In The Shadow Of ‘Oppenheimer’: ‘A Compassionate Spy’ Reveals American Scientist’s Espionage In Midst Of Manhattan Project
deadline.comChristopher Nolan’s mega-hit Oppenheimer features dozens of historical characters, but among them you won’t find Ted Hall. And yet Hall, who went to work on the Manhattan Project as a teenage wunderkind physicist, occupies a significant place in the overall story.
As a fresh-faced and idealistic youth, he shared top secret details of the atom bomb’s design with Soviet agents — but he was never prosecuted for it.
The incredible tale of Hall’s act of espionage, and the moral considerations that motivated him, is told in Steve James’ new documentary A Compassionate Spy.
Magnolia Pictures opens the documentary in limited release today. “Ted was an extraordinary person, and it’s an extraordinary story,” observes James, the Oscar-nominated director of Abacus: Small Enough to Jail and Hoop Dreams. “Here’s this guy who graduates from Harvard in physics at the age of 18, is selected to become a junior physicist at Los Alamos….
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