Oppenheimer was Haunted
The Oppenheimer movie shows his conscious starting to bother him right after the bombings. In reality, it was the second atomic bomb drop at Nagasaki that hurt his conscious. The first drop, at Hiroshima, was based on the military feeling Japan would never surrender unless there was a strong, definitive ‘statement,’ the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer may have hated it, but he understood it. The first drop intended to halt the war and stop the larger patterns of death and destruction.
Oppenheimer felt that the second bomb was dropped on an “already defeated” enemy. Historians debate whether the Soviets joining the Japan theater under the insistence of the USA just days after Hiroshima would have resulted in surrender. Japan, in this scenario, could have surrendered without bombing a second civilian target. Knowing Oppenheimer’s keen understanding of the larger political and military context, these thoughts may have crossed his mind.
