Directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer begins with a troubled young Oppenheimer who is unhappy with his lab work. When his Cambridge University mentor Patrick Blackett told him he couldn't attend Niels Bohr's lectures, he retaliated in the most dramatic way possible: poisoning his mentor's apple. “It's in the book, and we spend pages looking at the evidence of what happened. But it remains a mystery. We know something happened, but we don't know exactly what happened. “We don't know what happened,” says Kai Byrd, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. To tell. Nolan's latest film is loosely based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005). “But in the movie, it looks as if the poison apple incident actually happened, but it's no surprise that director Nolan didn't have time to do it all, and the poison apple incident seems to be the result of Oppenheimer's character. “It captures the complexity. And his fragility and weakness,” added Bird, who co-authored the book with American historian Martin J. Sherwin.
At the recently concluded Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Series Jaipur Literature Festival, Bird spoke about the experience of seeing his work adapted for the screen, the relevance of the scientist after the Ukraine-Palestine war, and what made him want to do this. He spoke with FE about what drew him to literature. Oppenheimer. Edited excerpt:
You call Oppenheimer the American Prometheus. Why were you attracted to this scientist in the first place?
I knew he was a historically important figure and had written briefly about him in my two previous biographies of John McCloy and McGeorge Bundy. But it was Sherwin who signed him on to write a biography of Oppenheimer in 1980. Twenty years later, he came to me and asked me to be a part of this project. The project he completed five years later. So he did most of the research and I started writing. Since I wrote it in a hurry, he knew the content and would understand what was missing. Ever since Nolan's film was released, one of my sources of regret and sadness has been that Sherwin is no longer with us. He passed away in October 2021.
How did you feel when you saw your work reflected on the screen?
Although the film is heavily based on the book, it does not show anything about Oppenheimer's childhood or what happened after his trial in 1954. But I understand those choices. It's a 3 hour movie so I can't tell you everything. But Nolan conveyed the important parts of Oppenheimer's story: his strong personality, his intellect, his politics, his relationships with his wife and lovers, and the story of the building of the atomic bomb.
But one day, as we were writing, Sherwin turned to me and said, “You know what?
You've written biographies of people ranging from Wall Street lawyers John McCloy and Robert Oppenheimer to President Jimmy Carter and CIA official Robert Ames. How do I choose subjects?
I'm drawn to characters who explain how power works in America. My first book was about McCloy, a Wall Street lawyer who I was critical of in many ways. Next up was Bundy, one of the main architects of the Vietnam War. My motivation here was to find out why this liberal, intelligent, former Harvard dean made the huge mistake of involving the United States in this long, endless, and fruitless war. This was true of Mr. Oppenheimer, as I was investigating how America deals with nuclear weapons and issues of war and peace, and it is also true of Mr. Carter. You could say I'm interested in power.
They say, “A biography is a novel with footnotes.'' But isn't it sometimes difficult to separate your personal perception of the subject from the facts?
Let's say this another way. Select the facts you want to include in your story. It's simply a matter of personal interest, about what motivates you and what interests you. This is a very subjective art, but it is based on footnotes and citations to sources.
Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,'' also sought to limit new technology. What do you think about the need for scientists to become public intellectuals, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence?
Oppenheimer was unique, and what made him such a great scientist was precisely because he was able to become a public intellectual. In addition to being a quantum physicist, he reads literature, writes poetry, is multilingual, and studied Sanskrit in order to read the Bhagavad Gita in its original text. All this allowed him to ask the right questions about science and explain science to other people. .
But what happened to Oppenheimer in 1954 was that scientists were warned in advance that if they spoke out about politics and public policy, they could be attacked and destroyed by politicians, so they made it difficult to do. So they are taught to stay on a narrow path, which is a shame, especially as we are on the brink of a new scientific revolution with the advent of AI. The reality is that we need scientists to explain to us that we have choices about how to manage new technologies.
What do you think of Oppenheimer's relevance after the wars in Ukraine and Gaza?
It's scary. Having lived with the atomic bomb for 75 years, we have become complacent with the status quo. We think we can live with bombs, but that's not the case.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, which could lead to a larger war. In the Middle East, Israel has an atomic bomb, and tomorrow Iran could build one as well.
And the war in Gaza is very bad. It is understandable that the anger and hatred is so great that non-state actors could acquire bombs. Hamas could get its hands on a dirty bomb. Dirty bombs are much easier to manufacture. It's just radioactive waste and explosives that could make all of Tel Aviv uninhabitable. Oppenheimer he even warned about the dirty bomb threat in 1947.
