Oppenheimer

There are so many incredible stories framed by the journey of J. Robert Oppenheimer. I know of no work that has done justice to so many as the recent Bird and Sherman biography American Prometheus, which I've been reading. About 2/3 through this morning, I had to stop reading about the hearings that revoked his security clearance, this McCarthy witch hunt got me so upset. Although different works have focused on parts of this story, I think it would take an opera to capture the grand sweep of all the tragic themes here. Dr. Atomic gives a try but its reach is narrowly defined. I think the full dramatic power here is still unexpressed in opera.

If I were to name two figures who essentially define the "coming of age of America" in the 20th century and beyond, they would be Pres. McKinley, visited by Christ in a dream and thereby led to define American foreign policy for the ages, which is the policy of missionaries, and Oppenheimer, the very bullseye of the long American anti-intellectual tradition, who was the first to understand the full terror of the nuclear age. (In this latter regard, Durrenmatt's brilliant play The Physicists comes to mind as well.). I know of no contemporary figure who embraces these traditions -- missionary and anti-intellectual -- better than Sarah Palin. And this scares the hell out of me.