How Well We Meant

Forty years after the commission of the "Manhattan Project," the top secret mission to create the atomic bomb, a number of scientists returned to the desert of Los Alamos to hold a symposium on the nature of what they had wrought. By and large, those original designers share the pessimism which made one of their leader's life (Robert J. Oppenheimer) a misery. I.J. Rabi, Hans Bethe, Robert Serberm and Victor Weisskopf are among the interviewees who relive the excitement of the past while expressing doubts about the immediate future. Rabi says that the Los Alamos team had "every incentive" to create the bomb--at a time when Nazi domination of the free world seemed inevitable, but that the time has come to dismantle the apparatus of death and destruction which the nuclear age has left us as a legacy. This is a good program, but it is dated. The latter half of the film is filled with references to Star Wars and Reagan, and the film as a film is not really special enough to warrant purchase for general collections. Schools and public libraries with large nuclear issues collections may want to consider this for its historical value, but for others there are more recent programs on the market which cover the same issues. (See DAUGHTERS OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN for availability.)