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Jason Dawsey

Welcome to The National WWII Museum podcast, World War II On Topic. This season, we're discussing Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. I'm Jason Dawsey, research historian at the Museum's Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, and just delighted to be joined today by Dr. John Curatola, military historian and my colleague here in the Institute. Today, we're discussing, for Episode 2, the new film by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer, something everybody is talking about. So John, great to be with you today for this.

John Curatola

Happy to be here.

Jason Dawsey

And we're, for about 30 minutes or so, going to talk about this film. It's a very exciting, interesting film. It's going to generate a lot of conversation. And so three hours, John, worth of material that we're going to compress into half an hour. So why don't we just begin with impressions. So, what did you think of the film? Just initial thoughts about it.

John Curatola

Overall, I thought it was an excellent film. I didn't realize it was three hours long. It moved that fast. I knew it was three hours, but it moved so fast that I didn't have to get up and take a bathroom break, because I was so interested in what was going on in the dialogue. I thought it was visually stunning, and I thought that the dialogue was excellent. They had to take some shortcuts, some historical shortcuts for obvious reasons, for plot and for time, even though it was three hours. But overall, I would give the film two thumbs up, to use a Siskel and Ebert kind of analysis for it.

Jason Dawsey

Let me just add to what you said there. In my case too, I really like the film, and we'll say more about this at the very end, but it is three hours. It's intense. There is a lot in there to absorb and to think about, but the film is riveting, I think will be the word I would use for it, it's a riveting film. By focusing on the Oppenheimer story, it opens up all of these other big questions about World War II and beyond. We're going to get into some of that today.

But when I first saw that they were doing this film about Oppenheimer, my first concern was, if they don't do this well, it's going to really turn off a lot of people about a subject that's hugely important. The development of the atomic bomb, the use of that weapon at the end of the war, and then all of the issues about national security, about McCarthyism. And so I guess that's one of the things we can say here at the outset, John, it's a post-World War II story as much as anything, and it worked. It did really work in the way it moves back and forth between the postwar period, going back to Oppenheimer's earlier years, and then, of course, the focus on the war itself.

So, maybe right here at the outset, we get out of the way one of the topics, I think, any audience that goes to see this is going to confront, which is the Strauss character. Who he was, why does he play such an important part in this story? And John, I know you've got some things to say about this, even including reading about Strauss. What should you think the audience know about who he was?

John Curatola

Sure. I thought it was an odd choice that they used the venue of Strauss to discuss Oppenheimer. He's really the continuity, the narrative thread for the movie. And he's a person that most Americans, quite frankly, don't know who he is in contemporary America. In the 1940s and ’50s, he was certainly a well-known figure, but he kind of gets lost as the decades pass. But Lewis Strauss is really an interesting character or individual. He's a self-made man; he was a shoe salesman, basically coming from humble beginnings. And he amasses an incredible amount of wealth. And he becomes basically an assistant to Herbert Hoover, becomes one of his confidants, and he rises in prominence within the Washington power struggles of the ’30s and the ’40s.

So he rises in prominence, and then during the war, he works for the United States Navy doing ordnance contracts, and developing production schedules for the United States Navy, and he's promoted to Admiral. It could be looked upon as largely ceremoniously a promotion, but he wants to be referred to by Admiral as his title, which tells you it meant something to him. He is very much a proponent of nuclear power, or atomic power at the time, and he's one of the very first commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission when it's established in 1947. And this is where he really starts to get involved in this nuclear issue. He's not a player during the Manhattan Project, but he is, as you mentioned, in this post-Cold War movie, he is certainly a player in the post-World War II era, regarding the development of nuclear technology, not only for fission, but more importantly for fusion.

Jason Dawsey

I was really struck by how Robert Downey Jr. plays the Lewis Strauss character. It's brilliantly done, and I like Robert Downey Jr. anyway, but I thought this is one of his better roles, because there's this side of Strauss you get to see of intrigue. He has, clearly, very strong views, as you noted, about nuclear power, about fission weapons, and then the whole turn to the hydrogen bomb. We're going to get into some of that when we talk about Oppenheimer's own views. But the intrigue regarding Strauss and Oppenheimer is really crucial to this film. So I think for people out there who are curious about the movie, wondering about it, knowing who this guy is, is important, John. So that's very helpful.

John Curatola

Yeah, I think one thing that the movie truncates the history is that they show, no spoiler alerts here, but they show a meeting and this dining room table where they're discussing the Soviet discovery of atomic energy, and issues that surrounded it. The scene is completely fictional. It didn't happen that way. But for purposes of the movie, they're trying to bring the story together. But this kind of sets up the tension between Oppenheimer and Strauss; when the Soviets detonate, referred to as Joe-1, at the end of August 1949, and the Americans sniff it out, this is big news, because they didn't expect the Soviet Union to have an atomic weapon until the early 1950s. And so the Soviets are now two years ahead of schedule. And so this is really a shock to many within the military establishment in 1949.

And so the question is, if the Soviets are this far ahead in terms of fission weapons, they might be ahead in something called fusion, or thermonuclear weapons, that have even larger yields of explosive force. Now, if you think about Fat Man and Little Boy, when those bombs detonate, they're about 20 kilotons; still a significant amount of explosive firepower. However, with fusion, you have hundreds of kilotons worth of explosive power. They're exponentially larger. And this is where Lewis Strauss really enters the fray, believing that the United States should now embark on developing fusion technology.

And he brings us to a point in October in 1949 as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, and he writes that we need to make this exponential leap. However, Oppenheimer, as a member of the General Advisory Committee to the newly established Atomic Energy Commission, says no. And under the General Advisory Committee, where he has a number of his colleagues from the Manhattan Project, they all unanimously vote no on the development of a hydrogen weapon.

And so this really sets up the tension between these two men, as one is diametrically opposed to it on moral grounds; however, Strauss, being more hawkish and a cold warrior in a classic sense, sees this as a requirement to keep America free from monolithic communism threats that are evolving throughout the globe at this time.

Jason Dawsey

Yes, this kind of conflict between Strauss and Oppenheimer, even though Oppenheimer's not aware, even fully, that it is a conflict, as people, when they see the movie, that will unfold for them what's actually happening between them, and the intrigue, and the drama that's going on. But it turns out to be a crucial part of this film, and the focus of it on the decade after World War II. And kind of wrapping up these preliminary parts, there's so much one can say before we get into the core of the Oppenheimer story itself. But the film has a lot, and the audience should be aware of this as well, there's a lot in here about Oppenheimer and politics, about left-wing politics. So what would you like to say about... This is something we could go into a lot of detail about here, but just something for background for the audience.

John Curatola

Yeah, I think that's an important point that you make. And the fact that the film is largely based upon, or uses the narrative of, his security clearance investigation in the 1950s, that kind of serves as the venue for his biography. And what most people don't realize is in the 1930s, Oppenheimer is a professor in California at Berkeley and at Caltech, and during this time, remember, the Depression is going on. So a lot of people are out of work, in shanty towns, and all the horrific things that happened during this time. And leftist ideologies, communism, by many people at this time, is looked upon as an alternative to what... I'll use the term excesses of capitalism, not that I necessarily believe in that, but that's how it is termed. And maybe communist ideology, or leftist-leaning ideas, are the way of the future, given what has happened in the 1930s.

And so many intellectuals, and many within Hollywood, look to leftist ideas. And this is before people realize what Joseph Stalin is, the purges, and what's going on in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. And it's horrific. However, there are many intellectuals, to include Oppenheimer, who see maybe communism as the way of the future, given what has happened in the Depression. And he is certainly present at Communist Party meetings, he is open to these kinds of ideas, but he never becomes a Communist Party member. And one of his biographers would say that he was too smart of an individual, and too perceptive of an individual, to be susceptible to dogmatic thinking. He's very much a man of pragmatism, a man of science, and a man of learning. And so to paint him as a communist, which they do, I think is a disservice; that he's a much grayer individual than a black and white individual, if that makes sense.

Jason Dawsey

Yeah, those are really good points, in that Oppenheimer can't be separated from what you would call the popular front era of not only American politics, but politics internationally. And by popular front, there's a politics, a strategy, that comes out of Moscow, 1934, ’35, where the idea is that communist parties faced a threat of fascism. Obviously Mussolini's been in power over a decade, Hitler had just taken power in Germany, the workers' movements in both of those countries have been crushed, Austria in 1934, France had been very close in 1934. So there's a sense that we have to... We, this is the Moscow position, we have to work with moderate socialists, liberals will work with conservatives, we'll work with people who are religious, we'll work with pacifists, as long as they're anti-fascist. So there's a kind of anti-fascist people's front.

And that's very influential, given the fact that fascism had so many moments of success in country after country; it seemed to be often unstoppable, democracy under threat. So, coupled with what you just mentioned, John, the economic downturn, 25% unemployment in the US at one point, Germany up to 30%. So people who are critical of capitalism, but also talking about the threat posed by Hitler, Mussolini, and others. Spain, of course, erupts in 1936.

Oppenheimer is right in the middle of that. And his brother, his younger brother, Frank, shown in the film, was a communist. His fiance, Jean Tatlock, is quite a tragic story shown in the film; she had been a member of the Communist Party. His future wife, Kitty, she's a member of the party. So he's connected to a lot of popular front activities in the US. It's kind of worth noting the Communist Party, starting in 1936, begins to swing more fully behind FDR, behind Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal; it's the friendliest government to organized labor, probably in American history for sure at that point. So it's an interesting kind of moment.

And that's Oppenheimer's world. He's not, as you point out, a communist. He's read Marx, he's read Lenin.

John Curatola

In the original German, by the way.

Jason Dawsey

In the original German, yes.

John Curatola

He read all three journals of Das Kapital.

Jason Dawsey

Getting into how brilliant he was. But he's not a Marxist, he's not a communist, as you noted. He's hostile to dogma. And that's, in fact, part of his concerns about the direction he sees the US heading in the late ’40s, early ’50s, beginning to fear there's a rigid, dogmatic kind of perspective that's taking shape there. And he's obviously resistant to that too, even as people are accusing him of being a Red, or being far too naive about Reds. But his story is itself quite interesting. He was an intellectual, he was interested in art and poetry, and so his interest in leftist politics is part of that. He was a very pro-union professor, as the film really shows. So it's good for people to be aware of this when they start seeing this come out, they might've thought, "This is a movie about science, right?" And then you get all of this politics that starts coming at you.

John Curatola

Sure. And to your point, his support for leftist-leaning organizations, he's providing financial support up until 1942. And many communists at the time, or left-leaning individuals, saw that it was the Communist Party that was attacking fascism in Spain and what was going on there, while many democracies weren't doing anything in the 1930s. And so that's kind of an underlying idea that you just illustrated, that there were many who thought, "Well, democracy's not doing anything about this rise of fascism, but the communists are." So, that's kind of an underlying narrative in the 1930s, that kind of bolsters his ideas that, "Well, maybe this is a way to go."

Jason Dawsey

Yes, and there's this real backlash against this entire politics in the late ’40s, early ’50s, which he's caught up in and you really see come through.

John Curatola

And if I may, one of the things about the United States is, the center holds. We have communists in the United States, we also have fascists in the United States in the 1930s. But what's remarkable about this country is that FDR is able to navigate that, and maintain this nation as a democracy. And that really is something special here.

Jason Dawsey

Yes, FDR, his presence in this film, if we could just add one more thing, I know we need to get into the issue of the science, but Oppenheimer comes across, and I think the film does a good job of this, as a convinced FDR supporter.

John Curatola

Yes. A New Dealer.

Jason Dawsey

He's definitely a New Deal supporter and FDR supporter. And if I think for him, if you're going to talk about a primary political identity, it's that, that he's a firm New Deal supporter.

John, this is obviously a movie, though, about a nuclear physicist. In fact, in Oppenheimer's case, he's one of the people in the 1930s who really introduces quantum mechanics, this very important and very difficult body of thought coming out of Germany earlier in the 20th century. He's a key figure in introducing that into the US, and we get some of that in the film. So, getting into some of these core issues about the World War II period, and how that connects to the film's focus on the post-’45 era, I wanted just to ask here your thoughts about Groves and Oppenheimer. How did that connection... Here you have a man of science, and he really talks about himself such, and a figure like Groves, how you thought they depict that relationship, how would you assess that for our audience?

John Curatola

Yeah, I think they do a good job of showing that relationship. And quite frankly, these two men, as you correctly pointed out, are men of polar opposites. One is a very driven, very egotistical, very kind of larger than life figure. Matter of fact, one of Groves' aides referred to him as "the biggest SOB I ever worked for." And he goes on further, the same aide, goes on further and says, "If we had to do this all over again, I would pick Groves again." This is a guy who's very mission oriented, goal conscious. Most people don't realize, before he inherits the Manhattan Project, he builds the Pentagon. He's the one who builds that building, it's his project. As a one-star general. That's pretty impressive. And he's given this Manhattan Project to [?] over.

But what's interesting is he pulls Oppenheimer in, and these two men, despite their personality differences, one being obviously a bookish intellectual and one being somewhat brash, they mesh, they meld together, they make an excellent team in developing the atomic weapons. Oppenheimer's... One of his great gifts is he's able to recognize talent, he's able to mobilize his talent, and to ask these individuals, these talented men of science, to leave their homes and come to the middle of the New Mexican desert, a place called Los Alamos, where it's tar paper shacks and Quonset huts, and do some groundbreaking science. And he pulls them in. He's able to motivate them to do that. And Groves is, of course, providing the resources for this. He's providing the men and the material to underpin this whole argument.

So what you see here is a symbiotic relationship between academia and the federal/military apparatus coming together here in 1943 and 1945 that create this incredible breakthrough for mankind. And as I mentioned to you before, this breakthrough is a door that humanity walks through that is locked behind them. This door will never be unlocked, and these men usher this new era in. But to your point, without these two men, I think the process would've been much longer and much more fraught.

Jason Dawsey

That's really excellent, because you see the two of them recruiting members of the Los Alamos team, and these meetings are really... You're just getting snippets, but Oppenheimer will say, "Yes, I need you to go to New Mexico. We're going to be out in the middle of nowhere. You're going to be there a year, maybe two years, maybe three." Just pointing out that this is a serious mission, it is a huge commitment, and we need you. That's what he really does present. And he and Groves are very effective in that kind of tandem, what the film is showing us. I think Matt Damon does a good job—

John Curatola

I think so.

Jason Dawsey

—playing Leslie Groves. He's good.

John Curatola

Spoiler alert. When he first enters the screen, he has his aide behind him, and he takes off his tunic and he gives it to his aide. He says, "Here, dry-clean this." And that's just the kind of person that Groves was. He was not a warm and fuzzy kind of a guy. He was very gruff, very brash. He was also very egotistical. But again, he was the kind of guy who can get things done.

And one thing I'd like to point out, we mentioned Los Alamos, but this is a nationwide effort. Los Alamos just happens to be where all the scientists are, they're putting the puzzles together, but you have a huge facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that is refining U-238 to make it U-235 for a fissionable substance. And it takes literally thousands of people, and thousands of calutrons to refine enough uranium to make it fissionable. At the same time, up at Washington State, you have the Hanford facility that's creating plutonium. And so, keep in mind that this is not just a Los Alamos project, but this is a nationwide effort that's going on, Los Alamos is just the most visible of it.

Jason Dawsey

Yes, we get some references to Chicago, when it already—

John Curatola

Right, the metallurgical lab there.

Jason Dawsey

Exactly.

John Curatola

And of course, that's where the first sustained chain reaction goes with Enrico Fermi and the handball court in your alma mater, University of Chicago.

Jason Dawsey

University of Chicago. We have the big image of the mushroom cloud looking like a skull that's there now. And I think for our audience, it's worth noting for everyone that this film could have, faced with all of these physicists and this very difficult, demanding, theoretical system you're dealing with here that's kind of behind the whole notion of atomic bomb, that the film doesn't pull back. We see Niels Bohr, we see Werner Heisenberg, we obviously see Albert Einstein, we see Enrico Fermi. We get into these discussions, and there were times I felt like, "Wow, I'm a little out of my depth here on this." But I think the detail was really important. It asks something of you as a viewer that, okay, yes, there's some pretty rigorous ideas in place here, and yet this is part of that history.

John Curatola

And I think to your point, they do bring up Szilard and Smith and their concerns over this technology. But I'd like to point out this is something that you don't see a lot in the narratives. Yes, and there are those gentlemen that I just mentioned that are very concerned about the moral implications of the bomb, and that they're trying to see FDR before he passes away, trying to see Truman to articulate their concerns over the morality of this project that's, of course, obviously top secret, but to express their concerns over its implications. However, I'd like to point out that when you read the interviews with the scientists that are at Los Alamos, and who are actually working on the project there, the overwhelming majority, I'll say 99% of them, understand what they're doing, understand the implications of what they're doing, and continue with the work. They see it fully as something they need to be doing for their nation.

To give you a little background on this, you mentioned Oppenheimer as a young academic. I'd like to give you a quote that comes from one of his mentors as a scientist, a guy by the name of Percy Bridgman. And Dr. Bridgman says, "Scientists aren't responsible for the facts of nature. It's their job to find the facts. There's no sin connected with it, no morals. If anyone should have a sense of sin, it's God. He put the facts there." And so I think it's really a telling statement regarding how Oppenheimer kind of looks at the world. He's straddling the scientific world and the moral implications. And I think that's something that the movie does indeed bring out, is how he struggles with this as a man of science looking for continued scientific achievement. However, these moral pangs that come after the fact, and he probably had some during, but it's really after the fact that they manifest themselves. And so I think it's important to kind of understand there are a lot of moving pieces here, regarding how people felt about the bomb and its development.

Jason Dawsey

Yeah, I think there's only one physicist that we know of, Joseph Rotblat, who had been involved in the Manhattan Project, from a Jewish family in Poland and immigrated to the US. And after, this is kind of a critical part in the movie where they're told, "Okay, Germany is surrendering. The war against Hitler is over. Hitler's dead. The Nazi regime is collapsed." And Rotblat was an interesting figure in that, even before that, he was sure the Germans would not be able to develop an atomic bomb. And he's like, "I'm no longer interested in participating. This was about Nazi Germany. Now that it's clear they can't acquire a bomb, I'm going to do something else." But he's the only one.

And you're mentioning basically everyone else there is very committed to it. And in fact, there's a real sense of speaking of this notion of anti-fascism, that this is a weapon that's very much tied for these men to stopping fascism. Maybe just to put it bluntly, but it certainly is for Oppenheimer; from a Jewish family, he has an aunt, he has cousins who had been in Germany, he had helped them to get out. So he may not be aware all the time of things that are being uncovered that Nazis have done, but he's certainly generally aware of it, and it really matters to him.

John Curatola

Yeah. Let me illustrate again how this dichotomy that exists with him as a man is science and the moral implications. If we fast-forward again to the idea of fusion, we talked about this, in October 1949, after the Soviets explode Joe-1. The General Advisory Committee is asked to do an assessment on this. And it's interesting, Oppenheimer and the members of the General Advisory Committee write a letter to the chairman, David Lilienthal, Atomic Energy Commission, and they say, basically, "We need you to expand the atomic program that exists." They do not want to create a thermonuclear bomb. However, what's interesting is these same gentlemen say, "But we should pursue that technology of fusion." And it's kind of an interesting point here, and it's a subtle one. They don't want to make a bomb, but they're interested in the technology and developing this technology. And so I think it shows a nuance. And that moral, if you want to call it hair-splitting, that exists between these men. I think it illustrates that point that we were just talking about.

Jason Dawsey

Yes. And so if you kind of move this forward, John, I think there are a couple of things. Anybody who's tuning in to a podcast dealing with Oppenheimer, they were going to want to hear about. So let me just ask you about these together. One is what was your take on Trinity, the way the film approached the test in New Mexico? And then the way they cover news about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?

John Curatola

Yeah, I thought they did an excellent job in the buildup to Trinity. And here's something else I'd like to correct the record on for people here, because this gets misinterpreted, and the movie misses this point too. In July 1945, the United States already had an atomic weapon. Little Boy, it existed. The uranium was refined, the tests were done, and the bomb was going to work, so they didn't need to test Little Boy. We already had one, okay? The problem is that uranium is very, very difficult to make in 1945. However, plutonium is relatively easier to make in... Relatively, okay? But it's harder to make fissionable. And so this idea of the implosion, which you see in the Trinity event, that really had to be tested. Does this really work?

And the overall sentiment before the test goes off is, a lot of guys are like, "This isn't going to work." There are a lot of people that were really suspect of this technology. But this is what takes most of Los Alamos' time, from January to July in 1945, was working on this idea of implosion

And the reason why I bring this up, because why that's important, is now America can have more than one weapon. Now it can have multiple weapons. And the whole idea behind atomic weapons was to hit the Japanese, or any potential enemy, with not just one, but multiple weapons. So they know that there's more coming. They actually had, the question came up, "Oh, should we do a demonstration for the Japanese, maybe to scare them?" And Groves is one of the people that says, "No, you don't want to do this, for a number of reasons. One, I don't have enough uranium. And if it does go off, it's going to take another six more months to get enough uranium. And the war is going to, of course, drag on. Two, the Japanese might just think it's some kind of a parlor trick. Three, this is experimental technology, so if it doesn't go off, we're going to look really stupid. And four, we're afraid the Japanese might move American prisoners of war to wherever location we might do this." And so that idea of doing a demonstration goes away.

But again, this gets to that point, you got to have multiple weapons. And this has been determined in the previous year, that we need to hit the Japanese with a one-two punch, to use that term, not only one weapon, but two, and maybe three weapons. That's why Trinity is important, because now the United States has multiple weapons.

Jason Dawsey

So, this is going to hardly sound like a very profound point after everything John just said. But I would just add here that, from a film viewer's point of view, Trinity is really, incredibly gripping when you are watching it. I knew everything that was going to happen, and yet I was still on the edge of my seat throughout.

John Curatola

Yeah, I agree with you.

Jason Dawsey

They really did a remarkable job of taking you through that, what was going to be involved, and it was very effective, I'll just say that much. Don't want to say any more that might spoil. But people will not be disappointed when they see that.

John Curatola

Yeah. I'm going to contrast that, and take off-script, for just a little bit. When the Soviet bomb goes off in August 1949, the gentleman in charge of that, the stakes a little bit higher for them, personally, according to some scholars, that if it didn't go off, to the gulag with you, or your family, or those kinds of things. Whereas for Oppenheimer, those things aren't going to happen. But his reputation, and those gentlemen that are there working with him, their reputations are on the line too. And I think you're right, it does bring up this kind of crescendo kind of event. But again, I'd like to make correct the narrative in that that doesn't mean, "Oh, now we have bombs." No, we already had one; now we have multiple weapons. And that's an important planning factor.

Jason Dawsey

So it's really telling, John, that we have this amazing scene about Trinity, and then when we get to the news about the atomic bomb in the film, the film pulls back. There's nothing about the Enola Gay, there's nothing about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that's directly shown. It's kind of interesting to think about why Nolan made those choices, not to show that. But nonetheless, we don't (see that). We do get these scenes, and they become more prominent later in the film, these kind of nightmare visions that Oppenheimer has. Whether or not how accurate that is, they start being shown in 1945, and then you see them throughout, so already showing Oppenheimer's own concern about what this weapon could do.

So maybe that's a good way to get us into the final segment of this, John, we could talk about this forever, especially you and I, we could just sit here for hours going on and on about this, but maybe a place for us to begin to think about wrapping this up would be Oppenheimer's... How conflicted he becomes about what he's done, what his team at Los Alamos has done. So maybe we can just hit on a couple of these quickly. We've already noted, for the audience, there's this big issue about Oppenheimer's security clearance, about the Strauss character, but maybe in fleshing that out and building around it, there's a meeting with Harry Truman from October 1945 that's very significant for the plot of this film. And then what can we say about Oppenheimer's notion of being scientific responsibility, his responsibility as a scientist in this post-World War II era? So let's just kind of work through those, John, what are your thoughts about this meeting?

John Curatola

I think that's a great segue. Yeah, like I said, he stands at the intersection between technology and science, and the morality and the implications of these new discoveries. He really is at that intersection, in every way, shape, or form. But to your point, the meeting with Harry Truman, and I have a copy of a letter here that I actually found in the Truman Library a few years ago when I was doing some research. And the letter is from Oppenheimer to Harry Truman dated May 3, 1946, and he basically says, "I don't want to be part of the testing that occurs subsequent to the war." The Crossroad test at Bikini Atoll.

Well, it's funny, that Harry Truman gets this letter and then he puts a memorandum on it and he sends it to Dean Acheson. And I'm going to read the letter to you, to try and tell you how Harry was thinking at this time.

It says, "To Dean Acheson from the President," and it says, "Attached is a letter from a crybaby scientist, which I wish you to read and discuss with me. Mr. Byrnes placed him on the commission to attend the atomic bomb tests. He came into my office some five or six months ago, and spent most of his time wringing his hands and telling me that he had blood on them because of the discovery of atomic energy. I think he has concocted himself an alibi in this letter, which had came by registered mail, as you can see." And the initials are HST on the bottom.

Now, there's a scene in the movie where this meeting happens, and of course it's a little Hollywoodized, but Harry Truman is one to say, "I made this call. This is on me. This does not belong to you." And to your point, there's a scene in the movie, and it's purely fictional, purely fictional, where they box up the bombs and they drive them off of Los Alamos. That didn't happen. But this idea that this creation has now been transferred from a scientific experiment to something of national policy in terms of military operations, and that's that crossroads that Oppenheimer lives at. Even though it's a fictional scene, but to your point, I think it's very powerful to show, okay, something that you created now has implications for the future.

Jason Dawsey

Yeah. There is this bit of the men of science versus the men, and we're here largely, of course, talking about a male-dominant world at this point in terms of power, the men of science versus the men of war. There's a bit where the film plays with this kind of narrative. It's not clear to me how far down the road he wants to go there, but it definitely opens up that line of discussion about the film. And I think one of the things it does show about Oppenheimer, in terms of his own conflicted decisions, his own role in the decision making, which was, as I think you've told me many times, John, is very limited, about... He's there, but these are other people who are making the call, it's really not a decision.

John Curatola

No.

Jason Dawsey

It's got its own kind of momentum to use these weapons.

John Curatola

It's got an organizational momentum. We're dropping these things.

Jason Dawsey

We're going to use them. And I think Truman's reaction to him is like, "No, this is really..." He doesn't really buy it. He doesn't buy Oppenheimer's remorse as genuine. I think he's really offended by that, and the film... People will make up their own minds what they think about the use of the weapon, or about Oppenheimer's remorse, but certainly Truman's reaction to it, you have no doubts about how they react to it.

So, maybe in kind of wrapping up here, and we're basically out of time, I thought I would just note about Oppenheimer's perspective on this. He was a fierce advocate of international control of atomic energy. He had argued during the war that we should be sharing some information about the program with the Soviets. And of course, he's accused of all sorts of things because of this, but Oppenheimer's position was they're going to acquire it. So they're going to acquire the weapon, the knowhow is out there, the knowledge of nuclear fission is out there. You're not going to hide that. As you pointed out, there's no going back. The Soviets have access to that knowledge, so why not cooperate with them, share information with them, so as to prevent some kind of conflict as much as possible? And that's a big part of the film, in fact, is showing this position of his.

John Curatola

Yeah, you're referring to what's called the Baruch Plan, which comes out, or is proposed, in 1946; that we should have international control of this technology, and the United States were willing to share it. Of course, the Soviets come back, and say, "Yeah, we're willing to do that, but America has to disarm and dismantle your entire program." Of which we're not willing to do, so the thing really evaporates relatively quickly. And make no doubt, the American military establishment, and most in the government, know the Soviets are going to break this code. They are going to figure it out. The $1000 question is when and where are they going to do this? We think in the early 1950s, however, they do it in 1949. And that kind of start, back to where we began our discussion, with Lewis Strauss. Oh my gosh, the Soviets have atomic weaponry in 1949, or they had thermonuclear weapons.

And let me just make one more note here, and then I'll be quiet. We all know that Klaus Fuchs is a central figure in the Soviet spying effort there in Los Alamos. Well, in 1946, there's a conference held at Los Alamos to address this idea of fusion, of which Edward Teller was a big proponent of. He wants to do this in 1943, 1944, but he is put on the back burner. But there's a conference in 1946 to address the possibilities of fusion. One of the members at that conference is Klaus Fuchs. And when Klaus Fuchs gets arrested by the British in January 1950, right after the Soviets have launched their bomb, now stakes get a little bit higher, because if he was leaking that to the Soviets, they may very well be ahead of us on fusion. So, that's kind of the rest of the story here on that.

Jason Dawsey

Yeah, there's so much more one can say about the story, but that's central to it, is we're now in the early Cold War.

John Curatola

Yes.

Jason Dawsey

And where the stakes about control over nuclear weapons and nuclear arsenals is just fundamental for both sides of that conflict. I just want to say one final thing, and then we'll conclude, is that there's a very really interesting moment late in the film where Oppenheimer has this, speaking of these kind of nightmarish visions, but he has this vision of Earth aflame. And he's imagining a nuclear war, and it's not a nuclear war where the weapons are being dropped with bombers, as in Hiroshima, Nagasaki. These are missiles. ICBMs—intercontinental ballistic missiles. So the film really kind of looks ahead to this new phase, terrifying phase, of the Cold War.

And just to do a shameless plug for us, Episode 4, we'll be back here talking about this new phase and what it really means, not only for the US and the Soviets, but for humanity as such. So John, let me thank you very much for a great conversation as always, really enjoyed it. I'd like to thank our audience for joining us, and we would like to thank the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation for all their support. And be sure to download our podcast next week for another new episode.