J Robert Oppenheimer and other key figures involved in the decision to drop the first atomic bomb discuss their motivations in this rare NBC News documentary. Originally produced two decades after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this presentation features new insight from NBC News Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss.
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#nbcnews #oppenheimer #atomicbomb
Wow, well done. Learned alot
People talked sooooooo slow then lol
I think we would have nuked Berlin if it came down to it.
The upside of it being a 1965 work, it’s actually true from a wide point of view
I was lucky enough to see Edward Teller speak at Stanford University in 1999, just a few years before his death. Teller was a mountain of a man at that time, carried a massive wooden staff for walking, and was an imposing figure at the age of 91. He spoke of the Manhattan project, the moral obligation of scientists, his rift with Oppenheimer, and the many mistakes he made in his lifetime. He talked of the idea of a demonstration, the idea of bringing daylight to Japan for an hour in the middle of the night rather than blowing up a city. He also spoke of his choice to break with Oppenheimer on making ever more powerful atomic weapons, including the hydrogen bomb or thermonuclear weapon. On this point, he thought Oppenheimer was correct, scientists had a moral responsibility to not continue the endless push towards the destruction of the human race, but band together to prevent proliferation.
It’s an interesting contrast to the time of this decision, where Teller was pushing for a demonstration, and Oppenheimer was pushing for the opposite, letting the political powers make the decision and trying to bring a swift end to the war. Another fact that is left out of this documentary is many of the key scientists in the Manhattan project were doing this work with the idea that the bomb would be used on Germany, but Germany had surrendered. Many of the scientists were refugees from either world war I or the second war, and many held a grudge against Germany for their constant warmongering (not to mention the number of scientists who were Jewish, another important factor in usage of the bomb on Germany, an event that never played out due to the surrender).
This is still a great film – but anyone interested in the topic should read Oppenheimer’s biography or Teller’s memoirs. I would also encourage anyone who is a scientist like myself to read those books and others on scientific morality, the implications of our ideas, our little thought experiments, our prototypes, and our vision are real, and can have profound consequences in day to day life, but also direct contributions to the death toll when used for war.
Good right up until the end when NBC decided to put a talking head on to lecture us about how racism might have played a roll and how we might have ask the questions differently today. It said in the video that they all agonized over the decision. So stop constantly lecturing us. We can make our own decisions without politically correct rhetoric.
Thank you for posting this documentary. It’s very interesting and educational to learn the history behind the bomb and all the players involved in the action taken to end the war. NBC, thank you for uploading this for us to see. Such a wonderful history lesson, that we must always remember. We must be so cautious with war, for life is so precious.
Interesting that the Navy wanted to blockade Japan, the Army Air Corp wanted to continue firebombing Japanese cities, and General Marshall (of the Army) wanted to invade Japan. I guess if you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
A lot of this info has been hidden in modernized agenda hiding a full picture
Lol shyte
Oppenheimer is gonna be the name of the next extinction event
bs
History is repeated it self . Facts
It was about communism!
⚠️spoiler alert⚠️
U start the wind 💨
You reap the whirlwind
By 65 oppi was out of the loop. Took away his security clearance. He was a basket case after that
Ask the boys who fought on Pellelu if the bomb shd be dropped. Or any other island campaign
The problem of a demonstration was that not including the test material, they only had enough operational enriched uranium for the one gun type bomb and only enough plutonium for the implosion type; Thus there was only two readily available. From what I’ve learned, Truman’s threat of using atomic bombs across the country was just that, a threat, because they didn’t have more than the two.
The bomb could serve another conceivable purpose. Truman may have been conveying a message to Stalin that the U.S. would prohibit the Soviets from partitioning Japan into Soviet and American sectors, akin to what occurred with Germany. Russia was about to invade, and the Soviets knew we would use a genocide weapon if we had it; the Tokyo and Dresden bombings ensured that. The Russians could see the Phosphorous burning in Dresden from 100 miles away, and 1,000 bombers destroyed Tokyo more than either A-bomb. If that’s what it was, Truman’s foreign relations strategy succeeded, and the only losers were Japanese civilians.
The Russians already new about the bomb from spies
Jesus, is love. !!! War is hate !!!
I still don’t understand why they didn’t first demonstrate it & only then, if they still didn’t surrender, then drop it on Hiroshima. Why was it an either or thing?
They said they didn’t surrender after Hiroshima because the A bomb wiped out communication lines so the Japs weren’t even fully aware of what happened until right before the Nagasaki bomb.
Many reasons as were mentioned, but mostly, there was only enough enriched uranium and plutonium for two operational bombs, so it couldn’t be wasted on a demonstration. Plus, the Japanese could very well have ignored the demonstration just as they did with the unconditional surrender ultimatum, thus it was logical not to waste a device.
@65gtotrips They had a third bomb if necessary.
NBC as an obvious corporate shill with no oversite because of paid viewership and the internet, has no credibility in terms of moral judgement. The things Japan did with biological warfare, wholesale massacres to Chinese for supposedly helping the Dolittle crews, the horror put to Manila and the elite monsters in control willing to have the people they lead annihilated if they lost… well, I think a merciful God would have a hard chore to say what was just.
Can’t get past the fact that this informative documentary is only being posted and fed to our algorithms half a century later because NBC’s parent company is releasing a summer blockbuster dramatizing the documentary’s subject.
All quite conveniently coincidental.
It was good to here from all these big players though
Fascinating story told by the people involved, not to be missed.
To look upon Oppenheimer’s haunted face is to see the flame of humanity’s heart and the absolute abyss of it’s soul
Brilliantly stated!
1st…Would the people in the United States who question the development and use of the atomic bomb want any other country to have had the bomb first ?
2nd…to say race had anything to do with the U.S. using it is sheer nonsense as Hitler was well on his way to in development towards the bomb and Germany was the initial target.
3rd…for anyone but that generation to question anything that happened back in that time is hubris
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Nukes were stationed in Ukraine at the time it was a Soviet Republic (to 1991), they gave those up and shipped them back to Russia. Three decades past and their capital is getting attacked by Russian conventional missiles. As well their Zaporizhzia nuclear domestic power plant has been appropriate by that neighbour in war
Stupid take.
Amazing documetary. It is so infathomable the amount of people who lost everything over the world wars. No one ever wins in war smh.
Cool. I’ll remember that bit o’ wisdom next time somebody invades my house and steals everything. Let it be, nobody wins.
The woke ending spoiled it for me , invsion of Japan , we expected half million killed we are still useing order of purple Hearts from WW2 that were not needed
MAGA 2024 🇺🇸 🕊
LOL
This is amazing
It’s also worth mentioning that the bombing didn’t bring an end to the war. It wasn’t until the Emperor of Japan making a declaration to end the war.
As they had full intention of fighting to the last man standing. Making this god fosaken weapon even more pointless!! I hope Oppenheimer addresses this historical misrepresention.
Love these historically significant broadcasts! Please post more!!
What a clown Michael Beschloss is. He personifies all that is wrong with “the media” in 2023. Beschloss isn’t fit to carry Chet Huntley’s jock strap.
Agreed. I’ll add that Beschloss is a simpering pansy.
Documentaries today don’t hit like they used to
1:13:18 Stalin already knew, didn’t he?
He did. Wasn’t a well-known fact in 1965.
Its never a war crime the first time.
Informative. It should have stood on its own without the coda.
The scientists were right, demonstrate it to the Japanese first and give them the option to keep the Emperor in power – which had already been talked about.
Bravo Kim for your statement supporting Palestinians. They are human beings and deserve to be treated with respect!
Name your scholars
The line off the Baghudva Vita was the most scariest quote I’ve ever heard!!
So much for the end of the world….
Anyone else here after midnight? 😂😂
Yeah, me.
This is right on time, as never in my years has we ever been at peace. Seems we always had boots 👢 on the ground some place in the world. Now we have Poland again.
Yes race did play a role as this country was winning. But when leaders look at other people as less than human or deserving to live it is bad.
So much depth to this event and current outcome. Thank you.
My father volunteered to join the Army in 1942. With a college degree, he was sent straight to OCS (Officer Candidate School) and 3 months later became a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant (aka a 90 day wonder). He was assigned to MacArthur’s Army and sent directly to Australia, where he began his career as a supply officer. He followed the fighting up the Pacific island chain (as he put it “always 2 islands behind the fighting”) and finished up the war in the Philippines. Up to the last day of the war, they were preparing for the invasion of Kyushu. Part of his job was preparing for the casualties they expected.
I was born on Okinawa in 1951, and grew up immersed in the history of the Pacific war surrounded by the people who had lived through it. On that island, at that time, there was never a question of would the Japanese have surrendered without the use of the Atomic Bomb. The people who lived through that period, American, Okinawan, and Japanese, all agreed on one point. The bomb gave the Emperor the face saving reason to end the war.
Without the bomb being used, the nation of Japan would have fought to the death. Every man, woman and child would have died to protect their god, the Emperor.
1 million American dead was the predicted cost of the invasion. Just the dead, not ALL casualties. The predicted cost in Japanese lives was at least 10x higher.
The bomb saved the Japanese race.
Japan is a nation. Not a race. And you have no idea if they would’ve surrendered. Logically, if I see an enemy is more equipped than me & I’m hilariously outgunned & outarmed, I’m going to stand tf down.
@Trollyyep! And in non American historical sources you can see Japan was about to surrender.
Let’s face the fact that someone just wanted to make this fascist experiment while seemingly fighting fascists. Cause you won’t find many differences between those governments if you take a closer look.
@Trolly, the Japanese consider themselves a race. You should travel outside your Woke bubble more.
@Домашние любимцы facts
Japan had been looking for a negotiated surrender for years by the time we dropped the bomb. We refused conditions, we wanted unconditional surrender. The bombs were never necessary, nor was an invasion of Japan. I don’t fault Oppenheimer or his team for their role in creating something they felt was necessary to defeat fascism, but I absolutely do criticize the decision to drop it when it wasn’t necessary in the slightest. Japan’s war crimes didn’t justify ours.
Firebombing of cities in Europe and Japan was a war crime. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not unique in that regard.
The decision to use the bomb on Japan was the correct one. To invade, Japan and the US would have each had over one million deaths and all of Japan destroyed. Every civilian in Japan was being trained to fight. Women children all were told to sharpen a bamboo stick and prepare to defend the country. Japan people were so educated to give their life for the country. If we had not used the bomb a million families’ would have lost their sons for no good reason as Japan would lose a million so the bomb saved lives and probably the country of Japan as well. MKL
Before the bomb was even built, our leaders already conceded that the US couldn’t protect nuclear secrets? The Soviet threat was immanent long before before both countries became nuclear powers.
They realized that nuclear ‘secrets’ would become widely known, not just to the Soviet Union.
Imperialism couldn’t finish the war it started with Japan. Soo the Imperialists just effed em up.
You seem unaware that the Empire of Japan practiced imperialism for several decades prior to WWII.
i like how nbc takes a minute at the end there to add some propaganda about “rogue nations and terrorists”. there are no rogue nations or terrorist states with nuclear weapons, even postulating something as asinine as that screams jingoism
Humans are a cancer to this planet..
Nuclear weapons have not spread to rogue states. Great historical perspective until the cholo at the end.
The U.S. has been a rogue state since 1992.
Why can’t we work together like this anymore.
Perhaps because ‘we’ didn’t work like ‘this’ at all, since at the time ‘we’ were infants or not born yet.
Every U.S. president since FDR has been Harry S. Truman, with every secret defense program being the Manhattan Project, paid for as then by a largely uninformed Congress and oblivious public.
Russia, China, Korea, and Iran are really cowardly and diabolical peoples! Wipe these nations off the face of the earth
That would affect Brandon’s racket.
I noticed biased NBC mentioned a secretary of state “from South Carolina” but failed to mentioned that Truman’s predecessor, President Franklin (no state mentioned) put 140,000 Japanese-American citizens in internment camps (ie concentration camps) meanwhile German soldiers brought here for imprisonment were allowed to roam free around US cities, getting ice cream and reporting back to their cushy prison arrangements ‘by lights out’.
A puerile, Woke statement for sure.
Thank democrats
Brahahaaha
I often wonder how many Americans would not be reading this if Truman decided otherwise.
I’m confused as to why they couldn’t demonstrate the bomb of the coast of Tokyo to the Emperor who refused to surrender and blow up a small island in sight of Tokyo .
I think that it would have made a huge impression. This video is one of the best i’ve seen, It’s a moment in history and in time.
How good is the footage ( not its content) this is amazing and don’t know how we never seen it , everyone should.
USA is #1 in nuclear bomb deaths!!!!
One day… maybe soon….as in- this lifetime; or perhaps, many, many decades away from Impending Demonstrations of Nuclear Firecrackers upon two unknown Continental U.S. cities.
Imagine that much warning…..what a frikin luxury!
Well, look what we have now. Terrible decision. If they could see the future, give Japan a demonstration or two. End the war and ban the weapon from the Earth.
Most of the People in the documentry were born closer to the American Revolution than to the 2020s
Perhaps. Your point?
The war was won but I’m no judge I wasn’t alive in these times so I can’t say it was right or wrong in the circumstances of the day. Someone was gonna do it wasn’t they.. But man it was more than harsh let’s just say that . God bless the victims of ww2. Friend or foe.
Forget the Barbie movie (the Just Ken song is 😂😂 I love it)… I’m buying tickets for Oppenheimer
Let’s face the fact that someone just wanted to make this fascist experiment while seemingly fighting fascists. Cause you won’t find many differences between those governments if you take a closer look.
Our current government included.
@Drive Tone ours too.
I hope they make a film about OPPENHEIMER. 🙏
A.I. vs. A.I.
Artificial Intelligence:To be used by
Antichrist to annihilate Humanity until
Almighty destroys him
And each evil politician and evil physician !!
Almighty’s Intelligence:
Repent–each man & woman
Become Born-again
Go in Rapture to Heaven
–AMEN
🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
So. Well. Done!!!
This documentary is a master class in propaganda. It’s superb. Most of the politicians in this documentary were lying, straight-faced, right down the barrel of the camera. We know this now because of documents long since declassified, and because of the revelations of Ultra that began in the early 1970s. It’s also full of blatant disinformation. For example, note the casual way Byrnes says they wanted to end the war before the Soviets became involved: completely inverting years of diplomatic effort culminating in the Yalta Conference and the Soviet agreement to enter the war 3 months after the defeat of Germany. It was a done deal. Yet Byrnes said they didn’t want that. He just says it without elaboration or comment, as if everybody shouldn’t immediately clamour for a full explanation for such a massive about-face. Nothing to see here, move along. This is how really good propaganda is made.
I have become death
@1:03 this is the moment the movie the hills have eyes come from .look up the history.
Thank god for the relative global peace we have had and let us cherish global peace and eventually the world should get rid of Nukes
Id have dropped 10
Or better yet 1 for every ship sunk at Pearl Harbor
alot of media taking advante of the upcoming movies.. and yet the movies doesnt that good..
The Soviet union had spies in the Manhattan project. They actually had spies at Los Alamos, spies were funneling top-secret information on building a nuclear weapon directly to Joseph Stalin. Shocking, no?
NBC dropping a hint by spooks order? We know
I can see it now: both pilots were probably saying, “God please forgive me”.
“we couldn’t nuke Germany because of the likely outrage of nuking whites, thankfully the Japs put their hands up and begged to be Nuked” : President Truman
I remember reading in grade school that stimpson had a romance with a woman in Kyoto while governing the Philippines, and that’s why he didn’t want it bombed
USA medias are bull spin manupilators //NBC has always been monopoly control USA warship all denied // point the other way after thre fact BULL spin //Voyeurism releases by the predators during AND AFTER THE FACT …
nbc IS PROFESSIONAL cia BULL SPINNING //DEEP STATE MILITARY ALL DENIED //war ON LIFE TO WIN usa //cdc IS GERM WARFATRE ,,nih EUGENIC VAMPIRES CONTROL OF LIFE BY cancer CREATION .. usa CAPTURED MONOPOLY =bLACKROCK PREDATORS DENIALISM
IT IS THE ECONOMIC WAR VAMPIRES PROTECTION RACKET AND COLLUSION OF bull OF DOMINATION //PROP AGENDA
usa NEXT HERO WARSHIPPIBNG PROGRAMMING… NEW SALES OF BULL JOB =?? NEXT WAR SALES NEXT CRITICAL MILTARY EMERGENCY // usa PREDATORS OF THE DOMINION OVER LIFE ROMAN EMPIRE CRUSADES STILL ON COLONIZATION .
This documentary would not make any difference to the Nao con, warmongers, the defence industrialists and the far-right radical white politician in the nation of USA. Do you agree?
Even back then, the deep state was already running the show. The people back then weren’t street smart like today and got robbed of their freedom and didn’t even know it..
An hour and a half stretched out when in all reality…. The elite in the US wanted control ASAP.
Throw a bomb, clean it up, build a US base, and the rest is control.
It’s kind of sad that even modern wars have the same realizations.
You left out the test of the many tons tnt that happened first…
Nuclear weapons have spread to terrorists?! Which ones?