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I have been asked whether in the years
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to come it will be possible to kill 40
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million American people
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by the use of atomic bombs in a single
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night
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afraid that the answer to that question
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is yes
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Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the
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atomic bomb
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he was this complex ball of
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contradictions
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they are weapons of aggression surprise
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of Terror
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Oppenheimer wanted the bomb to be used
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how else would the world know what it
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was
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are we creating something we may not be
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able to control
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[Music]
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the test of the world's first atomic
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device
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[Music]
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should non-violent man was responsible
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for birthing the most violent weapon in
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human history
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he devoted the rest of his life to
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trying to control the monster that he
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had Unleashed
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if there is another world war
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[Music]
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this civilization
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may go under
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he became a political pariah
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true that humans have already discovered
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an effort of destroying Humanity
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[Music]
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and it finally ruined him
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now I am become death
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the destroyer of worlds
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we have made a thing that by all
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standards of the world we grew up in is
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an evil thing
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when I was 15 I had a chance to speak to
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Oppenheimer alone
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he was at a cocktail party
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I was serving hors d'oeuvres
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foreign
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Oppenheimer standing alone
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I said I think you're some sort of a
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saint
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and he was very taken aback
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and he said well why would you say that
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to me
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and I said because you had second
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thoughts
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and he turned around and picked his head
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up and walked out the door
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it obviously struck him in a way that I
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had never imagined
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Oppenheimer for Cronkite take one
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Dr Oppenheimer with all the
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inevitability of the decision that
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history demonstrates to us
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you still seem to suffer may I say from
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a bad conscience about it is that true
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sir uh I think when you play a
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meaningful part and bringing about the
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death of over a hundred thousand people
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uh you naturally
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don't think of that with ease
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foreign
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[Music]
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it's very difficult to find any person
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in history sitting in such a complex
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situation with all kinds of impossible
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questions and very few answers
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everybody has their own idea of what
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Robert Oppenheimer is
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I mean the fact is that he invented a
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weapon that can destroy human life
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owners
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I mean don't forget that this weapon
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which has the capacity to end
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civilization was developed as a means to
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save Western Civilization
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[Music]
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1930s millions of Americans were
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following the news coming out of Europe
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in their local theaters watching
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newsreels
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and Oppenheimer was horrified by the
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rise of Hitler
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his sense of his own jewishness made him
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immediately and massively aware of the
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danger of fascism
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when the war started in 1939 he was a
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professor at Berkeley and that same year
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one of his students comes rushing into
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his office to convey the news that
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fission has been discovered word has
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just come through from Germany
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that the uranium atom under Neutron
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bombardment actually splits into two
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parts
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initially Oppenheimer can't believe it
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he runs to the Blackboard and does some
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mathematics
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and he comes to the understanding
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that you could use fission to generate
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energy
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Einstein showed explicitly that if you
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can convert matter into Pure Energy the
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amount of energy is extraordinary it's
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the speed of light squared for crying
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out loud
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they realize that from a very small
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amount of matter you could make power to
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drive ships and planes and trains
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whatever make electricity of course
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and they also realized very quickly that
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it might be possible to make a weapon of
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Untold destruction
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we were deeply worried after all the
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discovery of vision was in Nazi Germany
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and Nazi Germany could potentially build
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a nuclear bomb
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this was the worry and it was very
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tangible it was very real
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[Music]
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7th 1941
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a date which will live in infamy
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Pearl Harbor happens
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I assured
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form of treachery shall never again and
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dangerous
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[Applause]
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now the United States is an active
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combatant in the war
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[Applause]
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the idea at this point is we basically
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need to get this done as quickly as
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possible because we could wake up
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tomorrow and Hitler could have that
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nuclear Monopoly that we all want to
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avoid
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so we need a place where we can design
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build test and help deliver nuclear
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weapons
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but even before we pick the place though
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we need to find somebody who can lead
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that installation
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and virtually nobody expected
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Oppenheimer to be named the director of
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the weapons design Laboratory
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he was kind of this ethereal personality
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he had no record of having big
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achievements
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one of the scientists who knew
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Oppenheimer said this is a man who
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couldn't run a hot dog stand
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oppenheimer's friends felt that he was a
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divided man not quite sure of his
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identity
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said at one point from my earliest days
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I never did anything or thought anything
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or knew anyone where I didn't feel about
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myself the deepest of loathing
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um
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Oppenheimer was born in 1904 turned into
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an age of great scientific possibility
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the first two decades of the 20th
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century
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were periods of incredible intellectual
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daring electricity automobiles flight
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were all transforming daily life
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and then you had incredible advances in
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science
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and it looks like almost anything could
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be achieved
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the story of Robert Oppenheimer is
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really the story of immigrant America
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his father comes over from Germany
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gets the job in the Garment industry and
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makes a tremendous amount of money
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winds up on the upper west side on
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Riverside Drive
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and he's got a Picasso and he's got
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three van goghs
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[Music]
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this mother was a paris-trained artist
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who exhibited her work at various
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galleries in Manhattan
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she was a nervous person
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she really didn't let this little boy go
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outside
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and he was very sheltered and extremely
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socially awkward
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when he finally went to Camp One Summer
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he was so nasty to the other kids that
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they brushed him up
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he said later they put him in the ice
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house all night naked
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and painted him green
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including his genitals
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oddly enough Oppenheimer didn't protest
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he just took his punishment stoically
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it was a very odd reaction for a young
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boy at that age
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imagine the sensitive boy this very
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smart boy but one who has no idea how to
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deal with other people certainly not
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with children in his own age he's had no
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experience
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the real core psychological moment for
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Oppenheimer appears to have been when he
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was in college
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[Music]
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and he goes to study Physics at
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Cambridge
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and he doesn't do very well he ends up
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in a laboratory that's really about
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experimental physics
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he is not good at that
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he doesn't really know how to do an
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experiment with his hands
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and he has this sort of crisis of
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confidence
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this came to a head when he had a what I
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think can only be described as a nervous
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breakdown
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one of his friends stumbled upon him in
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an empty classroom where Oppenheimer was
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standing at the Blackboard
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muttering to himself over and over again
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point is the point is the point is
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and he could never finish the sentence
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and then another one of his friends went
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to his dorm room and heard this moaning
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inside and opened the door and there was
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Oppenheimer in a fetal position rolling
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back and forth groaning
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he came close to committing suicide at
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that point
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he saw a psychiatrist as a result of
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this
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and the psychiatrist said that he's kind
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of living in his own world
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he was having an identity crisis
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something we're clear about these days
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than we were then
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his parents took him to Paris where he
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saw yet another psychologist and in a
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very French way
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described a professional woman and red
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wine
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so
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uh we don't know if that happened
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he had always been the top of the class
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the smartest person
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admired for his intellectual capability
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by all his classmates
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and suddenly he was an incompetent
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and he just couldn't deal with that at
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that point
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and what snapped him out of that
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was his discovery of theoretical physics
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of quantum physics
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at the time it was sort of the golden
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age of physics it's a very exciting time
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to be a theorist
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and if you are young and quick and
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willing to think weird ideas that nobody
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else has ever thought you can
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potentially make a huge amount of
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progress and a name for yourself
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[Music]
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so when Oppenheimer decided to move to
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guten in Germany to study with Max
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Bourne theoretical physicist he
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blossomed
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he meets some of the leading physicists
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in Germany at the time
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Heisenberg who ironically enough would
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lead the German atomic bomb project
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and while he's over there he sort of
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invents this Opie personality
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this is where he gets the name they call
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him up J and this turns into Opie
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and Opie is not an insecure Young
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American who doesn't really know what he
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00:13:57,720 --> 00:13:59,339
wants to do
292
00:13:59,339 --> 00:14:02,040
Opie is the brilliant guy who's always
293
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:03,899
five steps ahead of everybody else and
294
00:14:03,899 --> 00:14:05,700
can keep everything in his head
295
00:14:05,700 --> 00:14:08,100
offy is a genius who's very eccentric
296
00:14:08,100 --> 00:14:10,079
and interesting and strikes a really
297
00:14:10,079 --> 00:14:12,500
dashing figure and his chain smoking
298
00:14:12,500 --> 00:14:13,760
[Music]
299
00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:16,740
and you see these pictures of him from
300
00:14:16,740 --> 00:14:18,079
the 20s
301
00:14:18,079 --> 00:14:21,200
it's very Bob Dylan
302
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,940
he had the eyes of an Old Testament
303
00:14:23,940 --> 00:14:27,540
Prophet inside this frail body and he
304
00:14:27,540 --> 00:14:29,459
sort of cocked himself with his funny
305
00:14:29,459 --> 00:14:32,720
little pork pie hat on top
306
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:37,200
so Opie is this sort of construction of
307
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,940
everything that he would want to be
308
00:14:40,940 --> 00:14:43,800
and that Recreation is immensely
309
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:46,339
successful
310
00:14:48,770 --> 00:14:51,870
[Music]
311
00:14:52,800 --> 00:14:55,079
when the cancerous Nazi growth spread
312
00:14:55,079 --> 00:14:58,019
farther still the people of Europe and
313
00:14:58,019 --> 00:15:01,260
the world entered a new era
314
00:15:01,260 --> 00:15:04,019
certainly the first motivation for the
315
00:15:04,019 --> 00:15:06,300
scientists was to beat the Germans to
316
00:15:06,300 --> 00:15:08,579
the bomb there's nothing like the
317
00:15:08,579 --> 00:15:10,800
prospect of a hanging to concentrate the
318
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:11,639
mind
319
00:15:11,639 --> 00:15:13,740
and the threat of death of civilization
320
00:15:13,740 --> 00:15:17,220
as they knew it was so great that it
321
00:15:17,220 --> 00:15:21,600
swept away any ethical or moral doubts
322
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:23,760
that they might have had
323
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:27,420
ultimately whoever gets the bomb first
324
00:15:27,420 --> 00:15:29,100
is not just going to win World War II
325
00:15:29,100 --> 00:15:32,300
but it's going to run the entire world
326
00:15:32,779 --> 00:15:36,420
by the summer of 1942 control of the
327
00:15:36,420 --> 00:15:38,519
atom bomb project passes to the hands of
328
00:15:38,519 --> 00:15:41,459
the army under the code name Manhattan
329
00:15:41,459 --> 00:15:43,440
engineering District
330
00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:45,600
the Manhattan Project really was a huge
331
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:48,540
National effort
332
00:15:48,540 --> 00:15:52,079
and to plot out the industrial scale of
333
00:15:52,079 --> 00:15:55,320
the operation they chose a dynamic
334
00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:58,220
barely six foot three
335
00:15:58,220 --> 00:16:01,980
240 pound General named Leslie Richard
336
00:16:01,980 --> 00:16:04,880
Groves
337
00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:09,300
he hated Leslie he went by dick
338
00:16:09,300 --> 00:16:12,420
General Groves had a problem he was
339
00:16:12,420 --> 00:16:14,760
entrusted to hire the people that would
340
00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:17,519
build the atomic bomb but he knew they
341
00:16:17,519 --> 00:16:19,980
were talking about the people who are
342
00:16:19,980 --> 00:16:24,120
the finest scientists in the world
343
00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:27,300
these are primadonna's
344
00:16:27,300 --> 00:16:29,220
and now you have to have somebody who's
345
00:16:29,220 --> 00:16:31,620
going to be the whip master
346
00:16:31,620 --> 00:16:33,180
you have to have somebody that
347
00:16:33,180 --> 00:16:35,399
understands the physics who has a
348
00:16:35,399 --> 00:16:37,980
reputation so that these prima donnas
349
00:16:37,980 --> 00:16:40,699
will follow you
350
00:16:40,770 --> 00:16:42,420
[Music]
351
00:16:42,420 --> 00:16:44,579
Oppenheimer and general Groves are
352
00:16:44,579 --> 00:16:47,699
introduced in the fall of 1942
353
00:16:47,699 --> 00:16:49,920
and these two individuals are just about
354
00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:53,279
as different as you can imagine
355
00:16:53,279 --> 00:16:55,259
but General Grove saw something in him
356
00:16:55,259 --> 00:16:58,800
that apparently no one else saw
357
00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:01,380
the meeting Oppenheimer you were
358
00:17:01,380 --> 00:17:03,420
immediately impressed you couldn't help
359
00:17:03,420 --> 00:17:05,579
it
360
00:17:05,579 --> 00:17:07,720
there wasn't a better man
361
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:09,359
[Music]
362
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:12,299
he chose Oppenheimer against the advice
363
00:17:12,299 --> 00:17:14,760
of most of these leaders that he had
364
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:17,240
around him in the scientific community
365
00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:19,980
Oppenheimer had never LED any large
366
00:17:19,980 --> 00:17:21,980
Enterprise
367
00:17:21,980 --> 00:17:23,939
Oppenheimer was really good at
368
00:17:23,939 --> 00:17:26,040
explaining things
369
00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:29,220
he was extremely charming and he had
370
00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:32,160
this ability to sort of hold a lot of
371
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:34,679
things in his head at once and keep
372
00:17:34,679 --> 00:17:38,960
aware of how they all fit together
373
00:17:39,419 --> 00:17:41,280
and this is apparently what general
374
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:44,600
Groves recognized in him
375
00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:49,559
for security purposes this project needs
376
00:17:49,559 --> 00:17:53,760
to happen away from everything
377
00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:57,059
so Groves tells Oppenheimer to just come
378
00:17:57,059 --> 00:17:59,220
up with a place where this would
379
00:17:59,220 --> 00:18:02,340
actually work and it was Oppenheimer who
380
00:18:02,340 --> 00:18:05,940
suggests the New Mexico desert
381
00:18:05,940 --> 00:18:08,880
so they go to scope out of sight
382
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:12,380
it's called Los Alamos
383
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:15,600
Oppenheimer knew the area well he had
384
00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:18,299
spent a lot of time here
385
00:18:18,299 --> 00:18:22,320
when he left New York as a Young Man
386
00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:23,940
and went to New Mexico
387
00:18:23,940 --> 00:18:25,740
[Music]
388
00:18:25,740 --> 00:18:27,720
that was just a really important part of
389
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:29,820
his life
390
00:18:29,820 --> 00:18:32,940
going to New Mexico and meeting Cowboys
391
00:18:32,940 --> 00:18:35,460
and riding horses he just loved it he
392
00:18:35,460 --> 00:18:36,910
loved every part of it
393
00:18:36,910 --> 00:18:39,120
[Music]
394
00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:41,580
said that his ambition was to combine
395
00:18:41,580 --> 00:18:44,220
the two loves in his life
396
00:18:44,220 --> 00:18:48,080
physics and New Mexico
397
00:18:49,620 --> 00:18:54,080
of course he did precisely this
398
00:18:55,740 --> 00:18:58,200
now the government shows up with
399
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:01,440
bulldozers and Architects and laborers
400
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,960
and Craftsmen to build a new community
401
00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:06,179
and Laboratory
402
00:19:06,179 --> 00:19:08,460
where there essentially had not been one
403
00:19:08,460 --> 00:19:10,700
before
404
00:19:11,039 --> 00:19:14,539
they're starting from scratch
405
00:19:14,700 --> 00:19:16,799
and so much of what they were doing was
406
00:19:16,799 --> 00:19:19,140
unknown and unproven at the time
407
00:19:19,140 --> 00:19:20,580
they didn't actually know if they would
408
00:19:20,580 --> 00:19:22,260
be able to achieve this this was all
409
00:19:22,260 --> 00:19:24,539
theoretical
410
00:19:24,539 --> 00:19:26,700
they knew that they had to get the best
411
00:19:26,700 --> 00:19:28,860
scientists if they were going to get
412
00:19:28,860 --> 00:19:33,200
this weapon before the Nazis did
413
00:19:33,890 --> 00:19:36,660
[Applause]
414
00:19:36,660 --> 00:19:39,000
Stein pleased to the United States
415
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:40,860
he leaves a Vanguard of refugee
416
00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:42,960
scientists virtually stripping German
417
00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:45,430
universities of their best Minds
418
00:19:45,430 --> 00:19:48,059
[Music]
419
00:19:48,059 --> 00:19:49,980
well in Europe have forced out a huge
420
00:19:49,980 --> 00:19:51,840
number of really top top grade
421
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:54,780
physicists
422
00:19:54,780 --> 00:19:58,020
Enrico Fermi
423
00:19:58,020 --> 00:20:01,100
Hans beta
424
00:20:01,140 --> 00:20:04,679
Edward Teller who famously would go on
425
00:20:04,679 --> 00:20:07,559
to develop the hydrogen bomb one can
426
00:20:07,559 --> 00:20:10,740
sort of go down the lists and find more
427
00:20:10,740 --> 00:20:12,179
and more and more of these amazing
428
00:20:12,179 --> 00:20:13,940
people
429
00:20:13,940 --> 00:20:16,320
Oppenheimer was famously known for his
430
00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:19,020
intellectual sex appeal and he could go
431
00:20:19,020 --> 00:20:21,240
around the country and sort of flash his
432
00:20:21,240 --> 00:20:23,700
brain to people and you know they'd sign
433
00:20:23,700 --> 00:20:25,020
up
434
00:20:25,020 --> 00:20:28,260
he would say I unfortunately can't tell
435
00:20:28,260 --> 00:20:30,020
you what we're doing
436
00:20:30,020 --> 00:20:33,919
but I can tell you that if we succeed
437
00:20:33,919 --> 00:20:37,200
it's likely to end this war
438
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,580
and it may end all war
439
00:20:40,580 --> 00:20:43,260
Oppenheimer asked if I would join him in
440
00:20:43,260 --> 00:20:44,880
Los Alamos
441
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:47,400
and I said I would be delighted
442
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,059
like most of his students I would more
443
00:20:51,059 --> 00:20:52,679
or less follow him to the ends of the
444
00:20:52,679 --> 00:20:54,539
Earth
445
00:20:54,539 --> 00:20:56,880
who had the choice of fighting the Nazis
446
00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,880
by going to this exotic Mountaintop and
447
00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:02,820
doing the greatest physics in history I
448
00:21:02,820 --> 00:21:04,500
mean what would you do
449
00:21:04,500 --> 00:21:07,940
I would have been on the next train
450
00:21:07,980 --> 00:21:09,840
I don't think people thought that much
451
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:11,880
about the consequences you know can we
452
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:13,559
blame them
453
00:21:13,559 --> 00:21:16,200
we were all aware of the fact that it
454
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:19,880
one way or another we were intervening
455
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:22,620
explicitly and heavy-handedly
456
00:21:22,620 --> 00:21:25,870
in the course of human history
457
00:21:25,870 --> 00:21:29,000
[Music]
458
00:21:30,059 --> 00:21:31,799
by the time the laboratory was
459
00:21:31,799 --> 00:21:34,080
established Oppenheimer was a family man
460
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:37,940
he was married he had a little boy
461
00:21:37,980 --> 00:21:39,900
during his tenure as director at the
462
00:21:39,900 --> 00:21:44,039
laboratory he had a little girl as well
463
00:21:44,039 --> 00:21:47,400
the summer of 1939 he was at a cocktail
464
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:50,159
party in Berkeley and a young woman
465
00:21:50,159 --> 00:21:53,340
named Kitty pruning had spied him from
466
00:21:53,340 --> 00:21:56,580
across the garden and was immediately
467
00:21:56,580 --> 00:21:59,539
attracted to him
468
00:21:59,820 --> 00:22:02,159
she was a firecracker
469
00:22:02,159 --> 00:22:04,060
of a young woman
470
00:22:04,060 --> 00:22:07,700
[Music]
471
00:22:07,700 --> 00:22:11,820
they fell in love and by 1940 she was
472
00:22:11,820 --> 00:22:13,500
pregnant
473
00:22:13,500 --> 00:22:16,320
[Music]
474
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:18,720
they live Ever After
475
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:22,080
I noticed I didn't say happily
476
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:25,020
they are devoted to each other
477
00:22:25,020 --> 00:22:28,919
but it's a difficult marriage because of
478
00:22:28,919 --> 00:22:32,940
the complexity of Robert's life of their
479
00:22:32,940 --> 00:22:36,000
personalities of the environment in
480
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:36,850
which they live
481
00:22:36,850 --> 00:22:40,280
[Music]
482
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:42,900
she was an academic she was a biologist
483
00:22:42,900 --> 00:22:45,480
and a botanist and ultimately that work
484
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,340
was all put to one side for the years of
485
00:22:47,340 --> 00:22:48,260
Los Alamos
486
00:22:48,260 --> 00:22:49,919
[Music]
487
00:22:49,919 --> 00:22:52,559
very frustrated by being put in the
488
00:22:52,559 --> 00:22:53,880
position of
489
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,860
a mother and a wife and nothing else
490
00:22:58,260 --> 00:23:01,559
she did not Thrive at Los Alamos
491
00:23:01,559 --> 00:23:05,760
it was a lonely and hard existence
492
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:07,679
and she disappeared into the bottle
493
00:23:07,679 --> 00:23:08,590
somewhat
494
00:23:08,590 --> 00:23:12,030
[Music]
495
00:23:14,100 --> 00:23:16,500
Oppenheimer was famous for mixing his
496
00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:19,400
gin martinis
497
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:23,400
he persuaded his scientists to work very
498
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,400
hard during the week and to party hard
499
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,100
on the weekends
500
00:23:29,100 --> 00:23:31,200
everyone was hungover on Sunday morning
501
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,960
but they worked a lot I worked hard and
502
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:35,159
they worked together
503
00:23:35,159 --> 00:23:37,620
and that was largely Oppenheimer
504
00:23:37,620 --> 00:23:40,770
[Music]
505
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,000
Los Alamos for many of these people were
506
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,860
the most momentous years of their lives
507
00:23:50,580 --> 00:23:53,100
they felt part of something
508
00:23:53,100 --> 00:23:55,320
part of something meaningful and
509
00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:56,760
important
510
00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:00,140
and they were led by this very
511
00:24:00,140 --> 00:24:04,020
enigmatic strange bright blue-eyed young
512
00:24:04,020 --> 00:24:06,190
men whom they all admired
513
00:24:06,190 --> 00:24:12,720
[Music]
514
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,340
I grew up at Los Alamos
515
00:24:16,340 --> 00:24:19,260
and my father came to Los Alamos during
516
00:24:19,260 --> 00:24:20,190
the Manhattan Project
517
00:24:20,190 --> 00:24:22,020
[Music]
518
00:24:22,020 --> 00:24:23,460
it was
519
00:24:23,460 --> 00:24:26,220
a curious
520
00:24:26,220 --> 00:24:29,820
place to live because they're blowing
521
00:24:29,820 --> 00:24:32,940
things up three times a day
522
00:24:32,940 --> 00:24:36,360
explosions were 10 and 12 and 3. so when
523
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:37,980
you're in first grade it means recess
524
00:24:37,980 --> 00:24:41,120
lunch and School's Out
525
00:24:41,220 --> 00:24:43,039
we were actually as little kids
526
00:24:43,039 --> 00:24:46,760
connoisseurs of explosions
527
00:24:47,820 --> 00:24:50,039
Point asked my father what what are you
528
00:24:50,039 --> 00:24:50,700
doing
529
00:24:50,700 --> 00:24:53,280
and he said well we're doing something
530
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,620
that has never been done before
531
00:24:55,620 --> 00:24:57,299
I thought that's got to be pretty
532
00:24:57,299 --> 00:25:00,799
interesting whatever it is
533
00:25:10,020 --> 00:25:12,299
we get about a year into the
534
00:25:12,299 --> 00:25:14,280
laboratory's existence
535
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:15,840
and we come to find that it's going to
536
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,480
be a lot harder than we thought
537
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,179
every little thing is hard
538
00:25:21,179 --> 00:25:25,799
these are some very complex machines
539
00:25:25,799 --> 00:25:28,860
a nuclear weapon is not an idea think of
540
00:25:28,860 --> 00:25:31,140
a nuclear weapon more as like
541
00:25:31,140 --> 00:25:33,179
a million ideas that have to come
542
00:25:33,179 --> 00:25:36,980
together and work perfectly together
543
00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:40,260
to make an atomic bomb you need the fuel
544
00:25:40,260 --> 00:25:42,620
for it
545
00:25:42,620 --> 00:25:45,480
we have plutonium and we have enriched
546
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:47,279
uranium we have two different types of
547
00:25:47,279 --> 00:25:49,980
material that we're going to try and use
548
00:25:49,980 --> 00:25:53,400
plutonium was the better material to use
549
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:55,559
there was going to be more of it you
550
00:25:55,559 --> 00:25:57,900
needed less of it to make a bomb
551
00:25:57,900 --> 00:26:02,460
and yet it was harder to detonate
552
00:26:02,460 --> 00:26:06,059
the initial way to make a bomb
553
00:26:06,059 --> 00:26:08,460
it's called gun assembly
554
00:26:08,460 --> 00:26:13,440
it was to take two pieces of material
555
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,760
and slam them together
556
00:26:16,919 --> 00:26:19,919
causing a critical mass and explosion
557
00:26:19,919 --> 00:26:21,840
and that was fine if you use tightly
558
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,960
enriched uranium but one day they
559
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,140
discovered it won't work with plutonium
560
00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:31,080
the plutonium turned out to be so
561
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,779
reactive that you couldn't fire it up a
562
00:26:33,779 --> 00:26:35,820
barrel even at three thousand feet per
563
00:26:35,820 --> 00:26:38,340
second would fizzle it would melt down
564
00:26:38,340 --> 00:26:41,039
before it got up the barrel it was a
565
00:26:41,039 --> 00:26:42,840
great shock I mean maybe this whole
566
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,000
plutonium thing had been wasted hundreds
567
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:46,440
of millions of dollars to develop
568
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,100
plutonium
569
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:53,700
Oppenheimer was distraught and and Los
570
00:26:53,700 --> 00:26:56,220
Alamos was distraught
571
00:26:56,220 --> 00:26:58,919
he considered resigning he was so
572
00:26:58,919 --> 00:27:01,200
depressed and his friends at the
573
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,779
laboratory said you can't Robert
574
00:27:03,779 --> 00:27:05,880
stay and finish this work it's got to
575
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,520
happen we must do it and and reluctantly
576
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,240
he stayed
577
00:27:13,679 --> 00:27:15,600
command the general write the Eisenhower
578
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,000
ray line forces have nearly 3 million
579
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,880
troops trained for the assault
580
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,659
on the other side of the channel
581
00:27:23,659 --> 00:27:26,220
the Nazis also know what the Allied
582
00:27:26,220 --> 00:27:28,860
Forces are preparing for
583
00:27:28,860 --> 00:27:30,720
and they are making preparations of
584
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,020
Their Own
585
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,260
Oppenheimer feared he was still in a
586
00:27:37,260 --> 00:27:38,880
race with the Germans
587
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,340
even as late as the summer of 44 they
588
00:27:41,340 --> 00:27:43,380
had no real intelligence about where
589
00:27:43,380 --> 00:27:47,179
they were on the German bomb project
590
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,279
and so if they don't crack the plutonium
591
00:27:50,279 --> 00:27:52,560
problem they may not have a bomb in time
592
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:53,940
[Music]
593
00:27:53,940 --> 00:27:56,340
Oppenheimer shifted the laboratory Into
594
00:27:56,340 --> 00:28:00,620
You Know full speed panic mode
595
00:28:00,900 --> 00:28:03,120
they had had some ideas for other types
596
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:04,980
of bomb designs which they had thrown
597
00:28:04,980 --> 00:28:06,299
around at the very beginning of the
598
00:28:06,299 --> 00:28:07,919
project but dismissed because they seem
599
00:28:07,919 --> 00:28:09,179
too difficult
600
00:28:09,179 --> 00:28:13,400
but one of them was called implosion
601
00:28:13,679 --> 00:28:15,840
the way implosion in a nutshell Works
602
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:16,860
was
603
00:28:16,860 --> 00:28:19,559
they had a solid ball of plutonium just
604
00:28:19,559 --> 00:28:22,260
a solid sphere of it about the size of a
605
00:28:22,260 --> 00:28:24,299
softball maybe a little bit smaller
606
00:28:24,299 --> 00:28:27,960
and this is encased by tons of high
607
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,480
explosives
608
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,760
and these high explosives are really
609
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,120
specially made so that when they explode
610
00:28:36,120 --> 00:28:38,400
they're going to end up sort of focusing
611
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,640
a blast wave onto this ball pushing on
612
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:43,260
the top and pushing on the bottom and
613
00:28:43,260 --> 00:28:45,720
pushing on the sides of it every angle
614
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,520
of this is going to be being pushed upon
615
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,000
with a lot of explosive force
616
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,059
what you want to do is get this pressure
617
00:28:54,059 --> 00:28:58,500
to squeeze the plutonium Target evenly
618
00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:00,600
if it were asymmetrical it probably
619
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:01,860
wouldn't work
620
00:29:01,860 --> 00:29:04,799
it had to have enough pressure quickly
621
00:29:04,799 --> 00:29:07,919
enough to smash these subatomic Partners
622
00:29:07,919 --> 00:29:10,320
together hard enough to get them to have
623
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,559
this amazing reaction
624
00:29:13,559 --> 00:29:15,779
this is really hard to do
625
00:29:15,779 --> 00:29:17,640
every aspect of this is an almost
626
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,460
totally new problem it is a technology
627
00:29:20,460 --> 00:29:21,779
that would have benefited from another
628
00:29:21,779 --> 00:29:23,640
decade of development and they didn't
629
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:25,440
have that they had a year
630
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,520
[Music]
631
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:30,899
Oppenheimer was working night and day
632
00:29:30,899 --> 00:29:32,700
building the bomb
633
00:29:32,700 --> 00:29:35,760
and as the project grew in size the
634
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,159
security service protecting the project
635
00:29:38,159 --> 00:29:41,700
also grew and even though he was beloved
636
00:29:41,700 --> 00:29:44,100
and admired by most of the scientists
637
00:29:44,100 --> 00:29:47,039
working at the Los Alamos project he had
638
00:29:47,039 --> 00:29:49,679
fallen under a greater veil of Suspicion
639
00:29:49,679 --> 00:29:51,419
because there were certain aspects of
640
00:29:51,419 --> 00:29:54,360
his past that raised the possibility
641
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,760
that he could be a security risk
642
00:30:04,940 --> 00:30:10,309
[Music]
643
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,799
when Oppenheimer was teaching at the
644
00:30:13,799 --> 00:30:15,779
University of California at Berkeley he
645
00:30:15,779 --> 00:30:17,720
really was a very
646
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,159
unworldly man
647
00:30:20,159 --> 00:30:22,380
focused on science
648
00:30:22,380 --> 00:30:26,480
until the depression began
649
00:30:27,059 --> 00:30:29,880
he discovered to his shocked that his
650
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:31,559
students often didn't even have enough
651
00:30:31,559 --> 00:30:35,340
to eat one of them told me he was living
652
00:30:35,340 --> 00:30:37,320
on
653
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,779
food cans of cat food that was the only
654
00:30:39,779 --> 00:30:42,380
thing he could afford
655
00:30:42,380 --> 00:30:44,460
Oppenheimer was
656
00:30:44,460 --> 00:30:47,399
Changed by this discovery of the
657
00:30:47,399 --> 00:30:50,720
suffering in the world really
658
00:30:52,260 --> 00:30:55,320
and Oppenheimer sort of naturally like
659
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,539
many of his friends in Berkeley at the
660
00:30:57,539 --> 00:31:01,679
time drifted politically to the left
661
00:31:01,679 --> 00:31:04,679
foreign
662
00:31:04,730 --> 00:31:08,659
[Music]
663
00:31:08,659 --> 00:31:12,120
communism was a very appealing idea in
664
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,640
the 1930s
665
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:16,500
there was no internet people didn't know
666
00:31:16,500 --> 00:31:18,299
what was going on real time in the
667
00:31:18,299 --> 00:31:20,520
Soviet Union where Joseph Stalin of
668
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:22,200
course was in the process of murdering
669
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,299
20 million of his own people
670
00:31:26,300 --> 00:31:29,359
[Music]
671
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:31,440
what people here in the United States
672
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:35,159
saw instead was hey you know here in the
673
00:31:35,159 --> 00:31:37,980
Soviet Union everybody is free and equal
674
00:31:37,980 --> 00:31:41,700
and has a job and a place to live and a
675
00:31:41,700 --> 00:31:43,980
future an important role to play in the
676
00:31:43,980 --> 00:31:46,760
greater Collective
677
00:31:47,159 --> 00:31:49,200
now if I don't know where my next meal
678
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:50,820
is coming from
679
00:31:50,820 --> 00:31:54,799
sounds like a pretty good idea
680
00:31:56,340 --> 00:31:58,740
it's debatable if Oppenheimer ever
681
00:31:58,740 --> 00:32:01,260
really joined officially the Communist
682
00:32:01,260 --> 00:32:02,580
Party
683
00:32:02,580 --> 00:32:05,520
but his brother did Frank Oppenheimer
684
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:06,840
joined the party
685
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:10,020
Frank's wife Jackie joined the party
686
00:32:10,020 --> 00:32:12,779
many of oppenheimer's close friends had
687
00:32:12,779 --> 00:32:14,580
joined the Communist Party many of his
688
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:16,500
students at Berkeley and elsewhere had
689
00:32:16,500 --> 00:32:18,480
been members of the Communist party as
690
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,059
well
691
00:32:20,059 --> 00:32:23,340
and in the mid-30s he met a young woman
692
00:32:23,340 --> 00:32:26,580
named Gene tatlock who was studying to
693
00:32:26,580 --> 00:32:28,380
become a psychiatrist
694
00:32:28,380 --> 00:32:30,899
brilliant young woman
695
00:32:30,899 --> 00:32:34,340
he fell in love with her
696
00:32:34,500 --> 00:32:36,899
they were engaged to be married twice
697
00:32:36,899 --> 00:32:39,360
I think it's probably reasonable
698
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:40,559
interpretation to say he was someone
699
00:32:40,559 --> 00:32:42,240
obsessed with her
700
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,120
she was a communist he was interested in
701
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:47,220
communist ideas
702
00:32:47,220 --> 00:32:49,320
and for the next four years the
703
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,480
Oppenheimer actually contributed quite a
704
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,120
bit of money to the Communist Party
705
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,419
but his political activities began to be
706
00:32:57,419 --> 00:32:58,020
noticed
707
00:32:58,020 --> 00:33:01,420
[Music]
708
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,679
but the FBI did in those days they were
709
00:33:04,679 --> 00:33:07,500
following the Communists
710
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:08,880
they would walk around and they would
711
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,500
take down the license numbers of the
712
00:33:10,500 --> 00:33:11,820
cars that were parked in front of the
713
00:33:11,820 --> 00:33:14,000
house or the building and look them up
714
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,500
that's when Oppenheimer first came to
715
00:33:16,500 --> 00:33:18,659
the attention of the FBI
716
00:33:18,659 --> 00:33:20,880
even while he's heading up the A-bomb
717
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,820
project the FBI is wiretapping and
718
00:33:23,820 --> 00:33:26,700
following him Military Intelligence is
719
00:33:26,700 --> 00:33:29,399
constantly asking him questions
720
00:33:29,399 --> 00:33:31,500
he was I think in a strange way
721
00:33:31,500 --> 00:33:33,960
comfortable with that because he knew he
722
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,720
wasn't doing anything wrong
723
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:38,760
even when he went to visit his old
724
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,500
girlfriend when he should not have
725
00:33:40,500 --> 00:33:43,580
probably done so
726
00:33:43,700 --> 00:33:48,539
in 1943 he heard from Gene tatlock she
727
00:33:48,539 --> 00:33:50,460
was going through some emotional crisis
728
00:33:50,460 --> 00:33:52,500
and she wanted to see him he'd kept in
729
00:33:52,500 --> 00:33:55,860
touch with Gene he still loved her
730
00:33:55,860 --> 00:33:58,019
she had rejected him he had married
731
00:33:58,019 --> 00:34:01,380
Kitty but he knew that Gene tatlock was
732
00:34:01,380 --> 00:34:04,919
in a depressed state and so he visited
733
00:34:04,919 --> 00:34:07,159
her
734
00:34:08,820 --> 00:34:11,520
he had to leave Los Alamos and go to San
735
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:12,130
Francisco
736
00:34:12,130 --> 00:34:15,869
[Music]
737
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,679
and that was of course just red meat for
738
00:34:19,679 --> 00:34:22,560
the for the dog as it were
739
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:24,839
there were two guys sitting outside the
740
00:34:24,839 --> 00:34:26,639
apartment
741
00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:30,119
Gene tatlock was under surveillance
742
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:32,159
she was still a member of the Communist
743
00:34:32,159 --> 00:34:33,780
Party
744
00:34:33,780 --> 00:34:36,000
he spent the night with her
745
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:37,800
they had been lovers and I think they
746
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,419
probably were lovers again that night
747
00:34:41,580 --> 00:34:44,219
oh
748
00:34:44,219 --> 00:34:47,399
this was reported back to Colonel Boris
749
00:34:47,399 --> 00:34:49,560
Posh who was head of Army intelligence
750
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,379
for all the West Coast and Posh was
751
00:34:52,379 --> 00:34:55,619
convinced that this was a serious breach
752
00:34:55,619 --> 00:34:57,960
of security and that perhaps Oppenheimer
753
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,780
was conveying nuclear secrets Atomic
754
00:35:00,780 --> 00:35:02,640
secrets to the Communist Party through
755
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,240
tatlock
756
00:35:05,580 --> 00:35:09,240
sadly tragically she died just a few
757
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:13,380
months later in the spring of 1944.
758
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,900
under mysterious circumstances her
759
00:35:15,900 --> 00:35:17,579
father found her
760
00:35:17,579 --> 00:35:20,940
naked with her head plunged in a bathtub
761
00:35:20,940 --> 00:35:23,280
with her body slumped over the edge of
762
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,880
the bathtub
763
00:35:26,220 --> 00:35:29,880
this is a very odd way to commit suicide
764
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:33,180
there's some speculation that perhaps
765
00:35:33,180 --> 00:35:36,380
she was murdered
766
00:35:36,380 --> 00:35:38,460
Oppenheimer was horrified then
767
00:35:38,460 --> 00:35:41,780
devastated by the news
768
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,540
the security officer who informed him
769
00:35:45,540 --> 00:35:49,140
said that he wept openly that he was
770
00:35:49,140 --> 00:35:51,240
absolutely bereft
771
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:53,099
and actually confided that there was
772
00:35:53,099 --> 00:35:55,740
nobody that he could speak to about it
773
00:35:55,740 --> 00:35:58,560
so you sense of the loneliness of his
774
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:00,220
grief
775
00:36:00,220 --> 00:36:04,140
[Music]
776
00:36:04,140 --> 00:36:06,000
program with a special bulletin
777
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,640
President Roosevelt is dead the
778
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,160
president died of a cerebral hemorrhage
779
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,820
April 1945 was one of those months in
780
00:36:14,820 --> 00:36:16,859
which the fate of the world seemed to
781
00:36:16,859 --> 00:36:18,800
turn on a dime
782
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,980
FDR dies followed by Hitler committing
783
00:36:22,980 --> 00:36:25,859
suicide Hitler's Empire Burns and
784
00:36:25,859 --> 00:36:27,920
Tribbles
785
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,060
conceived in a kind of anti-hitler
786
00:36:30,060 --> 00:36:31,880
fervor
787
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,740
by the spring of 1945 Hitler's out of
788
00:36:34,740 --> 00:36:36,540
the picture of the Nazis are no longer a
789
00:36:36,540 --> 00:36:38,640
threat Hitler's not going to build an
790
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,380
atomic bomb and drop it on New York
791
00:36:40,380 --> 00:36:43,079
that's not going to happen but there was
792
00:36:43,079 --> 00:36:44,700
no way they were not going to finish
793
00:36:44,700 --> 00:36:47,540
that weapon
794
00:36:49,859 --> 00:36:52,460
were to end
795
00:36:54,060 --> 00:36:57,060
be used because how else would the world
796
00:36:57,060 --> 00:36:59,940
know what it was Harry S Truman was
797
00:36:59,940 --> 00:37:01,380
sworn in as president of the United
798
00:37:01,380 --> 00:37:04,140
States by the time shruman gets to the
799
00:37:04,140 --> 00:37:05,940
presidency that wheels are in motion
800
00:37:05,940 --> 00:37:07,980
this bomb is going to be dropped
801
00:37:07,980 --> 00:37:10,740
somewhere with the death of Hitler the
802
00:37:10,740 --> 00:37:13,880
target then becomes Japan
803
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,140
the never-ending air campaign against
804
00:37:16,140 --> 00:37:18,000
Japan's stolen Empire continued
805
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,160
continues as b-24's Hammer installations
806
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,300
in the Palau Island
807
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,500
we were marching up from Island to
808
00:37:28,500 --> 00:37:30,800
Island
809
00:37:33,900 --> 00:37:37,020
landing on the beaches against dug in
810
00:37:37,020 --> 00:37:39,980
Japanese defenses
811
00:37:39,980 --> 00:37:44,640
losing young men in large numbers
812
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,760
every day that went by without this bomb
813
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,760
being successfully tested was a day in
814
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:52,500
which thousands of Americans are dying
815
00:37:52,500 --> 00:37:54,839
thousands of Yanks have been wounded and
816
00:37:54,839 --> 00:37:56,579
other thousands have sacrificed their
817
00:37:56,579 --> 00:37:58,920
lives to drive a fanatical poll from
818
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,380
this vital base the doorstep to Japan
819
00:38:01,380 --> 00:38:04,380
itself they knew the Japanese were
820
00:38:04,380 --> 00:38:07,320
defeated but defeat and surrender are
821
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,320
two different things so how do you get
822
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:13,099
them to surrender
823
00:38:13,859 --> 00:38:16,320
in a world of atomic weapons Wars will
824
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:17,520
cease
825
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,900
and that is not a small thing
826
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,060
the way Oppenheimer looked at the bomb
827
00:38:24,060 --> 00:38:28,680
is in a kind of Eastern metaphysical way
828
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,220
of it is a Act of Destruction and
829
00:38:32,220 --> 00:38:34,700
creation potentially at the same time
830
00:38:34,700 --> 00:38:39,000
Act of war in an act of peace that this
831
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,460
thing if
832
00:38:40,460 --> 00:38:43,920
mishandled could end Humanity but if
833
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,440
properly handled and harnessed could
834
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,900
actually lead to an Era of peace and
835
00:38:48,900 --> 00:38:52,460
prosperity for the entire world
836
00:38:52,859 --> 00:38:55,859
foreign
837
00:39:01,859 --> 00:39:04,140
by the summer of 45 they had been
838
00:39:04,140 --> 00:39:07,200
working on the implosion design for a
839
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,680
year tweaking devising and struggling
840
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,200
with the challenges
841
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,180
for this thing to work all of those
842
00:39:15,180 --> 00:39:17,160
explosives and their detonators and the
843
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:18,720
things powering them and the batteries
844
00:39:18,720 --> 00:39:20,400
and everything else has got to work
845
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,859
perfectly and there wasn't a really good
846
00:39:22,859 --> 00:39:24,359
way to figure out if that was actually
847
00:39:24,359 --> 00:39:26,820
going to happen other than setting off a
848
00:39:26,820 --> 00:39:29,280
full-size test
849
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,060
[Music]
850
00:39:33,060 --> 00:39:35,339
they settle upon with the site where the
851
00:39:35,339 --> 00:39:38,339
bomb will be tested and Oppenheimer
852
00:39:38,339 --> 00:39:40,880
chooses the name for the site Trinity
853
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,300
[Music]
854
00:39:42,300 --> 00:39:43,920
he had been reading the Poetry of John
855
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,500
Dunn at the time and one of those poems
856
00:39:46,500 --> 00:39:48,800
include the line battered mine heart
857
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:50,940
three-personed God a reference to the
858
00:39:50,940 --> 00:39:54,540
Holy Trinity in Christianity
859
00:39:54,540 --> 00:39:56,760
and I think that that was a tribute to
860
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,720
Gene catlock because Gene and Opie used
861
00:40:00,720 --> 00:40:05,180
to read The Poetry of John Dunn in bed
862
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,420
foreign
863
00:40:14,060 --> 00:40:19,200
15 1945 Alamogordo New Mexico
864
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:21,960
it is D minus one for the test of the
865
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,839
world's first atomic device
866
00:40:24,839 --> 00:40:27,660
the hours leading our Trinity tests are
867
00:40:27,660 --> 00:40:30,420
one of the most extraordinary moments of
868
00:40:30,420 --> 00:40:34,079
of tension imaginable the stakes the
869
00:40:34,079 --> 00:40:36,359
billions of dollars the hundreds of
870
00:40:36,359 --> 00:40:37,920
thousands of people have been involved
871
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,500
in building to this one moment of this
872
00:40:40,500 --> 00:40:42,900
test of this new weapon all of that
873
00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:45,660
responsibility falling very squarely on
874
00:40:45,660 --> 00:40:47,339
oppenheimer's shoulders
875
00:40:47,339 --> 00:40:49,680
at the bomb test site the scientists are
876
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:51,540
working under growing pressure
877
00:40:51,540 --> 00:40:53,460
they are told there must be no further
878
00:40:53,460 --> 00:40:54,720
delays
879
00:40:54,720 --> 00:40:56,700
the president must know the results of
880
00:40:56,700 --> 00:40:59,280
the test when he meets with Stalin
881
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,440
the president of the United States is
882
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,180
about to enter into the Potsdam
883
00:41:03,180 --> 00:41:05,700
Conference Potsdam city in Germany he's
884
00:41:05,700 --> 00:41:07,500
going to meet with Joseph Stalin Winston
885
00:41:07,500 --> 00:41:09,599
Churchill as well and talk about the
886
00:41:09,599 --> 00:41:11,220
future of Europe and the future of the
887
00:41:11,220 --> 00:41:14,520
Pacific War the president must know if
888
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,079
he has a nuclear weapon in his back
889
00:41:16,079 --> 00:41:16,970
pocket or not
890
00:41:16,970 --> 00:41:20,200
[Music]
891
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,880
foreign
892
00:41:26,940 --> 00:41:30,420
was on edge and they had to calm down
893
00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:34,560
Oppenheimer he was a bundle of nerves
894
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:36,720
the chain smoked which he pretty much
895
00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:39,359
always did anyway
896
00:41:39,359 --> 00:41:42,240
it was a situation where I did not want
897
00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:46,040
Dr Oppenheimer to get nervous
898
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:48,660
there's a famous picture from that
899
00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:51,660
evening where Oppenheimer himself crawls
900
00:41:51,660 --> 00:41:54,119
up the tower to the top where the bomb
901
00:41:54,119 --> 00:41:56,280
has been hoisted
902
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,339
he's checking all the vinyl plugs to
903
00:41:59,339 --> 00:42:03,240
make sure that everything is in order
904
00:42:03,240 --> 00:42:05,280
it's clearly worried trying to check
905
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:08,339
every last little detail
906
00:42:08,339 --> 00:42:10,260
Oppenheimer doesn't know this thing's
907
00:42:10,260 --> 00:42:12,480
gonna work at all in fact he had a bet
908
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:13,980
with another one of the scientists that
909
00:42:13,980 --> 00:42:16,460
it wouldn't work ten dollars
910
00:42:16,460 --> 00:42:18,839
for a hundred things that could be done
911
00:42:18,839 --> 00:42:20,839
wrong
912
00:42:20,839 --> 00:42:24,119
any one of which could make the test a
913
00:42:24,119 --> 00:42:25,680
failure
914
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,320
everybody had doubts was it even
915
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,380
possible and then this question because
916
00:42:31,380 --> 00:42:33,359
nobody was really sure what if we set
917
00:42:33,359 --> 00:42:36,920
the whole atmosphere on fire
918
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,680
what if we set off this bomb and it
919
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,200
literally sets the air on fire and
920
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:45,960
engulfs us all
921
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:47,820
the atmosphere is made out of oxygen
922
00:42:47,820 --> 00:42:48,960
after all
923
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,380
can the oxygen of the atmosphere be set
924
00:42:52,380 --> 00:42:55,440
in Flames by an atomic bomb no one knew
925
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,520
the answer these questions
926
00:43:03,060 --> 00:43:07,680
it's Before Dawn on July 16 1945
927
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,560
it was dark the bomb was in the tower
928
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:12,720
100 feet up
929
00:43:12,720 --> 00:43:15,619
they were ready to go
930
00:43:15,619 --> 00:43:17,760
Oppenheimer was in one of the bunkers
931
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:20,720
that had been built
932
00:43:23,099 --> 00:43:26,220
Oppenheimer braced himself According to
933
00:43:26,220 --> 00:43:28,619
some accounts uttering the words Lord
934
00:43:28,619 --> 00:43:30,900
these Affairs are hard on the heart
935
00:43:30,900 --> 00:43:37,159
[Music]
936
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,359
Oppenheimer was saying to himself I must
937
00:43:42,359 --> 00:43:45,780
remain conscious Heaven I must remain
938
00:43:45,780 --> 00:43:47,220
conscious
939
00:43:47,220 --> 00:43:48,720
effects
940
00:43:48,720 --> 00:43:52,220
seconds or hours
941
00:43:56,860 --> 00:43:58,140
[Music]
942
00:43:58,140 --> 00:44:02,180
and all of a sudden
943
00:44:07,619 --> 00:44:11,060
the whole place lit up
944
00:44:11,740 --> 00:44:14,800
[Music]
945
00:44:17,610 --> 00:44:19,800
[Music]
946
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,859
one of the scientists told me it felt as
947
00:44:22,859 --> 00:44:26,579
if someone had opened an oven door
948
00:44:26,579 --> 00:44:29,160
suddenly there was this huge heat which
949
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:31,440
was radiant heat so it came with the
950
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:33,900
speed of light as well and then this
951
00:44:33,900 --> 00:44:37,440
Rolling Thunder of sound and the first
952
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,859
mushroom cloud started going up it was
953
00:44:40,859 --> 00:44:44,160
orange and purple and blue and yellow
954
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:48,660
and it roiled and it grew as it Rose
955
00:44:48,660 --> 00:44:51,420
new thing he said had been created on
956
00:44:51,420 --> 00:44:55,940
the earth a new challenge for Humanity
957
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,900
people had seen explosions and tested
958
00:45:00,900 --> 00:45:02,819
bombs for decades
959
00:45:02,819 --> 00:45:06,680
but to see the size of it
960
00:45:07,079 --> 00:45:09,480
astonishing
961
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,880
there's never been a moment like that in
962
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,680
the history of the world
963
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:15,780
the view of the world and the view of
964
00:45:15,780 --> 00:45:19,020
what matter is what we are made of
965
00:45:19,020 --> 00:45:21,119
indeed palpably
966
00:45:21,119 --> 00:45:26,220
changes it's unleashing of a force never
967
00:45:26,220 --> 00:45:28,140
before imagined
968
00:45:28,140 --> 00:45:32,060
can never be ignored from this point on
969
00:45:34,710 --> 00:45:37,160
[Music]
970
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:41,780
we knew the world would not be the same
971
00:45:42,839 --> 00:45:44,339
few people
972
00:45:44,339 --> 00:45:47,099
laughed
973
00:45:47,099 --> 00:45:49,200
few people cried
974
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,819
most people were silent
975
00:45:54,119 --> 00:45:55,859
I remembered the
976
00:45:55,859 --> 00:45:58,380
line from the Hindu scripture the
977
00:45:58,380 --> 00:46:01,280
bhagavad-gita
978
00:46:02,700 --> 00:46:05,540
Vishnu
979
00:46:05,819 --> 00:46:07,920
is trying to persuade
980
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,380
the prince that
981
00:46:10,380 --> 00:46:12,660
he should do his duty
982
00:46:12,660 --> 00:46:15,480
and to impress him
983
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,020
takes on his multi-armed form
984
00:46:19,020 --> 00:46:20,819
and says
985
00:46:20,819 --> 00:46:23,040
now I am become death
986
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:26,599
the destroyer of worlds
987
00:46:27,540 --> 00:46:29,700
I suppose we all thought that one way or
988
00:46:29,700 --> 00:46:31,310
another
989
00:46:31,310 --> 00:46:39,400
[Music]
990
00:46:43,380 --> 00:46:46,440
after the test was over Oppenheimer had
991
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:47,819
this strut
992
00:46:47,819 --> 00:46:49,859
it was like High Noon
993
00:46:49,859 --> 00:46:52,760
he had done it
994
00:46:52,980 --> 00:46:55,140
gopenheimer was very proud of this
995
00:46:55,140 --> 00:46:57,680
accomplishment
996
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,359
it was a world-changing moment and a lot
997
00:47:00,359 --> 00:47:03,680
of the scientists realized that
998
00:47:06,780 --> 00:47:08,640
came the business of what the government
999
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:11,780
would do with their creation
1000
00:47:13,079 --> 00:47:14,880
Groves hurried back to his Washington
1001
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:17,760
office in cabled the news that the bomb
1002
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,880
experiment had been a success and even
1003
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:25,020
more powerful than they had anticipated
1004
00:47:25,020 --> 00:47:27,000
this information is transmitted to
1005
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,359
Truman who entire attitude changes that
1006
00:47:30,359 --> 00:47:32,099
pots them he suddenly feels like he has
1007
00:47:32,099 --> 00:47:35,040
a win in in in sight he suddenly starts
1008
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,200
bossing around Stalin he decides the
1009
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:40,800
Japanese get no concessions whatsoever
1010
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,500
Truman had known that this existed since
1011
00:47:43,500 --> 00:47:45,839
he became president but to know it
1012
00:47:45,839 --> 00:47:47,099
actually works and it's even more
1013
00:47:47,099 --> 00:47:49,380
powerful than we thought that's a really
1014
00:47:49,380 --> 00:47:52,380
different position for him to be in
1015
00:47:52,380 --> 00:47:55,040
demand
1016
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:58,500
[Music]
1017
00:47:58,500 --> 00:48:02,579
[Applause]
1018
00:48:02,579 --> 00:48:05,160
my mom and dad were both veterans of
1019
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:06,900
World War II and my mom
1020
00:48:06,900 --> 00:48:09,500
she said you know after
1021
00:48:09,500 --> 00:48:12,839
four years of this thing
1022
00:48:12,839 --> 00:48:15,300
there was nobody really there was nobody
1023
00:48:15,300 --> 00:48:17,940
going was it ethical to use a nuclear
1024
00:48:17,940 --> 00:48:20,280
weapon
1025
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,599
all right just get it over with
1026
00:48:24,359 --> 00:48:27,240
like this whatever you can do to shorten
1027
00:48:27,240 --> 00:48:28,339
this thing
1028
00:48:28,339 --> 00:48:31,319
everybody was terrified and exhausted
1029
00:48:31,319 --> 00:48:32,400
and
1030
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:33,859
everybody
1031
00:48:33,859 --> 00:48:36,480
knew somebody who knew somebody who was
1032
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:40,339
not living anymore because of this
1033
00:48:40,619 --> 00:48:43,740
with the bomb ready to go I mean the
1034
00:48:43,740 --> 00:48:46,619
choices are appalling you know they know
1035
00:48:46,619 --> 00:48:48,300
perfectly well that if they use these
1036
00:48:48,300 --> 00:48:50,579
weapons on Japanese men women and
1037
00:48:50,579 --> 00:48:52,740
children in cities they're going to be a
1038
00:48:52,740 --> 00:48:54,359
couple hundred thousand people who die
1039
00:48:54,359 --> 00:48:59,280
but if they don't stop the war with the
1040
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:00,359
bomb
1041
00:49:00,359 --> 00:49:03,359
there may be Millions more that die so
1042
00:49:03,359 --> 00:49:06,000
those seem to be the two choices but
1043
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:08,099
there was a third choice
1044
00:49:08,099 --> 00:49:10,560
and the third choice was to do a
1045
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:13,319
demonstration maybe drop this bomb in
1046
00:49:13,319 --> 00:49:16,560
Tokyo bay kill very few people make a
1047
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,079
hell of a demonstration and maybe the
1048
00:49:19,079 --> 00:49:21,119
Japanese will surrender
1049
00:49:21,119 --> 00:49:23,579
just based on having seen the Ferocious
1050
00:49:23,579 --> 00:49:25,760
power of this thing
1051
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,980
Oppenheimer rejected that course as did
1052
00:49:28,980 --> 00:49:32,540
the planners in Washington
1053
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,579
we did think about whether it's
1054
00:49:38,579 --> 00:49:40,460
destructiveness
1055
00:49:40,460 --> 00:49:44,420
it's danger could be
1056
00:49:44,420 --> 00:49:49,319
vividly demonstrated over a Barren
1057
00:49:49,319 --> 00:49:52,079
uninhabited Target and we were very
1058
00:49:52,079 --> 00:49:54,920
doubtful of that
1059
00:49:56,240 --> 00:49:59,280
very few people would have had a more
1060
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:01,079
thorough understanding than J Robert
1061
00:50:01,079 --> 00:50:04,260
Oppenheimer of what was about to unfold
1062
00:50:04,260 --> 00:50:06,660
when these weapons were used in combat
1063
00:50:06,660 --> 00:50:09,260
Oppenheimer contemplated knowing that
1064
00:50:09,260 --> 00:50:13,880
this destruction would be unworldly
1065
00:50:19,500 --> 00:50:22,980
secretary Ann Wilson told me this story
1066
00:50:22,980 --> 00:50:25,980
that I'm still struck by after the
1067
00:50:25,980 --> 00:50:27,599
Trinity test
1068
00:50:27,599 --> 00:50:30,480
she's walking to work one day with
1069
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:31,619
Robert
1070
00:50:31,619 --> 00:50:34,619
he's a few steps ahead of her and he's
1071
00:50:34,619 --> 00:50:37,500
suddenly muttering those poor little
1072
00:50:37,500 --> 00:50:40,940
people those poor little people
1073
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:43,500
stops him and says Robert what are you
1074
00:50:43,500 --> 00:50:45,119
muttering about and
1075
00:50:45,119 --> 00:50:46,680
he
1076
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,980
looked at her and and explained that
1077
00:50:49,980 --> 00:50:52,020
you know the bomb was going to be used
1078
00:50:52,020 --> 00:50:55,200
on a Japanese City or two and the
1079
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,920
victims were going to be
1080
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,339
civilians a whole city
1081
00:51:01,339 --> 00:51:05,400
this was obviously on his mind painfully
1082
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,940
on his mind and yet we know that same
1083
00:51:08,940 --> 00:51:12,480
week he was meeting with the generals
1084
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:14,280
who were in charge of the bombing
1085
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,619
Mission and he was instructing them
1086
00:51:16,619 --> 00:51:19,619
exactly how the bomb should be dropped
1087
00:51:19,619 --> 00:51:22,559
and at what altitude it should be
1088
00:51:22,559 --> 00:51:24,839
detonated for the maximum destructive
1089
00:51:24,839 --> 00:51:26,940
power
1090
00:51:26,940 --> 00:51:29,819
it's hard to reconcile the sensitive
1091
00:51:29,819 --> 00:51:32,700
morally upright
1092
00:51:32,700 --> 00:51:36,960
humanistic Professor with the guy who
1093
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:38,880
recommends that the bomb is dropped on
1094
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,300
cities and is calculating the ideal
1095
00:51:42,300 --> 00:51:44,520
height for destroying houses right how
1096
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,460
do you reconcile those two things
1097
00:51:47,460 --> 00:51:50,339
part of it is I think Oppenheimer hoping
1098
00:51:50,339 --> 00:51:55,140
that this will not be the first use of
1099
00:51:55,140 --> 00:51:57,240
nuclear weapons that it will be the last
1100
00:51:57,240 --> 00:52:00,059
use of nuclear weapons and if that's the
1101
00:52:00,059 --> 00:52:02,640
case then in order to ensure that
1102
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:04,500
they're the last use you want it to be
1103
00:52:04,500 --> 00:52:09,200
as bad and ugly and horrible as possible
1104
00:52:17,300 --> 00:52:22,200
by August of 1945 every Japanese city of
1105
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,480
more than 50 000 people had basically
1106
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,520
been burned out
1107
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:29,339
except for three or four cities that had
1108
00:52:29,339 --> 00:52:31,559
been deliberately set aside for Atomic
1109
00:52:31,559 --> 00:52:34,260
bombing set aside because they had
1110
00:52:34,260 --> 00:52:36,000
physical characteristics that would
1111
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:39,750
allow us to see how the bombs worked
1112
00:52:39,750 --> 00:52:46,599
[Music]
1113
00:52:47,180 --> 00:52:49,980
Hiroshima was a flat City
1114
00:52:49,980 --> 00:52:53,339
and with the city set aside it was
1115
00:52:53,339 --> 00:52:56,040
possible to see the effects of the bomb
1116
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:58,440
all the way out to the edges
1117
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:02,020
that's why Hiroshima was chosen
1118
00:53:02,020 --> 00:53:09,219
[Music]
1119
00:53:10,020 --> 00:53:13,260
when I was little kid there were seven
1120
00:53:13,260 --> 00:53:17,339
Rivers running through beautiful river
1121
00:53:17,339 --> 00:53:18,660
banks
1122
00:53:18,660 --> 00:53:21,180
water was clear
1123
00:53:21,180 --> 00:53:25,260
I was running through magical Gardens
1124
00:53:25,260 --> 00:53:29,460
flowers looking for beautiful beautiful
1125
00:53:29,460 --> 00:53:33,420
insects of all different kinds
1126
00:53:33,420 --> 00:53:36,000
birds chirping they don't understand
1127
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,839
about war it was all over sound of
1128
00:53:39,839 --> 00:53:42,380
happiness
1129
00:53:45,859 --> 00:53:49,920
but the sound of the explosion came like
1130
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:51,630
a rage of the Earth
1131
00:53:51,630 --> 00:53:56,760
[Music]
1132
00:54:03,020 --> 00:54:05,460
[Music]
1133
00:54:05,460 --> 00:54:07,450
oh
1134
00:54:07,450 --> 00:54:15,800
[Music]
1135
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:19,640
a short time ago an American airplane
1136
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:24,059
dropped one bomb on Hiroshima
1137
00:54:24,059 --> 00:54:27,240
that bomb has more power than 20 000
1138
00:54:27,240 --> 00:54:29,960
tons of TNT
1139
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:31,859
[Music]
1140
00:54:31,859 --> 00:54:34,380
it is an atomic bomb
1141
00:54:34,380 --> 00:54:37,140
it is a harnessing of the basic power of
1142
00:54:37,140 --> 00:54:38,620
the universe
1143
00:54:38,620 --> 00:54:39,070
[Music]
1144
00:54:39,070 --> 00:54:39,740
[Applause]
1145
00:54:39,740 --> 00:54:46,440
[Music]
1146
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:49,020
we have spent more than two billion
1147
00:54:49,020 --> 00:54:51,300
dollars on the greatest scientific
1148
00:54:51,300 --> 00:54:53,220
gamble in history
1149
00:54:53,220 --> 00:54:55,720
and we have won
1150
00:54:55,720 --> 00:54:58,930
[Music]
1151
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,920
[Music]
1152
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,559
Japan could read its do this was more
1153
00:55:10,559 --> 00:55:12,599
than a routine bombing it was the
1154
00:55:12,599 --> 00:55:14,480
funeral player of an aggressor Nation
1155
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:30,880
[Music]
1156
00:55:42,119 --> 00:55:46,579
I remember every second
1157
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:49,930
I've never been so helpless
1158
00:55:49,930 --> 00:55:53,040
[Music]
1159
00:55:55,260 --> 00:55:58,200
I was under the debris
1160
00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:00,839
and somehow had to grow to the light and
1161
00:56:00,839 --> 00:56:03,319
come out
1162
00:56:07,260 --> 00:56:11,420
I had to go looking for my mother
1163
00:56:19,870 --> 00:56:22,520
[Music]
1164
00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:26,880
seeing these miserable dying people
1165
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:31,460
you didn't want her to be one of them
1166
00:56:32,339 --> 00:56:34,740
didn't hear one single thing about
1167
00:56:34,740 --> 00:56:36,540
cousin
1168
00:56:36,540 --> 00:56:39,540
my mother oh my
1169
00:56:39,540 --> 00:56:42,440
best friend
1170
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:51,059
I would have really loved to have died
1171
00:56:51,059 --> 00:56:54,480
with them because life after that was so
1172
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:57,319
very challenging and so very difficult
1173
00:56:57,319 --> 00:57:02,359
physically and especially mentally
1174
00:57:05,420 --> 00:57:10,880
[Music]
1175
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:15,180
a few years after the end of the war
1176
00:57:15,180 --> 00:57:18,420
I saw the raw footage of Hiroshima
1177
00:57:18,420 --> 00:57:20,180
Nagasaki
1178
00:57:20,180 --> 00:57:23,480
[Music]
1179
00:57:25,559 --> 00:57:29,040
and there's no sound it's just footage
1180
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,220
of people with their skin and flower
1181
00:57:32,220 --> 00:57:34,800
reverse patterns of the kimonos burned
1182
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,800
into their skin and bodies floating in
1183
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:39,200
the river
1184
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:42,050
it was so shocking
1185
00:57:42,050 --> 00:57:44,579
[Music]
1186
00:57:44,579 --> 00:57:46,619
and I thought they're all my friends
1187
00:57:46,619 --> 00:57:48,000
fathers
1188
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:51,660
did they know what they were doing
1189
00:57:51,660 --> 00:57:54,480
none of it seemed to make any sense to
1190
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:57,980
me that this was so horrible
1191
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:03,420
as reports of that Devastation started
1192
00:58:03,420 --> 00:58:05,400
to come back to Los Alamos
1193
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:10,680
obviously this Wade on the scientists
1194
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:13,140
yes it had been a horrible War
1195
00:58:13,140 --> 00:58:15,359
but still tens of thousands of people
1196
00:58:15,359 --> 00:58:18,300
were killed in these attacks
1197
00:58:18,300 --> 00:58:21,800
cities were destroyed
1198
00:58:24,839 --> 00:58:28,079
and that was difficult on a lot of the
1199
00:58:28,079 --> 00:58:30,119
scientists
1200
00:58:30,119 --> 00:58:31,500
and I certainly think that it was
1201
00:58:31,500 --> 00:58:33,300
difficult on Oppenheimer for the rest of
1202
00:58:33,300 --> 00:58:34,900
his life
1203
00:58:34,900 --> 00:58:36,960
[Music]
1204
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:38,880
Hiroshima
1205
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:40,680
was far more
1206
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:45,540
costly life and suffering inhumane
1207
00:58:45,540 --> 00:58:49,079
than it needed to have been
1208
00:58:49,079 --> 00:58:53,720
this is easy to say after the fact
1209
00:58:57,980 --> 00:59:00,960
all the time and never apologize in any
1210
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:04,380
way for Hiroshima Nagasaki he was very
1211
00:59:04,380 --> 00:59:07,500
very careful and complicated in all
1212
00:59:07,500 --> 00:59:09,780
statements he made about the moral
1213
00:59:09,780 --> 00:59:11,579
implications of the bomb and his
1214
00:59:11,579 --> 00:59:15,780
involvement in it and yet post Hiroshima
1215
00:59:15,780 --> 00:59:18,000
Nagasaki all of his actions all the
1216
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,400
actions of somebody who is played with
1217
00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:22,920
guilt
1218
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:26,119
we are gathered here
1219
00:59:26,119 --> 00:59:29,640
representatives of the major roaring
1220
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:33,319
powers to conclude a solemn agreement
1221
00:59:33,319 --> 00:59:36,950
whereby peace may be restored
1222
00:59:36,950 --> 00:59:38,940
[Applause]
1223
00:59:38,940 --> 00:59:40,680
[Music]
1224
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,859
I have received this afternoon a message
1225
00:59:43,859 --> 00:59:47,040
from the Japanese government
1226
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:50,339
ID Mr fly a full acceptance of the
1227
00:59:50,339 --> 00:59:54,200
unconditional surrender of Japan
1228
00:59:54,540 --> 00:59:57,240
of course a great many people felt that
1229
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:01,200
the atomic bomb had ended World War II
1230
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:04,160
perhaps it had
1231
01:00:04,859 --> 01:00:06,839
and Robert Oppenheimer was the guy who
1232
01:00:06,839 --> 01:00:09,299
made it happen
1233
01:00:09,299 --> 01:00:12,119
he was in demand everywhere he was the
1234
01:00:12,119 --> 01:00:15,299
cover story for Time Magazine once for
1235
01:00:15,299 --> 01:00:17,880
Life Magazine this scarcely was a
1236
01:00:17,880 --> 01:00:20,400
magazine cover that he wasn't on
1237
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:22,619
the inaugural issue of physics today
1238
01:00:22,619 --> 01:00:25,020
simply showed a pork pie hat on a
1239
01:00:25,020 --> 01:00:27,000
psychotron control
1240
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:29,220
and everybody knew that pork by hat was
1241
01:00:29,220 --> 01:00:31,880
Oppenheimer
1242
01:00:38,099 --> 01:00:40,980
he liked that
1243
01:00:40,980 --> 01:00:42,380
foreign
1244
01:00:42,380 --> 01:00:45,900
he probably felt that he'd finally come
1245
01:00:45,900 --> 01:00:49,740
through it all and he was no longer The
1246
01:00:49,740 --> 01:00:52,339
Outsider
1247
01:00:52,380 --> 01:00:55,500
now he was not only at the center of
1248
01:00:55,500 --> 01:00:59,420
things but that he stood at the very top
1249
01:01:02,220 --> 01:01:06,359
and that I I think was intoxicating for
1250
01:01:06,359 --> 01:01:08,540
him
1251
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:12,540
but at the same time he felt a real
1252
01:01:12,540 --> 01:01:14,819
responsibility for having ushered this
1253
01:01:14,819 --> 01:01:17,839
weapon into the world
1254
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:22,579
hey go ahead please
1255
01:01:23,299 --> 01:01:26,579
automatic control is God
1256
01:01:26,579 --> 01:01:29,400
this time around Stakes are kind of high
1257
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:32,339
it's going to work all right Robert
1258
01:01:32,339 --> 01:01:35,040
I think he felt as the father of the
1259
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:38,040
atomic bomb it was his duty to keep the
1260
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:40,619
reins on the atomic bomb what happened
1261
01:01:40,619 --> 01:01:44,540
but we're known 40 seconds
1262
01:01:48,299 --> 01:01:50,940
within three months of Hiroshima he was
1263
01:01:50,940 --> 01:01:52,500
giving speeches
1264
01:01:52,500 --> 01:01:55,140
talking about how this weapon was a
1265
01:01:55,140 --> 01:01:57,119
weapon for aggressors
1266
01:01:57,119 --> 01:02:00,200
that is a weapon of Terror
1267
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:02,520
you know this is the father of the
1268
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:05,780
atomic bomb speaking
1269
01:02:06,740 --> 01:02:11,240
if there is another world war
1270
01:02:12,180 --> 01:02:14,520
the civilization
1271
01:02:14,520 --> 01:02:17,780
may go under
1272
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:24,000
we need to
1273
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:26,400
ask ourselves
1274
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:29,579
whether we're doing all we can to avert
1275
01:02:29,579 --> 01:02:31,819
that
1276
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:34,260
I might like to read what my grandfather
1277
01:02:34,260 --> 01:02:35,579
said about it
1278
01:02:35,579 --> 01:02:38,579
this is a speech we said but when you
1279
01:02:38,579 --> 01:02:40,859
come right down to it the reason that we
1280
01:02:40,859 --> 01:02:42,299
did this job is because it was an
1281
01:02:42,299 --> 01:02:45,059
organic necessity
1282
01:02:45,059 --> 01:02:46,859
if you're a scientist you cannot stop
1283
01:02:46,859 --> 01:02:48,720
such a thing
1284
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:50,160
if you're a scientist you believe that
1285
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:51,540
it's good to find out how the world
1286
01:02:51,540 --> 01:02:53,579
works that is good to find out what
1287
01:02:53,579 --> 01:02:55,319
realities are
1288
01:02:55,319 --> 01:02:58,200
it is good to turn over to mankind the
1289
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:00,059
greatest possible power to control the
1290
01:03:00,059 --> 01:03:02,460
world and deal with it according to its
1291
01:03:02,460 --> 01:03:04,440
lights and values
1292
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:06,960
he didn't regret his role and work
1293
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:10,500
during the war but he soon after turned
1294
01:03:10,500 --> 01:03:13,260
so strongly towards managing the outcome
1295
01:03:13,260 --> 01:03:16,579
of the science they created
1296
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:20,280
he decides he doesn't want to work any
1297
01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:22,799
longer on building more bombs he resigns
1298
01:03:22,799 --> 01:03:25,260
from Los Alamos and he accepts a
1299
01:03:25,260 --> 01:03:27,059
position as director of The Institute
1300
01:03:27,059 --> 01:03:29,940
for advanced studies in Princeton where
1301
01:03:29,940 --> 01:03:32,819
he becomes Einstein's boss so to speak
1302
01:03:32,819 --> 01:03:35,280
he's probably the most famous scientist
1303
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:36,720
in America
1304
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:39,480
and he's trying to use That Celebrity
1305
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:43,500
Status to have influence
1306
01:03:43,500 --> 01:03:46,020
he gets an appointment with Harry Truman
1307
01:03:46,020 --> 01:03:48,299
in the Oval Office
1308
01:03:48,299 --> 01:03:50,460
oppenheimer's agenda is to persuade
1309
01:03:50,460 --> 01:03:52,680
Harry Truman of the importance of
1310
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:56,940
controlling this technology
1311
01:03:57,059 --> 01:04:00,299
and he starts to make this pitch
1312
01:04:00,299 --> 01:04:03,180
and Truman interrupts him with a
1313
01:04:03,180 --> 01:04:05,520
question saying well Dr Oppenheimer when
1314
01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:06,960
do you think the Russians are going to
1315
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:10,260
get this weapon of mass destruction
1316
01:04:10,260 --> 01:04:13,380
and oppenheimer's sort of taken aback by
1317
01:04:13,380 --> 01:04:14,700
the question
1318
01:04:14,700 --> 01:04:18,540
and says well I'm not sure but sometime
1319
01:04:18,540 --> 01:04:20,700
in the future
1320
01:04:20,700 --> 01:04:23,220
and Truman interrupts again and says
1321
01:04:23,220 --> 01:04:26,359
well I know never
1322
01:04:27,420 --> 01:04:30,299
at that point Opie understands that
1323
01:04:30,299 --> 01:04:32,280
Harry Truman doesn't understand anything
1324
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:36,180
about the physics of this weapon
1325
01:04:36,180 --> 01:04:38,940
and Oppenheimer at that
1326
01:04:38,940 --> 01:04:42,059
says exactly the wrong thing
1327
01:04:42,059 --> 01:04:44,940
he really offended President Truman by
1328
01:04:44,940 --> 01:04:47,760
saying Mr President I have blood on my
1329
01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:49,440
hands
1330
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:51,920
good
1331
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,720
this is exactly the wrong thing to say
1332
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:56,760
to the guy who made the decision to drop
1333
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,760
two such Bonds on two Japanese cities
1334
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:01,020
[Music]
1335
01:05:01,020 --> 01:05:04,020
he was trying to impress Truman
1336
01:05:04,020 --> 01:05:05,579
he thought it was something that Truman
1337
01:05:05,579 --> 01:05:07,559
would like to hear and he got that wrong
1338
01:05:07,559 --> 01:05:08,640
a lot
1339
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:10,680
I mean off number is very Charming to a
1340
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:12,240
lot of people but he was often not
1341
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:14,760
Charming to leaders and people who had
1342
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:16,319
power over him
1343
01:05:16,319 --> 01:05:18,839
Truman didn't believe that anybody's
1344
01:05:18,839 --> 01:05:21,299
responsibility was greater than his
1345
01:05:21,299 --> 01:05:24,480
Truman was just get that guy out of my
1346
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:26,220
office I was the one who made the
1347
01:05:26,220 --> 01:05:27,900
decision
1348
01:05:27,900 --> 01:05:30,900
he ends the meeting very abruptly and
1349
01:05:30,900 --> 01:05:32,819
later tells his aides that I don't want
1350
01:05:32,819 --> 01:05:36,210
to see that crybaby scientist ever again
1351
01:05:36,210 --> 01:05:39,059
[Music]
1352
01:05:39,059 --> 01:05:41,099
I think the only hope
1353
01:05:41,099 --> 01:05:44,040
for our future safety must lie in a
1354
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:46,619
collaboration based on confidence and
1355
01:05:46,619 --> 01:05:49,140
good faith with the other peoples of the
1356
01:05:49,140 --> 01:05:50,339
world
1357
01:05:50,339 --> 01:05:53,280
Oppenheimer very early after the bombing
1358
01:05:53,280 --> 01:05:55,380
was a part of the team to recommend
1359
01:05:55,380 --> 01:05:58,680
International disarmament
1360
01:05:58,680 --> 01:06:00,480
but the genie was out of the bottle
1361
01:06:00,480 --> 01:06:03,059
right those who possess this will be
1362
01:06:03,059 --> 01:06:05,940
able to shape the world order and very
1363
01:06:05,940 --> 01:06:10,160
quickly the Soviet Union took note
1364
01:06:11,819 --> 01:06:15,599
the Soviets tested the bomb in 1949
1365
01:06:15,599 --> 01:06:19,700
to the shock of almost everyone
1366
01:06:20,099 --> 01:06:22,020
President Truman's dramatic announcement
1367
01:06:22,020 --> 01:06:23,880
that Russia has created an atomic
1368
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:26,160
explosion sends reporters Racing for
1369
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,500
Flushing Meadow where Russia's vashinsky
1370
01:06:28,500 --> 01:06:30,059
arrives to address the United Nations
1371
01:06:30,059 --> 01:06:32,579
this puts the U.S in a really
1372
01:06:32,579 --> 01:06:34,260
complicated position
1373
01:06:34,260 --> 01:06:37,200
because it's no longer the only country
1374
01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:40,319
with nuclear weapons
1375
01:06:40,319 --> 01:06:42,420
suddenly you have the possibility that
1376
01:06:42,420 --> 01:06:44,700
if war with nuclear weapons broke out
1377
01:06:44,700 --> 01:06:46,680
between two states that had a fair
1378
01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:48,359
number of them
1379
01:06:48,359 --> 01:06:51,059
they could in a matter of hours destroy
1380
01:06:51,059 --> 01:06:52,319
themselves
1381
01:06:52,319 --> 01:06:55,559
we must all get ready now so we know how
1382
01:06:55,559 --> 01:06:57,480
to save ourselves if the atomic bomb
1383
01:06:57,480 --> 01:07:00,680
ever explodes near us
1384
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:04,140
the possible options scientists and
1385
01:07:04,140 --> 01:07:06,299
policy people lobbied for was to build
1386
01:07:06,299 --> 01:07:07,740
the hydrogen bomb
1387
01:07:07,740 --> 01:07:11,660
as the sort of Next Step
1388
01:07:13,319 --> 01:07:15,839
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were on
1389
01:07:15,839 --> 01:07:19,859
the order of 15 kilotons of TNT which is
1390
01:07:19,859 --> 01:07:23,299
no small number in and of itself
1391
01:07:24,059 --> 01:07:27,240
you start talking about hydrogen bombs
1392
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:29,819
now we're talking about megatons
1393
01:07:29,819 --> 01:07:32,760
we're talking about a million tons of
1394
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:34,980
TNT
1395
01:07:34,980 --> 01:07:37,140
they're categorically different
1396
01:07:37,140 --> 01:07:38,940
a thousand times stronger than anything
1397
01:07:38,940 --> 01:07:43,039
you'd see in a Hiroshima Nagasaki bomb
1398
01:07:43,140 --> 01:07:46,380
with one very large hydrogen bond you
1399
01:07:46,380 --> 01:07:48,240
can kill about as many people as all of
1400
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:51,119
the people killed in World War II
1401
01:07:51,119 --> 01:07:53,579
and Oppenheimer could not see any use
1402
01:07:53,579 --> 01:07:59,180
for that he called it a genocidal weapon
1403
01:08:00,900 --> 01:08:03,240
at the end of the war most people wanted
1404
01:08:03,240 --> 01:08:06,599
to stop I did not
1405
01:08:06,599 --> 01:08:09,539
among the people who knew a great deal
1406
01:08:09,539 --> 01:08:11,339
about
1407
01:08:11,339 --> 01:08:14,040
I was the only advocate of it
1408
01:08:14,040 --> 01:08:15,599
[Music]
1409
01:08:15,599 --> 01:08:19,080
Edward Teller was a Hungarian Jew who
1410
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:21,540
escaped from Hungary and came to the
1411
01:08:21,540 --> 01:08:23,460
United States
1412
01:08:23,460 --> 01:08:25,920
during World War II teller worked at Los
1413
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:27,299
Alamos
1414
01:08:27,299 --> 01:08:30,299
but he became obsessed with the idea of
1415
01:08:30,299 --> 01:08:32,219
the hydrogen bomb even before they had
1416
01:08:32,219 --> 01:08:34,259
the atomic bomb
1417
01:08:34,259 --> 01:08:36,540
teller did very much consider the atomic
1418
01:08:36,540 --> 01:08:39,479
bomb to be oppenheimer's creation and he
1419
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:41,040
wanted something that was bigger and
1420
01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:43,219
better
1421
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:46,738
Heimer said to tell her go back to doing
1422
01:08:46,738 --> 01:08:49,979
physics but don't build this
1423
01:08:49,979 --> 01:08:52,460
there's no need for it
1424
01:08:52,460 --> 01:08:54,839
Oppenheimer was in charge of a committee
1425
01:08:54,839 --> 01:08:56,520
that had been put together in Washington
1426
01:08:56,520 --> 01:09:00,600
to decide what should we do should we
1427
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:03,140
build a hydrogen bomb
1428
01:09:03,140 --> 01:09:06,420
that is a question in everybody's mind
1429
01:09:06,420 --> 01:09:10,339
Dr arsenheimer are we creating something
1430
01:09:10,339 --> 01:09:14,698
we may not be able to control
1431
01:09:14,698 --> 01:09:18,000
Vision to try to make or not to make the
1432
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:19,799
hydrogen bond
1433
01:09:19,799 --> 01:09:23,100
touch the very basis of our morality and
1434
01:09:23,100 --> 01:09:26,040
the committee decision was basically no
1435
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:28,560
we shouldn't build the hydrogen bomb if
1436
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:32,279
we are Guided by fear alone we'll fail
1437
01:09:32,279 --> 01:09:34,979
in this time of crisis
1438
01:09:34,979 --> 01:09:37,500
the answer to fear
1439
01:09:37,500 --> 01:09:41,299
sometimes it lies in Courage
1440
01:09:41,299 --> 01:09:43,738
oppenheimer's opposition of the h-bomb
1441
01:09:43,738 --> 01:09:46,020
was taken very hard by people who were
1442
01:09:46,020 --> 01:09:48,640
in favor for it
1443
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:51,060
[Applause]
1444
01:09:51,060 --> 01:09:54,179
or bombs and bigger and bigger bombs the
1445
01:09:54,179 --> 01:09:55,980
bigger the bomb in terms of its yield
1446
01:09:55,980 --> 01:09:59,460
the more damage one plane could do
1447
01:09:59,460 --> 01:10:01,560
the Strategic Air Command was focused
1448
01:10:01,560 --> 01:10:04,620
upon blowing up the Soviet Union
1449
01:10:04,620 --> 01:10:06,780
oppenerman said a smarter move would be
1450
01:10:06,780 --> 01:10:09,000
to put resources into intercepting
1451
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:11,900
Soviet bombers
1452
01:10:11,940 --> 01:10:13,920
doing just the opposite direction from
1453
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:15,960
what the Air Force wanted they wanted
1454
01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:19,699
him out they wanted to get rid of him
1455
01:10:20,760 --> 01:10:24,780
by 1953 oppenheimer's made sufficient
1456
01:10:24,780 --> 01:10:28,199
enemies in the Washington bureaucracy
1457
01:10:28,199 --> 01:10:32,480
and then Along Comes Louis straws
1458
01:10:33,659 --> 01:10:35,340
the new chairman of the atomic energy
1459
01:10:35,340 --> 01:10:37,080
Commission
1460
01:10:37,080 --> 01:10:38,940
I have just returned from the Pacific
1461
01:10:38,940 --> 01:10:41,880
Proving Ground where I witness a test of
1462
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:43,920
thermonuclear weapons
1463
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:46,620
and straws nose Oppenheimer and has
1464
01:10:46,620 --> 01:10:49,580
grown to intensely dislike him
1465
01:10:49,580 --> 01:10:51,840
upenheimer had been snappish with him
1466
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:55,440
once again it had deeply offended him so
1467
01:10:55,440 --> 01:10:59,159
straws begins to plot
1468
01:10:59,159 --> 01:11:03,600
a means to defrock Oppenheimer
1469
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:06,860
and how does he do it Lewis draws
1470
01:11:06,860 --> 01:11:11,179
focuses on oppenheimer's association
1471
01:11:11,179 --> 01:11:15,840
with left-wing friends during the 1930s
1472
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:18,480
in Berkeley
1473
01:11:18,480 --> 01:11:19,800
communism
1474
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:22,140
who were the apostles of a system that
1475
01:11:22,140 --> 01:11:24,300
attempts to destroy the American way of
1476
01:11:24,300 --> 01:11:26,159
life
1477
01:11:26,159 --> 01:11:28,500
during the second world war the Soviet
1478
01:11:28,500 --> 01:11:30,960
Union was our Ally
1479
01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:33,960
and that sense of being a communist or
1480
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:36,239
associated with Communists was not
1481
01:11:36,239 --> 01:11:39,600
something that was considered that bad
1482
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:43,080
it wasn't until the Cold War
1483
01:11:43,080 --> 01:11:46,100
that all of a sudden in retrospect
1484
01:11:46,100 --> 01:11:49,260
anyone with any kind of legacy of the
1485
01:11:49,260 --> 01:11:53,040
Communist past is now a security threat
1486
01:11:53,040 --> 01:11:55,140
there were no Communists in our
1487
01:11:55,140 --> 01:11:55,980
government
1488
01:11:55,980 --> 01:12:00,900
why did we delay for 18 months delay our
1489
01:12:00,900 --> 01:12:03,540
research on the hydrogen bomb
1490
01:12:03,540 --> 01:12:06,600
it was from attitudes like that that
1491
01:12:06,600 --> 01:12:09,420
finally led to the government deciding
1492
01:12:09,420 --> 01:12:11,460
they had to pull oppenheimer's security
1493
01:12:11,460 --> 01:12:14,060
clearance
1494
01:12:14,820 --> 01:12:16,199
he would have to give up his security
1495
01:12:16,199 --> 01:12:19,800
clearance in 30 days or ask for a
1496
01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:22,159
hearing
1497
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:25,980
he felt he couldn't give up his security
1498
01:12:25,980 --> 01:12:27,540
clearance he couldn't agree with him
1499
01:12:27,540 --> 01:12:28,980
that he wasn't fit to serve his
1500
01:12:28,980 --> 01:12:30,960
government
1501
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,199
you should have told them to get lost
1502
01:12:34,199 --> 01:12:38,100
he should have said I am the atomic bomb
1503
01:12:38,100 --> 01:12:40,320
I won World War II
1504
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:42,719
[ __ ] off
1505
01:12:42,719 --> 01:12:44,940
for whatever reason we didn't tell him
1506
01:12:44,940 --> 01:12:48,659
to get lost he decided to fight it
1507
01:12:48,659 --> 01:12:51,239
and before he goes down to Washington he
1508
01:12:51,239 --> 01:12:53,880
meets with Einstein to tell him he's
1509
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:57,120
going to be absent for a few weeks
1510
01:12:57,120 --> 01:12:58,920
and Einstein's
1511
01:12:58,920 --> 01:13:03,120
reaction is quite startling
1512
01:13:03,120 --> 01:13:06,239
Albert says but Robert
1513
01:13:06,239 --> 01:13:08,340
you are Mr atomic
1514
01:13:08,340 --> 01:13:11,100
you don't need them they need you just
1515
01:13:11,100 --> 01:13:14,400
walk away why should you go through this
1516
01:13:14,400 --> 01:13:17,880
and Oppenheimer shakes his head and
1517
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:19,860
apparently says to Albert well you don't
1518
01:13:19,860 --> 01:13:22,020
understand
1519
01:13:22,020 --> 01:13:25,560
and he walks away and Einstein turns to
1520
01:13:25,560 --> 01:13:30,239
his secretary and says There Goes Anar
1521
01:13:30,239 --> 01:13:32,040
the Yiddish for a fool
1522
01:13:32,040 --> 01:13:39,120
[Music]
1523
01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:40,980
on the atomic energy commission building
1524
01:13:40,980 --> 01:13:43,260
in Washington where a three-man board
1525
01:13:43,260 --> 01:13:45,060
began special hearings on the security
1526
01:13:45,060 --> 01:13:47,940
file of Dr J Robert Oppenheimer the
1527
01:13:47,940 --> 01:13:49,440
nuclear scientist who developed the
1528
01:13:49,440 --> 01:13:51,420
first Avon
1529
01:13:51,420 --> 01:13:54,239
the Security hearing starts and it
1530
01:13:54,239 --> 01:13:56,580
quickly becomes clear that this is not
1531
01:13:56,580 --> 01:13:58,620
just a Security hearing this is a trial
1532
01:13:58,620 --> 01:14:01,260
there's a new charge that the scientists
1533
01:14:01,260 --> 01:14:03,420
opposed the development of the h-bomb
1534
01:14:03,420 --> 01:14:06,000
the deck is stacked against him and it's
1535
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:06,840
ugly
1536
01:14:06,840 --> 01:14:08,520
they're wiretapping his conversations
1537
01:14:08,520 --> 01:14:10,500
with his lawyer illegally and giving it
1538
01:14:10,500 --> 01:14:12,060
to the prosecution so that they know
1539
01:14:12,060 --> 01:14:14,159
exactly what's going to happen
1540
01:14:14,159 --> 01:14:16,320
they are able to look at classified FBI
1541
01:14:16,320 --> 01:14:18,000
files he is not because he doesn't have
1542
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:19,500
a clearance and he can't look at his own
1543
01:14:19,500 --> 01:14:22,760
FBI file as a result
1544
01:14:23,179 --> 01:14:25,739
oppenheimer's involvement with Gene
1545
01:14:25,739 --> 01:14:28,020
tatlock
1546
01:14:28,020 --> 01:14:30,000
the question of whether his brother had
1547
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:33,360
been a communist and still was
1548
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:35,460
those were the things they pulled out of
1549
01:14:35,460 --> 01:14:38,120
the files
1550
01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:41,880
one of the most damning pieces of
1551
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:43,920
evidence that was brought out
1552
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:47,219
was the fact that during the war there
1553
01:14:47,219 --> 01:14:49,500
had been a conversation at his home in
1554
01:14:49,500 --> 01:14:51,960
Berkeley with hakan Chevalier his old
1555
01:14:51,960 --> 01:14:53,159
friend
1556
01:14:53,159 --> 01:14:55,260
who had mentioned to him that there was
1557
01:14:55,260 --> 01:14:57,540
a way perhaps that he could leak
1558
01:14:57,540 --> 01:14:59,640
information about the atomic project he
1559
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:02,159
was working on to Soviet officials
1560
01:15:02,159 --> 01:15:04,380
now Oppenheimer had dismissed it at the
1561
01:15:04,380 --> 01:15:06,060
time but he had not reported the
1562
01:15:06,060 --> 01:15:07,560
incident
1563
01:15:07,560 --> 01:15:09,960
he knew he was already on thin ice with
1564
01:15:09,960 --> 01:15:11,760
security people that he was suspected
1565
01:15:11,760 --> 01:15:15,659
because of his communist ties so he was
1566
01:15:15,659 --> 01:15:18,780
trying to keep himself out of hot water
1567
01:15:18,780 --> 01:15:20,640
the problem was that in subsequent
1568
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:22,980
conversations with Los Alamos security
1569
01:15:22,980 --> 01:15:24,060
people
1570
01:15:24,060 --> 01:15:28,199
he had told very evasive vague accounts
1571
01:15:28,199 --> 01:15:32,400
of this conversation one after another
1572
01:15:32,400 --> 01:15:34,679
and when they confronted Oppenheimer
1573
01:15:34,679 --> 01:15:37,080
with these evasive versions
1574
01:15:37,080 --> 01:15:39,480
they asked him why did you do this why
1575
01:15:39,480 --> 01:15:42,360
wouldn't you have been forthright
1576
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:45,360
he said I was an idiot
1577
01:15:45,360 --> 01:15:47,940
and in a sense he sealed his own fate
1578
01:15:47,940 --> 01:15:50,239
then
1579
01:15:51,780 --> 01:15:54,060
he fell apart
1580
01:15:54,060 --> 01:15:57,179
he tried to testify but he really fell
1581
01:15:57,179 --> 01:15:58,310
apart
1582
01:15:58,310 --> 01:16:00,060
[Music]
1583
01:16:00,060 --> 01:16:02,600
I mean almost another nervous breakdown
1584
01:16:02,600 --> 01:16:05,940
like what he went through as a Young Man
1585
01:16:05,940 --> 01:16:08,040
he's ugly
1586
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:11,640
stoic like he was in the ice house when
1587
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:14,520
he was a young boy being tormented by
1588
01:16:14,520 --> 01:16:16,060
his fellow summer campers
1589
01:16:16,060 --> 01:16:19,820
[Music]
1590
01:16:19,820 --> 01:16:22,380
resigned and not really defending
1591
01:16:22,380 --> 01:16:24,739
himself
1592
01:16:24,780 --> 01:16:27,420
one person who sort of put the nails in
1593
01:16:27,420 --> 01:16:32,239
his coffin of course was Edward Teller
1594
01:16:33,260 --> 01:16:36,960
teller testified against Oppenheimer
1595
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:38,820
he said that he thought he would feel
1596
01:16:38,820 --> 01:16:40,980
better if the security of the country
1597
01:16:40,980 --> 01:16:44,820
were in other hands than oppenheimer's
1598
01:16:44,820 --> 01:16:47,159
and one of the scientists who was close
1599
01:16:47,159 --> 01:16:48,780
to Oppenheimer said
1600
01:16:48,780 --> 01:16:50,580
but it was a matter of not only stabbing
1601
01:16:50,580 --> 01:16:52,980
Oppenheimer in the back but twisting the
1602
01:16:52,980 --> 01:16:53,340
blade
1603
01:16:53,340 --> 01:16:55,980
[Music]
1604
01:16:55,980 --> 01:16:58,320
thus he was leaving he went up to shake
1605
01:16:58,320 --> 01:17:02,360
up when I were sinned and said I'm sorry
1606
01:17:03,300 --> 01:17:05,340
Oppenheimer looked him in the eye and
1607
01:17:05,340 --> 01:17:07,640
said
1608
01:17:08,219 --> 01:17:10,800
after what you just said I don't know
1609
01:17:10,800 --> 01:17:13,640
what that means
1610
01:17:14,520 --> 01:17:17,640
he was obviously very very brilliant man
1611
01:17:17,640 --> 01:17:21,239
but I think he may have underestimated
1612
01:17:21,239 --> 01:17:23,699
the power of the establishment the
1613
01:17:23,699 --> 01:17:25,020
machine
1614
01:17:25,020 --> 01:17:27,420
and the inability of one individual to
1615
01:17:27,420 --> 01:17:30,239
stand against them
1616
01:17:30,239 --> 01:17:33,180
the result was to be expected
1617
01:17:33,180 --> 01:17:39,009
[Music]
1618
01:17:39,420 --> 01:17:41,640
to suspension this week by the atomic
1619
01:17:41,640 --> 01:17:44,219
energy commission surprised the nation
1620
01:17:44,219 --> 01:17:47,520
they voted to strip Oppenheimer of a
1621
01:17:47,520 --> 01:17:50,300
security clearance
1622
01:17:51,840 --> 01:17:54,060
this is front page news in the
1623
01:17:54,060 --> 01:17:57,120
newspapers across the country
1624
01:17:57,120 --> 01:18:00,000
and recommended Communists are working
1625
01:18:00,000 --> 01:18:03,380
in the abominate on plants his wife
1626
01:18:03,380 --> 01:18:05,580
admittedly was a material of the
1627
01:18:05,580 --> 01:18:09,179
Communist party uh brother a very active
1628
01:18:09,179 --> 01:18:11,100
communism
1629
01:18:11,100 --> 01:18:14,580
he became a political pariah
1630
01:18:14,580 --> 01:18:17,400
and that sent the chill through the
1631
01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:19,620
scientific community
1632
01:18:19,620 --> 01:18:21,780
if they could take down the most famous
1633
01:18:21,780 --> 01:18:23,880
Atomic scientists on the planet Earth
1634
01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:27,860
then we're all vulnerable
1635
01:18:28,739 --> 01:18:32,280
to really nefarious message to all
1636
01:18:32,280 --> 01:18:36,120
working scientists to beware of weighing
1637
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:39,980
in on political issues
1638
01:18:42,120 --> 01:18:44,520
terrible thing because we need their
1639
01:18:44,520 --> 01:18:46,199
expertise
1640
01:18:46,199 --> 01:18:48,719
and yet the Oppenheimer trial
1641
01:18:48,719 --> 01:18:50,280
made that
1642
01:18:50,280 --> 01:18:51,190
difficult
1643
01:18:51,190 --> 01:18:55,280
[Music]
1644
01:18:57,840 --> 01:19:00,780
after the security trial Oppenheimer was
1645
01:19:00,780 --> 01:19:03,360
never the same guy again
1646
01:19:03,360 --> 01:19:07,699
it was kind of a hollow man after that
1647
01:19:07,800 --> 01:19:10,380
what we say inside the family is it hurt
1648
01:19:10,380 --> 01:19:12,360
his feelings
1649
01:19:12,360 --> 01:19:15,479
[Music]
1650
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:17,340
he didn't like it
1651
01:19:17,340 --> 01:19:19,620
but he didn't talk about it he never
1652
01:19:19,620 --> 01:19:23,840
made one statement about it publicly
1653
01:19:24,020 --> 01:19:27,060
he never asked for an apology
1654
01:19:27,060 --> 01:19:29,820
and he retreated back into where he came
1655
01:19:29,820 --> 01:19:31,500
from
1656
01:19:31,500 --> 01:19:34,620
he still kept his job at Princeton but
1657
01:19:34,620 --> 01:19:37,800
he wasn't doing any more physics
1658
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:40,380
these were kind of sad years
1659
01:19:40,380 --> 01:19:42,600
and Professor Einstein is still here too
1660
01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:46,140
isn't he oh yeah indeed he is indeed he
1661
01:19:46,140 --> 01:19:48,540
is does he ever call you up on the
1662
01:19:48,540 --> 01:19:49,760
telephone
1663
01:19:49,760 --> 01:19:53,280
sometimes I think he he calls me honey
1664
01:19:53,280 --> 01:19:55,560
reads in the newspapers something about
1665
01:19:55,560 --> 01:19:57,480
me that he doesn't like and he calls me
1666
01:19:57,480 --> 01:19:59,820
up and and says that's all right that's
1667
01:19:59,820 --> 01:20:03,420
just right he had lost his fighting
1668
01:20:03,420 --> 01:20:04,699
spirit
1669
01:20:04,699 --> 01:20:08,340
he would have nothing to do with
1670
01:20:08,340 --> 01:20:11,760
commenting on any of the issues of the
1671
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:14,780
day related to nuclear weapons
1672
01:20:14,780 --> 01:20:17,640
could you tell us what your thoughts are
1673
01:20:17,640 --> 01:20:20,460
about what our Atomic policy should be
1674
01:20:20,460 --> 01:20:24,540
no I I I can't do that I'm not not close
1675
01:20:24,540 --> 01:20:27,960
enough to the facts and I'm not close
1676
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:31,199
enough to the thoughts of those who
1677
01:20:31,199 --> 01:20:34,699
are worrying about it
1678
01:20:34,920 --> 01:20:38,580
Hans beta told me once that Oppenheimer
1679
01:20:38,580 --> 01:20:41,520
was smarter than any of the rest of us
1680
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:43,920
he didn't want to know about prize
1681
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:46,140
how could this man who evidently
1682
01:20:46,140 --> 01:20:48,420
outshone some of the greatest physicists
1683
01:20:48,420 --> 01:20:51,360
of the 20th century not have been more
1684
01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:54,000
successful in his line of work physics
1685
01:20:54,000 --> 01:20:56,699
than he was
1686
01:20:56,699 --> 01:20:58,440
you can't talk about Oppenheimer when
1687
01:20:58,440 --> 01:21:01,080
you're not talking about his science
1688
01:21:01,080 --> 01:21:03,120
that was the part of his life when he
1689
01:21:03,120 --> 01:21:05,520
talks about what he loves it was that
1690
01:21:05,520 --> 01:21:08,100
human thing of passing knowledge around
1691
01:21:08,100 --> 01:21:11,400
those negative particles neutral doubly
1692
01:21:11,400 --> 01:21:14,219
charged positive and positive his work
1693
01:21:14,219 --> 01:21:16,920
on black holes should have earned him a
1694
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:19,699
Nobel Prize
1695
01:21:20,219 --> 01:21:24,540
in 1939 Oppenheimer wrote the first
1696
01:21:24,540 --> 01:21:28,380
paper identifying the idea of collapsing
1697
01:21:28,380 --> 01:21:30,960
Stars a black hole
1698
01:21:30,960 --> 01:21:35,100
so black holes was his original idea I
1699
01:21:35,100 --> 01:21:38,060
mean that's quite amazing
1700
01:21:38,880 --> 01:21:41,100
real black hole had been identified
1701
01:21:41,100 --> 01:21:43,920
before he died
1702
01:21:43,920 --> 01:21:45,900
he probably would have won a Nobel Prize
1703
01:21:45,900 --> 01:21:48,560
for that work
1704
01:21:50,540 --> 01:21:52,320
e66.
1705
01:21:52,320 --> 01:21:55,800
he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer
1706
01:21:55,800 --> 01:21:58,260
all that smoking over the years had
1707
01:21:58,260 --> 01:22:00,980
gotten to him
1708
01:22:01,380 --> 01:22:06,679
and he died in early 67.
1709
01:22:07,739 --> 01:22:10,380
the oppenheimer's life story it's the
1710
01:22:10,380 --> 01:22:13,679
story of the 20th century it's the story
1711
01:22:13,679 --> 01:22:16,920
of our nuclear age that we're still
1712
01:22:16,920 --> 01:22:18,360
living with
1713
01:22:18,360 --> 01:22:20,820
and that's a story that is unfinished
1714
01:22:20,820 --> 01:22:24,440
we'll always be unfinished
1715
01:22:27,000 --> 01:22:29,520
we have his bomb
1716
01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:32,340
his bomb is with us and we can debate
1717
01:22:32,340 --> 01:22:34,199
his membership in the Communist party or
1718
01:22:34,199 --> 01:22:36,600
we can debate the ethics of bombing
1719
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:38,640
civilians and her worship until we drop
1720
01:22:38,640 --> 01:22:40,860
but the fact is that we have nuclear
1721
01:22:40,860 --> 01:22:42,840
weapons
1722
01:22:42,840 --> 01:22:46,199
that's the Legacy
1723
01:22:46,199 --> 01:22:49,199
and controlling those weapons it's an
1724
01:22:49,199 --> 01:22:52,100
ever-ending struggle
1725
01:22:54,420 --> 01:22:57,719
we were apparel right now
1726
01:22:57,719 --> 01:23:01,739
it was so horrible with a baby Bomb
1727
01:23:01,739 --> 01:23:04,920
now they have so much more lethal new
1728
01:23:04,920 --> 01:23:07,699
career weapon
1729
01:23:08,100 --> 01:23:10,679
there is much talk about getting rid of
1730
01:23:10,679 --> 01:23:12,840
atomic weapons
1731
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:18,020
I have a deep sympathy with that
1732
01:23:18,360 --> 01:23:20,300
please
1733
01:23:20,300 --> 01:23:25,400
let's try to find common ground
1734
01:23:26,520 --> 01:23:30,000
now I'm sure if Opie was alive today he
1735
01:23:30,000 --> 01:23:33,020
will agree with me
1736
01:23:35,159 --> 01:23:38,040
but we mustn't fool ourselves
1737
01:23:38,040 --> 01:23:40,620
the world is not going to be the same no
1738
01:23:40,620 --> 01:23:43,800
matter what we do with atomic bombs
1739
01:23:43,800 --> 01:23:46,199
because the knowledge of how to make
1740
01:23:46,199 --> 01:23:50,420
them cannot be exercised
1741
01:23:54,179 --> 01:23:57,060
physicist J Robert Oppenheimer is
1742
01:23:57,060 --> 01:23:59,460
perhaps best known as the father of the
1743
01:23:59,460 --> 01:24:01,920
atomic bomb
1744
01:24:01,920 --> 01:24:04,380
as time has passed there are some new
1745
01:24:04,380 --> 01:24:08,159
assessments of his role in history
1746
01:24:08,159 --> 01:24:11,699
in late 2022 the department of energy
1747
01:24:11,699 --> 01:24:14,580
decided to vacate the decision to have
1748
01:24:14,580 --> 01:24:17,780
the security hearings
1749
01:24:18,360 --> 01:24:20,400
the national tragedy is that this
1750
01:24:20,400 --> 01:24:22,880
hearing this McCarthy era Witch Hunt
1751
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:25,980
materialized in the first place
1752
01:24:25,980 --> 01:24:27,480
that type of thing is not supposed to
1753
01:24:27,480 --> 01:24:29,880
happen in a country like this
1754
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:32,280
this is such an important and long
1755
01:24:32,280 --> 01:24:35,060
overdue step
1756
01:24:35,159 --> 01:24:37,560
but at the same time it's kind of sad
1757
01:24:37,560 --> 01:24:39,600
because this is something that J Robert
1758
01:24:39,600 --> 01:24:41,400
Oppenheimer will not get to experience
1759
01:24:41,400 --> 01:24:43,010
personally
1760
01:24:43,010 --> 01:24:45,239
[Music]
1761
01:24:45,239 --> 01:24:47,640
science has profoundly altered the
1762
01:24:47,640 --> 01:24:50,520
conditions of man's life
1763
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:53,340
both materially and in ways of the
1764
01:24:53,340 --> 01:24:56,060
spirit as well
1765
01:24:56,820 --> 01:24:58,920
foreign I think we're still talking
1766
01:24:58,920 --> 01:25:00,600
about Oppenheimer because he was so
1767
01:25:00,600 --> 01:25:02,280
influential
1768
01:25:02,280 --> 01:25:07,100
we have this respect and fear of science
1769
01:25:07,260 --> 01:25:09,540
and Oppenheimer represented both sides
1770
01:25:09,540 --> 01:25:12,199
of that for sure
1771
01:25:12,199 --> 01:25:15,480
unquestionably he changed the world
1772
01:25:15,480 --> 01:25:17,520
and he scheduled forever There's No
1773
01:25:17,520 --> 01:25:18,600
Going Back
1774
01:25:18,600 --> 01:25:21,239
but we know that as long as men are free
1775
01:25:21,239 --> 01:25:24,000
to ask what they will free to say what
1776
01:25:24,000 --> 01:25:26,940
they think free to think what they must
1777
01:25:26,940 --> 01:25:29,520
science will never regress
1778
01:25:29,520 --> 01:25:31,980
and freedom itself will never be wholly
1779
01:25:31,980 --> 01:25:34,219
lost
1780
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:03,470
thank you
1781
01:26:03,470 --> 01:26:07,260
[Music]
1782
01:26:07,260 --> 01:26:09,320
foreign
1783
01:26:09,320 --> 01:26:13,770
[Music]
1784
01:26:15,860 --> 01:26:34,869
[Music]
1785
01:26:42,770 --> 01:26:45,899
[Music]
1786
01:26:46,860 --> 01:26:49,520
foreign
1787
01:26:52,380 --> 01:27:03,470
[Music]
117042
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