An Open Letter from Hollywood
on Oppenheimer and Nuclear Weapons
Oppenheimer depicts the origin story of nuclear weapons, the history of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Oppenheimer’s subsequent warnings against an arms race and the development of even more powerful weapons.
Oppenheimer was right to warn us.
Today, 13,000 nuclear weapons are held by nine countries. Some are 80 times more powerful than the ones that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
As President Kennedy told the United Nations in 1961:
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable.
Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. These weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
As artists and advocates, we want to raise our voices to remind people that while Oppenheimer is history, nuclear weapons are not.
At a time of great uncertainty, even one nuclear weapon—on land, in the sea, in the air, or in space—is too many. To protect our families, our communities, and our world, we must demand that global leaders work to make nuclear weapons history—and build a brighter future.
Please join us—before our luck runs out.
Rosanna Arquette
Jackson Browne
Ellen Burstyn
Yvette Nicole Brown
Alan Cumming
Misha Collins
Michael Douglas
Jane Fonda
Tony Goldwyn
Clark Gregg
Harry Hamlin
Paul Jay
Annie Lennox
Nicholas Meyer
Ellen Mirojnick
Matthew Modine
Julianne Moore
Viggo Mortensen
Graham Nash
Bill Nye
Charles Oppenheimer
Piper Perabo
June Diane Raphael
Lisa Rinna
Peter Sellars
Bobby Shriver
David Slack
Barbra Streisand
Kristen Stewart
Emma Thompson
Lily Tomlin
Christoph Waltz
Bradley Whitford
Mia Wenjen
Janet Zucker
Jerry Zucker
Ernest J. Moniz
Co-chair and CEO, NTI
Sam Nunn
Co-chair, NTI
Ted Turner
Co-chair, NTI
Joan Rohlfing
President and COO, NTI
In the News
The open letter was published in the Los Angeles Times, Thursday, March 7 to raise public awareness and engagement around the civilization-ending risks posed by today’s nuclear arsenals.
The letter and broader campaign immediately generated widespread news coverage in Variety, The Guardian, Reuters, Billboard, CNN, The Hollywood Reporter, and elsewhere.
Additional artists continue to add their name to our call to #MakeNukesHistory, including Bradley Whitford, Barbra Streisand, Kristen Stewart, and more.