Oppenheimer: A Tale of Strauss

Did you know that a subtitle was omitted from the biggest film of 1959? I think that’s also the case for the Number 3 film of 2023 which also happens to be set at the dawn of the nuclear age: Oppenheimer…

Ben-Hur (1959) became one of the biggest films ever released. With the biggest budget ever (at the time), it won 11 Academy Awards, a feat matched only by Titanic in 1997 and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003. 

Ben-Hur was based on the book by the same name written by Lew Wallace. But the film lacked the book’s full title, which was Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880).

Oppenheimer bears many similarities to Ben-Hur.

My wife and I watched the film a few weeks ago. Afterwards, I concluded the film’s full title should have been Oppenheimer: A Tale of Strauss. 

Lew Wallace wanted to write a story in which Jesus Christ was the hero, but he took an indirect approach by writing about him through the life of a fictional character, Judah Ben-Hur. 

Oppenheimer uses the same approach, but instead of being a hero, Lewis Strauss is clearly supposed to be the villain. The movie is about Oppenheimer, the great physicist, whose public career was supposedly ruined by Strauss, the political, power-hungry “anti-scientist.”

NUCLEAR GIANTS

If you are familiar with the history of nuclear power, you know that Lewis Strauss played an important role. I published a review and summary of his autobiography on this website.

In fact, any viewer who is not familiar with Strauss’s public career will likely find himself lost until the flashback-style narrative puts us on sure footing at pre-World War II Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, but before it was named after Ernest Lawrence (played in the film by Josh Harnett, who became one of my favorite characters). 

The film basically starts at the end of Strauss’s career, in the middle of his 1959 Senate confirmation hearings for the position of Secretary of Commerce.

The film is hostile towards Strauss and attempts to rehabilitate Oppenheimer’s public image by de-emphasizing his Communist ties and downplaying the true nature of Soviet espionage that existed at the time. The fact that this New York Times review barely mentions Strauss’s role in the film ought to strike anyone as odd.

The film paints a picture of intense rivalry between these two influential giants of the nuclear age. In the story, the two men dislike each other from the beginning. The movie illustrates the heart of this bitter relationship in a scene featuring a congressional hearing in which Oppenheimer publicly ridicules Strauss.

It shows that Strauss is against exporting radioactive isotopes to a Norwegian scientist because he thinks it’s a national security risk. Oppenheimer embarrasses Strauss with the following statement: “My own rating of the importance of isotopes in this broad sense is that they are far less important than electronic devices but far more important than, let us say, vitamins, somewhere in between.”

The film persuasively argues that because Oppenheimer humiliated him, a vengeful Strauss later ended Oppenheimer’s career by revoking his government security clearance.

However, the film can only achieve this by omitting some facts. 

STRAUSS’S SOFTER SIDE

First, the movie downplays Strauss’s humanity, remaining silent about his unsuccessful plea to have the atomic bomb detonated over an uninhabited area of Japan as a demonstration to avoid needless loss of life. 

It omits the fact that Strauss was on record in favor of exporting isotopes for medical purposes. Exporting for military uses without proper controls was against the Atomic Energy Act. 

It omits the fact that the death of Strauss’s parents in 1935 and 1937 prompted him to self-fund nuclear research at Cal Tech because he was driven by a goal of mass-producing enough radium to treat cancer patients cheaply. He did this until the government took over nuclear research after the war began.

The movie doesn’t mention that the Norwegion scientist who requested the isotope shipment later resigned his post due to his connection to the Communist party.

The film did not mention that Oppenheimer continued his relationship with Chevalier and had met with him in France just months before his security clearance hearing (and despite knowing how the US government felt about maintaining Communist party connections).

HISTORY INTRUDES

Also omitted are facts revealing the leakage of classified nuclear research to Soviet scientists.

The movie shows everyone, especially Strauss, being concerned about Communist infiltrators. But few turn up. 

The film doesn’t tell us that the first Soviet nuclear reactor built in 1946 was identical to a reactor built at Hanford in 1944, despite the Hanford specifications not being released to the public until 1955.

It keeps quiet about Alger Hiss, the notorious Communist spy embedded within the US State Department (re: The Pumpkin Papers) who helped create the United Nations. Nor does it mention Harry Dexter White: top Treasury Department official, architect of the modern money order, and also a spy. 

The movie didn’t mention other strange coincidences that heavily imply a constant flow of top-secret information out of the Manhattan Project into Soviet Russia.

In his autobiography, Strauss recounts an interesting story told by Dr. Charles Allen Thomas of Monsanto Chemical Company. Thomas said American scientists during the Manhattan Project devised the unit “barn” to describe nuclear cross-sections. They named it after the American colloquialism about hitting the “broadside of a barn.”

Thomas then explained that, curiously, the Soviets independently devised the exact same unit of measure, which they also called a “barn,” even though the closest-sounding Russian word means “mutton.”

Finally, though it depicted them as enemies, the movie does not reveal that Strauss nominated and voted for Oppenheimer to be re-elected as director of the Institute of Advance Study Study, after Oppenheimer lost his security clearance in 1954 under Strauss’s chairmanship. Oppenheimer was director from 1947 to 1966.

CONCLUSION

I can understand why these facts were omitted–they would bore the audience to tears. 

And Christopher Nolan doesn’t like boring his audience to tears. 

To that end, he excels in turning what surely could have been a boring story into a riveting drama. Much has already been written about the practical effects used to recreate the Trinity test explosion–the praise is absolutely justified.

But perhaps, in my opinion, the greatest pleasure of the entire film is enjoying a sublime performance by Robert Downey Jr. in his portrayal of Lewis Strauss. Despite Strauss being our film’s villain, Robert Downey Jr. is marvelous.

Other actors do great jobs as well: Matt Damon is excellent as Leslie Groves; Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr; Gary Oldman as President Truman; and, of course, Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer himself.

Oppenheimer has been nominated for 13 Oscars. If it wins them all, it would surpass Ben-Hur. With the 2024 Academy Awards a day away, we’ll see how close it comes to replicating Ben-Hur’s critical success.

[Update: Oppenheimer took home 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. — not 11, but not far off.]