The Oppenheimer Effect – The Dawn of Nuclear Age & the Global Fallout

Oblique Perspectives

De: Rajat Narang

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

At the stroke of dawn on July 16, 1945 and exactly at 15 seconds before 5:30AM, for the first ever time in the history of mankind, the sun rose twice in New Mexico within a span of 10 minutes, marking a testimony to the fact that the Laws of Physics and the Universe had indeed been reappraised successfully by the human beings. The world was changed forever following the successful explosion of the world’s first atomic bomb under the ‘Trinity’ tests conducted at Los Alamos which unleashed the nuclear age for humans. With full scale, world-wide destruction now assured within seconds at the mere press of a button, full scale wars, on the scale of World War I & II, were theoretically & prophetically deemed to be confined more or less to the pages of history books with hopes for the emergence of a new world order for mankind just emancipated from the clutches of tyranny & from the crucible of the exiting one ravaged by the utter destruction of two world wars waged within the span of half a century.

However, what it gave rise to, instead, was a complex mix of insecurity & fear fanned by the successful demonstration of the massive destructive power of the atom and a similar quest for development & possession of nuclear weapons by other nations, especially, the Soviet Union & the Europeans, yearning to emulate America, to create a level playing field with mutually assured destruction being its core pivot as well as tenet triggering the outbreak of a relentless nuclear arms race globally for one-upmanship.

The world order was altered forever with the ushering in of the nuclear age with new, complex power dynamics & equations coming into play and setting the stage for the onset of an equally bitter Cold War with the expected transition from overt to covert means of warfare configured on bloc dynamics & ideological warfare. Espionage, spoofing and power-plays, thus, became the key characters in this long & seemingly unending script directing & shaping the overall scheme of things geared towards an inexorable quest for global supremacy which continues to disappear & re-emerge periodically in repeated, cyclical patterns even after 7+ decades of the original event which kick-started this weird chain reaction.

This dossier, a collection of articles, op-eds, essays & analytical pieces from multiple sources, collectively termed as ‘oblique perspectives’, traces, analyzes & chronicles the impact, fallout & ramifications of the Trinity tests and the subsequent Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, on the world as analyzed from different dimensions ranging from political & geopolitical, scientific & technological, military & warfare, industrial & doctrinal and most importantly, the human dimension, while almost paying a homage & tribute to every single human being on this planet who was, has been and is going to be a part & parcel of this Frankenstein nuclear juggernaut, whether advertently or otherwise, irrespective of the side, dimension and the capacity of their association, be it the Prometheus himself or the victims of his creation…

The Dossier tackles some real hard & poignant questions, including:

1. How was the outcome of the Trinity Test Result Communicated to Political Leadership?
2. How the U.S. carefully preserved Hiroshima as a chosen target for Atomic Bombing from 1943 to 1945?
3. How the Fallout from the Trinity Tests reached 46 U.S. States & even Canada?
4. How the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Exposed Millions of Americans to Radiation Exposure for Decades?
5. How the Residents of Socorro County,NM near the Trinity Tests Site have never been Compensated?
6. Why the Choice of Nevada as a Site for Nuclear Testing in the 1950s was a Disastrous Decision?
7. How the AEC sided with Corporate America while Leaving its Citizens in Lurch - A Tale of Betrayal?
8. How Kremlin Stole Nuclear Secrets from Los Alamos and Targeted Oppenheimer?