Basis
Most of the characters were real people and most of the events real happenings, with some theatrical license used in the film.
The character of Michael Merriman (John Cusack) is a fictional composite of several people and is put into the film to provide a moral compass as the "common man". Part of the character is loosely based on the popular young scientist Louis Slotin. Contrary to Merriman's death in the movie, Slotin's accident and death occurred after the dropping of the two bombs on Japan, and his early death was feared by some as karma after the event; see their respective articles. A very similar mishap happened less than two weeks after the Nagasaki bomb, claiming the life of Harry Daghlian. Both incidents occurred with the same plutonium core, which became known as the Demon core.
Even before Oppenheimer was chosen to be the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, he was under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and once selected, the surveillance was intense; every single phone call was recorded and every contact with another person noted. After he was picked to head the laboratory, he only met with Tatlock one time, in mid-June 1943, where she told him that she still loved him and wanted to be with him. After spending that night together, he never saw her again. She committed suicide six months after their meeting.
Read more about this topic: Fat Man And Little Boy
Famous quotes containing the word basis:
“The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The self ... might be regarded as a sort of citadel of the mind, fortified without and containing selected treasures within, while love is an undivided share in the rest of the universe. In a healthy mind each contributes to the growth of the other: what we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of ourself. On the other hand, it is only on the basis of a substantial self that a person is capable of progressive sympathy or love.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“The basis of successful relief in national distress is to mobilize and organize the infinite number of agencies of self help in the community. That has been the American way.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)