Kai Bird on Oppenheimer's Meeting with President Truman

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Kai Bird discusses J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Oppenheimer, you know, had a sort of character flaw in him. He was he was very sensitive to human beings, to human relationships. And he could be very patient and considerate and understanding of his students and of strangers who walked up to him on the street but put in positions of encounters with men of authority, he could sometimes lose his patience and become rude and say exactly the wrong thing. And he was frustrated with Truman because Truman was suddenly talking to him about, 'Well, when do you think the Russians are going to get the bomb?' And Oppenheimer stumbled and said, 'Well, I'm not sure, Mr. President, but someday soon.' And Truman's response was, 'I know, they'll never get it. They they're not capable of doing what we did'. And at that moment, Oppenheimer understood that the president of the United States did not understand the science and how simple it was, and the fact that there were no more secrets and that it was going to