Day One (film)
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Day One is a 1989 television film about the creation of the first nuclear bomb during World War II in the USA by a team of international physicists headed by Robert Oppenheimer. The duration of the film is 2 hours, 25 minutes. The film premiered in the United States on CBS, on the evening of March 5, 1989 and was based on the book by Peter Wyden. It was directed by Joseph Sargent and written by David W. Rintels. It won the Emmy award for "Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special". [1]
[edit] Plot
When Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard leaves Europe he eventually arrives in the United States where, with the help of Einstein, he persuades the government to build an atomic bomb. Leslie Groves selects physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the bomb is built. As World War II draws to a close, Szilard (whose idea was responsible for the progress made) has second thoughts about atomic weapons and debates how and when to use the bomb.
The film focuses on the organisation and the politics of the whole affair, such as tensions between the scientists and the military, the communist affiliation of many scientists around that time, the (perceived) risks of espionage and the decision whether to use the bomb after Germany is defeated. Concerning the actual scientific work on the bomb, some of it is shown, but not explained, so an understanding of the workings of the bomb is needed to understand what is going on in that respect.
The story starts with Leo Szilard fleeing Germany on the last train out and trying to convince the military that a nuclear bomb can be built and that the Germans are already working on it. In England his idea is filed and ignored, so he travels to the USA, but there too, he has to wait a year until something is done with it and project Manhattan is started.
As Germany is being defeated and scientists interrogated, it is found out that they have not even come close to constructing a nuclear bomb (partly due to bad cooperation by scientists). Despite the fact that no-one has the technology now, and the original reason for project Manhattan is gone, work continues. Szilard, who first used Albert Einstein to get his ideas about building a bomb across to the US leaders, now convinces him to join him in writing a letter to the president to do the opposite, namely not to build the bomb, in order to avoid an arms race. 68 scientists sign a petition, but that is held back by the military.
U.S. President Truman is faced with four options: peace talks (which would not have worked because the US did not want the Japanese to keep their emperor), a blockade (which was thought to be cowardly), an invasion (which could cost from 20,000 to a million lives), or dropping the bomb. Another consideration is that the USSR had said they would enter the war against Japan three months after the surrender of Germany and there is a fear that they might not leave. So Truman decides that the best couse of action is to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, against the advice of General Eisenhower.
[edit] Comments
The film was based uniquely on the very real history around the atomic bomb. It is perhaps the first historical film to come close to an almost documentary accuracy in its portrayal of these events, an accuracy that could not previously have been achieved, due to the secrecy over the A-Bomb project. The cast is filled with actors who supposedly closely resemble the actual persons portrayed. Additionally, for the science buff, the most basic experiments that led to the creation of the atomic bomb are well described:
1. The fact that chain nuclear reaction can happen, as envisaged by Leo Szilard when absent minded in front of the traffic light in London. He is asking from Enrico Fermi to verify it and on the oscilloscope screen they both detect the constant flow of charged particles emitted from such a reaction that does take place
2. Enrico Fermi is leading the construction of the first atomic pile where all the group is gathered around the most famous human experiment but terrified on the possibility they may provoke after all a nuclear explosion. The pile is consisted of a huge box of bricks made by graphite. Fermi's assistants insert cadmium rods into the box to be able to control the rate of reactions in the pile. By taking out the rods partly , neutrons are more free to strike on atoms and provoke reactions. Fermi measures the amount of produced radiation with a Geiger type detector. When the rate stabilizes it is confirmed that a nuclear reaction is self sustainable and can therefore lead to a nuclear explosion if let free to continue. This is the building element of the atomic explosion
3. Niedermayer's effort to produce a 'symmetric' explosion to the inside of the bomb - implosion technique - is described in an impressive way. The first tests were simply made with an iron rod with explosives wrapped around it. Because the explosions are hardly symmetric the rod was always damaged after such an explosion. Until later, with a particular neutron focusing technique - very shortly mentioned in the film - they arrived to the point where the rod was coming out of the explosion intact. Spherically symmetrical implosion tended to confine the exponential cascade of neutrons within the fissile material (Plutonium) instead of allowing them to escape to the outside, which would've resulted in a "fizzle", rather than an efficient release of energy.
The confrontation between the scientists and the military director General Leslie M. Groves are very well animated everywhere. The intelligence officers work is also well rendered in the film but the ALSOS project to find out the nuclear progress of the Germans during the end of the war falls into the trap of not enough information on this topic when the film was produced. Very recent research has revealed that the Germans did produce an atomic explosion in 1945 but of much less power as they used neither the implosion technique nor well enriched atomic fuel.[citation needed]
Another point mentioned is the confrontation between Edward Teller and Oppenheimer. Teller wanted to proceed directly with the H-Bomb and refused to work for the A-Bomb. Teller was exactly the character portrayed in the film, hard to work with, selfish and very sure of his own scientific ideas. Historically Teller will succeed Oppenheimer, he will become a pivotal Cold War figure and leader of the Star Wars program for Ronald Reagan. This character contrasts against his fellow countryman Leo Szilard who was exactly the opposite : a pure scientific mind and a pacifist. The tragedy that nevertheless such a man would trigger alone the whole A-Bomb project to become later the worst enemy of nuclear weapons is very well highlighted in the film.
In the film we see as well the suggestion of Dwight D. Eisenhower to Harry S. Truman not to proceed with the A-Bomb but no mentioning is made on the fact that the general's analysts had confirmed that the toll for invading Japan was around one million dead Americans. The decision of Truman to use the A-Bomb as a diplomatic weapon against Joseph Stalin is rather overstressed.
The film mentions the presence of Klaus Fuchs -- the scientist who stole A-Bomb secrets from the Manhattan Project -- and his role in the atomic team. For a further deeper analysis of Fuchs's reasons for such an act one may refer to the excellent BBC TV series available on DVD : The Cambridge Spies.
[edit] The Other 'Manhattan Project' Film
The film premiered on television in the same year that another film about the subject, Fat Man and Little Boy, starring Paul Newman as General Groves, was released to theatres. Of the two films, Day One was by far the more critically successful.
[edit] Cast of Day One (principal members only)
- Brian Dennehy as General Leslie Groves
- David Strathairn as J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Michael Tucker as Leo Szilard
[edit] See also
Hiroshima (film), about the political decisionmaking about how and where to use the bomb against Japan, after it was finished, giving an alternative and more in-depth view to the last 45 minutes of the film.
