"Eureka" moments are myriad in literature and film but rare in actual history. Inventions and concepts are often the result of hard work, building upon the research of others and trial and error. But "eureka" moments do occur. One of the most extraordinary occurred on September
12, 1933. As documented in Peter Wyden's excellent volume, Day One, and later dramatized in the film of the same name, Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard was walking in downtown London. He came to an intersection and stopped. He had recently read H.G. Wells The World Set Free (1914) in which Wells envisioned the use of what he called "atomic bombs," bombs that exploded like ordinary bombs but because of their core material, Americanium, continued burning for years after their initial explosion, effectively producing a residual heat so intense that the entire area would melt. He had also read Ernest Rutherford writing on the possibilities of achieving a nuclear chain reaction that could possibly, in the future, become a source of energy. Szilard stared at the traffic lights and began putting the pieces together in his head. Within seconds his brain conceived of something no other human brain had ever conceived: If one could produce a run-away chain reaction in fissionable material using conventional explosives as a trigger one could produce an explosion of extraordinary immensity. The thought so immediately terrified him that he bolted straight forward to develop his nightmarish idea only to be stopped by a fellow pedestrian before he was hit by a bus.
The following year, after he had worked out the details, he filed a patent and gifted it to the British Admiralty. After studying and living in Berlin since 1922, he fled in 1933 to escape Nazi 
persecution. Even though the scientific world was still six years away from a successful test of fission (when everyone else finally got the idea) he was afraid that someone in Nazi Germany would have the same epiphany he had. He wanted the British to have the patent. They didn't take him seriously. No one understood what exactly it was he had patented. Later he would take a teaching position in the United States and contact his old friend from Berlin, Albert Einstein. He explained his idea to Einstein and urged Einstein to alert the United States government. Since Einstein, and most other physicists at the time, was unsure of what Szilard had envisioned, Szilard penned the letter to President Roosevelt himself and Einstein signed it as if he had written it. You can read the full text of the letter here.
But there was another physicist that understood all of it. Unknown to Szilard, on January 29, 1939 Robert Oppenheimer heard about the first successful attempt of fission in a lab. Within minutes he surmised that with the bombardment of excess neutrons upon a fissionable core, an explosive chain reaction would occur, and a bomb with almost unimaginable destructive force would be possible.
Robert Oppenheimer was a man of unique intellectual ability. He was fluent in both the writing and speaking of English, Greek, French, German, Portuguese and Sanskrit. He was proficient in several others. He could learn the basics of a language and its alphabet within six weeks. But he was no isolated intellectual savant. He was also well-versed in politics, poetry, classical literature, art, music, history and more. As General Leslie Groves later said, "He's a genius. A 
real genius...Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up." While he is best known in scientific circles for formulating the Born-Oppenheimer approximation (which is so far above my head I cannot even summarize it for you but I do know it does not involve Matt Damon) he is most highly regarded in science today for his work on gravitational collapse, work he did in the thirties. Work that would not be done or continued by any other physicists until the sixties when people like Stephen Hawking would use it as a jumping point to build a theoretical model for black holes. Oppenheimer understood things decades before everyone else. It is important to understand these things about Oppenheimer, to understand fully that this was no government scientist lackey put in charge of a weapons program. There were a few of those later to come. This was a thoughtful and astoundingly intelligent human being who served science and his country, and unlike so many others in his field, found himself devastated by guilt.
These are the two central figures of Day One, the book written by Peter Wyden and later made into a film for television in 1989. There is a third figure of course, one that looms large over the 
whole affair, that of General Leslie Groves. But it is the moral and ethical battle between Szilard and Oppenheimer that provided the book, the film and history with one of the most extraordinary crises of conscience ever recorded. 1989 saw the release of another "Atomic Bomb" movie, Fat Man and Little Boy but to say that film got everything wrong, everything, would be an understatement. The facts are wrong, the motivations of the characters wrong, the personalities wrong. All wrong. But Day One, directed by Joseph Sargent and starring David Straithern as Oppenheimer, Michael Tucker as Szilard (an absolute dead ringer!) and Brian Dennehy as Gen. Leslie Groves gets it all right. And it was a made-for-television movie at that. The difference was in deciding early on to follow the source material to a word. If you've read Wyden's well researched Day One, you have essentially read the screenplay for the movie. And what the filmmakers understood was that telling everything precisely as it occurred required no further dramatic padding. Fat Man and Little Boy gives us plenty of padding (and many a fictionalized character) and none of it is as nearly as dramatic as what really happened. I'm not sure why they felt this story needed anything added to it at all.
The film covers much of the historical material that everyone is familiar with but also deals with the minutia of life at Los Alamos and the clockwork political machinations that culminated in the most devastating decision made by a politician in the twentieth century: The engagement of nuclear warfare on a civilian population. Twice. It's been said that Hiroshima showed our capacity to do what we had to do to win and Nagasaki showed our capacity for cruelty. Some would argue they both showed determination and/or cruelty.
As the physicists readied their creation the politicians argued the finer points. Harry Truman (Richard Dysart) was now President of the United States after the untimely death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he made James "Jimmy" Byrnes (Hume Cronyn) his right hand man.
Byrnes had been the Assistant to the President under Roosevelt, a position no longer used. It was only used because of Byrnes, one of the most accomplished statesmen of the twentieth century. Hailing from South Carolina he was at one time or another House Representative, Senator, Governor, Secretary of State, Assistant to the President and Supreme Court Justice. Just try and find another resume like that. Truman put his trust and decision making in Jimmy's hands. Hume Cronyn, who played Oppenheimer in 1947's The Beginning or the End, plays Byrnes brilliantly, displaying just enough homespun charm mixed with the right amount of "my way or the highway" arrogance to make Byrnes alternately amusing and terrifying.
The film juggles the politicians and physicists stories deftly but it is the Szilard - Oppenheimer story that keeps everything afloat. Oppenheimer loved being in charge of so many great minds working together but was uneasy about what that work was. Szilard also worked on the project, doing theoretical work in Chicago. The turning point for all was when Germany surrendered. Most physicists working on the project, including Szilard and Oppenheimer, had naively assumed they were working towards creating an atomic bomb because Adolph Hitler was trying to do the same. Once Germany surrendered and it was revealed that their nuclear program was scuttled, Los Alamos physicists thought their work was done. It was not. They were told to keep working. Szilard was shocked and immediately circulated a petition to be signed and sent to Truman morally opposing any use of the bomb in war. He met with Oppenheimer who assured him that the bomb would be developed but not used. "It's shit," Oppenheimer told him. "this is a weapon with no military significance. It will make a big bang - a very big bang - but it is not a weapon which is useful in war." It may be hard to believe that kind of naivete today, that the physicists at Los Alamos honestly never thought the bomb would be used beyond a demonstration, but the memos, the correspondences and the diaries all back it up. Almost all of them were borderline pacifists and socialists who believed America was the right country to develop the bomb because it was the one country that would never use it.
Szilard finally got an audience with Byrnes and tried desperately to plead the case of demonstration, possibly over the Sea of Japan or at Los Alamos with Japanese representatives 
present. Byrnes would have none of it. Then there was a meeting of the so-called Interim Committee, the committee set up to decide how and when to use the bomb, with Byrnes, Groves, Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, General George Marshall and others where final arguments were made. Oppenheimer, Fermi and Under-Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard made arguments for demonstrations and Byrnes shot each one down. Someone suggested giving the Japanese a 48 hour warning to evacuate the city. Byrnes countered the Japanese would simply move all American POWs into the target city. As it turns out, there were American POWs in Hiroshima anyway. And before anyone thinks it was a different time and the decision makers did not understand what they would be unleashing it should be noted that on July 1, 1945 Ralph Bard resigned his position. He said in his letter to Truman that the United States would lose its standing as a humanitarian country and one that ensures fair play if any such weapon was used. Since by July 1st its use seemed inevitable, he resigned. He wanted no historical role in its use. In the film this scene is done with great subtle effect. After his resignation to Truman, the President appears not only unmoved but slightly bewildered.
As it turns out there were more people opposed to the use of the atomic bomb than one might suspect. Among those opposing it were General Douglas MacArthur, General Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. H.H. (Hap) Arnold, John J. McCloy (Undersecretary of War) and even Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman's very own Chief of Staff. Leahy wrote, "I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Secretary of Defense Henry Stimson did not oppose it but did oppose using it in culturally historical spots. When General Groves presented him with the military's final report on the first target, Kyoto, Stimson flatly refused. "No," he said "It's a sacred city to the Japanese and I will not see it destroyed,". Groves told him it was the perfect location. Stimson said, "I don't care how perfect it is. It's an ancient city and a beautiful one. Pick another target." There are still some who blame Stimson more than any other for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I've read their articles and read Stimson's diary through the process. It has been suggested Stimson had Truman under his control. Yet when you read Wyden or Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb) or Gregg Herken (Brotherhood of the Bomb) or any of the relevant letters and correspondences from the period it is clear that there were only four men absolutely hellbent on using nuclear weapons in war. They were Harry Truman, James Byrnes, General Leslie Groves and physicist Edward Teller.
Both the book and the film make this point abundantly clear. When the Trinity test (nicknamed by Oppenheimer) was successfully conducted, exploding the first nuclear bomb in human history, Truman, Byrnes, Groves and Teller were ecstatic. Szilard was not informed of the test.
By this point, July 16, 1945, he was considered a risk due to his moral objections of its use. Oppenheimer's reaction was all Oppenheimer. Having watched the test from five miles distant, feeling the intense heat on his face and the rush of wind from the distant shockwave he first said to his brother Frank, a physicist at Los Alamos as well, simply, "It worked." Then he turned to Kenneth Bainbridge and asked if he was familiar with the quote from the Bhagavad-Gita, "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Bainbridge replied, "Yeah Oppie, now we're all sons of bitches."
The film concludes after the surrender of Japan. At Los Alamos the physicists watch the first post war footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are in shock. Some cry, some run out holding their mouths, some close their eyes. Oppenheimer says to his wife, Kitty, "And so finally begins the reaction" to which Kitty angrily and brilliantly replies, "Well what in the hell did they think was going to happen?"
The movie is finished but the book Day One is only halfway done at this point. The second half of the book documents the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is stomach churning to 
say the least. Peter Wyden interviewed survivors for his book and the descriptions are devastating. In the hospital where victims were being treated the floors were covered with vomit, bile and excrement from the uncontrollable nausea and diarrhea that emerged within a couple of hours as a result of radiation poisoning. Other survivors on the outskirts of the city could not make it into the city for well over a day to search for relatives, loved ones or 
just to help because the fires and residual heat were so intense that entry was impossible. The Ota river in Hiroshima was filled with the bloated corpses of thousands who had lept into it to escape the firestorm only to die from the excess heat and radiation. One survivor told Wyden that you could have walked across the river on the bloated corpses that filled it from end to end.
Wyden ends his book with a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and a moving tribute to what he considered in the end, a grave wrong. The debates over the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki usually center around the massive loss of American and Japanese military and civilian lives that would have occurred during a land invasion of Japan. Thus it is argued, by dropping the bombs millions 
were saved. It's an argument that has no resolution since half of the argument takes place in the hypothetical "what if" of an invasion. But as Day One, the other books mentioned and even now, finally, the history books point out there is a missing factor from this argument that is a deal breaker. A debate ender. Period. In June and July of 1945 the Japanese made entreaties for peace to the Soviet Union, whom it hoped would act as a mediator between Japan and the United States. They were willing to stop the war with only one condition: The Emperor retain his status. Thus Japan would restructure its own government and even eliminate its own military. The United States and its Allies would occupy Japan and oversee the restructuring and approve or disapprove at each step. Just like it actually happened after the war. As early as May 31, 1945 the Japanese had communicated through their embassy in Portugal that only the term "unconditional surrender" stood in the way of peace. They simply wanted the Emporer to be recognized as such. Joseph Stalin presented the mediation request to Truman at Potsdam on July 18. "Unconditional Surrender" remained. The tragic irony being that after Japan's unconditional surrender, the United States decided to let the Emperor retain his status after all to ease the occupational transition. In other words, by mid-July the war would, could and should have been over. Any arguments for or against the use of the atomic bombs versus a land invasion with conventional weapons is rendered moot by July 18, 1945, the day Truman himself got the offer of peace. After that day, the war should have ended and the United States begun its occupation of Japan. But Byrnes and Truman wanted the bomb dropped. Byrnes especially wanted to send a message to the Soviet Union: We have nuclear capabilities and we're willing to use them. On August 8th, two days after Hiroshima, the U.S.S.R. declared war on Japan and starting sending troops towards the homeland. They were hoping for a piece of Japan after the war. Fortunately for Japan, they surrendered before the U.S.S.R. could get in and create a postwar North Japan that would probably be a problem to this day.
The film and book, Day One, have something in common besides the obvious historical details. They are both done straightforwardly in unsentimental journalistic fashion. Joseph Sargent does not employ any special camera tricks or style but simply lets the story tell itself. Peter Wyden does the same. And for both it was a wise decision. It is a story that needs telling and one that requires no fiction to detract from it. It is a complicated and complex story, simply told. July 16, 1945 marked Day One. Everything after has taken place in a different world from the one before it. A world we can never return to again.
__________________________________________
Websites for Further Reading:
NuclearFiles.org The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Atomic Bomb Decision
Today, July 16, 2010, marks the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the atomic age. It was on this date, at 5:29 a.m. local time in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, that the United States Army Corps of Engineers under the military supervision of General Leslie R. Groves and scientific supervision of J. Robert Oppenheimer, detonated the first bomb powered by nuclear fission, a bomb code-named, in a moment of breathless military understatement, "the gadget." Ever since that "gadget" successfully detonated and the United States used two more over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the atomic age has been one of fascination and revulsion the world over. The new super-energy attainable through the atom quickly went from revulsion in popular culture to sci-fi plot point magnet. And it was those early atomic age sci-fi films that prodded me along to become a bonafide sci-fi fanatic by my early teens. The Japanese were among the first to embrace nuclear energy in a science fiction setting with films like Gojira (Godzilla in its Americanized version) although not the first specifically, as films like War of the Worlds used atomic bombs within the story, if not as a method of creation like Gojira.
student's reactions. Naturally, they were told by classmates to ask me, which they did. I got a lesson that day in how clever editing can make you look like a complete idiot. The reporter came to me to ask my reaction, thrust the mic in my face and I talked. And talked. And talked. I wouldn't shut up. I went on and on about the difference in conditions and results between Hiroshima and the destruction showed in the movie. I critiqued the footage of multiple bombs going off seemingly within a couple of miles of each other and saying how, given the yield of a thermo-nuclear warhead, the dispersal of heat and dozens of miles of fallout radius, this would be a waste of bombs and, in reality, the dispersal pattern would be much larger. Yes, I was a teenager. And that poor news crew discovered I was very anxious to show off how much I knew about the subject. I also threw in a criticism that not enough people died from radiation burns or sickness and that the movie seemed to focus on one or two characters getting slowly sicker where I felt that point should have been hammered home with much greater force.
and narrative films on the subject that I have reviewed here, including The Day After Trinity, Day One, Trinity and Beyond and Radio Bikini. Most of the original comments on those reviews are lost forever as I foolishly used Haloscan for comments here for the first year and a half and that system is now off the grid but if you'd like to comment on any of them, please, feel free. My friend Marilyn also has two excellent reviews of movies in this category, I Live in Fear and The House in the Middle, not a review proper but an interview with film preservationist Rick Prelinger that touches on the infamous nuclear civil defense film. Finally, Peter Nellhaus has a review of one of the best films ever made on the subject, Black Rain.
