Historian Peter Kuznick joins Mickey to discuss the new Christopher Nolan movie “Oppenheimer.” While his overall evaluation is positive, Kuznick notes that the movie fails to address the crucial fact that there was no military need to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Kuznick also reminds listeners that had Henry Wallace not been replaced as Vice-President by Harry Truman, Wallace would have succeeded to the presidency upon FDR’s death in April 1945, and history would’ve taken a different path (Kuznick believes that Wallace would not have used the bomb, nor started the Cold War).
In the second half of the show, Peter Phillips and Bill Tiwald remind listeners of the catastrophe that even a “limited” nuclear war would unleash on humanity, as well as the human and financial costs of maintaining nuclear stockpiles. They explain how New Mexico has borne a disproportionate share of the nuclear burden, and talk about an event they helped organize — the Albuquerque Peace Festival (www.abqpeacefest.org), taking place on August 5.