Overview
Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard leaves Europe, eventually arriving in the United States. With the help of Einstein, he persuades the government to build an atomic bomb. The project is given to no-nonsense Gen. Leslie Groves who selects physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the bomb is built. As World War II draws to a close, Szilard has second thoughts about atomic weapons, and policy makers debate how and when to use the bomb.
Cast
- Brian Dennehy as Gen. Leslie Groves
- David Strathairn as J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Michael Tucker as Leo Szilard
- Hume Cronyn as James F. Byrnes
- Richard Dysart as President Harry S. Truman
- Hal Holbrook as Gen. George Marshall
- Barnard Hughes as Henry Stimson
- John McMartin as Dr. Arthur Compton
- David Ogden Stiers as Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Anne Twomey as Kitty Oppenheimer