The Hiroshima Cover-Up

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-20.htm

Published on Friday, August 5, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun

The Hiroshima Cover-Up

by Amy Goodman and David Goodman

A story that the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Gen. Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the news media. More than 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto the battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender.

A month after the bombings, two reporters defied General MacArthur and struck out on their own. Mr. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima.

Both men encountered nightmare worlds. Mr. Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began: "In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly - people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague."


..more..

[flamin lib]

1. Something that has always bothered me is that there were two

different types of bomb used. Hiroshima used one and while the Japanese High Command was jumping through their ass trying to find someone to surrender to the other was used on Nagasaki.

Seems to me the military brass wanted to know which was the better design.

[oneighty]

5. Hiroshima bomb

was a gun type uranium bomb never been tested. Code named 'Little Boy'

Nagasaki bomb was an implosion plutonium bomb (Generally speaking)the basic design had been tested once. Code Named 'Fat Man'

Google them you will likely find pictures and descriptions.

180

[Journeyman]

6. Fragments from "Points for a Compass Rose". . .

. . . Evan S. Connell's disturbing prose-poem. . .


Clement Atlee was the Prime Minister of England
who concurred with President Truman’s decision
to annihilate Hiroshima. However, 16 years later
Atlee wrote: We knew nothing whatever at the time
about the genetic effects of an atomic explosion.
I knew nothing about fall-out and all the rest. . .
Yet H.J. Muller had won the Nobel Prize in 1927
for investigating the genetic effects of radiation.
Are we not ruled by cliques of men as uninformed
as Palestinian shepherds?


Deaths attributed to leukemia occur more often
at Hiroshima than at Nagasaki. Guess why.
The United States experimented with uranium
on the first city, with plutonium on the next.
Pray for us, if you like. Not that it matters.


Japanese Christians, stunned by a miraculous cloud,
were seen wandering throught the blistered streets
of Hiroshima murmuring: Shu Jesusu! She Jesusu!
Somewhat later, less mystical Japanese physicists
with Lauritzen microscopes understood only too well
the full degree of Protestant vengeance. Shu Jesusu,
awaremi tamai.*

(*Our Lord Jesus, have pity on us!)

[Bellamia]

2. VJ Day

So that was a "victory", huh, killing and maining all those people?
Check out http://dailydig.bruderhof.org/?source=dailydig
and yesterday's article titled, My God, what have we done.? Just think Iraq rather than WWII, chills you to the bone. Thanks for bringing this to the attention of most who have forgotten it or never heard of it! (Really, we don't teach the best History in Public Schools)

Peace.

[JitterbugPerfume]

3. THis srticle is by Amy Goodman

she is the best we have to offer

[booksenkatz]

4. Fantastic article. Where can I locate

copies of these articles, does anyone know? Am dying to read the newly-released one, of course, but I'd also like to read the others, even the one by chief propagandist Laurence.

I'm always wondering why most Americans don't seem disgusted by their own history. Because I'm constantly sickened by it, myself, just as I'm sickened by the history we are creating today. (Were we EVER the good guys, really? Has our government EVER told us the truth about anything??)

It's sad to see a country with so much potential, such astounding resources, throw it away century after century after century. Will we ever get a chance to make amends for the past (which we cannot change) and realize our potential? Is it too late?

[G_j]

7. The myths of Hiroshima

today's Democracy Now! is a good one:
www.democracynow.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**also found this article today:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bird5aug05,0,760322.story

August 5, 2005 latimes.com

The myths of Hiroshima

By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, KAI BIRD and MARTIN J. SHERWIN are coauthors of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," published earlier this year by Knopf.

SIXTY YEARS ago tomorrow, an atomic bomb was dropped without warning on the center of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. One hundred and forty thousand people were killed, more than 95% of them women and children and other noncombatants. At least half of the victims died of radiation poisoning over the next few months. Three days after Hiroshima was obliterated, the city of Nagasaki suffered a similar fate.

The magnitude of death was enormous, but on Aug. 14, 1945 — just five days after the Nagasaki bombing — Radio Tokyo announced that the Japanese emperor had accepted the U.S. terms for surrender. To many Americans at the time, and still for many today, it seemed clear that the bomb had ended the war, even "saving" a million lives that might have been lost if the U.S. had been required to invade mainland Japan.

This powerful narrative took root quickly and is now deeply embedded in our historical sense of who we are as a nation. A decade ago, on the 50th anniversary, this narrative was reinforced in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first bomb. The exhibit, which had been the subject of a bruising political battle, presented nearly 4 million Americans with an officially sanctioned view of the atomic bombings that again portrayed them as a necessary act in a just war.

But although patriotically correct, the exhibit and the narrative on which it was based were historically inaccurate. For one thing, the Smithsonian downplayed the casualties, saying only that the bombs "caused many tens of thousands of deaths" and that Hiroshima was "a definite military target."

..more..

[leftchick]

10. Thank you G j!

excellent articles for me to pass on. I have always felt especially sad about these horrors because my Birthday is August 6. :(

[G_j]

17. welcome back leftchick

and happy birthday :-)

sixty years is not long enough, may there never, ever be another

[booksenkatz]

13. Thank you VERY much, G_j! nt

[seemslikeadream]

8. Drawings derived from memories :

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/47s.jpg

The city was a sea of flame. The people fleeing out of it were burned too badly to be recognized even as men or women.
Drawing / Terumasa Hirata
Around 8:45 a.m., August 6, 1945
Approx. 2,200m from the hypocenter
Ushita-machi (now, Ushita-minami 1-chome)

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/55s.jpg

People seeking water piled up on each other in the fire cistern.
Drawing / Yozo Tanaka
Around 1:00 p.m., August 7, 1945
Approx. 1,000m from the hypocenter
Teppo-cho

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/57s.jpg

Thousands of bloated corpses drift on the water surface.
Drawing / Shunsaburo Tanabe
August 7, 1945
Motoyasugawa River

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/59s.jpg

The blackened corpses of a woman and the child at her feet appeared to have been trying to get off the streetcar.
Drawing / Miyoshi Kokubo

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/66s.jpg

Mothers moved among the wounded mobilized students who had been laid out. When one found her child, she would burst into tears and embrace her or him.
Drawing / Anonymous
August 7, 1945
Approx. 1,700m from the hypocenter

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/70s.jpg

Near the approach to the bridge lay girls whose clothes had totally burned off.
Drawing / Kazuaki Kui
Approx. 300m from the hypocenter
Aioi Bridge



Utterly alone, a little girl watches over her dead mother. Drawing / Toshio Ushio
Before noon, August 7, 1945
Approx. 2,100m from the hypocenter
Eastern Drill Ground Onaga-machi

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/78s.jpg

A man complained that his head was so itchy he couldn't sleep. When the swollen wound was opened with pincettes, dozens, hundreds of maggots dropped out. Drawing / Kyoko Masaki
Around August 8, 1945
Approx. 30km from the hypocenter
Otake-cho, Saeki-gun (now, Otake City

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/81s.jpg

Outside Yokogawa Station, Yokogawa-cho 3-chome

Cremating on the riverbank bodies gathered in trucks
Drawing / Shigeo Fujii
August 17, 1945
Approx. 2,000m from the hypocenter
Fukushima-cho

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp.nyud.net:8090/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/img/82s.jpg

Countless blistered, gray, unrecognizable corpses
Drawing / Anonymous
3:00 to 4:00 p.m., August 8, 1945
Approx. 250m from the hypocenter
Moto-machi


A People's Record of Hiroshima
Fifty-eight years ago, on August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb dropped by the United States utterly destroyed the city of Hiroshima. Hundreds of thousands of residents died.

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0303_e/exh03034.html

[seemslikeadream]

11. Cheney wants to do this to 3 million more?

Didn't I hear that somewhere?

[G_j]

19. wow

those are very difficult to look at, horrifying and sad!
More people need to see these.

btw, I have friends demonstrating at the Y-12 weapons plant in Oakridge Tenn. today. http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050806/NEWS01/508060325/1001

I will be playing music at a local peace event today.

[noonwitch]

9. I never really thought there was any kind of cover up, at least in history

I've read about the long-term effects of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in multiple sources over the years, conservative, liberal and moderate.

An Intervarsity Press (an evangelical publisher) book I read in college about nuclear policy detailed the sufferings of the people of Hiroshima. My history books from high school also did. The cancers, the radiation poisoning, the burns, etc. It is horrific, but it wasn't covered up in the 70s and 80s, when I was educated.

[SonofMass]

12. No it was blown up.

[lonestarnot]

14. Read this over there this a.m. Thanks for the post.

[Zen Democrat]

15. Read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"

It is the best book you'll ever read.

He explains that the atomic bombs were dropped to prevent the Russians from joining the Allies in the Pacific War and having a piece of the post-war action in Asia. It was the beginning of the Cold War.

Surrender was already on the table when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We had already destroyed most of Japan through fire-bombing all their cities and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. (See the McNamara documentary "The Fog of War").

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. By the way, here's a picture of what the Atom Bomb Dome looked like

when it was the Hiroshima Industrial Exhibition Hall.



Here's what it looks like now, although taken from a somewhat unfamiliar angle:




If you ever go to Hiroshima, walk up close to the Atom Bomb Dome and look at what the bomb did to its internal structure. For some reason, I found that as chilling as anything I saw in the museum, which is saying a lot.

[kittykitty]

18. LINK TV on Direct TV Ch 375 is running a week long series on the bombings

See link for schedule

http://www.linktv.org/programming/programDescription.php4?code=nuclear_hiro

Hiroshima-Nagaski, August 1945
This classic, unforgettable film features the first footage shot following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The viewer becomes an eyewitness to the bomb's aftermath, literally walking through the rubble and hospitals jammed with dying people. In August 1945 the Japanese government commissioned Akira Iwasaki, a filmmaker jailed during WWII for his antiwar beliefs, to document the effects of this new weapon. With only black and white film available, he recorded stark and often simple, but telling images of the vast destruction, such as the shadows of leaves, flowers and other objects burned onto stone. The U.S. military classified the raw footage as secret for over 20 years, before making it public. In 1970, Professor Sumner Glimcher obtained the footage and edited this film, adding a factual, eloquently understated narration. Link TV will broadcast this powerful film for the first time in more than 30 years.

<snip>

ABOUT THE SERIES:
HIROSHIMA: The Original Ground Zero - The Fallout 60 years Later
Mention “ground zero” these days, and most Americans will think of the devastation at the World Trade Center on 9/11. But the term “ground zero” really originated 60 years ago, with the destruction of more than 200,000 people—mostly civilians—as a result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Link TV’s timely film series, Hiroshima: The Original Ground Zero, we re-examine the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and its continuing impact as we consider the nuclear threat today.

[G_j]

20. strip Laurence and The New York Times of the Pulitzer Prize

Special from Democracy Now! :
In case you missed this - please pass this around.

This weekend marks the sixtieth anniversary of the U.S. bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. William Laurence, the New York Times reporter who covered the bombings was also on the US government payroll. Journalists Amy Goodman and David Goodman call for the Pulitzer Board to strip Laurence and his paper, The New York Times, of the undeserved prize.

What do you think about this effort strip the Pulitzer Prize from William Laurence and the New York Times? Email us at [e-mail] and let us know.

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Read "The Hiroshima Cover-Up" By Amy Goodman and David Goodman in today's Baltimore Sun:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-20.htm
(the article is also included below)

To thank the Baltimore Sun for running this piece, please e-mail
[e-mail] . If you would like your letter to the editor
published, be sure to include contact information, including full name and day and evening phone numbers.

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Sixty years late, Mr. Weller's censored account stands as a searing indictment not only of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb but also of the danger of journalists embedding with the government to deceive the world.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and David Goodman, a contributing writer for Mother Jones, are co-authors of The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.

© 2005 Baltimore Sun

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