Although it receives only small mentions in “Oppenheimer,” Washington state played a large role in the development of the atomic bomb and the beginning of the nuclear age.
Suddenly, for better and worse, humans harnessed the power to destroy themselves and their world. They also created moral questions about the use of that power — a central theme in the biopic of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer that is now in theaters.
As director Christopher Nolan said during an interview on CBS’s “Sunday Morning”: “Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable. By unleashing atomic power, he gave us the power to destroy ourselves that we never had before, and that changes the human equation.”
All of that calls to mind the extraordinary work that took place during World War II at a remote site in Eastern Washington. As the United States raced to develop an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany, the small town of Richland was selected as one of three sites for The Manhattan Project. According to the U.S. Census, Richland’s population went from 247 in 1940 to 21,809 in 1950.
Gen. Leslie Groves oversaw the construction of Richland and opted for few frills, according to authors John M. Findley and Bruce Hevley in “Atomic Frontier Days — Hanford and the American West.” They write: “As a result of Groves’ efforts at economy and efficiency, the town wound up with inadequate number of sidewalks, garages, stores and shopping areas, no civic center, roads too narrow for much auto traffic.”
Workers at the Hanford plant near Richland built and operated the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, producing plutonium that would fuel the atomic bombs. Weapons dropped on Japan — at Hiroshima and Nagasaki — were powered by the secretive work that took place in Washington.
It is a singular point in history, yet one that resonates today.
Among the lingering impacts is the constant threat of nuclear weapons. Although World War II ended in 1945 with the United States as the only nuclear power, Russia developed the bomb within five years. Now, nine countries are known to have nuclear weapons.
The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction has prevented the further use of those weapons, tenuously holding together fragile international relations. But the threat remains; Russian President Vladimir Putin has frequently hinted at the use of nuclear weapons throughout his nation’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the fallout from The Manhattan Project continues in Washington. The Hanford Site continued to produce plutonium in the decades following World War II, contributing to the buildup of the United States’ nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War.
Some 56 million gallons of radioactive waste remain at Hanford, and the federal government spends more than $2.5 billion a year on cleaning up what is regarded as the nation’s most contaminated site. It’s not enough; since plutonium production ended in 1987, the feds have languished in their duty to clean up Hanford, which sits along the Columbia River.
That is a frustrating but probably inevitable coda to the Hanford story and the Oppenheimer story.
The nuclear age did, indeed, alter the human equation. It led to the quick surrender of Japan and saved lives that would have been lost in an invasion of the island nation, quickly ending World War II. But it also ushered in questions that previously were inconceivable.
Nearly 80 years later, we still are wrestling with those questions.
