Oppenheimer’s Omission

2024 Edward R. Murrow Award submission: Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Listen:

Description:

With the Oscar-nominated film “Oppenheimer,” director Christopher Nolan turned the Manhattan Project into a summer blockbuster.

The film is set in Los Alamos, one of the primary places where the first atomic bomb was developed. It features the setting as the center of scientific breakthroughs, Oppenheimer’s own inner conflict, ground zero for the government’s struggle to contain the secrets of its nascent nuclear program, and of course, headquarters for the bomb test at Trinity Site.

But what the film doesn’t include is the history of Carrizozo, a rural farming area downwind of the Trinity test, and a community still dealing with the fallout to this day.

Radioactive fallout from the bomb settled on everything in Carrizoza: the soil, gardens, and drinking water. Cow’s milk became radioactive. Later, hundreds of people developed radiogenic cancers.

The people of Carrizozo were among the first people in the world exposed to a nuclear blast. More than 75 years later, their families are still fighting for medical compensation from the federal government. That fight, like many others waged in the wake of harm done to citizens in the name of America’s national defense, has been a futile one.

For this episode of Outside/In, host Nate Hegyi traveled to New Mexico to visit the Trinity Site and to hear the stories of the so-called “downwinders,” people Hollywood (and many others) have yet to acknowledge when weighing and heralding Oppenheimer’s legacy.

This story was reported and produced by Nate Hegyi. It was edited and mixed by Executive Producer Taylor Quimby, with editing help from Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jeongyoon Han.