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Is that in frame?
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Well, it depends
where Joan is gonna sit.
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Joan's gonna be here.
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Okay, whenever you're ready.
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Okay, this is a recording
for archive purposes.
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And the idea is to document,
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um, Ted Hall's activities
in 1944 and '45
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and afterwards, in connection
with the Soviet government
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and his work
on the atomic bomb.
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I'm Joan Hall, um...
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and I'll be asking questions
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and it is the third of June,
1998 in Cambridge.
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Okay.
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Well, the first question, Ted,
is what led you to go
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into this activity
at the age of 19?
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Well, uh, like...
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virtually all of
the academic people,
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at least at Los Alamos,
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I was quite concerned
with the question
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of what the world
would be like
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when the Second World War
was finished?
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Were you scared
about this step
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that you were going to take?
Were you frightened?
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I can't remember
being frightened.
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No, I don't think so.
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You didn't think
"If I do this,
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I'm breaking the law
and they might execute me?"
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No.
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- No.
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Did you have any sense
that you were doing something
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that was disloyal
or morally dubious?
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In my mind,
this was the question
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of protecting the Soviet people
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as well as all people
from wanton attack.
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00:02:37,418 --> 00:02:40,377
Preventing an
overall holocaust,
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00:02:40,551 --> 00:02:42,466
which would affect
the entire world, really.
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00:03:24,943 --> 00:03:26,336
I left high school at 15
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00:03:26,510 --> 00:03:28,033
and went
to the University of Chicago,
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which I've always recognized
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as a pivotal moment
in my experience.
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This whole intellectual process,
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for me,
was a wonderful discovery.
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00:03:41,917 --> 00:03:43,614
In my third year in the place,
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I met lots of men
because the war ended
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and young men were coming back
in throngs for the G.I. Bill.
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And, God, it was great.
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And I made up my mind
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that I wasn't going
to get married until I was 28
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00:04:03,025 --> 00:04:05,723
and I was then coming up to 18.
I was going to give myself
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a good ten years
of independence.
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And then I met Ted.
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And I thought,
"What a good-looking guy."
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I felt that he was a person
I could talk with,
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discussing politics or music
or anything that interested us.
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And that meant that
I was friendly with Savy too
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because Savy stuck to Ted.
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Savy was a very unusual person.
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He liked poetry and philosophy
and politics in a way.
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He had never been molded
into a conventional
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American youth of his age.
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I guess Ted
was intrigued by him.
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There is a picture of Teddy.
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"Spring 1947."
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"Grass was
our courting ground."
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"In the Quadrangle
by Mandel Hall,
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after hearing
the Communist Gerhart Eisler
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denounce the government
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that wouldn't let him
return to Europe
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to build a new socialist
East Germany.
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With Savy and other students,
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we sprawled on the grass
in the sunshine..."
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No, no, you're never
drawing again.
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Young Joan: Why?
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"...and you suddenly pushed me
down and lay over me..."
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"...trying to push a pinch
of grass up my nose.
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We laughed,
wrestled deliciously.
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You lingered there for a few
more seconds, heavy and warm."
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"Our bodies first greeting."
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I will not.
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Young Ted: Get your hair
out of my face at least.
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"And then that balmy
April evening,
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when the three of us
lay on the grass,
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my head on your arm
and Savy's head on my thigh.
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Under the trees, the moon,
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the fragrant spring air
throbbing with possibility,
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our heads spinning.
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I stood up, declared,
'I love you both dearly,
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but how can I love you
both at once?'
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You dryly remarked,
'That's certainly a problem.'"
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When did
you realize that he...
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...was more interested in you
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than just friendship?
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Well, they both were.
This was a problem.
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I would like
to propose a toast, huh?
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A toast, to what?
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We could never
get rid of Savy.
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To the revolution
in the streets
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- of East Germany.
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The people are rising up
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against their
capitalist overlords...
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I'm sorry, but...
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...a new day is dawning.
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I just don't feel like
telling those stories in detail.
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They're too private.
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That's fine. That's fine.
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Can you tell me what
your first date with Ted was?
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- I never had a date.
No?
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We just went around together.
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"Once a wunderkind,
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now a brilliant young scientist
in love with physics.
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A nonconformist,
that is to say
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with his own precise rules,
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keeping well clear
of anyone else's nonconformity.
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He loved Mahler.
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Irony was his mother tongue.
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Did I forget to say
he was beautiful?"
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He had this office
at the top of Eckhart Hall
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where he had an assistantship.
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He had a portable record player
and a big box full of 78s.
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There was one record
he had that we both liked
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and that was a Mozart piano
and violin sonata.
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And that became
sort of our song.
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♪ ["Violin Sonata No. 24 -
II. Andante" by Mozart Plays] ♪
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We would lie on the floor.
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It was lovely. And...
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I didn't then know
that there was a colony
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00:08:45,612 --> 00:08:48,484
of enormous cockroaches
living in that building.
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But I don't recall
that they interfered
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with our enjoyment of
lying on the floor.
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So, how did he pop the question?
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He said,
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00:09:01,366 --> 00:09:03,151
"Joan, I love you,
will you marry me?"
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00:09:03,325 --> 00:09:04,500
And I said, "Yes."
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All lying on the floor, yeah.
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00:09:09,505 --> 00:09:12,987
Because both of us were Jewish
and complete atheists,
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we said we'd like
a non-religious ceremony.
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And, uh...
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suddenly, Ted went all serious
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and he said there's something
I have to tell you.
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And so...
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He said, "Well, you know,
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00:09:33,094 --> 00:09:35,183
about the work
I was doing at Los Alamos?"
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"Yeah."
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00:09:37,359 --> 00:09:38,795
He said, "It was very secret,
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00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:41,755
we weren't allowed
to tell anybody about it."
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And that it was very dangerous
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that the Americans
had a monopoly of this weapon.
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00:09:52,809 --> 00:09:56,247
Then I said, "Oh, so...
So you're gonna give information
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00:09:56,421 --> 00:09:58,162
to the Russians?"
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00:09:58,859 --> 00:10:00,425
And he said, "I did, yeah."
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00:10:03,428 --> 00:10:07,389
And, uh, I thought about that
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00:10:07,563 --> 00:10:10,261
and I said, "Why?
What good will that do?"
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00:10:12,437 --> 00:10:13,961
And he explained that
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it would be a safeguard
against another war
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if the Russians
also had this weapon.
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00:10:27,975 --> 00:10:29,759
And he said, "I wanted
to tell you about it now
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00:10:29,933 --> 00:10:32,762
before we get married because
you might want to drop out."
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00:10:36,113 --> 00:10:39,726
Well, I didn't want to drop out.
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00:10:43,381 --> 00:10:44,774
And nothing
he could have told me...
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00:10:44,948 --> 00:10:46,471
He could have told me
he murdered somebody
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00:10:46,646 --> 00:10:48,256
in the street, I don't know,
but there was nothing
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00:10:48,430 --> 00:10:50,650
that could have changed
my mind at that point.
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00:10:54,218 --> 00:10:56,264
And, um, he said,
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00:10:56,438 --> 00:10:59,180
"You must be careful,
this is really secret,
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00:10:59,354 --> 00:11:02,096
you must not mention it
to anybody in any way."
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00:11:03,053 --> 00:11:04,315
I said, "Okay."
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00:11:05,186 --> 00:11:07,318
"Not to your mother."
I said, "God, no."
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00:11:08,102 --> 00:11:10,974
At which point, he relaxed
and we started cuddling
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00:11:11,148 --> 00:11:13,585
and we went back
to what we were there for.
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00:11:14,630 --> 00:11:16,676
♪ ["Violin Sonata No. 24 -
II. Andante" by Mozart Plays] ♪
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00:11:24,205 --> 00:11:25,206
And that was that.
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00:11:25,380 --> 00:11:26,381
That was that.
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00:11:29,036 --> 00:11:31,908
I... You know,
I gave up the idea
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00:11:32,082 --> 00:11:37,087
of my ten-year freedom period
without a backward look.
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00:11:37,261 --> 00:11:38,480
I just knew I couldn't...
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00:11:40,612 --> 00:11:41,831
I couldn't let him go.
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00:11:44,486 --> 00:11:46,618
I knew I'd never meet
anyone like that again.
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00:11:48,533 --> 00:11:49,839
I was right too.
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00:11:57,804 --> 00:11:59,675
In the calm
of Harvard University,
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00:11:59,849 --> 00:12:01,677
there are many thinkers who,
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00:12:01,851 --> 00:12:04,549
pondering the pressure
of today's mechanized world,
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00:12:04,767 --> 00:12:07,378
are seriously concerned with
the effect of modern living
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00:12:07,552 --> 00:12:08,728
upon mankind.
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00:12:09,337 --> 00:12:11,643
Ted was recruited
to work at Los Alamos
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00:12:11,818 --> 00:12:15,082
three years before I met him,
when he was 18 at Harvard.
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00:12:15,822 --> 00:12:17,345
I've never seen
these letters before.
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00:12:17,519 --> 00:12:18,346
I can't believe it.
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00:12:18,694 --> 00:12:20,087
Like teenage Ted.
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00:12:20,435 --> 00:12:22,437
Yeah, I haven't
read them for ages.
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00:12:22,611 --> 00:12:25,788
- So, I'm...
So aware of the world.
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00:12:26,267 --> 00:12:29,357
This is April '43, so he was 17
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00:12:29,531 --> 00:12:33,100
and he is rating Harvard
as an educational institution.
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00:12:33,578 --> 00:12:34,754
But he spells
Harvard there
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00:12:34,928 --> 00:12:36,233
in a funny way, doesn't he?
197
00:12:36,407 --> 00:12:37,408
Yeah. "Hah-vud."
"Hah-vud."
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00:12:37,582 --> 00:12:40,107
H-A-H-V-U-D.
199
00:12:40,977 --> 00:12:42,718
- It's "Hah-vud."
200
00:12:43,327 --> 00:12:45,895
"Dear Ed,
as an educational institution,
201
00:12:46,069 --> 00:12:47,549
the spirit is all wrong..."
202
00:12:48,463 --> 00:12:51,031
And then written out big
in his handwriting,
203
00:12:51,335 --> 00:12:53,511
"There is no laughing
in the classes."
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00:12:55,557 --> 00:12:57,820
"What it boils down to
is that there's no appreciation
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00:12:57,994 --> 00:13:00,170
of the lusty beauty
of effective learning,
206
00:13:00,475 --> 00:13:03,130
learning that is to be applied
to world building.
207
00:13:03,913 --> 00:13:05,959
That is perhaps
the basis of education.
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00:13:06,481 --> 00:13:08,875
In this sense,
the process of education
209
00:13:09,049 --> 00:13:14,010
depends as much, maybe more,
on the students as on the profs,
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00:13:14,489 --> 00:13:18,580
where one authority
is dumping his irrefutable facts
211
00:13:18,754 --> 00:13:21,496
into the heads of good students
who will learn it all."
212
00:13:23,367 --> 00:13:24,281
Beautiful.
213
00:13:31,332 --> 00:13:33,943
A recruiter
from Washington came up
214
00:13:34,117 --> 00:13:36,903
to try and find out
the most brilliant of the people
215
00:13:37,077 --> 00:13:40,863
still at Harvard in the...
in the undergraduate program,
216
00:13:41,037 --> 00:13:42,909
in the field of physics
and mathematics.
217
00:13:43,083 --> 00:13:46,564
At this point, Ted was a senior
at Harvard at the age of 18.
218
00:13:47,522 --> 00:13:51,700
His mission was to pick up
a few very junior physicists
219
00:13:51,874 --> 00:13:54,964
to help in the research work
at Los Alamos.
220
00:13:59,751 --> 00:14:02,145
Ted and his roommate
Saville Sax
221
00:14:02,319 --> 00:14:04,452
were quite left
in their politics
222
00:14:04,626 --> 00:14:07,063
and admiring
of the Soviet Union.
223
00:14:07,542 --> 00:14:09,587
Savy struck people
as being odd.
224
00:14:11,024 --> 00:14:12,590
He was funny.
225
00:14:15,332 --> 00:14:16,986
He had a lovely sense of humor,
226
00:14:17,334 --> 00:14:19,597
a completely off-the-wall
sense of humor.
227
00:14:23,601 --> 00:14:25,255
The letter arrived yesterday,
it's official.
228
00:14:26,082 --> 00:14:27,301
They offered me the position,
229
00:14:27,475 --> 00:14:28,563
they want me
to start immediately.
230
00:14:28,737 --> 00:14:30,086
That's incredible, Ted.
231
00:14:30,782 --> 00:14:32,784
I think it must have
been intense for Ted
232
00:14:32,959 --> 00:14:34,612
and he was a close friend
with Savy.
233
00:14:34,786 --> 00:14:37,615
So he wanted
to talk to somebody.
234
00:14:38,051 --> 00:14:39,879
But it's got to be
some sort of weapon, right?
235
00:14:40,314 --> 00:14:41,489
I mean, it's a big deal.
236
00:14:42,098 --> 00:14:43,926
And they don't want us
talking about it to anybody.
237
00:14:44,100 --> 00:14:46,189
So if this is some super weapon,
238
00:14:46,363 --> 00:14:47,843
you have to share it
with the Russians...
239
00:14:48,017 --> 00:14:48,975
Shh.
240
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:51,629
Savy came
from a politically active
241
00:14:51,934 --> 00:14:53,414
Jewish Russian family.
242
00:14:53,588 --> 00:14:55,590
Are you crazy?
She's right there.
243
00:14:55,764 --> 00:14:57,157
You know it's true though.
244
00:14:57,331 --> 00:14:59,159
Yeah, the Russians
are our allies now,
245
00:14:59,333 --> 00:15:00,508
but you know that they...
246
00:15:00,682 --> 00:15:02,379
Savy was always having ideas.
247
00:15:03,467 --> 00:15:05,861
Ted would go along with them,
they were pretty crazy.
248
00:15:06,166 --> 00:15:07,819
You're nuts,
you know that?
249
00:15:07,994 --> 00:15:10,910
♪ ["Praise the Lord and Pass
the Ammunition" Plays] ♪
250
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,394
♪ Shouting Praise the Lord
We're on a mighty mission ♪
251
00:15:17,568 --> 00:15:20,441
♪ All aboard
We're not a-goin' fishin' ♪
252
00:15:20,702 --> 00:15:23,487
♪ Praise the Lord
And pass the ammunition ♪
253
00:15:23,661 --> 00:15:26,099
♪ And we'll all stay free... ♪
254
00:15:27,143 --> 00:15:28,492
And I went out
to the project
255
00:15:28,666 --> 00:15:32,105
and, um,
was told on the first day
256
00:15:32,279 --> 00:15:33,454
what the work would be.
257
00:15:34,455 --> 00:15:35,978
It was rather awesome
258
00:15:36,283 --> 00:15:38,415
and the reason for most
of us to be working on it
259
00:15:38,589 --> 00:15:41,941
was the fear that the Germans
would develop the weapon first.
260
00:15:42,376 --> 00:15:44,944
I was a, um, a young person.
261
00:15:45,509 --> 00:15:47,990
I saw the world, uh,
I guess you might say,
262
00:15:48,164 --> 00:15:51,124
through rather
pinkishly colored glasses.
263
00:15:52,864 --> 00:15:55,302
I was very optimistic
about the post-war world.
264
00:15:56,042 --> 00:15:58,435
Here it is,
General Groves, plutonium.
265
00:15:59,088 --> 00:16:01,308
Well, that's, uh, the first time
I've seen it,
266
00:16:01,482 --> 00:16:03,701
but if you don't mind,
I wish you'd hold that under it
267
00:16:03,875 --> 00:16:07,836
because there's about
50 million dollars in that tube.
268
00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:10,404
General Groves
couldn't stand the sight
269
00:16:10,578 --> 00:16:13,059
of all these healthy
young scientists
270
00:16:13,233 --> 00:16:15,235
walking around
in civilian clothes.
271
00:16:15,670 --> 00:16:19,456
Oppenheimer, on the other hand,
did want very much a sidewalk.
272
00:16:19,630 --> 00:16:21,067
It must have been
a pretty muddy
273
00:16:21,241 --> 00:16:23,286
and primitive place
at that time.
274
00:16:23,721 --> 00:16:25,854
And so he made
a bargain with Groves,
275
00:16:26,028 --> 00:16:29,118
the youngest members
of the staff could be drafted...
276
00:16:31,468 --> 00:16:33,209
if Groves would provide them
with a sidewalk.
277
00:16:33,731 --> 00:16:36,996
♪ This is the Army, Mr. Jones ♪
278
00:16:38,388 --> 00:16:41,478
♪ No private rooms
Or telephones ♪
279
00:16:42,523 --> 00:16:46,353
♪ You had your breakfast
In bed before ♪
280
00:16:46,527 --> 00:16:50,009
♪ But you won't
Have it there anymore... ♪
281
00:16:50,183 --> 00:16:51,575
Ted always said
282
00:16:51,749 --> 00:16:52,924
that he was exchanged
for a sidewalk.
283
00:16:54,404 --> 00:16:56,754
He had to move out
of his room into the barracks.
284
00:16:58,495 --> 00:16:59,931
He hated the army.
285
00:17:01,933 --> 00:17:04,719
He never learned
to salute properly.
286
00:17:07,983 --> 00:17:09,767
The bloody hat,
he hated the hat.
287
00:17:11,682 --> 00:17:14,772
I was told he used
to take it into the forest,
288
00:17:15,251 --> 00:17:17,427
throw it on the ground
and grind his heel into it.
289
00:17:17,601 --> 00:17:20,604
♪ This is the Army
Mr. Brown... ♪
290
00:17:21,779 --> 00:17:23,694
Ted was put on
an important program.
291
00:17:23,868 --> 00:17:26,610
He did very well in studying
292
00:17:26,784 --> 00:17:30,310
the physical properties
of Uranium-235,
293
00:17:30,701 --> 00:17:33,052
the fissile material
of the first atomic bomb.
294
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:35,141
He did so well at that,
295
00:17:35,358 --> 00:17:37,578
that even at the age
of 18 or 19,
296
00:17:37,752 --> 00:17:40,015
he's now put on an even
more important project
297
00:17:40,450 --> 00:17:44,280
where he was, um, working
on the implosion bomb.
298
00:17:44,715 --> 00:17:46,500
I mean, people right
through were aware
299
00:17:46,674 --> 00:17:49,633
that something, uh, gruesome
300
00:17:49,807 --> 00:17:51,635
and horrible
was being constructed.
301
00:17:52,810 --> 00:17:55,291
And this was appreciated,
but there was, uh,
302
00:17:55,857 --> 00:17:58,860
once one accepted the logic
of why you were doing this,
303
00:17:59,382 --> 00:18:00,862
there was dedication and p...
304
00:18:03,299 --> 00:18:06,085
I guess it was exhilarating.
305
00:18:25,626 --> 00:18:27,280
Well, the Soviets
were our allies.
306
00:18:27,454 --> 00:18:28,672
Yeah.
307
00:18:28,846 --> 00:18:29,847
Why aren't the Soviets
308
00:18:30,021 --> 00:18:31,240
involved with this project?
309
00:18:31,414 --> 00:18:33,024
Well, a lot of people thought
310
00:18:33,199 --> 00:18:36,332
that it was very important
that the Soviet Union
311
00:18:36,506 --> 00:18:39,553
should share in the development
and in the information.
312
00:18:44,906 --> 00:18:46,995
Well, during the war,
the attitude of the public
313
00:18:47,169 --> 00:18:51,434
and the media, the government,
towards the Soviet Union
314
00:18:51,652 --> 00:18:54,568
was one of admiration
and support.
315
00:18:55,221 --> 00:18:57,179
Life magazine
had a whole spread
316
00:18:57,353 --> 00:18:59,964
about life in the Soviet Union
which was just favorable.
317
00:19:00,182 --> 00:19:01,575
That's just one example.
318
00:19:09,931 --> 00:19:12,368
The American ambassador
to the Soviet Union
319
00:19:12,629 --> 00:19:16,067
was Joseph Davies,
who wrote a book,
320
00:19:16,329 --> 00:19:18,331
which I have
on the shelf there somewhere.
321
00:19:27,644 --> 00:19:31,692
This book was published
during the war,
322
00:19:32,214 --> 00:19:34,608
with an introduction
by President Roosevelt.
323
00:19:36,349 --> 00:19:38,829
And it was...
it sold millions of copies.
324
00:19:39,613 --> 00:19:44,095
When Germany attacked Russia,
the Soviet Union became
325
00:19:44,270 --> 00:19:45,793
one of the nations
fighting Hitler.
326
00:19:46,837 --> 00:19:48,361
And it was a desperate hour.
327
00:19:48,839 --> 00:19:52,234
There was so much prejudice
and misunderstanding
328
00:19:52,756 --> 00:19:55,672
for the Soviet Union,
in which I partly shared.
329
00:20:07,554 --> 00:20:09,817
I assure you that
my purpose in coming here
330
00:20:09,991 --> 00:20:11,775
is to see all things
with an open mind
331
00:20:11,949 --> 00:20:13,603
and report them faithfully
to Washington.
332
00:20:13,777 --> 00:20:15,779
That's what my President wants,
that's why he sent me.
333
00:20:16,563 --> 00:20:18,608
A very great man,
your President,
334
00:20:19,827 --> 00:20:21,916
with a deep sympathy
for mankind.
335
00:20:22,264 --> 00:20:23,831
In the great Donbas,
I saw for myself
336
00:20:24,005 --> 00:20:26,007
the wealth of Russia's
coal resources.
337
00:20:26,181 --> 00:20:28,488
I went down into the mine
and talked with the workers.
338
00:20:28,662 --> 00:20:30,272
Much to my amazement,
339
00:20:30,490 --> 00:20:31,404
I discovered that 30 percent
of them are women.
340
00:20:31,578 --> 00:20:33,144
Is it true that, in America,
341
00:20:33,319 --> 00:20:35,538
the women are not allowed
to do work like this?
342
00:20:35,712 --> 00:20:37,714
Well, there's no law against it,
but we don't like to put them
343
00:20:37,888 --> 00:20:39,063
underground until we have to.
344
00:20:40,891 --> 00:20:42,502
In my early 20s,
I had to assume
345
00:20:42,676 --> 00:20:44,330
the responsibility of running
my father's business.
346
00:20:44,504 --> 00:20:47,724
An American woman
running a business?
347
00:20:47,898 --> 00:20:49,552
We had the impression
that American women
348
00:20:49,726 --> 00:20:51,424
were ornamental
and not useful.
349
00:20:51,641 --> 00:20:54,340
And you thought that our women
were useful, but not ornamental.
350
00:20:54,514 --> 00:20:56,690
I guess
we were both wrong.
351
00:20:57,212 --> 00:20:58,692
I understand
you have visited
352
00:20:58,866 --> 00:21:00,911
many other sections
of the Soviet Union.
353
00:21:01,085 --> 00:21:03,000
I've been greatly
impressed by what I've seen.
354
00:21:03,218 --> 00:21:04,872
I believe, sir,
that history will record you
355
00:21:05,046 --> 00:21:06,917
as a great builder
for the benefit of mankind.
356
00:21:07,091 --> 00:21:09,311
We feel more friendly
toward the government
357
00:21:09,485 --> 00:21:11,835
of the United States
than any other nation.
358
00:21:12,358 --> 00:21:14,708
Russia will never stop fighting
its fascist foe.
359
00:21:14,882 --> 00:21:16,013
They will defend their cities,
360
00:21:16,187 --> 00:21:17,363
they will fight
in their streets,
361
00:21:17,537 --> 00:21:18,755
in their forests,
362
00:21:19,190 --> 00:21:20,191
behind the German lines
and over them in the air.
363
00:21:22,063 --> 00:21:23,978
How do we know
that we can trust Russia?
364
00:21:24,152 --> 00:21:25,632
Sit down.
365
00:21:26,154 --> 00:21:27,547
There were certainly
sectors of the population
366
00:21:27,721 --> 00:21:29,375
that were
very strongly anti-Soviet,
367
00:21:29,549 --> 00:21:32,682
but normal-life people
weren't really aware of that.
368
00:21:32,987 --> 00:21:38,471
Were aware of the Russians
being heroic, and they were.
369
00:21:48,307 --> 00:21:50,396
They'd lost
20 million people in the war.
370
00:21:50,570 --> 00:21:52,006
Twenty million!
371
00:21:52,572 --> 00:21:54,791
And they were
defending Europe,
372
00:21:54,965 --> 00:21:57,490
they were...
...they were beating the Nazis
373
00:21:57,664 --> 00:22:00,057
and they were saving
the world for civilization.
374
00:22:01,798 --> 00:22:04,018
That's not... not too extreme.
375
00:22:06,368 --> 00:22:08,631
A number of scientists
raised the question,
376
00:22:08,805 --> 00:22:10,372
"What kind of terms
are we going to be on
377
00:22:10,546 --> 00:22:13,027
after the war
if we exclude the Russians?"
378
00:22:13,723 --> 00:22:16,552
"What will be the consequences
if it isn't shared?"
379
00:22:17,727 --> 00:22:19,686
In fact, some extremely
eminent scientists
380
00:22:19,860 --> 00:22:21,383
were worried
about this question and said
381
00:22:21,557 --> 00:22:23,037
that the knowledge
should be shared.
382
00:22:23,646 --> 00:22:25,082
Niels Bohr was, I think,
383
00:22:25,256 --> 00:22:27,258
most prominent
and he wasn't listened to.
384
00:22:29,217 --> 00:22:33,352
These two sets of ideas
co-existed within my head.
385
00:22:34,744 --> 00:22:36,703
One was,
it's a lovely world,
386
00:22:36,877 --> 00:22:38,444
we've seen the light,
387
00:22:38,618 --> 00:22:40,924
we're getting through
with a Second World War
388
00:22:41,098 --> 00:22:42,883
and things
are going to be good.
389
00:22:43,362 --> 00:22:45,842
And then off in one corner,
there was this little question,
390
00:22:46,016 --> 00:22:49,368
but suppose
it isn't like that.
391
00:22:49,803 --> 00:22:52,066
What if, uh...
392
00:22:54,416 --> 00:22:56,592
there's a disintegration
into disharmony
393
00:22:56,766 --> 00:22:59,073
between the nations
after the Second World War?
394
00:23:00,291 --> 00:23:05,949
And what if a capitalist system
generates another Nazi Germany?
395
00:23:07,081 --> 00:23:08,735
Maybe even the United States
396
00:23:08,909 --> 00:23:10,563
might turn
into something like that.
397
00:23:12,695 --> 00:23:14,001
Ted, I'm just trying to sail
398
00:23:14,175 --> 00:23:15,437
close to the wind here.
399
00:23:15,916 --> 00:23:17,700
I am trying to see the point
at which you convert,
400
00:23:17,874 --> 00:23:20,311
as it were, thinking,
into some sort of action.
401
00:23:20,964 --> 00:23:24,403
Did that seem like breaking
a taboo to you in any way?
402
00:23:32,019 --> 00:23:33,542
It seemed to me that, uh...
403
00:23:36,327 --> 00:23:38,591
Well, it would, superficially,
404
00:23:38,765 --> 00:23:40,244
would certainly break
some taboos
405
00:23:40,419 --> 00:23:42,725
and it's not the kind of thing
one is told to do.
406
00:23:42,899 --> 00:23:44,423
You... you're supposed to know
407
00:23:44,597 --> 00:23:47,338
the difference
between right and wrong and...
408
00:23:47,904 --> 00:23:50,733
But there are situations
that aren't that simply, uh...
409
00:23:52,996 --> 00:23:54,650
aren't that simply described.
410
00:23:57,697 --> 00:23:59,742
As they were
approaching success,
411
00:24:00,047 --> 00:24:03,180
they gave him a...
a pass to go back
412
00:24:03,354 --> 00:24:05,313
to New York
for his 19th birthday.
413
00:24:07,402 --> 00:24:09,578
And there, he got in touch
414
00:24:09,752 --> 00:24:12,799
with his friend Saville Sax,
415
00:24:13,103 --> 00:24:14,583
and they had decided
they wanted to get in touch
416
00:24:14,757 --> 00:24:16,237
with the Soviets.
417
00:24:16,585 --> 00:24:18,195
They decided
the only place they could talk
418
00:24:18,369 --> 00:24:20,633
about this was in a rowboat.
419
00:24:20,894 --> 00:24:22,417
Think you've rowed far enough?
420
00:24:22,591 --> 00:24:24,680
Well, I'm trying to get us away
from everybody else.
421
00:24:25,202 --> 00:24:26,769
And they went out
422
00:24:26,987 --> 00:24:28,554
and talked about,
"So what are we gonna do now?"
423
00:24:28,728 --> 00:24:30,207
And they said,
"Well, we can't just walk
424
00:24:30,381 --> 00:24:31,948
into the Soviet consulate, right?
425
00:24:32,122 --> 00:24:34,255
And say, 'Here, we've
got this information for you.'"
426
00:24:34,473 --> 00:24:36,736
It's too risky. So let me go.
427
00:24:36,953 --> 00:24:38,651
You want to go and say what?
428
00:24:38,825 --> 00:24:40,696
Well, I'll go under the pretense
that I'm trying to find out
429
00:24:40,870 --> 00:24:42,959
information about
my grandparents in Vinnytsia.
430
00:24:43,220 --> 00:24:45,353
I think they were very close,
431
00:24:46,093 --> 00:24:51,098
but on some level,
Savy wanted to be Ted.
432
00:24:52,142 --> 00:24:55,450
Ted had this reputation
for brilliance.
433
00:24:55,711 --> 00:24:57,974
You're doing something
incredibly brave here.
434
00:24:58,758 --> 00:25:01,412
They did actually
finally get someone
435
00:25:01,848 --> 00:25:03,676
who would agree
to talk with them.
436
00:25:03,850 --> 00:25:05,329
How were you treated
by the agents
437
00:25:05,504 --> 00:25:06,940
of the Soviet government?
438
00:25:08,463 --> 00:25:10,247
They were not threatening
in any way.
439
00:25:10,421 --> 00:25:14,164
They didn't, in any way,
match the stereotype
440
00:25:14,338 --> 00:25:16,602
of the heartless,
cruel, ruthless,
441
00:25:16,863 --> 00:25:19,735
completely unscrupulous automatons.
442
00:25:21,389 --> 00:25:22,956
They even had senses of humor
443
00:25:23,434 --> 00:25:26,307
and, uh,
certainly of compassion.
444
00:25:26,829 --> 00:25:28,875
I'm sure
that they had capabilities
445
00:25:29,049 --> 00:25:31,355
of being very indecent
towards some people.
446
00:25:32,052 --> 00:25:33,706
"For the record,
could you give an account
447
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,099
of what technical information
did you actually transmit
448
00:25:36,273 --> 00:25:37,448
to the Soviets?"
449
00:25:37,666 --> 00:25:39,538
Well, I did transmit
a list of names
450
00:25:39,712 --> 00:25:41,670
of some of the physicists
who were working.
451
00:25:42,715 --> 00:25:44,151
Igor Kurchatov,
452
00:25:44,412 --> 00:25:46,719
the head of the
Soviet Atomic Research Program,
453
00:25:47,067 --> 00:25:48,938
realized this
was really important stuff.
454
00:25:49,112 --> 00:25:52,246
They had no idea who was out
there at Los Alamos.
455
00:25:52,551 --> 00:25:53,900
So, he was already
456
00:25:54,770 --> 00:25:56,250
doing something
which was illegal
457
00:25:56,424 --> 00:25:58,165
and potentially could have
gotten him put in jail
458
00:25:58,339 --> 00:25:59,427
for many years.
459
00:26:00,471 --> 00:26:01,647
- At the age of 19.
- Yeah.
460
00:26:01,821 --> 00:26:04,911
And he did agree
to continue.
461
00:26:06,652 --> 00:26:08,523
Ted and Savy worked up
462
00:26:08,697 --> 00:26:10,612
this whole elaborate system
463
00:26:10,786 --> 00:26:13,180
of using Walt Whitman's
Leaves of Grass,
464
00:26:13,354 --> 00:26:15,443
certain pages,
and there were codes
465
00:26:15,617 --> 00:26:17,140
that they could tell
to each other.
466
00:26:19,621 --> 00:26:22,711
So he would send a letter
about page such and such,
467
00:26:22,885 --> 00:26:24,583
what a wonderful poem this is
468
00:26:24,757 --> 00:26:27,324
and somehow it translated into,
"Come and meet me."
469
00:26:33,766 --> 00:26:37,639
Ted sort of described it
as almost a comedy.
470
00:26:38,161 --> 00:26:39,249
In Albuquerque,
471
00:26:39,554 --> 00:26:41,991
they just both walked up
to each other
472
00:26:42,252 --> 00:26:44,646
and sort of met
in the middle of a street
473
00:26:45,081 --> 00:26:49,390
and the agents,
at a later point, said,
474
00:26:49,564 --> 00:26:51,261
"Oh, my gosh,
don't ever do that."
475
00:26:51,435 --> 00:26:54,090
You know, "You can't both
come from different directions
476
00:26:54,264 --> 00:26:55,831
and meet in the middle
of a street like that."
477
00:26:56,571 --> 00:27:00,227
But it was during that
time that Ted did pass along
478
00:27:00,531 --> 00:27:03,926
the rough plans
for the implosion bomb.
479
00:27:05,145 --> 00:27:08,104
I transmitted the concept
of the implosion,
480
00:27:08,975 --> 00:27:11,368
in which you design
the explosive in such a way,
481
00:27:11,542 --> 00:27:13,806
when the explosives
are exploded,
482
00:27:14,371 --> 00:27:17,113
the fissionable material
is squeezed down.
483
00:27:17,287 --> 00:27:19,333
And it will be
a very rapid energy release
484
00:27:19,507 --> 00:27:21,422
and the exploding bomb.
485
00:27:22,728 --> 00:27:24,991
It was one of the major secrets
of the war.
486
00:27:25,165 --> 00:27:28,081
Ted had passed along
the first information
487
00:27:28,255 --> 00:27:31,127
the Soviets received
that actually showed
488
00:27:31,301 --> 00:27:34,827
the diagram of this bomb
that would blow up Nagasaki.
489
00:27:35,131 --> 00:27:39,353
It corroborated
the information given by Fuchs.
490
00:27:40,397 --> 00:27:42,269
Stalin would have
been very dubious
491
00:27:42,443 --> 00:27:46,316
about just getting the version
from one spy, Klaus Fuchs,
492
00:27:46,621 --> 00:27:48,144
who was, after all, a German.
493
00:27:48,623 --> 00:27:51,191
The fact that they had
identical versions
494
00:27:51,582 --> 00:27:54,847
from two spies
in two different divisions
495
00:27:55,325 --> 00:27:56,631
was very persuasive.
496
00:27:57,066 --> 00:28:00,287
And so, they were able
to devote billions of rubles
497
00:28:00,461 --> 00:28:03,986
at a time when the economy
could not have allowed them
498
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:05,814
to work on
a speculative project.
499
00:28:06,075 --> 00:28:08,817
We feel this probably
speeded up the Soviet
500
00:28:09,165 --> 00:28:11,690
development of the bomb
by about five years or so.
501
00:28:17,826 --> 00:28:18,914
I was there.
502
00:28:20,394 --> 00:28:22,875
The test was carried out
in an almost deserted region.
503
00:28:23,049 --> 00:28:24,615
There were people
who lived there
504
00:28:25,225 --> 00:28:27,444
and, uh,
an emergency might develop,
505
00:28:27,618 --> 00:28:30,317
in which they would have
to be evacuated very rapidly.
506
00:28:31,971 --> 00:28:34,364
So I was with
a bunch of the GIs
507
00:28:34,625 --> 00:28:36,584
and we just whiled
away the time
508
00:28:36,758 --> 00:28:38,586
talking about this,
that and the other.
509
00:28:39,979 --> 00:28:42,459
I remember a lot
of the discussion, uh...
510
00:28:44,635 --> 00:28:48,509
...was about whether marriage
would endure as an institution
511
00:28:50,163 --> 00:28:53,035
and whether it wasn't true that
as people's lifestyles change,
512
00:28:53,209 --> 00:28:56,604
you could expect marriage to be
a sensible arrangement anymore.
513
00:28:57,648 --> 00:29:00,216
So that's the subject
that we worked on
514
00:29:00,477 --> 00:29:02,218
while we were waiting
for the explosion.
515
00:29:06,179 --> 00:29:07,658
And then the time came.
516
00:29:37,253 --> 00:29:38,907
And it was a rather
awesome sight.
517
00:29:45,827 --> 00:29:47,394
And certainly made
people think,
518
00:29:47,568 --> 00:29:49,570
"What the hell is this
and what are we getting into?"
519
00:29:57,578 --> 00:29:59,623
The mood was generally
one of celebration.
520
00:30:00,146 --> 00:30:04,063
It was a...
quite a striking success.
521
00:30:04,367 --> 00:30:07,762
♪ ["As Time Goes By"
by Rudy Vallée Plays] ♪
522
00:30:08,067 --> 00:30:09,938
♪ This day and age
We're living in ♪
523
00:30:10,199 --> 00:30:12,593
♪ Gives cause
For apprehension... ♪
524
00:30:12,811 --> 00:30:14,725
I didn't go
to any of the parties.
525
00:30:15,378 --> 00:30:18,207
People got noisemakers
and they lit little fires.
526
00:30:18,381 --> 00:30:20,731
♪ ...We get a trifle weary ♪
527
00:30:20,906 --> 00:30:23,473
♪ With Mr. Einstein's theory ♪
528
00:30:23,647 --> 00:30:26,694
♪ So we must get down
To earth at times ♪
529
00:30:26,868 --> 00:30:30,437
♪ Relax
Relieve the tension... ♪
530
00:30:30,916 --> 00:30:33,396
I was peeved by
the reaction of my colleagues.
531
00:30:33,570 --> 00:30:36,399
I didn't think
that this was quite the way
532
00:30:36,573 --> 00:30:40,882
to react to such a
foreboding event.
533
00:30:42,318 --> 00:30:44,146
I went back to a dormitory
534
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,757
where I played some music
in my crummy record player.
535
00:30:46,932 --> 00:30:51,632
♪ ...Still the same old story
A fight for love and glory ♪
536
00:30:51,806 --> 00:30:53,764
♪ A case of do or die... ♪
537
00:31:01,511 --> 00:31:04,210
I mean, it's as if I was
in a little isolation facility,
538
00:31:04,384 --> 00:31:05,689
apart from everybody else.
539
00:31:19,834 --> 00:31:22,881
A large group of physicists
in the Manhattan Project
540
00:31:23,185 --> 00:31:25,796
wrote a letter to Truman,
541
00:31:26,275 --> 00:31:28,451
who was the president
at that time,
542
00:31:30,149 --> 00:31:34,805
that they didn't sign up for
working on this to bomb Japan.
543
00:31:39,506 --> 00:31:41,029
So they proposed
544
00:31:41,203 --> 00:31:43,075
why don't we have
a demonstration blast
545
00:31:43,249 --> 00:31:46,513
in the desert and invite
Japanese military officials?
546
00:31:52,649 --> 00:31:55,261
Others said we should
just drop the project
547
00:31:55,435 --> 00:31:57,524
because there were
many secret communications
548
00:31:57,698 --> 00:31:59,178
that were intercepted
549
00:31:59,352 --> 00:32:02,921
that suggested that Japan
was about to surrender.
550
00:32:04,052 --> 00:32:06,489
They gave the letter
551
00:32:06,663 --> 00:32:09,710
to Leslie Groves
for transmission to Truman.
552
00:32:10,493 --> 00:32:12,756
Leslie Groves did not agree,
553
00:32:12,931 --> 00:32:14,845
so Truman
never got that letter.
554
00:32:17,196 --> 00:32:19,850
It's probably unlikely
that Truman
555
00:32:20,025 --> 00:32:21,548
would have been convinced.
556
00:32:23,289 --> 00:32:25,378
We know now from a memoir
557
00:32:25,552 --> 00:32:28,772
that General Eisenhower recalled
558
00:32:28,990 --> 00:32:32,167
when Secretary of War Stimson
briefed him
559
00:32:32,428 --> 00:32:34,691
on the forthcoming use
of the bomb.
560
00:32:34,865 --> 00:32:37,999
I voiced to him
my belief that, quote,
561
00:32:38,217 --> 00:32:44,136
"Japan was at that very moment
seeking some way to surrender
562
00:32:44,397 --> 00:32:46,660
with a minimum loss of face
563
00:32:46,921 --> 00:32:50,316
and that dropping the bomb
was completely unnecessary."
564
00:32:50,751 --> 00:32:52,361
And I thought that...
565
00:32:52,709 --> 00:32:55,364
"Our country should avoid
shocking the world opinion
566
00:32:55,669 --> 00:32:58,802
by the use of a weapon
who employment was,
567
00:32:59,020 --> 00:33:01,892
I thought, no longer mandatory
568
00:33:02,197 --> 00:33:04,547
as a measure
to save American lives."
569
00:33:06,462 --> 00:33:08,682
The political target
of the bombing
570
00:33:09,161 --> 00:33:11,293
was evidently the Soviet Union.
571
00:33:12,033 --> 00:33:15,602
If the Russians were
about to invade Japan,
572
00:33:15,819 --> 00:33:17,734
the U.S. wanted to say,
573
00:33:17,952 --> 00:33:22,565
"It was our atomic bomb
that made Japan collapse."
574
00:33:23,131 --> 00:33:25,307
"It was not the Russians."
575
00:33:34,273 --> 00:33:36,057
Every type of transportation
576
00:33:36,231 --> 00:33:37,711
was completely wiped out.
577
00:33:38,277 --> 00:33:40,235
All institutions
and organizations,
578
00:33:40,409 --> 00:33:42,542
public and private,
were destroyed.
579
00:33:45,458 --> 00:33:47,025
Over the radio
from the United States
580
00:33:47,199 --> 00:33:48,548
came the announcement
581
00:33:48,852 --> 00:33:51,029
that the deadly weapon
was the atomic bomb,
582
00:33:51,768 --> 00:33:53,509
the first ever used
in the world.
583
00:33:54,815 --> 00:33:56,817
As the situation quieted down,
584
00:33:57,383 --> 00:34:00,081
it became clear
how fearful the bomb was.
585
00:34:00,386 --> 00:34:03,041
Fearful beyond
ordinary human imagination.
586
00:34:04,999 --> 00:34:06,783
This is Major Tom Ferebee
587
00:34:06,957 --> 00:34:09,090
of Marksville, North Carolina,
588
00:34:09,656 --> 00:34:12,572
bombardier
of the first atomic bomber.
589
00:34:13,399 --> 00:34:15,009
Would you give us
some of your reactions
590
00:34:15,183 --> 00:34:17,272
over the target
of Hiroshima?
591
00:34:17,881 --> 00:34:19,840
Uh, my navigator had me
592
00:34:20,014 --> 00:34:22,103
perfectly lined up
with the target.
593
00:34:22,625 --> 00:34:24,323
When I touched down
on my site,
594
00:34:24,497 --> 00:34:28,675
I could clearly see the city
of Hiroshima within my bombsite.
595
00:34:29,110 --> 00:34:32,635
After we felt the explosion
hit the airplane,
596
00:34:32,809 --> 00:34:34,550
that is the concussion waves,
597
00:34:34,724 --> 00:34:36,770
we turned around
to take a look at it.
598
00:34:36,987 --> 00:34:38,511
The sight that greeted our eyes
599
00:34:38,685 --> 00:34:41,688
was quite beyond
what we had expected
600
00:34:41,862 --> 00:34:45,866
because we saw this cloud
of boiling dust and debris.
601
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:47,955
Beneath that
was hidden the ruins
602
00:34:48,129 --> 00:34:49,826
of the city of Hiroshima.
603
00:34:51,437 --> 00:34:54,266
The world will note
that the first atomic bomb
604
00:34:54,614 --> 00:34:58,052
was dropped on Hiroshima,
a military base.
605
00:34:59,053 --> 00:35:01,621
That was because
we wished in this first attack
606
00:35:02,056 --> 00:35:04,450
to avoid,
in so far as possible,
607
00:35:04,928 --> 00:35:06,321
the killing of civilians.
608
00:35:09,716 --> 00:35:11,979
Hiroshima, seen from the air,
609
00:35:12,153 --> 00:35:13,850
after the atomic bomb blast
610
00:35:14,024 --> 00:35:15,722
that virtually erased this city
611
00:35:15,896 --> 00:35:18,333
of 340,000 people
from the Earth.
612
00:35:19,334 --> 00:35:20,901
As far as the eye can see,
613
00:35:21,162 --> 00:35:23,338
stretched scenes
of desolation and ruin.
614
00:35:23,686 --> 00:35:26,298
Four square miles
leveled by one bomb.
615
00:35:26,646 --> 00:35:28,387
The product of allied science
616
00:35:28,604 --> 00:35:30,998
and a climactic answer
to the terror and aggression
617
00:35:31,172 --> 00:35:32,739
let loose upon the world
by Japan.
618
00:35:36,873 --> 00:35:39,485
The U.S. said,
we had to do the bombing
619
00:35:39,833 --> 00:35:43,532
because otherwise,
we would have to invade Japan
620
00:35:44,098 --> 00:35:49,016
and that would have cost
20,000 American troops
621
00:35:49,190 --> 00:35:50,583
that they would
lose their lives.
622
00:35:55,762 --> 00:35:56,980
At the end of two weeks,
623
00:35:57,155 --> 00:35:58,634
which was the critical period,
624
00:35:59,069 --> 00:36:01,202
burns and cuts,
which appeared to be curing,
625
00:36:01,637 --> 00:36:02,986
suddenly worsened.
626
00:36:03,465 --> 00:36:05,902
Hemorrhages developed,
which could not be stopped.
627
00:36:06,338 --> 00:36:08,122
Many died
and the number of deaths
628
00:36:08,296 --> 00:36:10,168
kept mounting from day-to-day.
629
00:36:11,865 --> 00:36:13,910
Since hundreds
of thousands of people died
630
00:36:14,084 --> 00:36:15,390
in this atomic bombing,
631
00:36:15,651 --> 00:36:17,305
that number
of American troops
632
00:36:17,610 --> 00:36:19,699
continually got inflated.
633
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,702
A hundred thousand,
then it was a quarter million,
634
00:36:22,876 --> 00:36:26,140
a half a million, until
finally, a few years later,
635
00:36:27,054 --> 00:36:29,752
Truman would say,
"We saved a million lives
636
00:36:30,231 --> 00:36:33,669
of American troops
because of the bombing."
637
00:36:38,587 --> 00:36:40,502
Two hundred thousand
people had been incinerated
638
00:36:40,676 --> 00:36:42,983
and nobody seemed
to care much.
639
00:36:43,636 --> 00:36:45,246
Worse than just callousness
640
00:36:45,420 --> 00:36:47,248
and I don't know
how to describe it,
641
00:36:47,422 --> 00:36:49,163
except as maybe uncivilized.
642
00:36:50,556 --> 00:36:54,386
I remember it was a jukebox
and, uh,
643
00:36:54,734 --> 00:36:56,083
incessantly all day long,
644
00:36:56,257 --> 00:36:58,346
people was playing
some damn record
645
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,130
that went something like,
646
00:37:00,479 --> 00:37:03,264
"Nagasaki, Hiroshima,
blah, blah, blah, blah,"
647
00:37:03,438 --> 00:37:05,048
in a tone of jubilation.
648
00:37:05,484 --> 00:37:06,876
And, "Oh boy, ain't we great?
649
00:37:07,050 --> 00:37:09,009
Look what we did,
we really smashed 'em."
650
00:37:09,966 --> 00:37:14,101
♪ Hiroshima, Nagasaki paid
A big price for their sins ♪
651
00:37:14,275 --> 00:37:16,190
♪ When scorched
From the face of earth ♪
652
00:37:16,364 --> 00:37:17,844
♪ Their battle could not win ♪
653
00:37:18,453 --> 00:37:22,457
♪ But on that day of judgment
When comes a greater power ♪
654
00:37:22,762 --> 00:37:26,722
♪ We will not know the minute
And we'll not know the hour ♪
655
00:37:27,462 --> 00:37:31,423
♪ Atomic power, atomic power ♪
656
00:37:32,032 --> 00:37:35,905
♪ Was given
By the mighty hand of God ♪
657
00:37:36,079 --> 00:37:37,211
♪ Atomic power... ♪
658
00:37:37,385 --> 00:37:38,995
With this bomb,
we have now added
659
00:37:39,169 --> 00:37:43,565
a new and revolutionary
increase in destruction.
660
00:37:49,658 --> 00:37:52,357
We have spent
more than two billion dollars
661
00:37:52,835 --> 00:37:57,318
on the greatest achievement
of organized science in history.
662
00:37:57,797 --> 00:38:01,191
♪ ...It was given
By the mighty hand of God... ♪
663
00:38:03,063 --> 00:38:06,109
I was afraid that a state
with such a monopoly
664
00:38:06,284 --> 00:38:07,285
might spell...
665
00:38:09,025 --> 00:38:13,552
might trigger
very catastrophic events.
666
00:38:15,162 --> 00:38:16,946
The main enemy
667
00:38:17,643 --> 00:38:20,776
was viewed to be Russia
after the war was over.
668
00:38:24,084 --> 00:38:26,521
A series of plans
were drawn up,
669
00:38:26,695 --> 00:38:28,436
these were all secret,
with names
670
00:38:28,610 --> 00:38:33,833
like Pincher and Broiler
and Shakedown,
671
00:38:34,747 --> 00:38:36,139
to figure out
672
00:38:36,836 --> 00:38:41,101
how many atomic bombs
would be needed
673
00:38:41,449 --> 00:38:43,321
to defeat the Soviet Union.
674
00:38:45,105 --> 00:38:48,326
The generals, since about 1945,
675
00:38:48,717 --> 00:38:50,153
were actually making plans
676
00:38:50,328 --> 00:38:53,069
to drop atom bombs
on Russian cities.
677
00:38:59,946 --> 00:39:01,861
They wanted to bomb
the Russians to shit.
678
00:39:02,557 --> 00:39:04,211
They figured
they really need
679
00:39:04,385 --> 00:39:07,127
a lot of atomic bombs dropped
on the Soviet Union
680
00:39:07,388 --> 00:39:08,998
to cripple it,
681
00:39:09,347 --> 00:39:12,698
so it couldn't retaliate
by invading Western Europe,
682
00:39:13,046 --> 00:39:14,830
which we could not combat.
683
00:39:15,831 --> 00:39:17,833
On the side
of the United States,
684
00:39:18,878 --> 00:39:20,967
we're looking
at the nuclear war planners,
685
00:39:21,141 --> 00:39:23,230
being largely from Wall Street.
686
00:39:26,102 --> 00:39:28,278
A very large portion of them
687
00:39:28,453 --> 00:39:31,804
were Wall Street bankers
and industrialists.
688
00:39:36,722 --> 00:39:41,901
They had a view that the bomb
would be a monopoly
689
00:39:42,118 --> 00:39:45,861
and allow the U.S.
to easily take over
690
00:39:46,122 --> 00:39:48,821
the imperial role
around the world.
691
00:39:54,130 --> 00:39:58,831
Bankers and industrialists
want economic domination.
692
00:40:01,660 --> 00:40:05,272
Right after the war,
there was an agreement
693
00:40:05,446 --> 00:40:07,622
between the four allies,
694
00:40:07,796 --> 00:40:10,146
England, France,
U.S., and Russia,
695
00:40:10,756 --> 00:40:14,716
to split the oil in Iran.
696
00:40:15,761 --> 00:40:19,286
The U.S. decided
that the Soviet Union
697
00:40:19,460 --> 00:40:22,855
should not share
any of that oil.
698
00:40:23,769 --> 00:40:27,468
So, the Soviets
were very angry about that
699
00:40:27,642 --> 00:40:30,776
and moved troops
to their border with Iran
700
00:40:30,993 --> 00:40:32,734
to enforce what they said
701
00:40:32,908 --> 00:40:36,259
would be an equal share
of the oil.
702
00:40:36,782 --> 00:40:39,262
So, Truman made a threat
703
00:40:39,959 --> 00:40:42,222
that if you don't pull
your troops back
704
00:40:42,396 --> 00:40:45,530
from that border
within 48 hours,
705
00:40:46,531 --> 00:40:47,749
we will bomb you.
706
00:40:48,663 --> 00:40:53,059
And it was clear to the Soviets
we were talking atomic bombs.
707
00:40:53,363 --> 00:40:56,628
The Soviets withdrew
their troops in 24 hours.
708
00:41:37,277 --> 00:41:38,626
I remember the day
709
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,977
when the announcement came
710
00:41:42,412 --> 00:41:44,502
that the Soviets
had exploded a bomb.
711
00:41:48,941 --> 00:41:50,682
News anchor: President Truman's
dramatic announcement
712
00:41:50,856 --> 00:41:53,206
that Russia has created
an atomic explosion
713
00:41:53,467 --> 00:41:55,643
sends reporters racing
for Flushing Meadow,
714
00:41:55,817 --> 00:41:57,384
where Russia's
Vyshinsky arrives
715
00:41:57,558 --> 00:41:58,994
to address the United Nations.
716
00:42:00,039 --> 00:42:01,954
We said nothing, of course.
717
00:42:02,128 --> 00:42:04,304
News anchor: ...about Russia's
atomic progress in his address.
718
00:42:04,609 --> 00:42:07,307
He accuses the West
of planning atomic war...
719
00:42:07,742 --> 00:42:09,657
But immediately
after lunch went for a walk.
720
00:42:10,832 --> 00:42:12,834
And I felt so proud of him,
721
00:42:13,574 --> 00:42:15,968
as if he had done it
all by himself.
722
00:42:22,061 --> 00:42:25,630
It was after that,
the whole propaganda apparatus
723
00:42:26,108 --> 00:42:28,415
was devoted to scaring the hell
out of the American public.
724
00:42:28,589 --> 00:42:31,157
♪ There's a Communist
Ambition now ♪
725
00:42:31,331 --> 00:42:33,028
♪ To rule or wreck us all ♪
726
00:42:33,289 --> 00:42:35,378
♪ With atomic ammunition ♪
727
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:37,772
♪ They would like
To see us fall ♪
728
00:42:37,946 --> 00:42:39,948
♪ Peaceful men of
every nation ♪
729
00:42:40,122 --> 00:42:42,168
♪ Would become
As common slaves ♪
730
00:42:42,342 --> 00:42:44,736
♪ We'll prevent
That situation better ♪
731
00:42:44,910 --> 00:42:47,434
♪ We shall fill our graves... ♪
732
00:42:54,963 --> 00:42:58,880
Let's give Jerry a nightmare,
a real red nightmare.
733
00:43:02,188 --> 00:43:03,581
I'll be upstairs.
Hey!
734
00:43:04,669 --> 00:43:06,148
What is this?
Where do you think you're going?
735
00:43:06,322 --> 00:43:07,628
We have no time
for explanation.
736
00:43:07,802 --> 00:43:09,282
I don't care
who sent you or why.
737
00:43:09,674 --> 00:43:11,153
You're not gonna take another
step until I see a warrant.
738
00:43:11,327 --> 00:43:14,069
It's true, Daddy.
I did volunteer for farm work.
739
00:43:14,896 --> 00:43:16,158
But Linda, why?
740
00:43:16,681 --> 00:43:18,813
The party convinced me
that I should free myself
741
00:43:18,987 --> 00:43:21,381
of the lingering bourgeois
influence of family life.
742
00:43:24,950 --> 00:43:26,342
It's your fault.
743
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:27,735
You should have spent
more time training us
744
00:43:27,909 --> 00:43:29,432
to think along party lines.
745
00:43:29,607 --> 00:43:31,173
It will be my duty
to report you.
746
00:43:31,434 --> 00:43:33,523
♪ ...Here's a question
Mr. Stalin ♪
747
00:43:33,698 --> 00:43:35,613
♪ And it's you
Who must decide ♪
748
00:43:35,874 --> 00:43:38,050
♪ When atomic bombs
Start falling ♪
749
00:43:38,224 --> 00:43:42,315
♪ Do you have
A place to hide? ♪
750
00:43:44,273 --> 00:43:48,364
I don't think
you should overestimate
751
00:43:48,538 --> 00:43:53,239
the historical or political sophistication
752
00:43:53,456 --> 00:43:57,330
of either my father or Ted Hall,
753
00:43:57,635 --> 00:44:01,290
but I do feel that
what they did was wrong.
754
00:44:02,248 --> 00:44:08,515
The thing that makes it wrong
is the association with Stalin,
755
00:44:08,733 --> 00:44:11,083
you know, a mass murderer.
756
00:44:14,303 --> 00:44:19,352
They did look the other way
as far as the crimes of Stalin.
757
00:44:22,529 --> 00:44:25,401
The terrible facts,
many of which were true
758
00:44:25,706 --> 00:44:27,273
and some of which were not,
759
00:44:27,534 --> 00:44:33,192
were all propounded
by the enemies of socialism,
760
00:44:33,453 --> 00:44:36,238
and we were for socialism.
It was very difficult to know
761
00:44:36,412 --> 00:44:38,676
exactly how to relate
to these things
762
00:44:38,937 --> 00:44:41,026
and the Communist Party, etcetera,
763
00:44:41,461 --> 00:44:43,593
declared it all lies.
764
00:44:45,508 --> 00:44:48,294
Most of the leadership
of the political apparatus
765
00:44:48,468 --> 00:44:51,863
in the Soviet Union
was wiped out under Stalin.
766
00:44:53,647 --> 00:44:55,736
And the military also
was decimated.
767
00:44:56,650 --> 00:44:59,566
It still is a great enigma
and a very difficult question,
768
00:44:59,740 --> 00:45:01,699
how to reconcile
the possibilities
769
00:45:01,873 --> 00:45:03,265
of the coexistence
770
00:45:03,570 --> 00:45:05,615
of these backward
and forward-looking features.
771
00:45:06,486 --> 00:45:10,795
I felt a tremendous compassion
for the Russian people
772
00:45:10,969 --> 00:45:13,145
and their suffering.
And certainly didn't feel
773
00:45:13,319 --> 00:45:16,017
this tender feeling
towards the Russian state.
774
00:45:17,627 --> 00:45:19,412
The fact is that he did say,
775
00:45:19,717 --> 00:45:21,153
in later years,
776
00:45:21,327 --> 00:45:24,939
that had he then known
of all the horrors
777
00:45:25,505 --> 00:45:28,551
perpetrated
by the Soviet government,
778
00:45:28,943 --> 00:45:32,338
he wouldn't have had the stomach
to pass information to them.
779
00:45:35,689 --> 00:45:41,739
That is very possibly true,
but it's also the case
780
00:45:42,914 --> 00:45:45,960
that if he hadn't done it,
781
00:45:47,309 --> 00:45:50,617
it would have been a misfortune
for the world.
782
00:45:57,493 --> 00:45:59,757
We actually joined
the Communist Party
783
00:45:59,931 --> 00:46:01,584
because they seemed to be
784
00:46:02,237 --> 00:46:06,502
the most decisive opposition
785
00:46:06,981 --> 00:46:10,724
of the American Right
786
00:46:10,985 --> 00:46:15,120
and the Republicans and people
who were against unions.
787
00:46:15,294 --> 00:46:16,774
And against strikes
788
00:46:17,383 --> 00:46:19,080
and against Black people
very often.
789
00:46:19,385 --> 00:46:21,213
I mean, this was Trumpian, basically.
790
00:46:22,127 --> 00:46:26,827
These were the people who were
wanting to make war on Russia
791
00:46:27,132 --> 00:46:31,005
after the Second World War had
finished with all its horrors.
792
00:46:31,701 --> 00:46:33,225
Ted was trying
to prevent a holocaust,
793
00:46:35,488 --> 00:46:37,577
not to advantage
the Soviet Union,
794
00:46:37,751 --> 00:46:39,579
not to disadvantage
the United States.
795
00:46:42,538 --> 00:46:45,498
Do you have
any idea, Ted, what was at stake
796
00:46:45,672 --> 00:46:49,110
if they had been able
to pin something on you?
797
00:46:50,720 --> 00:46:52,157
Phew. Um...
798
00:46:53,245 --> 00:46:57,075
Well, the obvious, um,
similar situation
799
00:46:57,249 --> 00:46:58,816
was the Rosenberg case.
800
00:47:02,036 --> 00:47:03,516
Someone had passed
801
00:47:03,690 --> 00:47:05,518
America's atomic bomb
secrets to Russia.
802
00:47:05,692 --> 00:47:07,825
This was an undisputed fact
that the whole world knew.
803
00:47:07,999 --> 00:47:09,696
The federal government
had laid the crime
804
00:47:09,870 --> 00:47:11,611
at the doorstep
of two native New Yorkers,
805
00:47:11,785 --> 00:47:13,439
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
806
00:47:13,743 --> 00:47:16,007
Their trial had excited
interest all over the world.
807
00:47:16,181 --> 00:47:18,183
The two admitted
Communist Party members knew
808
00:47:18,357 --> 00:47:20,011
that they faced
possible death sentences
809
00:47:20,185 --> 00:47:21,490
in the event
of their conviction,
810
00:47:21,664 --> 00:47:23,101
but to the end,
they both protested
811
00:47:23,275 --> 00:47:24,754
their innocence of the theft.
812
00:47:25,190 --> 00:47:31,152
And we followed the case
with grief and anxiety.
813
00:47:33,546 --> 00:47:35,069
I mean, a lot of people
were maintaining
814
00:47:35,243 --> 00:47:36,636
that the Rosenbergs
hadn't done anything.
815
00:47:37,506 --> 00:47:39,726
Ted, privately and secretly,
he told me
816
00:47:39,900 --> 00:47:42,076
he did think they had
been involved in something.
817
00:47:42,381 --> 00:47:43,773
He didn't know
anything about them.
818
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,647
He just speculated that
there was something behind it.
819
00:47:49,127 --> 00:47:51,477
Hoover was very invested
820
00:47:51,912 --> 00:47:54,175
in trying to win a conviction
821
00:47:54,784 --> 00:47:59,093
and then the execution
of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
822
00:47:59,659 --> 00:48:02,662
who actually were
guilty of, if anything,
823
00:48:03,054 --> 00:48:07,188
passing along
a much less important piece
824
00:48:07,362 --> 00:48:09,538
of a secret about Los Alamos.
825
00:48:09,843 --> 00:48:12,933
The Rosenbergs were,
uh, small fish
826
00:48:13,107 --> 00:48:14,326
compared to Ted Hall.
827
00:48:17,372 --> 00:48:18,765
February 1951,
828
00:48:19,505 --> 00:48:22,160
was when he was arrested
by the FBI.
829
00:48:24,075 --> 00:48:25,337
The FBI called me in.
830
00:48:25,511 --> 00:48:27,165
Their agents came
around one day
831
00:48:27,339 --> 00:48:28,731
and asked me please to come
and accompany them
832
00:48:28,906 --> 00:48:30,211
to the Chicago office.
833
00:48:31,125 --> 00:48:33,171
The FBI had been apprised
834
00:48:33,345 --> 00:48:36,000
of these Venona documents,
835
00:48:36,174 --> 00:48:40,265
which were translations
of secret cables that were sent
836
00:48:40,439 --> 00:48:44,182
from the Moscow Intelligence
Center in New York,
837
00:48:44,399 --> 00:48:47,533
back home to Moscow,
saying Teodor Kholl
838
00:48:47,707 --> 00:48:52,625
was one of the now assets
of the Soviet Union.
839
00:48:53,191 --> 00:48:56,411
And it looked a lot
like Theodore Hall.
840
00:48:56,716 --> 00:48:59,849
And so,
that was when the hunt resumed.
841
00:49:00,415 --> 00:49:02,809
We would like to ask you
some questions
842
00:49:02,983 --> 00:49:06,465
about your time working
at Los Alamos as a physicist.
843
00:49:07,118 --> 00:49:08,684
I'm happy to answer
a couple of questions.
844
00:49:10,730 --> 00:49:13,428
The lead investigator on this
845
00:49:13,602 --> 00:49:15,039
was Robert McQueen.
846
00:49:15,213 --> 00:49:17,128
This interview
will consist of questions
847
00:49:17,302 --> 00:49:19,130
about espionage
at Los Alamos.
848
00:49:19,913 --> 00:49:22,742
Do you know this man,
Julius Rosenberg?
849
00:49:24,091 --> 00:49:25,963
His wife, Ethel?
850
00:49:26,485 --> 00:49:27,703
I've seen it
in the newspapers.
851
00:49:27,877 --> 00:49:28,966
Do you know them?
852
00:49:29,314 --> 00:49:30,880
I don't know them personally.
853
00:49:31,533 --> 00:49:33,927
They dumped
a picture on the table
854
00:49:34,101 --> 00:49:35,929
and said,
"Do you recognize this person?"
855
00:49:36,103 --> 00:49:38,018
"Do you know who this is
and do you know who that is?"
856
00:49:38,192 --> 00:49:39,585
Young Ted:
And I don't recognize the name
857
00:49:39,759 --> 00:49:41,456
of the other gentleman
you mentioned either.
858
00:49:42,022 --> 00:49:44,720
They were very careful
to not let Ted
859
00:49:44,894 --> 00:49:47,027
and those agents
of the Soviet Union
860
00:49:47,201 --> 00:49:48,855
know that the Americans
had broken
861
00:49:49,029 --> 00:49:51,162
the World War II Venona codes.
862
00:49:51,727 --> 00:49:54,469
Sometimes they...
they turned pretty nasty.
863
00:49:54,643 --> 00:49:56,036
We have evidence
864
00:49:56,341 --> 00:49:59,213
that you furnished
classified information,
865
00:49:59,387 --> 00:50:01,302
provided it
to a Russian operative...
866
00:50:01,476 --> 00:50:02,738
But he was very aware
867
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:04,131
that they were trying
to intimidate him
868
00:50:04,305 --> 00:50:05,654
and one thing they were doing
869
00:50:05,828 --> 00:50:07,613
was keeping the...
the office overheated.
870
00:50:07,961 --> 00:50:09,310
Kornikov approached you
871
00:50:09,484 --> 00:50:12,226
about furnishing
classified information.
872
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:14,185
So that
he would feel all sweaty.
873
00:50:14,837 --> 00:50:17,536
He... he figured
that was what was going on.
874
00:50:17,710 --> 00:50:19,973
...and you
and Saville Sax began to do so.
875
00:50:20,321 --> 00:50:21,888
Young Ted: It's not true.
I've never shared
876
00:50:22,062 --> 00:50:23,585
any classified information.
877
00:50:23,759 --> 00:50:25,196
But he was
just sitting there calmly.
878
00:50:26,066 --> 00:50:29,765
He had an ability
to just to sit, not moving.
879
00:50:29,939 --> 00:50:32,246
Aren't you and Sax
a member of the Communist Party?
880
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:34,640
Com... Absolutely not.
881
00:50:36,642 --> 00:50:38,470
At one point,
they both just left me
882
00:50:38,644 --> 00:50:39,732
in the room for a while.
883
00:50:39,906 --> 00:50:41,038
We'll be right back.
884
00:50:42,213 --> 00:50:43,562
Savy, who, as a matter of fact,
885
00:50:43,736 --> 00:50:45,346
was also detained
at the same time
886
00:50:45,607 --> 00:50:48,958
and interviewed in the room
next to the room where Ted was.
887
00:50:49,655 --> 00:50:52,745
Ted and Savy had discussed
this prospect
888
00:50:53,093 --> 00:50:54,355
and they had made a plan.
889
00:50:54,529 --> 00:50:55,835
What were they going
to tell them
890
00:50:56,009 --> 00:50:57,402
and how are they going to act?
891
00:50:57,837 --> 00:51:02,668
And Sax, who had
an interesting background
892
00:51:02,842 --> 00:51:05,018
in drama
and all sorts of things,
893
00:51:05,845 --> 00:51:08,065
just put on a big act of,
894
00:51:08,978 --> 00:51:10,545
"Gee, I don't have
a very good memory."
895
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:11,938
"I can't remember this."
896
00:51:12,112 --> 00:51:13,505
"I don't know
about these things."
897
00:51:13,983 --> 00:51:16,160
His eccentricity protected him.
898
00:51:16,638 --> 00:51:19,206
How could this really
eccentric guy be a spy?
899
00:51:19,380 --> 00:51:21,208
It doesn't even make sense.
900
00:51:22,296 --> 00:51:24,081
I think he seemed
less threatening.
901
00:51:25,908 --> 00:51:28,215
And then I heard the most awful
902
00:51:28,694 --> 00:51:30,826
sounds of anguish
and grief coming...
903
00:51:31,305 --> 00:51:33,525
coming through the partition,
and from the next room.
904
00:51:34,308 --> 00:51:36,310
You came up with a plan
about how you'd become spies,
905
00:51:36,484 --> 00:51:37,964
you eventually
provided them with...
906
00:51:38,138 --> 00:51:39,966
In which
they were threatening him
907
00:51:40,140 --> 00:51:41,620
with imprisonment.
908
00:51:41,794 --> 00:51:43,796
I can't remember,
I have a bad memory
909
00:51:43,970 --> 00:51:45,667
and can't recall
what we talked about.
910
00:51:45,841 --> 00:51:47,582
Do you know what
the penalty is for espionage?
911
00:51:47,756 --> 00:51:49,280
And Savy was
much more vulnerable,
912
00:51:50,019 --> 00:51:51,369
and they were trying
to play Ted
913
00:51:51,543 --> 00:51:53,110
and Savy off against
each other.
914
00:51:53,284 --> 00:51:54,415
We could help you
avoid the electric chair.
915
00:51:54,589 --> 00:51:56,461
Please, I have a family.
916
00:51:56,939 --> 00:51:59,638
Savy, mixed up as he was,
unstable as he was,
917
00:51:59,855 --> 00:52:01,205
rose to the occasion.
918
00:52:01,466 --> 00:52:02,597
You want
to see your family again,
919
00:52:02,771 --> 00:52:04,121
you better start
cooperating with us.
920
00:52:05,774 --> 00:52:07,124
He knew but he didn't talk.
921
00:52:08,429 --> 00:52:09,996
He cried but he didn't talk.
922
00:52:12,781 --> 00:52:14,827
And then these two guys
came back to question me
923
00:52:15,001 --> 00:52:17,351
further and I think they were
just trying to scare me
924
00:52:17,525 --> 00:52:20,006
or get me
in a more susceptible mood.
925
00:52:20,224 --> 00:52:23,183
Mr. Hall, do you consent to
a search of your work and home?
926
00:52:24,967 --> 00:52:26,143
Do you have a search warrant?
927
00:52:27,796 --> 00:52:29,189
FBI Agent:
Do you have something to hide?
928
00:52:29,929 --> 00:52:32,932
Ted was a little bit
more aggressive with them.
929
00:52:33,106 --> 00:52:36,718
They did ask him,
"Did you provide information
930
00:52:36,892 --> 00:52:38,590
about the bomb
to the Soviet Union?"
931
00:52:39,678 --> 00:52:41,506
I know the kinds
of fishing expeditions
932
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:43,551
that occur in small rooms
like these.
933
00:52:43,725 --> 00:52:47,033
He said, "So, you guys,
you use really bad methods."
934
00:52:47,207 --> 00:52:49,078
"I've read about some of
the things that you've done."
935
00:52:49,253 --> 00:52:51,516
"Why are you doing this
and why did you bring me in?"
936
00:52:52,647 --> 00:52:54,649
Ted was a person
who did not lie.
937
00:52:55,694 --> 00:52:57,348
He never lied to me.
I never lied to him.
938
00:52:57,522 --> 00:52:59,132
It was quite extraordinary...
939
00:52:59,306 --> 00:53:02,091
...I think,
in matrimonial relations.
940
00:53:02,266 --> 00:53:05,007
But that was
the big lie that Ted told
941
00:53:05,182 --> 00:53:07,793
and that was the only lie
of his life as far as I know.
942
00:53:09,490 --> 00:53:11,623
And it was one
that had to be done.
943
00:53:22,503 --> 00:53:23,809
Hey...
944
00:53:24,070 --> 00:53:26,203
He came home
and told me briefly
945
00:53:26,377 --> 00:53:28,640
that they had interrogated him.
946
00:53:28,814 --> 00:53:30,294
We have to get rid
of everything.
947
00:53:30,468 --> 00:53:32,165
- Young Joan: Everything?
- Anything progressive,
948
00:53:32,339 --> 00:53:33,514
anything incendiary, all of it.
949
00:53:33,688 --> 00:53:34,950
- Okay.
- Young Ted: All of it.
950
00:53:35,734 --> 00:53:37,562
And what we had
to do now was to collect
951
00:53:37,736 --> 00:53:39,346
all the left wing literature
in the house.
952
00:54:10,769 --> 00:54:12,118
It's okay, sweetheart.
953
00:54:12,292 --> 00:54:13,380
Let's go.
954
00:54:16,992 --> 00:54:18,603
As we got into the car,
955
00:54:18,777 --> 00:54:21,388
Ted pointed out to me
a guy standing on the corner.
956
00:54:21,867 --> 00:54:23,434
He said he was one of them,
957
00:54:24,217 --> 00:54:25,262
one of the FBI guys.
958
00:54:28,613 --> 00:54:30,919
We drove to the home
of some friends
959
00:54:31,093 --> 00:54:33,835
who were active with us
in our political work,
960
00:54:34,183 --> 00:54:36,577
and we handed them
the membership files
961
00:54:36,751 --> 00:54:38,144
because I was
membership secretary
962
00:54:38,318 --> 00:54:40,146
of the Progressive Party
in that time,
963
00:54:41,190 --> 00:54:45,369
and... and we told them we had
to drop out of all activity.
964
00:54:46,500 --> 00:54:47,849
They were bewildered, "Why?"
965
00:54:49,155 --> 00:54:50,417
We couldn't explain.
966
00:54:52,506 --> 00:54:54,334
And then we drove to a spot
967
00:54:54,508 --> 00:54:58,599
where the Chicago drainage
canal passes under a bridge,
968
00:54:59,905 --> 00:55:02,299
got out, leaving Ruthie
in the back seat.
969
00:55:37,682 --> 00:55:41,120
And then we drove home
and we went to bed.
970
00:55:43,601 --> 00:55:47,779
I am at a loss to explain
how we managed to...
971
00:55:49,389 --> 00:55:52,349
retain our cool.
972
00:55:53,567 --> 00:55:55,743
It looked as if
there were storm clouds
973
00:55:55,917 --> 00:55:57,919
that were threatening
to destroy us at any moment,
974
00:55:58,093 --> 00:56:00,748
but we didn't know
what was going to happen.
975
00:56:03,577 --> 00:56:08,103
So we just practiced
this nice easy tactic of...
976
00:56:08,277 --> 00:56:11,542
...ignoring things
as much as possible,
977
00:56:11,716 --> 00:56:13,108
ignoring danger signals.
978
00:56:14,283 --> 00:56:16,590
Over the weekend,
we went out with
979
00:56:17,461 --> 00:56:21,552
Ted and Savy,
and Savy's wife Sue,
980
00:56:22,204 --> 00:56:25,947
and two push chairs,
two strollers, with babies in.
981
00:56:27,558 --> 00:56:29,168
And we strolled around
982
00:56:29,342 --> 00:56:30,909
through the freezing cold
of Chicago,
983
00:56:31,083 --> 00:56:34,173
trying to figure out
the situation and what to do.
984
00:56:34,695 --> 00:56:36,610
Young Ted: We need to get
our handler some message.
985
00:56:39,657 --> 00:56:42,137
We both realized
that the risk was horrible.
986
00:56:43,661 --> 00:56:46,881
I quail inside
even now when I think how...
987
00:56:48,579 --> 00:56:49,971
my parents would have reacted,
988
00:56:51,146 --> 00:56:53,801
supposing that
we were arrested
989
00:56:54,846 --> 00:56:56,282
and taken away from Ruthie.
990
00:56:57,239 --> 00:56:59,111
My mother
would have confiscated her.
991
00:57:00,155 --> 00:57:02,027
Uh, I mean,
it was just unbearable.
992
00:57:03,594 --> 00:57:05,422
Young Ted: We'll take it
one day at a time,
993
00:57:06,161 --> 00:57:07,424
but admit nothing.
994
00:57:16,433 --> 00:57:17,738
We dropped out
of the Communist Party
995
00:57:17,912 --> 00:57:19,958
and the Progressive Party,
996
00:57:20,654 --> 00:57:22,961
which I was
particularly active in.
997
00:57:24,223 --> 00:57:27,008
And... and that meant a lot
to me, and I was very upset.
998
00:57:27,444 --> 00:57:28,662
I was so upset.
999
00:57:29,184 --> 00:57:30,969
I was being a mummy at home,
1000
00:57:31,491 --> 00:57:34,451
and this political activity
meant a lot to me.
1001
00:57:36,061 --> 00:57:39,325
Not only from
the conscientious political
1002
00:57:39,499 --> 00:57:40,848
point of view,
I wasn't selfless,
1003
00:57:41,022 --> 00:57:42,676
I was having a good time.
1004
00:57:43,198 --> 00:57:45,200
And I was having a lot
of contact with people,
1005
00:57:45,374 --> 00:57:47,464
and I felt that I was doing
something worthwhile.
1006
00:57:48,334 --> 00:57:49,378
And, uh...
1007
00:57:51,816 --> 00:57:53,252
and I wanted to be part of that.
1008
00:57:57,691 --> 00:57:59,127
On Monday morning,
1009
00:57:59,301 --> 00:58:00,564
he went in,
he kept his appointment.
1010
00:58:00,738 --> 00:58:01,782
FBI Agent:
Good morning, Mr. Hall.
1011
00:58:01,956 --> 00:58:03,392
Young Ted: Good morning.
1012
00:58:03,958 --> 00:58:06,265
And they were all prepared
to resume questioning him.
1013
00:58:09,660 --> 00:58:10,791
I would like to pick up
1014
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:13,272
exactly where
we left off on Friday.
1015
00:58:13,446 --> 00:58:15,404
You were doing some important
work on implosion,
1016
00:58:15,622 --> 00:58:17,711
which is precisely
1017
00:58:17,885 --> 00:58:20,192
what the Soviets
needed intelligence on.
1018
00:58:21,193 --> 00:58:22,281
Have anything to say?
1019
00:58:23,108 --> 00:58:23,978
Young Ted:
I've...
1020
00:58:25,153 --> 00:58:28,200
I've thought
about this quite a bit.
1021
00:58:28,983 --> 00:58:30,376
I've spoken to my wife
about it, and...
1022
00:58:30,550 --> 00:58:31,856
He said that he had decided
1023
00:58:32,073 --> 00:58:33,248
not to converse
with them anymore.
1024
00:58:33,422 --> 00:58:34,685
And I've decided that...
1025
00:58:36,034 --> 00:58:38,036
I don't have anything else
to say on this subject,
1026
00:58:38,340 --> 00:58:39,864
and I would like
to end this interview.
1027
00:58:40,168 --> 00:58:41,518
FBI Agent: Mr. Hall,
1028
00:58:41,822 --> 00:58:43,041
I don't think that's
in your own best interest.
1029
00:58:43,868 --> 00:58:45,957
And, uh, he stood up,
1030
00:58:46,131 --> 00:58:48,437
preparing to go, and they
started threatening him.
1031
00:58:48,742 --> 00:58:50,439
Mr. Hall, do you know
what espionage is?
1032
00:58:50,614 --> 00:58:51,963
Sit back down!
1033
00:58:52,267 --> 00:58:53,530
They said
you'd better talk with us
1034
00:58:53,704 --> 00:58:55,227
or we're gonna
lock you up right now!
1035
00:58:55,836 --> 00:58:57,446
This was a bastard
called McQueen,
1036
00:58:57,621 --> 00:58:59,797
who was leading
the investigation.
1037
00:59:01,886 --> 00:59:04,932
And Ted sort of shrugged.
1038
00:59:05,716 --> 00:59:08,588
I said that I didn't want
to continue any further.
1039
00:59:08,762 --> 00:59:11,156
It was getting nowhere,
and I left.
1040
00:59:17,641 --> 00:59:18,642
They followed him,
1041
00:59:19,512 --> 00:59:21,035
and he walked
to the elevators.
1042
00:59:23,951 --> 00:59:26,563
A whole bunch of guys stood
around and watched him do this.
1043
00:59:33,874 --> 00:59:35,136
They didn't follow him.
1044
00:59:46,844 --> 00:59:48,585
It took him
to the ground floor,
1045
00:59:50,587 --> 00:59:51,718
and he walked out...
1046
00:59:54,852 --> 00:59:56,854
into the ice cold,
fresh air.
1047
00:59:59,117 --> 01:00:03,034
And he practically ran
to catch a taxi and get home.
1048
01:00:03,861 --> 01:00:06,428
And FBI agent McQueen
was very frustrated
1049
01:00:06,864 --> 01:00:08,474
because he had gotten nothing.
1050
01:00:09,475 --> 01:00:12,391
In the '90s,
after McQueen left the FBI
1051
01:00:12,565 --> 01:00:13,479
and he was a judge,
1052
01:00:13,653 --> 01:00:15,568
he said, "You know,
1053
01:00:15,786 --> 01:00:18,397
I really question whether
those Venona documents
1054
01:00:18,571 --> 01:00:20,442
would have been admissible
in court."
1055
01:00:26,448 --> 01:00:28,886
One day,
this guy comes up,
1056
01:00:29,060 --> 01:00:30,539
and he said he was
from the telephone company
1057
01:00:30,757 --> 01:00:32,629
and there was a fault
that he had to correct.
1058
01:00:33,586 --> 01:00:35,632
He went into the house,
and he took the phone apart.
1059
01:00:36,502 --> 01:00:38,809
We had a knock at the door,
1060
01:00:39,113 --> 01:00:40,680
and outside the door was Ed,
1061
01:00:40,854 --> 01:00:42,813
Ted's brother,
who joined the Air Force.
1062
01:00:42,987 --> 01:00:45,903
Ed! [chuckles] What a surprise!
1063
01:00:46,338 --> 01:00:48,993
I have this brother
who is 11 years older than me
1064
01:00:49,167 --> 01:00:52,257
and somewhat
of an engineering genius.
1065
01:00:53,127 --> 01:00:54,607
For better or for worse
1066
01:00:54,781 --> 01:00:56,565
with regard
to the future of his soul,
1067
01:00:56,740 --> 01:00:59,394
he's the person who invented
and was the real architect
1068
01:00:59,568 --> 01:01:02,397
of intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
1069
01:01:02,659 --> 01:01:05,226
...two, one, zero.
1070
01:01:13,713 --> 01:01:15,454
We were delighted to see him.
1071
01:01:16,020 --> 01:01:18,239
And then Ed and Ted
went for a long walk,
1072
01:01:18,979 --> 01:01:21,503
during which Ed said,
1073
01:01:21,808 --> 01:01:23,767
"What sort of a mess
have you got yourself into?"
1074
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:27,684
Young Ted: Oh, my God, Ed,
of course, you know,
1075
01:01:27,858 --> 01:01:30,338
I... I didn't mean to get you
in any sort of trouble.
1076
01:01:30,948 --> 01:01:33,690
Ted explained
what he had done
1077
01:01:34,081 --> 01:01:35,822
and what the FBI were doing.
1078
01:01:35,996 --> 01:01:37,476
I just need to know
what I'm dealing with.
1079
01:01:37,650 --> 01:01:41,915
Ed didn't criticize him
in any way.
1080
01:01:43,047 --> 01:01:45,092
The repairman
finished his repairs,
1081
01:01:46,180 --> 01:01:48,617
and then Ed and Ted came back
1082
01:01:49,053 --> 01:01:52,056
and Ed went over
to the telephone...
1083
01:01:55,450 --> 01:01:56,451
...listened,
1084
01:01:57,235 --> 01:01:58,366
went...
1085
01:02:01,108 --> 01:02:02,327
...made gestures
1086
01:02:02,806 --> 01:02:04,895
indicating that
we won't talk about this...
1087
01:02:06,244 --> 01:02:08,072
that yes, it was bugged.
1088
01:02:09,769 --> 01:02:12,380
In the decade
after Ted had been instrumental
1089
01:02:12,554 --> 01:02:14,165
in making the atomic bomb,
1090
01:02:14,382 --> 01:02:18,560
his brother Ed was instrumental
in making America
1091
01:02:18,735 --> 01:02:20,911
be able to build
intercontinental rockets.
1092
01:02:21,172 --> 01:02:22,434
That could hold
those bombs?
1093
01:02:22,608 --> 01:02:24,088
Theoretically, yeah,
1094
01:02:24,262 --> 01:02:26,264
that could theoretically
hold those bombs.
1095
01:02:27,439 --> 01:02:29,484
And, uh, and it might...
1096
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,400
It might have been very awkward
for the powers-that-be,
1097
01:02:32,574 --> 01:02:37,318
if they aimed a punch at me
and they ended up...
1098
01:02:37,623 --> 01:02:39,190
...hitting him by mistake.
1099
01:02:41,235 --> 01:02:43,672
It would have been
a deep disgrace for them,
1100
01:02:44,412 --> 01:02:47,676
if it were found out
that their chief rocket expert
1101
01:02:47,851 --> 01:02:51,942
was the brother
of their atom spy.
1102
01:02:53,378 --> 01:02:55,772
It's a beautiful picture.
1103
01:02:57,034 --> 01:02:58,557
He would never have, um...
1104
01:02:59,863 --> 01:03:05,216
chastised me or, um,
attacked me in any way anyhow.
1105
01:03:07,174 --> 01:03:11,004
I said to Ed,
"You know, we really...
1106
01:03:11,962 --> 01:03:15,313
we really appreciate the way
you reacted to this thing,"
1107
01:03:16,140 --> 01:03:18,142
and he said,
"How else could I have reacted?"
1108
01:03:19,491 --> 01:03:21,232
And he really...
he really had no idea.
1109
01:03:21,406 --> 01:03:23,582
This was his brother,
what on earth could he have...
1110
01:03:24,496 --> 01:03:25,714
could he have thought?
1111
01:03:25,889 --> 01:03:27,064
Whatever his brother does
is okay.
1112
01:03:27,978 --> 01:03:29,109
That's the way it is.
1113
01:03:32,678 --> 01:03:35,724
and he said, "Well, well, well,
sure, go ahead."
1114
01:03:36,421 --> 01:03:39,598
"Withdraw my clearance,
you've seen the end of me."
1115
01:03:42,557 --> 01:03:45,952
Well, that's one fact that
most people don't know about
1116
01:03:46,126 --> 01:03:47,954
when they raise
the question of why I...
1117
01:03:48,302 --> 01:03:49,347
wasn't locked up.
1118
01:03:54,831 --> 01:03:56,963
We did a lot
of driving around
1119
01:03:57,137 --> 01:03:58,486
in our little old car.
1120
01:03:59,574 --> 01:04:01,576
The FBI started following us,
1121
01:04:02,186 --> 01:04:04,188
and I would sit beside Ted,
1122
01:04:04,362 --> 01:04:05,537
and when he noticed
in the mirror
1123
01:04:05,711 --> 01:04:07,234
that there was a car behind,
1124
01:04:07,495 --> 01:04:09,802
he would go like that,
indicating that we had a tail.
1125
01:04:10,672 --> 01:04:12,152
They tailed us
all over the place
1126
01:04:12,326 --> 01:04:14,546
for no absolute purpose
from their point of view,
1127
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:16,765
because we didn't go anyplace
that they were interested in.
1128
01:04:18,332 --> 01:04:19,856
I think it was just harassment.
1129
01:04:21,466 --> 01:04:22,989
But we took that as well
1130
01:04:23,163 --> 01:04:24,991
with complete composure,
both of us.
1131
01:04:26,123 --> 01:04:28,125
And from then on,
I had this secret with him,
1132
01:04:29,691 --> 01:04:31,824
which we never spoke about
because he was...
1133
01:04:32,042 --> 01:04:34,871
he was afraid of microphones.
1134
01:04:36,089 --> 01:04:37,874
The FBI continued
1135
01:04:38,831 --> 01:04:41,703
questioning all sorts of people
who were in the circle
1136
01:04:41,965 --> 01:04:44,315
of friends and family members,
1137
01:04:44,619 --> 01:04:47,579
and, you know, it caused
quite a bit of discomfort.
1138
01:04:48,101 --> 01:04:50,974
Supposing that we were arrested,
1139
01:04:51,148 --> 01:04:53,324
both of us,
like the Rosenbergs...
1140
01:04:54,978 --> 01:04:57,502
Oh, God, I mean, the disgrace
1141
01:04:58,198 --> 01:05:01,898
among all our acquaintances,
and family and friends, phew.
1142
01:05:02,986 --> 01:05:04,204
Didn't bear thinking about.
1143
01:05:04,944 --> 01:05:08,948
We both felt things may go
very, very wrong.
1144
01:05:09,906 --> 01:05:12,647
The danger was extreme.
1145
01:05:14,780 --> 01:05:16,477
Must have been
sometime during the spring,
1146
01:05:16,651 --> 01:05:18,218
Ted, he had
actually going for a walk
1147
01:05:18,392 --> 01:05:21,178
with his Russian guy,
who came to Chicago.
1148
01:05:22,005 --> 01:05:25,443
The only way out of it,
apart from the FBI
1149
01:05:25,617 --> 01:05:27,401
changing their minds
and leaving us alone,
1150
01:05:27,793 --> 01:05:30,056
was to be taken
1151
01:05:30,230 --> 01:05:33,930
off to the Soviet Union
and be evacuated.
1152
01:05:35,409 --> 01:05:39,065
Secretly, I rather relished
the idea of going to Russia
1153
01:05:39,239 --> 01:05:42,764
and learning Russian.
Like a fool.
1154
01:05:44,114 --> 01:05:45,506
This Russian guy,
1155
01:05:45,767 --> 01:05:47,117
he indicated that
if we were in New York,
1156
01:05:47,291 --> 01:05:48,422
they could help us more.
1157
01:05:49,206 --> 01:05:52,513
And as it happened,
Ted had just finished his PhD.
1158
01:05:52,905 --> 01:05:55,168
So he applied for a job
1159
01:05:56,561 --> 01:05:58,041
at the Sloan Kettering Institute
1160
01:05:58,215 --> 01:05:59,781
for Cancer Research
in New York City.
1161
01:06:01,174 --> 01:06:02,654
They hired him
1162
01:06:03,046 --> 01:06:05,700
for the princely sum
of I think 6000 dollars a year.
1163
01:06:06,701 --> 01:06:09,226
To my mother's
hysterical displeasure,
1164
01:06:10,183 --> 01:06:14,144
we left Chicago
and moved to New York.
1165
01:06:17,669 --> 01:06:20,280
We bought a nice little
house in Connecticut.
1166
01:06:22,761 --> 01:06:25,198
Debbie was born
in 1954 in May...
1167
01:06:27,722 --> 01:06:30,073
and we began living
a suburban life,
1168
01:06:31,944 --> 01:06:34,164
in which my role was
to keep the house going
1169
01:06:34,338 --> 01:06:35,904
and look after the kids.
1170
01:06:38,037 --> 01:06:39,647
And I was really...
1171
01:06:40,735 --> 01:06:42,476
fairly successful
in my role as a mother,
1172
01:06:42,650 --> 01:06:46,132
but when it came
to keeping house, I was rotten,
1173
01:06:46,306 --> 01:06:47,742
and it was a source
of great conflict
1174
01:06:47,916 --> 01:06:49,266
between me and Ted.
1175
01:06:50,006 --> 01:06:52,356
Because I did not really like
accepting that my destiny
1176
01:06:52,530 --> 01:06:54,575
was to keep the house clean, and...
1177
01:06:55,924 --> 01:06:57,404
And I had nobody to talk to.
1178
01:06:57,839 --> 01:06:59,319
There was nobody
that I could speak to
1179
01:06:59,493 --> 01:07:01,147
about things
that really concerned me.
1180
01:07:01,669 --> 01:07:03,280
I was friendly with some
of the women around there,
1181
01:07:03,454 --> 01:07:06,065
but all that one
can really speak about was
1182
01:07:06,544 --> 01:07:07,936
babies and labor pains, and...
1183
01:07:09,677 --> 01:07:12,071
cooking and stuff.
And, well, that...
1184
01:07:12,593 --> 01:07:15,379
that... that interested me
to some degree, there's a limit.
1185
01:07:16,815 --> 01:07:18,469
But, politics, no.
1186
01:07:18,643 --> 01:07:19,861
Absolutely not.
1187
01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:34,006
One of the greatest
peacetime spy dramas
1188
01:07:34,180 --> 01:07:36,704
in the nation's history
reaches its climax
1189
01:07:37,140 --> 01:07:40,012
as Julius Rosenberg
and Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg,
1190
01:07:40,186 --> 01:07:41,709
who, with her husband,
was convicted
1191
01:07:41,883 --> 01:07:44,147
of actually transmitting
the secrets to Russia
1192
01:07:44,321 --> 01:07:46,105
through Soviet diplomatic channels,
1193
01:07:46,279 --> 01:07:49,239
enter the Federal Building
in New York to hear their doom.
1194
01:07:49,935 --> 01:07:53,112
It is a stern jurist they face
in Judge Irving Kaufman.
1195
01:07:54,505 --> 01:07:57,769
He sentenced both Rosenbergs
to death in the electric chair.
1196
01:07:58,291 --> 01:08:00,032
It is the first time
in peacetime
1197
01:08:00,250 --> 01:08:02,252
that such a death penalty
has been handed down,
1198
01:08:02,600 --> 01:08:05,298
and while appeals to the
highest courts are planned,
1199
01:08:05,733 --> 01:08:08,084
it certainly appears
that the spies
1200
01:08:08,388 --> 01:08:12,218
are headed along
a one-way street.
1201
01:08:12,610 --> 01:08:15,003
When the verdict came down,
and they were
1202
01:08:15,178 --> 01:08:17,180
sentenced to be executed...
1203
01:08:21,140 --> 01:08:23,055
we didn't know
what was going to happen.
1204
01:08:24,187 --> 01:08:26,885
Knowing Ted, he felt kind of
responsible in a...
1205
01:08:27,364 --> 01:08:29,670
funny kind of way.
He was doing it,
1206
01:08:29,975 --> 01:08:32,108
and he was getting off
at the moment scot-free.
1207
01:08:34,719 --> 01:08:36,938
And he told me beforehand
that he was going to offer
1208
01:08:37,852 --> 01:08:40,638
to confess his role in the hope
of saving their lives.
1209
01:08:42,292 --> 01:08:44,642
I told him absolutely don't be
silly, it wouldn't save them,
1210
01:08:44,859 --> 01:08:46,034
and it would destroy us.
1211
01:08:46,948 --> 01:08:49,081
And he accepted
my view of things.
1212
01:08:49,864 --> 01:08:55,435
So he gave up the quixotic idea
of sacrificing his life,
1213
01:08:57,002 --> 01:08:58,395
and my life, and Ruthie's life
1214
01:08:59,874 --> 01:09:03,139
for the salvation
of the Rosenbergs,
1215
01:09:03,313 --> 01:09:05,053
which probably
wouldn't have happened anyway.
1216
01:09:07,621 --> 01:09:10,146
The night of the execution,
we were invited to a party.
1217
01:09:11,451 --> 01:09:15,020
It was an invitation
from my department head
1218
01:09:16,064 --> 01:09:17,457
and something that
1219
01:09:17,631 --> 01:09:20,112
would be very, very,
very strange to refuse.
1220
01:09:20,765 --> 01:09:25,117
I put on my
most decent dress,
1221
01:09:25,335 --> 01:09:27,946
and we got into the car
and drove out.
1222
01:09:31,645 --> 01:09:32,864
We had the radio on,
1223
01:09:33,081 --> 01:09:34,387
it was playing
a Mahler Symphony,
1224
01:09:35,736 --> 01:09:38,174
which, for Ted, had always had
a very profound...
1225
01:09:39,218 --> 01:09:40,611
link with him somehow,
1226
01:09:41,046 --> 01:09:44,354
and later with me,
when he played it for me.
1227
01:09:45,442 --> 01:09:47,400
It was the last movement
of the Ninth Symphony,
1228
01:09:47,574 --> 01:09:48,836
which is a farewell.
1229
01:09:49,794 --> 01:09:51,491
As it happens,
our route from our house
1230
01:09:51,665 --> 01:09:54,102
to their house took us
right past Sing Sing.
1231
01:09:55,234 --> 01:09:56,322
It was pretty close.
1232
01:09:58,194 --> 01:09:59,456
The execution was planned.
1233
01:09:59,630 --> 01:10:01,153
It had to be before sunset
1234
01:10:01,371 --> 01:10:03,982
to comply with
some kind of Jewish law.
1235
01:10:04,939 --> 01:10:07,290
And the combination
of this music,
1236
01:10:08,639 --> 01:10:10,554
and what we knew was going on
1237
01:10:10,989 --> 01:10:14,862
a few miles away from us,
was, uh, an experience.
1238
01:10:17,300 --> 01:10:20,128
It was excruciating,
it was excruciating.
1239
01:10:35,405 --> 01:10:37,798
We both sat there, like,
I don't know what,
1240
01:10:38,364 --> 01:10:41,802
looking into space
and hanging onto ourselves.
1241
01:10:47,504 --> 01:10:48,461
We didn't speak.
1242
01:10:55,251 --> 01:10:57,209
And we got up to the party,
1243
01:10:58,210 --> 01:10:59,951
and we went in and there were
all these people laughing
1244
01:11:00,125 --> 01:11:01,648
and drinking and...
1245
01:11:02,519 --> 01:11:04,869
hanging around
in garden chairs and so on.
1246
01:11:07,263 --> 01:11:11,092
And, at the earliest possible,
decent moment,
1247
01:11:11,267 --> 01:11:13,747
we made an escape
and drove home.
1248
01:11:16,794 --> 01:11:19,405
But we didn't talk about it.
There was nothing to say.
1249
01:11:28,371 --> 01:11:31,548
And it certainly, uh,
brought home the fact that
1250
01:11:31,722 --> 01:11:34,115
there were flames
consuming people,
1251
01:11:34,290 --> 01:11:37,293
and that we were pretty close
to being consumed.
1252
01:11:39,860 --> 01:11:41,297
It could easily
be imagined.
1253
01:11:44,865 --> 01:11:46,476
One of
the traumatic things about it
1254
01:11:46,650 --> 01:11:50,131
was the jubilation
expressed by large swathes
1255
01:11:50,306 --> 01:11:52,264
of the American population,
and of course,
1256
01:11:52,656 --> 01:11:54,397
the morbid...
1257
01:11:56,964 --> 01:12:00,316
fascination of the media with
the details of these deaths.
1258
01:12:15,026 --> 01:12:17,898
It was hideous,
it was really, really awful.
1259
01:12:18,725 --> 01:12:20,466
You think the United States
is an ugly place now,
1260
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:21,728
it was worse then.
1261
01:12:33,697 --> 01:12:36,613
But after that, we felt that
getting out of the United States
1262
01:12:36,787 --> 01:12:41,182
into a foreign country
would be less menacing for us,
1263
01:12:41,748 --> 01:12:43,620
but it wasn't
the one deciding factor.
1264
01:12:45,448 --> 01:12:48,189
Ruthie finished
elementary school,
1265
01:12:48,451 --> 01:12:50,148
and she would have
been absolutely wrong for
1266
01:12:50,931 --> 01:12:53,151
junior high school,
it would've been wrong for her.
1267
01:12:54,195 --> 01:12:57,111
She was a...
...very intellectual child,
1268
01:12:57,373 --> 01:13:00,376
and she didn't go for
all the girly stuff
1269
01:13:00,550 --> 01:13:01,899
that people went for.
1270
01:13:02,378 --> 01:13:04,249
The whole lipstick
and high heels
1271
01:13:04,423 --> 01:13:06,904
and that kind of crap
just didn't appeal to her.
1272
01:13:08,166 --> 01:13:10,342
I was fascinated
with the idea of going abroad.
1273
01:13:10,516 --> 01:13:12,126
I was always
fascinated with Europe.
1274
01:13:13,867 --> 01:13:15,956
He went to a conference
in New York,
1275
01:13:16,130 --> 01:13:18,394
and which was attended
by Dr. Cosslett,
1276
01:13:18,568 --> 01:13:21,440
who was head of
the electron microscope section
1277
01:13:21,614 --> 01:13:23,747
at the Cavendish Lab
in Cambridge.
1278
01:13:24,617 --> 01:13:27,446
And they discussed whether
Ted could come to Cambridge
1279
01:13:27,620 --> 01:13:30,362
on a one-year contract,
and create an instrument
1280
01:13:30,536 --> 01:13:34,192
with localizing elements
within organic tissue.
1281
01:13:35,541 --> 01:13:37,108
The idea
of going to Cambridge,
1282
01:13:37,282 --> 01:13:40,677
the idea of doing
that particular research,
1283
01:13:41,765 --> 01:13:45,246
all caught the imagination
of both of us,
1284
01:13:46,117 --> 01:13:47,335
and we decided to come.
1285
01:13:49,250 --> 01:13:52,732
You were 12 when
you moved here, was that hard?
1286
01:13:53,211 --> 01:13:54,995
- It was wonderful.
1287
01:13:56,214 --> 01:13:58,956
It was a big adventure.
We didn't fly here.
1288
01:13:59,173 --> 01:14:00,436
We came over on the Queen Mary.
1289
01:14:00,610 --> 01:14:02,176
Mm-hmm.
1290
01:14:02,525 --> 01:14:04,831
I mean, here was this new world
where you could be an atheist
1291
01:14:05,005 --> 01:14:07,834
and say so.
You know.
1292
01:14:08,226 --> 01:14:10,533
And communist, even,
wasn't a dirty word.
1293
01:14:10,968 --> 01:14:12,448
When we moved here,
it was different.
1294
01:14:12,622 --> 01:14:13,927
She took up her life again.
1295
01:14:14,537 --> 01:14:18,149
You know, she wasn't at home,
but thank goodness for her,
1296
01:14:18,323 --> 01:14:20,151
you know, she went back
to do a degree,
1297
01:14:20,325 --> 01:14:21,631
and then ended up teaching,
1298
01:14:21,805 --> 01:14:25,635
but yeah,
Italian Russian literature.
1299
01:14:26,636 --> 01:14:28,333
All my grandparents
were Russian.
1300
01:14:29,116 --> 01:14:30,770
They spoke Russian
between themselves,
1301
01:14:30,944 --> 01:14:34,426
and I felt that I had been
cheated out of it somehow,
1302
01:14:35,296 --> 01:14:36,820
and I wanted to recover it.
1303
01:14:37,777 --> 01:14:39,300
And so I studied
the Russian language
1304
01:14:39,475 --> 01:14:41,607
and Russian literature
with great enjoyment.
1305
01:14:42,695 --> 01:14:44,958
Since you have to do
two languages at Cambridge,
1306
01:14:45,524 --> 01:14:47,134
Italian was my second language.
1307
01:14:47,831 --> 01:14:49,485
I taught Italian for 20 years.
1308
01:14:49,659 --> 01:14:50,747
So you enjoyed it?
1309
01:14:50,921 --> 01:14:52,052
Oh, very much.
1310
01:14:54,272 --> 01:14:56,187
This was, uh, what he sent
1311
01:14:56,361 --> 01:15:00,713
to the Harvard University
Alumni Association.
1312
01:15:01,540 --> 01:15:02,802
"Dear Report Chairman,
1313
01:15:03,324 --> 01:15:05,283
my wife and I have
three children.
1314
01:15:05,936 --> 01:15:09,635
She teaches Italian language
and literature in a college
1315
01:15:10,070 --> 01:15:12,464
and I am doing technical work
1316
01:15:12,725 --> 01:15:17,077
in biology and physics
in the university here.
1317
01:15:18,383 --> 01:15:20,037
I do not believe
1318
01:15:20,341 --> 01:15:23,519
there is anything worth noting
in our personal histories."
1319
01:15:37,881 --> 01:15:42,059
One of the people we interviewed
was a retired CIA agent
1320
01:15:42,233 --> 01:15:43,756
named Cleveland Cram.
1321
01:15:44,235 --> 01:15:46,629
Cram said the FBI
put up the Brits
1322
01:15:46,803 --> 01:15:48,369
to come and interview Ted.
1323
01:15:49,457 --> 01:15:51,024
They came and said,
"Well, we're not the FBI."
1324
01:15:51,198 --> 01:15:52,504
"You can talk to us freely."
1325
01:15:53,723 --> 01:15:55,594
And they told him,
"We know what you've done,
1326
01:15:55,768 --> 01:15:57,378
now why don't you
just come clean?
1327
01:15:58,118 --> 01:15:59,511
Think how much better
you'll feel."
1328
01:16:00,207 --> 01:16:05,256
And Ted was very much tempted.
1329
01:16:06,431 --> 01:16:08,738
Because he didn't like to lie,
1330
01:16:09,303 --> 01:16:12,176
but he wisely told the guy
he'd have to think about it.
1331
01:16:13,264 --> 01:16:14,395
He came home,
1332
01:16:15,092 --> 01:16:17,703
and we were walking
along Grantchester Street,
1333
01:16:17,877 --> 01:16:19,662
I remember, and he told me
1334
01:16:19,836 --> 01:16:21,925
he was sort of tempted
to do that,
1335
01:16:22,186 --> 01:16:23,840
and I stopped in my tracks,
1336
01:16:24,580 --> 01:16:28,148
and I said,
"You will tell them nothing!"
1337
01:16:30,847 --> 01:16:33,589
And he says, "Do you think so?"
I said, "Absolutely."
1338
01:16:34,546 --> 01:16:38,202
"You stick to your story.
You had nothing to do with it."
1339
01:16:39,725 --> 01:16:41,553
And he said, "All right,
if that's what you think,
1340
01:16:41,727 --> 01:16:42,946
that's what I'll do."
1341
01:16:44,687 --> 01:16:46,863
I mean, they were hand-in-glove
with the FBI,
1342
01:16:47,037 --> 01:16:49,779
and it would have been
a disaster.
1343
01:16:50,736 --> 01:16:52,303
What his career,
1344
01:16:52,520 --> 01:16:53,652
what his achievements
might have been like,
1345
01:16:54,218 --> 01:16:57,787
had he not been a Soviet spy
at Los Alamos.
1346
01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:00,572
He spent ten years
at Sloan Kettering
1347
01:17:00,790 --> 01:17:02,313
trying to cure cancer.
1348
01:17:02,835 --> 01:17:07,144
He was one of the pioneers of
science of electron microscopy.
1349
01:17:07,927 --> 01:17:10,582
Ted Hall was a man
with a remarkable mind.
1350
01:17:13,716 --> 01:17:15,413
My father
explained everything to me
1351
01:17:15,587 --> 01:17:17,894
when I was 12 or 13.
1352
01:17:18,590 --> 01:17:21,158
What he had done,
and what his motive was.
1353
01:17:21,767 --> 01:17:23,639
So, I listened
and I respected it,
1354
01:17:24,640 --> 01:17:26,859
but I didn't sit around
thinking about it a lot.
1355
01:17:27,033 --> 01:17:28,948
I mean, I was 12.
1356
01:17:29,166 --> 01:17:31,559
I had other things
on my mind.
1357
01:17:31,908 --> 01:17:34,388
Was he proud?
- I think so.
1358
01:17:34,911 --> 01:17:37,783
I think he was,
and I think he also, like,
1359
01:17:38,044 --> 01:17:40,525
had some self-doubt
that he didn't express,
1360
01:17:40,830 --> 01:17:42,919
and some concern
about what he had done,
1361
01:17:43,093 --> 01:17:44,790
like whether it was the right
thing or the wrong thing,
1362
01:17:44,964 --> 01:17:47,097
but he never admitted to that.
1363
01:17:48,402 --> 01:17:54,670
My parents
constantly had FBI agents, um,
1364
01:17:55,932 --> 01:17:57,934
posted outside their house,
1365
01:17:58,108 --> 01:18:00,545
and people
going through their garbage,
1366
01:18:00,719 --> 01:18:03,679
and their phones tapped,
1367
01:18:03,853 --> 01:18:10,468
and, well, uh...
a lot of the paranoia, and...
1368
01:18:10,642 --> 01:18:12,209
So, when he
told you about the spying,
1369
01:18:12,383 --> 01:18:13,514
did you believe him?
1370
01:18:13,689 --> 01:18:17,170
No. [laughs] No, I didn't.
1371
01:18:17,649 --> 01:18:23,568
I just mostly just banished
the idea from my mind,
1372
01:18:23,873 --> 01:18:29,792
until a Washington Post
reporter called me
1373
01:18:29,966 --> 01:18:32,577
and told me
that he'd found that out.
1374
01:18:35,188 --> 01:18:39,976
Well, uh, he... he'd been dead
for a while.
1375
01:18:40,150 --> 01:18:44,632
And um... I, uh...
1376
01:18:45,242 --> 01:18:50,290
I felt... completely exhausted,
1377
01:18:50,595 --> 01:18:54,599
totally drained,
utterly devastated.
1378
01:18:56,427 --> 01:18:58,821
[chanting] Free
our sisters! Free ourselves!
1379
01:18:58,995 --> 01:19:01,127
Free our sisters!
Free ourselves!
1380
01:19:01,301 --> 01:19:02,955
What do we want?
Equal pay!
1381
01:19:03,173 --> 01:19:05,828
What do we want?
Liberation!
1382
01:19:06,002 --> 01:19:07,438
It was just towards
the end of the '60s
1383
01:19:07,612 --> 01:19:09,440
when the feminist movement
came along,
1384
01:19:09,875 --> 01:19:13,661
and I was totally
committed to that.
1385
01:19:14,445 --> 01:19:17,013
I joined the first feminist
group I could find.
1386
01:19:19,537 --> 01:19:21,931
They had started
a Marxist study group,
1387
01:19:22,105 --> 01:19:23,976
in which
we were reading Capital,
1388
01:19:24,150 --> 01:19:26,762
page by page,
out loud and discussing it.
1389
01:19:26,936 --> 01:19:28,285
Wow, was that valuable.
1390
01:19:29,286 --> 01:19:31,984
And that gave me a much better
idea than I had before
1391
01:19:32,158 --> 01:19:33,594
of what Marx was all about.
1392
01:19:34,247 --> 01:19:36,946
We were Marxist
and communist in our thinking.
1393
01:19:37,468 --> 01:19:40,253
But we did become aware
of the fact
1394
01:19:40,427 --> 01:19:43,039
that the Russians didn't seem
to give much support
1395
01:19:43,213 --> 01:19:46,259
to revolutionary tendencies
in other countries.
1396
01:19:46,433 --> 01:19:48,044
In the Czech capital,
thousands rejoiced
1397
01:19:48,218 --> 01:19:50,394
in their newfound
free way of life.
1398
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:52,613
But the Red Army was back.
1399
01:19:52,788 --> 01:19:54,746
And the tanks rolled
into Czechoslovakia.
1400
01:19:54,920 --> 01:19:56,356
The hammer
and sickle had returned
1401
01:19:56,530 --> 01:19:58,184
to a pound and cut
the Czechs' hopes
1402
01:19:58,358 --> 01:20:00,143
of a liberal self-governing
communist way of life.
1403
01:20:01,840 --> 01:20:04,800
They seemed to be running
their own communist empire.
1404
01:20:07,063 --> 01:20:09,152
I mean, these things
were really traumatic.
1405
01:20:13,156 --> 01:20:15,593
As the arms race
between the Soviet Union
1406
01:20:15,767 --> 01:20:20,293
and the United States escalated
to outrageous proportions,
1407
01:20:20,990 --> 01:20:23,514
did that feed any regrets
1408
01:20:23,688 --> 01:20:25,472
or concerns
about what he'd done?
1409
01:20:26,038 --> 01:20:32,218
It certainly confirmed
Ted's view about the dangers
1410
01:20:32,479 --> 01:20:36,222
inherent in the way
the United States was being run,
1411
01:20:36,396 --> 01:20:38,921
the American military...
the military industrial complex,
1412
01:20:39,095 --> 01:20:40,618
as Eisenhower sweetly put it.
1413
01:20:41,053 --> 01:20:42,620
We have been compelled to create
1414
01:20:42,794 --> 01:20:46,232
a permanent armaments industry
of vast proportions,
1415
01:20:46,493 --> 01:20:48,887
the acquisition
of unwarranted influence
1416
01:20:49,192 --> 01:20:51,498
by the military industrial complex.
1417
01:20:53,370 --> 01:20:55,633
The arms race
was a complete farce
1418
01:20:55,807 --> 01:20:57,722
at the expense
of the American people.
1419
01:20:59,898 --> 01:21:02,988
The American military
perpetrated this notion
1420
01:21:03,162 --> 01:21:05,469
of parity, that we had
to keep up with the Russians,
1421
01:21:05,643 --> 01:21:07,210
we had to outstrip them,
1422
01:21:07,471 --> 01:21:09,386
we had to make more bombs
than they did. But the fact is,
1423
01:21:09,821 --> 01:21:12,345
if the United States
had 100 atomic bombs,
1424
01:21:12,519 --> 01:21:15,609
and the Soviets
had 110 atomic bombs,
1425
01:21:16,001 --> 01:21:17,916
the deterrent effect
would still hold.
1426
01:21:18,917 --> 01:21:22,181
One bomb was enough
to cause a world catastrophe.
1427
01:21:24,618 --> 01:21:26,142
With atomic warheads,
1428
01:21:26,403 --> 01:21:30,102
guided missiles traveling
at 3,000 miles an hour
1429
01:21:30,407 --> 01:21:33,236
will bring still another
dimension to global warfare.
1430
01:21:34,150 --> 01:21:37,805
The U.S. was
always considerably ahead.
1431
01:21:38,632 --> 01:21:43,550
The goal of the U.S.
was to try to be so far ahead
1432
01:21:43,768 --> 01:21:46,989
that it could carry out
a first strike
1433
01:21:47,511 --> 01:21:49,513
against the Soviet Union,
1434
01:21:49,774 --> 01:21:52,081
and not suffer
too much of a response.
1435
01:21:52,995 --> 01:21:54,910
That's why both sides
1436
01:21:55,649 --> 01:21:58,174
have so many different types
of nuclear weapons
1437
01:21:58,348 --> 01:22:01,568
mounted on so many different
delivery systems.
1438
01:22:05,224 --> 01:22:06,617
Objectives deep
1439
01:22:06,791 --> 01:22:08,924
in enemy territory
will be destroyed
1440
01:22:09,098 --> 01:22:11,622
by intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
1441
01:22:11,970 --> 01:22:15,887
All situations on land
and in the air are being met.
1442
01:22:20,196 --> 01:22:23,503
It would be better now
to restrict the term Cold War
1443
01:22:25,157 --> 01:22:27,377
to refer to the war
which is being waged
1444
01:22:28,378 --> 01:22:31,555
by militarism, against
the population of the earth.
1445
01:22:35,341 --> 01:22:37,691
I think I judge him
1446
01:22:37,865 --> 01:22:42,958
much more charitably now
than I did initially.
1447
01:22:44,220 --> 01:22:49,660
Through my younger years,
I was very angry at Savy.
1448
01:22:51,792 --> 01:22:55,318
Part of the reason why
I wrote my book, Stealing Fire,
1449
01:22:55,840 --> 01:22:59,539
was to lay that anger aside.
1450
01:23:05,110 --> 01:23:08,505
Ted had the sort of accomplishments
1451
01:23:08,679 --> 01:23:12,378
that Savy aspired to,
1452
01:23:13,118 --> 01:23:16,382
but it was very difficult
for him to match.
1453
01:23:17,253 --> 01:23:21,387
For Savy, this was
his big accomplishment,
1454
01:23:21,997 --> 01:23:24,782
and I think, he felt that
1455
01:23:25,304 --> 01:23:29,613
Ted had sort of stolen
even that from him.
1456
01:23:30,135 --> 01:23:34,139
Ted had taken his glory,
Ted had taken his girl,
1457
01:23:34,792 --> 01:23:39,231
and Ted had
so much else besides.
1458
01:23:46,064 --> 01:23:47,674
Okay, this is a sculpture
1459
01:23:49,111 --> 01:23:51,200
that I did of my father, um...
1460
01:23:52,244 --> 01:23:54,116
Also, like when,
when people die,
1461
01:23:54,290 --> 01:23:57,032
I start painting and drawing
and sculpting them.
1462
01:23:57,293 --> 01:23:59,817
It's kind of my...
part of my grieving process.
1463
01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:02,689
I made it
on a papier-mâché core,
1464
01:24:03,255 --> 01:24:06,302
and I felt that the crumbling
kind of also showed
1465
01:24:06,476 --> 01:24:10,741
his depression
and some lack of fulfillment
1466
01:24:10,915 --> 01:24:12,047
in certain regards.
1467
01:24:14,527 --> 01:24:16,442
We've had
to move around a lot.
1468
01:24:17,487 --> 01:24:20,011
My grandfather bought
this property in the '30s.
1469
01:24:22,666 --> 01:24:24,668
Savy used to love this river
1470
01:24:24,842 --> 01:24:26,496
that runs through
this property here.
1471
01:24:30,500 --> 01:24:33,720
And his ashes were scattered
in the river.
1472
01:24:34,721 --> 01:24:38,899
And I made this portrait
of like, him in the water.
1473
01:24:43,817 --> 01:24:46,516
More than him being a spy,
he was my father.
1474
01:24:48,996 --> 01:24:52,609
And I feel that
he deserves my loyalty.
1475
01:25:01,487 --> 01:25:03,750
I remember
the Cuban Missile Crisis,
1476
01:25:04,664 --> 01:25:06,797
and there was
a demonstration going past
1477
01:25:08,103 --> 01:25:11,802
of loads of people,
like, "Don't bomb."
1478
01:25:15,022 --> 01:25:17,982
And I was there tugging
at Ted's arm, saying,
1479
01:25:18,156 --> 01:25:21,464
"Come on, come on." You know,
"What are you waiting for?"
1480
01:25:22,378 --> 01:25:23,988
- You know, "Come!"
Yeah.
1481
01:25:24,510 --> 01:25:27,426
I remember him standing there
just standing stock still,
1482
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:30,821
just standing, then he said,
"What the hell?"
1483
01:25:32,344 --> 01:25:33,780
And he took me by the arm,
1484
01:25:33,954 --> 01:25:35,739
and we went and we joined
the demonstration.
1485
01:25:35,913 --> 01:25:36,870
Mmm.
1486
01:25:38,742 --> 01:25:40,135
And I couldn't understand.
1487
01:25:40,961 --> 01:25:41,962
That's the thing,
1488
01:25:42,702 --> 01:25:45,009
the way that
I looked at Joanie and Teddy.
1489
01:25:46,184 --> 01:25:48,621
Growing up, I had known them
1490
01:25:48,795 --> 01:25:52,756
to be utterly
through and through...
1491
01:25:54,236 --> 01:25:57,239
um, desiring a better world...
1492
01:25:59,458 --> 01:26:02,722
and believing that
a revolution was necessary...
1493
01:26:04,637 --> 01:26:06,030
but not acting,
1494
01:26:06,204 --> 01:26:08,946
- not actually being activists.
Yeah.
1495
01:26:09,120 --> 01:26:11,470
And so growing up
as a teenager,
1496
01:26:12,297 --> 01:26:13,603
I was a bit scornful.
1497
01:26:13,907 --> 01:26:15,474
Scornful?
- A little bit.
1498
01:26:15,648 --> 01:26:18,347
You know, all the talk, and...
but what are they doing?
1499
01:26:18,521 --> 01:26:20,914
Right.
When I was about 20,
1500
01:26:21,219 --> 01:26:22,481
listening to the radio one day,
1501
01:26:23,221 --> 01:26:27,225
I heard a program, by chance,
about the Manhattan Project.
1502
01:26:27,660 --> 01:26:30,489
And, um, I listened to it
1503
01:26:30,663 --> 01:26:33,405
and then I phoned up
and I asked Teddy,
1504
01:26:33,579 --> 01:26:36,713
I said, "I've just heard
this radio program."
1505
01:26:36,887 --> 01:26:38,932
"Were you there?"
1506
01:26:40,325 --> 01:26:42,893
[laughs] God!
1507
01:26:43,502 --> 01:26:45,983
So, he said, "Yes."
1508
01:26:46,157 --> 01:26:47,637
- Pause.
Pause.
1509
01:26:47,811 --> 01:26:50,640
And he said, "Yes,"
and he explained to me
1510
01:26:50,814 --> 01:26:51,945
that he had...
1511
01:26:52,729 --> 01:26:53,730
um...
1512
01:26:55,732 --> 01:26:59,779
The motivation was to develop
the bomb before the Germans.
1513
01:27:01,564 --> 01:27:03,914
That was how
he justified doing it.
1514
01:27:04,219 --> 01:27:05,568
Well, that was
the reason he did it.
1515
01:27:05,742 --> 01:27:08,484
Yes, that's right,
and he told me
1516
01:27:10,094 --> 01:27:12,401
about how he'd felt
when they tested it...
1517
01:27:12,749 --> 01:27:13,793
Right.
1518
01:27:14,359 --> 01:27:16,056
...and how he...
People had been celebrating
1519
01:27:16,231 --> 01:27:17,536
and he felt really awful
1520
01:27:17,710 --> 01:27:19,582
and he had
just gone back to his room.
1521
01:27:21,192 --> 01:27:22,193
Yeah.
1522
01:27:25,762 --> 01:27:28,547
I just thought,
"Shit, he's human."
1523
01:27:28,721 --> 01:27:33,204
You know, he's been involved
in designing and making
1524
01:27:33,378 --> 01:27:36,512
the most horrendous thing
on earth,
1525
01:27:36,686 --> 01:27:39,123
and not something
to be proud of.
1526
01:27:39,602 --> 01:27:41,560
I didn't know
that he'd mitigated it,
1527
01:27:41,734 --> 01:27:44,824
by making sure
that it was shared information.
1528
01:27:45,042 --> 01:27:46,043
Right.
1529
01:27:48,785 --> 01:27:50,917
- And it never occurred to me.
Yeah.
1530
01:27:51,440 --> 01:27:53,050
And then when they told me,
1531
01:27:53,355 --> 01:27:55,487
the penny dropped. Everything...
1532
01:27:58,142 --> 01:27:59,448
- Oh.
1533
01:28:00,405 --> 01:28:01,363
Hmm.
1534
01:28:01,667 --> 01:28:03,016
So it made sense of...
1535
01:28:04,017 --> 01:28:07,673
It made sense of their life,
of our life, of...
1536
01:28:20,947 --> 01:28:23,428
There are elements
of the best parts of Ted
1537
01:28:23,646 --> 01:28:25,038
in all of my three kids.
1538
01:28:26,779 --> 01:28:28,825
And the things I loved
about him, I love in them.
1539
01:28:33,830 --> 01:28:35,527
Sara, being excessively modest
1540
01:28:35,701 --> 01:28:37,964
and didn't like being
compared to her sisters,
1541
01:28:38,791 --> 01:28:40,358
and still doesn't,
1542
01:28:41,620 --> 01:28:43,013
tended to reject all things
1543
01:28:43,187 --> 01:28:45,537
that would make her look
as if she was shining.
1544
01:28:47,104 --> 01:28:48,932
Debbie became a young Maoist,
1545
01:28:49,498 --> 01:28:53,371
early in the game
when China was the good guys.
1546
01:28:53,589 --> 01:28:56,896
She did a lot of
anti-Vietnam War campaigning.
1547
01:28:57,462 --> 01:28:59,290
She circulated petitions,
she went on marches,
1548
01:28:59,464 --> 01:29:01,901
anything anybody was doing,
she did it.
1549
01:29:04,513 --> 01:29:07,994
And studied the violin,
1550
01:29:08,212 --> 01:29:12,216
and played years...
years beyond her age.
1551
01:29:16,438 --> 01:29:18,353
She was...
she was a phenomenon.
1552
01:29:20,703 --> 01:29:22,835
Did you tend
to look at Debbie in particular
1553
01:29:23,009 --> 01:29:27,362
as sort of becoming the activist
1554
01:29:27,536 --> 01:29:30,452
that you had maybe hoped
you could have been?
1555
01:29:31,888 --> 01:29:34,804
I could never
have been like her.
1556
01:29:35,935 --> 01:29:37,284
She was a ball of fire.
1557
01:29:38,460 --> 01:29:40,810
I never could have been
like her, but yeah, she was...
1558
01:29:43,421 --> 01:29:44,814
Part of me wanted her to...
1559
01:29:46,685 --> 01:29:50,428
just concentrate
on her wonderful abilities.
1560
01:29:58,567 --> 01:29:59,698
Hmm.
1561
01:30:00,351 --> 01:30:02,571
Just before Debbie died,
Joanie was painting...
1562
01:30:02,788 --> 01:30:05,182
- Right.
- ...but she stopped dead...
1563
01:30:05,356 --> 01:30:07,314
...completely stopped.
1564
01:30:08,490 --> 01:30:10,274
You know,
I think losing a child,
1565
01:30:11,231 --> 01:30:12,581
anybody who has a child,
1566
01:30:12,755 --> 01:30:15,975
and many people
who don't, can imagine.
1567
01:30:20,980 --> 01:30:24,680
Ted wrote
in the 50th Anniversary Report
1568
01:30:24,854 --> 01:30:28,074
of the Harvard class of 1944.
1569
01:30:30,207 --> 01:30:32,078
"I'm afflicted
with Parkinson's disease,
1570
01:30:32,818 --> 01:30:34,429
and an inoperable cancer,
1571
01:30:36,082 --> 01:30:38,215
and I recently
experienced the death
1572
01:30:38,389 --> 01:30:39,869
of a dearly loved daughter.
1573
01:30:40,913 --> 01:30:43,089
Some of the horrors
in the world,
1574
01:30:44,874 --> 01:30:46,876
in the world scene
are incomprehensible,
1575
01:30:48,007 --> 01:30:51,402
but life still seems
amazing and beautiful."
1576
01:30:54,536 --> 01:30:57,408
Yes, I think that's amazing
and beautiful.
1577
01:31:01,630 --> 01:31:03,849
At the time, I think he thought
1578
01:31:04,023 --> 01:31:07,549
that he was not going to live
to see this book written,
1579
01:31:08,027 --> 01:31:12,336
and I think that he looked
at this as a way to explain
1580
01:31:12,945 --> 01:31:17,080
what he had done,
who he was, and why.
1581
01:31:25,349 --> 01:31:28,004
So that was
the first blast of publicity,
1582
01:31:28,526 --> 01:31:30,659
and there were cameras outside,
1583
01:31:31,921 --> 01:31:33,531
and I tried
to send them packing.
1584
01:31:34,880 --> 01:31:38,318
The "wunderkind spy,"
I called it.
1585
01:31:39,189 --> 01:31:40,625
And yeah,
they were all excited
1586
01:31:40,799 --> 01:31:42,322
about this young, young guy.
1587
01:31:42,497 --> 01:31:43,802
Well, he was young.
1588
01:31:49,199 --> 01:31:50,853
I mean,
the tabloids were worse.
1589
01:31:56,380 --> 01:31:58,730
The other papers reported it
1590
01:31:59,514 --> 01:32:03,605
in the usual objective style
1591
01:32:03,779 --> 01:32:06,129
that the newspapers claim
to have, which they don't.
1592
01:32:08,218 --> 01:32:11,264
I've got a great big stash
of clippings upstairs, which...
1593
01:32:11,569 --> 01:32:13,223
I would like
to see them...
1594
01:32:13,397 --> 01:32:14,964
By all means,
you can have them
1595
01:32:15,138 --> 01:32:17,009
and throw them down your loo
when you're finished.
1596
01:32:21,492 --> 01:32:23,712
It didn't cause us to weep,
I'll tell you.
1597
01:32:26,671 --> 01:32:28,194
We were disgusted, but...
1598
01:32:29,152 --> 01:32:31,502
it didn't hit us
where we lived, no.
1599
01:32:32,808 --> 01:32:34,026
And why is that?
1600
01:32:34,374 --> 01:32:37,377
We knew they were
bastards, you know.
1601
01:32:38,378 --> 01:32:40,293
What should have
been done with Ted Hall?
1602
01:32:40,467 --> 01:32:41,468
Shot.
1603
01:32:43,296 --> 01:32:44,689
He was a military man.
1604
01:32:46,343 --> 01:32:48,519
He was a soldier
in the United States Army.
1605
01:32:49,259 --> 01:32:53,742
And that son of a bitch
should have been retrieved,
1606
01:32:54,003 --> 01:32:56,179
once we found out
what he had done...
1607
01:32:58,094 --> 01:32:59,661
called back into the army,
1608
01:33:00,226 --> 01:33:02,881
court-martialed,
and summarily executed.
1609
01:33:07,364 --> 01:33:09,148
How do you personally feel
1610
01:33:09,322 --> 01:33:10,933
about what you did?
1611
01:33:12,630 --> 01:33:14,197
I have to think, I know that
1612
01:33:15,415 --> 01:33:18,984
my body is, uh, disintegrating
1613
01:33:19,158 --> 01:33:20,812
rather slowly
and gracefully, I hope,
1614
01:33:20,986 --> 01:33:23,902
but I have to think in terms
of its finiteness...
1615
01:33:26,252 --> 01:33:28,603
And then I... I have
to think that, well, that...
1616
01:33:30,213 --> 01:33:32,650
that's my history
and that's it, it doesn't...
1617
01:33:36,045 --> 01:33:37,568
It would be nice to be proud,
1618
01:33:37,742 --> 01:33:42,007
but I'm not... I'm... I'm not...
I'm not a proud person.
1619
01:33:47,230 --> 01:33:48,448
What made you do it?
1620
01:34:01,026 --> 01:34:03,246
I guess a major factor
would be compassion.
1621
01:34:09,121 --> 01:34:11,341
It's a stab
at a description anyway.
1622
01:34:17,695 --> 01:34:20,132
He had been in and out
of hospital a few times.
1623
01:34:21,307 --> 01:34:22,744
As things got worse,
1624
01:34:23,135 --> 01:34:26,008
they offered this treatment,
that treatment and so on.
1625
01:34:31,448 --> 01:34:33,929
At one point, I went home,
1626
01:34:34,886 --> 01:34:37,628
to get some dinner
and get some sleep.
1627
01:34:44,156 --> 01:34:45,767
Around 7:30,
the telephone rang
1628
01:34:45,941 --> 01:34:48,030
and the nurse told me
that about 15 minutes before,
1629
01:34:48,204 --> 01:34:49,684
he had passed away.
1630
01:35:00,477 --> 01:35:01,870
I went right away...
1631
01:35:05,264 --> 01:35:07,571
and came into the room,
talking to him...
1632
01:35:09,486 --> 01:35:11,357
about how much I loved him,
1633
01:35:12,271 --> 01:35:13,925
and continued smothering my...
1634
01:35:16,754 --> 01:35:22,760
my dead Ted with love and...
sweet nothings.
1635
01:35:27,330 --> 01:35:30,986
"What if I had died instead
1636
01:35:31,160 --> 01:35:34,380
and left you here behind,
alone in your 80s?
1637
01:35:35,381 --> 01:35:37,209
How would you have lived?
1638
01:35:38,254 --> 01:35:39,603
Would you have solved
the riddle
1639
01:35:39,777 --> 01:35:41,083
of quantum mechanics?
1640
01:35:42,649 --> 01:35:44,216
How would you have
remembered me?
1641
01:35:46,131 --> 01:35:48,307
Anyway, you'd surely
have married again,
1642
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:51,441
one of those women
who loved you and envied me.
1643
01:35:52,094 --> 01:35:54,052
And for long years
of Indian summer,
1644
01:35:54,966 --> 01:35:56,707
you would drive along together
1645
01:35:57,099 --> 01:35:59,275
and talk in the car and in bed,
1646
01:36:00,711 --> 01:36:02,757
while my gray ashes
1647
01:36:03,888 --> 01:36:05,629
melted silently into the earth
1648
01:36:05,803 --> 01:36:07,936
under the tall tree
in the park.
1649
01:36:10,112 --> 01:36:13,245
Ah, now I'm jealous.
I want to be your second wife."
1650
01:36:21,645 --> 01:36:25,257
In my walking days,
when I used to walk to town,
1651
01:36:25,431 --> 01:36:26,998
passing by this tree,
1652
01:36:27,390 --> 01:36:28,565
people used to look at me funny
1653
01:36:28,739 --> 01:36:30,349
because I would stop
and talk to it.
1654
01:36:32,351 --> 01:36:35,354
And I did explain to one of them
that my husband's ashes
1655
01:36:35,528 --> 01:36:37,792
- were buried under there.
1656
01:36:39,750 --> 01:36:40,882
It's lovely
how the trunk goes up
1657
01:36:41,056 --> 01:36:42,709
in the center of that.
1658
01:36:44,886 --> 01:36:48,367
This tree is quite exceptional.
It's huge, but very graceful.
1659
01:36:48,541 --> 01:36:49,978
Yeah, it's amazing.
1660
01:36:50,195 --> 01:36:52,676
It really is a tree
that reminds me of Teddy
1661
01:36:52,850 --> 01:36:59,291
because its sturdiness
with grace is sort of him.
1662
01:36:59,465 --> 01:37:01,293
Yeah, and he loved it.
1663
01:37:01,467 --> 01:37:04,731
And he loved it.
He absolutely loved this tree.
1664
01:37:28,016 --> 01:37:30,670
Is there anything specific
1665
01:37:30,845 --> 01:37:32,847
you want to say
to the next generation?
1666
01:37:34,500 --> 01:37:36,198
Oh, wow.
1667
01:37:39,375 --> 01:37:41,551
I think the next generation, um...
1668
01:37:45,642 --> 01:37:48,906
should realize,
should have to realize
1669
01:37:50,168 --> 01:37:55,739
that the world
has come extremely close
1670
01:37:55,913 --> 01:38:01,353
to real... actual... Sorry.
1671
01:38:03,921 --> 01:38:05,227
I didn't expect that.
1672
01:38:09,448 --> 01:38:11,059
The world has come
extremely close
1673
01:38:11,233 --> 01:38:13,800
to real actual total disaster.
1674
01:38:14,976 --> 01:38:16,020
Catastrophe.
1675
01:38:17,979 --> 01:38:19,241
And that, um...
1676
01:38:21,417 --> 01:38:23,288
And that people,
1677
01:38:24,899 --> 01:38:26,726
not the government,
but people must...
1678
01:38:29,033 --> 01:38:30,339
be concerned
about these things,
1679
01:38:30,513 --> 01:38:35,083
and be prepared to insist,
to demand,
1680
01:38:35,605 --> 01:38:39,522
to compel government policies,
1681
01:38:39,696 --> 01:38:43,265
which don't put the world
at risk again.
1682
01:38:44,657 --> 01:38:45,876
Thank you very much.
1683
01:39:02,327 --> 01:39:06,984
♪ ["Violin Sonata No. 24 -
II. Andante" by Mozart Plays] ♪