Ordinarily, commenting on a book about a bygone era and a long forgotten player who emerged from the WW II scene, might seem oddly out of context, given the current circumstances of our economy, the war, soaring energy costs, declining values of our homes, foreclosures, huge public and private debt and of course an administration unlike any other in history for dealing with these problems. As Kevin Phillips has said in his recent book, "not in recent memory have we seen so many sharks in the tank all at once." Yet, did you notice that in the current climate of uncertainty and anxiety, where there are so many sources of angst, no one except Ralph Nader and Howard Zinn have dared bring up the policies of FDR for discussion. No one has asked what FDR would do and no one has suggested that maybe it’s time to do it again. If you think the problems we are facing today are not directly the result of complete regulatory failure, created by rewarding incompetency and the rich, then you have little hope of ever coming to grips with our current dilemma(s).
The topic of this book goes right to the heart of why we find ourselves in our current dismal condition, as we continue to tolerate these newly emerging crises while in a state of national paralysis. Indeed, this topic has never been more appropriate for understanding contemporary America. The origins of how we got to where we are today and why we seem so paralytic, have everything to do with what we did during the period that began immediately after WW II, when we were forced, without our knowledge, without our approval or consent, to take a hard right in our foreign policy, as we turned on the military spigot by formally adopting the "bomb." We were in fact seduced by the bomb. It seemed so lovely and decisive at first. First it was the Atom bomb, but that was followed by the much more powerful hydrogen bomb (thermonuclear). Indeed, the present state of our militarism, in which we spend $ 1.1 trillion on defense each year, directly and indirectly accounts for our deficiencies in having a decent health care system, the skyrocketing costs of energy, the growing population of homelessness in America, the diverging disparity in personal wealth, the high cost of services, like internet access, that are far less expensive in other countries and our failing infrastructure which allows major bridges to fall down with barely a ho-hum from the public. These realities of today and our complete ignorance about their root causes, had their origins in the events that began immediately after WW II. Yet almost no one understood, except a small cluster of perpetrators, what the objectives were and why so much energy was spent on moving our culture so dramatically to a different point. The country was exhausted at the end of WW II, but it was this state of exhaustion and distraction that the right was busy making sure it would undo the FDR administration and their seduction by the "bomb" would begin the process. Although most Americans do not realize it, since the WW II, we have become the bomb culture, identified with the development and use of atomic weapons. As E.L. Doctorow observed, "it was our first weaponry and then our diplomacy and now it’s our economy."
One person, J. Robert Oppenheimer tried to steer us clear of the bomb culture and economy and in appreciation for his efforts, we destroyed his career, and removed him from public influence and visibility. But the larger price of destruction for this transgression is yet to be paid. It is the one that now lies ahead of us, the one just now coming into view. The one that finds us incapable of dramatic re-investment in America because of the "bomb." With that introductory disclaimer–to the book!
Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin have co-authored "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the new gold standard for the history/biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the famous WW II scientist who successfully took control of the Manhattan Project and created the atomic bomb. Many books have been written in the past about Oppenheimer, but they have only looked at sectors of his life or his role in limited issues of history. This book, for the first time, covers the entire life of Oppenheimer and it doesn’t fail to richly reward us for absorbing it. The book has earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 and has received a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Greek mythology holds that Prometheus stole fire and gave it to man, after which Zeus had his body nailed onto Mount Caucasus, where an eagle swooped and devoured his liver by day, which grew back by night (From the introduction). In September, 1945, one month after atom bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by Japan’s prompt surrender, Scientific Monthly declared that "Modern Prometheans have raided Mount Olympus again and have brought back for man the very thunderbolts of Zeus." Although the development of the atom bomb required a massive effort with 3000 physicists, chemists, engineers and technicians housed in newly created Los Alamos, New Mexico, and a few other key sites, one Promethian stood head and shoulders above all others and that was Oppenheimer. He became an overnight hero and an instant legend. As the Truman administration sought to defend the use of the bomb on Japan as a life-saving act, by preventing an invasion of the mainland, thereby saving thousands if not millions of lives (WW II in the Pacific stopped in Okinawa, a few weeks before the two atom bombs were dropped), Oppenheimer’s reputation grew into a larger than life figure, admired by everyone and celebrated as a new kind of American hero. He was on the cover of Time in 1948 and was one of the most recognizable faces to emerge from the war, with his porkpie hat and the inevitable cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth, looking at you through an intense fixation, as if to warn that if you want to say something, it’d better be good. His prodigious smoking habit, said to be four to five packs a day, would eventually cost him his life, as he died of throat cancer at the age of 62 in 1967.
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