The Beginning or the End
How Hollywood - and America - Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
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Narrated by:
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Rick Adamson
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By:
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Greg Mitchell
About this listen
Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called "the most important story" he would ever film: a big budget dramatization of the Manhattan Project and the invention and use of the revolutionary new weapon.
Over at Paramount, Hal B. Wallis was ramping up his own film version. His screenwriter: the novelist Ayn Rand, who saw in physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer the model for a character she was sketching for Atlas Shrugged.
Greg Mitchell's The Beginning or the End chronicles the first efforts of American media and culture to process the Atomic Age. A movie that began as a cautionary tale inspired by atomic scientists aiming to warn the world against a nuclear arms race would be drained of all impact due to revisions and retakes ordered by President Truman and the military.
Mitchell has found his way into the lofty rooms, from Washington to California, where it happened, unearthing hundreds of letters and dozens of scripts that show how wise intentions were compromised in favor of defending the use of the bomb and the imperatives of postwar politics. As in his acclaimed Cold War true-life thriller The Tunnels, he exposes how our implacable American myth-making mechanisms distort our history.
©2020 Greg Mitchell (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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By: A. Brad Schwartz
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The Irregulars
- Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.
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Spying in Washington
- By Sara on 10-03-14
By: Jennet Conant
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The View from the Bridge
- Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood
- By: Nicholas Meyer
- Narrated by: Nicholas Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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When Nicholas Meyer was asked to direct the troubled second Star Trek film, he was something less than a true believer. A best-selling author and successful director, he had never been a fan of the TV series. But as he began to ponder the appeal of Kirk, Spock, et al., he realized that their story was a classical nautical adventure yarn transplanted into space and - armed with that insight - set out on his mission: to revitalize Trek.
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Mostly good
- By David W Braddock on 06-07-21
By: Nicholas Meyer
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The Fifties
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; and more.
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one of the very best
- By Chester Chellman on 09-25-18
By: David Halberstam
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1959
- The Year Everything Changed
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed AmericaWhile conventional accounts focus on the 60s as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed.
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Facinating look at a neglected moment in history
- By James on 05-25-11
By: Fred Kaplan
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American Rebel
- The Life of Clint Eastwood
- By: Marc Eliot
- Narrated by: Marc Eliot
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times best-selling author Marc Eliot comes the definitive biography of one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful actors, producers, and directors in the history of American motion pictures. Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often tumultuous arc of Eastwood's life and career, from his days as a disaffected college dropout, to his rise to fame as the archetypal loner, to his acceptance into the pantheon of the Academy as a multiple Oscar Award winner.
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I learned the hard way.
- By Ty Pritchard on 07-23-10
By: Marc Eliot
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Chasing the Moon
- The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America into the Space Age
- By: Robert Stone, Alan Andres
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed the nation spend $20 billion to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Based on eyewitness accounts and newly discovered archival material, Chasing the Moon reveals the unknown stories of the fascinating individuals whose imaginative work across decades culminated in America’s momentous achievement. More than a story of engineers and astronauts, the moon landing - now celebrating its 50th anniversary - grew out of the dreams of science fiction writers, filmmakers, military geniuses, and rule-breaking scientists.
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Fifty years ago...
- By GraceAgnes on 06-14-19
By: Robert Stone, and others
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Pictures at a Revolution
- Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
- By: Mark Harris
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Dolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde - and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood and America forever.
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Would It Be Too Much To Ask?
- By Casey Keller on 12-31-08
By: Mark Harris
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The Last Lone Inventor
- A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
- By: Evan I. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea, by the age of 20 Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.
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Thank you, Philo.
- By JPALJ on 03-29-20
By: Evan I. Schwartz
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The Ghost
- The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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Flawed Superpatriot
- By Bubblehog on 11-23-17
By: Jefferson Morley
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The Hawk and the Dove
- Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War
- By: Nicholas Thompson
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Only two Americans held positions of great influence throughout the Cold War; ironically, they were the chief advocates for the opposing strategies for winning---and surviving---that harrowing conflict. Both men came to power during World War II, reached their professional peaks during the Cold War's most frightening moments, and fought epic political battles that spanned decades.
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Two outstanding people in the US Government
- By Nina Donnard on 11-05-09
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Superman
- The Unauthorized Biography
- By: Glen Weldon
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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How has the Big Blue Boy Scout stayed so popular for so long? How has he changed with the times, and what essential aspects of him have remained constant? This fascinating biography examines Superman as a cultural phenomenon through 75 years of action-packed adventures, from his early years as a social activist in circus tights to his growth into the internationally renowned demigod he is today.
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Unauthorized and fairly biased
- By AdarkanddrearyKnight on 05-15-22
By: Glen Weldon
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Those Angry Days
- Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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At the center of the debate over American intervention in World War II stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who as unofficial leader and spokesman for America's isolationists emerged as the president's most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative.
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Incivility in Politics - A Real Shocker!
- By Carole T. on 04-24-13
By: Lynne Olson
What listeners say about The Beginning or the End
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- C. Kevin
- 10-29-23
Fascinating story behind the story!
Even if you know the story of Oppenheimer, Groves, Fermi, Bush, Lawrence, Teller and others, THIS is the fascinating story behind the American propaganda efforts which glorified the first use of nuclear weapons. Although I’d never heard of this movie, the recent fanfare over the Oppenheimer movie sparked my curiosity in this 1947 story. Let’s see…Ayn Rand involvement, government censorship rights, payoffs to government officials, complicit Hollywood hagiography, focus on drama over facts, red scare paranoia…what could go wrong??!
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- Dominic
- 07-30-20
A must read for understanding our use of the Bomb
Very well done giving all sides of the question should we have used the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Very informative
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1 person found this helpful