Visiting the country that was bombarded by two devices that you designed yourself should not be easy. Tell that to Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. The American physicist traveled to Japan in September 1960, 15 years after the nuclear catastrophe in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which occurred on August 6 and 9, 1945. The bombs dropped caused a level of total destruction that was key to the surrender of Japan and thus to end World War II.
The first to be shocked by the devastating power of these devices was Oppenheimer himself, star of Christopher Nolan’s homonymous film that is filling movie theaters this summer. The scientist directed the Manhattan Project, the research and development plan for the first nuclear weapons. Among them were Little boy and Fat man, the bombs that exploded in the infamous Japanese towns and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.
During his visit to Japan, Oppenheimer confessed his anguish over the disaster caused, while defending the great scientific advance that led to the development of devices powered by nuclear energy. “I don’t think coming to Japan has changed my sense of angst about my role in this story. Nor has it made me completely regret my responsibility for the technical success of the company”, the physicist replied in a chat with the Japanese press. Asked about his feelings when visiting Japan, Oppenheimer summed up bluntly: “It’s not that I don’t feel bad. It’s just that I don’t feel worse tonight than last night.” “I have the duty and the hope to speak and meet with your people about our common problems and about the difficulties that we face,” reflected the physicist.
During his trip, in addition to attending to the media, Oppenheimer gave several lectures in Tokyo and Osaka. The Japanese, despite what he may have seemed, welcomed him with enthusiasm. They did not express rancor, but found his testimony useful in learning how to manage a world increasingly threatened by nuclear weapons that he and his team designed. Especially at that time, the sixties, when the planet was immersed in a missile crisis and a Cold War that could heat up at any moment.
Perhaps in order not to contribute to this warming, Oppenheimer did not go to Hiroshima. “It’s not clear that it’s practical,” he said. Although he also expressed his wish, never fulfilled, to visit the city “in silence”, without the journalists who accompanied him on the 1960 trip.
And it is that visiting the Japanese town is not easy for the US authorities, starting with its presidents. Only two leaders have attended. The last one is Joe Biden, this May, in the framework of the G-7 summit. But the first to visit the area was Barack Obama, in 2016, 71 years after the catastrophe.
Although Oppenheimer did not visit Hiroshima, the receptive attitude of the Japanese contrasts with the coldness of the US authorities towards the physicist. Starting with the then president, Harry S. Truman, the one in charge of pressing the nuclear button. The father of the atomic bomb confessed to Truman that he felt he had “blood on his hands.” The US president, annoyed, replied that the responsibility for that decision rested solely with him as head of state. Truman’s annoyance was so great that he asked never to see “that sniveling scientist” again.
Relations did not improve with Truman’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. His administration terminated his contract as a consultant to the United States Atomic Energy Commission, while Oppenheimer advocated for nuclear containment.
Instead, under the governments of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Oppenheimer was awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize for his scientific contributions. The award also had the objective of cleaning up the accusations received throughout a professional career without which contemporary history would not be understood.