Posted on: August 11, 2023: 09:14 PM GST Last updated: August 11, 2023: 09:16 PM GST
Two new films, “Barbie”, directed by Greta Gerwig, and “Oppenheimer”, directed by Christopher Nolan, were released for worldwide distribution last July. Their success provided significant revenue for struggling Hollywood studios. One of the reasons for its popularity is that the story, cinematography and acting elements appeal to a wide spectrum of viewers young and old. The two films also sparked a lot of critical and praising comments. This article focuses on Oppenheimer, an adaptation of the award-winning book by Kay Bird and Robert Sherwin published in 2005.
The film covers three stages in the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. First, his early years in California and Europe when he made a name for himself as a brilliant physicist and got involved in left-wing politics, sympathizing with the goals of the American Communist Party and supporting the Soviet Union’s role in aiding the Spanish Republicans who fought against General Franco and the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. However, unlike his wife, Katie, Oppenheimer was not a member of the party. Secondly, his tenure in charge of the huge Los Alamos laboratory that he established in the deserts of the US state of New Mexico, where he formed an exceptional team of scientists and engineers who designed, manufactured and tested the first nuclear bomb on July 16, 1945. And that test was called “Trinity” (“The Trinity”). . Third, his professional life after the war phase that ended abruptly in 1954 when his security clearance was revoked on the grounds that he had become a source of security danger. His enemies never forgave him for opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb, which is a weapon 1,000 times more powerful than the two atomic bombs used against Japan. They used his former communist connections in their case against him.
Indeed, today’s public is less interested in Cold War politics in the 1950s than it is in questions about the US decision to use the new weapon against Japanese cities and not to warn residents of New Mexico and other neighboring states about the long-term radiation dangers of nuclear fallout from the first nuclear test.
With regard to the use of the bomb without warning against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new study by Evan Thomas, The Path to Surrender, makes a convincing case that the decision was right given the worse alternatives then available. In the spring and summer of 1945, the American forces fought bitter battles with the Japanese at sea and on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. An eventual invasion of the mainland would have cost hundreds of thousands of American lives and possibly millions of Japanese lives. Despite the terrible impact of the American bombing of Japanese cities with conventional weapons during that period, only one member of Japan’s High War Council, Foreign Minister Shiganori Togo, was willing to pursue peace. The two atomic bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9. On August 15, Togo finally persuaded Emperor Hirohito to make the “holy decision” of agreeing to surrender.
However, at the time of the Trinity test, the short- and long-term effects of nuclear radiation were not fully understood. As the decades passed, it became clear that the American citizens who were living in the area in 1945 later contracted various types of diseases, especially cancer. These residents have fought for more than 70 years for full recognition of their plight by the US government. While some compensation has been offered to some of them over the years, Washington has not yet provided an official recognition of what happened.
In any case, what is clear for now is that the discussions sparked by Oppenheimer’s film about the effects of nuclear weapons have heightened fears that they could be used in current wars and eventually acquired by other countries, precisely because they are so dangerous.
* Director of “Strategic Programs” at the National Interest Center – Washington
