Was Julius Robert Oppenheimer offered Indian citizenship by Jawaharlal Nehru? Find out here

livemint.com:

Hindustan Times, Kai Bird said, “After he [Oppenheimer] was humiliated in 1954...Nehru offered him to come to India and become a citizen...But I do not think Oppenheimer considered it [the offer] seriously because he was a deeply patriotic American." In October 1954, Oppenheimer gave a speech saying that these atomic bombs were weapons for aggressors. “These are weapons of terror. They are not defensive weapons.

And they were used on an essentially already defeated enemy," he said in his speech as quoted by HT. Christopher Nolan's latest film Oppenheimer is based on the life of the American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and takes inspiration from the 2005 book "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird and Martin J.

Sherwin. The Christopher Nolan-directed film features a star-studded cast including Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh. Coming back to the interview, Bird told HT that Oppenheimer felt that the atomic bomb was necessary as he feared the rise of fascism.  “He was of Jewish ancestry, but not a practising Jew.

He gave money to help rescue Jewish refugees from Germany. He feared that German physicists were going to give Hitler an atomic bomb, that Hitler would be able to win the [Second World] war, and this would be a terrible outcome, a victory for fascism around the world. So he felt this [the atomic bomb] was necessary," Bird said as quoted by HT.

Moreover, Bird in his interview also revealed that Oppenheimer did have mixed emotions about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in August 1945 and after attack he was terribly troubled and felt enormous empathy for victims. “[After 1945, Oppenheimer]... read the accounts of what had happened in Hiroshima and