The movie Oppenheimer played recently at the Marshall 6 movie theater, and I managed to catch the show on its final night.

I’m glad I made it. It had an interesting historical chronicle that started in the 1930s and proceeded to 1953, when Oppenheimer was denied restoration of his security clearance because of ties to Communists.

The explosion at the New Mexico test site had plenty of suspense. I also liked the interaction among scientists. There were a few details I didn’t know, like the fear among some researchers that an atomic explosion could trigger a chain reaction that would destroy the Earth.

The movie brought back memories of one of my favorite Marshall High School English assignments. In Greg Van Hee’s English 10 class we read the novel Hiroshima by John Hersey about the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing.

In a concise, objective way, Hersey described the suffering of thousands of Hiroshima residents. Everyone in the class was at least somewhat moved by the depth and detail.

There was a small percentage of students who reacted to Hersey by thinking that it was wrong to drop the atomic bomb.

The large majority took the more popular view that President Truman did the right thing. Historically he’s been credited with saving the lives of American soldiers. It more than likely also meant less loss of life and property for the Japanese.

I’ve seen a definite shift in public opinion since the 1980s. If we took a poll I think the majority would still say the bombing was necessary. They would probably, however, also say that they wish things could have been different.

World War II was a righteous war, but it was still a war. There was a massive amount of destruction throughout Europe and in much of the Pacific Rim.

It was supposed to become the war that would end war forever. There would be a United Nations to peacefully resolve international disputes. There was the nuclear deterrent, in which the danger of mass destruction could be enough to prevent any all-out war.

We haven’t had nuclear bombings, but have continued to fight conventional wars. Some nations such as Somalia have been ravaged by civil war that has caused thousands of refugees to flee their homelands.

It’s not the perfect world that was envisioned after World War II. We wonder why the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s didn’t produce a more stable global political system. If anything, it made international politics more complicated.

Oppenheimer gets much of its significance in the way it portrays the A-bomb era through a 21st century frame of mind.

It points out an age-old problem for scientists and inventors. They simply discover new technology. It’s then up to politicians and business leaders to decide what to do with it.

When Oppenheimer spoke of the dangers of nuclear weapons, he was seen as disloyal to America and fell out of favor. The movie treats him as a misunderstood protagonist. It portrays him as a humanitarian.

The scene featuring Truman is significant since the President wanted Oppenheimer to accept his fame and good fortune. Truman couldn’t understand why Oppenheimer felt remorse over the dropping of his atomic bomb.

Truman was a simpler minded and more pragmatic man. He maintained that he did the right thing. The deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t affect his conscience the way they affected Oppenheimer’s.

The belief that it’s basically wrong to kill puts a damper 80 years later on the unbridled enthusiasm the public once had for Los Alamos.

The movie strikes a balance. We see the patriotism, but we also see the dark side of war era politics and the nuclear arms race. Today’s audiences are seeing it with a modern sensibility.

–Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent