In Christopher Nolan’s new film “Oppenheimer,” a biography of one of the chief architects of the atomic bomb, Robert Downey, Jr.
plays Lewis Strauss, a real-life politician who spent a portion of the McCarthy era becoming increasingly suspicious of Communists in the American political system.
He launched a campaign against Oppenheimer years after the invention of the bomb, hoping to have the scientist’s security clearance revoked.
Strauss, in public, claimed to hate Oppenheimer because of palpable Communist ties and sentiments he had expressed in sympathy with the Communist party.
Nolan’s film, however, posits that Strauss was hoping to pillory and ostracize Oppenheimer for personal reasons, having been humiliated by the scientist at a congressional hearing years before.The Strauss character is vital to “Oppenheimer,” as he seems to serve as a stand-in for American politics as they have come to be in 2023.
Nolan seems to point out that many…
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