0:00

Hey everyone, Sally here. While we,

0:02

of course, cover history on this show, we

0:04

also know what's going on now. And probably

0:06

like many of you, we were swept up

0:09

in the Barbenheimer craze this past

0:11

week with the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer

0:13

coming out at the same time. Yesterday, we

0:15

released a new episode about the history

0:18

of dolls and how we got to Barbie in the first

0:20

place. And today we are re-airing

0:22

our season one episode on the real

0:24

story of Oppenheimer and the first atomic

0:27

bomb test in Los Alamos. Think

0:29

of it as

0:29

our version of a double feature. Enjoy.

0:35

History This Week, July 16,

0:37

1945. I'm Sally Helm.

0:47

It happened within a millionth

0:50

of a second. In

0:52

the New Mexico desert at 529 in

0:54

the morning, in

0:57

the center of a bomb.

1:01

A plutonium sphere contracted,

1:04

then exploded. It

1:08

was silent at first, but hot

1:11

and unbelievably bright.

1:14

One witness wrote, it was like being

1:16

at the bottom of an ocean of light.

1:20

We were bathed in it from all directions.

1:23

The light withdrew into the bomb

1:25

as if the bomb sucked it up. Then

1:29

it turned purple and blue and

1:31

went up and up and up.

1:34

Someone else described seeing a violet

1:37

column thousands of feet high.

1:40

Another wrote, for a fleeting instant,

1:43

the color was unearthly green.

1:47

Then, finally, came the

1:50

sound. A

1:53

crack and a rumble like lightning

1:56

and thunder. The assembled

1:58

scientists could see. see and

2:00

feel and hear. It

2:03

worked. They had just

2:05

detonated the world's first-ever

2:09

atomic bomb. Today,

2:14

the Trinity test in New Mexico

2:16

marks

2:16

the beginning of the atomic age, a

2:19

terrifying new phase of human

2:21

history. I think historians

2:24

in the future will look back and

2:26

see that one of the key

2:29

events that happened, if not the most important

2:32

event in the 20th century, is

2:34

detonation at Trinity site

2:37

and the use of atomic weapons.

2:39

How did scientists create

2:41

what was then the most powerful

2:43

weapon of all time? And

2:46

how did the bomb's existence forever

2:48

change, not just war

2:50

and diplomacy, but our sense

2:52

of what human beings are capable of?

3:05

I'm Helena Bonham Carter, and for

3:07

BBC Radio 4, this is

3:09

History's Secret Heroes. She

3:12

received

3:12

a brown envelope and says, do

3:14

not open it until you get on the

3:17

plane. A series of rarely heard

3:19

tales from World War II. They knew

3:21

they were going to be caught, and actually

3:23

that was sort of part of the plan. Unsung

3:26

heroes, acts of resistance, deception,

3:28

and courage. That is a morning

3:31

that is seared into my memory.

3:34

I will never be able to forget the

3:36

terror of that morning.

3:38

Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes

3:41

wherever you get your podcasts.

3:44

Dr.

3:48

John Hunter grew up in what

3:50

you might call a nuclear family.

3:53

My father worked for the Air Force

3:56

after World War II. We worked

3:58

in bases that stored. nuclear weapons. So

4:01

we had photographs of atomic

4:03

bomb blasting our TV room

4:06

wall. So as a kid, I thought,

4:08

everybody had that in their TV

4:10

room. But he never talked about what

4:13

he did because it was top secret. So once

4:16

I became a historian, I thought, what's

4:18

my dad doing?

4:21

Hunter ended up diving deep into

4:23

atomic history. The

4:25

story begins with one of the smallest

4:28

things in the world. Going

4:30

back to the Greeks, there was this idea of

4:32

an indivisible piece of

4:35

matter, individual unit of matter.

4:38

And it was called an atom, which means

4:40

indivisible. Scientists

4:42

since then have thought, well, what happens if we

4:44

split it?

4:45

If you have an indivisible thing, someone

4:48

will try to divide it. But

4:51

there

4:51

was no way to split it until the 20th century.

4:54

In 1938, two German scientists

4:58

are working in a lab with uranium,

5:01

and they split the uranium atom

5:04

basically by accident.

5:05

If atoms can be

5:08

agitated, so that all of a sudden,

5:11

they split, then energy

5:14

is released, electrons are released,

5:16

neutrons are released, and they

5:18

then can go and split other

5:21

atoms. And you get this cascading

5:24

release of energy,

5:26

which can be weaponized.

5:30

With the military

5:32

application of nuclear weapons, what

5:35

you want is a very quick,

5:37

rapid chain reaction,

5:41

where all of this energy is released

5:43

at once. And then it becomes

5:46

an explosion.

5:54

It's 1938. World

5:57

War Two has not officially begun,

5:59

but the North Nazis are in power in

6:01

Germany. And the

6:03

news that two German scientists

6:06

have split the atom? That

6:08

spread through the nuclear physics world like

6:10

a forest wildfire.

6:13

And it was a quick realization that

6:16

if the Nazis were able to

6:19

convert that release of energy

6:22

into a weapon, it would be

6:24

an incredibly powerful weapon.

6:26

These physicists everywhere are talking about

6:29

this. And a few of them in the

6:31

U.S. decide, we have to get

6:33

the government to pay attention to this. So

6:36

they draft a letter. The

6:37

letter is written by several refugee

6:40

scientists

6:41

who have escaped the growing

6:44

Nazi juggernaut and

6:46

they're concerned that the

6:48

Nazis will get the atomic bomb first.

6:51

The scientists want to make sure that

6:53

their warning will be taken seriously. And

6:56

so they convince a very famous

6:59

refugee scientist to put his name

7:01

on the letter. Albert Einstein.

7:04

Einstein signed it saying

7:07

to President Roosevelt that this

7:09

was a promising area of research, especially

7:12

in regards to military weapons. So

7:14

FDR once got Einstein's letter,

7:17

he thought, well, okay, this is

7:19

interesting and we'll throw a little bit of money

7:21

at it. But the United States wasn't

7:23

in war yet. So there was no

7:25

real sense of urgency. Splitting

7:28

the atom was still primarily of interest

7:31

to physicists. But

7:34

then,

7:35

in December of 1941, the

7:40

Japanese Navy attacks Pearl

7:42

Harbor. Hello, NBC. Hello,

7:45

NBC. This is A.D. Hill

7:47

at Honolulu, Hawaii. We

7:51

have witnessed this morning the

8:01

After Pearl Harbor, there was of course

8:03

rapid mobilization. The atomic bomb

8:05

was one of these research

8:07

projects that was being fast

8:10

forwarded to help

8:11

win the war. The project

8:13

gets a new name, the

8:15

Manhattan Project. The

8:18

initiative is technically headquartered

8:20

in Manhattan, at

8:22

least at first. If

8:24

spies went to look for this

8:26

Manhattan Project and went to Manhattan, all

8:28

they would find is an office. The

8:31

real work was done in other places around the

8:33

country.

8:35

Coordinating the Manhattan Project

8:37

is General Leslie R.

8:40

Groves. Who had just finished

8:42

for the Army Corps of Engineers the construction

8:45

of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. He's

8:47

organized, knows how to get things done. And

8:50

a big issue at first is coordination.

8:55

Researchers for the Manhattan Project are at universities

8:57

all over the country.

8:58

And if they wanted to communicate with

9:00

each other, they had to give a letter

9:03

to a military person who

9:06

put it in the briefcase and had a

9:08

handcuff to the briefcase and carried

9:10

it by train to communicate.

9:12

This was not sustainable.

9:16

Groves had to find a central location

9:18

where scientists could all be together. And

9:21

he needed to find someone to run

9:23

it.

9:24

Talked to different physicists around

9:26

the country, traveled around the country interviewing

9:28

them, and he finally picked a man

9:31

by the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

9:34

Oppenheimer was a nuclear physicist in

9:36

California. He'd been born in New York

9:38

City to German Jewish parents.

9:41

And he was known as a brilliant

9:44

scientist. One of the

9:46

great stories about Oppy, that's his nickname,

9:49

is that he wrote a letter to the New York

9:51

Geological Society and

9:53

it impressed the society so much that they

9:56

invited him to come give a lecture. And

9:58

so he showed up with his

9:59

father and the president

10:02

turned to his father and said, well, why'd

10:05

you here for the lecture? And Albee's father

10:07

said, no, no, my son's giving the lecture

10:09

today.

10:10

Oppenheimer was then 12. Then

10:13

he gave the lecture.

10:15

He wasn't just interested in rocks. Over

10:17

the course of his life, he was an avid

10:20

reader, dabbled in poetry,

10:22

but eventually settled on theoretical

10:24

physics. Hunter

10:27

wrote a book all about Oppenheimer. So

10:29

he spent a lot of time trying to get to know

10:31

him through the archives.

10:32

And still. There's some things I don't

10:35

understand. There's just some really kind

10:37

of puzzling parts of him that

10:39

don't fit together. He was charismatic.

10:42

People came away having a conversation

10:44

with him, just saying, wow, this

10:47

man listened to me and got me

10:49

and we had a wonderful conversation.

10:52

On the other hand, he also could

10:54

be socially awkward.

10:56

He didn't suffer fools

10:58

very easily and could

11:00

easily make you feel very,

11:03

very stupid. He was a difficult

11:05

man to understand, but

11:08

he was an effective leader and a great

11:10

physicist. And he ends up being the

11:12

perfect person to head up the

11:14

Manhattan Project. One

11:17

of his first jobs is he needs to find

11:20

this centralized location, a

11:22

place for the top secret Manhattan Project

11:24

research to happen.

11:27

It

11:27

had to be away from the population

11:29

center because they didn't want a scientist working

11:32

on the Manhattan Project to bump into

11:34

a colleague and say, hey, Joe, what have you

11:36

been doing?

11:37

It's safer to avoid big cities for

11:39

a lot of reasons. If an accident

11:41

happened, well, there would go half

11:44

of Chicago. So he's looking for

11:46

someplace isolated, but

11:48

also. And it has to be some places

11:50

that would attract people to come here.

11:53

Oppenheimer is going to be recruiting tons

11:55

of people to join him. In some

11:57

cases, they'll bring their families.

12:00

So he's like, we should pick someplace beautiful.

12:03

And he knows just the spot. Oppenheimer

12:08

had spent a lot of time in New Mexico,

12:10

knew the area, and so by

12:13

the fall of 1942, they

12:16

had chosen Los

12:17

Alamos as the place for this central

12:19

laboratory. Los Alamos is

12:22

surrounded by mountains. It's

12:24

on the side of a volcano that blew

12:26

up a million years ago. It's also

12:28

practically uninhabited. At

12:31

this point in 1942, there's a boys' school there and

12:35

about 200 residents. And

12:37

Oppenheimer starts recruiting scientists

12:40

to come to Los Alamos.

12:41

Well, when I approach somebody

12:43

to say, I'd like you to come to this

12:46

place, I can't tell you where it is, but

12:48

I can tell you that this is very important. So

12:50

the war effort, I think

12:52

people knowing Oppie's background

12:55

in nuclear physics and their own

12:57

work in nuclear physics, I think they all

12:59

put that together. And now that if it worked,

13:02

this is going to

13:02

be a once in a lifetime

13:05

opportunity.

13:06

They're motivated by scientific

13:08

curiosity or by patriotism

13:11

or both. And they move

13:13

to Los Alamos in droves. This

13:17

once barely populated town becomes

13:20

an instant city of about 5,000. And

13:23

Oppenheimer is running the whole project.

13:26

Some people say he was a genius because

13:28

of his work in science. I

13:30

think he was a genius in how he managed

13:33

the people at Los Alamos. There

13:35

were scientists, there were engineers,

13:37

there were chemists, there were military

13:40

people who

13:40

knew about munitions, blowing

13:43

up things.

13:46

Of course, all of this is top secret.

13:49

Some Manhattan Project scientists

13:52

bring their families, but the families can't

13:54

know what the scientists are working on.

13:57

In fact, they're working on two different.

14:00

weapons. One of

14:02

them is made with uranium.

14:05

That bomb is nicknamed Little Boy. And once

14:08

the scientists get their hands on enough uranium,

14:11

they realize pretty quickly that the Little

14:13

Boy bomb is going to work.

14:16

But they're also trying to design a bomb with

14:18

plutonium. That one

14:20

is nicknamed Fat Man. And

14:23

it's giving them a lot more trouble.

14:25

They tried doing this gun assembly

14:27

like the traditional bomb, but it

14:29

didn't work out. It kind of flew

14:32

apart.

14:34

The scientists can't

14:37

get it to work. Meanwhile,

14:39

the government is on track to spend over $2

14:42

billion on this project. Money

14:45

that could have gone directly to the war front.

14:47

It had gone to bullets and

14:50

tires and tanks and airplanes.

14:53

So Oppenheimer is feeling the

14:55

pressure.

14:57

Appy is getting pretty

14:59

high strung here. You know, he's living

15:02

on cigarettes, coffee. When

15:04

he takes a break from smoking a cigarette,

15:06

he'll smoke his pipe.

15:08

He's working long hours to get this done.

15:10

It's stressful. And some

15:13

of the scientists begin to have moral

15:16

qualms about what they're doing. One

15:18

of them actually leaves for that reason. But

15:22

the work goes on, and eventually,

15:24

the scientists at Los Alamos

15:26

have a new idea. An

15:28

implosion bomb.

15:32

At its center is a ball of plutonium

15:35

about the size of a grapefruit. They surrounded

15:38

it with high explosives. And they had

15:40

to then make those high-explosive lenses

15:43

all within a millisecond of each other, because

15:46

the shockwave would

15:47

then come into the

15:49

bomb, and it would descend

15:52

on this pit of plutonium, compressed

15:54

enough that it would cause this slipping

15:56

of the plutonium atoms and the chain

15:59

reaction.

15:59

But just one millisecond

16:02

or one millimeter of

16:04

error and the bomb would fail. If

16:07

the military drops a bomb in enemy territory

16:09

and it doesn't explode, then

16:12

the results of all this top-secret

16:14

research would fall into the hands of

16:16

an Axis power. So

16:19

the scientists at Los Alamos have

16:21

to perform a test.

16:24

The world's first atomic

16:26

bomb explosion.

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17:45

Oppenheimer calls the test of the atomic

17:47

bomb Trinity. He

17:49

says the name comes from the poetry of John

17:51

Donne. As scientists

17:54

prepare for the Trinity test, the

17:56

stakes are very high. It's 1945.

18:02

Germany has already surrendered, and

18:04

the U.S.'s attention is on Japan.

18:08

President Truman knows that an extended

18:10

land invasion of Japan will

18:13

bring massive casualties, both

18:15

on the U.S. side and for the Japanese. So

18:18

he's considering using the atomic

18:21

bomb. He knows it

18:23

would inflict massive casualties

18:25

on Japanese civilians, but

18:28

that it would, in all likelihood,

18:29

bring a swift end to the war.

18:33

In July of that year... Truman

18:35

is meeting with Churchill and Stallidge in

18:38

Potsdam, Germany, right around the time that

18:40

the test is scheduled. So Truman wants

18:42

to know that he has an atomic bomb that works.

18:44

Partly because he's looking

18:46

beyond this war and into

18:49

the next. Not just to end the

18:51

war in Japan, but as kind

18:53

of the first shot of the Cold War in the Soviet

18:55

Union. So

18:58

Oppenheimer and his team are under tremendous

19:01

pressure from the highest levels of

19:03

government. And they also know

19:05

that this test has massive scientific

19:08

implications. This is the biggest

19:10

physics experiment to date

19:13

in the world. They have all of these

19:15

different machines that are measuring

19:17

all of these different elements.

19:20

They're setting this up in an isolated spot

19:22

in the New Mexico desert.

19:24

And there are serious

19:27

risks. A

19:29

radioactive cloud could drift

19:31

away after the explosion. The homesteaders

19:34

and the cattle ranchers who were nearby, they had to

19:36

get them off of

19:38

their land because of this fear

19:41

of the fallout.

19:42

Some early calculations had suggested

19:44

an even more apocalyptic scenario.

19:47

There was no concern that the

19:50

atmosphere would catch on fire

19:52

and it would be the end of the world because we blow

19:55

up the atmosphere.

20:01

Wow. And then somebody

20:03

redid the calculations and figured

20:06

out that a decimal place was thrown

20:08

or something.

20:09

And so they think they die on that worry

20:12

back. But still, it's

20:15

terrifying to test a weapon this powerful

20:18

for the very first

20:20

time. On

20:23

the morning of the test... There

20:25

was, as often is

20:27

in southern Mexico in July,

20:30

a summer thunderstorm.

20:33

Scientists are afraid that lightning

20:35

might strike the tower where the bomb

20:37

is waiting. The meteorologist

20:40

for the army was brought in and

20:42

he said, you're going to have a window, not

20:44

very big window, but a window somewhere

20:47

between 4 and 6 a.m.

20:50

where you're going to be able to ignite

20:53

the bomb.

20:57

When they get the go-ahead, the

20:59

countdown begins.

21:08

And then at zero, of course, the

21:11

bomb detonates. New clouds,

21:14

chain reaction happens. People

21:18

around the Trinity site who weren't

21:21

involved with the Manhattan Project would say,

21:23

I saw the sunrise twice that big. It's

21:27

amazing how quickly the

21:29

explosion just envelops. I've

21:32

seen photographs of this huge

21:34

explosion, this huge cloud

21:36

of dust and colors,

21:39

the yellows, the reds, the purples.

21:42

People experienced the atomic

21:44

explosion in Arizona, in

21:47

Texas,

21:48

in Mexico. People were

21:50

thrown out of their beds. The

21:52

official explanation was that

21:55

an ammunition depot exploded

21:57

and nobody was heard.

21:59

The public isn't allowed to know about it yet, but

22:03

the atomic bomb

22:05

worked. Oppenheimer

22:11

at first is relieved.

22:13

Nearly three years of intense work

22:16

have led to success. But

22:19

then one of his scientists came up to

22:21

him and said, well, now we're all sons of

22:23

bitches. And the

22:25

other scientist said that

22:28

he felt that the end of

22:30

the world, what he saw

22:32

that morning, is what the last person

22:34

would see. Later, in 1965, on

22:36

an NBC special, Oppenheimer

22:39

famously says that when he saw

22:41

the bomb, he thought of a line from

22:43

the Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita,

22:46

spoken by the god Vishnu.

22:50

Now I am become death, the

22:52

destroyer of worlds. I

22:55

suppose we all thought that one way or another.

22:58

This was a new, powerful, destructive

23:01

force that had been released from the world,

23:03

just like this god

23:06

of the Hindu religion is poised

23:08

to destroy the world at

23:10

a moment's notice.

23:14

Some of the scientists had started to

23:17

try and reverse course. Before

23:19

the bomb was dropped, there was a petition that

23:22

went around to the Manhattan Project facilities.

23:24

It was signed by scientists saying, maybe

23:27

this isn't a good thing to use.

23:29

The army had gotten that petition and

23:31

just filed it away.

23:38

My safety story, we're taking part.

23:41

Less than a month after the Trinity test,

23:44

the U.S. drops two atomic bombs

23:46

in Japan, first on

23:48

Hiroshima. 815 in the morning

23:51

found a 400

23:54

pound bomb with

23:57

a destructive force of 20,000 tons of T.M. and

24:00

then Nagasaki, three days later.

24:06

The

24:11

bombs kill well over 200,000 Japanese people, mostly civilians.

24:19

The aftermath in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

24:22

is devastating.

24:24

Two cities obliterated, families

24:28

destroyed. People

24:30

can hardly wrap their heads around it. And

24:36

J. Robert Oppenheimer, in 1945,

24:39

he hasn't yet fully reckoned with how

24:41

he feels about Truman's decision to

24:43

drop this bomb that he helped create.

24:45

I think by this time he's kind

24:47

of, he's stepped back and he's just,

24:50

you know, it's out of his hands. The

24:52

military just took it in and

24:54

then did what the military felt they

24:57

needed to do to end the war.

25:01

Oppenheimer, the peoples of the war.

25:04

World War II is about to come to its official

25:06

closing. We're on the Pacific

25:09

Fleet flagship USS Missouri

25:11

in Tokyo Bay for the signing

25:13

of the surrender of Japan.

25:16

As Truman had predicted, when World

25:19

War II ends, the Cold

25:21

War takes shape. And

25:23

atomic weapons take on a whole new

25:25

role. They

25:28

build up in stockpiles during the arms

25:31

race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

25:34

Oppenheimer watches this with mounting

25:37

horror. In the early 1950s,

25:39

the U.S. develops a new nuclear

25:42

weapon, the hydrogen

25:43

bomb. Which is a thousand times

25:46

more powerful than the bombs that

25:48

exploded over Hiroshima in

25:50

Nagasaki. He started saying, maybe

25:53

we shouldn't be doing this. He wrote

25:55

an article for La Ford Affairs

25:57

magazine that said, we're like two scoreblasts.

25:59

and a bottle, we're going to

26:02

kill each other. Oppenheimer's

26:05

views are increasingly at odds

26:08

with the government. And he

26:10

comes under fire. He's

26:12

had leftist politics his whole life. And

26:15

he basically gets accused of being a spy

26:18

during the McCarthy era. By

26:20

the way, most historians now agree that he

26:22

wasn't one.

26:23

It's a complicated story, but

26:25

he lost his security clearance. After

26:28

that, he was a changed

26:30

moon. And he then refused

26:33

to comment about atomic affairs. After

26:35

that, he said he didn't have

26:36

the clearance. So he stepped back. But

26:38

he was the conscience of scientists.

26:42

Late

26:43

in his life, Oppenheimer tries

26:45

to think about what science should

26:47

be, how it can be harnessed

26:49

for good. The

26:52

nuclear age that he helped usher in had

26:54

brought about unspeakable horror in

26:56

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It

26:59

also brought fear to a generation

27:01

of people growing up during the Cold War. Though

27:05

Hunter does remind us that it's about

27:07

more than just weapons.

27:08

It's about nuclear

27:10

medicine. Nuclear power plants generate

27:12

electricity, about 20 percent in the

27:14

United States, up to 70 percent

27:17

in France. I also

27:19

think that there's a possibility

27:22

that nuclear weapons, if used

27:25

in anger in the future, if

27:27

used in war against countries, could

27:30

lead to the end of human history.

27:35

Perhaps the most profound legacy

27:37

of the Trinity test is the way that

27:39

it has changed human psychology

27:42

and our perception of ourselves.

27:45

Before Trinity? It

27:47

was only gods who could destroy

27:49

humans, destroy the world. Now

27:52

that ability rested in the hands

27:54

of humans. And I think that's a fundamental

27:57

shift in our consciousness. something

28:00

that we can do to ourselves. As

28:02

Oppenheimer said, I have

28:04

been asked whether in the years to

28:07

come it will be possible to kill 40 million

28:10

American people in the 20

28:12

largest American towns by

28:15

the use of atomic bombs in

28:17

a single night. I'm

28:19

afraid that the answer to that question is yes.

28:23

I think the only hope for

28:25

our future safety must lie

28:27

in a collaboration based on

28:29

confidence and good faith with

28:31

the other peoples of the world.

28:50

Thanks for listening to History This

28:52

Week. For moments throughout history

28:54

that are also worth watching, check your local TV

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listings to find out what's on the History Channel

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today. If you wanna get in touch, please

29:01

shoot us an email at our email address, historythisweekathistory.com,

29:05

or you can leave us a voicemail at 212-351-0410. Special

29:11

thanks to our guest, Dr. John Hunter, professor

29:14

emeritus of US history at New Mexico State

29:16

University and author of J. Robert

29:18

Oppenheimer, The Cold War and The Atomic

29:20

West. This episode was originally

29:23

released on July 13th, 2020, produced

29:26

by Ben Dickstein and Julie Magruder. It

29:28

was sound designed by Brian Flood and researched

29:30

by Emma Fredricks. History This Week

29:33

is also produced by Julia Press, Corinne

29:35

Wallace, Chloe Weiner, and me, Sally

29:37

Helm. Our associate producers are

29:39

Hazel May and Jonah Buchanan. Our

29:41

senior producer is Ben Dickstein, our supervising

29:43

producer is McKamey Lynn, and our executive

29:46

producer is Jesse Katz. Don't

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