:50,599 who was the one boy at the Ethical Culture School 162 00:10:50,601 --> 00:10:53,335 with whom Oppenheimer had a friendship. 163 00:10:53,337 --> 00:10:58,309 And Fergusson was from a well-known family in New Mexico. 164 00:11:05,049 --> 00:11:08,884 And so Oppenheimer went to stay with Fergusson, 165 00:11:08,886 --> 00:11:10,553 cementing their friendship, 166 00:11:10,555 --> 00:11:13,757 Fergusson would go on to Harvard as well, 167 00:11:15,159 --> 00:11:19,928 but it gave Oppenheimer a love of the Southwest 168 00:11:19,930 --> 00:11:21,999 and particularly of New Mexico. 169 00:11:24,201 --> 00:11:27,537 - New Mexico couldn't have been more of a contrast 170 00:11:27,539 --> 00:11:30,139 from his upbringing in New York 171 00:11:30,141 --> 00:11:32,074 and the whole environment of New York 172 00:11:32,076 --> 00:11:33,909 and the Ethical Culture School, 173 00:11:33,911 --> 00:11:38,413 and he became infatuated with an older woman in her 20s, 174 00:11:38,415 --> 00:11:40,784 Katherine Chaves Page. 175 00:11:42,319 --> 00:11:46,056 That was the first time that he had 176 00:11:48,025 --> 00:11:51,994 really that kind of romantic interest, 177 00:11:51,996 --> 00:11:53,964 although it was completely platonic. 178 00:11:57,902 --> 00:12:00,903 - Oh, New Mexico had an enormous impact on him. 179 00:12:00,905 --> 00:12:04,139 He fell in love with the desert, 180 00:12:04,141 --> 00:12:06,710 the high plains around Santa Fe, 181 00:12:08,212 --> 00:12:12,082 and he rode horseback into the Pecos Mountains. 182 00:12:15,252 --> 00:12:17,886 - That was this sort of adventurous spirit 183 00:12:17,888 --> 00:12:21,190 that was an escape from this claustrophobic background 184 00:12:21,192 --> 00:12:22,693 of his childhood, I think. 185 00:12:24,828 --> 00:12:28,966 - Just the starkness of the geography, 186 00:12:29,867 --> 00:12:31,135 he took to it. 187 00:12:32,236 --> 00:12:34,205 Yeah, he fell in love with New Mexico. 188 00:12:37,374 --> 00:12:41,376 Started renting in 1929 189 00:12:41,378 --> 00:12:46,050 on 135 acres up at like 9,500 feet 190 00:12:49,588 --> 00:12:51,621 in the middle of nowhere, 191 00:12:51,623 --> 00:12:53,155 but he loved it. 192 00:12:53,157 --> 00:12:54,723 It was so spartan. 193 00:12:54,725 --> 00:12:57,627 That was the kind of thing he really enjoyed. 194 00:12:57,629 --> 00:13:01,129 - We slept on the floor, a board floor, 195 00:13:01,131 --> 00:13:03,398 and we didn't have enough covers, 196 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:05,269 and we were pretty frozen by morning. 197 00:13:06,403 --> 00:13:08,904 But that didn't bother Robert much, 198 00:13:08,906 --> 00:13:10,473 he was a fairly hardy fellow, 199 00:13:10,475 --> 00:13:11,974 although he didn't look that way. 200 00:13:11,976 --> 00:13:15,712 He looked terribly frail, but he was pretty tough. 201 00:13:28,693 --> 00:13:31,960 - A decade later, he was always telling people, 202 00:13:31,962 --> 00:13:34,464 he was quipping that his ambition in life 203 00:13:34,466 --> 00:13:38,635 was to combine physics with New Mexico. 204 00:13:38,637 --> 00:13:43,272 And so, and he did. 205 00:13:43,274 --> 00:13:47,543 - And actually, if he hadn't had that holiday 206 00:13:47,545 --> 00:13:51,246 in the summer of 1922 in New Mexico, 207 00:13:51,248 --> 00:13:54,751 then 20 years later, 208 00:13:54,753 --> 00:13:57,853 the laboratory to build the first atomic bomb 209 00:13:57,855 --> 00:14:00,257 would most likely have been built somewhere else. 210 00:14:01,660 --> 00:14:04,259 - Again, he succeeded at everything he did at Harvard 211 00:14:04,261 --> 00:14:07,429 but he remained very socially awkward. 212 00:14:07,431 --> 00:14:10,934 He had a few friends, his roommates. 213 00:14:12,803 --> 00:14:16,474 You know, he was a very intense personality 214 00:14:18,242 --> 00:14:20,444 and I don't think he... 215 00:14:21,845 --> 00:14:24,946 I don't think hemade any long-term friendships there, 216 00:14:24,948 --> 00:14:28,518 but he got through it and succeeded 217 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:32,856 and went off to Cambridge, England to study physics. 218 00:14:34,224 --> 00:14:39,229 - And the most famous physicist at that time 219 00:14:40,431 --> 00:14:42,765 was Ernest Rutherford, who was at Cambridge, 220 00:14:42,767 --> 00:14:45,133 and what Oppenheimer wanted 221 00:14:45,135 --> 00:14:47,071 was to work with Ernest Rutherford. 222 00:14:48,540 --> 00:14:52,307 But there was a problem there because although as a student, 223 00:14:52,309 --> 00:14:56,512 he'd shown himself to be a brilliant theoretical physicist, 224 00:14:56,514 --> 00:14:58,847 in the laboratory, he was a disaster, 225 00:14:58,849 --> 00:15:02,851 and Rutherford was an applied physicist, 226 00:15:02,853 --> 00:15:04,388 so Rutherford turned him down. 227 00:15:05,824 --> 00:15:09,925 Rutherford's colleague was a man called J.J. Thompson, 228 00:15:09,927 --> 00:15:12,829 who had discovered the electron. 229 00:15:12,831 --> 00:15:14,831 And as a sort of second best, 230 00:15:14,833 --> 00:15:18,969 Oppenheimer chose to work with Thompson, 231 00:15:20,605 --> 00:15:23,606 who too was an experimental physicist, 232 00:15:23,608 --> 00:15:27,844 and got Oppenheimer to work in the lab, 233 00:15:27,846 --> 00:15:30,212 which he was very bad at. 234 00:15:30,214 --> 00:15:33,081 And he spent a year at Cambridge in England 235 00:15:33,083 --> 00:15:36,251 and it was the most unhappy year of his life. 236 00:15:36,253 --> 00:15:40,757 He was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. 237 00:15:40,759 --> 00:15:43,392 He wasn't a laboratory physicist, 238 00:15:43,394 --> 00:15:46,564 he was most interested in theoretical physics, 239 00:15:47,898 --> 00:15:51,636 and he also found it difficult socially in Cambridge. 240 00:15:52,837 --> 00:15:55,170 It was expected of all the students 241 00:15:55,172 --> 00:15:57,573 that they would give a presentation every now and again 242 00:15:57,575 --> 00:15:59,141 explaining what they were up to. 243 00:15:59,143 --> 00:16:04,081 There's a story that Oppenheimer gave his presentation, 244 00:16:05,683 --> 00:16:10,185 chalk in hand, facing the blackboard, 245 00:16:10,187 --> 00:16:15,192 saying, "The point is, the point is, the point is," 246 00:16:16,628 --> 00:16:20,195 and he just kept repeating this over and over again 247 00:16:20,197 --> 00:16:25,035 until he was gently moved to one side. 248 00:16:27,104 --> 00:16:30,807 There are other reports of people finding him curled up 249 00:16:30,809 --> 00:16:35,143 in the fetus position on the floor of the laboratory 250 00:16:35,145 --> 00:16:40,150 and another story of him trying to murder Patrick Blackett. 251 00:16:41,318 --> 00:16:45,353 Patrick Blackett was, one supposes, 252 00:16:45,355 --> 00:16:49,792 represented to Oppenheimer 253 00:16:49,794 --> 00:16:51,995 everything that Oppenheimer felt he wasn't. 254 00:16:53,330 --> 00:16:56,499 Patrick Blackett was notoriously well connected. 255 00:16:56,501 --> 00:16:58,133 He was very good looking. 256 00:16:58,135 --> 00:17:00,538 He was very debonair. 257 00:17:01,873 --> 00:17:05,710 He was superbly good in the laboratory. 258 00:17:07,244 --> 00:17:12,249 And Oppenheimer once went on holiday to Corsica 259 00:17:14,886 --> 00:17:16,184 and he said to his friends, 260 00:17:16,186 --> 00:17:17,487 "Oh, I've got to get back to Cambridge," 261 00:17:17,489 --> 00:17:18,721 and they said, "Why?" 262 00:17:18,723 --> 00:17:22,190 He said, "Well, I've left a poisoned apple 263 00:17:22,192 --> 00:17:24,192 on Blackett's desk, 264 00:17:24,194 --> 00:17:27,097 and I want to get back and remove it before it kills him." 265 00:17:28,332 --> 00:17:31,536 I think he found the snobbery very difficult. 266 00:17:32,604 --> 00:17:36,139 Harvard had been explicitly anti-Semitic. 267 00:17:37,742 --> 00:17:39,742 That doesn't seem to have troubled Oppenheimer 268 00:17:39,744 --> 00:17:41,409 all that much. 269 00:17:41,411 --> 00:17:44,680 I think what bothered him at Cambridge 270 00:17:44,682 --> 00:17:49,687 was there was little to no explicit antisemitism, 271 00:17:51,021 --> 00:17:54,924 but I think one way or another, 272 00:17:54,926 --> 00:17:59,227 he received the impression that he wasn't one of them. 273 00:17:59,229 --> 00:18:02,232 And I think this bothered him to his very core. 274 00:18:05,402 --> 00:18:10,407 Salvation came to throw Oppenheimer a lifeline was Max Born, 275 00:18:11,809 --> 00:18:15,545 the German physicist who became a Nobel Prize winner, 276 00:18:15,547 --> 00:18:17,815 who came to Cambridge to give a talk. 277 00:18:18,816 --> 00:18:20,616 Oppenheimer got to know him, 278 00:18:20,618 --> 00:18:23,151 got to discuss physics with him. 279 00:18:23,153 --> 00:18:25,320 Born was so impressed with Oppenheimer 280 00:18:25,322 --> 00:18:29,090 that he invited him over to Gottingen where Born taught 281 00:18:29,092 --> 00:18:30,628 in order to do a PhD. 282 00:18:32,030 --> 00:18:36,133 Most people take three years plus to do a PhD, 283 00:18:37,334 --> 00:18:40,237 Oppenheimer did his in under 18 months. 284 00:18:41,405 --> 00:18:45,708 And the result of it is a piece of work 285 00:18:45,710 --> 00:18:47,843 that is still referred to now 286 00:18:47,845 --> 00:18:51,446 by people working in physical chemistry, 287 00:18:51,448 --> 00:18:55,751 the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation as it's known. 288 00:18:55,753 --> 00:18:59,488 He then sat about working on research papers. 289 00:18:59,490 --> 00:19:01,156 So within a very short time, 290 00:19:01,158 --> 00:19:04,392 he'd gone from being in a desperate situation 291 00:19:04,394 --> 00:19:05,895 in Cambridge, England, 292 00:19:05,897 --> 00:19:09,968 where he found himself adrift socially and intellectually, 293 00:19:10,969 --> 00:19:12,535 to being the star. 294 00:19:12,537 --> 00:19:14,971 Oppenheimer had a queue of American universities 295 00:19:14,973 --> 00:19:17,439 wanting to bring him over. 296 00:19:17,441 --> 00:19:21,209 - Oh, by that time, he was already regarded 297 00:19:21,211 --> 00:19:25,481 as a brilliant young quantum physicist 298 00:19:25,483 --> 00:19:27,817 who, you know, there weren't many people 299 00:19:27,819 --> 00:19:29,284 who could understand. 300 00:19:29,286 --> 00:19:33,188 You and I can't understand what quantum is about. 301 00:19:33,190 --> 00:19:36,424 - Because he could pick and choose, 302 00:19:36,426 --> 00:19:38,696 he chose a very unusual arrangement 303 00:19:39,897 --> 00:19:41,599 where he spent half the year at Caltech 304 00:19:42,734 --> 00:19:45,468 and half the year at Berkeley. 305 00:19:45,470 --> 00:19:50,475 - So he went off to Berkeley and essentially founded 306 00:19:51,643 --> 00:19:54,275 the Department of Theoretical Physics 307 00:19:54,277 --> 00:19:59,282 and worked there for the next 11, 12, 13 years. 308 00:20:00,551 --> 00:20:03,019 And he never, you know, 309 00:20:03,021 --> 00:20:08,026 had more than a dozen graduate students to oversee 310 00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:10,595 but they all adored him. 311 00:20:11,763 --> 00:20:15,363 He turned out to be a lousy teacher initially. 312 00:20:15,365 --> 00:20:18,901 - There were elements there of traits 313 00:20:18,903 --> 00:20:22,237 that would influence how people reacted to Oppenheimer 314 00:20:22,239 --> 00:20:23,973 throughout his life, 315 00:20:23,975 --> 00:20:25,775 his extreme intelligence, 316 00:20:25,777 --> 00:20:29,277 his refusal to make allowances 317 00:20:29,279 --> 00:20:31,547 for people who weren't quite as well educated 318 00:20:31,549 --> 00:20:33,516 or as clever as he was, 319 00:20:33,518 --> 00:20:36,018 and also a tendency to show off, you know? 320 00:20:36,020 --> 00:20:39,588 All of those would mark him for the rest of his life. 321 00:20:39,590 --> 00:20:44,192 - But he learned eventually to become charismatic, 322 00:20:44,194 --> 00:20:47,732 again to transform himself into a good teacher. 323 00:20:49,232 --> 00:20:53,738 - He was, by all accounts, an extremely charismatic teacher 324 00:20:55,238 --> 00:20:57,139 and you could see that by the way that they emulated 325 00:20:57,141 --> 00:21:02,046 his mannerisms and his manner of speech. 326 00:21:02,914 --> 00:21:07,185 That prefigured the motivating 327 00:21:08,351 --> 00:21:12,488 role that he had as the leader of Los Alamos. 328 00:21:12,490 --> 00:21:13,723 - You know, he was a polymath. 329 00:21:13,725 --> 00:21:18,663 He loved reading French literature and poetry 330 00:21:19,530 --> 00:21:24,035 and John Dunn and Hemingway. 331 00:21:25,103 --> 00:21:29,807 And he also was intrigued, at one point, 332 00:21:30,708 --> 00:21:33,008 with Hinduism, 333 00:21:33,010 --> 00:21:35,711 so he took up the Gita 334 00:21:35,713 --> 00:21:40,718 and went to the only professor at Berkeley who knew Sanskrit 335 00:21:41,919 --> 00:21:45,454 and had this guy teach him Sanskrit 336 00:21:45,456 --> 00:21:49,026 so that he could read the Gita in the original. 337 00:21:51,996 --> 00:21:56,264 Yeah, he was very much a polymath, very weird guy. 338 00:21:56,266 --> 00:21:58,601 - When Oppenheimer arrived in Berkeley, 339 00:21:58,603 --> 00:22:01,773 he was not in the slightest bit interested in politics. 340 00:22:02,940 --> 00:22:05,608 He got to know Ernest Lawrence, 341 00:22:05,610 --> 00:22:07,512 who was an applied physicist, 342 00:22:08,479 --> 00:22:13,484 and in 1929, amazed Lawrence 343 00:22:14,351 --> 00:22:16,218 by revealing that he had no idea 344 00:22:16,220 --> 00:22:18,220 that the great crash had happened. 345 00:22:18,222 --> 00:22:21,557 So uninformed was he about politics. 346 00:22:21,559 --> 00:22:23,926 This would change very soon after that 347 00:22:23,928 --> 00:22:26,862 and what would change it was his students. 348 00:22:26,864 --> 00:22:28,230 His students were coming 349 00:22:28,232 --> 00:22:31,500 from what was increasingly recognized 350 00:22:31,502 --> 00:22:33,569 as one of the up and coming, 351 00:22:33,571 --> 00:22:36,472 one of the leading physics departments in the country. 352 00:22:36,474 --> 00:22:39,642 If you were a student of Oppenheimer, that opened doors. 353 00:22:39,644 --> 00:22:42,778 But in the Depression, his students were finding 354 00:22:42,780 --> 00:22:44,547 that they couldn't get academic jobs, 355 00:22:44,549 --> 00:22:46,816 and they got jobs cleaning toilets, 356 00:22:46,818 --> 00:22:50,318 and they got jobs waiting tables and so on. 357 00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:52,788 And they got to find out what it was like 358 00:22:52,790 --> 00:22:57,762 for working class people in the Depression era. 359 00:22:59,230 --> 00:23:01,329 And as they were still in touch with Oppenheimer, 360 00:23:01,331 --> 00:23:04,099 Oppenheimer got to know what it was like. 361 00:23:04,101 --> 00:23:05,803 - And he was very well read. 362 00:23:07,271 --> 00:23:11,173 And in the 1930s, with the rise of fascism in Europe, 363 00:23:11,175 --> 00:23:14,643 this was very worrisome to him 364 00:23:14,645 --> 00:23:17,248 and motivated him to become more political. 365 00:23:18,415 --> 00:23:20,015 - And almost all of his ex-students 366 00:23:20,017 --> 00:23:21,584 joined the Communist Party. 367 00:23:21,586 --> 00:23:24,019 Now, this is in the 1930s, 368 00:23:24,021 --> 00:23:27,156 and being a member of the Communist Party was not, 369 00:23:27,158 --> 00:23:30,593 in the 1930s, did not have anything like the stigma 370 00:23:30,595 --> 00:23:33,028 that it would have in the 1950s. 371 00:23:33,030 --> 00:23:36,565 The Communist Party was not something you kept quiet about. 372 00:23:36,567 --> 00:23:37,802 It was not a big secret. 373 00:23:39,103 --> 00:23:43,438 And Oppenheimer, it's debatable whether he ever joined 374 00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,174 the Communist Party. 375 00:23:45,176 --> 00:23:48,878 His brother Frank did, and his brother Frank had a card. 376 00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:52,884 He was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. 377 00:23:54,085 --> 00:23:57,119 Nobody's ever produced a Communist Party card 378 00:23:57,121 --> 00:23:59,757 identifying Robert Oppenheimer as that. 379 00:24:01,158 --> 00:24:05,730 - And then of course, there were some women involved 380 00:24:06,864 --> 00:24:08,733 who pushed him to become even more political. 381 00:24:09,834 --> 00:24:12,301 So he met Jean Tatlock in Berkeley, 382 00:24:12,303 --> 00:24:16,437 who was a young, intelligent graduate student 383 00:24:16,439 --> 00:24:19,141 studying psychology, 384 00:24:19,143 --> 00:24:24,148 and they dated for four years off and on, 385 00:24:25,016 --> 00:24:28,052 very tempestuous relationship. 386 00:24:30,588 --> 00:24:32,790 And Jean Tatlock was a member of the party. 387 00:24:33,991 --> 00:24:36,458 - Bit by bit, he got drawn into politics, 388 00:24:36,460 --> 00:24:39,762 and actually throughout the '30s, 389 00:24:39,764 --> 00:24:42,564 he became more and more active. 390 00:24:42,566 --> 00:24:46,602 - Specifically, that meant contributing 391 00:24:46,604 --> 00:24:51,609 to the Republican side and the Spanish Civil War. 392 00:24:52,743 --> 00:24:55,177 So he gave money to buy an ambulance 393 00:24:55,179 --> 00:25:00,051 to be shipped to the Republican government in Madrid. 394 00:25:01,485 --> 00:25:03,485 He went to fundraisers. 395 00:25:03,487 --> 00:25:07,823 He probably, in the end, by 1938, '39, 396 00:25:07,825 --> 00:25:10,492 he was giving about $400 a year. 397 00:25:10,494 --> 00:25:12,161 - Although it didn't have the stigma 398 00:25:12,163 --> 00:25:13,963 that it would have in the '50s, 399 00:25:13,965 --> 00:25:17,766 still the FBI was not very keen on it. 400 00:25:17,768 --> 00:25:21,971 And when the FBI learned 401 00:25:21,973 --> 00:25:24,907 that Oppenheimer would often be seen 402 00:25:24,909 --> 00:25:29,645 at the houses of these leading Communist Party members, 403 00:25:29,647 --> 00:25:31,480 they put people on Oppenheimer 404 00:25:31,482 --> 00:25:33,549 to follow him wherever he went. 405 00:25:33,551 --> 00:25:35,417 - And, you know, the FBI files, 406 00:25:35,419 --> 00:25:39,154 his FBI file runs to almost 10,000 pages 407 00:25:39,156 --> 00:25:41,490 and a lot of it is simply gossip, 408 00:25:41,492 --> 00:25:43,859 some of it comes from wiretaps. 409 00:25:43,861 --> 00:25:48,866 Anyway, in all those 10,000 FBI pages, 410 00:25:49,468 --> 00:25:50,699 you know, 411 00:25:50,701 --> 00:25:54,672 the FBI had him under a microscope for years. 412 00:25:57,408 --> 00:26:00,477 There's no smoking gun, 413 00:26:00,479 --> 00:26:05,484 there's no clear evidence that he ever joined the party, 414 00:26:06,650 --> 00:26:09,353 paid dues or had a membership card. 415 00:26:11,922 --> 00:26:14,925 Oppenheimer, he was too ethereal. 416 00:26:16,293 --> 00:26:20,596 I can't imagine him submitting himself to party orders 417 00:26:20,598 --> 00:26:23,968 from the local party chapter secretary, you know. 418 00:26:25,836 --> 00:26:29,040 He had too big of a ego. 419 00:26:30,608 --> 00:26:34,178 And then by 1942, 420 00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:40,885 you know, his ambition was to work on 421 00:26:42,053 --> 00:26:43,919 what we now know as the Manhattan Project 422 00:26:43,921 --> 00:26:45,687 because he was so fearful 423 00:26:45,689 --> 00:26:48,724 that the German physicists whom he knew, 424 00:26:48,726 --> 00:26:49,858 they could make it work 425 00:26:49,860 --> 00:26:52,161 and they were probably working on it. 426 00:26:52,163 --> 00:26:54,863 So given that ambition, 427 00:26:54,865 --> 00:26:59,635 he became much more careful about his associations 428 00:26:59,637 --> 00:27:03,542 and donations to charitable causes, 429 00:27:04,708 --> 00:27:09,713 and, you know, he wanted that job in 1942. 430 00:27:11,782 --> 00:27:15,684 - This was the time of the Great Depression, 431 00:27:15,686 --> 00:27:18,756 the time of the Roosevelt's New Deal, 432 00:27:23,060 --> 00:27:25,961 and it was also the time when the Communist Party 433 00:27:25,963 --> 00:27:30,968 was supporting the notion of a popular front 434 00:27:31,570 --> 00:27:32,537 against fascism. 435 00:27:34,605 --> 00:27:39,441 So being involved with and sympathetic 436 00:27:39,443 --> 00:27:42,344 with the Communist Party at that time 437 00:27:42,346 --> 00:27:47,351 would not have seemed to Oppenheimer to be in conflict with 438 00:27:49,120 --> 00:27:51,956 being a loyal, patriotic American. 439 00:27:53,090 --> 00:27:57,159 He was both involved with the Communist Party 440 00:27:57,161 --> 00:28:02,099 and an admirer of FDR, of Roosevelt. 441 00:28:03,468 --> 00:28:06,235 I think, in some ways, that political involvement, 442 00:28:06,237 --> 00:28:09,171 that consciousness of world events, 443 00:28:09,173 --> 00:28:13,709 what was taking place in Germany with the rise of the Nazis, 444 00:28:13,711 --> 00:28:15,978 the persecution of the Jews, 445 00:28:15,980 --> 00:28:19,482 I think all of that prepared him 446 00:28:19,484 --> 00:28:24,489 for the role of director of Los Alamos. 447 00:28:25,923 --> 00:28:28,525 - The leader of the Manhattan Project was General Groves. 448 00:28:28,527 --> 00:28:32,728 General Groves was a man of indomitable will. 449 00:28:32,730 --> 00:28:33,962 It used to be said 450 00:28:33,964 --> 00:28:38,570 that you couldn't create enough fissile uranium 451 00:28:40,104 --> 00:28:44,373 because you would need to refine uranium. 452 00:28:44,375 --> 00:28:47,109 Most uranium in the world is 238, 453 00:28:47,111 --> 00:28:51,747 but you need 235 to make an atomic bomb. 454 00:28:51,749 --> 00:28:54,716 You can create 235 from 238, 455 00:28:54,718 --> 00:28:56,586 but it used to be said that you'd have to transform 456 00:28:56,588 --> 00:28:58,887 the whole of America into one big factory 457 00:28:58,889 --> 00:29:00,122 in order to do this. 458 00:29:00,124 --> 00:29:02,958 That's what Groves was determined to do. 459 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:06,161 He bought up enormous areas of land in Tennessee, 460 00:29:06,163 --> 00:29:08,030 and he bought up enormous area of land 461 00:29:08,032 --> 00:29:09,331 in the state of Washington, 462 00:29:09,333 --> 00:29:12,734 and he built plants on those land 463 00:29:12,736 --> 00:29:15,804 specifically for enriching uranium, 464 00:29:15,806 --> 00:29:19,141 and he employed over a hundred thousand people. 465 00:29:19,143 --> 00:29:21,276 And when people give estimates 466 00:29:21,278 --> 00:29:24,213 of how much the Manhattan Project cost, 467 00:29:24,215 --> 00:29:25,781 2 billion, whatever it is, 468 00:29:25,783 --> 00:29:29,151 most of that money was spent on hiring people 469 00:29:29,153 --> 00:29:30,419 to work in these plants. 470 00:29:30,421 --> 00:29:31,621 The most extraordinary thing, 471 00:29:31,623 --> 00:29:33,523 none of the people working in those plants 472 00:29:33,525 --> 00:29:35,057 realized what they were doing. 473 00:29:35,059 --> 00:29:37,426 They were trained to say, "Look, here's a machine," 474 00:29:37,428 --> 00:29:38,994 with all these controls on it, 475 00:29:38,996 --> 00:29:41,730 "when this needle goes this way, turn this knob. 476 00:29:41,732 --> 00:29:43,732 When it goes this way, turn that knob," 477 00:29:43,734 --> 00:29:45,670 and they had no idea what they were doing. 478 00:29:46,937 --> 00:29:50,072 - Here it is, General Groves, plutonium. 479 00:29:50,074 --> 00:29:52,508 - Well, that's the first time I've seen it, 480 00:29:52,510 --> 00:29:54,711 but if you don't mind, I wish you'd hold that under it 481 00:29:54,713 --> 00:29:56,111 because after all, 482 00:29:56,113 --> 00:29:59,950 there's about $50 million in that test tube. 483 00:30:01,385 --> 00:30:04,687 - Groves also realized that he needed to get the scientists 484 00:30:04,689 --> 00:30:08,190 to work on the theory behind the bomb, 485 00:30:08,192 --> 00:30:10,192 exactly how you could create, 486 00:30:10,194 --> 00:30:12,227 'cause no one had created an atomic bomb before. 487 00:30:12,229 --> 00:30:13,762 And so, you know, 488 00:30:13,764 --> 00:30:17,899 you needed not just experimental physicists, 489 00:30:17,901 --> 00:30:20,737 you needed people who understood the theory. 490 00:30:20,739 --> 00:30:23,939 And Groves went around the USA, 491 00:30:23,941 --> 00:30:28,110 interviewing the leading scientists of the day 492 00:30:28,112 --> 00:30:29,512 and was very disappointed 493 00:30:29,514 --> 00:30:32,080 because he couldn't understand a word they said. 494 00:30:32,082 --> 00:30:33,616 Until he went to California 495 00:30:33,618 --> 00:30:35,884 and he went to see Ernest Lawrence, 496 00:30:35,886 --> 00:30:37,119 Oppenheimer's friend, 497 00:30:37,121 --> 00:30:38,389 Oppenheimer was there, 498 00:30:39,356 --> 00:30:42,424 and Oppenheimer gave Groves 499 00:30:42,426 --> 00:30:45,730 such a beautifully clear explanation 500 00:30:46,631 --> 00:30:50,365 as to how nuclear fission works 501 00:30:50,367 --> 00:30:53,268 and what critical mass is 502 00:30:53,270 --> 00:30:57,372 and why nuclear fission releases so much energy. 503 00:30:57,374 --> 00:30:59,511 Suddenly, Groves understood it, 504 00:31:00,944 --> 00:31:04,415 and he said, "I want that man in charge of this project." 505 00:31:05,684 --> 00:31:09,318 - He was a most unlikely candidate 506 00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:14,325 for being selected as the scientific director of Las Alamos. 507 00:31:17,529 --> 00:31:19,729 You know, he'd never managed 508 00:31:19,731 --> 00:31:22,299 more than a dozen graduate students. 509 00:31:23,702 --> 00:31:27,903 He had no experience, administratively speaking. 510 00:31:27,905 --> 00:31:30,005 - He'd never won a Nobel Prize. 511 00:31:30,007 --> 00:31:32,140 All these other scientists were Nobel Prize winners, 512 00:31:32,142 --> 00:31:33,842 and therefore it was said, 513 00:31:33,844 --> 00:31:36,479 could command the respect of all the other scientists. 514 00:31:36,481 --> 00:31:39,416 Oppenheimer was not a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. 515 00:31:40,951 --> 00:31:44,353 Secondly, he was a disaster in the laboratory, 516 00:31:44,355 --> 00:31:47,559 so why should you make this man director of a laboratory? 517 00:31:49,059 --> 00:31:52,662 And then thirdly, J. Edgar Hoover had identified him 518 00:31:52,664 --> 00:31:54,799 as a threat to the security of the country. 519 00:31:56,701 --> 00:31:59,469 - Somehow the chemistry between, 520 00:31:59,471 --> 00:32:00,837 they were complete opposites 521 00:32:00,839 --> 00:32:04,776 but the chemistry between them just clicked. 522 00:32:06,443 --> 00:32:08,711 And I think, in part, this was because 523 00:32:08,713 --> 00:32:12,517 Groves knew nothing about quantum physics, 524 00:32:14,552 --> 00:32:18,355 knew nothing about what was involved technically 525 00:32:19,491 --> 00:32:24,359 but he saw here was this 34-year-old 526 00:32:24,361 --> 00:32:27,362 eccentric physicist 527 00:32:27,364 --> 00:32:29,233 who could talk in plain English, 528 00:32:30,668 --> 00:32:32,300 and he could do so because, you know, 529 00:32:32,302 --> 00:32:35,370 he loved poetry and literature, 530 00:32:35,372 --> 00:32:37,673 and so he could communicate. 531 00:32:37,675 --> 00:32:39,876 - Groves wrote to J. Edgar Hoover saying, 532 00:32:39,878 --> 00:32:44,480 "Look, we don't want to continue this discussion anymore. 533 00:32:44,482 --> 00:32:46,716 I want security clearance given for this man. 534 00:32:46,718 --> 00:32:48,917 He's going to be head of this project," 535 00:32:48,919 --> 00:32:52,588 and Groves overran every other objection 536 00:32:52,590 --> 00:32:54,524 to Oppenheimer being in charge. 537 00:32:54,526 --> 00:32:55,725 And as it turned out, 538 00:32:55,727 --> 00:32:57,627 it was a stroke of genius on Groves's part 539 00:32:57,629 --> 00:32:59,194 because Oppenheimer, 540 00:32:59,196 --> 00:33:01,997 it's as if his whole life had been leading up to this point. 541 00:33:01,999 --> 00:33:07,004 - Oppe made the brilliant pitch that he says: 542 00:33:08,439 --> 00:33:10,174 You know, I understand you have many security concerns, 543 00:33:11,576 --> 00:33:16,046 and so what you should do is build a secret city 544 00:33:17,214 --> 00:33:19,381 in the middle of the New Mexico desert 545 00:33:19,383 --> 00:33:23,952 and bring, you know, the best and the brightest physicists 546 00:33:23,954 --> 00:33:25,790 and chemists and engineers 547 00:33:26,691 --> 00:33:31,696 and put them in this little town 548 00:33:32,564 --> 00:33:34,963 and put a barbed wire around it 549 00:33:34,965 --> 00:33:38,935 and just let them freely talk amongst themselves 550 00:33:38,937 --> 00:33:41,069 on solving the problems, 551 00:33:41,071 --> 00:33:42,839 but you'd have complete secrecy. 552 00:33:42,841 --> 00:33:46,174 Well, Groves loved that idea. 553 00:33:46,176 --> 00:33:49,581 It solved all his security concerns. 554 00:33:52,550 --> 00:33:54,983 And so he actually, soon thereafter, 555 00:33:54,985 --> 00:33:57,689 took Oppenheimer on a tour of New Mexico. 556 00:33:58,890 --> 00:34:03,160 Robert wanted the secret city to be built there 557 00:34:04,428 --> 00:34:09,433 and he took Groves to Los Alamos Boys School, 558 00:34:11,301 --> 00:34:15,272 which was about 40 miles down the road from his cabin 559 00:34:16,508 --> 00:34:21,209 that he had started renting in 1929. 560 00:34:26,416 --> 00:34:29,184 And here, the Los Alamos Boys School 561 00:34:29,186 --> 00:34:33,121 had a dormitory and a conference room 562 00:34:33,123 --> 00:34:35,257 and, you know, the beginnings of, 563 00:34:35,259 --> 00:34:37,695 they had no idea how many people they would need. 564 00:34:40,430 --> 00:34:41,831 - It was Oppenheimer's insistence 565 00:34:41,833 --> 00:34:44,567 that this is done in Los Alamos, 566 00:34:44,569 --> 00:34:46,201 and again, there would be practical reasons 567 00:34:46,203 --> 00:34:47,670 for not doing it in Los Alamos. 568 00:34:47,672 --> 00:34:49,472 It's right in the hills, 569 00:34:49,474 --> 00:34:53,676 getting anything there would be a lot of hard work, 570 00:34:53,678 --> 00:34:55,110 but he insisted 571 00:34:55,112 --> 00:34:57,980 and so you have this town built in Los Alamos. 572 00:34:57,982 --> 00:34:59,381 And Oppenheimer, 573 00:34:59,383 --> 00:35:01,283 as part of being the director of the laboratory, 574 00:35:01,285 --> 00:35:05,454 was also in charge of who got what house 575 00:35:05,456 --> 00:35:09,525 and the schooling arrangements for the children 576 00:35:09,527 --> 00:35:11,259 that would be brought there 577 00:35:11,261 --> 00:35:14,329 and the washing arrangements of the people. 578 00:35:14,331 --> 00:35:19,134 And as it turned out, he could have meetings 579 00:35:19,136 --> 00:35:21,037 on domestic arrangements, 580 00:35:21,039 --> 00:35:23,140 he could have meetings on plutonium, 581 00:35:24,408 --> 00:35:26,174 he could have meetings on, 582 00:35:26,176 --> 00:35:29,645 you know, how exactly you're going to drop this bomb, 583 00:35:29,647 --> 00:35:31,480 he could have meetings with von Neumann, 584 00:35:31,482 --> 00:35:33,749 the very brilliant Hungarian mathematician, 585 00:35:33,751 --> 00:35:36,721 about the mathematics involved in fission, 586 00:35:38,155 --> 00:35:41,122 and very quickly, he could master all these fields. 587 00:35:41,124 --> 00:35:43,158 And so as it turned out, 588 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,497 he was the perfect choice to be in charge of this operation. 589 00:35:53,805 --> 00:35:57,272 - The initial estimate was maybe 100 people 590 00:35:57,274 --> 00:36:00,478 brought together, scientists. 591 00:36:01,345 --> 00:36:05,681 Well, it quickly grew to 1,000 592 00:36:05,683 --> 00:36:08,251 and then 3,000. 593 00:36:09,454 --> 00:36:10,653 By the end of the war, 594 00:36:10,655 --> 00:36:12,824 there were 6,000 people in this secret city. 595 00:36:15,059 --> 00:36:16,492 He later said that, you know, 596 00:36:16,494 --> 00:36:19,964 there was no physics being discovered during World War II. 597 00:36:21,766 --> 00:36:23,666 It was all engineering. 598 00:36:23,668 --> 00:36:28,405 You know, the idea of fission had been discovered in 1939, 599 00:36:31,776 --> 00:36:33,909 so it was an open secret 600 00:36:33,911 --> 00:36:38,781 among physicists in Germany and Japan and America 601 00:36:38,783 --> 00:36:43,788 that this was theoretically possible to build a gadget 602 00:36:44,889 --> 00:36:47,125 that would have an enormous explosive power 603 00:36:48,860 --> 00:36:53,765 but how to do it became an engineering problem. 604 00:36:56,366 --> 00:37:00,168 - The building of the device, the design of the device, 605 00:37:00,170 --> 00:37:01,704 the design of the bomb 606 00:37:01,706 --> 00:37:05,107 and the building of the bomb at Los Alamos 607 00:37:05,109 --> 00:37:10,114 depended on receiving the fissionable materials 608 00:37:10,848 --> 00:37:12,313 from these other sites. 609 00:37:12,315 --> 00:37:17,019 There was tremendous time pressure on Los Alamos 610 00:37:17,021 --> 00:37:22,026 to be ready with their device, with their mechanism, 611 00:37:22,894 --> 00:37:25,895 for when sufficient quantities 612 00:37:25,897 --> 00:37:28,331 of fissionable materials would arrive, 613 00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,267 to have this thing ready 614 00:37:32,269 --> 00:37:36,708 so that it could be used in the war. 615 00:37:38,976 --> 00:37:40,241 - Rather strangely, 616 00:37:40,243 --> 00:37:43,948 Oppenheimer turned out to be a good manager. 617 00:37:44,949 --> 00:37:47,248 No one would've predicted this. 618 00:37:47,250 --> 00:37:52,056 He was the archetypal ivory tower academic, 619 00:37:53,223 --> 00:37:57,225 but it turned out that he could manage people. 620 00:37:57,227 --> 00:38:00,029 - Oh, he again had transformed himself 621 00:38:00,031 --> 00:38:02,164 into a charismatic leader. 622 00:38:02,166 --> 00:38:04,434 He had a signature pork pie hat, 623 00:38:05,536 --> 00:38:08,637 a good eye for drama and theatrics, 624 00:38:08,639 --> 00:38:11,907 but he was, you know, he cut a good figure. 625 00:38:11,909 --> 00:38:16,479 He was handsome and charming 626 00:38:16,481 --> 00:38:17,780 when he wanted to be, 627 00:38:17,782 --> 00:38:20,151 particularly to people below him. 628 00:38:21,152 --> 00:38:24,587 And at Los Alamos, 629 00:38:24,589 --> 00:38:28,289 he sort of treated his fellow physicists and chemists 630 00:38:28,291 --> 00:38:31,560 and engineers as fellow students. 631 00:38:31,562 --> 00:38:34,329 So he would come into the room 632 00:38:34,331 --> 00:38:37,533 where everyone was arguing about, 633 00:38:37,535 --> 00:38:39,835 should we do this or should we go this way, 634 00:38:39,837 --> 00:38:42,037 or how do we fix this problem, 635 00:38:42,039 --> 00:38:46,942 and he would just stand at the back of the room and listen. 636 00:38:46,944 --> 00:38:50,679 And then after 30 minutes or an hour, 637 00:38:50,681 --> 00:38:53,414 he would intervene and say, 638 00:38:53,416 --> 00:38:57,820 "Well, I think what you're all saying is this," 639 00:38:57,822 --> 00:39:01,757 and he would manage in a very brilliant, concise way 640 00:39:01,759 --> 00:39:04,796 to show them the path forward was. 641 00:39:08,132 --> 00:39:10,866 - The accounts of the scientists who worked there 642 00:39:10,868 --> 00:39:15,204 often present it as the best time of their lives, 643 00:39:15,206 --> 00:39:18,107 the most engaged they've ever been, 644 00:39:18,109 --> 00:39:23,114 the closest and most energized scientific experience 645 00:39:24,081 --> 00:39:25,581 that they've ever had. 646 00:39:25,583 --> 00:39:29,552 And they say, in their reminiscences, 647 00:39:29,554 --> 00:39:32,056 that that had a great deal to do with Oppenheimer. 648 00:39:33,691 --> 00:39:38,328 - Los Alamos became his magical city on the hill. 649 00:39:40,131 --> 00:39:41,664 He was the king of it. 650 00:39:41,666 --> 00:39:43,634 He really enjoyed the work. 651 00:39:45,069 --> 00:39:48,904 And, you know, social life revolved all around events, 652 00:39:48,906 --> 00:39:51,843 like they had a theater, they had a grocery store, 653 00:39:53,778 --> 00:39:56,981 but most of the socializing took place in private homes. 654 00:39:59,150 --> 00:40:03,788 And Oppenheimer, you know, had parties all the time, 655 00:40:06,224 --> 00:40:10,192 encouraged people to have a release. 656 00:40:21,772 --> 00:40:25,274 You know, he continued to go horseback riding. 657 00:40:49,533 --> 00:40:51,869 - They would ski in the mountains. 658 00:40:53,037 --> 00:40:55,506 Many of the scientists were from Europe, 659 00:40:57,842 --> 00:41:00,843 Enrico Fermi was an avid skier. 660 00:41:00,845 --> 00:41:04,113 They would enjoy what New Mexico had to offer 661 00:41:04,115 --> 00:41:06,849 in terms of the outdoors, 662 00:41:06,851 --> 00:41:09,153 cross-country skiing, hiking. 663 00:41:13,958 --> 00:41:15,691 There were many parties. 664 00:41:15,693 --> 00:41:18,829 It was a very young community, 665 00:41:25,303 --> 00:41:27,803 young people, college age, 666 00:41:27,805 --> 00:41:32,143 graduate student age in their 20s, in their 30s. 667 00:41:33,477 --> 00:41:36,612 And there were many parties, 668 00:41:36,614 --> 00:41:39,615 they would drink a lot, they would dance, 669 00:41:39,617 --> 00:41:42,484 Edward Teller would play the piano. 670 00:41:42,486 --> 00:41:46,157 In some ways, it was like college life, I think. 671 00:41:47,525 --> 00:41:50,594 - And there was a lot of drinking, so... 672 00:41:53,130 --> 00:41:57,969 But it was a weird place and he was... 673 00:41:59,270 --> 00:42:01,103 He was in charge of it all. 674 00:42:01,105 --> 00:42:05,808 - And so the job of getting the bomb built 675 00:42:05,810 --> 00:42:07,776 was really just a matter of 18 months. 676 00:42:07,778 --> 00:42:09,745 They moved in in '43, 677 00:42:09,747 --> 00:42:11,313 by the spring of '45, 678 00:42:11,315 --> 00:42:13,716 they were ready to test the first weapon, 679 00:42:13,718 --> 00:42:16,352 which they tested at the Trinity Site 680 00:42:16,354 --> 00:42:20,189 in southern New Mexico, 681 00:42:20,191 --> 00:42:22,558 which is an extraordinary achievement. 682 00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:24,795 The Nazis spent five years 683 00:42:26,230 --> 00:42:28,864 and didn't even get a working reactor. 684 00:42:28,866 --> 00:42:30,966 - Finally, after three years work, 685 00:42:30,968 --> 00:42:34,471 the atomic experts were ready to test their first bomb. 686 00:42:34,473 --> 00:42:37,673 In the control shack was Dr. J.R. Oppenheimer. 687 00:42:37,675 --> 00:42:39,478 - The automatic controls got it now. 688 00:42:40,778 --> 00:42:44,013 Rob, this time, the stakes are really high. 689 00:42:44,015 --> 00:42:45,881 - It's going to work all right, Robert, 690 00:42:45,883 --> 00:42:48,517 and I'm sure we'll never be sorry for it. 691 00:42:48,519 --> 00:42:50,221 - Well, in 40 seconds, we'll know. 692 00:42:53,924 --> 00:42:55,691 - Minus 30 seconds. 693 00:43:34,398 --> 00:43:36,832 - There was a great deal of pressure 694 00:43:36,834 --> 00:43:38,836 leading up to the Trinity test. 695 00:43:42,073 --> 00:43:45,140 Rationally, they had every reason to believe 696 00:43:45,142 --> 00:43:46,575 that it would work, 697 00:43:46,577 --> 00:43:49,912 the gadget would work as expected. 698 00:43:49,914 --> 00:43:51,481 But, you know, this is the first time 699 00:43:51,483 --> 00:43:53,115 anyone had attempted this thing, 700 00:43:53,117 --> 00:43:57,753 so there was a lot of tension 701 00:43:57,755 --> 00:44:02,660 and particularly on the night before the explosion. 702 00:44:35,659 --> 00:44:38,427 There's this very spooky photo of Oppenheimer 703 00:44:38,429 --> 00:44:43,434 in his pork pie hat in the shadows, 704 00:44:44,635 --> 00:44:48,405 and you see the sphere of the Trinity weapon, 705 00:44:52,109 --> 00:44:56,145 and he's leaning in and you see his sharp, angular nose. 706 00:44:56,147 --> 00:45:00,315 He was up there on the top of the tower, inspecting, 707 00:45:00,317 --> 00:45:03,420 making sure that all the plugs were in the right place. 708 00:45:14,765 --> 00:45:17,469 - The first question was, would it work at all? 709 00:45:20,671 --> 00:45:22,204 So they're all nervous wrecks. 710 00:45:22,206 --> 00:45:24,673 They witnessed it from a long distance away, 711 00:45:24,675 --> 00:45:27,610 and they were told to use these special shields and so on. 712 00:45:27,612 --> 00:45:28,480 Not everyone did. 713 00:45:59,143 --> 00:46:03,111 - And, you know, early that morning, 714 00:46:03,113 --> 00:46:05,047 well, they were outside the bunker 715 00:46:05,049 --> 00:46:07,716 lying on the desert floor, 716 00:46:07,718 --> 00:46:11,623 and Frank was by his side, Frank Oppenheimer. 717 00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:20,896 And, you know, they witnessed this massive explosion 718 00:46:20,898 --> 00:46:22,864 and the mushroom cloud. 719 00:46:38,215 --> 00:46:39,815 - But couple of things, 720 00:46:39,817 --> 00:46:43,151 they said that they had no idea 721 00:46:43,153 --> 00:46:47,791 that it would produce this kind of beautiful cloud. 722 00:46:48,959 --> 00:46:50,993 I mean, you hate to talk about it that way, 723 00:46:50,995 --> 00:46:54,464 but it's beautiful, number one, 724 00:46:54,466 --> 00:46:59,471 and that the light flash came first and then the heat 725 00:47:00,337 --> 00:47:02,371 and only much later, the sound. 726 00:47:02,373 --> 00:47:05,007 And so it wasn't a single event, 727 00:47:05,009 --> 00:47:07,577 it was an event that kept unfolding. 728 00:47:07,579 --> 00:47:11,046 - Oppenheimer returned to Frank and simply said, 729 00:47:11,048 --> 00:47:12,283 "Well, it worked." 730 00:47:13,350 --> 00:47:17,819 Now he's known, you know, 731 00:47:17,821 --> 00:47:20,623 he has a theatrical side to him, 732 00:47:20,625 --> 00:47:23,892 so at some point in the next few days, 733 00:47:23,894 --> 00:47:26,228 he was interviewed by a "New York Times" reporter 734 00:47:26,230 --> 00:47:28,132 who was assigned to write a story. 735 00:47:30,702 --> 00:47:35,674 - Few people laughed, few people cried, 736 00:47:37,007 --> 00:47:38,610 most people were silent. 737 00:47:40,444 --> 00:47:43,812 - And he, I think, playfully, 738 00:47:43,814 --> 00:47:46,948 when this reporter asked him what went through his mind 739 00:47:46,950 --> 00:47:49,519 when he saw the Trinity test, 740 00:47:49,521 --> 00:47:54,526 Oppenheimer playfully said, "I thought of the Gita stanza." 741 00:48:00,030 --> 00:48:03,766 - I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, 742 00:48:03,768 --> 00:48:05,267 the Bhagavad Gita, 743 00:48:05,269 --> 00:48:08,939 "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." 744 00:48:11,676 --> 00:48:14,677 I suppose we all thought that one way or another. 745 00:48:14,679 --> 00:48:16,945 - You know, a nice line, 746 00:48:16,947 --> 00:48:20,317 but that's not what he said at the Trinity test. 747 00:48:21,586 --> 00:48:25,623 But that's become part of the lore. 748 00:48:28,892 --> 00:48:31,193 - Then in August 1945, 749 00:48:31,195 --> 00:48:34,129 they used the uranium bomb on Hiroshima 750 00:48:34,131 --> 00:48:37,201 and they used the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. 751 00:48:38,603 --> 00:48:43,407 The Hiroshima bomb turned out to be more deadly. 752 00:48:46,176 --> 00:48:50,145 Now, when they tested the bomb in Trinity, 753 00:48:50,147 --> 00:48:52,617 the scientists were all delighted that it worked. 754 00:48:55,754 --> 00:48:57,419 And then among several of them, 755 00:48:57,421 --> 00:48:59,187 there was this ominous sense 756 00:48:59,189 --> 00:49:02,059 that they were going to be responsible 757 00:49:02,993 --> 00:49:04,460 for the deaths of tens, 758 00:49:04,462 --> 00:49:07,129 possibly hundreds of thousands of people. 759 00:49:07,131 --> 00:49:11,066 Oppenheimer was in favor of using the bomb 760 00:49:11,068 --> 00:49:13,001 because an argument that he'd got 761 00:49:13,003 --> 00:49:16,338 from his old friend Niels Bohr, 762 00:49:16,340 --> 00:49:19,908 Niels Bohr was very great Danish physicist 763 00:49:19,910 --> 00:49:24,045 and the man whom Oppenheimer admired above anybody else, 764 00:49:24,047 --> 00:49:27,215 both as a scientist and as a human being, 765 00:49:27,217 --> 00:49:29,987 and Niels Bohr came to Los Alamos 766 00:49:31,589 --> 00:49:35,658 and would discuss with Oppenheimer the politics of the bomb. 767 00:49:35,660 --> 00:49:37,125 And he said to Oppenheimer, 768 00:49:37,127 --> 00:49:38,994 well, what you are doing could be the most dreadful thing 769 00:49:38,996 --> 00:49:43,033 that humanity is evident, or it could be the best. 770 00:49:44,201 --> 00:49:46,301 And his argument for it being the best 771 00:49:46,303 --> 00:49:49,304 was that it could potentially put an end to war 772 00:49:49,306 --> 00:49:53,843 by demonstrating a weapon so powerful 773 00:49:53,845 --> 00:49:58,146 that nations would resolve their differences 774 00:49:58,148 --> 00:49:59,948 without going to war 775 00:49:59,950 --> 00:50:04,252 rather than risk unleashing the power of this again. 776 00:50:04,254 --> 00:50:06,021 Now, in order for that argument to work, 777 00:50:06,023 --> 00:50:10,158 it has to be seen just how dreadful this weapon is, 778 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:15,165 and I think that's why Oppenheimer was in favor 779 00:50:16,568 --> 00:50:19,069 of using the weapon against civilians at Hiroshima. 780 00:50:20,472 --> 00:50:22,472 - But this is, again, you know, a curious thing 781 00:50:22,474 --> 00:50:24,007 about Robert Oppenheimer. 782 00:50:25,242 --> 00:50:30,047 He was capable of compartmentalizing his emotions 783 00:50:31,248 --> 00:50:34,985 and his intellect and his responsibilities. 784 00:50:36,186 --> 00:50:39,922 After the Trinity test and before Hiroshima, 785 00:50:39,924 --> 00:50:41,158 before August 6th, 786 00:50:42,359 --> 00:50:43,960 he's walking to work one day 787 00:50:43,962 --> 00:50:48,933 and his secretary, Ruth Wilson, she was walking by his side 788 00:50:50,100 --> 00:50:53,972 and suddenly she heard Robert saying, 789 00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:56,906 in a whisper, 790 00:50:56,908 --> 00:50:59,577 "those poor little people, those poor little people." 791 00:51:01,011 --> 00:51:04,747 Wilson turned to him and said, "Robert, what do you mean?" 792 00:51:04,749 --> 00:51:09,754 And he said, "Oh, you know, all those women and children, 793 00:51:10,889 --> 00:51:13,723 you know, when they drop this bomb on a city, 794 00:51:13,725 --> 00:51:14,792 it's going to..." 795 00:51:16,761 --> 00:51:18,061 And then he fell silent. 796 00:51:19,998 --> 00:51:22,264 Well, that was the very same week 797 00:51:22,266 --> 00:51:26,669 that he briefed the bombardiers 798 00:51:26,671 --> 00:51:30,305 that were going to be on the mission to drop those bombs 799 00:51:30,307 --> 00:51:34,012 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as it turned out, 800 00:51:35,312 --> 00:51:36,748 and he was instructing them 801 00:51:37,949 --> 00:51:41,017 in a sort of coldly intellectual fashion 802 00:51:41,019 --> 00:51:45,557 at exactly what altitude the bomb should be detonated 803 00:51:47,057 --> 00:51:51,494 so that it would have the maximum destructive power, 804 00:51:51,496 --> 00:51:54,832 and that it should be dropped on the center of a city. 805 00:51:59,369 --> 00:52:04,274 So he both understood the ethical consequences 806 00:52:05,409 --> 00:52:10,247 of killing all these civilians, a whole city, 807 00:52:11,983 --> 00:52:14,986 and yet he did his duty. 808 00:52:16,386 --> 00:52:20,024 - And so in some unpleasant sense 809 00:52:21,191 --> 00:52:22,959 that really does call into question 810 00:52:22,961 --> 00:52:27,865 a lot of strategic thinking and morality, 811 00:52:29,232 --> 00:52:30,768 we used them anyway. 812 00:52:33,037 --> 00:52:34,402 And you can certainly say 813 00:52:34,404 --> 00:52:36,973 that the use of the second bomb at Nagasaki 814 00:52:36,975 --> 00:52:39,441 just three days after the first one 815 00:52:39,443 --> 00:52:41,944 was premature because it didn't give the Japanese 816 00:52:41,946 --> 00:52:43,445 time to absorb. 817 00:52:43,447 --> 00:52:44,680 They weren't really even sure 818 00:52:44,682 --> 00:52:46,482 what had happened from Hiroshima. 819 00:52:46,484 --> 00:52:48,484 And so if you'd waited two weeks and said, 820 00:52:48,486 --> 00:52:51,020 "We can just keep doing this as long as you want," 821 00:52:51,022 --> 00:52:52,253 that's one thing, 822 00:52:52,255 --> 00:52:56,124 but three days later is pretty quick. 823 00:52:56,126 --> 00:53:01,032 And so we built it, we're gonna use it, 824 00:53:02,734 --> 00:53:04,834 we can't let the war end before we use it, 825 00:53:04,836 --> 00:53:06,102 and we're gonna use one of each 826 00:53:06,104 --> 00:53:07,739 to make sure that they both work, 827 00:53:09,172 --> 00:53:12,575 and we're trying to warn Stalin about our capacity, 828 00:53:12,577 --> 00:53:15,544 so that it gets very, very, very complex 829 00:53:15,546 --> 00:53:17,680 and thick and morally troubling 830 00:53:17,682 --> 00:53:21,653 the farther you look into what happens after Alamogordo. 831 00:53:22,787 --> 00:53:24,254 - And after Hiroshima, 832 00:53:26,491 --> 00:53:28,557 although unlike after Trinity, 833 00:53:28,559 --> 00:53:31,963 there wasn't this euphoric feeling among the scientists 834 00:53:33,064 --> 00:53:35,196 and shared by Oppenheimer, 835 00:53:35,198 --> 00:53:37,200 it was a much more somber mood. 836 00:53:38,402 --> 00:53:42,104 Oppenheimer never felt that he made a mistake 837 00:53:42,106 --> 00:53:45,608 in being in favor of using the bomb against civilians, 838 00:53:45,610 --> 00:53:49,147 even after the war when he was invited to do Japan. 839 00:53:50,313 --> 00:53:52,648 And the thing that Japanese journalists 840 00:53:52,650 --> 00:53:54,850 most wanted to know was, 841 00:53:54,852 --> 00:53:58,988 do you regret building the bomb? 842 00:53:58,990 --> 00:54:01,626 Oppenheimer still say, "No, I don't." 843 00:54:03,895 --> 00:54:05,628 Immediately after the Second World War, 844 00:54:05,630 --> 00:54:07,429 Oppenheimer was the most, 845 00:54:07,431 --> 00:54:10,132 he replaced Einstein as the most famous scientist 846 00:54:10,134 --> 00:54:11,366 in the United States, 847 00:54:11,368 --> 00:54:12,804 and his photograph was everywhere. 848 00:54:14,404 --> 00:54:16,373 - Oh, he was a national celebrity. 849 00:54:17,240 --> 00:54:19,775 He was a very famous man, 850 00:54:19,777 --> 00:54:24,782 was lauded on the covers of "TIME" and "LIFE." 851 00:54:25,516 --> 00:54:27,016 He decided very quickly, 852 00:54:27,018 --> 00:54:30,351 you know, after Hiroshima, he fell into a deep depression. 853 00:54:30,353 --> 00:54:32,588 - And it's very notable that after the war, 854 00:54:32,590 --> 00:54:34,457 he dedicated himself to politics. 855 00:54:34,459 --> 00:54:37,460 He did no original science after the war. 856 00:54:37,462 --> 00:54:39,962 He still kept his directorship 857 00:54:39,964 --> 00:54:42,798 of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, 858 00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:46,469 but he himself spent most of his time in Washington, DC, 859 00:54:46,471 --> 00:54:50,773 meeting with politicians and urging upon them 860 00:54:50,775 --> 00:54:55,343 ways in which they could use the atomic bomb 861 00:54:55,345 --> 00:54:57,947 as a means for peace rather than war, 862 00:54:57,949 --> 00:55:00,750 fulfilling Niels Bohr's vision 863 00:55:00,752 --> 00:55:03,185 of what the bomb could achieve. 864 00:55:03,187 --> 00:55:06,758 - The late 1940s, before 1949, 865 00:55:08,159 --> 00:55:10,926 people are still trying to figure out 866 00:55:10,928 --> 00:55:12,063 what's the way forward. 867 00:55:13,531 --> 00:55:16,732 Are we in some kind of Cold War or is it something else? 868 00:55:16,734 --> 00:55:19,902 Is there a chance to avoid total confrontation 869 00:55:19,904 --> 00:55:21,239 with the Soviet Union? 870 00:55:22,673 --> 00:55:26,575 Is there a chance to avoid a sort of military dominance 871 00:55:26,577 --> 00:55:29,645 of nuclear technology? 872 00:55:29,647 --> 00:55:32,982 - And Oppenheimer drew up this ambitious plan, 873 00:55:32,984 --> 00:55:37,922 which for a short time was accepted by the US government 874 00:55:39,090 --> 00:55:40,958 to be presented to the United Nations, 875 00:55:42,359 --> 00:55:46,964 which would involve communal ownership of all uranium 876 00:55:47,832 --> 00:55:50,365 and would also involve no nation 877 00:55:50,367 --> 00:55:52,804 being able to build atomic weapons. 878 00:55:54,505 --> 00:55:57,438 - The realization that this had happened 879 00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:00,244 and what he had done had resulted in, 880 00:56:01,612 --> 00:56:05,648 well, probably close to a quarter million deaths over time 881 00:56:05,650 --> 00:56:10,385 from radiation and the initial burn, 882 00:56:10,387 --> 00:56:11,620 that sunk in. 883 00:56:11,622 --> 00:56:15,157 And I think it was hard for him 884 00:56:15,159 --> 00:56:18,062 to know what to do with that knowledge. 885 00:56:19,964 --> 00:56:23,232 - The difficulty with Oppenheimer in this whole period 886 00:56:23,234 --> 00:56:27,036 is, on the one hand, he is an independently minded person, 887 00:56:27,038 --> 00:56:31,307 and he has the mindset of the scientist 888 00:56:31,309 --> 00:56:34,777 and the scientist's interests very close to his heart. 889 00:56:34,779 --> 00:56:37,746 On the other hand, he's become a very important person 890 00:56:37,748 --> 00:56:41,250 within the sort of military advising structure. 891 00:56:41,252 --> 00:56:44,453 He's sort of the top of the pyramid 892 00:56:44,455 --> 00:56:46,455 when it comes to scientists 893 00:56:46,457 --> 00:56:48,356 whose opinions are being taken seriously 894 00:56:48,358 --> 00:56:52,294 about things like the use of atomic bombs, future policy. 895 00:56:52,296 --> 00:56:54,997 He is the face of this new technology, 896 00:56:54,999 --> 00:56:59,400 and so he doesn't have either the inclination or the freedom 897 00:56:59,402 --> 00:57:03,239 to totally go against the whole system. 898 00:57:03,241 --> 00:57:06,709 So Oppenheimer's approach through all of this 899 00:57:06,711 --> 00:57:10,112 is to try and bend it in ways 900 00:57:10,114 --> 00:57:13,251 that he thinks it could be bent into. 901 00:57:14,552 --> 00:57:16,487 - And he gets an appointment with Harry Truman 902 00:57:18,556 --> 00:57:19,957 in the Oval Office. 903 00:57:21,259 --> 00:57:23,225 He was very gracious, 904 00:57:23,227 --> 00:57:28,232 but he had a habit of just bracing up 905 00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,568 in the presence of authority 906 00:57:32,570 --> 00:57:34,937 and people who clearly thought 907 00:57:34,939 --> 00:57:38,874 that they were smarter than him 908 00:57:38,876 --> 00:57:41,377 in positions of power. 909 00:57:41,379 --> 00:57:43,746 And so here's the president of the United States 910 00:57:43,748 --> 00:57:48,250 and Oppenheimer's mission is to try to convince Harry Truman 911 00:57:48,252 --> 00:57:50,819 that we need to contain this weapon 912 00:57:50,821 --> 00:57:55,826 and establish an international atomic agency 913 00:57:56,994 --> 00:58:00,932 that would own in a sovereign way, 914 00:58:02,233 --> 00:58:06,835 own any factory, any laboratory anywhere in the world 915 00:58:06,837 --> 00:58:10,007 engaged in atomic research. 916 00:58:11,409 --> 00:58:14,310 You know, so he's making this argument to Harry Truman, 917 00:58:14,312 --> 00:58:17,214 and Truman interrupts and says, 918 00:58:18,649 --> 00:58:20,649 "Well, Dr. Oppenheimer, when do you think the Russians 919 00:58:20,651 --> 00:58:22,586 are going to get the bomb?" 920 00:58:23,988 --> 00:58:28,157 And Oppenheimer is kind of stunned and says, 921 00:58:28,159 --> 00:58:32,363 "Well, I'm not sure, Sir, but eventually." 922 00:58:33,531 --> 00:58:38,269 And Harry responds, "Well, I know. Never." 923 00:58:42,206 --> 00:58:46,175 And Oppenheimer, like, understands in that moment 924 00:58:46,177 --> 00:58:48,813 that Harry Truman understands nothing. 925 00:58:50,014 --> 00:58:51,613 - Oppenheimer gets very frustrated with Truman, 926 00:58:51,615 --> 00:58:53,582 who's not a great mind, 927 00:58:53,584 --> 00:58:56,652 and he blurts out, "Something's gotta be done. 928 00:58:56,654 --> 00:58:59,355 After all, I have blood on my hands." 929 00:58:59,357 --> 00:59:01,190 And Truman stopped the meeting right then 930 00:59:01,192 --> 00:59:03,392 and had Oppenheimer escorted out, and he said, 931 00:59:03,394 --> 00:59:05,928 "Don't bring that fellow around here again. 932 00:59:05,930 --> 00:59:08,933 He may have built the bomb, but I'm the one who set it off." 933 00:59:10,001 --> 00:59:11,535 And what Truman was saying is, 934 00:59:13,170 --> 00:59:14,536 "What is this? 935 00:59:14,538 --> 00:59:17,873 He's taking himself pretty seriously here. 936 00:59:17,875 --> 00:59:22,880 I and I alone made that decision to use the weapons in war, 937 00:59:23,614 --> 00:59:24,880 and he comes in here 938 00:59:24,882 --> 00:59:26,281 whining and bleeding about his conscience 939 00:59:26,283 --> 00:59:28,083 and tell and tried to talk to me 940 00:59:28,085 --> 00:59:30,252 into being more sensitive about this?" 941 00:59:30,254 --> 00:59:32,223 - 2201, take one. 942 00:59:33,657 --> 00:59:35,758 When he was offered 943 00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:37,126 the work on the hydrogen bomb, 944 00:59:37,128 --> 00:59:38,362 he did not want to do it, 945 00:59:39,997 --> 00:59:42,898 yet you said to go ahead to work on the hydrogen bomb. 946 00:59:42,900 --> 00:59:44,366 - That's correct. 947 00:59:44,368 --> 00:59:46,735 Well, he was like all the scientists are, 948 00:59:46,737 --> 00:59:47,970 they discover these things 949 00:59:47,972 --> 00:59:49,805 and find out how terrible they are, 950 00:59:49,807 --> 00:59:52,641 and then they don't wanna take any blame 951 00:59:52,643 --> 00:59:54,877 for the consequences, if there is blame. 952 00:59:54,879 --> 00:59:56,178 But that didn't make any difference. 953 00:59:56,180 --> 00:59:58,414 He didn't have to make the decision, I made it. 954 00:59:58,416 --> 01:00:02,317 - So Oppenheimer blew it with Harry Truman 955 01:00:02,319 --> 01:00:07,324 but he continued to work to try to restore some sanity 956 01:00:08,192 --> 01:00:10,460 to sort of nuclear policy. 957 01:00:10,462 --> 01:00:14,063 - And then the Soviet Union set off an atomic bomb 958 01:00:14,065 --> 01:00:19,070 and that ended all of that discussion practically overnight. 959 01:00:20,604 --> 01:00:23,338 Nobody really was expecting it 960 01:00:23,340 --> 01:00:25,340 to be quite as soon as it was. 961 01:00:25,342 --> 01:00:27,342 This sets off a whole debate 962 01:00:27,344 --> 01:00:30,779 over what the appropriate American response ought to be, 963 01:00:30,781 --> 01:00:34,316 and one of the big options that's brought up 964 01:00:34,318 --> 01:00:37,086 is, "Let's build a hydrogen bomb." 965 01:00:37,088 --> 01:00:41,056 So this is a weapon that uses not just nuclear fission, 966 01:00:41,058 --> 01:00:43,959 not just the splitting of atoms, like the atomic bomb, 967 01:00:43,961 --> 01:00:47,062 but uses the energy of an atomic bomb 968 01:00:47,064 --> 01:00:49,198 to set off nuclear fusion reactions 969 01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:50,899 like those that take place in the sun. 970 01:00:50,901 --> 01:00:54,703 And this is a weapon that can be a thousand times 971 01:00:54,705 --> 01:00:56,872 more powerful than an atomic bomb. 972 01:00:56,874 --> 01:01:00,342 A couple days afterwards, Scotland Yard announces 973 01:01:00,344 --> 01:01:03,378 that they have arrested Klaus Fuchs, 974 01:01:03,380 --> 01:01:06,748 a British scientist who had confessed 975 01:01:06,750 --> 01:01:10,119 to being a Soviet spy in the United States 976 01:01:10,121 --> 01:01:11,954 during World War II. 977 01:01:11,956 --> 01:01:16,961 And so this is a real shocking revelation 978 01:01:17,828 --> 01:01:19,061 that comes right on the heels 979 01:01:19,063 --> 01:01:21,598 of these shocking and painful discussions. 980 01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:25,734 You go from the Soviets have the atomic bomb, 981 01:01:25,736 --> 01:01:27,470 should we make an H-bomb, 982 01:01:27,472 --> 01:01:29,572 okay, we're gonna make an H-bomb, 983 01:01:29,574 --> 01:01:33,008 oh, by the way, you have no secrets. 984 01:01:33,010 --> 01:01:36,778 And the more that came out about Klaus Fuchs himself, 985 01:01:36,780 --> 01:01:38,247 the worse it seemed. 986 01:01:38,249 --> 01:01:41,016 Klaus Fuchs was a brilliant mathematical physicist. 987 01:01:41,018 --> 01:01:43,218 He was very highly placed at Los Alamos. 988 01:01:43,220 --> 01:01:45,588 He had a near photographic memory. 989 01:01:45,590 --> 01:01:49,892 He was an extremely quiet, reserved person at Los Alamos. 990 01:01:49,894 --> 01:01:52,127 He never really talked about his opinions on anything. 991 01:01:52,129 --> 01:01:56,398 He was so well respected that he was used as a babysitter 992 01:01:56,400 --> 01:01:57,666 by many of the other scientists 993 01:01:57,668 --> 01:01:58,901 when they would go and have parties 994 01:01:58,903 --> 01:02:00,335 or things of this nature. 995 01:02:00,337 --> 01:02:02,738 And to discover that this guy 996 01:02:02,740 --> 01:02:06,241 who had been core to many of the technical discussions 997 01:02:06,243 --> 01:02:09,614 and had even invented some of the core parts of the bomb, 998 01:02:10,714 --> 01:02:12,948 he was one of the co-holders of the patent 999 01:02:12,950 --> 01:02:14,383 on gaseous diffusion, 1000 01:02:14,385 --> 01:02:16,885 which is how they enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb, 1001 01:02:16,887 --> 01:02:19,821 I mean, this is a guy who's at the center 1002 01:02:19,823 --> 01:02:22,458 of the Manhattan Project in so many ways 1003 01:02:22,460 --> 01:02:24,126 and it turned out the entire time 1004 01:02:24,128 --> 01:02:26,862 he was working very hard for the United States, 1005 01:02:26,864 --> 01:02:29,400 but he was also working very hard for the Soviet Union. 1006 01:02:30,569 --> 01:02:34,870 - Suddenly, it was possible to imagine 1007 01:02:34,872 --> 01:02:37,072 a hydrogen bomb being built. 1008 01:02:37,074 --> 01:02:40,008 Now, hydrogen bomb, there's almost no limit 1009 01:02:40,010 --> 01:02:41,777 to how big it can be. 1010 01:02:41,779 --> 01:02:44,780 So it could be hundreds of times bigger than 1011 01:02:44,782 --> 01:02:47,916 and more deadly than the Hiroshima bomb. 1012 01:02:47,918 --> 01:02:49,619 This was discussed at the highest levels. 1013 01:02:49,621 --> 01:02:52,555 The question was, should the US government 1014 01:02:52,557 --> 01:02:55,692 and the armed forces go ahead with an accelerated program 1015 01:02:55,694 --> 01:02:57,127 to create the hydrogen bomb? 1016 01:02:58,362 --> 01:03:00,697 Oppenheimer argued against it 1017 01:03:00,699 --> 01:03:05,234 on the grounds that no one in their right minds 1018 01:03:05,236 --> 01:03:06,435 would ever use such a bomb, 1019 01:03:06,437 --> 01:03:10,005 so what would be the point of creating a bomb 1020 01:03:10,007 --> 01:03:12,542 a hundred, a thousand times more powerful 1021 01:03:12,544 --> 01:03:14,677 than the one that destroyed Hiroshima 1022 01:03:14,679 --> 01:03:18,213 when that bomb itself has shown itself to be so powerful, 1023 01:03:18,215 --> 01:03:19,815 you don't want to use it again ever. 1024 01:03:30,027 --> 01:03:32,963 And so Oppenheimer argued against this program, 1025 01:03:34,398 --> 01:03:37,766 at which point he'd already upset 1026 01:03:37,768 --> 01:03:41,671 the leading figures in the army and the government. 1027 01:03:41,673 --> 01:03:44,940 He now became under suspicion by them. 1028 01:03:44,942 --> 01:03:47,644 They began to think, "Well, why is Oppenheimer 1029 01:03:47,646 --> 01:03:50,647 trying to sabotage a program 1030 01:03:50,649 --> 01:03:52,981 when we know that the Soviets 1031 01:03:52,983 --> 01:03:57,052 are busy trying to build a hydrogen bomb?" 1032 01:03:57,054 --> 01:04:00,856 And so a lot of influential figures 1033 01:04:00,858 --> 01:04:03,593 in the armed forces and the government 1034 01:04:03,595 --> 01:04:06,763 came to think that Oppenheimer wasn't really on their side. 1035 01:04:06,765 --> 01:04:08,830 He was really working for the Soviets. 1036 01:04:08,832 --> 01:04:13,837 And this suspicion grew in the McCarthy period, 1037 01:04:15,005 --> 01:04:16,708 in the mid '50's, early to mid '50's, 1038 01:04:17,841 --> 01:04:22,846 and led to a security case being held, 1039 01:04:23,947 --> 01:04:26,114 which would assess Oppenheimer's standing. 1040 01:04:31,989 --> 01:04:36,994 - The real instigator for the 1954 security hearings 1041 01:04:37,729 --> 01:04:38,829 was Lewis Strauss. 1042 01:04:40,164 --> 01:04:43,633 Strauss, however, was not only the chairman 1043 01:04:43,635 --> 01:04:45,967 of the board of trustees at the institute, 1044 01:04:45,969 --> 01:04:48,671 he was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission 1045 01:04:48,673 --> 01:04:51,275 appointed by the newly elected Eisenhower, 1046 01:04:53,010 --> 01:04:57,680 and Oppenheimer and he clashed 1047 01:04:57,682 --> 01:05:00,916 and just bad chemistry. 1048 01:05:00,918 --> 01:05:03,519 He had an enormous ego. 1049 01:05:03,521 --> 01:05:05,356 He demanded attention. 1050 01:05:06,825 --> 01:05:10,593 Oppenheimer wasn't giving it to him and wasn't being polite, 1051 01:05:10,595 --> 01:05:13,128 and he was pulling all the strings. 1052 01:05:13,130 --> 01:05:17,633 He pointed the gray panel members 1053 01:05:17,635 --> 01:05:19,469 who would preside over the hearing. 1054 01:05:19,471 --> 01:05:21,169 He brought in the prosecutor, 1055 01:05:21,171 --> 01:05:22,839 there shouldn't have been a prosecutor at all. 1056 01:05:22,841 --> 01:05:25,643 It wasn't a trial, it was a security hearing. 1057 01:05:26,544 --> 01:05:29,444 Oppenheimer was stunned 1058 01:05:29,446 --> 01:05:31,947 that he was being questioned like this. 1059 01:05:31,949 --> 01:05:36,284 Here, he'd been nine years earlier, a national celebrity. 1060 01:05:36,286 --> 01:05:41,089 - And initially, they basically say to Oppenheimer, 1061 01:05:41,091 --> 01:05:42,692 "You know, you don't have to have any kind of hearing. 1062 01:05:42,694 --> 01:05:44,259 We'll just take your security clearance 1063 01:05:44,261 --> 01:05:45,795 and you'll just retire, 1064 01:05:45,797 --> 01:05:48,631 and that'll be that and we'll be done with it." 1065 01:05:48,633 --> 01:05:51,166 And Oppenheimer, somewhat to their surprise, 1066 01:05:51,168 --> 01:05:52,334 wants a hearing. 1067 01:05:52,336 --> 01:05:55,805 He wants to contest these charges. 1068 01:05:55,807 --> 01:05:58,273 - In fact, actually, there was a moment 1069 01:05:58,275 --> 01:06:02,210 when Oppenheimer had decided he was going to go through 1070 01:06:02,212 --> 01:06:04,446 and defend his reputation, 1071 01:06:04,448 --> 01:06:09,453 and he called Albert into his office, Albert Einstein, 1072 01:06:10,822 --> 01:06:14,289 and explained to him that he had to be absent. 1073 01:06:14,291 --> 01:06:17,025 He was gonna be down in Washington for a few weeks 1074 01:06:17,027 --> 01:06:18,694 and there was this security hearing, 1075 01:06:18,696 --> 01:06:21,900 and they were questioning my loyalty. 1076 01:06:23,066 --> 01:06:27,002 And Einstein argued with him and said, 1077 01:06:27,004 --> 01:06:31,006 "Robert, you don't need to do this. Just walk away from it. 1078 01:06:31,008 --> 01:06:32,443 You don't need these people." 1079 01:06:33,944 --> 01:06:36,779 And Oppenheimer said, 1080 01:06:36,781 --> 01:06:41,786 "No, I have to defend my reputation. 1081 01:06:42,953 --> 01:06:44,787 I have to retain my security clearance 1082 01:06:44,789 --> 01:06:48,356 so that I can influence national policy. 1083 01:06:48,358 --> 01:06:49,727 It's very important," 1084 01:06:50,662 --> 01:06:52,862 and he walked out. 1085 01:06:52,864 --> 01:06:56,131 And Einstein turned to his secretary and said, 1086 01:06:56,133 --> 01:07:01,071 "There goes a nar," the Yiddish word for fool. 1087 01:07:04,174 --> 01:07:07,409 - In a security clearance hearing, 1088 01:07:07,411 --> 01:07:08,878 you have a group of people 1089 01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:11,547 who are gonna go over every inch of your life, 1090 01:07:11,549 --> 01:07:15,016 including and especially your absolute worst decisions 1091 01:07:15,018 --> 01:07:17,352 and worse than lowest moments. 1092 01:07:17,354 --> 01:07:20,288 And they're gonna do so 1093 01:07:20,290 --> 01:07:23,593 with the entire power of the FBI behind them 1094 01:07:23,595 --> 01:07:25,528 and military intelligence 1095 01:07:25,530 --> 01:07:28,365 and maybe even the CIA or something like this. 1096 01:07:29,299 --> 01:07:31,333 This is gonna be really ugly. 1097 01:07:31,335 --> 01:07:33,435 - So he goes to Washington 1098 01:07:33,437 --> 01:07:37,475 and there's this horrible witch hunt of a trial. 1099 01:07:38,442 --> 01:07:40,977 It's just atrocious. 1100 01:07:40,979 --> 01:07:43,513 - Once the hearings get started, 1101 01:07:43,515 --> 01:07:45,548 it doesn't matter that they were started 1102 01:07:45,550 --> 01:07:46,883 under false pretenses. 1103 01:07:46,885 --> 01:07:48,851 It doesn't matter that they were started 1104 01:07:48,853 --> 01:07:50,920 in a way to try to rig it against him, and they were. 1105 01:07:50,922 --> 01:07:53,288 They were entirely rigged against him from the beginning. 1106 01:07:53,290 --> 01:07:54,624 There were illegal activities 1107 01:07:54,626 --> 01:07:56,191 taking part during the hearing. 1108 01:07:56,193 --> 01:07:58,861 They were wire tapping Oppenheimer's private discussions 1109 01:07:58,863 --> 01:08:00,295 with his lawyers 1110 01:08:00,297 --> 01:08:01,898 and then giving that information to the people 1111 01:08:01,900 --> 01:08:04,399 who were arguing against him and his lawyers at the hearing 1112 01:08:04,401 --> 01:08:05,635 so they would know ahead of time 1113 01:08:05,637 --> 01:08:07,402 what he was gonna do the next day. 1114 01:08:07,404 --> 01:08:08,704 Totally illegal. 1115 01:08:08,706 --> 01:08:10,506 The three categories are value in our character, 1116 01:08:10,508 --> 01:08:12,542 loyalty, and association. 1117 01:08:12,544 --> 01:08:14,944 Loyalty is pretty easy, I guess, right? 1118 01:08:14,946 --> 01:08:17,713 Oppenheimer's working for the US government. 1119 01:08:17,715 --> 01:08:20,917 Nobody really has any credible accusation 1120 01:08:20,919 --> 01:08:22,450 that he's not loyal. 1121 01:08:22,452 --> 01:08:26,254 Character is tricky because he lies to the security officers 1122 01:08:26,256 --> 01:08:27,690 and makes other kind of blunders. 1123 01:08:27,692 --> 01:08:29,926 So that's actually a pretty sore point for him 1124 01:08:29,928 --> 01:08:31,961 and then associations are impossible. 1125 01:08:31,963 --> 01:08:34,296 I mean, half of his family members are communists. 1126 01:08:34,298 --> 01:08:36,231 Many of them renounced it and left it 1127 01:08:36,233 --> 01:08:38,066 but the association is there. 1128 01:08:38,068 --> 01:08:40,302 It's very hard to get around that. 1129 01:08:40,304 --> 01:08:43,539 The character problems are really dark. 1130 01:08:43,541 --> 01:08:45,808 I mean, one of the things he does 1131 01:08:45,810 --> 01:08:47,543 during the Manhattan Project, 1132 01:08:47,545 --> 01:08:51,013 during World War II, while he's running Los Alamos 1133 01:08:51,015 --> 01:08:55,450 is he goes to visit his ex-girlfriend 1134 01:08:55,452 --> 01:08:57,753 and spends the night over at her house, 1135 01:08:57,755 --> 01:08:59,722 the ex-girlfriend who was a fellow traveler 1136 01:08:59,724 --> 01:09:03,124 and sort of introduced him to communism. 1137 01:09:03,126 --> 01:09:06,796 And they ask him like, "Was this good judgment 1138 01:09:06,798 --> 01:09:10,766 to spend and sleep with your communist ex-girlfriend 1139 01:09:10,768 --> 01:09:12,802 while you're running an atomic bomb project? 1140 01:09:12,804 --> 01:09:13,836 Is this good judgment?" 1141 01:09:13,838 --> 01:09:15,103 And Oppenheimer says, 1142 01:09:15,105 --> 01:09:16,338 "Well, I don't think it was bad judgment. 1143 01:09:16,340 --> 01:09:17,138 I mean, she wasn't really a communist. 1144 01:09:17,140 --> 01:09:18,139 I know she was a spy," 1145 01:09:18,141 --> 01:09:19,374 but this looks bad. 1146 01:09:19,376 --> 01:09:21,477 This looks bad no matter how you slice it. 1147 01:09:21,479 --> 01:09:24,513 They ask him, "Why did you lie to the security officers?" 1148 01:09:24,515 --> 01:09:26,416 And he says, "Because I was an idiot." 1149 01:09:27,284 --> 01:09:28,918 That's not a good answer. 1150 01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:32,253 - Anyway, it was just a disaster. 1151 01:09:32,255 --> 01:09:36,894 And Kitty, who was, you know, loyally present 1152 01:09:37,895 --> 01:09:42,031 throughout this whole affair, 1153 01:09:42,033 --> 01:09:44,467 was actually, you know, got up on the witness stand 1154 01:09:44,469 --> 01:09:46,303 and was interrogated herself. 1155 01:09:49,540 --> 01:09:52,708 She did better in defending Oppenheimer 1156 01:09:52,710 --> 01:09:55,778 than Oppenheimer did himself. 1157 01:09:55,780 --> 01:09:58,948 She was very feisty, insulting. 1158 01:09:58,950 --> 01:10:00,483 She cut right through 1159 01:10:00,485 --> 01:10:04,822 to the absurdity of the charges 1160 01:10:06,791 --> 01:10:11,763 and yet, you know, the panel voted 2 to 1, 1161 01:10:13,598 --> 01:10:15,432 relatively close, 1162 01:10:16,868 --> 01:10:21,873 to the conclusion that Oppenheimer 1163 01:10:22,774 --> 01:10:25,141 was probably a loyal American 1164 01:10:25,143 --> 01:10:28,376 but nevertheless a security risk, 1165 01:10:28,378 --> 01:10:32,150 and so his security clearance should be denied. 1166 01:10:33,918 --> 01:10:36,286 It was a real tragedy. 1167 01:10:37,855 --> 01:10:40,188 - Which put Oppenheimer in the crazy situation 1168 01:10:40,190 --> 01:10:42,292 of having in his office in Princeton 1169 01:10:43,494 --> 01:10:45,628 papers that he had written 1170 01:10:45,630 --> 01:10:47,932 which he was no longer allowed now to consult, 1171 01:10:49,634 --> 01:10:54,605 and it tarnished his reputation for a very long time. 1172 01:10:56,507 --> 01:10:59,374 And even now, when I was working on my book, 1173 01:10:59,376 --> 01:11:02,845 when I went to the States, people would ask me, 1174 01:11:02,847 --> 01:11:04,613 "What evidence have you found 1175 01:11:04,615 --> 01:11:07,550 that Oppenheimer was working for the communists?" 1176 01:11:07,552 --> 01:11:09,520 And the answer to that is none at all. 1177 01:11:10,621 --> 01:11:13,089 And in fact, the fact that Oppenheimer 1178 01:11:13,091 --> 01:11:16,326 was kept under such close surveillance 1179 01:11:17,294 --> 01:11:19,495 and was held in such suspicion 1180 01:11:19,497 --> 01:11:22,432 by leading members of the armed forces and the government, 1181 01:11:23,601 --> 01:11:26,168 the fact that they produced no evidence 1182 01:11:26,170 --> 01:11:28,170 that he was working for the Communist Party 1183 01:11:28,172 --> 01:11:30,172 is itself pretty good evidence that he wasn't. 1184 01:11:30,174 --> 01:11:32,340 - And this was all in the context 1185 01:11:32,342 --> 01:11:37,347 of American anti-communist hysteria and McCarthyism. 1186 01:11:38,516 --> 01:11:41,085 And this destroyed Oppenheimer's power, 1187 01:11:42,252 --> 01:11:46,055 destroyed his career as a scientific advisor, 1188 01:11:46,057 --> 01:11:50,726 marginalized him, excluded him 1189 01:11:50,728 --> 01:11:55,700 from, you know, having any involvement with government 1190 01:11:57,201 --> 01:12:00,805 and really with the world of nuclear weapons and policy. 1191 01:12:02,240 --> 01:12:03,672 And, you know, that's what really made Oppenheimer 1192 01:12:03,674 --> 01:12:05,243 into this tragic figure. 1193 01:12:11,749 --> 01:12:14,817 - Now Oppenheimer suffered a humiliation 1194 01:12:14,819 --> 01:12:16,552 at the hands of the Atomic Energy Commission 1195 01:12:16,554 --> 01:12:17,787 and the United States government, 1196 01:12:17,789 --> 01:12:20,355 which no person should be forced to suffer 1197 01:12:20,357 --> 01:12:22,224 and certainly not someone who was innocent 1198 01:12:22,226 --> 01:12:26,597 of the crimes that were attributed to him. 1199 01:12:28,533 --> 01:12:31,167 The shattering of his confidence 1200 01:12:31,169 --> 01:12:32,935 in the United States government, 1201 01:12:32,937 --> 01:12:37,875 in the basic fairness of the universe had to be gigantic. 1202 01:12:40,978 --> 01:12:44,246 - And he became a pariah. 1203 01:12:44,248 --> 01:12:48,719 He was disinvited from scheduled university lectures. 1204 01:12:53,191 --> 01:12:56,091 And the humiliation of what he had gone through, 1205 01:12:56,093 --> 01:12:59,163 he just thought, "Well, I need to get the family out, 1206 01:13:01,566 --> 01:13:05,167 and we'll all go on an adventure," 1207 01:13:05,169 --> 01:13:08,472 and he chose to go to St. John in the Virgin Islands. 1208 01:13:10,007 --> 01:13:12,407 Now Oppenheimer goes down to St. John, 1209 01:13:12,409 --> 01:13:14,979 the FBI is alerted to his movements. 1210 01:13:16,147 --> 01:13:18,647 They send an FBI agent to the island 1211 01:13:18,649 --> 01:13:21,083 to monitor with binoculars, 1212 01:13:21,085 --> 01:13:24,253 scout out if there are any Russian submarines nearby 1213 01:13:24,255 --> 01:13:26,789 who might ferret him away. 1214 01:13:34,397 --> 01:13:36,232 He fell in love with St. John, 1215 01:13:36,234 --> 01:13:40,169 began going back there every summer, 1216 01:13:40,171 --> 01:13:43,072 every December, January. 1217 01:13:43,074 --> 01:13:44,405 He spent a lot of time down there 1218 01:13:44,407 --> 01:13:47,610 in the '50s and early '60s. 1219 01:14:24,282 --> 01:14:26,447 - "Two years before we had sold a little land 1220 01:14:26,449 --> 01:14:27,850 at the east end of our beach, 1221 01:14:27,852 --> 01:14:30,185 the atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer 1222 01:14:30,187 --> 01:14:31,455 and his wife Kitty, 1223 01:14:32,957 --> 01:14:36,258 they lived in Princeton where Oppenheimer was then directing 1224 01:14:36,260 --> 01:14:39,128 the Institute for Advanced Studies in absentia. 1225 01:14:39,130 --> 01:14:42,097 They were trying to build an unwieldy beach cottage 1226 01:14:42,099 --> 01:14:44,833 designed for them by Wallace Harrison 1227 01:14:44,835 --> 01:14:46,902 who had previous architectural experience 1228 01:14:46,904 --> 01:14:49,540 designing the United Nations buildings in New York. 1229 01:14:50,708 --> 01:14:52,141 For several years, 1230 01:14:52,143 --> 01:14:54,879 the Oppenheimers had been spending vacations on St. John. 1231 01:14:56,047 --> 01:14:57,846 Kitty wrote to me in despair, 1232 01:14:57,848 --> 01:14:59,648 they wanted to come down in June 1233 01:14:59,650 --> 01:15:03,218 and check on the punitive progress of their construction, 1234 01:15:03,220 --> 01:15:05,056 where could they possibly stay. 1235 01:15:06,691 --> 01:15:09,694 I first met the Oppenheimers in 1956, 1236 01:15:11,162 --> 01:15:13,162 one day when I went alone up to Trunk Bay for lunch 1237 01:15:13,164 --> 01:15:16,098 and they were there on a holiday. 1238 01:15:16,100 --> 01:15:18,233 Robert's security clearance had been canceled 1239 01:15:18,235 --> 01:15:19,437 two years before. 1240 01:15:20,838 --> 01:15:22,738 I hadn't followed the case with much attention, 1241 01:15:22,740 --> 01:15:24,506 being far more concerned at the time 1242 01:15:24,508 --> 01:15:27,144 with infinite activities than with un-American ones. 1243 01:15:28,312 --> 01:15:30,145 I had only a dim impression 1244 01:15:30,147 --> 01:15:32,049 that a great man had been brought low. 1245 01:15:33,851 --> 01:15:35,353 I was curious to observe him. 1246 01:15:37,254 --> 01:15:38,988 I saw it once that he and his wife 1247 01:15:38,990 --> 01:15:41,460 were the most curious couple I had ever observed. 1248 01:15:42,626 --> 01:15:45,494 They were got up in routine tourist garb, 1249 01:15:45,496 --> 01:15:47,496 button shirts and shorts and sandals, 1250 01:15:47,498 --> 01:15:49,466 but they looked like nothing human, 1251 01:15:49,468 --> 01:15:52,469 too thin and frail and pale for earthly life. 1252 01:15:52,471 --> 01:15:55,571 They looked as if they were down from Mars, not Princeton, 1253 01:15:55,573 --> 01:15:57,373 or as if some bright kid had made them up 1254 01:15:57,375 --> 01:15:59,577 with matchsticks and his chem craft set. 1255 01:16:00,745 --> 01:16:02,811 Kitty was the more humanoid of the two, 1256 01:16:02,813 --> 01:16:04,413 although she seemed to have no features 1257 01:16:04,415 --> 01:16:06,448 except for her dark eyes. 1258 01:16:06,450 --> 01:16:08,517 Her voice was too deep and hoarse 1259 01:16:08,519 --> 01:16:10,719 to emanate from her tiny chest. 1260 01:16:10,721 --> 01:16:12,388 And helplessly weak as she was, 1261 01:16:12,390 --> 01:16:15,460 she had the truculent stance of a heavyweight pugilist. 1262 01:16:16,627 --> 01:16:18,293 I heard from other Trunk Bay guests 1263 01:16:18,295 --> 01:16:20,929 that she had a drinking problem. 1264 01:16:20,931 --> 01:16:24,366 The problem was that she drank a lot and got drunk, 1265 01:16:24,368 --> 01:16:28,837 and that drunk or sober, she was often staggeringly rude. 1266 01:16:28,839 --> 01:16:30,507 'Aren't you hot with all that hair?' 1267 01:16:30,509 --> 01:16:32,408 she croaked at me on introduction 1268 01:16:32,410 --> 01:16:35,413 then returned to her communion with a bottle of Danish beer. 1269 01:16:38,115 --> 01:16:40,449 Robert looked astoundingly like Pinocchio 1270 01:16:40,451 --> 01:16:44,119 and he moved as jerkily as a marionette on strings, 1271 01:16:44,121 --> 01:16:46,221 but there was nothing wooden about his manner. 1272 01:16:46,223 --> 01:16:48,690 He exuded warmth and sympathy and courtesy 1273 01:16:48,692 --> 01:16:50,795 along with the fumes of his famous pipe. 1274 01:16:51,929 --> 01:16:53,996 His voice was gentle, almost inaudible, 1275 01:16:53,998 --> 01:16:56,600 and it became softer the more he wanted to be heard. 1276 01:16:57,935 --> 01:17:00,470 He asked me what my husband did, 1277 01:17:00,472 --> 01:17:02,071 'He worked for Rockefeller.' 1278 01:17:02,073 --> 01:17:06,075 Robert mused with many pretentious puffs at his pipe. 1279 01:17:06,077 --> 01:17:08,811 At last, his voice was spellbinding whisper, 1280 01:17:08,813 --> 01:17:12,783 he said, 'I too have taken money for doing harm.' 1281 01:17:13,984 --> 01:17:16,053 This struck me as a stunning one-liner." 1282 01:17:21,892 --> 01:17:26,864 - It was, for each day, the dream of an open air place. 1283 01:17:30,267 --> 01:17:33,368 It was one large open space, 1284 01:17:33,370 --> 01:17:36,173 and when the place was closed down, 1285 01:17:37,341 --> 01:17:40,309 it had this aluminium roof that was flaps, 1286 01:17:40,311 --> 01:17:45,049 that would flap down to the floor and bolt into the floor 1287 01:17:48,185 --> 01:17:49,685 and all you have to do when you came 1288 01:17:49,687 --> 01:17:53,889 was you unbolted the flaps and then swung them back up 1289 01:17:53,891 --> 01:17:56,794 so that they became the awning over the porch. 1290 01:17:58,095 --> 01:17:59,962 It is absolutely beautiful wild 1291 01:17:59,964 --> 01:18:01,999 with the view straight out into the water. 1292 01:18:03,934 --> 01:18:06,201 But they really spent more summers here 1293 01:18:06,203 --> 01:18:09,206 once they had their house built at Hawksnest. 1294 01:18:10,441 --> 01:18:13,108 Every August come the anniversaries 1295 01:18:13,110 --> 01:18:15,210 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1296 01:18:15,212 --> 01:18:17,713 he became very silent. 1297 01:18:17,715 --> 01:18:19,416 It was a sad time for him. 1298 01:18:26,190 --> 01:18:30,593 - It was escape from the tensity of his life 1299 01:18:30,595 --> 01:18:31,760 in the United States 1300 01:18:31,762 --> 01:18:34,163 and from the sense that he'd been betrayed 1301 01:18:34,165 --> 01:18:37,399 by people that he had trusted 1302 01:18:37,401 --> 01:18:39,803 and people who should have trusted him, 1303 01:18:40,971 --> 01:18:43,405 but I think he was always a lonely man. 1304 01:18:43,407 --> 01:18:46,008 I think that the high water mark of his conviviality 1305 01:18:46,010 --> 01:18:47,342 was Los Alamos. 1306 01:18:47,344 --> 01:18:48,944 But I think before and after that, 1307 01:18:48,946 --> 01:18:50,812 he was essentially a lonely man, 1308 01:18:50,814 --> 01:18:52,750 lonely in the depths of his thinking. 1309 01:18:53,717 --> 01:18:55,951 And, I mean, we have to face it, 1310 01:18:55,953 --> 01:18:58,787 Oppenheimer was not a mature man. 1311 01:18:58,789 --> 01:19:03,358 He was locked into kind of a permanent adolescence 1312 01:19:03,360 --> 01:19:05,662 because he had never been normalized 1313 01:19:05,664 --> 01:19:08,430 in the way the rest of us get normalized in our communities. 1314 01:19:08,432 --> 01:19:12,502 He had never really participated in any community 1315 01:19:12,504 --> 01:19:14,905 that wasn't an artificial one in his life. 1316 01:19:16,407 --> 01:19:20,643 And so he's sufficiently lonely and eccentric 1317 01:19:20,645 --> 01:19:24,313 that he's looking for safe spaces, 1318 01:19:24,315 --> 01:19:27,318 and Princeton was a certain kind of a safe space 1319 01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:31,386 but St. John's was a much greater one, 1320 01:19:31,388 --> 01:19:32,854 and when you're there, 1321 01:19:32,856 --> 01:19:37,629 it's, you know, beautiful emerald seas and sands 1322 01:19:38,829 --> 01:19:42,798 and a native population that couldn't care less 1323 01:19:42,800 --> 01:19:46,235 about whatever your life is back in the United States. 1324 01:19:46,237 --> 01:19:50,841 And so I think that that was a kind of a Shangri-la for him 1325 01:19:51,809 --> 01:19:54,209 that he probably would've had, 1326 01:19:54,211 --> 01:19:56,878 even if there had not been the security clearance, 1327 01:19:56,880 --> 01:20:00,315 that he was just a man who was not comfortable 1328 01:20:00,317 --> 01:20:02,052 in routine social settings. 1329 01:20:06,558 --> 01:20:08,056 - He loved it. 1330 01:20:08,058 --> 01:20:12,363 Again, it was sort of like New Mexico, it was spartan. 1331 01:20:13,531 --> 01:20:16,832 It was much better weather, 1332 01:20:16,834 --> 01:20:18,269 but he loved the sailing. 1333 01:20:22,707 --> 01:20:26,141 - Oppenheimer's reputation was restored by his appearance 1334 01:20:26,143 --> 01:20:28,879 on the Ed Murrow show, "See It Now." 1335 01:20:30,047 --> 01:20:31,780 - This is "See It Now," 1336 01:20:31,782 --> 01:20:34,684 edited by the partnership of Murrow and Friendly, 1337 01:20:34,686 --> 01:20:37,454 presented by the Aluminum Company of America. 1338 01:20:39,658 --> 01:20:42,257 - Ed Murrow had this idea of going to Princeton 1339 01:20:42,259 --> 01:20:44,826 and interviewing all the famous people in Princeton 1340 01:20:44,828 --> 01:20:46,765 including Einstein and Oppenheimer. 1341 01:20:48,232 --> 01:20:51,235 And he came back to New York City from Princeton, 1342 01:20:52,537 --> 01:20:54,403 saying to his friend, 1343 01:20:54,405 --> 01:20:57,339 "We've only got one usable interview here," 1344 01:20:57,341 --> 01:20:59,742 which is the one with Oppenheimer. 1345 01:20:59,744 --> 01:21:01,276 Just as Groves had found 1346 01:21:01,278 --> 01:21:03,412 at the beginning of the Manhattan Project, 1347 01:21:03,414 --> 01:21:06,848 Oppenheimer stood head and shoulder above 1348 01:21:06,850 --> 01:21:09,084 all his fellow scientists 1349 01:21:09,086 --> 01:21:12,557 in terms of charisma and in terms of clarity. 1350 01:21:13,758 --> 01:21:18,561 He was able to explain things in a simple way 1351 01:21:18,563 --> 01:21:21,265 and in a way that held people's attention. 1352 01:21:22,467 --> 01:21:23,733 - This is a brief report 1353 01:21:23,735 --> 01:21:26,068 on the work and purpose of the Institute 1354 01:21:26,070 --> 01:21:28,738 as seen through the eyes and mind of one man, 1355 01:21:28,740 --> 01:21:31,840 it's director, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. 1356 01:21:31,842 --> 01:21:33,308 Dr. Oppenheimer, why don't we begin 1357 01:21:33,310 --> 01:21:35,511 by your telling me a little about 1358 01:21:35,513 --> 01:21:36,978 this Institute for Advanced Study, 1359 01:21:36,980 --> 01:21:37,915 how it began? 1360 01:21:38,916 --> 01:21:40,382 - Well, I will try. 1361 01:21:40,384 --> 01:21:44,119 Of course, it began at the time when I wasn't anywhere near, 1362 01:21:44,121 --> 01:21:48,924 and it's already a subject for historical research. 1363 01:21:48,926 --> 01:21:50,660 I'm about to find someone 1364 01:21:50,662 --> 01:21:52,528 to see if he can find out how it began. 1365 01:21:52,530 --> 01:21:55,399 - I have heard you describe it as a decompression chamber. 1366 01:21:56,568 --> 01:21:58,801 - Well, it is, for many people. 1367 01:21:58,803 --> 01:22:00,369 There are no telephones ringing, 1368 01:22:00,371 --> 01:22:02,070 and you don't have to go to committee meetings, 1369 01:22:02,072 --> 01:22:05,675 and you don't have to meet classes, and the... 1370 01:22:05,677 --> 01:22:09,411 It's especially for the few people who are here for life. 1371 01:22:09,413 --> 01:22:13,915 The first years are quite remarkable 1372 01:22:13,917 --> 01:22:18,220 because most people depend on being interrupted 1373 01:22:18,222 --> 01:22:20,222 in order to live, 1374 01:22:20,224 --> 01:22:24,694 but the work is so hard and failure is, of course, 1375 01:22:24,696 --> 01:22:28,464 I guess, an inevitable condition of success. 1376 01:22:28,466 --> 01:22:30,999 - Oppenheimer charmed Ed Murrow, 1377 01:22:31,001 --> 01:22:32,869 and through Ed Murrow's program, 1378 01:22:32,871 --> 01:22:35,137 charmed the whole of the United States of America. 1379 01:22:35,139 --> 01:22:39,141 Suddenly, he was everybody's favorite scientist again, 1380 01:22:39,143 --> 01:22:41,878 and he got invitations to give lectures 1381 01:22:41,880 --> 01:22:43,945 on anything he wanted to talk about. 1382 01:22:43,947 --> 01:22:45,882 He would talk about Hinduism, 1383 01:22:45,884 --> 01:22:48,350 he would talk about anything he liked, 1384 01:22:48,352 --> 01:22:52,154 and he would have thousands of people attend these lectures. 1385 01:22:52,156 --> 01:22:54,524 He had this very arresting sentence 1386 01:22:54,526 --> 01:22:56,492 in one of these lectures, 1387 01:22:56,494 --> 01:22:58,895 "As physicists, we have known sin." 1388 01:22:58,897 --> 01:23:01,430 And what he meant was that now, 1389 01:23:01,432 --> 01:23:05,635 because the theory of fission and fusion 1390 01:23:05,637 --> 01:23:08,638 was being used to make such deadly weapons, 1391 01:23:08,640 --> 01:23:12,007 you are dealing not only with the theory 1392 01:23:12,009 --> 01:23:15,377 of the fundamental parts of the universe, 1393 01:23:15,379 --> 01:23:18,481 you're also potentially producing work 1394 01:23:18,483 --> 01:23:21,784 that can be used to kill hundreds of thousands of people, 1395 01:23:21,786 --> 01:23:23,519 so in that way, the physicist have known sin. 1396 01:23:23,521 --> 01:23:27,255 And Oppenheimer gave a series of fascinating lectures 1397 01:23:27,257 --> 01:23:29,191 in which he would discuss these ideas. 1398 01:23:29,193 --> 01:23:30,959 And he was invited over to London 1399 01:23:30,961 --> 01:23:33,696 to give the Reith lectures for the BBC 1400 01:23:33,698 --> 01:23:36,298 in which he chose a similar theme, 1401 01:23:36,300 --> 01:23:38,837 and he became enormously popular. 1402 01:23:40,337 --> 01:23:45,273 - He no longer had the authority of an insider 1403 01:23:45,275 --> 01:23:47,209 within the networks of government 1404 01:23:47,211 --> 01:23:50,680 who knew what were the latest developments 1405 01:23:50,682 --> 01:23:52,216 with nuclear weapons 1406 01:23:53,651 --> 01:23:57,753 and who could speak with that sort of expertise, 1407 01:23:57,755 --> 01:24:02,525 but he became a spokesman 1408 01:24:02,527 --> 01:24:06,361 for the role of science 1409 01:24:06,363 --> 01:24:09,868 in relation to modern culture. 1410 01:24:11,301 --> 01:24:13,368 - That was a brief glimpse of a 2 1/2 hour conversation 1411 01:24:13,370 --> 01:24:15,003 with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1412 01:24:15,005 --> 01:24:18,006 director of the Institute for Advanced Studies. 1413 01:24:18,008 --> 01:24:20,208 One thing that impressed this reporter about that institute, 1414 01:24:20,210 --> 01:24:21,777 was that he has never heard 1415 01:24:21,779 --> 01:24:24,279 so many people say, I don't know. 1416 01:24:24,281 --> 01:24:26,549 These men recognize mystery, 1417 01:24:26,551 --> 01:24:28,885 they welcome it and they wrestle with it. 1418 01:24:28,887 --> 01:24:30,254 Goodnight and good luck. 1419 01:24:32,457 --> 01:24:35,290 - And after the hearings, 1420 01:24:35,292 --> 01:24:40,297 joined and actively participated in 1421 01:24:41,699 --> 01:24:43,968 an organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1422 01:24:45,503 --> 01:24:48,405 which was funded by the CIA. 1423 01:24:49,439 --> 01:24:52,477 But many prominent intellectuals 1424 01:24:53,845 --> 01:24:57,114 were involved with the Congress for Cultural Freedom 1425 01:24:58,315 --> 01:25:01,049 in so far as it's sought to promote 1426 01:25:01,051 --> 01:25:03,986 liberal intellectual culture 1427 01:25:03,988 --> 01:25:08,993 as an antidote to what they argued 1428 01:25:10,327 --> 01:25:14,197 was the totalitarian culture of the Soviet Union. 1429 01:25:15,065 --> 01:25:18,937 And this group of intellectuals 1430 01:25:20,872 --> 01:25:23,641 was where Oppenheimer kind of found 1431 01:25:24,776 --> 01:25:27,743 a sense of belonging and recognition 1432 01:25:27,745 --> 01:25:31,981 after his marginalization in the security hearings. 1433 01:25:31,983 --> 01:25:34,483 - Throughout his life, Oppenheimer was attracted 1434 01:25:34,485 --> 01:25:39,490 to places of extraordinary beauty and remoteness. 1435 01:25:42,026 --> 01:25:44,594 And one thing that's very striking about these places, 1436 01:25:44,596 --> 01:25:48,263 the Virgin Islands, the plateau in New Mexico, 1437 01:25:48,265 --> 01:25:52,503 is that they are the very opposite of where he grew up. 1438 01:25:57,274 --> 01:25:58,808 And I'm inclined to think 1439 01:25:58,810 --> 01:26:01,644 that he was looking precisely for that. 1440 01:26:01,646 --> 01:26:04,947 He was looking precisely for something 1441 01:26:04,949 --> 01:26:07,583 that couldn't be more different 1442 01:26:07,585 --> 01:26:11,454 to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. 1443 01:26:11,456 --> 01:26:12,624 And I think he found it 1444 01:26:14,525 --> 01:26:18,395 in the countryside of New Mexico above all, 1445 01:26:20,230 --> 01:26:22,197 which I think remained for him, 1446 01:26:22,199 --> 01:26:26,201 I think that countryside around the Rio Grande 1447 01:26:26,203 --> 01:26:29,505 remained for him his ideal, 1448 01:26:29,507 --> 01:26:33,643 in its wildness, in its beauty, 1449 01:26:33,645 --> 01:26:36,912 and in its remoteness. 1450 01:26:39,517 --> 01:26:44,522 He had a little hut overlooking the valley. 1451 01:26:46,591 --> 01:26:48,289 This is a remote area, 1452 01:26:48,291 --> 01:26:50,995 and you weren't going to bump into other people there, 1453 01:26:53,698 --> 01:26:58,703 whereas he grew up in the Upper West Side of New York 1454 01:26:59,570 --> 01:27:01,003 where all the people around him 1455 01:27:01,005 --> 01:27:04,174 were part of the same community. 1456 01:27:05,342 --> 01:27:06,709 Somebody wrote a book about that community 1457 01:27:06,711 --> 01:27:08,343 called "Our Crowd." 1458 01:27:08,345 --> 01:27:12,280 They recognized each other as being part of the same crowd, 1459 01:27:12,282 --> 01:27:15,084 though she's part of our crowd, 1460 01:27:15,086 --> 01:27:18,122 and I think he didn't want to be part of anybody's crowd. 1461 01:27:32,670 --> 01:27:35,971 The strain of working at Los Alamos 1462 01:27:35,973 --> 01:27:37,775 was that he chainsmoked. 1463 01:27:39,242 --> 01:27:42,978 And you can see, he was always a slender man, 1464 01:27:42,980 --> 01:27:44,747 but you can see in the pictures 1465 01:27:44,749 --> 01:27:49,153 of Los Alamos and afterwards, he's skeletal. 1466 01:27:50,420 --> 01:27:54,291 He's so thin and he never looked very well. 1467 01:27:55,526 --> 01:27:57,493 He died in his 60s, 1468 01:27:57,495 --> 01:27:59,296 but he looked like a man in his 80s. 1469 01:28:00,798 --> 01:28:03,000 The cancer caught up with him 1470 01:28:04,836 --> 01:28:08,438 shortly before his 63rd birthday. 1471 01:28:11,609 --> 01:28:13,308 - And Kitty knew 1472 01:28:13,310 --> 01:28:16,411 that he wanted his ashes scattered there. 1473 01:28:16,413 --> 01:28:20,850 So some months after his death in '67, 1474 01:28:20,852 --> 01:28:25,857 she motored out towards a point called Carvel Rock 1475 01:28:26,591 --> 01:28:27,890 in Hawksnest Bay, 1476 01:28:27,892 --> 01:28:32,561 just off the shore from where their cabin was. 1477 01:28:42,039 --> 01:28:45,908 - My parents had been arranging for a boat 1478 01:28:45,910 --> 01:28:50,915 to take Dr. O's ashes with Kitty out to Carvel Rock, 1479 01:28:51,516 --> 01:28:51,983 which they did. 1480 01:28:53,316 --> 01:28:58,256 - They cut the motor and instead of scattering the ashes, 1481 01:28:59,123 --> 01:29:03,391 Kitty just dumps the urn, 1482 01:29:03,393 --> 01:29:07,263 still closed up, into the water. 1483 01:29:12,103 --> 01:29:16,639 There's a splash and then it bobs up, 1484 01:29:16,641 --> 01:29:21,646 and eventually it sinks. 1485 01:29:22,780 --> 01:29:25,014 They watch for a while and then it sinks. 1486 01:29:25,016 --> 01:29:29,885 So his ashes are in an urn 1487 01:29:29,887 --> 01:29:34,089 on the floor of Hawksnest Bay. 1488 01:29:46,971 --> 01:29:50,508 - It will probably haunt me still for the rest of my life. 1489 01:29:51,676 --> 01:29:52,977 She was a great friend. 1490 01:29:55,445 --> 01:29:58,182 She had just turned 33. 1491 01:29:59,884 --> 01:30:04,086 That she was depressed for a lot of her adult life, 1492 01:30:04,088 --> 01:30:06,455 I think is understandable when you understand 1493 01:30:06,457 --> 01:30:08,057 what happened to her. 1494 01:30:08,059 --> 01:30:11,093 One of her dreams was to be an interpreter at the UN, 1495 01:30:11,095 --> 01:30:12,563 and the FBI said, no. 1496 01:30:14,665 --> 01:30:16,265 It's like they were visiting 1497 01:30:16,267 --> 01:30:18,634 so-called sins of her father upon her 1498 01:30:18,636 --> 01:30:20,137 and that just was not fair. 1499 01:30:28,346 --> 01:30:30,112 Anyway, I lost a great friend 1500 01:30:30,114 --> 01:30:33,682 and the world lost a great mind as well. 1501 01:31:01,212 --> 01:31:04,613 - There is no key that is going to unlock 1502 01:31:04,615 --> 01:31:06,148 the mysteries of Oppenheimer. 1503 01:31:06,150 --> 01:31:08,552 He's always going to be mysterious. 1504 01:31:10,154 --> 01:31:14,458 His friend Rabi said that there's no single personality 1505 01:31:15,559 --> 01:31:16,759 that is Oppenheimer. 1506 01:31:16,761 --> 01:31:21,297 There's all these sharp shafts 1507 01:31:21,299 --> 01:31:24,300 that make up Oppenheimer. 1508 01:31:24,302 --> 01:31:28,604 But he's somebody who the outside world 1509 01:31:28,606 --> 01:31:31,040 insisted was a German Jew, 1510 01:31:31,042 --> 01:31:35,177 and he said, "No, I'm neither German nor am I Jewish." 1511 01:31:35,179 --> 01:31:38,616 He insisted on defining himself. 1512 01:31:40,351 --> 01:31:42,584 - The tragedy of Oppenheimer 1513 01:31:42,586 --> 01:31:47,425 is that he was so deeply evolved ethically 1514 01:31:49,727 --> 01:31:53,028 and yet so socially awkward 1515 01:31:53,030 --> 01:31:56,065 and so brilliant at the same time 1516 01:31:56,067 --> 01:31:58,233 that these things were never fully integrated 1517 01:31:58,235 --> 01:31:59,768 into his character. 1518 01:31:59,770 --> 01:32:01,470 - He was able to talk philosophy 1519 01:32:01,472 --> 01:32:04,506 with the leading philosophers of his time. 1520 01:32:04,508 --> 01:32:08,177 He wrote poetry, and he was an expert on French poetry. 1521 01:32:08,179 --> 01:32:11,013 Scientifically, he most likely, 1522 01:32:11,015 --> 01:32:12,781 if he'd lived a couple of years longer, 1523 01:32:12,783 --> 01:32:14,583 would've been awarded a Nobel Prize, 1524 01:32:14,585 --> 01:32:17,753 and here's something that's so typical of Oppenheimer. 1525 01:32:17,755 --> 01:32:21,490 What he would've been awarded a Nobel Prize for 1526 01:32:21,492 --> 01:32:23,826 are three papers that he himself attributed 1527 01:32:23,828 --> 01:32:26,061 no importance to whatsoever. 1528 01:32:26,063 --> 01:32:28,931 This is three papers that he wrote in 1939 1529 01:32:28,933 --> 01:32:32,234 on gravitational collapse, black holes. 1530 01:32:32,236 --> 01:32:34,003 He was the first person 1531 01:32:34,005 --> 01:32:37,373 to give a complete mathematical description 1532 01:32:37,375 --> 01:32:42,177 of what happens when a massive star collapses in on itself 1533 01:32:42,179 --> 01:32:44,179 and becomes a black hole. 1534 01:32:44,181 --> 01:32:48,384 - And he was the creator of the atomic bomb, 1535 01:32:48,386 --> 01:32:52,489 this use of science 1536 01:32:52,491 --> 01:32:55,691 for absolute destruction, 1537 01:32:55,693 --> 01:33:00,429 this creation of a weapon that makes hell on earth, 1538 01:33:00,431 --> 01:33:02,833 a weapon of absolute terror. 1539 01:33:03,934 --> 01:33:08,239 So Oppenheimer, I think, really represents 1540 01:33:09,707 --> 01:33:14,412 the development of reason and of a culture of reason 1541 01:33:15,813 --> 01:33:19,181 which has turned against itself and become irrational 1542 01:33:19,183 --> 01:33:21,617 and become destructive. 1543 01:33:21,619 --> 01:33:23,085 And that was the dilemma 1544 01:33:23,087 --> 01:33:24,920 that Oppenheimer was wrestling with 1545 01:33:24,922 --> 01:33:28,292 and that's what he represents, I think, for us today. 1546 01:33:29,326 --> 01:33:31,427 - No, he's an iconic figure. 1547 01:33:31,429 --> 01:33:34,830 The 1954 trial makes him much more interesting 1548 01:33:34,832 --> 01:33:37,766 than just the father of the atomic bomb, 1549 01:33:37,768 --> 01:33:39,568 but it's also interesting 1550 01:33:39,570 --> 01:33:42,905 that as the father of the atomic bomb, 1551 01:33:42,907 --> 01:33:46,341 the man who built the two weapons 1552 01:33:46,343 --> 01:33:48,744 that destroyed two Japanese cities, 1553 01:33:48,746 --> 01:33:51,113 he then spent really the rest of his life 1554 01:33:51,115 --> 01:33:53,115 trying to contain the bomb. 1555 01:33:53,117 --> 01:33:55,984 - He was an extraordinary polymath, 1556 01:33:55,986 --> 01:34:00,925 and he refused to be bound by limitations 1557 01:34:03,227 --> 01:34:06,230 and categorizations. 1558 01:34:08,567 --> 01:34:13,572 And I think recognizing the value of such a man at this time 1559 01:34:15,673 --> 01:34:19,844 is quite an important symbolic thing to do. 1560 01:34:21,580 --> 01:34:24,179 - And that's the price of genius, I think, 1561 01:34:24,181 --> 01:34:29,186 it's when the hero is partly responsible for the fall 1562 01:34:30,054 --> 01:34:31,286 that we have through tragedy, 1563 01:34:31,288 --> 01:34:32,455 and that's why we can't look away. 1564 01:34:32,457 --> 01:34:34,389 - It is still an open question 1565 01:34:34,391 --> 01:34:38,827 whether humanity is going to survive the nuclear age, 1566 01:34:38,829 --> 01:34:43,100 and Oppenheimer would think this is a sad legacy. 1567 01:34:44,835 --> 01:34:47,972 Finally, just his personality, 1568 01:34:49,106 --> 01:34:51,340 his ability to transform himself 1569 01:34:51,342 --> 01:34:56,347 to overcome his youthful psychological crisis, 1570 01:34:58,816 --> 01:35:01,817 his ability to become a good professor, 1571 01:35:01,819 --> 01:35:06,423 a charismatic lecturer after being a terrible one, 1572 01:35:08,058 --> 01:35:11,660 his ability to run Las Alamos and be revered 1573 01:35:11,662 --> 01:35:14,098 and admired by everyone who worked there, 1574 01:35:15,299 --> 01:35:17,733 all of whom, you know, anyone we interviewed 1575 01:35:17,735 --> 01:35:19,001 who had been there said, you know, 1576 01:35:19,003 --> 01:35:21,904 the bomb never would've happened in 2 1/2 years 1577 01:35:21,906 --> 01:35:23,608 if it hadn't been for Oppenheimer. 1578 01:35:25,610 --> 01:35:28,343 Again, he transforms himself 1579 01:35:28,345 --> 01:35:30,414 into this amazing administrator 1580 01:35:31,815 --> 01:35:34,752 and yet there's this tragedy at the end of his life, 1581 01:35:35,953 --> 01:35:38,353 and he's, you know, publicly humiliated, 1582 01:35:38,355 --> 01:35:42,758 and that too is a important story. 1583 01:35:42,760 --> 01:35:45,861 You know, America goes through these periods 1584 01:35:45,863 --> 01:35:48,533 of historical craziness, 1585 01:35:49,668 --> 01:35:54,472 and McCarthyism was one such disease 1586 01:35:57,609 --> 01:36:00,543 and Oppenheimer became the chief victim of it.