LOS ANGELES.–Taking the grand prize of Best Picture and six other Oscars at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood last night, “Oppenheimer” won for a reason, because of the paramount importance of controlling nuclear weapons. “Oppenheimer” told the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer an American of Jewish ancestry who graduated from Harvard College in 1925, Christ’s College Cambridge and eventually at the University of Gottingen where he studied theoretical quantum physics under Max Born and famed atomic scientist Werner Heisenberg. Oppenheimer returned to the U.S. with his Ph.D. to teach theoretical physics at the University of California, Berkeley where he met Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller, founder of Berkeley’s Lawrence-Livermore laboratory to study advanced physics. At Berekely, Oppenheimer was tapped to run the government’s Top Secret Manhattan Project.
U.S. government officials asked Oppenheimer to mange the Top Secret Manahattan Project in 1942 to develop a nuclear bomb, primarily to destroy Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, taking over much of Europe and battling the Soviet Union to loggerheads. It became clear to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his War Secretary Harry L. Stinson that to protect American troops eventually entering the war in Europe June 6, 1944, that the U.S. needed a secret weapon unmatched in human history to beat the Germans. But as things turned out, the Russians eventually prevailed with U.S. help on the Western Front, toppling Hilter April 20, 2945, forcing Germany to surrender. Roosevelt died April 12, 1945 handing control of the Manhattan Project to President Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt’s Vice President. After Germany surrendered, Truman authorized Oppenheimer’s bomb on Japan Aug. 6, 1945.
Oppenheimer the 2024 Best Picture depicted the complicated life of J. Robert Oppenheimer while working in Los Alamos, New Mexico feverishly with as massive group of scientists and engineers to develop the A-bomb. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, depicted the tortured life of J. Robert Oppenheimer realizing how he had changed the world forever in the advent of the nuclear age, something stolen by Russians spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project under Openheimer’s watch. Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists committed themselves after the Aubg. 6. 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the control of nuclear weapons. Every U.S. president, including President Harry Trump, who ordered the bombing of Hiorshima and Nagasaki, worked on nonproliferation. Oppenheimr watched 140,000 Japanese civilians vaporized at Hiroshima and another 74,000 at Nagasaki.
Witnessing the bombings of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists committed themselves with the U.S. government to nuclear nonproliferation knowing that nuclear war could end civilization altogether with the Soviets rapidly developing its own arsenal of nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer, the movie, was adapted from the book, “American Prometheus,” the life and times of J. Robert Oppenheimer before and after the Manhattan Project. Watching how his bomb was used, Oppenheimer was mentally tortured by what he and other nuclear scientists had done to change the world. Threats of a nuclear holocaust became a major effort of ethical nuclear scientists and the U.S. government under Truman and every other U.S. president until 81-year-old President Joe Biden. Biden decided unilaterally to join Ukraine’s war against the Kremlin, essentially ending U.S.-Russian relations and all the exhaustive efforts to control nuclear weapons.
Not one journalist or scientist has raised the issue in the 2024 campaign how Biden decided to end all arms control to defend Ukraine’s territorial borders against the Kremlin. But in so doing, Biden ended 80 years of arms control and nonproliferation, a major part of every American president since Harry Truman. No mention was made by anyone connected with Oppenheimer the movie about the shameful end of nuclear nonproliferation by the Biden administration. At the end of his Best Actor speech, 47-year-old Cillian Murphy prayed for peace on earth, moved by the role he played as J. Robert Oppenheimer. If Oppenheeimer the movie does anything for civilization, it should open up a discussion among presidential candidates of the absolute necessity to stop the Ukraine War and return to normal diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation.
Today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere had Democrats and some Republicans at the March 7 State-of-the-Union Speech cheering Biden’s war with 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead of calling for urgent peace talks and a return to normal U.S.-Russian relations, the audience applauded loudly the current proxy war against the Kremlin. J. Robert Oppenheimer and other concerned nuclear scientists involved with Manhattan project would be turning in their graves knowing Biden rejected nuclear nonproliferation all due to Ukraine’s territorial dispute with the Kremlin. Biden has shirked his basic duty as a president to assure the post-WW II order that heavily depended on diplomacy, détente and arms control with the Kremlin. Biden, Democrats and his backers in the press have mentioned not one word about Biden ending nuclear nonproliferation and arms control.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
