Manufacturing Death: Birth of the Atom Bomb (2023) Movie Script
(quirky music)
(foreboding music)
(gentle music)
(rain pattering)
- [Alex] It's not an exaggeration to say
that there was a world
before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed,
a world after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were bombed.
- Oppenheimer's reaction to
when the first nuclear bombs
were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were mixed.
There was obviously a professional pride
that this project that he had
masterminded had paid off,
but at the same time, what he was aware of,
that everything he had
created was causing death
on a monumental scale.
(explosion blaring) (energetic music)
- I have been asked
whether, in the years to come,
it will be possible to kill
40 million American people
in the 20 largest American towns
by the use of atomic
bombs in a single night.
I'm afraid that the answer
to that question is yes.
(majestic music)
- I don't think, however,
there's been an event
in human history that's
quite so consequential
because what you showed with that
was that man was capable of
not just destroying each other
on a small human scale, but
capable of wiping out the world.
(film reel whirring)
(gentle music)
(rhythmic music)
- [Narrator] On the 22nd of August, 1939,
Albert Einstein and
Leo Szilard sent a letter
to the 32nd president of the United States,
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The two scientists warned Roosevelt
that the Germans were
harboring uranium sources
for research into nuclear fission,
which could lead to the creation
of highly destructive bombs.
This letter would soon change
the very course of the world.
(suspenseful music)
At the time of its delivery,
Europe was on the verge of chaos.
Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler,
sat at the helm of Germany,
infecting his citizens
with hate and division.
On the 1st of September,
1939, Germany invaded Poland,
triggering a declaration of
war from Britain and France
under the 1918 Treaty of Versailles.
Within six weeks, the
German Army crushed Poland,
executing thousands
of citizens in the process.
A dark cloud soon loomed over Europe.
(explosion banging)
(suspenseful music continues)
(Adolf Hitler speaking in foreign language)
(spectators cheering)
(fighter planes rumbling)
(fighter plane crashing)
(suspenseful music continues)
(explosion banging)
- [Winston Churchill]
Sure I am that this day,
now, we are the masters of our fate.
(fighter planes rumbling)
We shall defend our island
whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on beaches, landing grounds,
in fields, in streets, and on the hills.
We shall never surrender.
(explosions banging)
(suspenseful music continues)
(artillery firing)
(explosion banging)
(melancholy music)
(fighter planes rumbling)
(upbeat music)
- You've got to remember that America
does not enter the Second World War
until two years after it's broken out.
Of course it starts in September, 1939,
when Britain declares war on Germany
because Germany has invaded Poland.
And so, for two years, there
has been fighting in Europe.
Hitler invades countries like France,
and the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Hitler tries to invade the United Kingdom.
(upbeat music continues)
You then got Hitler, in the middle of 1941,
invading the Soviet Union.
That's a big event.
So, you know, war is
basically waging worldwide.
(artilleries firing)
(Adolf Hitler speaking in foreign language)
(spectators cheering)
(melancholy music)
- By the end of 1941,
America had been neutral.
I mean, in practice, it was supplying aids
to Britain in every way it could
because President Roosevelt was,
he was more than just a supporter,
he was somebody who actually saw
that the only way of having
any kind of peace in the world
was by defeating the Nazis
and the Axis is powerless.
What he also saw was to
involve America in another war
would've been politically catastrophic.
And people were not engaged
in it and they didn't want that,
so he was very, very cautious
about any kind of action
that would actually lead
America into declaring war.
And even though he'd said
to the king, King George VI,
a couple of years before,
if the Nazis would start bombing London,
we would come in on your side,
there was still great reluctance
to actually take further step
that would lead to such a commitment.
And obviously that changed
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
(melancholy music continues)
- [Narrator] It was not until 1941
that the conflict spread
beyond Europe's borders.
In the December, Japan
launched a surprise attack
on US Naval base, Pearl Harbor.
The military strike
killed over 2,400 people
and destroyed 19 US Navy ships.
(bombs exploding)
- The reason why it was so
symbolic and so successful
was America had never
been attacked like that
on their home shores,
especially in the modern era.
And it was proof that the Japanese
were this highly mechanized
force, utterly ruthless,
who could commit an act like this
of absolute audacity and absolute violence.
- [Narrator] As his citizens
mourned, FDR retaliated fast,
declaring war on Japan and bringing the US
into the most destructive
conflict in history.
(melancholy music)
- That the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack by Japan
on Sunday, December 7th, 1941,
a state of war has existed
between the United States
and the Japanese Empire.
(spectators applauding) (melancholy music)
- [Narrator] Although under no obligation,
Germany and Italy also joined Japan's side,
whilst the US gained
support from Hitler's enemies,
Britain and the Soviet Union.
(melancholy music continues)
- It's one of Hitler's
most perplexing decisions
as to why he decided to
declare war on the United States.
Well, actually, his reason for doing it
is because he thinks,
finally, this is an opportunity
to show that he really
wants to rid the world
of what he sees as being the
evils of international finance
and Jewish control of economies.
Of course he's dead wrong about that.
He's also in a pact with Japan
so he feels that Japan's a natural ally.
And so, this is why war breaks out,
it's Hitler saber-rattling.
He doesn't know what it's gonna lead to.
(film reel whirring)
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In the summer of 1942,
FDR approved the creation
of the Manhattan Project,
bringing together research scientists
and military engineers from
across the US and Canada.
The birth of the atomic
bomb finally commenced.
- The Manhattan Project
has got lots of different roles,
if you like.
The primary role of course
is to build a nuclear bomb
that you can use in the war.
Some of the other roles
are also to try and establish
what level of nuclear capacity
do other countries have,
and of course especially Nazi Germany.
Of course the Manhattan
Project is also there
to construct all the stuff around
to build a nuclear bomb.
So it's got to mastermind factories,
it's got to mastermind
getting hold of uranium,
it's got to mastermind creating plutonium.
So it's got lots and
lots of different roles.
And this is gonna take place,
initially, you know,
masterminded from Manhattan,
hence the name, but it's gonna take place
in locations all over the United States,
all the way through to
California and even in Canada.
- [Narrator] General Leslie Groves
of the Manhattan Engineer
District commanded the project.
A hardheaded leader with
an intensity often feared
by his inferiors, Groves stopped at nothing
to make the mission a success.
To many people's surprise,
Groves put forward J. Robert
Oppenheimer for lead physicist,
a notably contentious figure.
Oppenheimer lacked a Nobel Prize.
He preferred theoretical
science over practical.
He was politically left-leaning,
often attending communist front activities
and even going on to marry a
member of the Communist Party.
- Oppenheimer's political activities
and Oppenheimer's political sympathies
actually drew the attention of the FBI,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And actually, he had his phone tapped,
he had his mail opened, he
was watched, he was followed.
You know, obviously, he was
in an incredibly sensitive position.
And the fact that he had loyalties
that may lie elsewhere
outside the United States
of course could have
been considered a problem.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] He soon became
the US's greatest chance
of building an atomic
bomb before the Germans.
- But even though Groves wasn't a genius,
his single act of genius, the
one thing he really gets right
is to appoint Oppenheimer.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The most
secretive project in US history
took place in Los Alamos, New Mexico,
an isolated desert region
where Oppenheimer's team
would never be disturbed.
(melancholy music continues)
- There were very, very few people
working on the Manhattan Project
that knew what was happening.
You know, people who were doing the laundry
were given these weird devices
that they had to rub over the clothes
and to see how many
clicks this device meant.
Now, those people had no
idea what they were doing,
but of course today we know
those are Geiger counters
which are measuring levels of radiation.
So, you know, people were aware.
There was a lot of weird stuff going on
in all the locations of
the Manhattan Project,
especially Los Alamos in New Mexico.
- [Narrator] Both Groves
and Oppenheimer's scientists
set out to create nuclear chain reactions
using Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239,
two rare isotopes which needed huge levels
of funding to procure.
- I think there was also a sense
that America wants to be top dog
in terms of its technology
and its research.
It wants to be this
country that was dominant,
because obviously at this stage,
Germany was seen as the threat.
It wasn't Russia, or
Britain, or anywhere else.
There's very much a race against time
as to who was going to be the first
to harness this energy
and to come out on top.
- [Narrator] Three years into the project,
the scientists had created two new bombs
named Little Boy and Fat Man.
Little Boy had the simpler design.
The gun-shaped bomb
triggered a nuclear explosion
by firing one piece of
Uranium-235 into another,
causing a chain reaction.
Fat Man was in turn the
more complex of the two.
A bulbous 10-foot bomb
containing a sphere of metal Plutonium-239,
it was surrounded by blocks of explosives
that were designed to produce
an extremely accurate implosion.
However, the high risk
and high cost of Fat Man
made the Los Alamos scientists feel uneasy.
And so, Oppenheimer's
team insisted on a test run.
- [Announcer] Minus 30 seconds.
(ominous music)
Minus 20 seconds.
Minus 10 seconds.
Minus five seconds.
(nuclear bomb exploding) (melancholy music)
(camera clicking)
(camera clicking)
- There was a big worry that, actually,
by triggering a nuclear explosion,
you might cause the entire
atmosphere to burn up.
And if that happened, that
would be the end of the world.
Now, even though many scientists
didn't think that was gonna
happen, there were a few
who were just a little
bit worried about it.
So in fact, when that
first bomb does go off,
there's a relief in some ways
that the world hasn't
exploded along with it.
(melancholy music continues)
- Oppenheimer was the American Prometheus,
because he was this man
who had this enormous power,
and he was frightened of it
because when he saw the test,
he said, "I am become
death, destroyer of worlds."
And I think that's a very
powerful thing to say.
(nuclear bomb exploding)
(melancholy music continues)
The entire Trinity test
was not just for fun.
It was leading to what's going to become
probably the most single
notorious act of 20th century.
- [Narrator] The Trinity test succeeded,
and onlookers finally realized
the enormity of the bomb's power.
(film reel whirring)
(melancholy music)
The Allied powers secured
victory in Europe in May, 1945.
The Nazi empire finally
fell after six long years,
and Hitler escapes to his
bunker to die by cyanide.
(melancholy music continues)
However, for the United
States, the war was not over yet.
Trouble still brewed in the Pacific,
and American blood continued to spill.
- After V-E Day was declared in Europe,
there was a real problem.
America and the rest of the Allied powers
were still at war with Japan.
And Japan showed absolutely
no signs of surrendering.
(rhythmic music)
The difference between Germany and Japan
was Germany, especially after Hitler died,
knew they were beaten, knew
there was nowhere else to go.
They just basically have to
settle for a humiliating peace,
the best possible terms they could get.
The thing about Japan
is that there is no concept
of surrender in their national identity.
The whole idea was that
they would literally fight
until the last man.
- When Japan and the United States
are fighting this war in the Pacific,
what they're doing is fighting
for islands strongholds.
(rhythmic music continues)
You've gotta think of the war
as like a kind of to and froing,
of trying to grab stepping
stones on a big pond,
if you like.
And so, you know, the more
stepping stones you control,
the more of the pond you control.
And so, you have huge battles
on islands like Iwo Jima, Peleliu,
which are very bloody,
very attritional fights,
in which the Japanese are often dug in
and fight to the last man,
and it costs an enormous amount of lives.
So it's a very bloody, very vicious,
very drawn out combat.
And of course, as well as these battles
on these small islands,
you also have these huge
naval engagement as well,
like the Battle of Midway,
which again are very
costly in men and material.
(canons firing)
(machine gun firing)
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] President
Roosevelt passed away
a month before the Nazi regime's defeat.
Harry S. Truman assumed
the role of president,
only learning of the
Manhattan Project's existence
24 hours into the job.
The major task of
leading the world to peace
now landed in Truman's hands.
- Roosevelt was a very sober man.
He understood that what
they were dealing with
was something of absolute magnitude.
And so, therefore his idea,
and I think he was absolutely right,
was as few people knew
about this as possible.
And in fact, Truman was, at one point,
before he was aware
of the Manhattan Project,
he was seeing all these documents,
which seemed to be this
vast government expense,
and he didn't understand why people
were spending so much
money on a secret project.
He tried to look into it,
but he was informed very
sternly, no, this is not for you.
And so, obviously, the context of war,
there are so many things
that you're not involved with,
he just let it go.
But of course, after Roosevelt died
and when he became
president, he became aware
of what was the greatest
scientific endeavor
that America had been involved in.
(gentle music continues) (clock ticking)
- [Narrator] On the 26th of July, 1945,
Allied leaders gathered at the
Potsdam Conference in Berlin
to draw up plans for Japan's surrender.
President Truman,
alongside Britain and China,
issued the document.
- The Potsdam Declaration that was made
at the Potsdam Conference said to Japan,
listen, you have got to surrender,
and without any conditions whatsoever.
Now, this has got to be a complete defeat.
Otherwise, hell is gonna be
rained down on your country.
(gentle music continues)
What Truman, the
American president, didn't do
was to reveal, actually, I've
got a big ace up my sleeve,
and that's an atom
bomb, but he hinted at it.
- [Narrator] The Potsdam Declaration
gave the Japanese an ultimatum,
accept defeat or suffer
incomprehensible destruction.
Japan showed no sign of bowing down.
Prime Minister Suzuki
announced that the Japanese policy
towards the declaration
was one of mokusatsu,
killing with silence.
From that moment, the
dropping of the atomic bomb
was inevitable.
(rhythmic music)
(majestic music)
(gentle music)
(plane engine rumbling)
(plane engine rumbling)
(plane engine roaring)
At 8:15 AM on the 6th of August, 1945,
the lead plane, Enola Gay,
released the Little Boy
bomb over Hiroshima.
(bomb whistling)
Residents awoke to the most
almighty site in human history.
(siren blaring)
(nuclear bomb exploding)
(majestic music)
Little Boy fell almost
six miles in 43 seconds
before detonating at
an altitude of 2,000 feet.
80,000 people died instantly,
some even evaporating on the spot.
- [Reporter] A short time
ago, an American airplane
dropped one bomb on Hiroshima
and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
- You can imagine that
if you are in Hiroshima,
you're going about your daily business,
there's just this flash
of blinding white light,
and then all of a sudden
everything around you is destroyed.
And it's something biblical.
I mean, you would've genuinely
imagined, if you'd seen it,
that this was the end of days.
(majestic music continues)
Japan at this point was faced with the fact
that one of their major
industrial and military bases
no longer existed.
I mean, a huge number
of civilians had been killed.
It was an act completely
without parallel in modern warfare.
It was literally the first atomic bomb.
You would've expected
that they would've thought,
we can't carry on.
But this is Japan we're talking about.
This isn't any other country.
(majestic music continues)
And so, they refused to surrender
on the grounds that,
(indistinct) can keep bombing us,
we don't care.
We are not going to surrender to you.
But of course the problem is
they didn't really understand
what they were up against.
- [Narrator] The bomb obliterated
Hiroshima and its people,
and yet the Japanese Government
still refused to surrender.
Three days later, a second
bomb landed on Nagasaki.
- The devastation at Nagasaki is,
you know, make no mistake, it's huge,
but because Nagasaki
is built in sort of valleys
and it's got cliffs and things like that,
the explosion was much more contained.
So relatively less, fewer
parts of the city were destroyed
compared to Hiroshima.
But still, you have a death toll
approaching a hundred thousand people.
You know, it is still devastating
and it is far greater than
any other single bomb
can possibly produce.
- [Narrator] Emperor Hirohito
broke the government's deadlock,
expressing that the Japanese
race will be destroyed
if the war continues.
And so, on the 15th of August,
Hirohito announced the
end to Japan's suffering
over radio broadcast.
- I have received this afternoon
a message from the Japanese Government
in reply to the message
forwarded to that government
by the Secretary of State on August 11th.
I deem this reply a full acceptance
of the Potsdam Declaration,
which specifies the
unconditional surrender of Japan.
In the reply, there is no qualification.
- [Newscaster] Reporters rush out
to relay the news to an anxious world
and touch off celebrations
throughout the country.
(majestic music continues)
- [Narrator] A new wave
of cruelty and devastation
ended the conflict.
Japan officially signed the
Surrender Act soon after.
(film reel whirring) (rhythmic music)
Relief spread across the United States.
The Second World War was over.
Fathers, brothers, and
sons could come home again.
But what exactly did this
new power mean for America?
(suspenseful music)
- The reaction in the United States
was one largely of jubilation.
You know, hang on a minute,
we've got this amazing new weapon
that no one really quite understood yet.
All they knew was one bomb could do the job
of months and months of
bombing in just one second.
So it meant obviously
immense source of national pride.
It also meant an immense source of relief
because of course what
those two A-bombs led to
was the Japanese surrender
just a few days later.
War was over.
And who was not gonna be happy about that?
(rhythmic music)
- What was very interesting
about American public
reaction to atomic bomb
was that it was sold
exceptionally well by Truman.
Truman managed to
convince them in such a way
that if the atomic bomb
hadn't been launched,
that it might've vastly
prolonged the war
and vastly more people dying.
And so, there was actually
almost unanimous public support for it.
- [Narrator] The dropping
of the atomic bomb
destroyed the traditional competition
between offensive and
defensive warfare methods.
No amount of blockades or shelters
could shield citizens from
the bomb's fury and rage.
The Americans had ultimate control
over the most feared weapon on earth.
No one could stand in their way.
(rhythmic music continues)
- I don't think, however,
there's been an event
in human history that
was quite so consequential,
because what you showed with that
was that man was capable of
not just destroying each other
on a small human scale, but
capable of wiping out the world.
It's also a sign as if you'd
ever been needed to have it,
that we were not anymore in
this old fashioned war of guns,
and the military invasions, and stuff,
it was this new, much
more terrifying world.
It was ahead of people.
- These devices were just gonna get bigger,
and bigger, and bigger.
And actually, the devastation
we see at Hiroshima
and at Nagasaki, it's tiny
compared to what nuclear weapons
would shortly be capable of delivering.
(rain pattering)
- [Oppenheimer] Science
has profoundly altered
the conditions of man's life,
both materially and in
ways of the spirit as well.
It has extended the range of questions
of which man has a choice.
It has extended man's freedom
to make significant decisions.
- [Narrator] It's easy to think
that the story of the Manhattan Project
ends in August, 1945.
However, that's far from the case.
- It's not an exaggeration
to say that there is a world
before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed,
a world after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were bombed.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The monopoly
over atomic weapons
placed serious strain on
America's relationship with Stalin.
A new era of diplomatic
tensions burst open at the seams.
- The use of the atomic
bomb in the theater of war
was something that I think America
was perfectly prepared to do.
And the fact that it was done
in this context in World War II
was essentially for way of ending of a war
and also showcasing American might.
(melancholy music continues)
We can also see that
it was a way of showing
that Stalin and the Soviet Union,
who were very much intent on
making their own atomic bomb,
we have this power, we have this weapon.
If you seek to emulate us,
essentially we got here first.
(explosion banging)
- [Narrator] The Soviets and
Americans faced each other
in a state of neither war nor peace.
And yet the push of one button
could have led to total global destruction.
- The Soviet Union's
development of nuclear weapons
was vastly behind that
of the United States.
But what the Soviet Union did have
was spies working in the Manhattan Project
and taking that information,
ultimately relaying it back to Moscow.
And so, you have a spy
who was actually employed
by the British.
He was a physicist called Klaus Fuchs,
and he came to work in the United States
on the Manhattan Project.
And he was giving as
much information as he could
to the Soviet Union.
Now, what information
from people like Fuchs did
was ultimately to shorten by a year or two
how long it took the Russians
to develop the nuclear bomb.
- [Narrator] The Cold War continued
right up to the late '80s,
over 40 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Europe suffered division once again,
and a nuclear arms race
conquered political discourse.
- Because of the existence
of the atomic bomb,
what would've I think been a
conventional world war three
between America and the Soviet Union
became a Cold War instead.
Neither side wanted to go about
creating what was known as
mutually assured destruction.
And while you have this immense power
and you have this immense
ability to destroy your enemy,
there's also the absolute certainty
that whoever's going to blink first,
it's gonna be the one
who's gonna be in trouble.
- The Cold War would've
happened without nuclear weapons,
but it just made the
stakes feel so much higher.
(film reel whirring)
- I have been asked
whether, in the years to come,
it will be possible to kill
40 million American people
in the 20 largest American towns
by the use of atomic
bombs in a single night.
I'm afraid that the answer
to that question is yes.
(explosion banging)
(Geiger counter clicking)
(explosion banging)
(explosion banging)
(explosion banging)
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] In the
aftermath of World War II,
the US Congress transferred
the Manhattan Project's assets
to a new agency, the
Atomic Energy Commission.
Oppenheimer took on the role of president
of the General Advisory
Committee of the AEC.
However, from his new
role sprang a commitment
to nuclear disarmament and control,
a debate many nuclear scientists
found themselves drawn to
during the Cold War era.
(gentle music continues)
- Oppenheimer's reaction to
when the first nuclear bombs
were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were mixed.
There was obviously a professional pride
that this project that he had masterminded
against the clock, vast
expense, long hours,
had paid off.
But at the same time, what he was aware of,
that everything he had
created was causing death
on a monumental scale.
So, you know, you
couldn't help but be human,
but feel very mixed about that.
- If there is another world war,
this civilization may go under.
We need to ask ourselves
whether we're doing all we can
to avert that.
We need, I think, to learn to understand
the realities of life abroad
not so much in terms of slogans,
as in terms of the lives of men.
In our response to these
realities, there is hope for peace.
- Oppenheimer was a leading
voice in wanting arms control.
He knew that nuclear Armageddon
could be imminent if there was going to be
a huge nuclear arms race
between the world's superpowers.
So he actually, ironically,
despite being the father in
many ways of the atom bomb,
spent much of his time
subsequently speaking out against it.
(gentle music continues)
- Certainly, he was
somebody who, after the war
and after the launch, was somebody who was,
I think he was mistrusted
because he didn't seem to be
positive about what he'd done,
he seemed to rather racked with guilt.
'Cause ultimately, it doesn't matter
how much of a scientific
breakthrough it is,
there are consequences.
And Oppenheimer knew
(indistinct) he was terrified of.
- [Narrator] In 1954, these views,
coupled with his political
convictions, led him to testify
before the House Committee
on Un-American Activities,
during the so-called witch hunt
promoted by Senator McCarthy.
- The committee is determined
that the hearing shall
be fair and impartial.
We have subpoenaed witnesses
representing both sides of the question.
All we are after are the facts.
- After the war, you have the establishment
of all sorts of committees
that are investigating
whether people have been
loyal to the Soviet Union,
acted as Soviet agents.
It was considered that if
you really were a member
of the Communist Party,
you were un-American,
you were a de facto traitor.
And in fact, Oppenheimer,
despite proving his loyalty
to the United States
by constructing for them
the world's first atomic
weapon that ended the war
and arguably saved
hundreds of thousands of lives,
he was still hauled up by committees
and asked to justify himself.
So you have this situation in which,
eventually, Oppenheimer's
security clearance is revoked
because he's considered to
be a threat to national security.
(gentle music continues)
- I remembered the line
from the Hindu scripture,
the Bhagavad-Gita.
Vishnu
is trying to persuade
the prince that he should do his duty,
and to impress him,
takes on his multi-armed form and says,
"Now I am become death,
the destroyer of worlds."
- I think he had probably
enough humility to know
that even if he wasn't involved,
it still would've happened.
You know, the nuclear physics was there,
the money was there, the
nuclear bomb would've been built.
So I think Oppenheimer knew that,
ultimately, his place in
history was being there
at the right place at the right time.
(gentle music continues)
(film reel whirring)
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The legacy of the
Manhattan Project is immense.
The advent of nuclear
weapons not only brought an end
to the largest war in history
but also ushered in an atomic age
and a defining era of big science.
- Research into nuclear physics
has both been hugely
beneficial for mankind.
So, you know, understanding
how the atom works
of course has created
forms of scanning technology
which have been brilliant
for medicine, nuclear power,
which is arguably the greenest
power source on the planet.
You've got all sorts of developments
that have been very beneficial for mankind.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] However, in the years
following Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the world's two superpowers,
America and Russia,
entered a race to nuclear domination,
peaking in the 1980s.
(melancholy music continues)
(Soviet supporters
chanting in foreign language)
(Soviet supporters cheering)
- Countries which have
a new nuclear capability
feel that they're carrying
a very big stick indeed.
It gives 'em an enormous
amount of negotiating power.
It gives them an enormous
amount of potential power
in any conflict to say, look,
we've always got the big one,
so watch out for us.
(melancholy music continues)
- The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
symbolized a new era for world peace.
(sledgehammer thudding)
(crowd applauding)
(crowd cheering)
With the West and East united once again,
many thought the years ahead
would bring an age of
nuclear compromise and calm.
(melancholy music continues)
And for a time, they did.
Nuclear stockpiles peaked in 1986
and steadied off from the 1990s onwards.
The appetite to produce
more warheads declined.
(rocket roaring)
Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin's
invasion of Ukraine in 2022
brought fears of nuclear obliteration
to the surface once again.
The current tension
between the West and Russia
is merely a new phase in a
Cold War that never ended.
(suspenseful music)
- I think, at the moment,
we're probably closer
to a nuclear war than we have been
since the second World War.
It's what's been interesting
over the last two and a half decades.
When you watch how Russia has changed
in terms of our acceptance of them,
it's gone from being a
slightly chaotic country,
which nonetheless was broadly on our side,
to being our enemy.
And I think we can certainly see Putin
as public enemy number one.
(suspenseful music)
And it's terrifying, really,
that we all go about our daily business,
and there's this man
not so very far from us
with his finger on this trigger.
And if he pulls the trigger,
our lives as we know could cease to exist.
- Russia is, I think, the
greatest threat to world peace.
And I think the fact that
Russia has a nuclear capability
is worrying.
(suspenseful music continues)
But it's had a nuclear
capability in one way or another
since 1949.
And it's never yet
used one in any conflict.
So, you know, we just gotta
keep our fingers crossed.
(birds chirping)
(ethereal music)
- [Narrator] The birth of the atomic bomb
changed the world forever.
In the years before the Manhattan Project,
a weapon of such power was
not even remotely imaginable
to most people on Earth.
And yet, with war comes new inventions,
new ways of destroying the enemy,
new machines to wipe out human life.
(fighter plane crashing)
(guns firing)
(explosion banging)
- You know, we have
potentially got the power now
to literally destroy the world.
- [Narrator] The destruction in Japan
has left a mark on every
generation since 1945.
There isn't a person alive today
who does not fear a repeat
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(ethereal music continues)
As the only country to have
experienced a nuclear attack,
Japan stands firm in
stating that human beings
and nuclear weapons cannot coexist,
a profound belief in a world
gripped by the nuclear age.
- I think we've all seen the pictures
of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We've all seen exactly
what nuclear weapons do.
I think that anybody like Putin
or anybody else in the world
who's ever tempted to think about,
oh, this might further
my own personal heroism
or whatever else, should
take a look at those pictures
and think very hard about
what they're about to do,
because there are no heroes in this.
You know ultimately
that all that is going to do
is lead to untold devastation,
untold destruction.
(ethereal music continues)
- [Narrator] We cannot predict the future.
But if one thing is for certain,
the threat of nuclear war hangs
heavy over the human race,
now more than ever.
(ethereal music continues)
(foreboding music)
(gentle music)
(rain pattering)
- [Alex] It's not an exaggeration to say
that there was a world
before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed,
a world after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were bombed.
- Oppenheimer's reaction to
when the first nuclear bombs
were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were mixed.
There was obviously a professional pride
that this project that he had
masterminded had paid off,
but at the same time, what he was aware of,
that everything he had
created was causing death
on a monumental scale.
(explosion blaring) (energetic music)
- I have been asked
whether, in the years to come,
it will be possible to kill
40 million American people
in the 20 largest American towns
by the use of atomic
bombs in a single night.
I'm afraid that the answer
to that question is yes.
(majestic music)
- I don't think, however,
there's been an event
in human history that's
quite so consequential
because what you showed with that
was that man was capable of
not just destroying each other
on a small human scale, but
capable of wiping out the world.
(film reel whirring)
(gentle music)
(rhythmic music)
- [Narrator] On the 22nd of August, 1939,
Albert Einstein and
Leo Szilard sent a letter
to the 32nd president of the United States,
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The two scientists warned Roosevelt
that the Germans were
harboring uranium sources
for research into nuclear fission,
which could lead to the creation
of highly destructive bombs.
This letter would soon change
the very course of the world.
(suspenseful music)
At the time of its delivery,
Europe was on the verge of chaos.
Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler,
sat at the helm of Germany,
infecting his citizens
with hate and division.
On the 1st of September,
1939, Germany invaded Poland,
triggering a declaration of
war from Britain and France
under the 1918 Treaty of Versailles.
Within six weeks, the
German Army crushed Poland,
executing thousands
of citizens in the process.
A dark cloud soon loomed over Europe.
(explosion banging)
(suspenseful music continues)
(Adolf Hitler speaking in foreign language)
(spectators cheering)
(fighter planes rumbling)
(fighter plane crashing)
(suspenseful music continues)
(explosion banging)
- [Winston Churchill]
Sure I am that this day,
now, we are the masters of our fate.
(fighter planes rumbling)
We shall defend our island
whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on beaches, landing grounds,
in fields, in streets, and on the hills.
We shall never surrender.
(explosions banging)
(suspenseful music continues)
(artillery firing)
(explosion banging)
(melancholy music)
(fighter planes rumbling)
(upbeat music)
- You've got to remember that America
does not enter the Second World War
until two years after it's broken out.
Of course it starts in September, 1939,
when Britain declares war on Germany
because Germany has invaded Poland.
And so, for two years, there
has been fighting in Europe.
Hitler invades countries like France,
and the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Hitler tries to invade the United Kingdom.
(upbeat music continues)
You then got Hitler, in the middle of 1941,
invading the Soviet Union.
That's a big event.
So, you know, war is
basically waging worldwide.
(artilleries firing)
(Adolf Hitler speaking in foreign language)
(spectators cheering)
(melancholy music)
- By the end of 1941,
America had been neutral.
I mean, in practice, it was supplying aids
to Britain in every way it could
because President Roosevelt was,
he was more than just a supporter,
he was somebody who actually saw
that the only way of having
any kind of peace in the world
was by defeating the Nazis
and the Axis is powerless.
What he also saw was to
involve America in another war
would've been politically catastrophic.
And people were not engaged
in it and they didn't want that,
so he was very, very cautious
about any kind of action
that would actually lead
America into declaring war.
And even though he'd said
to the king, King George VI,
a couple of years before,
if the Nazis would start bombing London,
we would come in on your side,
there was still great reluctance
to actually take further step
that would lead to such a commitment.
And obviously that changed
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
(melancholy music continues)
- [Narrator] It was not until 1941
that the conflict spread
beyond Europe's borders.
In the December, Japan
launched a surprise attack
on US Naval base, Pearl Harbor.
The military strike
killed over 2,400 people
and destroyed 19 US Navy ships.
(bombs exploding)
- The reason why it was so
symbolic and so successful
was America had never
been attacked like that
on their home shores,
especially in the modern era.
And it was proof that the Japanese
were this highly mechanized
force, utterly ruthless,
who could commit an act like this
of absolute audacity and absolute violence.
- [Narrator] As his citizens
mourned, FDR retaliated fast,
declaring war on Japan and bringing the US
into the most destructive
conflict in history.
(melancholy music)
- That the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack by Japan
on Sunday, December 7th, 1941,
a state of war has existed
between the United States
and the Japanese Empire.
(spectators applauding) (melancholy music)
- [Narrator] Although under no obligation,
Germany and Italy also joined Japan's side,
whilst the US gained
support from Hitler's enemies,
Britain and the Soviet Union.
(melancholy music continues)
- It's one of Hitler's
most perplexing decisions
as to why he decided to
declare war on the United States.
Well, actually, his reason for doing it
is because he thinks,
finally, this is an opportunity
to show that he really
wants to rid the world
of what he sees as being the
evils of international finance
and Jewish control of economies.
Of course he's dead wrong about that.
He's also in a pact with Japan
so he feels that Japan's a natural ally.
And so, this is why war breaks out,
it's Hitler saber-rattling.
He doesn't know what it's gonna lead to.
(film reel whirring)
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In the summer of 1942,
FDR approved the creation
of the Manhattan Project,
bringing together research scientists
and military engineers from
across the US and Canada.
The birth of the atomic
bomb finally commenced.
- The Manhattan Project
has got lots of different roles,
if you like.
The primary role of course
is to build a nuclear bomb
that you can use in the war.
Some of the other roles
are also to try and establish
what level of nuclear capacity
do other countries have,
and of course especially Nazi Germany.
Of course the Manhattan
Project is also there
to construct all the stuff around
to build a nuclear bomb.
So it's got to mastermind factories,
it's got to mastermind
getting hold of uranium,
it's got to mastermind creating plutonium.
So it's got lots and
lots of different roles.
And this is gonna take place,
initially, you know,
masterminded from Manhattan,
hence the name, but it's gonna take place
in locations all over the United States,
all the way through to
California and even in Canada.
- [Narrator] General Leslie Groves
of the Manhattan Engineer
District commanded the project.
A hardheaded leader with
an intensity often feared
by his inferiors, Groves stopped at nothing
to make the mission a success.
To many people's surprise,
Groves put forward J. Robert
Oppenheimer for lead physicist,
a notably contentious figure.
Oppenheimer lacked a Nobel Prize.
He preferred theoretical
science over practical.
He was politically left-leaning,
often attending communist front activities
and even going on to marry a
member of the Communist Party.
- Oppenheimer's political activities
and Oppenheimer's political sympathies
actually drew the attention of the FBI,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And actually, he had his phone tapped,
he had his mail opened, he
was watched, he was followed.
You know, obviously, he was
in an incredibly sensitive position.
And the fact that he had loyalties
that may lie elsewhere
outside the United States
of course could have
been considered a problem.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] He soon became
the US's greatest chance
of building an atomic
bomb before the Germans.
- But even though Groves wasn't a genius,
his single act of genius, the
one thing he really gets right
is to appoint Oppenheimer.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The most
secretive project in US history
took place in Los Alamos, New Mexico,
an isolated desert region
where Oppenheimer's team
would never be disturbed.
(melancholy music continues)
- There were very, very few people
working on the Manhattan Project
that knew what was happening.
You know, people who were doing the laundry
were given these weird devices
that they had to rub over the clothes
and to see how many
clicks this device meant.
Now, those people had no
idea what they were doing,
but of course today we know
those are Geiger counters
which are measuring levels of radiation.
So, you know, people were aware.
There was a lot of weird stuff going on
in all the locations of
the Manhattan Project,
especially Los Alamos in New Mexico.
- [Narrator] Both Groves
and Oppenheimer's scientists
set out to create nuclear chain reactions
using Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239,
two rare isotopes which needed huge levels
of funding to procure.
- I think there was also a sense
that America wants to be top dog
in terms of its technology
and its research.
It wants to be this
country that was dominant,
because obviously at this stage,
Germany was seen as the threat.
It wasn't Russia, or
Britain, or anywhere else.
There's very much a race against time
as to who was going to be the first
to harness this energy
and to come out on top.
- [Narrator] Three years into the project,
the scientists had created two new bombs
named Little Boy and Fat Man.
Little Boy had the simpler design.
The gun-shaped bomb
triggered a nuclear explosion
by firing one piece of
Uranium-235 into another,
causing a chain reaction.
Fat Man was in turn the
more complex of the two.
A bulbous 10-foot bomb
containing a sphere of metal Plutonium-239,
it was surrounded by blocks of explosives
that were designed to produce
an extremely accurate implosion.
However, the high risk
and high cost of Fat Man
made the Los Alamos scientists feel uneasy.
And so, Oppenheimer's
team insisted on a test run.
- [Announcer] Minus 30 seconds.
(ominous music)
Minus 20 seconds.
Minus 10 seconds.
Minus five seconds.
(nuclear bomb exploding) (melancholy music)
(camera clicking)
(camera clicking)
- There was a big worry that, actually,
by triggering a nuclear explosion,
you might cause the entire
atmosphere to burn up.
And if that happened, that
would be the end of the world.
Now, even though many scientists
didn't think that was gonna
happen, there were a few
who were just a little
bit worried about it.
So in fact, when that
first bomb does go off,
there's a relief in some ways
that the world hasn't
exploded along with it.
(melancholy music continues)
- Oppenheimer was the American Prometheus,
because he was this man
who had this enormous power,
and he was frightened of it
because when he saw the test,
he said, "I am become
death, destroyer of worlds."
And I think that's a very
powerful thing to say.
(nuclear bomb exploding)
(melancholy music continues)
The entire Trinity test
was not just for fun.
It was leading to what's going to become
probably the most single
notorious act of 20th century.
- [Narrator] The Trinity test succeeded,
and onlookers finally realized
the enormity of the bomb's power.
(film reel whirring)
(melancholy music)
The Allied powers secured
victory in Europe in May, 1945.
The Nazi empire finally
fell after six long years,
and Hitler escapes to his
bunker to die by cyanide.
(melancholy music continues)
However, for the United
States, the war was not over yet.
Trouble still brewed in the Pacific,
and American blood continued to spill.
- After V-E Day was declared in Europe,
there was a real problem.
America and the rest of the Allied powers
were still at war with Japan.
And Japan showed absolutely
no signs of surrendering.
(rhythmic music)
The difference between Germany and Japan
was Germany, especially after Hitler died,
knew they were beaten, knew
there was nowhere else to go.
They just basically have to
settle for a humiliating peace,
the best possible terms they could get.
The thing about Japan
is that there is no concept
of surrender in their national identity.
The whole idea was that
they would literally fight
until the last man.
- When Japan and the United States
are fighting this war in the Pacific,
what they're doing is fighting
for islands strongholds.
(rhythmic music continues)
You've gotta think of the war
as like a kind of to and froing,
of trying to grab stepping
stones on a big pond,
if you like.
And so, you know, the more
stepping stones you control,
the more of the pond you control.
And so, you have huge battles
on islands like Iwo Jima, Peleliu,
which are very bloody,
very attritional fights,
in which the Japanese are often dug in
and fight to the last man,
and it costs an enormous amount of lives.
So it's a very bloody, very vicious,
very drawn out combat.
And of course, as well as these battles
on these small islands,
you also have these huge
naval engagement as well,
like the Battle of Midway,
which again are very
costly in men and material.
(canons firing)
(machine gun firing)
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] President
Roosevelt passed away
a month before the Nazi regime's defeat.
Harry S. Truman assumed
the role of president,
only learning of the
Manhattan Project's existence
24 hours into the job.
The major task of
leading the world to peace
now landed in Truman's hands.
- Roosevelt was a very sober man.
He understood that what
they were dealing with
was something of absolute magnitude.
And so, therefore his idea,
and I think he was absolutely right,
was as few people knew
about this as possible.
And in fact, Truman was, at one point,
before he was aware
of the Manhattan Project,
he was seeing all these documents,
which seemed to be this
vast government expense,
and he didn't understand why people
were spending so much
money on a secret project.
He tried to look into it,
but he was informed very
sternly, no, this is not for you.
And so, obviously, the context of war,
there are so many things
that you're not involved with,
he just let it go.
But of course, after Roosevelt died
and when he became
president, he became aware
of what was the greatest
scientific endeavor
that America had been involved in.
(gentle music continues) (clock ticking)
- [Narrator] On the 26th of July, 1945,
Allied leaders gathered at the
Potsdam Conference in Berlin
to draw up plans for Japan's surrender.
President Truman,
alongside Britain and China,
issued the document.
- The Potsdam Declaration that was made
at the Potsdam Conference said to Japan,
listen, you have got to surrender,
and without any conditions whatsoever.
Now, this has got to be a complete defeat.
Otherwise, hell is gonna be
rained down on your country.
(gentle music continues)
What Truman, the
American president, didn't do
was to reveal, actually, I've
got a big ace up my sleeve,
and that's an atom
bomb, but he hinted at it.
- [Narrator] The Potsdam Declaration
gave the Japanese an ultimatum,
accept defeat or suffer
incomprehensible destruction.
Japan showed no sign of bowing down.
Prime Minister Suzuki
announced that the Japanese policy
towards the declaration
was one of mokusatsu,
killing with silence.
From that moment, the
dropping of the atomic bomb
was inevitable.
(rhythmic music)
(majestic music)
(gentle music)
(plane engine rumbling)
(plane engine rumbling)
(plane engine roaring)
At 8:15 AM on the 6th of August, 1945,
the lead plane, Enola Gay,
released the Little Boy
bomb over Hiroshima.
(bomb whistling)
Residents awoke to the most
almighty site in human history.
(siren blaring)
(nuclear bomb exploding)
(majestic music)
Little Boy fell almost
six miles in 43 seconds
before detonating at
an altitude of 2,000 feet.
80,000 people died instantly,
some even evaporating on the spot.
- [Reporter] A short time
ago, an American airplane
dropped one bomb on Hiroshima
and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
- You can imagine that
if you are in Hiroshima,
you're going about your daily business,
there's just this flash
of blinding white light,
and then all of a sudden
everything around you is destroyed.
And it's something biblical.
I mean, you would've genuinely
imagined, if you'd seen it,
that this was the end of days.
(majestic music continues)
Japan at this point was faced with the fact
that one of their major
industrial and military bases
no longer existed.
I mean, a huge number
of civilians had been killed.
It was an act completely
without parallel in modern warfare.
It was literally the first atomic bomb.
You would've expected
that they would've thought,
we can't carry on.
But this is Japan we're talking about.
This isn't any other country.
(majestic music continues)
And so, they refused to surrender
on the grounds that,
(indistinct) can keep bombing us,
we don't care.
We are not going to surrender to you.
But of course the problem is
they didn't really understand
what they were up against.
- [Narrator] The bomb obliterated
Hiroshima and its people,
and yet the Japanese Government
still refused to surrender.
Three days later, a second
bomb landed on Nagasaki.
- The devastation at Nagasaki is,
you know, make no mistake, it's huge,
but because Nagasaki
is built in sort of valleys
and it's got cliffs and things like that,
the explosion was much more contained.
So relatively less, fewer
parts of the city were destroyed
compared to Hiroshima.
But still, you have a death toll
approaching a hundred thousand people.
You know, it is still devastating
and it is far greater than
any other single bomb
can possibly produce.
- [Narrator] Emperor Hirohito
broke the government's deadlock,
expressing that the Japanese
race will be destroyed
if the war continues.
And so, on the 15th of August,
Hirohito announced the
end to Japan's suffering
over radio broadcast.
- I have received this afternoon
a message from the Japanese Government
in reply to the message
forwarded to that government
by the Secretary of State on August 11th.
I deem this reply a full acceptance
of the Potsdam Declaration,
which specifies the
unconditional surrender of Japan.
In the reply, there is no qualification.
- [Newscaster] Reporters rush out
to relay the news to an anxious world
and touch off celebrations
throughout the country.
(majestic music continues)
- [Narrator] A new wave
of cruelty and devastation
ended the conflict.
Japan officially signed the
Surrender Act soon after.
(film reel whirring) (rhythmic music)
Relief spread across the United States.
The Second World War was over.
Fathers, brothers, and
sons could come home again.
But what exactly did this
new power mean for America?
(suspenseful music)
- The reaction in the United States
was one largely of jubilation.
You know, hang on a minute,
we've got this amazing new weapon
that no one really quite understood yet.
All they knew was one bomb could do the job
of months and months of
bombing in just one second.
So it meant obviously
immense source of national pride.
It also meant an immense source of relief
because of course what
those two A-bombs led to
was the Japanese surrender
just a few days later.
War was over.
And who was not gonna be happy about that?
(rhythmic music)
- What was very interesting
about American public
reaction to atomic bomb
was that it was sold
exceptionally well by Truman.
Truman managed to
convince them in such a way
that if the atomic bomb
hadn't been launched,
that it might've vastly
prolonged the war
and vastly more people dying.
And so, there was actually
almost unanimous public support for it.
- [Narrator] The dropping
of the atomic bomb
destroyed the traditional competition
between offensive and
defensive warfare methods.
No amount of blockades or shelters
could shield citizens from
the bomb's fury and rage.
The Americans had ultimate control
over the most feared weapon on earth.
No one could stand in their way.
(rhythmic music continues)
- I don't think, however,
there's been an event
in human history that
was quite so consequential,
because what you showed with that
was that man was capable of
not just destroying each other
on a small human scale, but
capable of wiping out the world.
It's also a sign as if you'd
ever been needed to have it,
that we were not anymore in
this old fashioned war of guns,
and the military invasions, and stuff,
it was this new, much
more terrifying world.
It was ahead of people.
- These devices were just gonna get bigger,
and bigger, and bigger.
And actually, the devastation
we see at Hiroshima
and at Nagasaki, it's tiny
compared to what nuclear weapons
would shortly be capable of delivering.
(rain pattering)
- [Oppenheimer] Science
has profoundly altered
the conditions of man's life,
both materially and in
ways of the spirit as well.
It has extended the range of questions
of which man has a choice.
It has extended man's freedom
to make significant decisions.
- [Narrator] It's easy to think
that the story of the Manhattan Project
ends in August, 1945.
However, that's far from the case.
- It's not an exaggeration
to say that there is a world
before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed,
a world after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were bombed.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The monopoly
over atomic weapons
placed serious strain on
America's relationship with Stalin.
A new era of diplomatic
tensions burst open at the seams.
- The use of the atomic
bomb in the theater of war
was something that I think America
was perfectly prepared to do.
And the fact that it was done
in this context in World War II
was essentially for way of ending of a war
and also showcasing American might.
(melancholy music continues)
We can also see that
it was a way of showing
that Stalin and the Soviet Union,
who were very much intent on
making their own atomic bomb,
we have this power, we have this weapon.
If you seek to emulate us,
essentially we got here first.
(explosion banging)
- [Narrator] The Soviets and
Americans faced each other
in a state of neither war nor peace.
And yet the push of one button
could have led to total global destruction.
- The Soviet Union's
development of nuclear weapons
was vastly behind that
of the United States.
But what the Soviet Union did have
was spies working in the Manhattan Project
and taking that information,
ultimately relaying it back to Moscow.
And so, you have a spy
who was actually employed
by the British.
He was a physicist called Klaus Fuchs,
and he came to work in the United States
on the Manhattan Project.
And he was giving as
much information as he could
to the Soviet Union.
Now, what information
from people like Fuchs did
was ultimately to shorten by a year or two
how long it took the Russians
to develop the nuclear bomb.
- [Narrator] The Cold War continued
right up to the late '80s,
over 40 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Europe suffered division once again,
and a nuclear arms race
conquered political discourse.
- Because of the existence
of the atomic bomb,
what would've I think been a
conventional world war three
between America and the Soviet Union
became a Cold War instead.
Neither side wanted to go about
creating what was known as
mutually assured destruction.
And while you have this immense power
and you have this immense
ability to destroy your enemy,
there's also the absolute certainty
that whoever's going to blink first,
it's gonna be the one
who's gonna be in trouble.
- The Cold War would've
happened without nuclear weapons,
but it just made the
stakes feel so much higher.
(film reel whirring)
- I have been asked
whether, in the years to come,
it will be possible to kill
40 million American people
in the 20 largest American towns
by the use of atomic
bombs in a single night.
I'm afraid that the answer
to that question is yes.
(explosion banging)
(Geiger counter clicking)
(explosion banging)
(explosion banging)
(explosion banging)
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] In the
aftermath of World War II,
the US Congress transferred
the Manhattan Project's assets
to a new agency, the
Atomic Energy Commission.
Oppenheimer took on the role of president
of the General Advisory
Committee of the AEC.
However, from his new
role sprang a commitment
to nuclear disarmament and control,
a debate many nuclear scientists
found themselves drawn to
during the Cold War era.
(gentle music continues)
- Oppenheimer's reaction to
when the first nuclear bombs
were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were mixed.
There was obviously a professional pride
that this project that he had masterminded
against the clock, vast
expense, long hours,
had paid off.
But at the same time, what he was aware of,
that everything he had
created was causing death
on a monumental scale.
So, you know, you
couldn't help but be human,
but feel very mixed about that.
- If there is another world war,
this civilization may go under.
We need to ask ourselves
whether we're doing all we can
to avert that.
We need, I think, to learn to understand
the realities of life abroad
not so much in terms of slogans,
as in terms of the lives of men.
In our response to these
realities, there is hope for peace.
- Oppenheimer was a leading
voice in wanting arms control.
He knew that nuclear Armageddon
could be imminent if there was going to be
a huge nuclear arms race
between the world's superpowers.
So he actually, ironically,
despite being the father in
many ways of the atom bomb,
spent much of his time
subsequently speaking out against it.
(gentle music continues)
- Certainly, he was
somebody who, after the war
and after the launch, was somebody who was,
I think he was mistrusted
because he didn't seem to be
positive about what he'd done,
he seemed to rather racked with guilt.
'Cause ultimately, it doesn't matter
how much of a scientific
breakthrough it is,
there are consequences.
And Oppenheimer knew
(indistinct) he was terrified of.
- [Narrator] In 1954, these views,
coupled with his political
convictions, led him to testify
before the House Committee
on Un-American Activities,
during the so-called witch hunt
promoted by Senator McCarthy.
- The committee is determined
that the hearing shall
be fair and impartial.
We have subpoenaed witnesses
representing both sides of the question.
All we are after are the facts.
- After the war, you have the establishment
of all sorts of committees
that are investigating
whether people have been
loyal to the Soviet Union,
acted as Soviet agents.
It was considered that if
you really were a member
of the Communist Party,
you were un-American,
you were a de facto traitor.
And in fact, Oppenheimer,
despite proving his loyalty
to the United States
by constructing for them
the world's first atomic
weapon that ended the war
and arguably saved
hundreds of thousands of lives,
he was still hauled up by committees
and asked to justify himself.
So you have this situation in which,
eventually, Oppenheimer's
security clearance is revoked
because he's considered to
be a threat to national security.
(gentle music continues)
- I remembered the line
from the Hindu scripture,
the Bhagavad-Gita.
Vishnu
is trying to persuade
the prince that he should do his duty,
and to impress him,
takes on his multi-armed form and says,
"Now I am become death,
the destroyer of worlds."
- I think he had probably
enough humility to know
that even if he wasn't involved,
it still would've happened.
You know, the nuclear physics was there,
the money was there, the
nuclear bomb would've been built.
So I think Oppenheimer knew that,
ultimately, his place in
history was being there
at the right place at the right time.
(gentle music continues)
(film reel whirring)
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] The legacy of the
Manhattan Project is immense.
The advent of nuclear
weapons not only brought an end
to the largest war in history
but also ushered in an atomic age
and a defining era of big science.
- Research into nuclear physics
has both been hugely
beneficial for mankind.
So, you know, understanding
how the atom works
of course has created
forms of scanning technology
which have been brilliant
for medicine, nuclear power,
which is arguably the greenest
power source on the planet.
You've got all sorts of developments
that have been very beneficial for mankind.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] However, in the years
following Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the world's two superpowers,
America and Russia,
entered a race to nuclear domination,
peaking in the 1980s.
(melancholy music continues)
(Soviet supporters
chanting in foreign language)
(Soviet supporters cheering)
- Countries which have
a new nuclear capability
feel that they're carrying
a very big stick indeed.
It gives 'em an enormous
amount of negotiating power.
It gives them an enormous
amount of potential power
in any conflict to say, look,
we've always got the big one,
so watch out for us.
(melancholy music continues)
- The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
symbolized a new era for world peace.
(sledgehammer thudding)
(crowd applauding)
(crowd cheering)
With the West and East united once again,
many thought the years ahead
would bring an age of
nuclear compromise and calm.
(melancholy music continues)
And for a time, they did.
Nuclear stockpiles peaked in 1986
and steadied off from the 1990s onwards.
The appetite to produce
more warheads declined.
(rocket roaring)
Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin's
invasion of Ukraine in 2022
brought fears of nuclear obliteration
to the surface once again.
The current tension
between the West and Russia
is merely a new phase in a
Cold War that never ended.
(suspenseful music)
- I think, at the moment,
we're probably closer
to a nuclear war than we have been
since the second World War.
It's what's been interesting
over the last two and a half decades.
When you watch how Russia has changed
in terms of our acceptance of them,
it's gone from being a
slightly chaotic country,
which nonetheless was broadly on our side,
to being our enemy.
And I think we can certainly see Putin
as public enemy number one.
(suspenseful music)
And it's terrifying, really,
that we all go about our daily business,
and there's this man
not so very far from us
with his finger on this trigger.
And if he pulls the trigger,
our lives as we know could cease to exist.
- Russia is, I think, the
greatest threat to world peace.
And I think the fact that
Russia has a nuclear capability
is worrying.
(suspenseful music continues)
But it's had a nuclear
capability in one way or another
since 1949.
And it's never yet
used one in any conflict.
So, you know, we just gotta
keep our fingers crossed.
(birds chirping)
(ethereal music)
- [Narrator] The birth of the atomic bomb
changed the world forever.
In the years before the Manhattan Project,
a weapon of such power was
not even remotely imaginable
to most people on Earth.
And yet, with war comes new inventions,
new ways of destroying the enemy,
new machines to wipe out human life.
(fighter plane crashing)
(guns firing)
(explosion banging)
- You know, we have
potentially got the power now
to literally destroy the world.
- [Narrator] The destruction in Japan
has left a mark on every
generation since 1945.
There isn't a person alive today
who does not fear a repeat
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(ethereal music continues)
As the only country to have
experienced a nuclear attack,
Japan stands firm in
stating that human beings
and nuclear weapons cannot coexist,
a profound belief in a world
gripped by the nuclear age.
- I think we've all seen the pictures
of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We've all seen exactly
what nuclear weapons do.
I think that anybody like Putin
or anybody else in the world
who's ever tempted to think about,
oh, this might further
my own personal heroism
or whatever else, should
take a look at those pictures
and think very hard about
what they're about to do,
because there are no heroes in this.
You know ultimately
that all that is going to do
is lead to untold devastation,
untold destruction.
(ethereal music continues)
- [Narrator] We cannot predict the future.
But if one thing is for certain,
the threat of nuclear war hangs
heavy over the human race,
now more than ever.
(ethereal music continues)