I totally agree with you on this one. I dont't think that Feynman was truly regarded as normal. I mean, the guy liked to crack safes of high rank military officers in a wartime nuclear base to just screw with them. Disrespect to authority shouldn't have been normal at that time. Especially at Los Alamos.
His father was a MIL contractor, maybe it was uniforms -- or whatever that was a cover for (ie. not limbs).
Feynman's starring was high on the agenda for the then-authorities: he was basically the first (and only?) successful physicist "born and bred" in the USA, not being a self-proclaiming (or immigrant) Jew.
Of course, cracking a safe just to screw with someone (and, you know, to remind someone that their safes aren't in fact secure) is perhaps the single most honorable thing to do with a safe.
Better that the safe be left around for spies to infiltrate?
