edward, after what you just said, i don t know what that means. nolan: he was obviously a very, very brilliant man, but i think he may have underestimated the power of the establishment, the machine, and the inability of one individual to stand against that. bird: the result was to be expected. (fanfare plays) tv announcer: dr. j. robert oppenheimer, the famous scientist whose suspension this week by the atomic energy commission surprised the nation. they voted to strip oppenheimer of his security clearance. this was front-page news in the newspapers across the country. that he had recommended communists who are working the a-bomb, h-bomb plans. his wife, uh, admittedly was, uh,
(crowd chanting in german) bird: in the 1930s, millions of americans were following the news coming out of europe in their local theaters, watching newsreels. and oppenheimer was horrified by the rise of hitler. nolan: his sense of his own jewishness made him immediately and massively aware of the danger of fascism. (bell tolling) bird: when the war started in 1939, he was a professor at berkeley. and that same year, one of his students comes rushing into his office to convey the news that fission has been discovered. man: word has just come through from germany that the uranium atom under neutron bombardment actually splits into two parts. bird: initially, oppenheimer can t believe it. he runs to the blackboard and does some mathematics,
he was kind of a hollow man after that. charles oppenheimer: what we say inside the family is it hurt his feelings. he didn t like it, but he didn t talk about it. he never made one statement about it publicly. he never asked for an apology, and he retreated back into where he came from. bird: he still kept his job at princeton, but he wasn t doing any more physics. these were kind of sad years. murrow: and professor einstein is still here, too, isn t he? oh, yeah. indeed he is. uh, indeed he is. uh. does he ever call you up on the telephone? hmm, sometimes. i think he. he calls me, uh, when he reads in the newspapers something about me that he doesn t like, and he calls me up and-and says, that s all right. that s just right. sherwin: he had lost his fighting spirit.
man: go ahead, please. automatic control has got it. this time, rab, the stakes are kind of high. isidor isaac rabi: it s going to work all right, robert. else: i think he felt, as the father of the atomic bomb, it was his duty to keep the reins on the atomic bomb. man: go ahead, please. well, we ll know in 40 seconds. man: stay where you are. cut. bird: within three months of hiroshima, he was giving speeches, talking about how this weapon was a weapon for aggressors, that it is a weapon of terror. you know, this is the father of the atomic bomb speaking. oppenheimer: if there is another world war. .this civilization may go under.
by most of the scientists working at the los alamos project, he had fallen under a greater veil of suspicion because there were certain aspects of his past that raised the possibility that he could be a security risk. rhodes: when oppenheimer was teaching at the university of california at berkeley, he really was a very unworldly man focused on science, until the depression began. he discovered, to his shock, that his students often didn t even have enough to eat. one of them told me he was living on cat food, cans of cat food. that was the only thing he could afford.