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Journalism of Courage
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s hugely anticipated film, will be released on July 21. The film explores the life and personality of the American theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, best known for his contribution towards creating the atomic bomb.
As Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, Oppenheimer led the so-called ‘Manhattan Project’ — and the team of scientists who worked to harness 20th-century advances in nuclear physics for the purposes of war.
However, after witnessing firsthand the devastating potential of nuclear weapons, Oppenheimer became one of the strongest voices against their proliferation and the growing nuclear arms race between the United States and the (erstwhile) Soviet Union.
This is the story of how the so-called ‘Father of the Atomic Bomb’ became one of the most vocal advocates for nuclear non-proliferation.
History took a dramatic and momentous turn on July 16, 1945, when the first atomic bomb was tested roughly 340 km south of Los Alamos. It was known as the ‘Trinity Test’, and it was the culmination of years of work by the group of scientists Oppenheimer put together and led.
Less than a month later, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima — on August 6 — and Nagasaki — on August 9. The bombs caused catastrophic devastation, flattened the two cities, and killed more than 2 lakh people — mostly civilians — by the end of 1945, including many who suffered for weeks and months due to exposure to high levels of radiation.
The bombings brought an end to World War II in the eastern theatre, with Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan’s surrender on August 15. (The war in Europe had ended more than three months earlier, with the suicide of Hitler on April 30, the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, and the subsequent surrenders of the Nazi army in Eastern European battlefields on May 10 and 11.)
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only times that atomic weapons have been used in military conflict. But they set in motion a nuclear arms race that was to change global geopolitics forever.
The Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, the British in 1952, the French in 1960, and the Chinese in 1964. Over time, the bombs became bigger and more devastating, with potential nuclear conflict providing just one, damning certainty: mutually assured destruction.
Despite the job that he did, Robert Oppenheimer always had doubts about “bestowing humanity the possible means for its own annihilation”. After witnessing the Trinity Test, his reservations were amplified manifold. And like so many others, he sought the meaning of his actions in the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita.
In 1965, speaking on the first-ever detonation of an atomic bomb, he quoted the Gita. “Vishnu (Krishna) is trying to persuade the Prince (Arjuna) that he should do his duty, and to impress him [He] takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’,” Oppenheimer said.
Today, Oppenheimer’s “I am become Death” quote has become inextricably tied to the nuclear age, an apt description of the terrifying and awesome destructive potential of nuclear weapons. It also provides insight into how Oppenheimer himself understood the atomic bomb and his role in creating it.
In his paper ‘The Gita of J Robert Oppenheimer’ (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 2000), the American historian James A Hijiya wrote that Oppenheimer used the Bhagavad Gita “as an anodyne for the pangs of conscience”.
“For an uncertain soldier like Oppenheimer, nervously fashioning his own atomic ‘arrow’, Arjuna sets a good example,” Hijiya wrote. “If it was proper for Arjuna to kill his own friends and relatives in a squabble over the inheritance of a kingdom, then how could it be wrong for Oppenheimer to build a weapon to kill Germans and Japanese whose governments were trying to conquer the world?” he wrote.
After President Harry S Truman decided to use the atomic bomb on Japan, which was already “essentially defeated”, Oppenheimer was very upset. According to some reports, he even told President Truman that both he and the President have “blood on their hands”.
In a paper published in 1946, Oppenheimer would describe the atomic bomb as “a weapon for aggressors”, with “the elements of surprise and of terror…intrinsic to it”. “It is a practical thing to recognise… [the] completely common peril that atomic weapons constitute for the world, to recognise that only by a community of responsibility is there any hope of meeting the peril,” he would write.
This was the beginning of Oppenheimer’s active opposition to nuclear weapons and their unchecked proliferation.
Immediately after the War ended, Oppenheimer became chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. During his chairmanship, he worked hard towards curtailing the proliferation of atomic weapons in the US. In 1949, the US still had only 30-odd atomic bombs.
All this changed after 1949 when the USSR conducted its first successful test. The US now sought to not only produce more bombs, but also a much more potent bomb — a “super” bomb, as some called it.
This thermonuclear weapon or the hydrogen bomb would have 1000 times the potency of the gun-type uranium bomb (nicknamed Little Boy) that was dropped on Hiroshima. Oppenheimer was convinced that an H-bomb had no real military purpose, was “morally repugnant”, and a “weapon of genocide”. His opposition angered many within the US military establishment.
As a result, Oppenheimer would soon be accused of “aiding communists”. He lost his security clearance after a high-profile trial in 1954. While he would continue to write and speak against nuclear weapons, he had effectively lost his political influence.
“It was Dr Oppenheimer’s opposition to the H-bomb, more than anything else, that made his opponents into enemies and fuelled their suspicions of his loyalty,” academic and retired Democratic US Senator from New Mexico Jeff Bingaman wrote in ‘Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project’ (ed. Cynthia C Kelly 2005).
It was only in 2022, 54 years after his death, that the US government nullified its 1954 decision, and affirmed his loyalty. President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer M Granholm, said the decision to revoke Oppenheimer’s clearance was the result of a “flawed process”, and that with time, “more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.”
So, how do we view Oppenheimer today?
For a long time, amidst the “Red Scare” in the US, Oppenheimer was seen as a divisive figure. Now, that has changed. Today he is seen — as he should be — as a brilliant scientist, an inspirational leader, and a man who ultimately stood against his own brilliant creation for the greater good of humanity.
Oppenheimer’s story also continues to be a cautionary tale for scientists around the world.
“The message that the state seemed to be sending to its scientists in the Oppenheimer case was, ‘We value your necessary inventions, but not your unwanted advice’,” the American historian Gregg Herken wrote in ‘Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project’. Herken argues that Oppenheimer’s persecution ultimately disillusioned many scientists from working for the state, and brought an end to “the era when scientists were blindly willing to follow orders — even in wartime.”
