The Ambivalent Destroyer – Tablet Magazine
Oppenheimer s ambivalence, which so enraged Strauss, was in fact his greatest gift, as Nolan s movie makes clear. He had little in common with Leo Szilard, the physicist who opposed dropping the bomb on Japan. But he also recoiled from the cold blooded use of game theory to determine which side would have the advantage after a nuclear holocaust. Nuclear war remained unthinkable for him, a fate to be dodged at all costs. This complex, soul-torn genius was punished by an American establishment in thrall to McCarthyite fanaticism, a blot on American history. Oppenheimer was a masterful, charismatic organizer and a lightning-minded researcher, but he was something more, too. As Nolan s movie argues, his heroic stature came from his misgivings and his dread of the atomic future. Divided at his core, this new Prometheus knew the costs of the alien fire he bestowed on humanity.
LWJ and I saw Oppenheimer yesterday and enjoyed it. It’s a long movie, 3 hours, but I never felt restless; just a bit weary sometimes. Of course it’s an amazing story.
I actually met one physicist portrayed in the movie — Hans Betha. He was a celebrated professor at Cornell when I was there. We had him over to dinner at Telluride House, where he treated us to a detailed history of tapioca, the pudding. He did not look anything like the actor in the movie. He had a simply enormous head and was not especially tall that I recall. He looked like one of the aliens in the Star Trek pilot about Captain Pike, though he did not demonstrate any telepathic powers I’m aware of. He was (I think) one of the Hungarian Jews referred to as The Martians for their otherworldly intelligence.