The Ethical Struggle, in Oppenheimer’s Own Words
In Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a great deal of discussion surrounds whether to drop the bomb on only military targets, or just do a demonstrate its power to scare Japan into surrender rather than actually bomb a civilian target. Oppenheimer was interviewed by NBC news saying, “On the one hand they hoped that this instrument would never be used in war, and therefore they hoped that we would not start out by using it. On the other hand, they hoped or other people hoped that it would put an end to this war, save countless lives, put an end to it, a butchery that had been going on for many years and had been marked- by atrocities…on the whole we were inclined to think that if it was needed to put an end to the war and had a chance of so doing, we thought that was the right thing to do.”