Why did Robert Oppenheimer stop a petition signed by 155 scientists urging President Truman not to attack Japan with nuclear weapons from being circulated?

by thebalrog_ofmorgoth

This is the same Robert J. Oppenheimer that gave the famous interview quoting the Bhagavad-Gita https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8H7Jibx-c0 and seemingly almost beside himself with remorse. If he felt like this during the interview, was he always against the project? I suspect he was, so if it's true that he was always against the idea of creating weapons of mass destruction, why would he attempt to bury a petition to stop their use? And I suppose, further, why would he agree to work on an operation like the Manhattan Project in the first place?

First, the Bhagavad-Gita quote is about duty and responsibility — not remorse. The famous footage of him saying it makes him sound, perhaps, emotional, but he was very old, dying of throat cancer, and had a lot of time between him saying that in the 1960s and him saying that in the 1940s.

He was never against the project. He was one of its driving forces. He defended his "role" in the project until he died. "I have reaffirmed my sense that, with all the black and white, that was something I did not regret."

As for the petition — Oppenheimer was the military's man during the war. For a variety of reasons. He did anything that they wanted him to do, he didn't want scientists upsetting the apple cart. On no point did he ever disagree with the military, even on matters that eventually the scientists disagreed strongly enough that the military relented (like making all scientists at Los Alamos military officers so they could be under military order and discipline). His primary job was to make sure the scientists at Los Alamos did good work and stuck to their knitting — he was there on a "wrangling cats" sort of mission. He was meant to be the "good cop" they could trust while the "bad cop" of the military did things they didn't always approve of... but he was still a "cop".

Oppenheimer's views on the bomb were complex, but you should never mistake him as being opposed to developing the atomic bomb or dropping it on Hiroshima. In both cases he was gung-ho. He personally recommended using the bomb on a city, against any other possible alternatives, like "demonstrating" it to the Japanese first (see page 9).

There is a myth of Oppenheimer as a great anti-nuclear hero. He is complicated. He opposed the hydrogen bomb (for awhile), he tried to oppose an arms race. But he didn't oppose making or using the bomb in World War II.