Cross-cultural communication （159）　

159) “Oppenheimer”
This time, I revisited Oppenheimer, nicknamed Oppie, who was the topic of discussion in “Blog 142:?The Qualities of a Columnist.” When I wrote the previous blog, the movie Oppenheimer had not yet been released in Japan. I watched this movie on the flight to Germany in June 2024. At that time, there were no Japanese subtitles, so I finished watching the three-hour epic feeling somewhat unsatisfied. After returning to Japan, I learned that the Japanese translation of the original book, AMERICAN PROMETHEUS, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, had been published by Hayakawa Publishing under the title Oppenheimer, so I bought it in August, 2024 and started reading it.

The original book is a non-fiction work written by Kai Bird, who also wrote about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and Martin J. Sherwin (who passed away in 2021), who spent 20 years from conception to completion! The Japanese translation is also a long work, with three volumes, each over 400 pages. This alone gives a good idea of the hard work that Christopher Nolan put into making this original work into a movie. Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York in 1904 to first-generation Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was a successful importer of men's clothing and was financially well off. As a child, he was a child prodigy, excelling in mathematics, science, and languages, and was repeatedly skipped ahead in school. In terms of languages, he reportedly mastered not only modern languages like German and French but also ancient Greek and Latin. There is an anecdote where he told his classmates, “Ask me a question in Latin, and I'll answer in Greek.” He enrolled at Harvard in 1922, where academics were always his passion. However, during this time, he was socially awkward and had little interaction with women. Robert's interest turned to science, particularly physics. After graduating from Harvard, he studied in various parts of Europe, mainly in the UK and Germany. At that time, the center of theoretical physics was in Europe, not the US. In 1929, at the young age of 25, he obtained a position as a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of California, Berkeley. With his wealth of knowledge, handsome appearance, and generous nature, he was extremely popular among students, who gave him the nickname “Oppie.” He liked the nickname so much that he began using it himself.

Robert steadily built up his achievements in the field of theoretical physics. In terms of intellectual social activities outside his specialty, he became inclined toward leftist ideas represented by the Soviet Communist Party, which was not uncommon among the intellectual elite in the United States, especially on the West Coast at the time. Additionally, regarding his relationships with women, which had troubled him so much in his youth, he came to have a close female friend with whom he maintained a deep relationship. These factors would later become the source of his misfortune after World War II. Regarding his leftist ideology, the signing of the Molotov?Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1942 was a shocking event for Robert, leading him to lose faith in the Soviet Union and communism. He resolved to support the United States militarily to defeat the Nazis.

In 1941, the United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies following the outbreak of the Pacific War. Around 1942, information began to surface that the Nazis had started developing an atomic bomb, prompting the United States to launch the Manhattan Project. Robert was appointed to lead the project, and he personally selected Los Alamos as the site for the research and testing of the bomb. Los Alamos was his second home, where he had spent his vacations riding horses. Under Robert's exceptional leadership, the research and experiments on the atomic bomb in Los Alamos progressed steadily despite various setbacks, and the final explosion test was successfully conducted in July 1945. At that time, Nazi Germany, the greatest enemy, had already surrendered in May 1945 and no longer existed. The U.S. government's policy was to use the atomic bomb to force Japan to accept the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded unconditional surrender. Robert strongly opposed the use of the atomic bomb in Japan, arguing that it had been developed to prevent Nazi Germany from conquering the world, and that using it against Japan, which was already defeated and would result in the sacrifice of many civilians, was unacceptable. However, his wishes were not granted. After the atomic bombings, Robert fell into deep despair, but public opinion hailed him as a hero, and he even appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Robert's post-war life was a series of tragedies. During the 1940s and 1950s, when the Red Scare (anti-communist hysteria) raged, he was seen as the arch-enemy of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy, and his every move was monitored. He was accused of being a Soviet spy, and the trials dragged on for years. However, thanks to the testimonies of his colleagues and students in theoretical physics, as well as public support for the hero of the Manhattan Project, he was finally exonerated in 1954. Nevertheless, he never fully recovered from the emotional turmoil, and his marriage and relationship with his children remained strained. He passed away in 1965 from throat cancer, likely caused by decades of smoking. Robert Oppenheimer was a wealthy Jewish-American and a genius theoretical physicist. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Semitism existed in the United States. (See Blog Post 151:The Plot Against America) Despite this, he loved his homeland, the United States, despite his Jewish heritage, and played a pivotal role in developing the atomic bomb to defeat Nazi Germany, the common enemy of both Jews and Americans. However, the atomic bomb was ultimately used against Japan, a decision he had opposed. He was then targeted in the Red Scare and plunged into despair. The complex personality and circumstances of this man, as well as the equally complex historical backdrop, are so vast that even this lengthy non-fiction work feels insufficient. A three-hour film simply cannot do justice to such a story, in my opinion.

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