The True Story of Oppenheimer
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00:00 laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
00:05 - Welcome to WatchMojo,
00:08 and today we're looking at the crazy true life
00:11 of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
00:14 - Oppenheimer had been troubled all his life
00:18 about who he was.
00:20 - For this video, we're doing a deep dive
00:23 into the life of the American theoretical physicist
00:25 known for his role in the Manhattan Project
00:27 during World War II.
00:29 What fascinating facts about this historical figure
00:32 stuck with you?
00:33 Let us know in the comments.
00:35 Sheltered upbringing.
00:36 J. Robert Oppenheimer's father, Julius,
00:39 immigrated to the United States from Germany as a teenager.
00:42 He came with nothing, but in a rags to riches story,
00:45 worked his way up to become a wealthy textile executive.
00:49 Born in 1904, his son, J. Robert,
00:52 whose first name was also Julius,
00:54 grew up surrounded by luxury and art
00:56 in their Manhattan apartment.
00:57 The family had a collection of original paintings,
01:00 including pieces by Picasso, Vuillard, and Van Gogh.
01:03 The young boy led a sheltered upper-class existence.
01:06 His father's business success ensured
01:08 that J. Robert and his brother, Frank,
01:10 had the best education possible.
01:12 - He was fully formed,
01:14 and by the time he was three or four years old,
01:17 they realized that he was something special.
01:20 - J. Robert made good use of his time in school
01:23 and even completed the third and fourth grade in one year.
01:26 - My childhood did not prepare me for the fact
01:28 that the world is full of cruel and bitter things,
01:30 Oppenheimer said.
01:32 It gave me no normal, healthy way to be a bastard.
01:35 - Praise and ridicule.
01:37 Oppenheimer showed his interest in science
01:39 at a very young age.
01:41 When he was just 12 years old,
01:42 he exchanged letters with a local geologist
01:45 about rock formations he'd noticed in Central Park.
01:47 His correspondent nominated the young scientist
01:50 to be a member of the New York Mineralogical Club
01:52 and invited him to give a lecture.
01:55 The club had a good laugh when a young boy appeared to speak
01:57 instead of the adult they were expecting.
01:59 They still let him give the lecture
02:01 and gave him a solid round of applause at the end.
02:04 Although the precocious youth got on well with adults,
02:06 he struggled with his peers.
02:08 His awkward manner made him an easy target
02:10 as he moved into adolescence.
02:12 - He didn't grow up.
02:13 He studied a great deal, which shielded him from the world,
02:18 and the emotional side of him
02:21 didn't catch up until much later.
02:23 - When he was 14 while at a summer camp,
02:25 he was taunted by his fellow campers
02:27 and locked naked in an ice house overnight.
02:30 Incidents like this made it clear to Oppenheimer
02:32 that his childhood had been a sheltered one
02:34 and that the world could be a cool place.
02:37 - Seeking reassurance in his own intelligence,
02:40 he became increasingly arrogant and aloof.
02:42 - College years.
02:43 Oppenheimer was accepted into Harvard
02:46 and graduated summa cum laude in just three years
02:48 with a degree in chemistry.
02:50 - Now 21, he realized his true calling,
02:53 physics.
02:54 - Then he moved on to Cambridge University
02:56 where he studied physics.
02:58 A chain smoker who often forgot to eat,
03:00 he was described by those who knew him as self-destructive
03:03 and struggled with depression.
03:05 - Oppenheimer, like so many theoretical physicists,
03:08 it turns out that if he walks through a lab,
03:10 the instruments all break.
03:11 And he's trying to do a rather delicate physical experiment
03:15 and he's not getting anywhere.
03:16 - On a trip to Paris, his friend, Francis Ferguson,
03:19 tried to snap him out of his mood
03:20 by sharing news that he was engaged.
03:22 Oppenheimer jumped on Ferguson and tried to suffocate him.
03:26 During those years, the young genius
03:28 was almost expelled from Cambridge
03:30 for trying to poison his physics tutor, Patrick Blackett.
03:33 - He was deeply unhappy at Cambridge.
03:36 - He'd covered an apple with chemicals
03:37 and left it on Blackett's desk.
03:39 Luckily, the apple wasn't eaten.
03:42 Oppenheimer's influential father kept the school
03:44 from pressing criminal charges.
03:46 - Almost overwhelmed with his recurrent depression,
03:49 he was, he later said, at the point of bumping myself off.
03:53 - Academia and relationships.
03:55 After Cambridge, Oppenheimer studied
03:57 under renowned physicist and mathematician, Max Born,
04:00 at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
04:02 There, he rubbed elbows
04:04 with the great scientific minds of his age,
04:06 including Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Enrico Fermi,
04:10 Paul Dirac, and Edward Teller.
04:12 - I had very great misgivings about myself on all fronts,
04:16 he said.
04:17 I hadn't been good, I hadn't done anybody any good,
04:21 and here was something I felt just driven to try.
04:24 - At 23, he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree
04:28 and returned to the United States
04:30 where he was given fellowships at both Harvard and Caltech.
04:33 - By the time he was ready to return to America,
04:36 he was focused and confident,
04:38 an ambitious young man with an international reputation.
04:42 - However, his personal relationships
04:44 continued to involve drama and scandal.
04:46 His friend and colleague, Linus Pauling,
04:48 cut ties after Oppenheimer invited his wife
04:51 for a tryst in Mexico.
04:53 Oppenheimer became a professor at Berkeley
04:55 where he published papers on a range of topics,
04:57 from theoretical astronomy to nuclear physics
05:00 and quantum field theory.
05:02 For three years, he dated Jean Tatlock,
05:04 a member of the American Communist Party
05:06 who introduced him to left-wing causes.
05:09 - But the relationship was problematic.
05:11 She was volatile and moody.
05:13 After three years, she left him.
05:15 - After that relationship ended,
05:17 Oppenheimer courted German-American Katherine "Kitty" Harrison.
05:21 However, Kitty was already married.
05:23 When she became pregnant,
05:24 she divorced her husband and married Oppenheimer.
05:27 - But that didn't stop her
05:28 from going after the well-known scientist.
05:31 - When she saw Oppenheimer, she grabbed him.
05:33 They were together, of course, for the rest of their lives,
05:36 but it was, God knows, a tumultuous relationship.
05:40 - Oppenheimer may have continued to see Tatlock
05:43 and later had an affair with his friend's wife,
05:45 Ruth Tolman.
05:47 The Manhattan Project.
05:48 During World War II, U.S. President Roosevelt
05:51 urgently called for the development of the atomic bomb.
05:54 - So the American scientists were struggling
05:56 to get the government to recognize that it was important.
05:59 They had a lot of meetings.
06:00 They needed scientists to come in
06:02 and help them work out the numbers.
06:04 - In 1942, this led to the Manhattan Project
06:07 and the creation of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico.
06:11 Oppenheimer was put in charge of scientists
06:13 whose mission was to create nuclear weapons.
06:15 - Los Alamos had to be shrouded in complete secrecy.
06:18 Army intelligence officers watched everything and everybody,
06:23 especially those with questionable pasts.
06:25 - Many people thought he wasn't the right fit
06:28 to lead such a large project.
06:29 However, director Major General Leslie Groves
06:32 saw in Oppenheimer a pragmatic intelligence
06:35 and quote, "overweening ambition."
06:37 Oppenheimer's wide-ranging talents and leadership skills
06:40 proved crucial to the project's success.
06:42 - Dr. Oppenheimer probably carries more nuclear secrets
06:45 in his head than any other person.
06:47 - On July 16th, 1945,
06:49 the first test of an atomic bomb took place
06:52 in the desert 210 miles from Los Alamos.
06:55 Although the observers were stationed 20 miles away,
06:58 there was no missing the shockwave and massive fireball
07:01 and desert sand turned to glass.
07:04 - In the dead silence of the morning
07:06 at 529.45 Mountain War Time,
07:10 the Jornada del Muerto was bathed in an intense flash
07:14 of a light that man had only seen from the stars.
07:17 - When describing the experience,
07:19 Oppenheimer said that he recalled a line
07:20 from the Bhagavad Gita.
07:22 - Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
07:26 - Blood on his hands.
07:27 On August 6th and 9th, 1945,
07:30 the United States dropped atomic bombs
07:32 on the Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
07:35 killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people,
07:40 most of them civilians.
07:41 - We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war,
07:45 in order to save the lives of thousands
07:48 and thousands of young Americans.
07:50 - Oppenheimer was dismayed at the bombing of Nagasaki,
07:53 which he felt had been unnecessary.
07:55 Just over a week later,
07:56 he visited President Truman to express his concerns,
07:59 admitting that he felt he had blood on his hands
08:02 for his role in designing the bombs.
08:04 Infuriated at the show of remorse,
08:06 Truman threw him out.
08:08 - It's not surprising Truman just about
08:10 threw him out of his office.
08:11 It was the president's decision.
08:13 It wasn't Oppenheimer's decision.
08:14 - Moving forward, the man dubbed the father
08:17 of the atomic bomb,
08:18 worked with the US Atomic Energy Commission
08:20 to control the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.
08:24 - If there is another world war,
08:26 this civilization may go under.
08:30 We need to ask ourselves whether we're doing all we can.
08:36 - When Truman approached the commission
08:38 about creating a hydrogen bomb,
08:40 Oppenheimer opposed it.
08:41 This opposition to increasing the country's
08:43 weapons of mass destruction
08:45 led to suspicion of his loyalties.
08:47 - To this day, Oppenheimer's reputation is haunted
08:50 by the unproven charge that he was a Russian spy.
08:53 - Accusations of disloyalty.
08:55 Since 1941, Oppenheimer had been under FBI surveillance.
08:59 He was associated with various progressive causes
09:02 and organizations,
09:03 including the American Civil Liberties Union
09:05 and anti-fascism in Spain.
09:07 He also had close ties to the Communist Party
09:10 through members such as Gene Tatlock,
09:11 his wife Kitty and his brother Frank.
09:14 In 1943, his friend Håkon Chevalier,
09:17 a professor of French literature,
09:19 suggested passing information to the Soviet Union.
09:22 Oppenheimer rejected the idea,
09:24 but delayed reporting it
09:25 and provided inconsistent accounts to protect his friend.
09:29 - At first, Oppenheimer did not report
09:31 the Chevalier incident to anyone,
09:33 but his recent radical past haunted him at Los Alamos.
09:36 - In the post-war years,
09:38 McCarthyism swept through the United States,
09:40 leading to political repression
09:42 and the persecution of left-wing individuals.
09:45 - For over a decade, American political leaders
09:48 trampled democratic freedoms in the name of protecting them.
09:52 - Oppenheimer had made various enemies,
09:54 such as AEC Commissioner Louis Strauss,
09:56 who disliked Oppenheimer on personal grounds
09:59 and for his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.
10:01 In 1949, Oppenheimer was brought to testify
10:05 in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee,
10:07 during which the Chevalier incident came back to haunt him.
10:10 - Later, he said that his nerve just gave way.
10:14 - Ultimately, his government security clearance was revoked.
10:18 He was no longer able to work in government or policy.
10:21 - Oppenheimer, who had been totally unaware
10:24 of the scale of the campaign against him, was stunned.
10:27 - Post-war years.
10:28 Oppenheimer spent his remaining years
10:30 continuing to write, teach, and lecture on physics
10:33 and the role of science in society.
10:35 - But his heart wasn't in it.
10:37 - In 1965, he was diagnosed with throat cancer.
10:41 This was a result of a lifetime of cigarette smoking
10:44 and not his exposure to radioactive materials.
10:47 Despite treatment, he died in 1967 at the age of 62.
10:51 His funeral services were attended by a crowd
10:54 of more than 600 former associates
10:56 from the scientific, political, and military communities.
10:59 - I can't recall ever seeing him happy, you know,
11:02 just relaxed and having fun.
11:05 I don't have the feeling
11:07 that he ever felt good about himself,
11:10 that he was ever, in any sense, at peace with himself.
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11:30 In popular culture.
11:31 The Manhattan Project remains a source of fascination
11:34 in popular culture.
11:36 Oppenheimer was played by Sam Waterston
11:38 in the 1980 BBC TV series "Oppenheimer."
11:41 - We do not operate well when the important facts,
11:44 the essential conditions which limit
11:46 and determine our choices are unknown.
11:48 - Dwight Schultz took on the role
11:49 of the father of the atomic bomb
11:50 in 1989's "Fat Man and Little Boy."
11:53 There's a lot of buzz around
11:55 the Christopher Nolan film "Oppenheimer,"
11:57 which will be released in 2023.
11:59 - And they won't understand it
12:01 until they've used it.
12:06 - It has a star-studded cast
12:07 that includes Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer,
12:10 Emily Blunt as his wife Kitty,
12:12 and Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock.
12:14 Clearly, audiences continue to be fascinated
12:17 by these historic events and the man who led the way.
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