Only one country has ever bombed the United States with nuclear weapons: the United
States. For everything Oppenheimer gets right, it ignores one tragic detail about the Trinity test.
In Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, the Trinity Test at Los Alamos, New Mexico,
is a triumph. It's a moment of pure success unique in its separation from death and human suffering,
an isolated display of the genius simultaneously praised and feared by the film's narrative.
For one scene, and one scene only, the most dangerous scientific discovery the world has
ever known supposedly has no victims. However, that could not be further from historical fact.
"The earth trembled, you know, when that thing exploded."
There is likely no place in the world where one could detonate a nuclear bomb
and have it be harmless. It's true that the blast zone at Los Alamos was clear,
but neither the scientists in the film nor their historical counterparts took
into account how wind patterns would carry the biblical amounts of radiation from
their isolated scientific haven into the unsuspecting communities nearby.
The self-described Tularosa Basin Downwinders — or
Trinity Downwinders — are a community of New Mexico citizens that, despite neither
consenting nor even being informed of the atomic bomb detonation near their homes,
have been suffering the consequences of the Trinity Test for over 75 years.
As noted in Oppenheimer, Los Alamos was chosen in part because of how remote of an area it was.
"Why would we go to the middle of nowhere for who knows how long?"
Scientists were confident that those outside the blast radius
would be safe from immediate harm. The fallout, however,
they were far less certain about. After detonating the massive weapon, nuclear
fallout rained down from the blazing atmosphere over a 200-square-mile area northeast of the test.
This was particularly harmful to the predominantly Hispanic
and Indigenous communities in rural New Mexico, whose produce, drinking water,
and livestock were contaminated. Even after the detonation, those affected weren't evacuated or
even notified by the U.S. government of the atomic bomb, beginning a cycle
of death, struggle, and institutional abandonment that continues to this day.
"In the end, these people were betrayed by their government. The ultimate sin in a democracy."
Though the bomb ended America's war with Japan in August 1945, the Trinity Downwinders' war
had just begun. In the years that followed, exposure to traveling radiation and contaminated
resources caused disturbing health problems for New Mexicans in the affected area. Infant
mortality in the state skyrocketed by 56% over a five-year period; rare diseases began to develop
in otherwise healthy, young individuals; and, of course, cancer cases were abnormally prevalent.
Surviving such illnesses was only half the battle. Inhabitants of rural communities had to make long
journeys to expensive doctors in order to get the help they needed. If they were able
to do so, they still faced difficulty finding and maintaining employment as their symptoms worsened.
For many in the Tularosa Basin, medical hardships were dwarfed by financial ones. It became common
for parents to be unable to support their children's college education. Given the
Trinity Test's role in their plight, it would be reasonable to assume the government would
step in to provide assistance. Yet several decades later, the victims are still fighting to be heard.
"The only country that ever bombed our citizens with nuclear weapons was our own government."
In 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA was passed to provide financial assistance
to those struggling from the effects of radiation poisoning caused by governmental nuclear testing
in the 1950s. Unfortunately, this act failed to include the victims of the 1945 Trinity Test,
and attempts to rectify this have been rejected by the U.S. government for decades. The issue
is especially dire at this moment. Less than a year after the release of Oppenheimer, the RECA
program will expire, and there will be no more compensation for harm caused by nuclear testing.
Thankfully, a group of activists known as the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium,
or TBDC, scored a victory in July 2023 when an official map of the Trinity
Test fallout was finished and released to the public. In an interview with Axios,
TBDC co-founder Tina Cordova described Oppenheimer, saying"
"[The movie is] nothing but an over-glorification of the science and the scientists, again,
with no reflection on the harm done to the people in New Mexico."
"The test actually produced more light and more heat than the sun,
so you can imagine what that experience was like for them."
Despite many attempts by Cordova and other survivors to contact the production in hope
of convincing them to include some mention acknowledging "the sacrifice and suffering
of the people of New Mexico," no one from Oppenheimer reportedly responded or reached out.