Why is Frank's wife not allowed...
to speak to him?
I must have mised it - although the way this season has been it's probably not a particularly rational reason
Because the colonel ordered her not to.
shareAny idea why he did so? Like i said, i must have missed it but for the life of me I can't see to what purpose darrow would give them the order not to speak...
sharePFC Dunlavy told Liza that Frank was being held in an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas.
She and Glen Babbitt called on Einstein in Princeton, he called the White House, and Frank was released to Liza.
Over Liza's objections, Frank insisted on returning to the Hill to tell everyone that there was no German atomic bomb project.
Once there, neither was allowed to leave. Colonel Darrow threatened to prosecute Frank under the Espionage Act unless he immediately enlisted as a private under his command. Since he considered them a pair of troublemakers, he forbade them to have any contact.
I'll pretend you never wrote it...and that I never read it...
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
Gah!! Makes you realize why spoilers need to be affixed, just in case.
Though I hope it won't spoil the series and ruin it completely for you if I tell you that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945 during the project.
Oops! SORRY!
Yes, FDR died on April 12, 1945. This was mentioned at the end of the last episode.
shareFDR's death is not a spoiler, though, sinces anyone who knows anything about history knows that fact already, just like they know what happened to JFK.
At only 63, FDR was already a dead man walking, and had been for at least a year before his sudden death, since his health had deteriorated rapidly during most of 1944.
My parents' generation lived through the deaths of two presidents (actually three, if you count Harding's in 1923, when they were very young kids). Hope I don't have to do the same.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
Actually, every president elected in a year ending in zero beginning in 1840 either died in office (through 1960), or was publicly attacked by individuals (1980 and 2000).
1840 William Henry Harrison
1860 Abraham Lincoln
1880 James A. Garfield
1900 William McKinley
1920 Warren Harding
1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt
1960 John F. Kennedy
1980 Reagan was shot, but survived.
2000 Bush ducked and survived two thrown shoes.
The only other president to die in office was Zachary Taylor, who died in 1850.
The only other president to die in office was Zachary Taylor, who died in 1950.
Oh, yeah, that one. I barely remember him...I was only three, and Korea was a BFD that year. Did anyone tell Truman?
I guess you meant 1850.
Actually, 1950 was quite a year for Harry...Korea exploded in his face, he and MacArthur met for the first (and last) time in their lives, and (just two weeks later), would-be assassins shot and killed a guard right under his bedroom window, while he was taking a nap on a hot afternoon.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown... share
Thanks for the correction, Munk.
share2000 Bush ducked and survived two thrown shoes.I'm an admirer of Bush but, yeah, that's funny!
share
It is also known as the Tecumseh curse.
shareThanks for the reply, makes sense now
shareYes, FDR died on April 12, 1945. This was mentioned at the end of the last episode.
I was pulling your leg, Fel!!!!! I knew you'd get it--and I know the above isn't your comment.
Anyway, I know you know history and I think you know that I know history, too, after a few years on these boards.
Guess my silly, sarcastic exaggeration was taken seriously and that it did not come off well in print.
Sorry about that. Is there anybody watching this show who really wouldn't know FDR died in 1945? These viewers tend to be very historically informed.
Did people really think mine was a serious comment with a real spoiler covered up?
:-)))) share
Did people really think mine was a serious comment with a real spoiler covered up?
It's hard to know with this group. Irony does not always travel well. share
...wasn't trying to be snarky. Didn't mean to come off that way. But maybe I did. I get crabby before the holidays. Just got done getting the house ready for winter, after raking leaves for days on end over the past month. Now the prison door is slamming shut, just like it does every November, and I'll be doing time for the next five months.
But I have lots of DVDs and tapes...and plenty of stuff stored in the DVR. If only I didn't have to shovel the snow. I hate snow, and, unfortunately for me, I get to see a LOT of it.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...
Snarky? Not at all.
With the leaf bags covering up most of my neighborhood now, ready for city pick up for recycling, I sympathize with anybody who had to fill up those bloody things.
The trees are great all summer...then you realize what happens in the fall. Payback is heck...
Due to spies, Stalin knew about the atomic bomb before Truman. Truman was informed after Roosevelt died and that a decision needed to be made if they would drop it on the Japanese. Truman said that at Potsdam he informed Stalin and that Stalin didn't appear surprised.
Some scientists said they should invite outsiders to the test site so the Japanese would know they were against the wall. But others said it might not work and that would make things worse.
Even after two atomic bombs were dropped fanatical Japanese army officers wanted to fight on to the bitter end and killed anyone saying otherwise. It took the Emperor on radio to the nation to call a halt to the carnage that an invasion would cause on both sides.
Hitler, however, said Germany deserved to be destroyed if they lost. His favorite Wagner opera featured Gotterdammerung or Twilight of the gods which called for such death.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
In some kind of parallel universe thing, I've been making my way through the Follett trilogy, of the 20th century (each tome is about 950 pages of dense historic details and the fictional characters are almost lost in the extremely detailed descriptions and original source reports of historic events portrayed).
The books cover the First World War, The Second World War and the third covers the time period from about 1961 to the 1980s.
The long descriptions words in real life telegrams, documented world leader meetings verbatim, etc. It almost makes your head explode.
But in the middle novel "Winter of the World," huge sections of the books are devoted to meticulously detailed work by the Soviets, Germans and Americans in the race for the bomb.
Beginning with the first book, he establishes various families and their descendants he's going to chronicle for the nearly 100 years of their lives--Russians, Americans, Germans and English characters, entire families.
So it was easy for him to place each of these at the center of the race for the bomb in each of their respective countries. One Russian character is married to a woman who is a physicist who pretty much leads the way for the Soviets (after her husband steals the plans from a Los Alamos scientist).
The World War II Soviet part, including all of Stalin's work to build a bomb, was especially fascinating to me. And am glad "Manhattan" includes this part, with Meeks ultimately trying to steal for the USSR rather than the Germans. It makes sense now that I've read the book.
And ironically, there was an extended scene of the first "test," which we are about to see Charlie and Frank pull off in "Manhattan."
Martin Cruz Smith writes good historical/spy novels. One of his is based on Los Alamos and is about the atomic bomb test. Its called Stallion Gate. You can get a cheap copy off EBay or Amazon or your local used bookstore if you have one anymore.
Another good book of his is "December 6" which is about what was going on in Tokyo the day before Pearl Harbor involving Americans there at the time. I see he has written a prequel of that book called "Tokyo Station" which I will get now.
I like Alan Furst the best when it comes to pre WWII and WWII events. His books are based on what happens in countries usually ignored by American authors.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
Thanks, I'll check out those books.
I'm still wading through all nearly 3000 pages of the Follett trilogy. Sigh.
I thought I was pretty versed in the step by step that took Europe into the Great War but still learned loads from his detailed walk-through. I knew when he finally got to the Zimmerman Telegram, he was serious about his historic detail. haha
It's SO detailed in places in all the books that it's like a dry historic document. But it's worth the effort, if only to refresh on how the hell we got into such a big mess in the 20th century.
And it also reminds what went before that got us where we are, literally, today.