Our annual visit to our good friends Tom and Mary in Henderson, Nevada, took a somewhat unusual turn this year when it became the “Atomic Tour 2024.” It all started after another fantastic dinner served by Mary when we retired to the Peterson big screen MegaPlex to watch the epic movie Oppenheimer.

 

That was just the beginning. The next evening, we moved on to the PBS documentary The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer on American Experience. This deep dive answered all of the questions we had after viewing the movie and gave us deeper insight into the man and the project.

Not yet having satisfied our quest for yet more knowledge about atom-splitting, the development of the atomic bomb, and nuclear testing in the desert, we ventured into downtown Las Vegas for an afternoon at the Atomic Museum.

 

FACTS: Between 1951 and 1992, a total of 928 nuclear tests were conducted at the Nuclear Testing Site, 828 of which were underground, just north of Las Vegas and east of Death Valley. The US nuclear weapons stockpile reached a peak in 1966 of 31,255 warheads. Since then, due to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that number has steadily decreased to less than 3,750 remaining today.

 

Upon returning home we continued our atomic focus by watching the movie The Cather was a Spy. The incredible true story of Moe Berg, a catcher for the Boston Red Sox, the professional baseball player who became a World War II spy. The Jewish, Princeton-educated, multilingual, enigmatic Berg was enlisted by the US government to go behind enemy lines and assassinate the Nazi’s chief nuclear scientist before the Germans could develop an atomic bomb.

NEXT UP: Einstein and the Bomb, Einstein says of the atomic bomb that he would not have helped construct it had he known the Nazis wouldn’t be successful in their efforts. This declaration of regret offers a lot of context that Oppenheimer wasn’t able to include given the focus of its storytelling. While Oppenheimer briefly shows the relationship between Einstein and Oppenheimer, it doesn’t offer enough context regarding his feelings about the Manhattan Project. Einstein and the Bomb addressing Einstein’s true feelings about the situation recontextualizes his character while also being one of Netflix’s best documentaries.

This is a good time to revisit our tour of the ICBM Bunker Museum in Moscow 2017.

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