{"id":27523,"date":"2023-07-24T13:25:43","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T20:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27523"},"modified":"2023-07-24T13:25:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T20:25:44","slug":"crybaby-the-disastrous-meeting-between-oppenheimer-and-truman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/24\/crybaby-the-disastrous-meeting-between-oppenheimer-and-truman\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018CRYBABY\u2019: THE DISASTROUS MEETING BETWEEN OPPENHEIMER AND TRUMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Katie Dowd<\/a> July 20, 2023 (SFGate.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Director Christopher Nolan (center) stands behind actor Cillian Murphy (far right) on the set of \u201cOppenheimer.\u201dUniversal Pictures<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although President Harry Truman, the man who made the final decision to drop the world\u2019s first atomic weapon on Hiroshima, appears for only a few minutes in \u201cOppenheimer<\/a>,\u201d his scene is a memorable one. (Minor spoilers ahead, if you want to go into \u201cOppenheimer\u201d completely blind.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In it, Cillian Murphy\u2019s J. Robert Oppenheimer<\/a> meets with Truman in the Oval Office after the bomb is dropped. Truman, played by Gary Oldman, is initially excited to meet the man in charge of the Manhattan Project, but his delight soon turns to anger when a nervous Oppenheimer says he feels he has \u201cblood on my hands.\u201d The meeting ends with Truman coldly offering his handkerchief and calling Oppenheimer a \u201ccrybaby\u201d as they part ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is that what actually happened when Oppenheimer met the president?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, it really did go that poorly. In the weeks after Hiroshima, the reality of how the world had changed weighed heavily on Oppenheimer. On the recommendation of an acquaintance, Oppenheimer asked for a meeting with Truman. On Oct. 25, 1945, Truman was introduced for the very first time to the man who had headed the Manhattan Project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting was convivial at first, but the tone shifted when Truman asked Oppenheimer when he thought the Soviet Union would have its first nuclear weapon. Oppenheimer replied that he didn\u2019t know. \u201cNever!\u201d Truman boisterously responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reporters gathered in the Oval Office on Aug. 14, 1945, to listen to President Harry Truman\u2019s announcement that World War II was over. Historical\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This did not go over well with Oppenheimer, who was sure that scientists in other countries could certainly figure out what the Americans had. (Neither Oppenheimer nor Truman yet knew that spies at Los Alamos had already given the Soviets the critical information they needed for their nuclear weapons program.) Flustered, Oppenheimer then made a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. President,\u201d he said, \u201cI feel I have blood on my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oppenheimer\u2019s biographers in \u201cAmerican Prometheus\u201d recounted how Truman would later retell the incident: \u201cOver the years, Truman embellished the story. By one account, he replied, \u2018Never mind, it\u2019ll all come out in the wash.\u2019 In yet another version, he pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to Oppenheimer, saying, \u2018Well, here, would you like to wipe your hands?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, \u201cAmerican Prometheus\u201d posits the most likely response Truman gave to Oppenheimer was a bit less dramatic. \u201cI told him the blood was on my hands \u2014 to let me worry about that,\u201d Truman allegedly said to a colleague. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201cBlood on his hands, dammit, he hasn\u2019t half as much blood on his hands as I have,\u201d Truman was overheard saying afterward. \u201cYou just don\u2019t go around bellyaching about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again,\u201d Truman reportedly told Secretary of State Dean Acheson. In a letter to Acheson the next year, Truman referred to Oppenheimer as a \u201ccry-baby scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FILE: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer is shown at his study in Princeton University\u2019s Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., Dec. 15, 1957.John Rooney<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The failure was not just an interpersonal one. Oppenheimer \u201chad the opportunity to impress the one man who possessed the power to help him return the nuclear genie to the bottle,\u201d wrote Oppenheimer\u2019s biographers, \u201cand he had utterly failed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Truman and the presidents to come would rely on the advice of Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller (played by Josh Hartnett and Benny Safdie<\/a> in \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d respectively). Unlike Oppenheimer, who came to believe the government should stay out of scientific study, these two Manhattan Project physicists believed in the union of government and nuclear weapons research. In partnership with the Truman administration, Lawrence and Teller continued nuclear weapons development under the oversight of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shown at the White House in 1957 are, from left to right, Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence; Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss; Dr. Edward Teller, \u201cfather of the H-bomb\u201d; and Dr. Mark Mills.Bettmann\/Bettmann Archive<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Oppenheimer cautioned against the creation of the H-bomb, Teller went on to become the so-called \u201cfather of the hydrogen bomb,\u201d a weapon far more destructive than the ones dropped on Japan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More on Oppenheimer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Robert Oppenheimer\u2019s stranger-than-Hollywood love life<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 What really happened to Jean Tatlock, the love of Oppenheimer\u2019s life<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 What the people depicted in \u2018Oppenheimer\u2019 actually looked like<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 What are the white badges characters wear in \u2018Oppenheimer\u2019?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 The spies at Los Alamos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 \u2018Crybaby\u2019: The disastrous meeting between Oppenheimer and Truman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 The real relationship between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 20, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Katie Dowd<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Dowd is the SFGATE managing editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Katie Dowd July 20, 2023 (SFGate.com) Director Christopher Nolan (center) stands behind actor Cillian Murphy (far right) on the set of \u201cOppenheimer.\u201dUniversal Pictures Although President Harry Truman, the man who made the final decision to drop the world\u2019s first atomic weapon on Hiroshima, appears for only a few minutes in \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d his… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[843],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27524,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27523\/revisions\/27524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}