Oppenheimer - 8/10
Thoroughly enjoyed the first 2+ hours. But the last 45 min (?) post war stuff was weird to me. But big thumbs up for being entertained & learning a lot of history. Matt Damon was solid. Loved the Trinity test stuff. Didn't know Heisenberg was part of the Nazi nuke program. Loved the Einstein cameos. Yeah, much preferred it over Barbie.
FWIW, didn't know Oppenheimer was that "randy". Always imagined top Physicists to be ... disinterested.
That post war story did seem to be accurate.
Quote:
In December 1953, Strauss informed Oppenheimer that his security clearance had been stripped, but the physicist appealed the decision to a three-member panel that launched a month-long hearing in April 1954. After a one-sided proceeding in which Oppenheimer’s lawyers were blocked from accessing confidential material, the panel acknowledged he was a loyal citizen but voted 2 to 1 to revoke his security clearance.
The decision left Oppenheimer’s reputation in tatters. “He was a man of peace, and they destroyed him. He was a man of science, and they destroyed this man,” lamented close friend and fellow physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi.
Five years later, Strauss paid a price for Oppenheimer’s blacklisting. When Eisenhower appointed Strauss as U.S. secretary of commerce, the Senate rejected his nomination after a bitter confirmation hearing in which his treatment of Oppenheimer played a critical role. Strauss was only the eighth Cabinet nominee in U.S. history—and the only one between 1925 and 1989—who failed to win confirmation. Following the defeat, Strauss focused on philanthropic ventures until his death in 1974.
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Not sure how accurate the Oppenheimer-Truman meeting really was though. But good scene.
Quote:
“Mr. President,” he said, “I feel I have blood on my hands.”
Oppenheimer’s biographers in “American Prometheus” recounted how Truman would later retell the incident: “Over the years, Truman embellished the story. By one account, he replied, 'Never mind, it’ll all come out in the wash.' In yet another version, he pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to Oppenheimer, saying, 'Well, here, would you like to wipe your hands?'”
Ultimately, “American Prometheus” posits the most likely response Truman gave to Oppenheimer was a bit less dramatic. “I told him the blood was on my hands — to let me worry about that,” Truman allegedly said to a colleague.
However it went down, the exchange destroyed any collegiality the men might have formed. Truman stood up to signal the meeting was over, and Oppie walked out defeated. “Blood on his hands, dammit, he hasn’t half as much blood on his hands as I have,” Truman was overheard saying afterward. “You just don’t go around bellyaching about it.”
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