{"id":141,"date":"2023-11-13T15:31:55","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T14:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/physicsworld.com\/?p=110831"},"modified":"2023-11-13T15:31:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T14:31:55","slug":"what-the-movie-oppenheimer-can-teach-todays-politicians-about-scientific-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/what-the-movie-oppenheimer-can-teach-todays-politicians-about-scientific-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"What the movie Oppenheimer can teach today\u2019s politicians about scientific advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the scariest moments in Robert Oppenheimer\u2019s career was not shown in Oppenheimer<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> the recent blockbuster movie. That moment occurred during the contentious hearing on his security clearance, which concerned Oppenheimer\u2019s role on a committee to advise the US government on nuclear weapons. Ostensibly about his loyalty to America, the hearing also revealed deeper concerns about his left-wing sympathies and opposition to an early project to build a hydrogen bomb.<\/p>\n

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Near the end of the hearing is a moment not included in the movie but whose terrifying implications still reverberate<\/p>\n

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Oppenheimer never regretted his leadership of the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But he feared that without international control of atomic weapons, developing the (much bigger) hydrogen bomb would trigger an arms race. Political enthusiasts of the hydrogen bomb then revoked his clearance, prompting the hearing, in which the experienced and unscrupulous attorney Roger Robb<\/a> was appointed to interrogate Oppenheimer.<\/p>\n

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All this is skilfully depicted in the movie. Near the end of the hearing, however, is a moment that is not included and whose terrifying implications still reverberate. It\u2019s when Robb, in an apparent non sequitur, suddenly quizzes Oppenheimer about John Ericsson<\/a>, the Swedish-American naval architect who designed ships for the US government during the American Civil War almost a century earlier. Robb asks Oppenheimer whether the fact that Ericsson had designed and built the Monitor<\/em><\/a>, the first ironclad battleship, qualified him to plan naval strategy.<\/p>\n

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Flummoxed by the bizarre twist, Oppenheimer says \u201cNo\u201d. Robb then springs his trap. \u201cDoctor\u201d \u2013 superficially appearing to show respect for Oppenheimer\u2019s credentials \u2013 \u201cdo you think now that perhaps you went beyond the scope of your proper function as a scientist in undertaking to counsel in matters of military strategy and tactics?\u201d Robb was sly, smoothly but falsely equating Ericsson\u2019s qualifications to \u201cplan\u201d military strategy with Oppenheimer\u2019s to \u201ccounsel\u201d it, implying that both were equally invalid.<\/p>\n

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At that moment, Robb was not out just to silence Oppenheimer as a government adviser. That wasn\u2019t necessary; Oppenheimer\u2019s consultancy contract could have simply been cancelled or left to expire \u2013 which, ironically, it did at the end of June 1954, one day after his security clearance was stripped at the end of the trial. Robb was after bigger game, which was to prevent any scientist from advising politicians on government policy.<\/p>\n

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Robb was effectively saying that Ericsson knew how to make boats and Oppenheimer knew how to build bombs \u2013 but only politicians and military leaders know how to use them. Keeping the two separate is, Robb believed, the right way for the government to run things.<\/p>\n

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Though the hearing was a kangaroo court, Oppenheimer could easily have challenged Robb\u2019s argument<\/p>\n

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Robb had rewritten history, for Ericsson had in fact both build boats and advised how to use them. Ericsson had advised the Secretary of the Navy on strategies for using \u201clittle\u201d and \u201cbig\u201d ironclads. He wrote of strategies for defending cities on the Atlantic coast and for future wars. He wrote to President Abraham Lincoln and testified before Congress. Sometimes his advice was taken and sometimes not, but the Union benefitted from it.<\/p>\n

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