Tales Of Our Times
By JOHN BARTLIT
Los Alamos
Oscar night was the second Sunday in March. We heard: “For Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role … the Oscar goes to … Cillian Murphy in ‘Oppenheimer’.” On that news, Mr. Murphy worked his way through the theatrical crowd to the stage, where colleagues presented him with the golden figurine. As had others, he thanked and praised film folks and family.
Then, he shifted and ended with an intriguing sentence. The Irish actor said: “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb and, for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world, so I would really like to dedicate this (award) to peacemakers everywhere.” A rush of applause rose from the assembly.
In ensuing weeks, I wondered how Cillian Murphy might see it when he says “peacemakers everywhere”. My wife kept the idea current when she included Cillian’s (KILL-ee-an’s) quote in her talk on Oppenheimer to the Corrales historical society. Who and what are the peacemakers? In some sense, history itself is a struggle to figure this out.
Murphy’s artful intrigue has done a public service. In common parlance, “peacemaker” often seems to have a very clear meaning. What is unclear is the wide range of human acts that have been variously seen as aiding the pursuit of “peace”. The acts and traits involved differ so much that disputes heat up over which ones start wars and which ones help stop wars. There’s a pretty mess.
I hunted for clues to traits that the Academy’s awardee may have had in mind as he dedicated his Oscar to “peacemakers everywhere”, but drew a blank. I found no other statements the actor made that shed further light on his thinking. Might the actor’s noted skills owe something to his sensing the ever elusive aspects of “peacemaking”?
President Ronald Reagan was 75 and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was 55 when they met in Reykjavik, Iceland, for two days in October 1986, to discuss nuclear arms control. The Reykjavik talks collapsed, but progress was achieved that resulted in the 1987 U.S.-Soviet Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces. To what extent were Reagan and Gorbachev peacemakers?
Nuclear “peace” treaties are a recent breed in the history of peace treaties that goes back three thousand years. Five or six nuclear treaties came before 1987, led off by the 1963 treaty that limited nuclear testing to underground tests.
Peacemaking is patchwork. Crafters fit together materials that are at hand and use them to their best advantage.
To what extent did the creators of the atomic bombs serve as peacemakers? After all, the bombs had a strong effect on ending the four-year-old War in the Pacific. To what extent does Murphy’s acclaimed performance in “Oppenheimer” make him a peacemaker?
In the name of “peacemaking”, calls to “ban the bomb” are popular. In January 2022, the imminent Oppenheimer movie spurred Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe to issue a pastoral letter urging “a renewed commitment to the cause of peace” with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons globally. But his thoughts were not the usual. Wester urged “a sustained serious conversation about universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.” “Ban the bomb” ignores the gold standard of “universal, verifiable” disarmament.
Other rare puzzle parts come together in two talks in Los Alamos this May. You will hear news from earlier times that was unknown to Oppenheimer and Truman in August 1945. We now have the 2015 Japanese-made film based on the 1965 book, “Japan’s Longest Day” (during August ’45) — a prime book researched and written by a team of Japanese historians and journalists. These sources from Japan reveal the last days and hours within Imperial Japan’s Supreme War Council—a six-man enclave. The six struggled with themselves, with Japan’s history and its future, and with plots afoot. Every course is toxic.
Full disclosure: The talks 7 p.m., May 14, at Fuller Lodge are “Imperial Japan’s Conflicted Surrender” by my wife, Nancy Bartlit, and “Japanese Nuclear Weapons Program During WWII” by John Hopkins.
