Opting out of Oppenheimer: My Father’s Atomic Obsession

The American tale of a nuclear family

One of many photos of mushroom clouds found in my family’s archives. This one is a rather well-known public photo of a nuclear test done in 1957 at the Nevada Test Site. Here is a link to a color-corrected version found in the University of Las Vegas archives.

In July 1945 the first detonation of a nuclear weapon happened in the New Mexico desert. It happened at a place called the Trinity Site. Until just a few months ago, a large part of the modern world had forgotten, didn’t know, or didn’t really care about that fact.