Fat Man and Little Boy Page #7

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We've always avoided the answers.

Now, everything is coming to a head.

- Bronson?

- Sir?

- Stop the car.

- Yes, sir.

- Get out, take a leak or something.

- This is a public park.

Well, pick some flowers.

I want to do some shouting.

It's a crisis.

A crisis of conscience.

All right. I'm not shouting.

I'm not even angry.

I am just stumped.

You want to sit on your hands,

polish your conscience,

when we might be able to end

this whole thing with one shot?

Crisis of conscience, huh?

All right.

Have it.

Take a bath in it.

Soak in it.

Then tell me whether you're

going to deliver them.

Whether you're gonna finish this job.

You tell me how I'm gonna face

a senate inquiry

and say we spent two billion dollars

on a show that's never gonna open.

Crisis of conscience.

You got one job, doctor.

Give me the bomb. Just give it to me.

Atrocious things have been done

in Germany

because people didn't speak out.

And we blame them for it. Right,

I think, even though it was dangerous.

But it's not dangerous

for us to speak out.

That's what a lot of us in Chicago feel.

You don't have to agree

with the contents of this petition.

You have to agree

it should be discussed.

- Yes, sir.

- Good boy, Michael.

Good seeing you again.

- It came in on the wire.

- What?

Japanese are feeling out terms for

surrender. They made a proposition.

What kind of surrender?

Not unconditional?

Not according to my sources, no.

Good.

No one will buy it.

- Sir?

- Nothing.

Come on. Come on. Right here.

Mr. Secretary, a brutal question.

Are you and the president

looking to Russia,

figuring they'll come into Japan,

assuming there's an invasion?

If you are, you're not

gonna get that for nothing.

Russia's gonna want

Manchuria, Sakhalin.

I can give the president Japan.

No invasion, no deals.

Can you guarantee that?

Some of your scientists

are getting out of line.

I hear they've been maneuvering

to see the president.

I didn't know that.

I will take care of it.

- Very well. Do that, general.

- Mr. Secretary.

Good night.

Panton?

Dr. Oppenheimer had...

...on three separate occasions,

meetings with suspected agents,

communists, whatever.

- He gave us one name, correct?

- Yes, sir.

Press him on the others.

- He needs to feel the branch creak.

- Yes, sir.

- Ready?

- Yeah, we're ready.

They told me you were down here.

I was having lunch.

I got a call from Captain Panton.

A security problem again.

Well, I'm being harassed,

and I'm sick of it.

I had a security clearance.

This was a dead issue.

It's never dead with you.

Though I will try to put a lid on it.

This is not gonna help.

- What's this?

- Some kind of petition

from your boys in Chicago trying to go

around us to see the president.

That will never happen.

Do you know about this?

About the ideas, yes.

They want to demonstrate

the device, not use it.

Is it containable?

Can you stop it?

My hash is getting cold upstairs.

- Don't let these dodos distract you.

- How can...?

Robert, you are this far away

from being the man who won the war.

These are important people

in Chicago.

You can't ignore

what they have to say.

All they want is an opportunity

to talk about the demonstration.

- What's his name? Szilard.

- Szilard.

Sitting in the bathtub.

I should have drowned that

son of a b*tch the first day I met him.

What's wrong with demonstrating?

What's wrong with not killing?

You vaporize some uninhabited atoll.

Set terms of surrender,

then send the Japanese home.

It's mush. It won't work.

They are kamikazes, all of them.

You had money in your background.

That explains it.

- What does that mean?

- Your optimism.

Faith in human nature.

I never had any. Money, that is.

Never had a permanent house.

Made me a realist.

The idea should go to the president.

Where do you get these ideas?

You know, those boys in security...

...got a right to ask where

these ideas are coming from.

Demonstrations, stopping work,

sharing with other countries.

You're gonna have

a tough time proving

that those ideas

are coming out of Chicago.

- They are foreign, subversive.

- They're moral.

- Moral?

- Moral.

Was Pearl Harbor moral?

Poland, Munich, moral?

Death March of Bataan,

was that moral?

Junk!

Demonstration junk.

I say you show the enemy

in the harshest terms

that you can muster, that you play

in the same league that they do.

At that meeting tomorrow there's

gonna be a vote on this demonstration.

There's gonna be a recommendation

going to the president.

Now, listen.

You can help yourself here.

Steer it in the right direction.

You're either for us or against us.

Ernest, how are you?

I'd like to introduce

Dr. Oppenheimer here.

Well, rumor has it

that we might owe you

for shaking those yellow monkeys

out of the trees.

Save us a lot, not going to Japan.

My boys are gonna be grateful.

Yes, I'm pleased to shake

your hand. And thank you.

Doctor, I'd like to add my shake too.

Nice seeing you.

Did you hear what they said?

You keep this on the track,

and we are gonna owe you, soldier.

''We are in a completely new situation

that cannot be resolved by war.

''A petition to the president

of the United States.

''Discoveries of which the people

are not aware

''may affect the welfare

of this nation in the near future.''

The Russians are our allies.

If we drop this without telling them,

we could give them a paranoia

that will make us sick.

The Japanese are on their knees.

All this kamikaze stuff is a load of bull.

They're wet-pants scared of us just

like we're wet-pants scared of them.

This war seems to have forced

a lot of guys on both sides

to resign from the human race.

- I hope we're not about to do that.

- I agree.

Our blockade will finish Japan

by autumn, maybe even sooner.

This device is not an honorable way

to win a war.

And I was taught to fight with honor.

If Custer...

...had used the machine-gun...

...his history would have been

written differently.

If you go ahead,

particularly, if you drop this thing

with no prior warning...

...l, for one, will have to

resign my commission.

Perhaps you'll excuse me, gentlemen.

Incidentally, what is the opinion of

the committee on a demonstration?

Well, if we should agree

to a demonstration

with the attendant

Japanese observers

and that demonstration failed,

not only would we be unable

to induce the Japanese to surrender,

we would face a critical

shortage of material.

The dropping of the device

has always been implicit in this project.

So that is the advice I shall

pass on to the president.

- Yes, sir.

- Yes, that's right.

Yes.

- Sam.

- Bob, welcome to Trinity.

- Here she is.

- Can I grab one?

- It's all right.

- Good trip?

- Are you the accountable officer?

- Yes.

- This will be for you.

- What's that?

It states that the University

of California hands over

a plutonium core of a nuclear device

to the United States Army.

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