Oppenheimer's discontents

Let's collect critiques of Oppenheimer because why not.

Hindutva, in between runs of chasing young Christian girls around the Manipur hills, have panted that this one is BLASPHEMY. Wall Street Journal cites Doniger against them, which rates "Advanced" in the troll scale.

The counterStalinists would have us take Oppenheimer's own Communist leanings more seriously. Bruce Bawer (a homosexual whose Stealing Jesus was, shall we say, counterChristianist) points to General Pavel Sudoplatov's 1994 (so postSoviet) memoir, which implicated Oppenheimer as a spy. The Venona transcripts verify that Stalin's Politburo at least knew who Oppenheimer was, granting to him the dubious honour of a codename. Oppenheimer also kept Earl Browder briefed - that's the president of the CPUSA which outfit was by the 1940s entirely Stalin's asset in the USA. These are mostly ahadith which seem fairly vague on details, Opje not being a practical engineer himself; contrast (say) Fuchs. But Opje could assuredly read reports, hence his management position.

Lastly there's the antiwar Right headed up by Peter Hitchens. Sometimes this stance can be incoherent. On the one hand the USA is rife with Stalin's men. On the other hand the USA remains antiCommunist enough to drop unnecessary bombs (the movie has wit enough to remember that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because the nonnuclear firebombings had already erased Japan's better cities); because the bombs were making a point to the USSR now holding Sakhalin. So... were these bombs a... status-report? Maybe we can get around this by allowing for Truman, no Marxist himself, once in the Oval Office as the "great man" who called these two shots.

Whether the bombs were necessary for this particular war, must await another post. That question has no bearing upon Oppenheimer this movie. Although point-taken that Oppenheimer's own Kremlin ties (not just those of his associates) needed more weight attached to them. [UPDATE 8/16: yeah, he rode with Dzhugashvili.]

Oppenheimer might compare to Sound of Freedom. Also a true story except for parts that aren't. Also a fine movie.