Oppenheimer Prominently Features This Wyoming Senator

Have you seen the movie Oppenheimer yet?

If you haven't, get some snacks and sit down for a 3-hour story that will be one of the best movies you've seen in years.

Christopher Nolan's newest film had deep ties to The Cowboy State

Near the beginning, you'll see a congressional hearing and hear the name Senator Gale McGee from Wyoming.

Actor Harry Groener plays the senator.

Gale William McGee (March 17, 1915 – April 9, 1992) was a United States Senator of the Democratic Party, and United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). He represented Wyoming in the United States Senate from 1959 until 1977.

It was at the University Of Wyoming that Mr. McGee received a Ph.D., and accepted a position as a professor of American history at the University of Wyoming.

Below is a Wyoming PBS special on the life of Senator McGee.

Back in those days, there was not too much of a difference between the more conservative views of Democrats and Republicans. There is much more of a divide today. Also, there were far more Democrats in Wyoming, back then.

In 1952, McGee took a one-year leave of absence from the University of Wyoming to serve as a Carnegie Research Fellow in New York with the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was assigned to research the mysteries of Soviet intentions. (Wikipedia).

What was Senator McGee Doing in Oppenheimer?

Christopher Nolan’s latest film Oppenheimer depicts key episodes in the confirmation hearings for Lewis Strauss who was nominated by President Eisenhower for U.S. Secretary of Commerce in 1959.

The scene with the freshman senator from Wyoming, Gale W. McGee, shows him exposing Strauss’s role in Oppenheimer’s persecution.

Many moments in the movie will pass you by if you don't already know the reference that they are making.

Below is an old campaign ad for the Senator.

The scenes with Senator McGee are among those important references you might have missed if you are not well-versed in the history behind the movie.