American Experience: J. Edward Oppenheimer (2009)

This two-hour American Experience examination of the professional contributions and subsequent political persecution of J. Edward Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan and Los Alamos nuclear-bomb development projects, is the most in-depth and thoughtful treatment I have yet seen. I learned a lot I didn't know. America must never forget how, after Oppenheimer pulled America's (and the world's) bacon out of the fire of World War II with the defeat of Germany and Japan, petty bureaucrats destroyed his reputation and public-service career in a kangaroo court of public opinion. "America should not eat its own young" said one historical figure of Oppenheimer the pacifist's persecution, a few years before President Dwight Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address that "in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex" and McCarthyism spread its ugly tentacles. 4 stars.