I read with interest Karren Alenier’s thoughts on the Sellers/Adams opera "Doctor Atomic" in The Steiny Road to Operadom. Because I have been working with Judith Oppenheimer, daughter of Frank Oppenheimer, on her memoirs, the impact of the bomb hasn’t exactly been relegated to the back closets of my mind. It is interesting how many ways there are to think about a subject. Reading hearing transcripts, and copies of FBI files, and re visiting the documentary "The Day After Trinity" got me to thinking about the atomic bomb and the political consequences of the military politics and our diminishing civil rights resulting from the debate over whether the military or the governing bodies should have control over the bombs. In trying to help Judy keep her memories in perspective I have spent a certain amount of time reviewing my memories of the time: recalling incidents like listening to those radio broadcasts of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings that were carried on the loudspeakers in the halls of the hospital where I was a student nurse. We were such a naïve nation in those days that we were surprised at such vicious political behavior. The people who later built bomb shelters were naïve enough to think they could stay safe in their little holes in the ground. But somehow with all this re-emersion in the time of the development of the atom bomb, I had totally not made a time line that included all the excitement that was going on in the poetry world at the same time until I read Alenier’s poetic comments. That brings a whole other way of thinking about those times. I want to thank you for that. read the column
Jean Emerson
