Oppenheimer at Ground Zero

FROM LOOKING at the pictures, you could see it in his eyes. Flashbulbs might explode in front of his chiseled face, but the light they cast wasn't nearly as bright as the curious beams that burned beneath his brows. He possessed a lambent, almost impatient genius, one that illuminated and absorbed the dark secrets of quantum mechanics and atomic fission. While other scientists stumbled in the darkness, he moved with confidence and ease. He projected his glance into the dark corners of the universe, saw the force that drove the furnace of the stars, and then he brought that force to earth. After four years of refining, J. Robert Oppenheimer unleashed a force that exploded with a brilliance and brutality never before seen on this planet. His genius, that inquisitive flicker in his eyes, found expression in an explosion that could be seen from the rest of the planets in the solar system.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, known to most as the Father of the Atomic Bomb, lived a life as mysterious and tragic as the hellish radioactive beast that he sired. Attempting to do what Oppenheimer himself did so well, director Jon Else has taken it upon himself to shed some light on both the man and his creation. The Day After Trinity succeeds in penetrating much of the mystery that has so long surrounded the Los Alamos project and the slightly built scientist who coordinated it. Relying on candid interviews with Oppenheimer's Los Alamos colleagues, as well as rare footage of the test site itself, code-named Trinity. Else captures the spirit of the project and the nearly 6000 scientists who labored for four years on it. Oppenheimer, whom one former colleague calls the "conductor" of a huge orchestra, emerges in relation to his atomic baby. The man orchestrated our passage into the atomic age, hoping to improve the lot of mankind, only to be crucified in 1954 as a security risk and a Communist sympathizer.

Rather than occupy himself with the technical aspects of the atomic bomb. Else concerns himself primarily with the man who built the bomb. But early on, it becomes clear that the bomb itself might be easier to understand. Oppenheimer--the student of sixteenth-century French poetry, fluent in six languages, given to reading the Bhagavadgita--hardly can be filed in the mad scientist category. Else seems to appreciate Oppenheimer's complexity and doesn't try to explain the ultimate source of Oppenheimer's often contradictory behavior. Instead, he offers an exposition: he presents the incongruous, ironic and often darkly humorous facts surrounding Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb.

Else's technique proves provocative--and effective. Forced to consider the complexity of Oppenheimer and the various political and moral forces that swirl within and around him, the audience can't help but be drawn into the personal drama of Oppenheimer's life. An observer can almost feel the urgency of Oppenheimer's quest, especially since Else cleverly intersperses clips of the Nazi war machine to underscore the importance of completing the work on the bomb. All the American scientists were convinced that Nazi Germany was working on an atomic bomb of its own: the long days at Los Alamos thus seemed more of a struggle for existence than an audience might appreciate today.

BUT AFTER GERMANY surrendered and the original rationale for the development of the bomb no longer applied, work continued nonetheless. Of course, the Japanese hadn't been working on any atomic weapons. Neither had the Germans, for that matter, as scientists learned after the war. But the project at Los Alamos continued. The justification for continuing the development of the A-bomb never becomes clear, unfortunately, because the colleagues of Oppenheimer Else has chosen to interview don't really have an explanation.

Else finds the justification for using the bombs on civilian populations even more questionable. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been deliberately spared the fire storms that raged in Tokyo because, as the narrator of the film describes, the military wished to test the "full effect" of the weapons. The "full effects"? One hundred seventy thousand dead, hundreds of others injured and maimed, two unprotected cities totally destroyed, and unconditional surrender by the Japanese three days after the second bomb.

But of all the seenes in the film, of all the personal stories and conflicts, of all the facts considered, none can match the sheer power of the scenes showing the explosion of the atomic bombs themselves. Some are in color, and the strange mixture of purple smoke and orange flame billowing into a mushroom cloud creates an image unique in its ability to arouse fear and fascination. All the long hours of work, the years of isolation in New Mexico, are compressed into nine seconds of radioactive horror.

After the bomb test at the Trinity site in Almagordo, nothing or no one was the same: it wasn't just the response of one woman who, miles away, couldn't understand why her blind sister could see the brilliant flash: more importantly, it was the reaction of scientists like Oppenheimer, who realized that they had seen the most powerful force in the universe demonstrated before their unbelieving eyes. As Robert Serber, a scientist who worked on the project, said. "It was some kind of beauty." But as the lesson of Hiroshima--where, as brother Frank Oppenheimer recalled with obvious pain, they saw all the "flattened bodies"--made clear to Robert Oppenheimer, it was a beauty that should never be seen again.

Like most of the other scientists who had spent four years of their lives working on the A-bomb, Oppenheimer must have been relieved when the bomb actually exploded. As his brother, also a physicist, pointed out, the first reaction of most of the scientists was, "Thank God it worked." But though he may have, as he recalled in an interview years later, looked on in silent admiration when the bomb exploded, he was hardly silent in the years that followed.

THOUGH HE BECAME a hero to most Americans, a kind of scientific pundit turned patriot. Oppenheimer wasted little time in going to Washington to advocate a policy of "international collaboration" concerning the use of atomic weapons. Oppenheimer felt an international community of nations should control the testing and development of the bomb. However, Oppenheimer's willingness to cooperate with other nations, coupled with his past political connections (the FBI had a comprehensive dossier describing all his affiliations with members of the Communist Party), led government hawks and Oppenheimer's former Los Alamos colleague. Edward Teller, to believe that the Father of the Atomic Bomb would be willing to put his idea up for adoption. In 1954, Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance.

The decision, as a friend said, "almost killed" Oppenheimer. But despite Oppenheimer's tragic fate. Else refrains from blaming Teller or any government officials. Using a sequence of pictures taken shortly before Oppenheimer's death in 1967. Else simply shows the process by which Oppenheimer withered away. The sequence proves more powerful than any battery of accusations could ever be.

The Day After Trinity. Academy Award nominee for best documentary, should attract the attention of citizens concerned about Pentagon plans to start gearing up for a renewed arms race. The legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer provides a sobering example to those concerned about the increase in nuclear weapons. Having seen the first atomic explosion. Oppenheimer knew the world should see no more. He began that work on the day after Trinity, but, as this film makes clear, the struggle to create the bomb may prove easier than the struggle to control it.