Manhattan (2014) s02e06 Episode Script
33
Previously on "Manhattan" There is no Nazi bomb.
The army manipulated us.
There is a war on three continents and a madman rounding up Jews.
Enlistment papers? You'll stay right here as a private in the army.
The bomb is inevitable.
If I help build it, I might get some say in how it's used.
Congratulations, Paul.
I've decided you will be the Site X liaison.
You want me to steal for you? For king and country.
Pesticides didn't kill the bees and it wasn't the army.
Do you think it could be something from the tech area? There were 127 pregnancies on the Hill last year and one miscarriage.
There isn't always a medical explanation in these cases.
So it was an act of God? The longer that it takes anyone to deliver a weapon, the less chance anyone has of dropping it over a city full of kids.
Sorry.
We have to set some ground rules.
We can't be seen like this.
I want to apologize while you're still of sound mind and body.
The Germans or Soviets? All day I faced a barren waste Without the taste of water Look at the early wire photos of the Arizona before the newspapers touched them up.
They blew the damn thing up from inside the hull.
Ronnie, if I wanted an earful, I'd stay home with Margaret.
Pearl Harbor was an inside job.
Roosevelt needed an excuse to drag us into the war.
He's a devil, not a man And he spread the burning sand with water Dan, you can see with that big, green tree Where the water's running free And it's waiting there for me and you Steady.
- You okay? - Yeah, she just snapped on me.
Look at this.
Because the fact is people get hurt around here.
- Yeah.
- 68 accidents in the tech area since the start of 1945.
If this were a factory floor, the union would've shut us down months ago.
And now, now we're doing our most dangerous work yet criticality.
Pushing the gadget to the brink of an explosive chain reaction.
And we've already had one mere catastrophe.
This is what happens when matters of science are left in the hands of politicians and soldiers.
We are the ones who are bringing this thing down off the blackboard and into the world, and we deserve better.
Yeah! Yeah! - We need strict exposure limits.
- Yes! - And hazard pay! - And we're going to demand it.
But first I want to tell you about something that's happening right now in Washington, DC.
While we are risking our necks, President Roosevelt is assembling a committee.
It's going to decide how the gadget's used, if and when it's dropped, and who it's going to be dropped on.
And this committee includes no scientists or engineers.
- Wait, is this a safety board? - No.
- Are they setting new health standards? - No, no, no.
It's called the Target Committee, and as it stands, no one who helped build the bomb will have any say in how or where it's deployed.
But but if we'd all write a letter to our supervisor Let them deploy it up Eva Braun's ass.
We have bigger problems here on the Hill.
You didn't even read them my sample letter.
These guys don't care about sample letters.
They care about getting their balls fried off in a criticality experiment.
You're supposed to make them care, Helen.
You're supposed to make them see it's all part of the same question.
Well, you know what Mussolini says, "If you want something done right, do it yourself.
" Well, I can't do that right now.
Not while I'm wearing this uniform.
They already look at me like I'm a secretary.
And you want me to stand up there, lecture them about politics? You should find an inside man who's actually on the inside.
Or a man.
Helen.
You missed the L & O meeting.
The metal shortage could cost us a week, maybe more.
Sorry, I'll I'll get the minutes.
Uh, breakfast with the wife, if you know what I mean.
You and the other 18 guys who missed work this morning? I know about your little meeting.
- What's the hay for? - Horses.
Horses? Are we Amish? We have jeeps on the site.
Oh, a corps of engineers set up a polo league.
- It's good for morale, I guess.
- Jesus.
Well, make sure they clean up the shit.
I want the site spit-shined by Thursday.
Mm, you know it's a desert, right? What happens Thursday? Just, um, make sure it doesn't look like a rodeo out there.
Aye, aye.
Um, I was thinking after our not-so-secret meeting, we should be studying the radiological effects of the test.
On what? The planet.
People.
I swallowed 24 micrograms of plutonium in 1943.
Now it's 1945.
I still make the Geiger counter sing.
Find me a PhD-level subject matter expert If he's willing to run the study during his free time, you have my blessing.
Thank you.
You meet Charlie's qualifications that's the good news.
I asked for the bad news first.
Security clearance for the test site.
Holiest of Holies.
The only person who can authorize that is - The colonel.
- Correct.
He's got to listen to reason, right? Fritzy, this is a man who sent a boy to his death to stop me from speaking to my husband.
I don't think he's gonna turn around and hand me a security badge.
Look, we need you.
Last week three engineers nearly barbecued themselves doing the criticality experiment.
Blammo, a month's exposure in three seconds flat.
We're lucky this whole place doesn't glow in the dark.
If you want to know who we are On many a vase and jar All right, all right, all right, all right! Posture.
You're gentlemen from Japan, not stevedores.
Uh, if I can have everyone's attention for a minute? Eugene has been assigned to a post off-site.
Which means the role of Ko-Ko is gonna have to be recast.
If they give it to Dale, I'm gonna commit hara-kiri.
Fortunately, we do have a man in the wings who has really stepped up and become a fine thespian over the last year.
So, let's hear it for our new Ko-Ko Jim Meeks.
How about that? Oh! Well Abby? Did someone end the war and forget to tell me? My lucky tie? Do you think they'll be attending a lot of cocktail parties? Can I please do my part without being mocked? Yes, of course.
I'm sorry.
You said to find a way to move on.
Abby, I thought we could do that together.
You know, maybe we give it another shot.
I don't think we're supposed to.
Doc said a couple of months was plenty.
Maybe we lost the baby for a reason.
- What? - Don't know.
Do you think that God still punishes people? Like the plagues in Egypt? What have you ever done wrong? Did you know that there aren't just 10 Commandments? There's 613.
- Abby? - Yes? This is, uh this is a fairytale.
It's a bedtime story.
Things don't happen for a reason.
They just happen.
Or maybe God was punishing the families in those camps.
First you don't want to help them, Sorry, I don't want to help them? Wh-Why do you think I'm still here, Abby? What do you think I do all day? I don't know, Charlie.
Play with numbers? You know what, I'm gonna go, um, play with numbers somewhere else.
Oh, I'm sorry, I I didn't order this.
You dropped something.
Oh, Jesus, Helen! You owe me a lot more than a whiskey sour.
Uh, that drink was actually from me.
- Oh, thank you.
- Thanks.
Just With Hogarth on one side and Theodore on the other, it's like being stuck between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The problem with Little Boy You shouldn't be part of anyone's backup plan.
Yeah, well, that's why I like working in here.
It's a professional environment.
Oh, yeah, very professional.
I said I was sorry.
I guess we all have things to atone for, right? Something you want to say to me, Charlie? I would like to No! You bastard.
You were right.
I kept you off the test group for personal reasons.
It had nothing to do with your talent.
What personal reasons? Come to G group.
Don't screw around with me, Charlie.
We need you.
I need you.
Why now? The test is three months off, we're shorthanded and underbrained, and this Thursday Jesus, as if we didn't have enough to worry about.
What? What happens Thursday? - Someone's coming.
- Who? Vannevar Bush.
F.
D.
R.
's science advisor is coming to the Hill? Sits at the right tire of God the Father.
Here to review the test preparations.
You can't tell anyone.
The job doesn't come with a raise.
Okay, boss.
I heard they liberated another camp.
That must put a spring in your step.
Yes.
And to think we're on the other side of the world doing our bit.
Operator.
I want to make you wetter than Dartmoor in November.
Yes, sir.
I'll put you right through.
Put me right through? Patience, Constance.
Roll your skirt up first.
Give us a forecast.
Bingham here.
Clear? Clear as a bell, Site X.
Stand by one chorus? "Roast Beef of Old England.
" _ So it's an assistant directorship out at the test site.
I'm going to be refining lens design.
There's still some asymmetries to work out.
Isaacs just threw you a bone.
What happened? Nothing happened.
He just realized he made a mistake.
Well, that's great, Helen.
You deserve it.
Enjoy your last day under the British Empire.
Hey, Frank? F.
D.
R.
's science advisor is touring the test site this week.
Vannevar Bush is coming west? Yes.
No one can find out I told you.
Hey, you have to well, you have to get him alone.
He's Roosevelt's brain.
He can get us a seat on the Target Committee.
I can't do that, Frank.
I mean I need some time to settle it.
The test is in 90 days.
You need time to, what, climb the ladder? I can't petition the White House on my first day of the job.
I'll wind up straight back where I started.
Yeah.
You're right.
Don't make me regret telling you.
_ _ _ _ _ I have followed your orders to the letter.
I haven't spoken to my husband in months, as you know.
Please send him my best next time you do.
But you're still a known agitator, Mrs.
Winter.
I prefer "rogue botanist.
" And you want me to grant you access to the most secure site in the Western Hemisphere - so that you can - Determine the health effects of atomic radiation and debris.
I think the Axis is gonna find that out soon enough.
Colonel, it's not the Axis I'm worried about.
What am I looking at? Well, this is your office here, and right here, only 20 yards away, is Building E.
Now, do you know what happens in Building E? Something above your clearance.
Well, that wouldn't stop it from killing me if it went fast critical and I was sitting in your chair.
I heard you had an event last week a couple of graduate students set off a fast-neutron chain reaction.
I believe they call it "tickling the dragon's tail.
" I know what it's called.
The dragons I know don't like to be tickled.
Four seconds longer, and it would have become self-sustaining.
So now let's assume fast criticality sustained for two to three minutes.
Radiant intensity is the inverse square of distance.
Factoring in the lack of concrete walls that mitigate exposure you and your staff would most likely be well, dead.
I say "most likely" because, Colonel, we don't actually know, but we could.
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list I've got a little list of society offenders Hold on.
Okay, everybody, let's take five.
It's a little higher.
It's a G, right? Try a flat on that.
Hi, um you want to help me memorize? Oh, I'm just a stagehand.
Well, we're on a desert island here.
Not enough girls to go around.
Please? Please.
"I have loved you with a white-hot passion.
Shrink not away from me.
" We have rules for a reason.
If people see us talking The Samurai gird for battle.
Not with swords, but with pens.
There's a petition going around.
F.
D.
R.
is forming a committee to decide how the gadget gets used.
We want a seat at the table.
We? You didn't sign it, did you? This is a good thing.
No.
No, not for you, it's not.
You don't sign anything.
You don't stand for anything.
You need to earn Charlie Isaacs' trust.
That is your role.
Stick to the script.
Well you didn't congratulate me, by the way.
For what? Getting the lead in a racialist play? Well, "The Mikado" isn't really about Japan.
It's a satire of British social mores.
You need to lay off that pitch pipe.
It's cutting off the oxygen to your brain.
Yeah? There's something you ought to know.
He's circulating some kind of protest screed.
Is that right? It's a petition, Colonel, advancing the revolutionary idea that the people who built the gadget might have some say in how it's used.
You're a physicist, not an expert in geopolitics.
You think the guys why designed the B-29 bomber got to pick their targets? He doesn't just want a seat at the table.
He wants to shut down the project.
Let Dr.
Winter run his BVDs up the flagpole.
We'll see who salutes.
Now, if we're done second-guessing democracy, you're both dismissed.
You can't dismiss me.
I'm not a soldier.
Why don't you go focus on your criticality experiments? It sounds like you have your hands full not blowing us to kingdom come.
Get me an outside line.
Justice Department.
Colonel Emmett Darrow for Director Hoover.
I told you to be discreet! Now you're unionizing the tech area? I didn't involve you.
What, you think Charlie won't figure out who told you that Bush was coming? A couple of my bunk mates are acting as his military escort.
Maybe I heard it from them.
Helen, we won't get another chance.
Well, neither will I.
The colonel's running some kind of game on me.
Isaacs won't let me anywhere near Vannevar Bush.
So, here, you have to give it to him.
Or burn it on Isaacs' altar.
Keep your chair in G group.
I know you'll do the right thing.
Hang back there, Private.
Look, if the colonel sent you, I already kissed the ring, all right? No, not the colonel, soldier.
You're on the head of the tech area's dime.
Pack your bivouac gear, Winter.
You'll be spending a couple nights in the desert.
Let me guess I'm not returning until the weekend after our distinguished visitor is gone.
What are we gonna do out there, water some cactus? You're gonna tickle the dragon's tail.
Shit.
That's the spook's car.
You know I heard they found him floating in the back just like a canned sardine? So, you beat Tosa.
Got out of Texas.
Congratulations.
Although if I'm here, that means you're not all there.
So, maybe Tosa beat you after all.
Let's go.
Some lady biologist got in the colonel's craw.
He banned criticality work inside the gates.
- You say lady biologist? - Yeah.
Now you got to irradiate yourself How close did we get to fast critical before the incident? Uh, 88%.
The goal today is to get to 90 without waking the dragon and killing yourself.
Well, let's hope that happens.
- You're not coming? - Doctor's orders.
Last week five roentgens, three seconds.
Whole team maxed out exposure for the month.
That's why you're here.
"Tickling the dragon's tail.
" Nice phrase, very evocative.
Your wife's boyfriend would love it.
This is how you double-check a critical mass? Play chicken with an unshielded atomic pile? Me, I'd go AWOL before I hit 60% of fast critical on the neutron counter.
I preferred the trunk of my car.
Operator.
I want to write a sonnet with my tongue on your inner thigh.
Excuse me? Constance? Who is this? No wonder you jump when 135 lights up.
Sounds like Paul Crosley.
Oh, uh, it's not I'm a married woman.
Dr.
Crosley has a scheduled call.
I'd best put him through.
Operator.
I have Site X for you.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Oh! Oh, dear.
Oh.
Carry your books, Mrs.
Isaacs? Yes, please.
Thank you.
Oh! - I'll get these.
- Thank you.
- You get that.
- Oh! Paul Crosley.
Yes, I remember.
Long day crossing wires? Uh, it's better than sitting at home.
Tom Lancefield's wife used to work at the switchboard, didn't she? Attractive girl.
French, of course, but that's a venial sin nowadays.
You two were friendly, weren't you? Yes, well, we were very sad to see her go.
But then Constance Faraday joined our ranks, and she's just wonderful.
Do you know Constance? Mm I just assumed that all you Brits know each other.
Well, the empire has dwindled, to be sure, but it's not a Shropshire village just yet.
- Yes.
- Fancy a ride, Mrs.
Isaacs? Uh Hey, I didn't see your name on the petition.
- What gives? - Oh, uh maybe I don't agree with Frank.
- Really? - What did I miss? Oh, just guy stuff.
Baseball, Ava Gardner, you know? Oh, well, speaking of Mickey Rooney, another toast to our newly minted star of the stage.
- Yeah.
Hear, hear.
- Oh.
Thank you.
Do you guys, uh do you guys think that Gilbert and Sullivan were racialists? No, just different times.
Are there any good geishas in the chorus? Wait till they hear that plummy baritone of yours, huh? Jimmy, I've never heard you sing.
That's a crime.
Will you, please? - Oh, yeah.
Sing.
Sing.
- I couldn't possibly.
- Okay! - Come here, wife.
- Oh.
Oh.
- Sit.
Sit.
Could do that for you here.
It's in the key of A.
Whoa.
Watch where you point that A.
This is my wife.
Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer, do I'm half crazy Over the love of you Thank you.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Glass of water? Glass of anything.
I'm at your mercy.
This used to be the Winters' palace, no? - Mm.
- Yeah.
You've certainly warmed the place up.
- Cheers.
- Mm.
I know what you're doing.
Line 135.
I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean.
Sorry.
Wait, your scheduled calls.
Clicks and clacks.
Mrs.
Isaacs, the clicks and clacks are technical.
They're rather tedious, I'm afraid.
It's part of the work.
The telephone isn't just for gossip and grocery lists, you know? - I'm not sure what Constance has told you.
- So, you do know Constance? - Well, of course, uh - Of-Of course you know her.
She connects your calls every day.
And what are the chances of that, I wonder.
- She's not assigned to that line.
- I misspoke.
When you were writing sonnets with your tongue.
There's no record of those calls in the logbooks.
Even Dr.
Oppenheimer's calls are logged.
Mrs.
Isaacs Abby sorry, if I may, if you think I've done something wrong, why lure me here? Am I to, what, confess? Is Inspector Lestrade going to jump out, pistol drawn? I don't mean to sound flip.
Truth is you've caught me.
I'm on a mission of vengeance.
Not that she seems to have noticed, of course.
Constance? Helen Prins.
And I won't pretend that you don't know what she did to both of us.
Switchboard girl knows everything.
Where your husband was last evening, for example.
Ah you didn't know.
Well, seems that he and Helen have fallen back into one another's orbit.
I'm so sorry.
Marriage is a bit of business in this part of the world.
I mean, ask Constance's husband.
I'm not proud.
But I'm baffled, frankly, by your husband.
How he manages to keep straying so far afield with you at home? These great minds and I'm not one, I don't flatter myself they're quite mad, you know? Always chasing after the invisible.
And they're missing what's right in front of them.
Dr.
Crosley just helped me he gave me a ride home.
I heard you dried out, Paul.
Right, yes.
Gosh, I knew I'd forgotten something.
- Thank you, Mrs.
Isaacs.
- Thank you.
Mr.
Isaacs.
87.
Well, look at the bright side if you poke the dragon, we boil together.
Stop it.
Stop talking.
You know, there were times that I envied the spies.
They never worked alone.
Rendezvouses, meetings, signals, betrayals one big, happy family.
- Wanna hear a joke? - No.
How do you catch a Communist? Hold a meeting.
Not a joke, actually, a real tactic.
The FBI a bunch of amateurs but even they know how to read a hotel registry or a passenger manifest.
Or a petition.
The best blacklists, Frank, are the ones the traitors sign all by themselves.
Darrow wanted to see who signed the petition so so he could use it against us.
And you thought I abused my badge.
Devil you knew.
Where do you think you're going, Frank? Do you think those fellas out there are going to let you go back? With Bush in town and all this work here left to do? Sorry, Cinderella, no ball for you.
Now, Frank, now, that might be the worst idea you've had all year, and that is saying something.
What, poke the dragon, get a sick-out? Medical evacuation back to the Hill? Save the day? No.
No, Frank, no.
Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Frank, don't.
time you nudge the thing, the temperature jumps another three degrees.
93! Oh, shit, let's go.
This is it.
Come on, guys, go! What was that, 99%? Get the car.
Morning.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
- Where's Frank Winter, please? - This is his room.
Get the staff all of them.
Colonel, may we have a word in private? My office.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir, but I have something to report.
I I work the switchboard, you know.
Well, of course you know, and, um, sometimes we hear things.
Paul Crosley Dr.
Crosley.
Well, I had to employ some fairly unorthodox tactics to draw him out.
But he and Constance Faraday, our new British transfer, are involved in something with the telephone, line 135, every day like clockwork with some kind of signal on the other line.
Thank you, Mrs.
Isaacs.
America is strongest when her citizens do their duty.
Well all right, then.
Thank you, sir.
- I was so glad to see you at the Seder.
- Yes.
This Hill suffers from a lack of faith, you may have noticed.
- I blame all the scientists.
- So do I.
We have such great need of faith in these difficult times.
Yes.
Yes.
It's been a very hard year with the war and the camp.
And the baby.
- Yes.
- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.
No, you didn't really.
It's, um I I I can't hear it again.
Hear what? That these things just happen.
And that there's no reason for it.
Of course there's a reason.
You're in pain.
Don't fight it.
Pain is His voice, reminding you that you're alive and at His mercy.
In difficult times most of all, His voice is everywhere.
My wife was thrown through the windshield of a car.
- Oh - She lived, Mrs.
Isaacs.
And her pain is constant for a reason.
We can know His reason if we have the strength to listen.
Will you? Listen? With me? Sir? M.
I.
T.
is landing.
We're all here for a reason.
We're all here for a reason.
We all know what that reason is.
To drop an atomic weapon on a Japanese city, killing 30 to 50 thousand people.
Mostly civilians, women and children.
If that's not why you're here, you're in the wrong room.
If you thought you were racing the Nazis to a super weapon, your ignorance has been engineered.
You've been sold a comic book.
Frank? There is no German bomb.
The Army has known that for a long time and so has Dr.
Isaacs.
Is there a German bomb, Dr.
Isaacs? - I don't know.
- You don't know.
- And how long have you not known? - It doesn't matter.
The gadget is gonna end this war.
It's gonna save lives.
Hitler is finished.
Every industrial center in Germany is an ash heap.
The Russians are rolling in.
Yet I haven't noticed a second sun over Moscow or Stalingrad or London, have you? What does that tell you as a scientist? Ignorance is forgivable.
It's what comes next that is not.
Less than a quarter of you signed this petition.
I don't blame anybody who didn't.
For one thing, I've been a son of a bitch.
I've disrespected half the people in this room.
A lot of you have good reasons not to put your names on something I wrote.
For another thing this petition this petition is a blacklist.
Anybody know the half-life of an FBI file? It's longer than any of our natural lives.
Heaven.
They've been using me to divide us.
But instead instead we're going to surprise them.
All of us or none.
F.
D.
R.
's scientific advisor is here on the Hill.
This is our last chance to send the president a message.
They can build this bomb without without statesmen, without generals, but they can't build it without us.
So I'm I'm gonna walk out the door right now.
I'm probably gonna wind up in the brig.
But I'm asking you to follow me.
If you believe we have a moral responsibility for the future of what we are building here, follow me.
If you believe Japan deserves whatever it gets, follow me.
Follow me no matter what you believe so long as you believe the scientists who designed this gadget should have some say in how it is used! All of us or none.
But any ignorance from here on out is willful.
And won't be forgiven.
Not by any God worth inventing.
Not by any democracy worth fighting for.
Sir, the president is dead.
We interrupt this program with a "World News" update.
President Roosevelt has died.
Reports have emerged suggesting he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.
The president was sitting for a portrait when he complained of a "terrific headache.
" Vice President Harry S.
Truman received the news at the Capitol, whereupon the Secret Service rushed him to the White House and he was sworn in by Chief Justice Harlan Stone.
He has been one of the greatest leaders of this country.
He has been one of the greatest leaders of humanity.
And his name will be left to us as a lover of men, as a servant of their freedom, and as a wise and patient leader in the greatest war ever fought for freedom.
What we know at this hour is that the president died at his home in Warm Springs, Georgia.
Mr.
Roosevelt has piloted the nation, if not through victory, to within sight of victory.
Lincoln's death removed him from leadership in the time of Reconstruction.
President Roosevelt's death has removed him from the greatest task ever faced by men of making peace and building a secure and neighborly world.
The army manipulated us.
There is a war on three continents and a madman rounding up Jews.
Enlistment papers? You'll stay right here as a private in the army.
The bomb is inevitable.
If I help build it, I might get some say in how it's used.
Congratulations, Paul.
I've decided you will be the Site X liaison.
You want me to steal for you? For king and country.
Pesticides didn't kill the bees and it wasn't the army.
Do you think it could be something from the tech area? There were 127 pregnancies on the Hill last year and one miscarriage.
There isn't always a medical explanation in these cases.
So it was an act of God? The longer that it takes anyone to deliver a weapon, the less chance anyone has of dropping it over a city full of kids.
Sorry.
We have to set some ground rules.
We can't be seen like this.
I want to apologize while you're still of sound mind and body.
The Germans or Soviets? All day I faced a barren waste Without the taste of water Look at the early wire photos of the Arizona before the newspapers touched them up.
They blew the damn thing up from inside the hull.
Ronnie, if I wanted an earful, I'd stay home with Margaret.
Pearl Harbor was an inside job.
Roosevelt needed an excuse to drag us into the war.
He's a devil, not a man And he spread the burning sand with water Dan, you can see with that big, green tree Where the water's running free And it's waiting there for me and you Steady.
- You okay? - Yeah, she just snapped on me.
Look at this.
Because the fact is people get hurt around here.
- Yeah.
- 68 accidents in the tech area since the start of 1945.
If this were a factory floor, the union would've shut us down months ago.
And now, now we're doing our most dangerous work yet criticality.
Pushing the gadget to the brink of an explosive chain reaction.
And we've already had one mere catastrophe.
This is what happens when matters of science are left in the hands of politicians and soldiers.
We are the ones who are bringing this thing down off the blackboard and into the world, and we deserve better.
Yeah! Yeah! - We need strict exposure limits.
- Yes! - And hazard pay! - And we're going to demand it.
But first I want to tell you about something that's happening right now in Washington, DC.
While we are risking our necks, President Roosevelt is assembling a committee.
It's going to decide how the gadget's used, if and when it's dropped, and who it's going to be dropped on.
And this committee includes no scientists or engineers.
- Wait, is this a safety board? - No.
- Are they setting new health standards? - No, no, no.
It's called the Target Committee, and as it stands, no one who helped build the bomb will have any say in how or where it's deployed.
But but if we'd all write a letter to our supervisor Let them deploy it up Eva Braun's ass.
We have bigger problems here on the Hill.
You didn't even read them my sample letter.
These guys don't care about sample letters.
They care about getting their balls fried off in a criticality experiment.
You're supposed to make them care, Helen.
You're supposed to make them see it's all part of the same question.
Well, you know what Mussolini says, "If you want something done right, do it yourself.
" Well, I can't do that right now.
Not while I'm wearing this uniform.
They already look at me like I'm a secretary.
And you want me to stand up there, lecture them about politics? You should find an inside man who's actually on the inside.
Or a man.
Helen.
You missed the L & O meeting.
The metal shortage could cost us a week, maybe more.
Sorry, I'll I'll get the minutes.
Uh, breakfast with the wife, if you know what I mean.
You and the other 18 guys who missed work this morning? I know about your little meeting.
- What's the hay for? - Horses.
Horses? Are we Amish? We have jeeps on the site.
Oh, a corps of engineers set up a polo league.
- It's good for morale, I guess.
- Jesus.
Well, make sure they clean up the shit.
I want the site spit-shined by Thursday.
Mm, you know it's a desert, right? What happens Thursday? Just, um, make sure it doesn't look like a rodeo out there.
Aye, aye.
Um, I was thinking after our not-so-secret meeting, we should be studying the radiological effects of the test.
On what? The planet.
People.
I swallowed 24 micrograms of plutonium in 1943.
Now it's 1945.
I still make the Geiger counter sing.
Find me a PhD-level subject matter expert If he's willing to run the study during his free time, you have my blessing.
Thank you.
You meet Charlie's qualifications that's the good news.
I asked for the bad news first.
Security clearance for the test site.
Holiest of Holies.
The only person who can authorize that is - The colonel.
- Correct.
He's got to listen to reason, right? Fritzy, this is a man who sent a boy to his death to stop me from speaking to my husband.
I don't think he's gonna turn around and hand me a security badge.
Look, we need you.
Last week three engineers nearly barbecued themselves doing the criticality experiment.
Blammo, a month's exposure in three seconds flat.
We're lucky this whole place doesn't glow in the dark.
If you want to know who we are On many a vase and jar All right, all right, all right, all right! Posture.
You're gentlemen from Japan, not stevedores.
Uh, if I can have everyone's attention for a minute? Eugene has been assigned to a post off-site.
Which means the role of Ko-Ko is gonna have to be recast.
If they give it to Dale, I'm gonna commit hara-kiri.
Fortunately, we do have a man in the wings who has really stepped up and become a fine thespian over the last year.
So, let's hear it for our new Ko-Ko Jim Meeks.
How about that? Oh! Well Abby? Did someone end the war and forget to tell me? My lucky tie? Do you think they'll be attending a lot of cocktail parties? Can I please do my part without being mocked? Yes, of course.
I'm sorry.
You said to find a way to move on.
Abby, I thought we could do that together.
You know, maybe we give it another shot.
I don't think we're supposed to.
Doc said a couple of months was plenty.
Maybe we lost the baby for a reason.
- What? - Don't know.
Do you think that God still punishes people? Like the plagues in Egypt? What have you ever done wrong? Did you know that there aren't just 10 Commandments? There's 613.
- Abby? - Yes? This is, uh this is a fairytale.
It's a bedtime story.
Things don't happen for a reason.
They just happen.
Or maybe God was punishing the families in those camps.
First you don't want to help them, Sorry, I don't want to help them? Wh-Why do you think I'm still here, Abby? What do you think I do all day? I don't know, Charlie.
Play with numbers? You know what, I'm gonna go, um, play with numbers somewhere else.
Oh, I'm sorry, I I didn't order this.
You dropped something.
Oh, Jesus, Helen! You owe me a lot more than a whiskey sour.
Uh, that drink was actually from me.
- Oh, thank you.
- Thanks.
Just With Hogarth on one side and Theodore on the other, it's like being stuck between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The problem with Little Boy You shouldn't be part of anyone's backup plan.
Yeah, well, that's why I like working in here.
It's a professional environment.
Oh, yeah, very professional.
I said I was sorry.
I guess we all have things to atone for, right? Something you want to say to me, Charlie? I would like to No! You bastard.
You were right.
I kept you off the test group for personal reasons.
It had nothing to do with your talent.
What personal reasons? Come to G group.
Don't screw around with me, Charlie.
We need you.
I need you.
Why now? The test is three months off, we're shorthanded and underbrained, and this Thursday Jesus, as if we didn't have enough to worry about.
What? What happens Thursday? - Someone's coming.
- Who? Vannevar Bush.
F.
D.
R.
's science advisor is coming to the Hill? Sits at the right tire of God the Father.
Here to review the test preparations.
You can't tell anyone.
The job doesn't come with a raise.
Okay, boss.
I heard they liberated another camp.
That must put a spring in your step.
Yes.
And to think we're on the other side of the world doing our bit.
Operator.
I want to make you wetter than Dartmoor in November.
Yes, sir.
I'll put you right through.
Put me right through? Patience, Constance.
Roll your skirt up first.
Give us a forecast.
Bingham here.
Clear? Clear as a bell, Site X.
Stand by one chorus? "Roast Beef of Old England.
" _ So it's an assistant directorship out at the test site.
I'm going to be refining lens design.
There's still some asymmetries to work out.
Isaacs just threw you a bone.
What happened? Nothing happened.
He just realized he made a mistake.
Well, that's great, Helen.
You deserve it.
Enjoy your last day under the British Empire.
Hey, Frank? F.
D.
R.
's science advisor is touring the test site this week.
Vannevar Bush is coming west? Yes.
No one can find out I told you.
Hey, you have to well, you have to get him alone.
He's Roosevelt's brain.
He can get us a seat on the Target Committee.
I can't do that, Frank.
I mean I need some time to settle it.
The test is in 90 days.
You need time to, what, climb the ladder? I can't petition the White House on my first day of the job.
I'll wind up straight back where I started.
Yeah.
You're right.
Don't make me regret telling you.
_ _ _ _ _ I have followed your orders to the letter.
I haven't spoken to my husband in months, as you know.
Please send him my best next time you do.
But you're still a known agitator, Mrs.
Winter.
I prefer "rogue botanist.
" And you want me to grant you access to the most secure site in the Western Hemisphere - so that you can - Determine the health effects of atomic radiation and debris.
I think the Axis is gonna find that out soon enough.
Colonel, it's not the Axis I'm worried about.
What am I looking at? Well, this is your office here, and right here, only 20 yards away, is Building E.
Now, do you know what happens in Building E? Something above your clearance.
Well, that wouldn't stop it from killing me if it went fast critical and I was sitting in your chair.
I heard you had an event last week a couple of graduate students set off a fast-neutron chain reaction.
I believe they call it "tickling the dragon's tail.
" I know what it's called.
The dragons I know don't like to be tickled.
Four seconds longer, and it would have become self-sustaining.
So now let's assume fast criticality sustained for two to three minutes.
Radiant intensity is the inverse square of distance.
Factoring in the lack of concrete walls that mitigate exposure you and your staff would most likely be well, dead.
I say "most likely" because, Colonel, we don't actually know, but we could.
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list I've got a little list of society offenders Hold on.
Okay, everybody, let's take five.
It's a little higher.
It's a G, right? Try a flat on that.
Hi, um you want to help me memorize? Oh, I'm just a stagehand.
Well, we're on a desert island here.
Not enough girls to go around.
Please? Please.
"I have loved you with a white-hot passion.
Shrink not away from me.
" We have rules for a reason.
If people see us talking The Samurai gird for battle.
Not with swords, but with pens.
There's a petition going around.
F.
D.
R.
is forming a committee to decide how the gadget gets used.
We want a seat at the table.
We? You didn't sign it, did you? This is a good thing.
No.
No, not for you, it's not.
You don't sign anything.
You don't stand for anything.
You need to earn Charlie Isaacs' trust.
That is your role.
Stick to the script.
Well you didn't congratulate me, by the way.
For what? Getting the lead in a racialist play? Well, "The Mikado" isn't really about Japan.
It's a satire of British social mores.
You need to lay off that pitch pipe.
It's cutting off the oxygen to your brain.
Yeah? There's something you ought to know.
He's circulating some kind of protest screed.
Is that right? It's a petition, Colonel, advancing the revolutionary idea that the people who built the gadget might have some say in how it's used.
You're a physicist, not an expert in geopolitics.
You think the guys why designed the B-29 bomber got to pick their targets? He doesn't just want a seat at the table.
He wants to shut down the project.
Let Dr.
Winter run his BVDs up the flagpole.
We'll see who salutes.
Now, if we're done second-guessing democracy, you're both dismissed.
You can't dismiss me.
I'm not a soldier.
Why don't you go focus on your criticality experiments? It sounds like you have your hands full not blowing us to kingdom come.
Get me an outside line.
Justice Department.
Colonel Emmett Darrow for Director Hoover.
I told you to be discreet! Now you're unionizing the tech area? I didn't involve you.
What, you think Charlie won't figure out who told you that Bush was coming? A couple of my bunk mates are acting as his military escort.
Maybe I heard it from them.
Helen, we won't get another chance.
Well, neither will I.
The colonel's running some kind of game on me.
Isaacs won't let me anywhere near Vannevar Bush.
So, here, you have to give it to him.
Or burn it on Isaacs' altar.
Keep your chair in G group.
I know you'll do the right thing.
Hang back there, Private.
Look, if the colonel sent you, I already kissed the ring, all right? No, not the colonel, soldier.
You're on the head of the tech area's dime.
Pack your bivouac gear, Winter.
You'll be spending a couple nights in the desert.
Let me guess I'm not returning until the weekend after our distinguished visitor is gone.
What are we gonna do out there, water some cactus? You're gonna tickle the dragon's tail.
Shit.
That's the spook's car.
You know I heard they found him floating in the back just like a canned sardine? So, you beat Tosa.
Got out of Texas.
Congratulations.
Although if I'm here, that means you're not all there.
So, maybe Tosa beat you after all.
Let's go.
Some lady biologist got in the colonel's craw.
He banned criticality work inside the gates.
- You say lady biologist? - Yeah.
Now you got to irradiate yourself How close did we get to fast critical before the incident? Uh, 88%.
The goal today is to get to 90 without waking the dragon and killing yourself.
Well, let's hope that happens.
- You're not coming? - Doctor's orders.
Last week five roentgens, three seconds.
Whole team maxed out exposure for the month.
That's why you're here.
"Tickling the dragon's tail.
" Nice phrase, very evocative.
Your wife's boyfriend would love it.
This is how you double-check a critical mass? Play chicken with an unshielded atomic pile? Me, I'd go AWOL before I hit 60% of fast critical on the neutron counter.
I preferred the trunk of my car.
Operator.
I want to write a sonnet with my tongue on your inner thigh.
Excuse me? Constance? Who is this? No wonder you jump when 135 lights up.
Sounds like Paul Crosley.
Oh, uh, it's not I'm a married woman.
Dr.
Crosley has a scheduled call.
I'd best put him through.
Operator.
I have Site X for you.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Oh! Oh, dear.
Oh.
Carry your books, Mrs.
Isaacs? Yes, please.
Thank you.
Oh! - I'll get these.
- Thank you.
- You get that.
- Oh! Paul Crosley.
Yes, I remember.
Long day crossing wires? Uh, it's better than sitting at home.
Tom Lancefield's wife used to work at the switchboard, didn't she? Attractive girl.
French, of course, but that's a venial sin nowadays.
You two were friendly, weren't you? Yes, well, we were very sad to see her go.
But then Constance Faraday joined our ranks, and she's just wonderful.
Do you know Constance? Mm I just assumed that all you Brits know each other.
Well, the empire has dwindled, to be sure, but it's not a Shropshire village just yet.
- Yes.
- Fancy a ride, Mrs.
Isaacs? Uh Hey, I didn't see your name on the petition.
- What gives? - Oh, uh maybe I don't agree with Frank.
- Really? - What did I miss? Oh, just guy stuff.
Baseball, Ava Gardner, you know? Oh, well, speaking of Mickey Rooney, another toast to our newly minted star of the stage.
- Yeah.
Hear, hear.
- Oh.
Thank you.
Do you guys, uh do you guys think that Gilbert and Sullivan were racialists? No, just different times.
Are there any good geishas in the chorus? Wait till they hear that plummy baritone of yours, huh? Jimmy, I've never heard you sing.
That's a crime.
Will you, please? - Oh, yeah.
Sing.
Sing.
- I couldn't possibly.
- Okay! - Come here, wife.
- Oh.
Oh.
- Sit.
Sit.
Could do that for you here.
It's in the key of A.
Whoa.
Watch where you point that A.
This is my wife.
Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer, do I'm half crazy Over the love of you Thank you.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Glass of water? Glass of anything.
I'm at your mercy.
This used to be the Winters' palace, no? - Mm.
- Yeah.
You've certainly warmed the place up.
- Cheers.
- Mm.
I know what you're doing.
Line 135.
I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean.
Sorry.
Wait, your scheduled calls.
Clicks and clacks.
Mrs.
Isaacs, the clicks and clacks are technical.
They're rather tedious, I'm afraid.
It's part of the work.
The telephone isn't just for gossip and grocery lists, you know? - I'm not sure what Constance has told you.
- So, you do know Constance? - Well, of course, uh - Of-Of course you know her.
She connects your calls every day.
And what are the chances of that, I wonder.
- She's not assigned to that line.
- I misspoke.
When you were writing sonnets with your tongue.
There's no record of those calls in the logbooks.
Even Dr.
Oppenheimer's calls are logged.
Mrs.
Isaacs Abby sorry, if I may, if you think I've done something wrong, why lure me here? Am I to, what, confess? Is Inspector Lestrade going to jump out, pistol drawn? I don't mean to sound flip.
Truth is you've caught me.
I'm on a mission of vengeance.
Not that she seems to have noticed, of course.
Constance? Helen Prins.
And I won't pretend that you don't know what she did to both of us.
Switchboard girl knows everything.
Where your husband was last evening, for example.
Ah you didn't know.
Well, seems that he and Helen have fallen back into one another's orbit.
I'm so sorry.
Marriage is a bit of business in this part of the world.
I mean, ask Constance's husband.
I'm not proud.
But I'm baffled, frankly, by your husband.
How he manages to keep straying so far afield with you at home? These great minds and I'm not one, I don't flatter myself they're quite mad, you know? Always chasing after the invisible.
And they're missing what's right in front of them.
Dr.
Crosley just helped me he gave me a ride home.
I heard you dried out, Paul.
Right, yes.
Gosh, I knew I'd forgotten something.
- Thank you, Mrs.
Isaacs.
- Thank you.
Mr.
Isaacs.
87.
Well, look at the bright side if you poke the dragon, we boil together.
Stop it.
Stop talking.
You know, there were times that I envied the spies.
They never worked alone.
Rendezvouses, meetings, signals, betrayals one big, happy family.
- Wanna hear a joke? - No.
How do you catch a Communist? Hold a meeting.
Not a joke, actually, a real tactic.
The FBI a bunch of amateurs but even they know how to read a hotel registry or a passenger manifest.
Or a petition.
The best blacklists, Frank, are the ones the traitors sign all by themselves.
Darrow wanted to see who signed the petition so so he could use it against us.
And you thought I abused my badge.
Devil you knew.
Where do you think you're going, Frank? Do you think those fellas out there are going to let you go back? With Bush in town and all this work here left to do? Sorry, Cinderella, no ball for you.
Now, Frank, now, that might be the worst idea you've had all year, and that is saying something.
What, poke the dragon, get a sick-out? Medical evacuation back to the Hill? Save the day? No.
No, Frank, no.
Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Frank, don't.
time you nudge the thing, the temperature jumps another three degrees.
93! Oh, shit, let's go.
This is it.
Come on, guys, go! What was that, 99%? Get the car.
Morning.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
- Where's Frank Winter, please? - This is his room.
Get the staff all of them.
Colonel, may we have a word in private? My office.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir, but I have something to report.
I I work the switchboard, you know.
Well, of course you know, and, um, sometimes we hear things.
Paul Crosley Dr.
Crosley.
Well, I had to employ some fairly unorthodox tactics to draw him out.
But he and Constance Faraday, our new British transfer, are involved in something with the telephone, line 135, every day like clockwork with some kind of signal on the other line.
Thank you, Mrs.
Isaacs.
America is strongest when her citizens do their duty.
Well all right, then.
Thank you, sir.
- I was so glad to see you at the Seder.
- Yes.
This Hill suffers from a lack of faith, you may have noticed.
- I blame all the scientists.
- So do I.
We have such great need of faith in these difficult times.
Yes.
Yes.
It's been a very hard year with the war and the camp.
And the baby.
- Yes.
- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.
No, you didn't really.
It's, um I I I can't hear it again.
Hear what? That these things just happen.
And that there's no reason for it.
Of course there's a reason.
You're in pain.
Don't fight it.
Pain is His voice, reminding you that you're alive and at His mercy.
In difficult times most of all, His voice is everywhere.
My wife was thrown through the windshield of a car.
- Oh - She lived, Mrs.
Isaacs.
And her pain is constant for a reason.
We can know His reason if we have the strength to listen.
Will you? Listen? With me? Sir? M.
I.
T.
is landing.
We're all here for a reason.
We're all here for a reason.
We all know what that reason is.
To drop an atomic weapon on a Japanese city, killing 30 to 50 thousand people.
Mostly civilians, women and children.
If that's not why you're here, you're in the wrong room.
If you thought you were racing the Nazis to a super weapon, your ignorance has been engineered.
You've been sold a comic book.
Frank? There is no German bomb.
The Army has known that for a long time and so has Dr.
Isaacs.
Is there a German bomb, Dr.
Isaacs? - I don't know.
- You don't know.
- And how long have you not known? - It doesn't matter.
The gadget is gonna end this war.
It's gonna save lives.
Hitler is finished.
Every industrial center in Germany is an ash heap.
The Russians are rolling in.
Yet I haven't noticed a second sun over Moscow or Stalingrad or London, have you? What does that tell you as a scientist? Ignorance is forgivable.
It's what comes next that is not.
Less than a quarter of you signed this petition.
I don't blame anybody who didn't.
For one thing, I've been a son of a bitch.
I've disrespected half the people in this room.
A lot of you have good reasons not to put your names on something I wrote.
For another thing this petition this petition is a blacklist.
Anybody know the half-life of an FBI file? It's longer than any of our natural lives.
Heaven.
They've been using me to divide us.
But instead instead we're going to surprise them.
All of us or none.
F.
D.
R.
's scientific advisor is here on the Hill.
This is our last chance to send the president a message.
They can build this bomb without without statesmen, without generals, but they can't build it without us.
So I'm I'm gonna walk out the door right now.
I'm probably gonna wind up in the brig.
But I'm asking you to follow me.
If you believe we have a moral responsibility for the future of what we are building here, follow me.
If you believe Japan deserves whatever it gets, follow me.
Follow me no matter what you believe so long as you believe the scientists who designed this gadget should have some say in how it is used! All of us or none.
But any ignorance from here on out is willful.
And won't be forgiven.
Not by any God worth inventing.
Not by any democracy worth fighting for.
Sir, the president is dead.
We interrupt this program with a "World News" update.
President Roosevelt has died.
Reports have emerged suggesting he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.
The president was sitting for a portrait when he complained of a "terrific headache.
" Vice President Harry S.
Truman received the news at the Capitol, whereupon the Secret Service rushed him to the White House and he was sworn in by Chief Justice Harlan Stone.
He has been one of the greatest leaders of this country.
He has been one of the greatest leaders of humanity.
And his name will be left to us as a lover of men, as a servant of their freedom, and as a wise and patient leader in the greatest war ever fought for freedom.
What we know at this hour is that the president died at his home in Warm Springs, Georgia.
Mr.
Roosevelt has piloted the nation, if not through victory, to within sight of victory.
Lincoln's death removed him from leadership in the time of Reconstruction.
President Roosevelt's death has removed him from the greatest task ever faced by men of making peace and building a secure and neighborly world.