General Leslie Groves is one of those military figures of true importance whom we rarely remember. Like his American Civil War counterpart, Maj. General Herman Haupt, his achievements made final victory possible but were taken for granted by most people. Haupt was the engineering (particularly railroad construction) genius who kept the armies of the Union constantly in motion, constantly supplied, constantly able to bounce back. He just never commanded a brigade, regiment, corps, or army in a major battle, so only Civil War buffs recall him. Groves did two things of overwhelming lasting worth that a grateful nation has to forever keep in mind. First, he was the man who was in charge of the construction of the Pentagon as our military center. Secondly, on the overwhelming success of that achievement, FDR put him in charge of the "Manhattan Project", regarding the construction of an atomic bomb. And he was so good both projects came without a hitch.
So far Groves has only been portrayed twice in any movies of consequences. The first is this sadly forgotten television movie, where Brian Dennehy portrays him as an intelligent if no nonsense type. The other is the commercial film, FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY, wherein Paul Newman portrayed Groves. I have to admit that Newman's portrayal is not one of his best - he seems to have taken the term "gung ho" too much to heart. Dennehy's Groves knows who he is, and how smart he is (Groves was able to calculate complex formulas in his head because he took the same engineering courses for two five year stints one after the other to master the subject)so nothing really surprises him. Newman never shows this - he keeps acting like he's about to be handed the best flexible flyer in the world to play with. It is not Newman's worse performance but it is far from his best. But Dennehy seems to have Groves down pat.
What makes this film even more superior to FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY is the discussion of the train of events that led to Groves' selection and his running the project with J. Robert Oppenheimer (David Strathairn). The idea of an atomic weapon had not been on the minds of physicists and theorists throughout the work of Einstein, Bohr, Heidleberg, Thompson, and the others involved up to the 1930s. It was the threat of Nazism that spurred the need for the U.S. and Britain to have the bomb because of the possibility of Germany getting there first.
Today we know that Hitler's dislike of physics was intense because of the number of Jewish figures who were involved in the science. But we are also aware that he did not totally refuse to consider getting a potential super weapon despite his hatred of those who were creating the fundamentals needed to turn theory into fact. We are still trying to figure out how close the Nazis came to a final a-bomb. There is some chance that Heisenberg (put in charge in Germany of the project) may have misled Hitler about results. We just don't know, but I don't think we would have cared for the Nazis getting the bomb first.
At the same time, led by Leo Szilard of Hungary (Michael Tucker), various Jewish physicists urged Einstein to send a fateful letter to President Roosevelt. FDR was spurred by that into putting the project together under Oppenheimer (in charge of translating the physics theories into practical fact), and Groves (in overall charge of getting the material, manpower, and security in place). As the film progresses, we watch such moments as the creation of the first chain reaction in Chicago by a group headed by Enrico Fermi. As the process of the bomb speeds along, we are aware of forces tearing at it. One is the fall of Nazi Germany (which many of the physicists would have felt no qualms about vaporizing with the bomb). Once we are only facing Japan the physicists led again by Szilard (urge the project be scrapped). They did not realize the heavy potential casualties in the invasion of Japan, nor that the project was (after the Pentagon project) the biggest financial military project in our history and could not be simply dropped.
Even when the bomb was proved to work in the desert, there was a further problem: What target to choose in Japan. Barnard Hughes plays Secretary of War Henry Stimson, an old style gentleman. It turns out the military had wanted to choose Kyoto as the target over Hiroshima. Stimson insisted on the newer Japanese city. It seems there were ancient structures connected to Japanese culture that Stimson did not wish to see destroyed in Kyoto. Hiroshima was another story.
So the film ends with Hiroshima (and subsequently Nagasaki) doomed. The process from start to end is accurately and correctly told for a change in a television "docudrama". Ironic postscript: in 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing the current Mayor of Kyoto was interviewed. While he was certainly appalled at the huge loss of life in his fellow Japanese city, somehow he was able to take it all more philosophically than most would think, while noting the preserved antiquities of his town.
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