OPPENHEIMEROppenheimer and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament
Stanford scholar and political scientist Scott Sagan talks about what the film “Oppenheimer” got right – and missed – about creating the world’s first atomic bomb: the politics of nuclear proliferation, Oppenheimer’s attempts after World War II to constrain the new military technology, and the frightening role nuclear weapons play today. “I think there’s a broader tragedy that came out less clearly: the political tragedy of the nuclear arms race,” he says.
Christopher Nolan’s biopic about the American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s efforts to build the world’s first nuclear weapon has been a box office hit, drawing in audiences curious to see the controversial and tragic story of the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb.”
Seeing Oppenheimer on opening weekend was Stanford scholar and political scientist, Scott Sagan. As co-director of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Sagan had a professional interest in the movie about the United States’ scramble to build the first nuclear weapon before Germany did, and he was already very familiar with the story of the film’s main character, which is played by actor Cillian Murphy.
Sagan talks with Stanford Report about what he thought the film captured well – and not so well – about the politics of nuclear proliferation, Oppenheimer’s attempts after World War II to constrain the new military technology, and the frightening role nuclear weapons play today, including the threats Russia has made in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“I hope the film really gets people interested in thinking through better ways of managing nuclear technology, in addition to other dangerous technologies,” said Sagan. “That’s going to be a big question for the United States in the future. And we need great minds of the next generation, future Oppenheimers if you will, to help us all deal with that problem.”
Sagan is also the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science in the School of Humanities and Sciences.
Melissa De Witte: What were some of your takeaways from the film?
Scott Sagan:First of all, I thought for a Hollywood movie, it was highly accurate and very moving. The book the film is based on, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Oppenheimer, showed Oppenheimer’s triumphs of creating a scientific community at Los Alamos and building the first atomic bomb in less than three years, a remarkable achievement that perhaps no one else could have pulled off. There are two tragedies, one, the personal tragedy for Oppenheimer of having the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) take away his security clearance in 1954, a public humiliation that ended his relationship with the U.S. government. It was only in 2022, 55 years after Oppenheimer’s death, that Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm reversed that decision, citing “the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to.”