The Bomb (2015) - full transcript

70 years ago, the nuclear bomb
altered our reality forever.

For the first time in human
history, we now were capable

of our own destruction
as a species.

The bomb affects everything.

It was the opening shot
of the Cold War.

All U.S. citizens are now going
to have to be on high alert.

This is a radio alert.

The bomb produces some of
the worst psychological tension

ever in world history.

An international arms race,

confrontations and close calls.



Politics, culture, even sex.

There was a kind of thrilling
excitement about it.

Fire.

Entire industries
were created to build it.

This incredible energy opens
limitless horizons.

New cameras, film stocks,
and techniques devised

to photograph it.

Now, thanks to state of the art
restoration

of original film masters,
we can see the incredible power

of this device in a new way.

A technology that has changed
human existence forever.

The bomb has receded
in the public's imagination,

but it's still there.

We still live in its shadow.



Everybody is affected by it.

There's no place to hide.

It is an environmental issue,
it's a political issue.

It's a moral issue.

It is the most important issue
that we face.

The Bomb.

It first appeared
in the New Mexico desert...

A place the Spanish
called Jornada del muerto--

"journey of the dead."

Here, miles and miles from
anywhere, the Bomb came to life.

The exact spot is inaccessible,
hidden inside

a 3,000 square mile
weapons range.

But for a few hours, once every
year, it's opened to the public.

Thank you.Thank you.

Hope you like Mike Tyson.

They come from all over,
like pilgrims to a shrine

to see and stand in the spot
where the nuclear age began.

Where the modern era started.

a turning point.

We actually are at ground zero,
where it actually happened.

Well,
it's world history, too.

It changed--
it changed everything.

The bomb that was tested here 70
years ago turned night into day,

and set the world on a new
and dangerous path.

It was a beginning
that would lead

to over a thousand nuclear
explosions through five decades.

Test after test
in desert landscapes...

...on tiny islands.

A Cold War that brought
the world to the brink

and produced an enormous
stockpile of bombs,

most of which could destroy in
one instant a city,

and much more.

60,000 nuclear weapons,
between the United States

and the Soviet Union.

If something should go wrong,

the consequences would be
catastrophic,

not simply
for one nation or another,

but for mankind.

No less than the discovery
of fire, the bomb marks

a dividing line between
all that came before,

and everything that follows.

Nuclear war would entail

the end of civilization.

This was a millennial change
in human affairs.

Everyone was at risk.

The force that first appeared
on this spot--

a power greater
than we can imagine--

where did it come from?

How did it all start?

The understanding of how
the world worked

was being revolutionized.

And in 1938, in Germany--

and it's important to emphasize
in Germany--

the greatest revolution of all
occurred.

In Berlin, two German chemists,
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman,

discover that bombarding uranium
with neutrons creates

barium.

They have no idea why.

But a friend, physicist Lise
Meitner, suddenly realizes

they have split the nucleus
of the uranium atom,

what she calls "fission".

Meitner publishes her conclusion

in the scientific journal
Nature.

The news begins spreading

through the international
physics community.

The implications of that
were obvious to physicists

all over the world.

Out of a little bit of material,
it can produce

an enormous amount of energy.

The timing could not be worse.

Nazi Germany is on the rise.

Adolph Hitler is about to start
World War II.

As physicists around the world
digest Lise Meitner's news,

they quickly realize this
discovery-- nuclear fission--

could determine the outcome
of the war.

- Uranium...
- ...can be fissioned...

...when hit with a neutron...

...producing...

...a tremendous amount
of energy...

...a lot of energy...

...per Einstein's equation...

...E=MC squared...

...every physicist knew...

...all over the world...

...an atomic bomb
could be built...

...by the Nazis.

After all, the discovery
had been made in Germany.

Germany had very good
physicists.

Maybe Hitler's building
the bomb.

The threat of Germany getting
a bomb first is so unthinkable.

Hey, we're in a race
with the Germans, perhaps.

But so far the race is only
in the scientists' minds.

No one else understands
the danger of a bomb

that doesn't yet exist.

Physicist Leo Szilard is
convinced the only way to stop

Hitler is to get the bomb first.

Szilard dictates a letter,
a warning about the threat

of a Nazi atomic bomb.

And he thought that the
best strategy would be to get

Albert Einstein, the most famous
scientist in the world,

to sign a letter to the
president, Franklin Roosevelt,

and get things moving.

Szilard's letter and Einstein's
fame do the trick.

President Franklin Roosevelt
authorizes a project

to research uranium.

Two years later, the Japanese
attack Pearl Harbor...

Hitler declares war on the U.S.

against Germany in Europe,

Japan in the Pacific.

Suddenly, Roosevelt's
uranium research project

is critically important.

What began as scientific inquiry
is about to become

a crash program to build
a bomb.

The bomb had its roots in many
places, all of them managed

by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers.

In this building,
on Broadway in New York City,

the engineers set up an office.

On the 18th floor, the largest
government scientific project

in history begins to take shape.

To keep its real purpose secret,
the project is named after

the engineer district
- Manhattan.

Ultimately, over half a million
people will contribute

to the Manhattan Project.

Leslie Richard Groves,

Army engineer.

Groves has been in charge
of building the Pentagon,

and internment camps
for Japanese-Americans.

Now he's itching for the next
step in his career:

an overseas combat assignment.

Then Groves gets a surprise
update from his boss.

I have a project for you.

And Groves realizes what it is.

Oh no, not that thing.

No...

He's ready to go overseas,
and he's very disappointed.

Developing an imaginary bomb
based on invisible particles

that will probably never work
seems like a career dead end.

But, hey,
you do what you're told.

You do what you're told,
and you do it to the best

of your ability, and he put his
foot on the accelerator

and never let up.

But first he negotiates a raise.

He says I'm gonna
have to be a general.

I mean these scientists aren't
going to respect me

if I'm just a colonel.

Now he gets to work.

Friday, day one: purchase
1,200 tons of uranium ore.

negotiate special top
priority rating for the project.

meet with presidential
science adviser Vannevar Bush.

go to Tennessee,
buy 56,000 acres of land

for factories.

Next, visit universities
and meet scientists.

Harold Urey.

Arthur Compton.

Berkeley, California:
Ernest Lawrence.

Back to Washington.

Groves has put in motion
what will become

a vast industrial complex
in less than two months.

the bomb itself.

It will be years before there's
nuclear fuel ready.

The uranium is produced
one tiny particle at a time.

But when that fuel is ready,
Groves will need a design

for a bomb that works.

And for that,
he needs scientists.

He's been meeting plenty of them
at Columbia, Chicago, Berkeley.

No question they're smart, but
they just rub him the wrong way.

He's a military man,

so we've got a clash of cultures
here.

Groves was a very smart man.

And knew a lot about
a lot of things.

But he didn't know much
about physics.

He also had a pretty thin skin
about people looking down on him

who had PhDs,
which he didn't have.

Eggheads.

He thinks that these guys
are up in the clouds.

They're not very practical,
their politics are,

for the most part, suspect.

They talk too much,
what about security here,

this is gonna be a big secret
here, they're blabbing

all over the place amongst
themselves.

They're gonna have to be
put in shape.

Groves needs a scientist
he can work with--

someone who can turn theories
into a working bomb,

and run a lab, and manage
a team of the most brilliant

and cantankerous minds
ever assembled in one place.

Against the advice of most
of the senior physicists

in America,
he chose Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer?

Oppenheimer ran graduate
seminars of 15 people.

That was it.

He couldn't run
a hamburger stand.

I mean, he had
no administrative record.

Groves' security people were
totally against Oppenheimer.

They were appalled.

His wife's a communist,
his brother's a communist,

his sister-in-law's a communist.

And yet the no-nonsense general
senses something

in this brilliant dreamer
that strikes a chord.

Oppenheimer was very good
at explaining things.

And Oppenheimer explained things
so beautifully

and so respectfully
to General Groves

that Groves just was dazzled
and decided this is my man.

It was a brilliant decision,
and insightful.

Oppenheimer understood better
than any of the others

what needed to be done.

And Oppenheimer saw in Groves
something absolutely essential,

which was Groves's ability
to get Oppenheimer

anything he wanted-- any person,
any resources, anything.

General Leslie Groves
and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer--

complete opposites, yet each
in his own way a virtuoso--

together are made
for this moment.

The two of them were bound
together and both saw

in each other what I call
their route to immortality.

It's 1942.

Groves has his lead scientist;
now he needs a special kind

of uranium-- U-235--
the only substance that can

make an atomic explosion.

Natural uranium, U-238,
won't work.

And that's a problem.

The uranium that you dig
out of the ground

has only about seven-tenths
of 1 % U-235.

So we then had to figure out
a way to separate U-235

from U-238.

You can't do it chemically
'cause it's all uranium.

Groves builds a huge complex
at Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

to produce U-235.

But it's agonizingly slow.

Getting U-235 is not difficult
in tiny quantities,

but since you have to get them
one atom at a time,

it is an enormous task
to do that.

Just one bomb will need pounds
of the stuff.

Getting it one atom at a time
will take years.

But chemist Glenn Seaborg finds
- plutonium.

It can be produced faster than
uranium in a nuclear reactor.

So Groves builds another
complex:

reactors at Hanford, Washington,
to produce plutonium.

But all this will take time.

And both wars are going badly.

In the Pacific, the Japanese
capture the Philippines.

They force 60,000 weak
and starving POWs

to walk 60 miles with little
food or water--

the Bataan Death March.

If you stopped you were killed.

If you just couldn't take
another step forward you died.

And how did they kill you?

Either bayoneted you to death,
shot you, or decapitated you.

Depending on how they felt
at that moment.

The war with Germany
is just as bad.

German U-boats are creating
havoc in the Atlantic.

Hitler's armies occupy Europe,
North Africa,

and are hammering
the Soviet Union.

And no one knows how close
the Nazis are to an atomic bomb.

Groves is of course consumed
by this question

of what the Germans are up to.

The Nazis are already committing
unspeakable atrocities.

If Adolph Hitler gets the bomb,
he will be unstoppable.

The bomb came out
of the minds of men.

To create it,
they would need isolation,

freedom from distraction,
and utmost secrecy.

Here, deep in the Jemez
Mountains, they could think

their thoughts, work numbers,
follow the equations.

Los Alamos, New Mexico,
where the scientists worked,

was created by and for the bomb.

Today, only a few traces
of its beginnings remain:

an old mess hall...

an Army barracks...

Robert Oppenheimer's house...

The main lodge of what
was once a private boys' school.

In 1942, Oppenheimer tells
Groves this is the perfect place

for a secret laboratory.

Up on a mesa in the middle
of a national forest,

with only one telephone line
to the outside world.

It's isolated,
we'll keep these scientists away

from what they're used to,
and we can keep our eye on them.

So they closed the school, boom,
and we can get going right away.

Now Oppenheimer must convince
some of the best science talent

in America to move to the middle
of nowhere, and live behind

barbed wire
for the indefinite future.

They needed a good salesman
to encourage these people

to come to Los Alamos.

And Oppenheimer
was very good at that.

Eventually, thousands will be
recruited to work on the bomb.

Hal Behl was an aeronautical
engineer.

Lilli Hornig and her husband Don
were scientists.

For all of them,
joining the project began

with a mysterious cryptic
conversation.

Here's this major sitting behind
a desk and he said,

"I have a very elite job
for you,

but we only take volunteers."

I said,
"Well, tell me about it."

He said, "I can't."

Don was asked, "How would you
like another job?"

Don said "Well, you have
to tell me a little more.

And he said "Well, I can't."

I said,
"Tell me where I would be."

He says, "I can't."

Which direction in the country?

North, south, west?

"No, I can't tell you
any of that."

I said,
"Tell me what I'd be doing."

He said, "I can't."

I said, "You think I am going
to volunteer

you're out of your cotton-
picking mind!"

I'm not going to risk my future
on something I know

absolutely nothing about,
that's ridiculous!

So he said, "Hornig, you know
those posters in the post office

and Uncle Sam is pointing
his finger at you?

Don thought that was very corny.

But we got the message.

So the next day I was on my way
to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Yet even in the midst
of a national emergency,

some assets are ignored.

The women at Los Alamos
ran the schools, the libraries,

they did a lot
of the calculations,

but this was a male environment.

Some women do work as typists
and machine operators.

But of more 400 scientists
at Los Alamos,

less than ten are women.

Lilli Hornig is one.

They said,
"How fast do you type?"

And I said, "I don't type."

And they said, "What makes you
think you can get a job?"

I said, "I'm a chemist
with a master's degree

and a year of work experience."

And eventually they turned up
a job in the chemistry division.

So they took some women,
but they made it very clear

that we were not top drawer.

The first lesson everyone learns
is secrecy.

Officially, Los Alamos doesn't
exist; it's called "Site Y,"

or "the Hill."

The bomb is referred to only as
"the Gadget."

You only need to know enough
to do your job, and no more.

And don't be inquisitive
about anything more.

Everything was hush hush,

go where you're told,

and there was no preliminary
information given to me.

They knew exactly who I was
and why I was there.

And that was better than I knew.

I knew very little
about the project.

I just picked up rumors

about they're building balloons
up there, submarines.

You did not talk about bombs,

atoms, uranium.

You just didn't say that.

My wife didn't know what
we were doing.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
where uranium is produced,

has been created
nearly overnight.

This was a town that one year
before had just been a farm,

and suddenly was a large city
with 70,000 people, houses,

streets.

Los Alamos, New Mexico,
is far more remote,

and much less developed.

One of the scientists here, Hugh
Bradner, has a movie camera.

The Bradner home movies offer
a rare glimpse of life

at Los Alamos.

The films are remarkable
because they exist at all--

a look inside the most secret
facility in the world,

hidden deep in the remote West.

Many of these people had come
from, you know,

urban academic places.

And here they were living
a rather primitive life.

The living conditions

were rough western.

You could turn on the water tap
and worms were as likely

as water to come out.

There was mud during
the rainy season.

On the other hand,
there were parties.

And Oppenheimer
was a great lab leader.

And the punch was spiked
with 100 % lab alcohol,

so it became exciting.

Their average age is 25.

And they know their work may be
the only thing that can prevent

a Nazi atomic bomb.

I came to this country
at the age of 12

from Hitler Germany.

And my motivation was very much
tied to that.

All of them were told that they
could shorten the war

through their efforts, and that
was enough to know at the time.

By spring 1944,
they have a design.

It resembles a gun.

Two chunks of nuclear fuel
will be slammed together,

creating a critical mass
and a nuclear explosion.

It's simple, but there's
not enough fuel to test it.

Uranium production is so slow
it will take years to make

enough for just one bomb.

Since plutonium can be produced
faster, it is the key

to making multiple bombs.

The success of the entire
project depends

on making plutonium work.

But when physicist Emilio Segre
gets the first tiny sample

of plutonium from Hanford, he
makes a devastating discovery:

a plutonium gun bomb will melt,
not explode.

The gun-type plutonium bomb
will not work.

It was a disaster.

There was just enough uranium
for one gun bomb.

If you couldn't use plutonium,

there would only be one bomb.

Maybe this whole $350 million
is going to go for naught

because plutonium won't work.

Oppenheimer really considered
resigning from Los Alamos

at that point.

It's a dead end.

Los Alamos scraps the plutonium
gun design and starts over.

After years of work they can
only count on one uranium bomb.

It's summer, 1944.

The Allies have invaded France,
but the outcome

is still in doubt.

Nazi scientists are introducing
frightening new weapons:

the world's first jet fighter,
a cruise missile,

and a supersonic rocket.

They could be close
to an atomic bomb.

We knew they were working on it,
but we didn't know how far along

they were.

The war could be lost
if Germany got it first.

In Los Alamos they've got
a new approach--

implosion.

Usually an explosion is outward,
this time they're gonna push

a ball of plutonium
and compress it.

Taking a ball of plutonium and
using explosives to compress it

might be impossible,
but it's their only hope.

That was the greatest problem
at Los Alamos:

how to make plutonium work.

They reorganize the laboratory
and there's a crash program

for implosion.

Chemist George Kistiakowsky
from Harvard is brought in

to work the problem.

Kistiakowsky will spend the rest
of 1944 and beyond

experimenting, desperately
trying to make implosion work.

As complex and daunting
as implosion is,

Kistiakowsky and his small team
will not be nearly enough.

They turn to the British,

who send some of their
scientists to Los Alamos.

Groves wanted all of them vetted

for possible security
infractions.

And the British said,
"No, no, they're okay,

we took care of them."

Among the new arrivals
is a quiet and strange refugee

from Germany.

His name is Klaus Fuchs.

He was a very good physicist.

He made interesting suggestions,
very cooperative.

But sort of an odd guy,
and he made me uncomfortable.

Although no one seems aware
of it, besides being brilliant,

and odd, Klaus Fuchs
is a dedicated communist.

In a few short years,
his presence at Los Alamos

will come to haunt Groves
and Oppenheimer.

By early 1945, the war in Europe
is in its final months.

Nazi Germany is being squeezed
between Americans, British,

and French on the west,
and Soviets on the east.

In Los Alamos, the design
for the uranium gun bomb

is complete.

All that's missing
is the uranium.

There should be enough
for one bomb by summer.

As for a plutonium bomb, they're
still working on implosion.

Then, in April, tragedy.

When he heard that
his chief was dead,

his simple humanity expressed
itself in these words

to Mrs. Roosevelt,
"What can I do to help?"

Now, ultimate authority over
the bomb falls to Harry Truman.

My duties and responsibilities
are clear.

I have assumed them.

But there is one enormous
responsibility

that's not at all clear--
incredibly, Truman has never

even heard of the bomb.

He's got this responsibility
that he really didn't know about

because Franklin Roosevelt
didn't tell him.

He had been the vice president
for 82 days.

He had met once with Roosevelt,
essentially for a picture.

Oh, by the way here, you're in
charge of a project that could

end human civilization,
thank you very much.

In May, Germany surrenders,
the war in Europe is over.

Hitler, and the fear of a Nazi
atomic bomb--

the very things that gave birth
to the whole project-- are gone.

But in the Pacific, the war
against Japan is still raging.

The job wasn't done.

I was a boy of seven
that spring of 1945.

And I remember vividly
there were still young men

being killed every day.

The race may have been inspired
by fear of Germany,

but Japan is now the only enemy,
and thus target for the bomb.

The very first bomb was called
"the Gadget."

After three years
and $2 billion, this is it:

a six-foot sphere filled
with batteries, electronics,

explosives, covered with cables
to set it off,

and measure what happens.

At its center,
a grapefruit-sized ball

of plutonium-- the core.

If this thing works, the world
will never be the same.

Everything comes down to a test
in the New Mexico desert,

code-named Trinity.

It is July 1945.

They've been preparing
for months,

putting in roads, shelters
and bunkers, miles of cable.

It's the biggest science
experiment in history.

If it works, they'll set off the
world's first atomic explosion.

No one has any idea
what that will be like.

They need to measure, record,
photograph everything.

Radiation levels, shock waves,
temperatures-- all unknown,

all must be documented.

Thousands of miles away
in Potsdam, Germany,

President Harry Truman
is negotiating with Stalin.

Does he have an atomic card
in his hand?

It all depends
on the Trinity test.

Back in New Mexico,
George Kistiakowsky

has discovered a problem.

It looked as if the bomb
might be a dud.

Since they had poured
the explosive and it was hot

when it was poured,
there was the possibility

there would be bubbles in there.

So Kistiakowsky decided
he had to fill those bubbles

with liquid explosive.

Now Kistiakowsky must drill
holes in the explosive,

and carefully fill each bubble.

The outcome of the test depends
on his fix,

and there's no way to know
if it will work.

There was a test on July 14,
a full-up explosive test

that went really bad,
which then made them worry

even a little bit more.

They are out of time.

All they can do is press on,
and hope.

They'll hoist the bomb to the
top of a 100-foot steel tower.

They pile mattresses under it
just in case.

Thousands of people,
years of work are on the line.

The last crucial piece, the
grapefruit size plutonium core--

a $350 million box--
is delivered by car

from Los Alamos.

In Potsdam, Truman waits; the
test is scheduled for tonight.

It begins to rain
and we're going to have

to postpone this thing.

So there's great nervousness.

Most everybody really had a knot
in their gut

about all the electronic
connections.

There's a zillion things
could go wrong.

The weather looks bad,
but Groves refuses to give in.

And Groves becomes his own
weatherman here and decides

we're gonna have this test
at 5:30.

It looks as though it might
clear just enough

to get the test in.

Dawn was just beginning
to break.

We heard the countdown.

Ten...

It is July 16, 1945.

Three years,
hundreds of thousands of people,

the futures of Groves
and Oppenheimer.

There's careers involved,
there's $2 billion spent.

Unproven science,
a president waiting,

a chance to end the worst war
in history-- will it work?

The world will never
be the same.

No one who was there
will ever forget it.

I couldn't believe
that I would see it

when I had my eyes closed!

It was the most incredible sight

I've ever seen in my life.

It was a brilliant
white yellow to start with,

and developed reds and orange
and purple and blue.

I was just standing there
with my mouth open.

Engineer Jack Aeby
has brought his camera.

I snapped the shutter wide open.

Jack Aeby's picture is the
only properly exposed color

still photo from that night.

A new age has begun; the bomb
is about to change everything.

I have to admit I didn't feel
much of anything

except a great joy
that it was a success.

It was really later that we all
began to think more about it.

The thing worked.

And there is plutonium flowing
from the Hanford reactors

to Los Alamos.

Groves now knows they can make
implosion bombs

as fast as plutonium is
produced.

In Potsdam,
Truman gets the news.

What to do about
the Russians here?

Should we tell them, what's
gonna happen after the war?

Truman tells Stalin the U.S.
has a powerful new weapon;

Stalin barely reacts
because he already knows.

Klaus Fuchs has been telling
the Soviets all about the bomb.

Stalin and the people
closest to him

were very well informed

about the progress
of Manhattan Project

and that's partly why
at Potsdam,

Stalin kind of just looks at
them and doesn't say much.

Back in the U.S., now that
the atomic bomb is a reality,

some scientists are having
misgivings about using it.

Leo Szilard, who warned of
a Nazi bomb, drafts a petition

to the president, urging him to
consider the moral consequences.

Offhand I'd have to say the
scientists were probably about

evenly split, for and against.

Scientists also worry that using
nuclear weapons now

will put the U.S. in danger
after the war

by encouraging Stalin
to pursue the bomb.

They thought if they are used,
they are likely to precipitate

a nuclear arms race
with the Soviets.

Some scientists urge
a demonstration of the bomb,

to give the Japanese a chance
to surrender.

But to the Japanese, surrender
does not seem to be an option.

They send kamikazes-- suicide
pilots-- against U.S. ships.

In battle after battle,
their soldiers kill themselves

rather than be captured.

The U.S. is now firebombing
their cities.

100,000 Japanese die
in one night in Tokyo alone.

Their war is hopeless, yet they
still refuse to surrender.

invade Japan itself.

Thousands of Americans,
and perhaps millions of Japanese

will likely die.

For Harry Truman, the bomb seems
by far the lesser evil.

"I may be faced with an actual
land invasion of Japan.

"So if there's anything that
can shorten the war before that,

and prevent it, I'm for it."

On July 26, the Japanese
are given an ultimatum:

surrender unconditionally
or face destruction.

The Japanese were not interested
in unconditional surrender.

They wanted their emperor
to remain in power.

They wanted to oversee
their own war crimes trials.

They did not want U.S.
occupation of the home islands.

The Japanese reject
the ultimatum.

Now all the pieces
fall into alignment.

Japanese leaders who cannot
bring themselves to stop,

a massive science project
that has spent $2 billion

racing to create the bomb,

a president facing
a horrific battle

who suddenly sees
an alternative.

What happens next-- dropping
two atomic bombs on Japan

in August 1945-- will become

one of the most controversial
decisions in American history.

70 years later, remarkably,
evidence suggests

the president never actually
gave this order.

Now that it's ready, it may be
harder to stop the bomb

than to let it go.

There is a question
about whether or not

Truman ever really authorized
the use of the bomb.

And it's my argument
that he never did,

that there was so much momentum
built up, that Truman,

new to the job, decides not
to interfere with ongoing plans.

On Tinian Island in the Pacific,
the uranium gun bomb,

nicknamed "Little Boy",
is ready.

It's never been tested,
but it's so simple

that they are sure it will work.

The bomb is loaded into
the B-29 Enola Gay.

A few hours before dawn
on August 6,

the plane takes off.

It flies 1,500 miles
through the night.

At 8:15 a.m., over Hiroshima,
it drops the bomb.

Now the bomb controls
its own destiny.

When it's 1,900 feet
from the ground, it explodes.

A fireball a quarter-mile across
reaches 10,000 degrees.

Anything close to the center
is vaporized.

Then a shock wave explodes
buildings,

knocking down anything
in its path.

Almost everything within
one mile is totally destroyed.

Only a few concrete structures
remain.

Where something, or someone,
absorbed the heat,

a shadow is left behind.

At least 80,000 people die.

Other bombings have killed
more people.

What's new about Hiroshima
is how easy it was:

one plane, one bomb.

And still, even after this,
the Japanese will not surrender.

The shock of the first bomb
didn't quite do it, actually.

They couldn't even
at first accept

that Hiroshima had been bombed.

The Japanese have their own plan
to end the war.

Behind the scenes,
they have been secretly talking

to the Soviets, hoping
the Russians will broker a deal

with the U.S.--
a conditional surrender.

But two days later, the Soviet
Union declares war on Japan.

Now the brokered
conditional deal

the Japanese hoped for is dead.

But there's still no sign
of surrender.

The level of resistance
in the Japanese government

was very, very difficult
to understand.

It was so great.

On Tinian, crews are preparing
the next bomb--

nicknamed "Fat Man"--

as President Truman addresses
the nation.

If they do not now accept
our terms,

they may expect a rain of ruin
from the air

the like of which has never been
seen on this earth.

On August 9, a B-29 carrying
the Fat Man bomb takes off.

The target is Kokura.

But Kokura is obscured
by clouds.

So the plane heads
for the backup target.

Because it happens to be cloudy,
thousands of fortunate people

are spared.

Others will die in their place.

The second city hit by an atomic
bomb will not be Kokura

but Nagasaki.

Nearby, in POW camp 17, Lester
Tenney sees the explosion.

We saw this tremendous cloud
rise.

And it was the most unusual
thing.

It seemed to have a pedestal.

And we had no idea what it was.

Up to 70,000 people are dead.

Even now, after the Soviet
invasion and two bombs,

Japanese leaders still cannot
agree about surrender.

The Russians invade them,
they still did not surrender.

The second bomb was dropped

and then the emperor
decided to surrender.

Even then the Japanese army
did not want to.

Nothing speaks well
for the Japanese.

Nothing.

The emperor and his advisors
were callously uninterested

in the lives of their citizens
that were being lost.

They just did not care about
how their people were suffering.

While the Japanese leaders
try to make up their minds,

Groves is planning
more atomic attacks.

The orders for the bomb are to
keep using them as made ready.

That very important phrase.

So, the bomb after Nagasaki,
if necessary,

and a bomb after that if
necessary,

and a bomb after
that if necessary.

They will drop atomic bombs
as fast as they are built--

three or four a month.

And finally, Truman said enough.

No more until the president
authorizes them.

Finally, the day after Nagasaki,
Japan agrees to surrender,

they keep their emperor.

I have received this afternoon
the unconditional surrender

of Japan.

Truman agrees, though he calls
it "unconditional."

That was Japan's hope,
was to surrender conditionally,

to have some say
in how it would happen.

In POW Camp 17, the prisoners
sense something's up,

but they don't know what.

Lester Tenney tries
a daring experiment:

speak to a guard without bowing.

Now if you saw a Japanese guard
two blocks away,

you better stop,
turn to him and bow.

Or you're beaten.

And so I went outside
and saw the Japanese guard

right out there.

And I just walked up to him, and
in my best Japanese I just said:

Konnichiwa, tomodachi!

And I never did stop and bow.

And he stood at attention.

And within a matter of five
or six seconds he bowed to me.

He bowed to me!

The war is over!

The war was over, period.

Just exactly like that.

On September 2, 1945, Japan
signs the surrender documents.

World War II is over.

The war was finally over.

We were so relieved.

It's official, it's all over!

It's total victory!

♪

It's time to celebrate,
not only the end of the war,

but the remarkable new bomb
that helped win it.

After years of secrecy,

overnight "the Gadget"
is big news.

And all of a sudden
it's not only out,

but here it is in the newspaper
in front of me.

I bought a half a dozen papers
of the different kinds,

but, it-it-it was a shock.

♪

It's a whole new era,
the atomic age,

with its own genesis story.

Secret cities,
massive factories, the genius

and the general are suddenly
part of the culture.

And the press went wild.

The atomic age loomed upon
the threshold of history.

Suddenly the cat is out
of the bag.

Well, what'd you think of that
bomb we dropped on the Japs?

It was new.

An American invention.

Thousands of able young
scientists were called

into service.

Los Alamos Laboratory.

A secret laboratory
in New Mexico.

It was work, work, work
and more work.

Here it is, General Groves.

Plutonium.Plutonium.

Uranium.

Releasing unimaginable force.

The basic power of the universe.

And at the center
of all of this...

Robert Oppenheimer...

father of the atomic bomb...

...one of the most famous people
in all of America.

Trumps Einstein.

The triumph of the bomb--
winning the war with science--

seems the perfect American
success story.

Good thing it was dropped, ended
the war, saved American lives,

end of story.

♪

The bomb seems to have brought
an answer for how to end

the war.

But it has also
raised questions.

The question right away became
when are the Soviets going

to get a weapon, when are
they going to get the bomb?

Scientists who warned about
Hitler having the bomb

now worry about the U.S.
and Soviets

getting into a competition to
build more and bigger bombs--

a nuclear arms race.

Little do they know it's already
too late--

the race started the minute
Stalin saw pictures

of Hiroshima.

Suddenly this project

that's on paper
comes to reality.

And the destructive
possibilities of this bomb

were made clear.

The Soviets felt
very vulnerable.

And that spurs Stalin
into action.

It's after the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombing

that Stalin creates the crash
program to catch up

and create a Soviet nuclear
weapon.

The Soviets have an invaluable
head start, thanks to espionage.

Not one but two scientists
at Los Alamos are spies.

Klaus Fuchs, who was German,
and another spy,

who was an American,

a graduate student
at Harvard named Ted Hall.

Having two independent sources
inside Los Alamos

is an incredible espionage coup.

Well, imagine when Apple
was designing the iPhone

and if Apple's competitors
had two people in the room

with Steve Jobs,

listening to Steve Jobs work
through the various difficulties

and snags.

They don't have to make
the mistakes that Steve Jobs

is making.

That's what made Fuchs and Hall
so valuable and so extraordinary

in the history of espionage
and in the history of science.

No one in the U.S. has any idea
how close the Soviets

are to getting the bomb.

With the war over, Americans
are getting back to normal,

enjoying peace.

But the atomic bomb
is a question mark

hanging over the future.

The Manhattan project
is still in place.

What to do about the bomb,

how many we have,
how many to build.

At the secret laboratory
in New Mexico,

the scientists
are anxious to go home

to their universities.

You had a group
of young professors

who had good jobs to go back to
in academia,

and you had young students

who had not yet
completed their studies.

You gotta remember,

they're living here
in little wooden shacks

with coal stoves,

eating bad food,
on mud streets.

So as soon as the war ended,
everybody left.

The town dropped from 3,000
to 4,000 people

to, like, 1,000 people
in just a matter of weeks.

Robert Oppenheimer,
whose vision created Los Alamos,

is one who leaves.

The lab he built now seems
destined to fade away.

In the summer of 1945,

Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki
opened the door to the new age.

But it won't be
until a year later,

in the summer of 1946,
that major turning points

will determine the future
of the bomb.

We are here to make a choice
between the quick and the dead.

It begins in June
at the United Nations,

when the U.S. offers the world
a plan to get rid of the bomb.

manufacture
of atomic bombs shall stop.

existing bombs
shall be disposed of

pursuant to the terms
of the treaty.

America will give up
its atomic bombs

if other countries
pledge not to build them

and agree to inspections.

It's an idea that will become
known as "Trust but verify."

The Soviets refuse
to pledge anything

unless America
gives up the bomb first.

The battle to save mankind

from destroying itself
is still deadlocked.

It is later than we think...

Debate will continue for months.

It's late June 1946,

and the nuclear arms race
will soon explode.

Time now is measured in seconds.

Five, four,

three, two, one...

Fire!

Just a few weeks later,
a huge fleet of warships

is sent to the bottom
of the Pacific Ocean

by the atomic bomb.

Today, they still lie
where they sank:

Bikini Lagoon.

Here, in July 1946,
the public would be invited

to witness an atomic explosion
for the first time.

The U.S. military would discover

how vulnerable it was
to its own bomb,

and the future of Los Alamos
Laboratory would be guaranteed.

All the result of an event

appropriately named
"Crossroads."

Crossroads is the brainchild
of this man.

Lewis Strauss,

or "Straws,"
as he liked to be called.

A curious figure of a man who

had been a shoe salesman and
had made himself very rich.

And then he was an admiral
in the Navy,

but he never sailed a ship.

Extremely politically ambitious.

Strauss is worried
about the navy.

How will the new atomic bomb
affect its future?

Historically, what did we have
in the country?

We had an army and a navy.

What does the bomb mean

for each of them?

It's the thing to have.

It's a winning weapon.

Everybody wants it.

But only the Air Force has it,

and in 1946, the air force
is still part of the army.

People have been arguing
that the navy's obsolete.

Now air forces will control
how wars are fought and won.

The traditional line in the navy
during the Cold War, it was,

"Remember, the Soviet Union
is our adversary.

The army is our enemy."

Lewis Strauss thinks
he has the perfect answer

to the navy's problem:

a bomb test to prove navy ships
can survive atomic weapons.

Operation Crossroads.

Sort of a contest between
the navy and the air force

in which air force bombers
will try and sink navy ships.

The first casualty
in the contest is Leslie Groves.

The navy, not Groves,
will be in charge of Crossroads.

They'll do the test in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean,

at the tiny island of Bikini.

The navy evicts the residents
and assembles a target fleet.

Over 90 captured
German, Japanese,

and surplus U.S. warships
will be bombed.

Able, Baker, and Charlie--

one in the air, two underwater.

Crossroads is a huge operation.

$100 million.

42,000 men.

240 ships,
not counting the targets.

Instruments.

Cameras, cameras,
and more cameras.

Film, miles and miles of it.

Animals, so doctors can study
what the bomb does

to living creatures.

And reporters
from all over the world.

It was a show.

It was a spectacle.

At last, all was ready

for Able day...

July 1, 1946, the show begins.

Dave's Dream is roaring down
the runway, engines singing.

For the first test, Able,

they'll drop the bomb
from a plane.

Bomb bay doors are open.

The plane approaches.

The bomb is dropped.

Unfolded are a myriad
of majestic, startling,

and awesome effects,

a panoply that only the cameras
can record in faithful detail.

The bomb, the same Fat Man model
dropped on Nagasaki,

has a force
of 20,000 tons of TNT.

B-17 drones,
flown by remote control,

are sent into the mushroom cloud
to take measurements.

It's the first nuclear explosion
to be witnessed by the public.

But the public is 18 miles away.

And after all the build-up...

I was a bit disappointed
as to the size of the flash.

You didn't see ships
flying through the air,

and the first reaction was,
"Eh, the atomic bomb.

Not such a big deal."

- Three weeks later,
- Baker.

This time, the bomb
will be underwater.

The scientists think
it's a terrible idea.

They warn that exploding
an atomic bomb underwater

will create a "witch's brew"
of radioactivity,

releasing "enough plutonium

to poison the entire
armed forces of the U.S."

They knew what was going
to happen

when you set off
an underwater explosion.

It was going to make
a lot of contamination.

But I guess they lost out
to Admiral Blandy.

Navy Admiral William Blandy

is the man
in charge of Crossroads.

And from the start,
he's got a PR problem.

I am not an atomic playboy,

as one of my critics labeled me,

exploding these bombs
to satisfy my personal whim.

Many considered it a boondoggle.

The bomb will not start
a chain reaction in the water,

converting it all to gas
and letting all the ships

on all the oceans
drop down to the bottom.

There was a tremendous amount
of pressure I think on the navy

to try and convince the public
that this was worthwhile.

Bikini Atoll and Baker Day:

the underwater explosion
of the fifth atomic bomb.

The bomb and instruments
are set into action.

Aboard the Los Alamos
firing ship,

nerves are stretched
to the breaking point.

Five radio control circuits
will set off the blast

in this prelude
to push-button warfare.

Three, two, one, fire!

An underwater shock wave
is clearly visible.

In the first one second,

two million tons of seawater
are lifted into the air.

As the water rises,

it creates a column
nearly a half-mile wide.

Now, it starts to fall back.

The water falling out of the sky
creates a base surge,

like the mist
at the bottom of a waterfall.

The surge,
nearly a thousand feet tall,

completely envelops
the target ships.

No one has ever seen
anything like it.

The sheer power and magnitude
of the atomic bomb.

But so far,
despite two of these bombs,

the results look pretty good
for the navy:

75 ships survive,
less than 20 sunk.

The navy felt that they came out
of it with flying colors,

and Blandy said, "Yes, the navy
can withstand the atomic bomb."

The navy plans to put sailors
on these ships

and sail them triumphantly
back to the U.S.

But there's a problem.

At first, there seemed
to be little damage.

But succeeding days
told a different story.

The thousand-foot high
wave of water

that drenched the ships
was highly radioactive.

The ships are now contaminated.

Geiger counters rattle wildly.

The area is loaded with
death-dealing gamma, neutron,

and other lethal rays,

and there is
no complete protection

against this terrifying
invisible killer.

At first, the navy
simply doesn't believe it.

You can't smell radiation,
you can't feel it,

and these navy guys were just
gonna get back on their ships

and survive the bomb.

Now they have no idea
what to do.

The ignorance was rampant.

There was no real plan
for decontamination.

They try hosing down the ships
with seawater.

Trouble is, the seawater itself
is now highly radioactive.

And when sailors go back
to their own ships

to change clothes, they
contaminate those ships too.

The man in charge
of radiation safety,

army doctor Stafford Warren,
tries to cancel the operation.

Stafford Warren doesn't want
the sailors back on the ships,

but it's pretty hard to go up
against the entire U.S. Navy.

In desperation, Stafford Warren
gets a fish from the lagoon

and places it
against a piece of film.

The fish is so radioactive,

it exposes the film
all by itself.

The glow was produced

by the exposure of the film
to radiation.

Finally, Admiral Blandy
and the navy are convinced.

Crossroads is halted.

It's been called the world's
first nuclear disaster.

Only nine ships are ever
successfully decontaminated.

Most of the rest are towed away
and deliberately sunk.

The air force will remain
the primary keeper of the bomb,

for now.

But Crossroads turns out to be
a good thing for Los Alamos.

I don't think the laboratory

would have stayed
in business very long

had we not had a customer.

But the navy came in
and gave us a job.

It gave us some work to do
and kept the laboratory going

through some very
uncertain times.

After July 1946,
Los Alamos Lab will grow,

building and testing
more and more bombs

over the coming decades.

Crossroads also becomes part
of popular culture.

Even today, the Baker shot

remains the most enduring
single image

of the power of the bomb.

Just a few weeks after
the second Crossroads shot,

an unexpected event

will give Americans another,
much darker look at the bomb.

And for the first time,

a major public debate
about using it will begin.

On August 31, the latest issue

of the New Yorkermagazine
appears.

On its cover,

a whimsical portrait
of Central Park on a summer day.

Inside, a very different
portrait

of another city on a summer day.

The entire issue
is one single article:

an essay by John Hersey

about the experience
of the people in Hiroshima

told through the eyes
of six survivors.

One's a Catholic priest,
one's a tailor's widow,

a couple of them are doctors--

kinds of people that Americans
can relate to.

The special issue
sells out in hours.

"Hiroshima" by John Hersey.

This astounding report written
for the New Yorkermagazine

has deeply affected thousands
of Americans.

Radio networks in England,

Canada, Australia, and the U.S.

preempt regular programming
and do live readings by actors.

This chronicle
of suffering and destruction

is not presented
in defense of an enemy.

It is broadcast as a warning
that what happened

to the people of Hiroshima
a year ago

could next happen anywhere.

Chapter one,
"A Noiseless Flash."

At exactly 15 minutes
past 8:00 in the morning...

No one had ever seen the
consequences of a nuclear bomb.

And the knowledge
of what this meant

doesn't really soak in
until afterwards.

Now, in August '46,
a year after Hiroshima,

one essay is giving the world

a whole new perspective
on the bomb.

It has enormous consequences.

It begins to make people

rethink their attitudes
towards nuclear weapons.

But nuclear weapons are becoming
the key to U.S. security.

Harry Truman and his advisors
begin to think

atomic weaponry can be
the basis of diplomacy.

Former Secretary of War
Henry Stimson

worries that Americans are
turning against nuclear weapons,

so he writes a response
to the New Yorkerpiece

to justify using the bomb.

It says there were two choices:
use the bomb or invade Japan.

And it is a false framework.

There were alternatives to both
the bomb and an invasion.

Would Japan have surrendered
without our using the bomb?

There's no way of answering it
one way or the other.

We cannot relive history.

If Truman had not used the bomb,
why didn't he?

My son was killed because
you didn't use the bomb?

An American airplane dropped...

The debate continues
to this day.

All that is certain
is that life in the atomic age

is turning out to be
more complicated than it seemed

when the bomb first appeared.

Yes, the atom is on its way
to brighten our towns

and to help manufacture
our most dependable

and indispensable
household servant.

The public flocked
to atomic exhibits

in search of understanding.

The bomb had

a certain kind of mystique,

both terrifying
and awe-inspiring.

And that was the whole
other side of the atomic age:

X-rays and medicine
and atomic power,

all these things that are gonna
contribute to the good life.

The atom has come to town.

♪ Atomic power,
atomic power ♪

♪ Was given by the mighty hand
of God ♪

♪ Atomic power,
atomic power... ♪

Do you suppose that our
appliances would run as well

on atomic energy?

Today's bonanza is a metal

more precious than gold
or silver.

There's uranium
in them thar hills!

It will protect your health,
improve your food,

bring you less costly
living products

and a greater measure
of leisure and security.

♪ Hiroshima, Nagasaki

♪ Paid a big price
for their sins ♪

♪ When scorched
from the face of earth ♪

♪ Their battle
could not win... ♪

The peaceful atom, no longer
just a laboratory dream,

is here today, working wonders.

♪

Did you know that someday,
this machine of yours

is going to be operating
on atomic power?

They can run it on kerosene
if they want to,

just as long as I'm still
at the switch.

With the ever-increasing use
of nuclear energy,

more towns may eventually become
atomic cities.

♪ It was given
by the mighty hand of God... ♪

One part of the early atomic age
is still going strong today.

Where do we get the word
"bikini"?

The designer
of the bikini bathing suit

designed it four days after
the test on the Bikini Island

because of its explosive,
dangerous potential.

♪ It was given
by the mighty hand of God. ♪

While the country is adjusting
to life in the atomic age,

scientists
in the original atomic city

are looking to update the device
that started it all.

Every bomb America has

is still the original
implosion design

first tested at Trinity
and dropped on Nagasaki:

Fat Man.

Few realize how crude
it actually is.

Fat Man was
a science fair project.

I mean, this was not
a production weapon.

It was hand-made, craftsmen
fit all the pieces together,

it takes about a week
to build one.

Two years after Crossroads,

Los Alamos has
a new design to try.

They'll explode three shots

on the Pacific island
of Eniwetok,

a test code-named Sandstone.

Sandstone had three tests,
X-ray, Yoke, and Zebra,

and each one tested
a new concept in weapons.

This time, the public and press
are not invited.

Six, five, four,
three, two, one...

Sandstone is the end of an era.

In January 1947, the bomb is put
under civilian control,

administered by the Atomic
Energy Commission, AEC.

They replace the hand-made
Fat Man with a new model,

the first mass-produced
nuclear weapon.

And they open a new lab

to build the bombs
Los Alamos designs.

It's the beginning of America's
nuclear-weapons complex,

a massive juggernaut

that will drive bomb making
and testing for decades,

through multiple administrations
to the end of the Cold War.

The year after Sandstone,
another test.

But this one isn't at Bikini,
Eniwetok, or New Mexico.

It's in Kazakhstan.

To the immense surprise
of everyone,

the Soviet Union tested
its first atomic bomb.

And the balance of power

was suddenly
and dramatically shifted.

Testing the atomic bomb
in Soviet Union

was very important,
because this is about balancing.

If you have this possibility,

you're feeling yourself
much safer.

Psychologically,
we are now on the same level

with the United States.

Now, the United States
cannot dictate to us.

♪ ...was given
by the mighty hand of God... ♪

If the power of the atom
was God's gift to America,

well, now he had given it
to our enemy too.

It was a very, very

scary moment
for the United States:

wow to respond now to
the Soviet Union having a bomb?

We need a quantum leap
beyond the Soviets.

We have to stay
way ahead of them.

Some believe the answer
is hydrogen fusion,

the same energy
that powers the sun.

A hydrogen,
or thermonuclear bomb,

could be far bigger
than an atomic bomb.

There would be
no theoretical limit

to the size of the bomb
you could make.

The leading advocate
for the hydrogen bomb

is physicist Edward Teller.

Teller is kind of egotistical.

Rightly so--
he was really a smart guy--

but he was kind of hard
to get along with.

An idea man.

He'd have ten ideas a day.

One idea every month
might be good,

but he had ten ideas a day.

He was always taken
with the idea

of going the next step
beyond an atom bomb

to a thermonuclear weapon,

and I give him
a tremendous amount of credit

for sticking with this
and campaigning for this.

But no one knows
how to build a hydrogen bomb.

It might even be impossible.

We knew how to make
atomic bombs.

We could fill warehouses
with them.

But we didn't know how to make
hydrogen bombs.

Why would you stop producing
a sure thing

to work on something
you didn't know how to do?

Moreover, some scientists
believe this is a chance

to save the world
by choosing to stop.

This could be a turning point
in human history.

We can pursue the hydrogen bomb,

but we don't have to.

We can send a positive message
to the international community,

we can put pressure
on the Soviets

not to continue building
nuclear weapons.

Basically,
we can set a good example.

Two months after
the Soviet atomic bomb,

a committee led
by Robert Oppenheimer

unanimously recommends
against a crash program

for a hydrogen bomb.

Lewis Strauss and Edward Teller
are outraged.

But the decision
is up to President Harry Truman.

The debate
over the hydrogen bomb

involved the United States
restraining itself

without any ability
to restrain the Soviets.

The Soviets had proven that
they could build a bomb.

Well, that's a huge risk to take

if you're president
of the United States.

The Soviets seem determined
to expand.

They already control
Eastern Europe.

In 1948,
they cut off West Berlin,

hoping to take that over
as well.

To Harry Truman,
the answer seems obvious.

Containment.

Contain the Soviet Union,
don't allow it to expand,

don't allow it to grow
or to gain any more influence,

and if we do, you know,

it's just gonna creep
and creep and creep

until they'll be
in our kitchens.

We need to speed up our work
with other countries

in strengthening
our common defenses.

We are united in detesting
Communist slavery.

At the end of January 1950,

Truman announces the U.S.
will build a hydrogen bomb.

Truman decides to respond

with an even bigger
and more destructive weapon.

And this is the start
of the arms race,

this is the start
of the escalation

that will last for decades.

Just days after Truman
approves the H-bomb,

physicist Klaus Fuchs,
who worked at Los Alamos,

is arrested for spying.

It suggested that this was
sort of a leaky system

and we had to plug the leaks.

It was a shock, and this was
one of the first major events

that set in motion the era of
McCarthyism and the Red Scare.

Five months later,

Communist North Korea,
backed by the Soviet Union,

invades South Korea,
which is backed by the U.S.

Spearheaded by tanks,

in two days, they were attacking
the capital city itself.

The Cold War wasn't even cold.

It was a hot war
from pretty much the beginning.

There were proxy wars
between the U.S.

and the Soviet Union
that were fought elsewhere.

When the Korean War goes badly,
the U.S. begins preparing

to use atomic bombs
and quickly discovers a problem.

Korea is a very
mountainous country,

and there was concern
that the bombs

would not have much effect,
that if we used the bombs,

it might diminish their threat
in the eyes of the Soviet Union.

So they were never used
in Korea.

As the Korean War drags on,

the Soviets are doing
atomic tests with bombers.

Some atomic scientists
have created a symbol

to show how close the world
stands to nuclear catastrophe:

the Doomsday Clock.

At first, they set it
at seven minutes to midnight.

Now, with a nuclear arms race
accelerating,

it's reset
to three minutes to midnight.

Three minutes
to global disaster.

With the threat of Soviet
bombers carrying nukes,

Americans have to adjust
to a new reality:

we could be hit at home.

In the Cold War,

the front line was
the front lawn.

You have to take care
of yourself.

So how do you do that?

♪ Please duck and cover

♪ Duck and cover

You could duck under a desk,

you could take shelter
in your basement

and survive this.

Our Congress leaves
the responsibility

for the personal initiative
of each of us.

The government does tests

to see what would happen
to typical Americans.

We begin with the question
of shelter,

for shelter might save our lives

if we were far enough away
from ground zero.

They put a family of mannequins
dressed in J.C. Penney clothing

inside a suburban ranch home.

And they furnished it,
they put food in there,

canned goods,
and they blew them up.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

In fact, the mannequins

are blown into various states
of dismemberment,

but civil defense
administrators,

the lesson they took from this

is that if you took
the proper precautions,

you could move through this.

But only if you do
the right things.

A house this neglected is the
house that may be doomed

in the atomic age.

A series of civil defense tests
were made to discover

the effects of atomic heat
on American homes.

The house on the right, an
eyesore-- old, unpainted wood.

And look at the paper, leaves
and trash in the yard.

All the earmarks
of untidy housekeeping.

The house in the middle
in good condition with a clean,

unlittered yard.

Let's see what happens
under atomic heat.

♪

♪

The house on the right
is the first to ignite.

The trash serves as kindling
for the dry, weathered wood.

The lack of firesafe
housekeeping has doomed

this house to destruction.

The house in the middle cleaned
up, painted up and fixed up,

exposed to the same searing
atomic heatwave did not

catch fire.

The point was
if you clean up your yard

and you don't have debris
and things like that,

you too can survive
a nuclear blast.

It is your choice.

The reward may be survival.

♪

And it's your responsibility,

not the government.

The government
can't do it for you.

You have to take care
of yourself.

And if you don't,
if you're hurt,

that is your fault.

And just cleaning up
may not be enough.

You may have to do
some remodeling.

Well, folks, I'm glad you could
come down to see

my fallout shelter.

Just finished painting it
last night.

This room can be put to other
uses as well.

Yes, well, you could use this
as an extra bedroom for company.

It really was the beginning
of a kind of militarization

where everyone is expected
to be prepared.

Thick, heavy walls and ceiling
protect against radiation.

The thicker the better.

It's this preparedness culture.

Well, this finishes
my fallout shelter.

So what is civil defense about?

Really, it's domestic theater
for purposes of diplomacy.

Civil defense supported
that idea that nuclear weapons

should be the basis
of American foreign policy,

and in that sense,
it was useful.

You'll learn how
to save lives so well

it won't be worth your while
to drop any bombs on us.

If our adversary thinks

that the society can survive,

it means that our threat
to use nuclear weapons

is more credible.

Even as the government
is trying to convince the public

that nuclear war is survivable,
in the Pacific,

scientists are ready
to test the first prototype

of what Edward Teller calls
"The Super"-- a hydrogen bomb.

The test is secret,

but documented in a now-
declassified government film.

If everything goes according
to plan, we'll soon see

the largest explosion ever set
off on the face of the earth.

The device is more
science project than weapon,

not so much a bomb
as a building.

The liquid hydrogen fuel
must be chilled

to 400 degrees below zero,

so part of the bomb
is a refrigeration plant.

The whole thing weighs
over 70 tons.

All to see if the thermonuclear
concept will work.

This is the first full-scale
test of a hydrogen device.

If the reaction goes,
we're in the thermonuclear era.

It is now 30 seconds
to zero time.

Put on goggles or turn away.

Do not remove goggles
or face first

until ten seconds
after the first light.

Three, two, one...

It explodes with a force
of ten million tons of TNT,

600 times more powerful

than the bomb that
destroyed Hiroshima.

Just nine months later,

the Soviets explode
their first hydrogen bomb.

It's less powerful
than America's H-bomb,

but it's small enough
to be carried by a plane.

The Soviet Union has solidified
control in eastern Europe,

acquired the atomic bomb,
supported a war in Korea,

and now has a deliverable
hydrogen bomb.

The U.S. is in the midst
of a Red Scare,

a quest to root out anyone

who can be blamed
for Communist success.

In this climate
of fear and recrimination,

Robert Oppenheimer
is about to become a target,

the victim of Lewis Strauss.

He is a horrible,
horrible person.

Really one of the evil men
in this story.

He's already looking for a way

to attack Oppenheimer
and humiliate him.

Strauss has never
forgiven Oppenheimer

for opposing a crash program
to develop a hydrogen bomb.

When President Eisenhower
makes Strauss

chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission,

he sees his chance for revenge.

The first thing he did
when he took office

was to begin a process

that would lead to having
Oppenheimer's

security clearance lifted.

The AEC has a hearing.

Strauss picks the judges
and the prosecutor.

He gives them secret files
on Oppenheimer

dating back to the '30s,
and he enlists the FBI.

The FBI is tapping
Oppenheimer's phone

and his attorney's phone,
and feeding this information

to the prosecutor.

It is totally a kangaroo court.

They went back over his life

step by step,
mistake by mistake.

People come to his defense,
people attack him.

The women in his life.

All of his Communist past.

And Oppenheimer got smaller
and smaller and smaller,

sitting in this hard chair

in the middle
of the security hearing.

The moment of truth comes
when Edward Teller is asked,

"Do you believe Oppenheimer
is a security risk?"

And Teller very cleverly
never said, "Yes, I do."

What he said was,
"I would feel more secure

if Oppenheimer were no longer
asked to advise the government."

And with that,
he drove in the final nail.

The father of the atomic bomb
is stripped of his clearance,

kicked out of government
forever.

You know, it was
witch hunt time.

I thought that was disgusting,
frankly.

It achieved exactly what
his enemies wanted to achieve.

It destroyed him.

It killed him spiritually.

But Teller pays a price.

The hatred to Edward
was so thick

you could cut it with a knife.

The people who dealt
most closely with Edward,

I think at Los Alamos at least,
disliked him

for the rest of his life.

Even as the AEC
is going after Oppenheimer,

in the Pacific, another test:

America's first
practical H-bomb.

If it works, a deliverable
thermonuclear weapon.

On March 1, 1954,
it becomes apparent

that the bomb does indeed work,
only too well.

Because of design errors,

it's twice as powerful
as predicted:

15 megatons,
equal to 15 million tons of TNT.

Approximately 1,000 times
as powerful as Little Boy.

This is a massive,
massive weapon.

The mushroom cloud rises
over 15 miles,

spreading radioactivity
through the atmosphere.

Fallout contaminates
inhabited islands

and a Japanese fishing boat,
ironically named Lucky Dragon.

One of the Japanese
fishermen dies.

Over 200 islanders get sick.

The test was secret,

but the fallout makes it
an international incident.

It brought worldwide attention

to the fact
of atmospheric testing.

You know, should we be testing
in the atmosphere,

when all that happens
is this radiation

is gonna get
in the wind currents

and expose everybody
to radiation?

The incredible power
of the H-bomb

reveals the futility
of civil defense.

The concern
before the hydrogen bomb was,

could we take shelter?

What the hydrogen bomb
tests reveal is that

that is inadequate.

There may be no safety,

except run.

It was estimated
over four million

would have died
in New York City.

If surviving a Soviet H-bomb
is impossible,

the only option is to deter them

from attacking
in the first place.

To do that, President Eisenhower
creates a new policy.

Any Soviet aggression
will be met

with massive nuclear retaliation

delivered by the Strategic
- SAC.

The air force maintains
part of its bomber fleet

airborne at all times,

prepared to proceed
to specific targets.

SAC is led by Curtis LeMay.

LeMay realizes that the bomb
has forever changed war.

He saw very early

that wars would last for days
or even hours,

and everything had to happen
right up front.

LeMay plans
a massive first strike

on the Soviet Union,
what he calls a "Sunday Punch."

Ready to go
at a moment's notice,

his crews drill constantly.

V47s and V52s taking off from
bases throughout the free world.

All of a sudden,
you've got 90 airplanes

that are departing this airport,
nuclear weapons on board.

You take off,

you don't know whether
it's really a mission or not.

Everything is so classified,
you won't get

those coded instructions
until you are airborne.

And you know that
at eight or ten other bases,

the same damn thing
is happening:

that this flow of airplanes
are in the air,

they will be coming
towards the Soviet Union,

and unless the Soviet Union
backs down shortly,

it's not gonna be around.

When this red phone
is picked up,

direct lines to SAC bases
on four continents are seized.

Massive retaliation
means U.S. defense

is increasingly dominated
by the air force.

The air force controlled 47 %
of the national defense budget,

at which point the navy
and the army began thinking,

"Wow, we better get
some atomic bombs too."

As the military
services compete,

America's nuclear stockpile
grows and diversifies.

Los Alamos was happy to make it,

and the military
was happy to pay for it.

And so every time
they asked for something,

the lab responded,
"Sure, no problem."

Nuclear weapons were viewed

as just regular weapons,
only bigger.

How many different kinds
can we fabricate?

Big bombs, little bombs,

big warheads, little warheads.

A nuclear cannon
for ground troops.

Even a one-man backpack nuke,
a way to stop thousands

of Soviet tanks
from invading Germany.

One nuclear round
will be detonated here

26 minutes prior to the attack.

Blocking avenues of approach

by barriers of flooding
and cratering and land sliding,

attacking autobahns or highways
or railroads or bridges.

Atomic demolition munitions.

Eventually, the drive
to make a nuclear version

of anything and everything
gets a little out of hand.

There was a nuclear bazooka,

which I think probably
is a contender

for being the most ridiculous.

It detonated perfectly,
releasing its lethal radiation.

Some of the physicists said

we could actually develop
a nuclear hand grenade.

The only problem was finding

somebody dumb enough
to throw it.

So the American stockpile
blossoms.

By 1947, we had
a stockpile of 13.

By 1953, we had over 1,100.

By the late '60s, we had
over 31,000 nuclear weapons

and 36 different types.

I kind of wonder, exactly,
did you really need all this?

But I think a lot of it was
the military thought they did.

And a lot, I think,
is just political.

You know,
"We have more than you!

You know...

The ultimate example of
"we have more than you"

comes in October 1961,
when the Soviets detonate

the largest bomb
in human history:

Tsar Bomba.

50 megatons--
50 million tons of TNT.

When the pilot landed, he said
the plane was highly warped,

skin buckled, and the pilot
never flew again.

He said he had done his job
for the motherland,

and he retired after the drop.

But it's good for nothing
except symbolism.

A bomb this big
is not really of any utility.

You don't kill a lot more people
with a gigantic bomb like that

than you can
with a couple little bombs.

You had two superpowers,

and you had to suppress
the other superpower

from making a first strike.

And the only way
you could do that

was to be so strong that
if they did strike you first,

they would be wiped out.

Mutual assured destruction: MAD.

And looking back,
I think it was.

On the other hand,
by both sides being so strong

that they knew they could
destroy each other...

...it kept the peace.

Until it almost didn't.

In October 1962, Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev sees a chance

to make a bold stroke
in America's backyard.

Khrushchev decides
to put missiles in Cuba

in order to change
the balance of power.

Even today, new details
about Khrushchev's power play

are still coming to light.

We still don't know
the full story.

But it was not just
the missiles.

The Soviets
were planning to create

a massive military base in Cuba,

the most powerful Soviet
military base in the world.

He was thinking of a remapping
of the Cold War relationship.

Dramatic.

Unprecedented.

But to make it work, Khrushchev
had to do it secretly

because if the United States
knew that missiles

were going to Cuba,
we would stop them.

It almost works.

But before the Soviets
can complete the installation,

a U.S. spy plane
discovers the plan.

The showdown begins
with a speech.

It was about 9:00 in the evening

that they announced this speech
of the president to the nation.

Good evening,
my fellow citizens.

This government has maintained
the closest surveillance

of the Soviet military build-up
on the island of Cuba.

And my father told me, "I think
they discovered missiles."

A series
of offensive missile sites

is now in preparation
on that imprisoned island.

The Soviets were very worried.

They were kind of expecting
Kennedy to announce

not just the blockade,
but maybe an invasion of Cuba.

And then it will be
strong possibility

of the real nuclear war,

and it will be end of the world.

It shall be the policy
of this nation

to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba

against any nation
in the Western hemisphere

as an attack by the Soviet Union
on the United States

requiring a full retaliatory
response upon the Soviet Union.

"Full retaliatory response
on the Soviet Union."

And I knew exactly what a full
retaliatory response meant

and what the consequences
of that would be.

We would consider bombing you
with atomic weapons.

To see the president
of the United States

go on national television,

tell the world
that could happen,

that got people's attention.

At United Nations headquarters
in New York,

the Cuban crisis is the one
and only subject of discussion.

The issue which confronts
the security council is grave.

As Kennedy considers
invading Cuba, he calls

former president and general
Dwight Eisenhower for advice.

Kennedy has no idea
that tactical nuclear weapons

are already in Cuba.

They were thinking, "Well,
if the Americans land in Cuba,

"then we would have to use

"at least tactical
nuclear weapons to repel them,

and maybe even
mid-range weapons."

Missile officers in Cuba

had authorization
from the Soviet Union

to launch those missiles

rather than to allow them
to be destroyed.

Now, imagine if Marines had
landed on the beaches of Cuba

and had been met by a volley
of tactical nuclear weapons.

Very scary days.

I truly thought
we were going to war.

Really, every time I went
into that office during the day,

I thought it was going to be
my last day on earth.

In the end,
Kennedy and Khrushchev

both stare
into the nuclear abyss

and step back.

Two leaders took control
of this crisis.

They decided,
"No, we will not start the war.

We will try to resolve this
diplomatically."

There is a great story
of nuclear learning here,

when they realized
what the consequences could be.

Khrushchev really changed
his position

in a radical way
very quickly.

Khrushchev withdraws
the missiles.

In return,
Kennedy secretly agrees

to remove U.S. missiles
along the Soviet border.

Cuban Missile Crisis
was a much closer call

than I think people to this day
really realize.

Both sides were behaving
really recklessly,

really recklessly.

But once they saw what
the real danger looked like,

then both of them
made concessions

and became very reasonable.

And you can even say that
the Cuban Missile Crisis

began the process
of arms control.

As president
of the United States,

I now sign the instruments
of ratification of this treaty.

Nine months
after the Missile Crisis,

the U.S., Soviets,
and Britain agree

on the first Test Ban Treaty,

which bans nuclear tests
in the atmosphere, in space,

and underwater.

And within a year,
the first direct hotline

is established between
Washington and Moscow.

Even before the Missile Crisis,

opposition to the bomb
had been building,

often spearheaded by women.

"Don't give irradiated milk
to my children!"

You know, you have a bomb test,

the winds blow radiation
to the fields

where the cows eat the grass,

and then you get the milk
and we serve it to our children?

No, we're not going
to do this anymore.

So many mothers marched against
atmospheric nuclear testing

that the United States
government finally said,

"All right, we'll put
the tests underground."

Five, four, three,
two, one, zero.

Underground tests
also explore the potential

to use the bomb for landscaping
on a gigantic scale,

possibly excavating road cuts,
harbors, canals.

The testing that began in 1945
and continued through 1962

included over 200
nuclear explosions.

Once it moved underground,
there were 800 more

before all U.S. testing
stopped in 1992.

But moving testing underground
was only the first step.

Books and films began to explore

what nuclear war
and its aftermath would mean.

Grim dramas like On the Beach...

Fail Safe...

The dark satire
of Dr. Strangelove...

No Nukes, a ground-breaking
concert, film, and rally...

The Day After,

a television movie
that draws 100 million viewers

and becomes
a major cultural event...

And War Games, which cautions
that in nuclear war,

the only winning move
is not to play.

Slowly but surely, the public
is leading the leaders.

What began in 1963
with the first Test Ban Treaty

leads to other agreements--

attempts to slow down
the build-up of nuclear weapons.

By 1986, Ronald Reagan
is president,

George Shultz
his secretary of state.

In October, Reagan meets
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

in Reykjavik, Iceland, and
something remarkable happens.

President Reagan's
on one end of the table

and I'm sitting next to him.

Gorbachev's on the other end
of the table.

Shevardnadze's
sitting next to him.

And we talked about eliminating
nuclear weapons.

He and Gorbachev,

in a totally unscripted,
totally improvisational way,

moved closer
to a superpower agreement

to denuclearize the world

than ever happened before
or has happened since.

Such a dramatic moment,

where two presidents
of these superpower enemies

suddenly find this common
platform, common wish.

But the common wish
to get rid of the bomb

ultimately proves impossible.

The sticking point
is a new U.S. technology

called Star Wars,
promoted by Edward Teller.

It was a technology
the Soviets did not have,

and it was a technology
that they felt could be used

to make it impossible
for the Soviets

to have a nuclear deterrent.

And Gorbachev was not able

to accept that.

The Cold War is thawing.

Three years after Reykjavik,
the Berlin Wall comes down.

In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev
dissolves the Soviet Union.

All without the bomb being used.

We got out of it
with the skin of our teeth,

we had a couple of close calls
along the way,

and I think, you know,
we were lucky.

These two countries
were able to end

the most dangerous,

the most protracted
confrontation in history.

At the height
of the nuclear arms race,

the U.S.
and Soviet Union together

had over 60,000 nuclear weapons.

It's absolutely insane,

and when we get
enough distance from this,

people will look back on it

as a moment of humanity's
most extraordinary insanity.

It was an overkill
by 5,000 % on both sides.

It was stupid, it was wasteful,
it would have been

the ultimate catastrophe,
and yet it worked.

The bomb is what keeps
this whole cycle a cold war,

not a hot war.

Without the bomb,
at some point

we would have been fighting
each other.

The legacy of the bomb was that

it really changed the nature
of global politics.

It was just
a whole new ballgame.

The bomb bring the understanding
to the politicians

that now,
you cannot win the war.

Because if you
will start the war,

you will lose more
than you will gain.

Today, besides the U.S.
and Russia,

six other nations
also have the bomb,

plus South Africa,
which had it and got rid of it,

and Israel, which will not
confirm or deny having it.

We don't have control
over them

or what they might do with it.

The scariest one
is India and Pakistan.

Some experts believe
even a limited nuclear war

between India and Pakistan

would be catastrophic
for all of us.

There would be so much smoke
and smog from the cities burning

that there would be
a sort of a nuclear winter

around the whole world,
dropping average temperatures

just enough to cause
crop failures worldwide,

and about two billion human
beings would starve to death.

People do not understand
the danger.

They don't understand
the likelihood

it's going to happen
is really high,

and they don't understand
the magnitude.

Over 70 years ago,
a few scribbles on a blackboard

opened the door
to a new reality.

Fateful decisions set the world
on a path to nuclear weapons.

I don't feel any guilt
or blame about it.

I think my view really is

if we hadn't done it,
somebody else would have,

and it would be with us
in any case.

There is no going back.

The knowledge of how to destroy
ourselves is here to stay.

It appears that our task
is learning how to live with it.

I think what should give us hope

is that in all the decades
since 1945,

not one nuclear weapon
has been exploded in anger

anywhere in the world.

We've managed, somehow, to keep
our thumb off the button.

And let's hope we continue.