tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42901521904575524262024-03-06T15:01:58.016-05:00Pressing Issues<i>Greg Mitchell on media, politics, film, music, TV, comedy and more. "Not here, not here the darkness, in this twittering world." -- T.S. Eliot</i>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.comBlogger6387125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-42968311414177417452023-08-05T01:00:00.002-04:002023-08-05T16:01:08.447-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 1 Day<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdez9Cyj39ezzGbBnr7fbO7dHYivNm51Ts9t75hCxdoqJNIoPNzxzVVImRFg8LxVcNXbL03EOLt39X_FHioVqeTHanbh3iEDC_XEoZcVyX4V-_VBjpepPpLCeWDKXFz-z-TpPBHcsGwyv8kvSUSbUHPNMKoEAkmW958S9GeORmm_xdaeyWpegkxo1Rzw/s1376/Tibbets-wave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1376" data-original-width="1113" height="801" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdez9Cyj39ezzGbBnr7fbO7dHYivNm51Ts9t75hCxdoqJNIoPNzxzVVImRFg8LxVcNXbL03EOLt39X_FHioVqeTHanbh3iEDC_XEoZcVyX4V-_VBjpepPpLCeWDKXFz-z-TpPBHcsGwyv8kvSUSbUHPNMKoEAkmW958S9GeORmm_xdaeyWpegkxo1Rzw/w649-h801/Tibbets-wave.jpg" width="649" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Each summer I count down the days to the atomic bombing of Japan (August
6 and August 9, 1945), marking events from the same day in
1945. I've been doing it here for more than two weeks now. I've written three books and ebooks on the
subject including my latest, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>, <i>Hiroshima in America</i> (with Robert Jay Lifton) and <a href="http://bit.ly/VTOXs3"><i>Atomic Cover-Up</i></a> (on the decades-long suppression of shocking footageshot in the atomic cities by the U.S. military, also now an award-winning film that I have directed). My photo above taken on a later August 6, 1984.<br />
<br />
<b>August 5, 1945</b>:<br />
<br />
—Hiroshima remains the primary target, with Kokura #2 and Nagasaki
third. The aiming point was directly over the city, not the military
base or industrial quarter, guaranteeing the deaths of tens of thousands
of women and children. The surrounding hills, it was known, would
provide a "focusing effect" that would kill more.<br />
<br />
—Pilot Paul Tibbets formally named the lead plane in the mission, #82, after his mother, <i>Enola Gay</i>. A B-29 that would take photos on the mission would be named, wait for it, <i>Necessary Evil</i>.<br />
<br />
—Also on Tinian, Little Boy is ready to go, awaiting word on weather, with General Curtis LeMay to make the call. At 3:30 p.m., in an air-conditioned bomb assembly hut, the five-ton bomb as loaded (gently) on to a trailer. Crew members scribbled words onto the bomb in crayon, including off-color greetings for the Japanese. Pulled by a tractor, accompanied by a convoy of jeeps and other vehicles, the new weapon arrives at the North Field and is lowered into the bomb pit.<br />
<br />
--The bomb is still not armed. The man who would do, before takeoff, according to plan, was Parsons. But he had other ideas, fearing that the extra-heavy B-29 might crash on takeoff and taking with it “half the island.” He asked if he could arm the bomb in flight, and spent a few hours—on a hot and muggy August day—practicing before getting the okay.<br />
<br />
—Pilot Tibbets tries to nap, without much success. Then, in the assembly hall just before midnight, he tells the crew, that the new bomb was “very powerful” but he did not mention the words “nuclear,” “atomic’ or “radiation.” He calls forward a Protestant chaplain who delivers a prayer he’d written for this occasion on the back of an envelope. It asks God to “to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies.”<br />
<br />
— The Soviets are two days from declaring war on Japan and marching
across Manchuria. Recall that Truman had just written in diary "Fini Japs" when the Soviets would declare war, even without the Bomb. (<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/">See new evidence</a> that it was the Soviet declaration
of war, more than the atomic bombing, that was the decisive factor in Japan's
surrender.) <br />
<br />
—Halfway around the world from Tinian, on board the ship <i>Augusta</i> steaming home for the USA after the Potsdam meeting, President Truman relaxes. His announcement on the bombing--calling the large city merely a "military base"--has already been written. Truman’s order to use the bomb had simply stated that it could be used any time after August 1 so he had nothing to do but watch and wait. The order included the directive to use a second bomb, as well, without a built-in pause to gauge the results of the first and the Japanese response—even though the Japanese were expected, by Truman and others, to push surrender feelers, even without the bomb, with Russia’s entry into the war on August 7. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaoPxAzNYlc7f-3lKsjApcrJzgOIKJTAONOewPDBpQXRHXslSYvdoSaPuayyfNhIlipvRw76Utug52r0B3fBUp1MJ9_FQVbGt7YBy-qNvfmyU3fsoQ1r8p6ye-4dF_jzUBmLAni8v79IrpeenKo7DUa4oFqtSQuKN5M-lMJE34Bboqd7LEmFGKKJyf3A/s1376/Tibbets-wave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1376" data-original-width="1113" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaoPxAzNYlc7f-3lKsjApcrJzgOIKJTAONOewPDBpQXRHXslSYvdoSaPuayyfNhIlipvRw76Utug52r0B3fBUp1MJ9_FQVbGt7YBy-qNvfmyU3fsoQ1r8p6ye-4dF_jzUBmLAni8v79IrpeenKo7DUa4oFqtSQuKN5M-lMJE34Bboqd7LEmFGKKJyf3A/s320/Tibbets-wave.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br />Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-85603170936980062822023-08-04T02:00:00.000-04:002023-08-04T11:30:46.622-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 2 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including the new one, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)</i></b></a>. For earlier days scroll down main page for this blog.<br />
<br />
<i><b>August 4, 1945</b></i>:<br />
<br />
—On Tinian, Little Boy is ready to go, awaiting word on weather, with General LeMay to make the call. With the weather clearing near Hiroshima, still the primary target, taking off the night of August 5 appears the most likely scenario. Secretary of War Stimson writes of a “troubled” day due to the uncertain weather, adding: “The S-1 operation was postponed from Friday night [August 3] until Saturday night and then again Saturday night until Sunday.”<br />
<br />
—Hiroshima remains the primary target--the very center of the highly-populated city--with Kokura #2 and Nagasaki third.<br />
<br />
--Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who directed the U.S. war in
the Pacific, and would soon become the head of our occupation of Japan,
had still not been told of the existence and planned use of the new
bomb. Norman Cousins, the famed author and magazine editor, who was an
aide to MacArthur, would later reveal: "MacArthur's views about the
decision to drop the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general
public supposed....When I asked General MacArthur about
the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even
been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied
that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The
war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had
agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of
the emperor." As we noted earlier, both <a href="http://bit.ly/16yQ9CB">General Eisenhower</a> and Truman's top aide, Admiral Leahy, both protested the use of the bomb against Japan in advance. <br />
<br />
—Paul Tibbets, pilot of the lead plane, the <i>Enola Gay</i>, finally briefs others in the 509th Composite Group who will take part in the mission at 3 pm. Military police seal the building. Tibbets reveals that they will drop immensely powerful bombs, but the nature of the weapons are not revealed, only that it is “something new in the history of warfare.” When weaponeer Deke Parsons says, “We think it will knock out almost everything within a three-mile radius,” the audience gasps.<br />
<br />
Then he tries to show a film clip of the recent Trinity test—but the projector starts shredding the film.
Parsons adds, “No one knows exactly what will happen when the bomb is dropped from the air,” and he distributes welder’s glasses for the men to wear. But he does not relate any warnings about radioactivity or order them not to fly through the mushroom cloud.<br />
<br />
—On board the ship <i>Augusta</i> steaming home for the USA after the Potsdam meeting, President Truman relaxes and plays poker with one of the bomb drop’s biggest booster, Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes. Truman’s order to use the bomb had simply stated that it could be used any time after August 1 so he had nothing to do but watch and wait. The order included the directive to use a second bomb, as well, without a built-in pause to gauge the results of the first and the Japanese response—even though the Japanese were expected, by Truman and others, to push surrender feelers, even without the bomb, with Russia’s entry into the war on August 7. Hence: assembly-line massacre in Nagasaki.Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-47797161074880126582023-08-03T03:00:00.000-04:002023-08-03T06:13:44.019-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 3 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhpQYW5IccNnQ86RI1JdCJIN7BtAC0PiJtFiLmMDmdeph6sUZrC3RpmKjMWYcaCyPVElQMuMgAdh7n3rv-mXctMSBOK4YVhEsIOFCE251O_YNnCgaC7-WwqsqWiqoXZPBRskwEU8eZoA/s1600/truman+sepia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhpQYW5IccNnQ86RI1JdCJIN7BtAC0PiJtFiLmMDmdeph6sUZrC3RpmKjMWYcaCyPVElQMuMgAdh7n3rv-mXctMSBOK4YVhEsIOFCE251O_YNnCgaC7-WwqsqWiqoXZPBRskwEU8eZoA/w244-h310/truman+sepia.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><p>
Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Cover-up-Soldiers-Hiroshima-Nagasaki/dp/1468127403"><b>Atomic Cover-up</b> </a></i>and the new one, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)</i></b></a> and in a new film. For earlier days scroll down main page for this blog.<br />
<br />
<i><b>August 3, 1945 </b></i><br />
<br />
--On Tinian, Little Boy is ready to go, awaiting word on weather, with General LeMay to make the call. Taking off the night of August 5 appears most likely scenario.<br />
<br />
--On board the ship <i>Augusta</i> steaming home for USA after Potsdam meeting, President Truman, Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Leahy, and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes--a strong A-bomb booster--enjoy some poker. Byrnes aide Walter Brown notes in his diary that "President, Leahy, JFB Byrnes agreed Japan looking for peace. (Leahy had another report from Pacific.) President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia instead of some country like Sweden."<br />
<br />
--Leahy had questioned the decision to use the bomb, later writing: "[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... [I]n being the first to use it, we...adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."<br />
<br />
--Our "Magic" intercepts show Japan monitoring the Soviets' military buildup in the Far East (prelude to the declaration of war in four days). Also, Japanese still searching for way to approach Molotov to pursue possible surrender terms before that happens. Another Magic intercept carried the heading, "Japanese Army's interest in peace negotiations." War Department intel analysts revealed "the first statement to appear in the traffic that the Japanese Army is interested in the effort to end the war with Soviet assistance." A segment of Prime Minister Togo's message declared: "The Premier and the leaders of the Army are now concentrating all their attention on this one point."<br />
<br />
--John McCloy, then assistant secretary of war and a well-known "hawk" in his later career, would later reflect, "I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government
issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of
the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to
the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese
government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in
the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of
the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. </p><p>"When the war was over I
arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese
officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then
Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I
believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender,
completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the
bombs."
<br />
<br />
--Soviet General Vasilevskii reports to Stalin that Soviet forces ready for invasion from August 7 on. </p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-82848557966653581762023-08-02T07:30:00.001-04:002023-08-02T11:12:47.262-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 4 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including the new one, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)</i></b></a>. For earlier days scroll down main page for this blog.<br />
<br />
<i><b>August 2, 1945 </b></i><br />
<br />
—Early today, Paul Tibbets, pilot of the lead plane, the <i>Enola Gay</i> (named after his mom) on the first mission, reported to Gen. Curtis LeMay’s Air Force headquartters on Guam. LeMay told him the “primary” was still Hiroshima. Bombardier Thomas Ferebee pointed on a map what the aiming point for the bomb would be—a distinctive T-shaped bridge in the center of the city, not the local army base. “It’s the most perfect aiming I’ve seen in the whole damned war,” Tibbets said. But the main idea was to set the bomb off over the center of the city, which rests in kind of a bowl, so that the surrounding hills would supply a “focusing effect” that would lead to added destruction and loss of life in city mainly filled by women and children. <br />
<br />
—By 3 p.m., top secret orders were being circulated for Special Bombing Mission #13, now set for August 6, when the weather would clear. The first alternate to Hiroshima was Kokura. The second, Nagasaki. The order called for only “visual bombing,” not radar, so the weather had to be okay. Six planes would take part. Two would escort the <i>Enola Gay</i>, one would take photos, the other would be a kind of mobile lab, dropping canisters to send back scientific information.<br />
<br />
—Meanwhile, three B-29s arrived at Tinian carrying from Los Alamos the bomb assemblies for the second Fat Man device (which would use plutonium, the substance of choice for the future, unlike the uranium bomb meant for Hiroshima). <br />
<br />
—Japanese cables and other message intercepted by the United States showed that they were still trying to enlist the Soviets' help in presenting surrender terms--they would even send an envoy--but were undecided on just what to propose. The Russians, meanwhile, were just five days from declaring war on Japan.<br />
<br />
--Top U.S. officials were on now centering on allowing the Japanese to keep their emperor when they give up. In his diary Secretary of War Stimson endorses a key report which concludes: <i>"The retention of the Emperor will probably insure the immediate surrender of all Japanese Forces outside the home islands." </i>Would offering that win a swift Japanese surrender--without the need to use the bomb?<i> </i>Not considered.<br />
<br />
—Six years ago earlier on this day, August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt stating the Germans were trying to enrich uranium 235—and that this process would allow them to build an atomic bomb. This helped spark FDR’s decision to create the Manhattan Project. Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-17530958997633553972023-08-01T01:30:00.000-04:002023-08-01T08:20:44.510-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima, X-Minus 5 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUM5MxNSzfM1HnQoFvPAvznazerKKIYTYyeJCw7OhtnhWCFmGq7ItHBo7GSM1HWsEJndeUuqW_cfFCHh9x-VZte-3eppz1VgS-eN0tHXTSwWwyXbl5YIu79ZnlZacqJRxfKCxPmjTCBVA/s275/truman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUM5MxNSzfM1HnQoFvPAvznazerKKIYTYyeJCw7OhtnhWCFmGq7ItHBo7GSM1HWsEJndeUuqW_cfFCHh9x-VZte-3eppz1VgS-eN0tHXTSwWwyXbl5YIu79ZnlZacqJRxfKCxPmjTCBVA/w640-h426/truman.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and last year's Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>. </span><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
On this date: <br />
<br />
—Truman wrote a letter to his wife Bess last night talking about the atomic bomb (but without revealing it): “He [Stalin] doesn’t know it but I have an ace in the hole and another one showing—so unless he has threes or two pair (and I know he has not) we are sitting all right.”<br />
<br />
And today he gives a letter to Stalin, which confounds the Soviet leader. Earlier, Stalin had promised to declare war on Japan around August 10. Now Truman writes that more consultation is needed. Truman had earlier pushed for the quick entry, writing in his diary "fini Japs" when that occurred, even without use of The Bomb. Now that he has the bomb in his "pocket" he apparently hopes to stall the Soviets.<br />
<br />
--Truman has also approved statement on the use of the bomb, brought to him last night in Germany by a courier, drafted by Secretary of War Stimson and others, and ordered it released after the bomb drop. A line near the start has been added explicitly depicting the vast city of Hiroshima (occupied mainly by women and children) as nothing but a “military base.” The president, and the drafters of the statement, knew was false. An earlier draft described the city of Nagasaki as a “naval base” and nothing more. There would be no reference to radiation effects whatsoever in the statement—it was just a vastly bigger bomb.<br />
<br />
—The Potsdam conference ended early this morning, with Truman expected to head back to the US by sea tomorrow.<br />
<br />
—The “Little Boy” atomic bomb is now ready for use on the island of Tinian. Under the direction of the lead pilot, Paul Tibbetts, practice runs have been completed, near Iwo Jima, and fake payloads dropped, with success. Truman’s order had given the okay for the first mission later this day and it might have happened if a typhoon was not approaching Japan.<br />
<br />
—Stimson writes in his diary about decision today to release to the press, with Truman’s coming statement after the use of the bomb, a 200-page report on the building of the bomb, revised to not give too much away. Here he explains why they will release it at all: “The aim of the paper is to backfire reckless statements by independent scientists after the demonstration of the bomb. If we could be sure that these could be controlled and avoided, all of us would much prefer not to issue such a paper. But under the circumstances of the entire independence of action of scientists and the certainty that there would be a tremendous amount of excitement and reckless statement, [Gen. Leslie] Groves, who is a very conservative man, had reached the conclusion that the lesser evil would be for us to make a statement carefully prepared so as not to give away anything vital and thus try to take the stage away from the others.” Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-55632336175071375112023-07-31T09:00:00.000-04:002023-07-31T18:17:17.730-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 6 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdkIxXxywLpYhyphenhyphenFFYnNv23t_sBu2GNpUSES7ekyZ_Xnixo-zdfCHHxiJXw1_sA_pHmOrkwBsQ7mlqqIOHlzBDZKiuq2I9JR8TlHQrdV3cTcTmU2aYAYS6wWXGN2KvhIG_F3iG2jZrlrAU/s1600/truman+sepia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdkIxXxywLpYhyphenhyphenFFYnNv23t_sBu2GNpUSES7ekyZ_Xnixo-zdfCHHxiJXw1_sA_pHmOrkwBsQ7mlqqIOHlzBDZKiuq2I9JR8TlHQrdV3cTcTmU2aYAYS6wWXGN2KvhIG_F3iG2jZrlrAU/w279-h355/truman+sepia.jpg" width="279" /></a></div>
Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Cover-up-Soldiers-Hiroshima-Nagasaki/dp/1468127403"><b>Atomic Cover-up</b></a><b> </b></i>and<i><b> </b></i>the latest, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)</i></b></a> and now this year in an award-winning film, <i>Atomic Cover-up</i>. For earlier days scroll down main page for this blog.<br />
<br />
<i><b>July 31, 1945</b>:</i><br />
<br />
--In Germany, Admiral William D. Leahy, chief of staff to Truman--and the highest-ranking U.S. military officer during the war--continues to privately express doubts about the bomb, that it may not work and is not needed, in any case. (<b>Gen. Eisenhower <a href="http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2014/07/countdown-to-hiroshima-x-minus-7-days.html">had just come out against</a> using the Bomb.</b>) Leahy would later write in his memoirs: <br />
<br />
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The
Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the
effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional
weapons.
<br />
<br />
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are
frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we
had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark
Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be
won by destroying women and children."<br />
<br />
--The assembly of Little Boy is completed. It is ready for
use the next day. But a typhoon approaching Japan will likely
prevent launching an attack. Several days might be required for weather
to clear. <br />
<br />
--Secretary of War Stimson sends semi-final draft of statement for Truman to read when first bomb used and he has to explain its use, and the entire bomb project, to the U.S. and the world, with this cover note: "Attached are two copies of the revised
statement which has been prepared for release by you as
soon as the new weapon is used. This is the statement
about which I cabled you last night. The reason for the haste is that I was
informed only yesterday that, weather permitting, it is
likely that the weapon will be used as early as August
1st, Pacific Ocean Time, which as you know is a good many
hours ahead of Washington time." The statement would later be amended to include the name of the first city destroyed and add that it was not a city but a "military base."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: medium;">It is an atomic bomb. It is a
harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force
from which the sun draws its power has been loosed
against those who brought war to the Far East.</span></blockquote>
Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-17647285444597710252023-07-30T08:23:00.000-04:002023-07-31T08:25:52.218-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 7 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh1mTA29OOwfkg1cGiheTWyvDuf2x4VbUdioaVzCQ3TjpxXjpT5beHW_yTPBaJ5DK3MQ-2jh241Y360-27afpDfPsf90lmY1-bijnt9LdMgepDG08REziR8iTmvTg3X0Izf2_-liIf0k/s1600/Truman+6.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh1mTA29OOwfkg1cGiheTWyvDuf2x4VbUdioaVzCQ3TjpxXjpT5beHW_yTPBaJ5DK3MQ-2jh241Y360-27afpDfPsf90lmY1-bijnt9LdMgepDG08REziR8iTmvTg3X0Izf2_-liIf0k/w181-h231/Truman+6.jpg" width="181" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and last year's Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a> (see cover at top right to order). Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>, watch trailer <a href="https://vimeo.com/509903756">here</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<i><b>July 30, 1945 </b></i><br />
<br />
<b></b> Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of U.S. troops
in Europe, has visited President Truman in Germany, and would recall
what happened in his memoir (<i>Mandate for Change</i>): "Secretary
of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that
our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one
of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question
the wisdom of such an act...
<br />
<br />
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of
a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings,
first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that
dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I
thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use
of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a
measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that
very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of
'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."<br />
<br />
In a <i>Newsweek interview</i>, Ike would add: "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." And for another thing, Russia was about to declare war on Japan and Truman had just written in his diary, "Fini Japs" when that happened, even without the Bomb. <br />
<br />
-- Stimson, now back at the Pentagon, cabled Truman, that he had
drafted a statement for the president that would follow the first use of
the new weapon--and Truman must urgently review it because the bomb
could be used as early as August 1. Stimson sent one of his aides to
Germany with two copies of the statement. The top secret, six-page typed
statement opened: "____ hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb
on ______ and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more
power than 20,000 tons of TNT.... It is an atomic bomb. It is a
harnessing of the basic power of the universe." Later, as we will see,
the claim that Hiroshima was merely "a military base" was added to the
draft.<br />
<br />
--After scientists sifted more data from the July 16 Trinity test of
the first weapon, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, military head of the Manhattan
Project provided Gen. George Marshall, our top commander, with more
detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Amazingly, despite
the new evidence, Groves recommended that troops could move into the
"immediate explosion area" within a half hour (and, indeed, in future
bomb tests soldiers would march under the mushroom clouds and receive
harmful doses of radiation). Groves also provided the schedule for the
delivery of the weapons: By the end of November more than ten weapons
would be available, in the event the war had continued.<br />
<br />
--Groves faced a new problem, however. Gen. "Tooey" Spaatz on Guam
urgently cabled that sources suggested that there was an Allied prisoner
of war camp in Nagasaki just a mile north of the center of the city.
Should it remain on the target list?" Groves, who had already dropped
Kyoto from the list after Stimson had protested, refused to shift. In
another cable Spaatz revealed that there were no POW camps in Hiroshima,
or so they believed. This firmed up Groves's position that Hiroshima
should "be given top priority," weather permitting. As it turned out,
POWs died in both cities from the bombing.</p><p>Trailer for my film: https://vimeo.com/509903756</p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-31436748087124413452023-07-29T10:05:00.000-04:002023-07-31T08:25:37.975-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 8 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUM5MxNSzfM1HnQoFvPAvznazerKKIYTYyeJCw7OhtnhWCFmGq7ItHBo7GSM1HWsEJndeUuqW_cfFCHh9x-VZte-3eppz1VgS-eN0tHXTSwWwyXbl5YIu79ZnlZacqJRxfKCxPmjTCBVA/s275/truman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUM5MxNSzfM1HnQoFvPAvznazerKKIYTYyeJCw7OhtnhWCFmGq7ItHBo7GSM1HWsEJndeUuqW_cfFCHh9x-VZte-3eppz1VgS-eN0tHXTSwWwyXbl5YIu79ZnlZacqJRxfKCxPmjTCBVA/w640-h426/truman.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and last year's Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>. </span><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>On July 29, 1945: </b></i><br />
<br />
—Truman wrote letter to wife Bess from Potsdam on dealings there (but
does not mention A-bomb discussions with Soviets): “I like Stalin. He is
straightforward, knows what he wants and will compromise when he can’t
get it. His Foreign Minister isn’t so forthright.“ Truman casually
informed Stalin about the atomic bomb but no one is quite certain that
the latter understood.<br />
<br />
—Japanese sub sinks the <i>U.S.S. Indianapolis</i>,
killing over 800 American seamen. If it had happened three days
earlier, the atomic bomb the ship was carrying to Tinian would have
never made it.<br />
<br />
—A<i> Newsweek</i> story observes: “As Allied air and sea attacks
hammered the stricken homeland, Japan’s leaders assessed the war
situation and found it bordering on the disastrous…. As usual, the
nation’s propaganda media spewed out brave double-talk of hope and
defiance.” But it adds: “Behind the curtain, Japan had put forward at
least one definite offer. Fearing the results of Russian participation
in the war, Tokyo transmitted to Generalissimo Stalin the broad terms
on which it professed willingness to settle all scores.”<br />
<br />
—Assembling of the first atomic bomb continued at Tinian. It would
likely be ready on August 1 and the first use would be dictated by the
weather. The second bomb—the plutonium device—was still back in the States.
The target list, with Hiroshima as #1, remained in place, although it
was being studied for the presence of POW camps holding Americans in the
target cities.
<br />
<br />
—Secretary of War Stimson began work on the statement on the first
use of the bomb that President Truman would record or release in a few
days, claiming we merely hit a "military base," assuming the bomb worked.</p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-13432247369219215992023-07-28T08:51:00.000-04:002023-07-31T08:25:14.833-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 9 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Fkm-Bz1ulF3ipe9pqenx75-Wd6_m16A3BfyZsUC0iEnahgtLyIKilTz2ebZ_3XDV4BXCA3PKNiYMdX0obH0nmB5oWxO6n7oG2e58EYOC47Qe0FAxja6CfTYYMu3T37QPgb7vSyeGO-g/s1600/truman+5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Fkm-Bz1ulF3ipe9pqenx75-Wd6_m16A3BfyZsUC0iEnahgtLyIKilTz2ebZ_3XDV4BXCA3PKNiYMdX0obH0nmB5oWxO6n7oG2e58EYOC47Qe0FAxja6CfTYYMu3T37QPgb7vSyeGO-g/s1600/truman+5.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><p>Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the
first (and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books with a special emphasis
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression in the decades after. <br />
<a href="http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2014/07/coutndown-to-hiroshima-x-minuse16-days.html">Yesterday's entry</a>. See my new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. </i></b></a><br />
<br />
<i><b>July 28, 1945</b></i><br />
<br />
--Two days after receiving it, the Japanese leadership rejected the
Potsdam declaration calling for their "unconditional" surrender, or
seemed to. The official word was that it would ignore the demand <i>mokusatsu</i>,
or "with silence." Another translation, however, is "to withhold
comment." This not-quite-rejection has led some historians to suggest
that the U.S. should have pursued the confusing Japanese peace feelers
already circulating, especially with suggestions that unconditional
terms were the main, or perhaps only, obstacles.<br />
<br />
--Secretary of
the Navy James V. Forrestal had breakfast with Truman at Potsdam. He
had flown there at least partly to press the president to pursue
Japanese peace feelers--especially concerning letting them keep their
emperor--before using the bomb and killing countless civilians.<br />
<br />
--Returning
to Washington from Potsdam, Secretary of War Henry Stimson consulted
with the top people at Los Alamos about the bomb (or "S-1" as it was
then known) and wrote in his diary. "Everything seems to be going well."<br />
<br />
--U.S.
Ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies wrote in his diary that Secretary of
State James Byrnes was overly excited by the success of the bomb test
vis-a-vis future relations with our allies, the Soviets: "Byrnes'
attitude that the atomic bomb assured ultimate success in negotiations
disturbed me more than his description of its success amazed me. I told
him the threat wouldn't work, and might do irreparable harm." </p><p> </p><p>--Four days
earlier, Byrnes aide Walter Brown had written in his diary that Byrnes'
view was that "after atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will
not get in so much on the kill." The Soviets were scheduled to enter
the war on August 7 (which likely would have prompted a Japanese surrender,
even without use of the Bomb), so there was some urgency.<br />
<br />
--A
U.S. bombing raid on the small Japanese city of Aomori -- which had
little military significance beyond being a transportation hub --
dropped 83,000 incendiaries and destroyed almost the entire city,
killing at least 2,000 civilians.
</p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-87081942818455205332023-07-27T06:00:00.000-04:002023-07-31T08:24:49.679-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 10 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcWtAoG_HBHjFpscMDRMhieB-0t0Q8lhC588TehxG-7AJWHlhk6eHF2NRRI1aI3qsshYErvNrU7SG8ME0u5rRZrCq33UR41iLos10W5qO8_fzs4KhHe0u8pk-0O8imqUbwHocTCJuJiw/s1600/hiroshima-portrait-100days-ga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcWtAoG_HBHjFpscMDRMhieB-0t0Q8lhC588TehxG-7AJWHlhk6eHF2NRRI1aI3qsshYErvNrU7SG8ME0u5rRZrCq33UR41iLos10W5qO8_fzs4KhHe0u8pk-0O8imqUbwHocTCJuJiw/s1600/hiroshima-portrait-100days-ga.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including the new one, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) </i></b></a>since the early 1980s with a special emphasis
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression in the decades after. For earlier days scroll down main page for this blog. <br />
<br />
<i><b>July 27, 1945</b></i><br />
<br />
Truman continued to meet with Allied leaders in Germany, as the
Soviets got ready to declare war on Japan around August 8 ("fini Japs"
when that happened, even without the bomb, Truman had written in his
diary this week).<br />
<br />
"A Petition to the President of the United States" organized by famed
nuclear scientist Leo Szilard, and signed by dozens of his Manhattan Project colleagues -- the only real pre-Hiroshima protests by insiders -- urgently
urging delay or extreme caution on the use of the new weapon against
Japan, continued to be held in limbo and kept from the President's eyes while
Truman remained abroad.<br />
<br />
Preparations at Tinian in the Pacific to get the
first A-bomb ready for use, possibly within a week (weather permitting)
were finalized, with the city of Hiroshima remaining as #1 target. It
has been barely touched by Allied bombing so it would serve as the best
site to judge the bomb's experimental effects. Also it is nearly surrounded by hills, promising a "focusing effect" (as the target committee boasted) that will likely guarantee killing tens of thousands. Kokura was target #2 and Nagasaki #3, with the bomb on an assembly line process with no need for a separate order for the second and third bombs, which would doom, in the end, Nagasaki. <br />
<br />
The Japanese government today released an edited version of the
"unconditional surrender" Potsdam declaration (which did not mention the
atomic bomb) to their press and citizens, but had not yet rejected it.
The Domei news agency had already predicted that the surrender demand
"would be ignored." The U.S, after use of bomb, would later accept
conditional surrender -- with Japan allowed to keep its emperor -- yet
call it unconditional.<br />
<br />
Eleven days after the first, and quite secret, atomic test at
Trinity, which spread wide clouds of radioactive fallout over residents
downwind -- livestock had been sickened or killed -- radiation experts
had become concerned about the exposure for one family, the shape of
things to come.Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-12925495980904116742023-07-26T01:30:00.002-04:002023-07-26T11:52:42.641-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 11 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pkAYMggbZY_UCRyz865XSm0FnDfrbV9_4wAwMwqAuRFELeOfVOdauSrNMiqyTef-2ZvL0IAb8pk3m9VKZriNMEmgK0hbZhUtOGn8r34gw9NWfa1lpH6KE3fKUFsQ4LkrKkFK-M7DFj0/s1600/truman+5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_pkAYMggbZY_UCRyz865XSm0FnDfrbV9_4wAwMwqAuRFELeOfVOdauSrNMiqyTef-2ZvL0IAb8pk3m9VKZriNMEmgK0hbZhUtOGn8r34gw9NWfa1lpH6KE3fKUFsQ4LkrKkFK-M7DFj0/s1600/truman+5.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>
Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books (including the new one, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) </i></b></a>and now a new film (<i>Atomic Cover-up</i>) since the early 1980s with a special emphasis
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression in the decades after. <br />
<br />
<i><b>July 26, 1945: </b></i><br />
<br />
Early on July 26, Chief of Staff Gen.George Marshall cabled to Gen.
Leslie Groves, military chief of the Manhattan Project back in
Washington, DC, his approval of a directive sent by Groves the night
before. It read: “1. The 509th Composite Group, Twentieth Air Force,
will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit
visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets:
Hiroshima, Kokura, Nigata and Nagasaki…. 2. Additional bombs will be
delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project
staff…..”<br />
<br />
This assembly-line approach would have tragic consequences
for the city of Nagasaki. (Kyoto had been removed from the target list
after the Secretary of War Henry Stimson pleaded that destroying this
historic and beautiful city would really turn the Japanese against us in
the postwar period.)<br />
<br />
In a 1946 letter to Stimson, Truman reminded him that he had ordered
the bombs used against cities engaged “exclusively” in war work. Truman
would later write in his memoirs, “With this order the the wheels were
set in motion for the first use of an atomic weapon against a military
target.” Even years after the decision, and all the evidence (largely
kept from the American people) that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only
partly “military” targets, Truman still acted otherwise.<br />
<br />
--The other major event from this day was equally significant. The
Potsdam Declaration was issued in Germany by the United States, Britain
and China. (The Soviet Union was still ostensibly not at war with
Japan but agreed to enter the conflict around August 8. This has led
some to suggest that we used the bombs quickly to try to end the war
before the Russians could claim much new territory.) It was Truman’s
first key wartime conference with other top leaders.
<br />
<br />
The declaration ordered Japan to surrender immediately and
unconditionally or face a reign of ruin—“prompt and utter
destruction”—although the new weapon was not mentioned (such a warning
had been considered by Truman but rejected). Much was made of the
importance of the “unconditional” aspect but three weeks later, after
the use of the new bombs, we accepted a major condition, allowing the
Japanese to keep their emperor--and still called the surrender
“unconditional.”<br />
<br />
Some historians believe that if we had agreed to that
condition earlier Japan might have started the surrender process before
the use of the atomic bombs. Others believe an explicit warning to the
Japanese, or a demonstration of the new weapon offshore in Japan, would
have speeded the surrender process. But the Potsdam Declaration set US
policy in stone.<br />
<br />
<br />Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-59276717351101769292023-07-26T01:30:00.001-04:002023-07-26T11:52:30.620-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 13 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4No4UpRZtdr7-Wi_uNzfG6pcKFqEo3cr0OT-a1p17EnnliQfkXjuAFTTxZTwyEEGMJfQPbk-4QQSzTTmv-a5AlhXOIvGcWirixrL8hqAugvZYoLSjdg5VtUn-1BAkYpO2PT9pmUhZlE/s2048/stalin+truman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1638" data-original-width="2048" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4No4UpRZtdr7-Wi_uNzfG6pcKFqEo3cr0OT-a1p17EnnliQfkXjuAFTTxZTwyEEGMJfQPbk-4QQSzTTmv-a5AlhXOIvGcWirixrL8hqAugvZYoLSjdg5VtUn-1BAkYpO2PT9pmUhZlE/w640-h512/stalin+truman.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first (and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books since the early 1980s with a special emphasis
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression in the decades after. See my new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. </i></b></a><br />
<br /> Today: <br />
<br />
<b>July 24:</b> Truman at Potsdam discloses the existence of the
atomic bomb to Stalin (who had possibly
already been informed about it by his spies). In his memoirs, a
decade later, Truman would describe it briefly this way: "On July 24 I
casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon
of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special
interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would
make 'good use of it against the Japanese.'"<br />
<br />
American officials present
would assert that Stalin failed to grasp the import of the new weapon in
future world affairs. But a Soviet official with the Stalin party
later claimed that Stalin immediately ordered his scientists to speed up
work on their own weapon. <a href="http://www.dannen.com/decision/potsdam.html">See views of Churchill and others</a> who witnessed the telling. </p><p></p><p>Truman had come to Potsdam mainly to get the Russians to keep their
promise of entering war against Japan in early August--and Truman
believed, as he wrote in his diary, that alone would mean "fini Japs"
even without using the bomb. But, after the successful Trinity, Stimson
writes in diary, that he and Gen. George Marshall believe "now
with our new weapon we would not need the assistance of the Russians to
conquer Japan." So he again presses for info on earliest possible date
for use of bomb. <br />
<br />
Gen. Groves drafts the directive authorizing the use of the atomic bombs
as
soon as bomb availability and weather permit. It lists the following
targets
in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. They are all large cities and orders are to drop bombs over center of them, thereby dooming tens of thousands of civilians for death. This
directive constitutes final authorization for atomic attack--no
further
orders are issued. <br />
<br />
Indeed, there would never be a separate order,
even by Truman, to use the second bomb against Japan--it just rolled
off, as if from an atomic assembly line. </p><p> More decoded cables and reports suggest Japanese
might very well surrender soon if "unconditional surrender" demand is
amended to
allow them to retain their Emperor as symbolic leader. Some top Truman
advisers, including Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson have floated this
idea to no avail. U.S. will rule
that out in its upcoming Potsdam Declaration--but then allow it, <i>after </i>
using the bomb. If granted earlier would that have meant quick surrender and no use of A-bomb?<br />
<br /><br /></p><p> </p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-51515272850642347872023-07-26T01:30:00.000-04:002023-07-26T11:51:40.252-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 16 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyjn1VPgGrCRNpJ6DjpfNJp0wCj7rvIDnSI856ebB9fsdquoAmGd8ImMNHg9SehdPJUEKkGI61QFqoGFyTarNABDRJj48_EEzMZ4qXj3uJO66fj8_aE5bWPncxB9KibkwtlJL_-gn7Ys/s1600/truman+mushroom.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyjn1VPgGrCRNpJ6DjpfNJp0wCj7rvIDnSI856ebB9fsdquoAmGd8ImMNHg9SehdPJUEKkGI61QFqoGFyTarNABDRJj48_EEzMZ4qXj3uJO66fj8_aE5bWPncxB9KibkwtlJL_-gn7Ys/w157-h200/truman+mushroom.jpg" width="157" /></a></div>
Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the
first (and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. This is a subject
that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and three
books. since the early 1980s with a special emphasis
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression in the decades after. See my latest book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. </i></b></a><br />
<br />
<b>July 21, 1945:</b> Gen. Leslie Groves' <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/36.pdf">dramatic report </a>on
the Trinity test lands on Secretary of War Henry Stimson's desk.
Residents of New Mexico and Las Vegas, who witnessed a flash in the
desert (some received radiation doses) are still in the dark. <br />
<br />
The Interim Committee has settled on a target list (in order):
Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki. Top priority was they must be among the
few large Japanese cities not already devastated by bombardments--so the
true effects of the new bomb can be observed. That's also why the
bomb will be dropped over the very center of the cities, which will also
maximize civilian casualties. Hiroshima has the added "benefit" or
being surrounding by hills on three sides, providing a "focusing effect"
which will bounce the blast back on the city, killing even more.
Kyoto, on the original target list, was dropped after an appeal by
Stimson, who loved the historic and beautiful city. <br />
<br />
Stimson in his diary recounts visit with Truman
at Potsdam after they've both read Gen. Groves account of the successful
Trinity test. He finds Truman tremendously "pepped up" by it with "new
confidence." This "Trinity power surge" (in Robert Lifton's phrase) helped push
Truman to use the new weapon as soon as possible without further
reflection, with the Russians due to enter the war around August 7.
Truman has not yet told Stalin about existence of the bomb.<br />
<br />
Note: Groves' <a href="http://www.abomb1.org/trinity/groves1.html">lengthy memo</a>
generally pooh-poohed radiation effects on nearby populations but did
include this: "Radioactive material in small quantities was located as
much as 120 miles away. The measurements
are being continued in order to have adequate data with which to protect
the Government's interests in case of
future claims. For a few hours I was none too comfortable with the
situation." <br />
<br />
Bombing crews start practicing flights over targets in Japan.<br />
<br />Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-14308479715153785732023-07-26T01:23:00.000-04:002023-07-26T11:51:20.982-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus-17 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijbR1Oxka5cuYwWyqxmrFmJTvKgK6C4lwzafqakYzWLpKFqYyW5ElLj09lCKZsxVzrkxZCiqwq6HrH0rHKsYV837gnmTQX6TVCKiqy8fNd4nNS4JiMyU9_3Q3NUCYYFQsbdWMfUyroUUE/s625/General_Eisenhower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="625" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijbR1Oxka5cuYwWyqxmrFmJTvKgK6C4lwzafqakYzWLpKFqYyW5ElLj09lCKZsxVzrkxZCiqwq6HrH0rHKsYV837gnmTQX6TVCKiqy8fNd4nNS4JiMyU9_3Q3NUCYYFQsbdWMfUyroUUE/w640-h410/General_Eisenhower.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641">Hiroshima in America </a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3">Atomic Cover-up</a> and last year's Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734">The Beginning or the End</a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>.</span> </i><br /></div><p>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What happened on today's date: </span><br />
<br />
<b>July 20, 1945:</b> Secretary of War Stimson met several top U.S. generals in Germany. <br />
<br />
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower would years later in <i>Newsweek</i> write: "Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed
me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I
was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to
question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the
news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for
using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
<br />
<br />
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a
feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave
misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already
defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and
secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world
opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no
longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.<br />
<br />
"It was my belief
that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a
minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude."<br />
<br />
There is conflicting evidence that Eisenhower also delivered this message to Truman. Ike would later repeat in a memoir his opposition to dropping the bomb--"that awful thing"--on Japan. </p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-88057095573441386942023-07-26T01:00:00.000-04:002023-07-26T11:52:08.400-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 15 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0v0FSSw-T6IIVLOpm0aspcMIzR9q7ZRpIhuQOHVU-dtWuSxjx72IdsQ2-BDN9RS9NqOJmf5hbQObC6dAsX-L_-JhAD8_5aGgIgSVga9H4V5DKVd4gEQ9N0xSlwRkcFqlZtJJ16wqq5k4/s1600/truman+sepia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0v0FSSw-T6IIVLOpm0aspcMIzR9q7ZRpIhuQOHVU-dtWuSxjx72IdsQ2-BDN9RS9NqOJmf5hbQObC6dAsX-L_-JhAD8_5aGgIgSVga9H4V5DKVd4gEQ9N0xSlwRkcFqlZtJJ16wqq5k4/w189-h240/truman+sepia.jpg" width="189" /></a></div><p> <span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and last year's Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>.</span> <br /><br /><b>July 22, 1945</b>: Still at Potsdam, Secretary of War Stimson meets with Prime Minister Churchill,
who says that he was baffled by President Truman's sudden change in getting tough, almost bullying, with Stalin--but after he learned of
successful first A-bomb test at Trinity he understood and endorsed it. </p><p>Everyone
also cheered by "accelerated" timetable for use of the bomb against
cities--with first weapon ready about August 6. Stimson in diary notes that two top officials endorse his
striking off the city of Kyoto (which he had visited and loved) from the target list because of its cultural importance.<br />
<br />
The U.S. learns through its "Magic" intercepts that Japan is sending a
special emissary to the Soviet Union to try to get them to broker a
peace with the U.S. as soon as possible (the Japanese don't know the Russians
are getting ready to declare war on them in two weeks). Of course, as we noted earlier, Truman--who wrote in his diary it meant "Fini Japs" when the Soviets entered war--now hoped to use the bomb before then. <br /></p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-82426250789540383352023-07-19T00:00:00.000-04:002023-07-19T08:45:46.979-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 18 Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwEadqBGVOHPcg9H3dPg3rxyTDF3V69Chxzm4FJUQE2Zt2nt3DqWnxZKOQpXpVvyxRI0_CCvVLwDPVKU9ZhvYiBQg5AZFbLC0F8yMdsIDI9d5SE-Mvf1KNR9vZccyOjePFyLGKF30WFSc/s1482/Truman+at+potsdam+.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1482" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwEadqBGVOHPcg9H3dPg3rxyTDF3V69Chxzm4FJUQE2Zt2nt3DqWnxZKOQpXpVvyxRI0_CCvVLwDPVKU9ZhvYiBQg5AZFbLC0F8yMdsIDI9d5SE-Mvf1KNR9vZccyOjePFyLGKF30WFSc/w640-h518/Truman+at+potsdam+.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and my award-winner on Oppenheimer and the notorious FIRST Hollywood atomic bomb movie, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <i>Atomic Cover-up</i>, <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>.</span> <br />
<br />
Today's entry, going back to July 18-19, 1945. <br />
*<br />
<br />
At Potsdam, Truman wrote in his diary today: <br />
</p><blockquote class="tr_bq">
"P.M. <b>[Churchil</b>] & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell<b> Stalin</b>
about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for
peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe
the Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when
Manhattan [reference to Manhattan Project] appears over their homeland. I
shall inform about it at an opportune time."</blockquote>
So there is a "telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace." Of course, we'll never know if peace could have been worked out shortly. One hang-up was that the U.S. was demanding "conditional surrender" while the Japanese wanted to be able to keep their emperor as a figurehead. Of course, after we dropped the bomb, we allowed this condition. This, and Truman's view that the Soviet entry into the war, set for around August 12, would provoke a surrender made it vital for him--in the view of some historians--to use the new weapon as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
Truman also wrote a letter to his wife Bess, affirming his belief that the Soviet declaration of war--even without the Bomb--would cause an end to the war well before the planned U.S. invasion.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've gotten what I came for - Stalin goes to war August 15 with no strings on it... I'll say that we'll end the war a
year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed! That is the
important thing.
</blockquote>
Truman would use the new weapon anyway, killing at least 50,000 Japanese "kids." Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-69531103477160896492023-07-17T01:00:00.001-04:002023-07-17T15:27:14.825-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 20 Days<span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgm15wXxMCE2Dp1Fe43wK5sPaJJSE6s_Kk3sF4NsycmE_Rsv1zGJAf-ray2uuGbnST2Wr2qPDSKF9U1ocjx2Xt17UKTIAaR-YNUhiQZ32VK73m4A10C8jzojG_nVZIycl2TfrxI2f0Ko/s1600/trumans_diary.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgm15wXxMCE2Dp1Fe43wK5sPaJJSE6s_Kk3sF4NsycmE_Rsv1zGJAf-ray2uuGbnST2Wr2qPDSKF9U1ocjx2Xt17UKTIAaR-YNUhiQZ32VK73m4A10C8jzojG_nVZIycl2TfrxI2f0Ko/w682-h507/trumans_diary.jpg" width="682" /></a></div><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and my recent Oppenheimer-related Hollywood epic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>. </span><br />
<br />
Now, today's entry, going back to July 17, 1945.<br />
*<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Even at this late date, in 2022, Americans would be surprised to learn that
President Harry S. Truman, just three weeks before ordering use of the new
atomic bomb against Hiroshima, wrote in his diary, after meeting Joseph
Stalin in Germany, that the Russians’ promised entry into the war
against Japan would end the conflict—“Fini Japs”—even without the Bomb.
It happened on this date in 1945.<br />
<br />
As it happened, the Russians did enter the war—on schedule—within two
days of the bombing of Hiroshima, and some historians believe that this
shock, as much as the two A-bombs (the second against Nagasaki on
August 9), provoked the speedy Japanese surrender a few days later. The
question remains: Would this have happened without the Bomb? It’s a
close argument, but the fact remains: most citizens of the only country
to use the dreadful weapon (killing 200,000 civilians) are not even
aware of it.
<br />
<br />
Now here, verbatim, is a famous (to some) passage from
Truman’s diary on July 17, 1945. Also note Truman’s assessment of
Stalin as “honest.”<br />
<blockquote>
Just spent a couple of hours with Stalin. Joe Davies
called on Maisky and made the date last night for noon today. Promptly
at a few minutes before twelve I looked up from my desk and there stood
Stalin in the doorway. I got to my feet and advanced to meet him. He put
out his hand and smiled. I did the same, we shook, I greeted Molotov
and the interpreter and we sat down. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
After the usual polite remarks we got down to business. I told Stalin
that I am no diplomat but usually said yes and no to questions after
hearing all the arguments. It pleased him. I asked him if he had the
agenda for the meeting. He said he had and that he had some more
questions to present. I told him to fire away. He did and it is
dynamite—but I have some dynamite too, which I am not exploding now. He
wants to fire Franco, to which I wouldn’t object and divide up the
Italian colonies and other mandates, some no doubt that the British
have. Then he got on the Chinese situation told us what agreements had
been reached and what was in abeyance. Most of the big points are
settled. He’ll be in the Jap war on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes
about.....</blockquote>
<blockquote>
We had lunch, talked socially, put on a real show, drinking toasts to everyone. Then had pictures made in the backyard.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
I can deal with Stalin. He is honest, but smart as hell.</blockquote>
Most American when asked about the Soviets entering the war at that late day seem to believe they were just “getting in on the spoils.” In fact, we had demanded
that the Soviets do this and we knew it was
coming, bomb or no bomb. This has led to theories – which I have never
embraced – that the <i>main</i> reason we dropped the bombs, knowing Japan was
already defeated, was to keep the Soviets out of Japan, and intimidate
them in the postwar era. I’d call this <i>a </i>reason, not <i>the</i> reason.
<br />
<br />
Be that as it may, there is no question that the Soviet declaration would have had a huge impact on the Japanese. That's why
Truman, in his diary, declared that the Russian attack alone meant
"fini" for "the Japs."<br />
<br />
The key point is: We didn’t wait around to find out if the Japanese
would have surrendered to us shortly (especially after we let them keep
the emperor) to prevent the Russians from invading, or if a strong nudge
via use of our bomb would have been required. Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-89118212498742723042023-07-16T01:00:00.000-04:002023-07-16T09:38:28.656-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: July 16, 1945<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBI36PzF1fnMz96K4mzIIUkNioI4yoycfiytepomHdjPEx20NXMwttXO6aJBOD84_L9MsutVaitWRdkehbiQyhKtdOmoP2NYY9ICoAnmOeEGFP40-5Fx5DUHVkYfNat2q6G6dfV-XqGI/s1624/Trinity_Detonation_T%2526B.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1624" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBI36PzF1fnMz96K4mzIIUkNioI4yoycfiytepomHdjPEx20NXMwttXO6aJBOD84_L9MsutVaitWRdkehbiQyhKtdOmoP2NYY9ICoAnmOeEGFP40-5Fx5DUHVkYfNat2q6G6dfV-XqGI/w640-h376/Trinity_Detonation_T%2526B.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers,
and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span>As
some know, this is a subject that I
have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since 1984: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641"><i>Hiroshima in America </i></a>(with Robert Jay Lifton), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> and my recent award-winner on the FIRST atomic movie, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>. Now I've directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>. Here's today's entry:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">***<br /></span></p><p>While most people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6,
1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima,
it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New
Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test. Its 76rd anniversary
will be marked—or mourned today. <br />
<br />
Entire books have been written about the test, so I’ll just touch on
one key issue here briefly.
It’s related to a hallmark of the age that would follow: a new
government obsession with secrecy, which soon spread from the nuclear
program to all military and foreign affairs in the cold war era.<br />
<br />
In completing their work on building the bomb, Manhattan Project
scientists knew it would produce deadly radiation but weren’t sure
exactly how much. The military planners were mainly concerned about the
bomber pilots catching a dose, but J. Robert Oppenheimer, “The Father of
the Bomb,” worried, with good cause (as it turned out) that the
radiation could drift a few miles and also fall to earth with the rain.<br />
<br />
Indeed, scientists warned of danger to those living downwind from the
Trinity site but, in a pattern-setting decision, the military boss,
General Leslie Groves, ruled that residents not be evacuated and kept
completely in the dark (at least until they spotted a blast brighter
than any sun). Nothing was to interfere with the test. When two
physicians on Oppenheimer’s staff proposed an evacuation, Groves
replied, “What are you, Hearst propagandists?”<br />
<br />
Admiral Williams Leahy, President Truman’s chief of staff—who opposed
dropping the bomb on Japan—placed the bomb in the same category as
“poison gas.” And, sure enough, soon after the shot went off before dawn
on July 16, scientists monitored some alarming evidence. Radiation was
quickly settling to earth in a band thirty miles wide by 100 miles long.
A paralyzed mule was discovered twenty-five miles from ground zero.<br />
<br />
Still, it could have been worse; the cloud had drifted over
loosely-populated areas. “We were just damn lucky,” the head of
radiological safety for the test later affirmed.<br />
<br />
The local press knew nothing about any of this. When the shock wave
had hit the trenches in the desert, Groves’ first words were: “We must
keep the whole thing quiet.” This set the tone for the decades that
followed, with tragic effects for “downwinders” and others tainted
across the country, workers in the nuclear industry, “atomic soldiers,”
those who questioned the building of the hydrogen bomb and an expanding
arms race, among others.<br />
<br />
Naturally, reporters were curious about the big blast, however, so
Groves released a statement written by W.L. Laurence (who was on leave
from the<i> New York Times</i> and playing the role of chief atomic propagandist) announcing that an ammunition dump had exploded.<br />
<br />
In the weeks that followed, ranchers discovered dozens of cattle had
odd burns or were losing hair. Oppenheimer ordered post-test health
reports held in the strictest secrecy. When W.L. Laurence’s famous
report on the Trinity test was published just after the Hiroshima
bombing he made no mention of radiation at all.<br />
<br />
Even as the scientists celebrated their success at Alamagordo on July
16, the first radioactive cloud was drifting eastward over America,
depositing fallout along its path. When Americans found out about this,
three months later, the word came not from the government but from the
president of the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, who
wondered why some of his film was fogging and suspected radioactivity as
the cause.<br />
<br />
Fallout was absent in early press accounts of the Hiroshima bombing
as the media joined in the triumphalist backing of The Bomb and the
bombings. When reports of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki afflicted
with a strange and horrible new disease emerged, General Groves, at
first, called it all a “hoax” and “propaganda” and speculated that the
Japanese had different “blood.” Then the military kept reporters from
the West from arriving in the atomic cities, until more than a month
after the blasts, when it controlled access in an early version of
today’s “embedded reporters” program.<br />
<br />
When some of the truth about radiation started to surface in the U.S.
media, a full-scale official effort to downplay the Japanese death
toll—and defend the decision to use the bomb—really accelerated, leading
to an effective decades-long “Hiroshima narrative.” But that’s a story
for another day here.</p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-36406025412943203672023-07-12T03:00:00.000-04:002023-07-12T03:33:07.441-04:00My "Countdown to Hiroshima" Begins Again<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhy0Kcztdw8CIY7oJMCH-nho33mVlCRAPCIrJwg7VZR3h3d3FvrqalCLfxUUlbROdAxfh0f8CMIJg-_GaRCWGghyIwV7-CXAyCEHU6iKASEytafqGav8IIU4m9MvjGctDntthn4ExtjQ/s2048/GettyImages-636132258.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1547" data-original-width="2048" height="485" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhy0Kcztdw8CIY7oJMCH-nho33mVlCRAPCIrJwg7VZR3h3d3FvrqalCLfxUUlbROdAxfh0f8CMIJg-_GaRCWGghyIwV7-CXAyCEHU6iKASEytafqGav8IIU4m9MvjGctDntthn4ExtjQ/w640-h485/GettyImages-636132258.jpg" width="640" /></a></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, very tragic, decisions made by President Truman and his advisers,
and the actions of scientists in Los Alamos and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">As some know, this is a subject that I
have studied and written about in hundreds of articles, thousands of posts, and in three books (see right), since my month-long reporting trip to the two cities in 1984, two trips to the Truman Library, plus mountains of other research. Now this year I've directed an award-winning documentary. Most of my work has focused
on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media
suppression of evidence in the decades after.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Almost every day here in the coming month I will offer a relatively brief account of the events of that same day in 1945, along with occasional wider-range reports. My motivation, as always, is that 77 years after the bombing of two cities, which killed over 200,000--overwhelmingly civilians--public and media opinion in America continues to support the dropping of the two new weapons and the highly debatable claim that this and only this could have ended the war in that period. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even the 2020/75th anniversary sparked no major critical re-assessments here. Reaching the widest audience was Chris Wallace's very popular pro-bombing book and Fox special; and then 2021's year, Malcolm Gladwell bestseller <i>The Bomber Mafia</i>. And so on.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why does this matter today? It only bolsters the United States' official "first-use" policy, which is still in effect, though there are new efforts to encourage President Biden to rescind it. This enables any president (not just a madman like Trump) to order a nuclear "first-strike" in response to a conventional attack--or even just a serious threat--by any enemy abroad. The cliche is, <i>We must never use these horrible weapons,</i> but the reality is that most influential Americans make two exceptions, which can only allow, even encourage, future use. Historians, of course, are more divided.</span><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJTW25xi_W4fDIX5OBPS_XZtAvWJGOBsgtVlLn4G77xVBUYfJTtv7VOoTgp6tmYTvytl77zysXKBsN_rUO0floyPdN1UrzGJB7YeKIYVW7k_iFWldo23MD6AnYH4mP9UXLPceChuTCY7BchA0J7oARLLpX-POSa2OvZRmdzgCa7R_SJl7QjiUamgHDHA/s2700/greg%20mitchell%20-%20oppenheimer%20w%20cloud.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJTW25xi_W4fDIX5OBPS_XZtAvWJGOBsgtVlLn4G77xVBUYfJTtv7VOoTgp6tmYTvytl77zysXKBsN_rUO0floyPdN1UrzGJB7YeKIYVW7k_iFWldo23MD6AnYH4mP9UXLPceChuTCY7BchA0J7oARLLpX-POSa2OvZRmdzgCa7R_SJl7QjiUamgHDHA/w214-h320/greg%20mitchell%20-%20oppenheimer%20w%20cloud.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or consider my books, which you can order by clicking links below or at right: My 2020 award-winning <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734/"><i>The Beginning or the End</i></a>, the name of the first Hollywood movie on the bomb in 1947 which Truman and the Pentagon sabotaged; <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641">Hiroshima in America: 50 Years of Denial</a> </i>(with Robert Jay Lifton); and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CKK9IG"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a>, on the burying by the U.S. of the key footage of the aftermath of the atomic bombings for decades. That is also the name of my award-winning 2021 film, <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">read more here</a>. And see you back here in another few days. (Photo at top from Getty.)</span><p></p><br /><p><br /></p>
Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-17163590026804190402023-07-11T08:00:00.002-04:002023-07-11T09:59:16.935-04:00Countdown to Hiroshima: Trinity Test Readied <p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhcoN1Nrj706vSam-cb9QsH1e_2Xv9UoQSVqSYeVvs2vc5cUjlGitJ5__Un4f2pEl3BGqwg79j9WjWJVIREizn3ogpZZhYfeMM6sk1Kuau_ZWRsNvCepNPQ_fkarkFf1wjZPT_2citbCY/s1120/hersey+wide.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1120" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhcoN1Nrj706vSam-cb9QsH1e_2Xv9UoQSVqSYeVvs2vc5cUjlGitJ5__Un4f2pEl3BGqwg79j9WjWJVIREizn3ogpZZhYfeMM6sk1Kuau_ZWRsNvCepNPQ_fkarkFf1wjZPT_2citbCY/w640-h360/hersey+wide.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As I posted over the weekend, <span>every year at this time I trace the final days leading up to the first
(and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945. In this way the fateful, and in my
view, tragic, decisions made by President Truman and his advisers,
and the actions of scientists in Los Alamos and others, can be judged
more clearly in "real time." </span><span> </span> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As
some know, this is a subject that I
have studied and written about in hundreds of articles, thousands of
posts, and in three books, since my month-long reporting trip to the
two cities in 1984, two trips to the Truman Library, plus mountains of
other research. In 2021 directed <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b">an award-winning documentary</a>. And now my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734">award-winning 2020 book</a> on the horrid, but revealing, first Atomic Bomb movie, from MGM in 1947, is gaining new attention thanks to its revelations about Robert Oppenheimer and the upcoming <i>Oppenheimer</i> epic. <br /></span></p><p>We'll start that countdown today. </p><p>Briefly, on this date in 1945: The atomic "gadget" (as it was called by the scientists) was being prepped for its first explosive test on July 16 at the Trinity site in the New Mexico desert. The day before, the plutonium core was taken to the test area in an army
sedan. The non-nuclear components left for the test site on the 13th and final assembly was started at what was known as the McDonald ranch
house. While this was going on, the Japanese were trying new approaches to possibly negotiate an end to the war (we will learn more about this later). </p><p>It was clear to Oppenheimer that massive amounts of radiation would be released in toxic cloud produced by explosion yet he went along with Manhattan Project military director Gen. Leslie Grove's order to not warn or evacuate people in nearby communities. Indeed, the radioactive cloud would drift over some of these settlements, and then downwind and over the USA, with tragic effects that we will get to in a few days. This captures both the postwar secrecy and radiation exposure/testing regimes that would haunt us for decades.<br /></p><p>Bonus content: let's also jump one year ahead and take a special look at the genesis of what would become the most important record of the effects of another "gadget" that would explode over a large city. About this time in 1946 it was being edited at <i>The New Yorker</i>. <span itemprop="articleBody"><span style="font-weight: 400;">When John Hersey (photo above)
submitted the article as a four-part series, William Shawn, who edited
it, proposed running it in one issue for maximum impact. Mission
accomplished. The article would cause an immediate sensation in early August 1946. </span></span></p><p>###<br /></p><p><span itemprop="articleBody"></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">John Hersey’s article titled simply “Hiroshima,” which comprised the entire feature space in the August 31, 1946, issue of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The New Yorker</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">,
has been called by many the greatest, or at least the most important,
journalistic achievement of the past century. Its life was extended when
it was soon published as a best-selling book that remains a classic
today. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Correspondent and novelist John Hersey, at the age of 31, had already won a Pulitzer Prize for </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">A Bell for Adano</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">.
Several months after the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima
in August 1945, he had mentioned writing something about it to his </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">New Yorker</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">
editor, William Shawn. Hersey, who was born in China to Protestant
missionaries and covered the Pacific war for Henry Luce and Time-Life,
imagined an article documenting the power of the new bomb and the
destruction it caused to one city. Ultimately he decided he would focus
on what happened not to buildings but to humans. He just needed to find a
form to tell the story.</span></p><div class="code-block code-block-16" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 15px auto; text-align: center;">
<div class="pubg-ad" id="pubg-b1j-ro6-b9" style="text-align: center;">
</div></div>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shawn was enthusiastic and urged him
not to rush since, months after the epochal events, “No one has even
touched” the subject. This was, sadly, true. And the first Hollywood
drama about the bomb, from MGM, was in the process of being transformed
from an urgent warning by atomic scientists to pro-bomb propaganda under
pressure from the military and White House.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the way to the Far East, Hersey had read Thornton Wilder’s novel </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Bridge of San Luis Rey</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">,
which explored an 18th century disaster in Peru through the eyes of a
handful of victims. Hersey sensed this might be the best way to
personalize the far more vast and deadly Hiroshima story. Arriving in
Hiroshima in May 1946, he interviewed several dozen survivors, before
settling on six who told powerful stories but were not exactly
representative of the city as a whole: two doctors, one Catholic priest
and one Methodist minister, and two working women. (It might also be
said that they were not typical because these six had survived.) Their
movements in the shattered city occasionally crossed, one of the
novelistic requirements the author had set.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span itemprop="articleBody"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conducting
the interviews and research, with a translator at his side, Hersey was
“terrified all the time,” he later explained. Hersey had seen the
devastation of war many times before, most recently in China and Tokyo,
but Hiroshima was different: These ruins had been created by one weapon
in one instant, a terrifying notion. If Hersey felt that in the city
nine months later, how must the people who were there at the time
experienced it? So he set out to struggle to understand.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span itemprop="articleBody"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span itemprop="articleBody"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span itemprop="articleBody"></span></span></span></span></p><br /><p></p><p></p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-70431633942822657672022-08-09T01:30:00.002-04:002023-07-09T09:04:31.201-04:00When Truman Failed to Pause in 1945--and the War Crime That Followed<img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="539" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcnIK0DF2WCaXeH8lZ8Z6e43hhId9VDSw5nbzW1vlqF4dZEFBOPFTpSGsoNVbK9QdfUEM5GZ7ZFTUVbFJgmN9-5jO09qra6rsycP3N-gU68cuQMGQ7nhk5bFFSvNcLw7mm_wNJ8B6K0fv_1rVpNvEAoUsnr1sDnFpZTlkq8YrRD34VazEeJM4pxg/w642-h472/150811-nagasaki-atomic-bombing-1149a_24f1ced8f44598aeddeaef0676e5982d.fit-760w%20(1).jpg" width="642" /> <p></p><p>By August 7, 1945, President Truman, while still at sea returning from Potsdam, had been fully briefed on the first atomic attack against a large city in Japan the day before. In announcing it, he had <a href="http://bit.ly/12XqKps">labeled Hiroshima simply a "military base,"</a> but he knew better, and within hours of the blast he had been fully informed about the likely massive toll on civilians (probably 100,000), mainly women and children, as we had planned. Despite this--and news that the Soviets, as planned, were about to enter the war against Japan--Truman did not order a delay in the use of the second atomic bomb to give Japan a chance to assess, reflect, and surrender.<br />
<br />
After all, by this time, Truman (as recorded in his diary and by others) was well aware that the Japanese were hopelessly defeated and seeking terms of surrender--and he had, just two weeks earlier, written "Fini Japs" in his diary when he learned that the Russians would indeed attack around August 7. Yet Truman, on this day, did nothing, and the second bomb rolled out, and would be used against Nagasaki, killing perhaps 90,000 more, only a couple hundred of them Japanese troops, on August 9. That's why many who reluctantly support or at least are divided about the use of the bomb against Hiroshima consider Nagasaki a war crime--in fact, the worst one-day war crime in human history.<br />
<br />
Below, a piece I wrote not long ago. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/ATOMIC-COVER-UP-Soldiers-Hiroshima-ebook/dp/B005CKK9IG">One of my books</a> on the atomic bombings describes my visit to Nagasaki at length. <br />
*<br />
Few journalists bother to visit Nagasaki, even though it is one of
only two cities in the world to "meet the atomic bomb," as some of the
survivors of that experience, 68 years ago this week, put it. It remains the
Second City, and "Fat Man" the forgotten bomb. No one in America ever
wrote a bestselling book called Nagasaki, or made a film titled <i>Nagasaki, Mon Amour</i>.
"We are an asterisk," Shinji Takahashi, a sociologist in Nagasaki, once
told me, with a bitter smile. "The inferior A-Bomb city."<br />
<br />
Yet in many ways, Nagasaki is the modern A-Bomb city, the city with
perhaps the most meaning for us today. For one thing, when the plutonium
bomb exploded above Nagasaki it made the uranium-type bomb dropped on
Hiroshima obsolete.<br />
<br />
And then there's this. "The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are
debatable," Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg
trials, once observed, "but I have never heard a plausible justification
of Nagasaki" -- which he labeled a war crime. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who
experienced the firebombing of Dresden at close hand, said much the same
thing. "The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human
slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki," he once said. "Not of Hiroshima,
which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely
blowing away yellow men, women, and children. I'm glad I'm not a
scientist because I'd feel so guilty now."<br />
<br />
A beautiful city dotted with palms largely built on terraces
surrounding a deep harbor--the San Francisco of Japan -- Nagasaki has a
rich, bloody history, as any reader of <i>Shogun</i> knows. Three
centuries before Commodore Perry came to Japan, Nagasaki was the
country's gateway to the west. The Portuguese and Dutch settled here in
the 1500s. St. Francis Xavier established the first Catholic churches in
the region in 1549, and Urakami, a suburb of Nagasaki, became the
country's Catholic center. Thomas Glover, one of the first English
traders here, supplied the modern rifles that helped defeat the Tokugawa
Shogunate in the 19th century.<br />
<br />
Glover's life served as a model for the story of <i>Madame Butterfly</i>,
and Nagasaki is known in many parts of the world more for Butterfly
than for the bomb. In Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly, standing on the
veranda of Glover's home overlooking the harbor (see left), sings, "One
fine day, we'll see a thread of smoke arising.... " If she could have
looked north from the Glover mansion, now Nagasaki's top tourist
attraction, on August 9, 1945, she would have seen, two miles in the
distance, a thread of smoke with a mushroom cap.<br />
<br />
By 1945, Nagasaki had become a Mitsubishi company town, turning out
ships and armaments for Japan's increasingly desperate war effort. Few
Japanese soldiers were stationed here, and only about 250 of them would
perish in the atomic bombing. It was still the Christian center in the
country, with more than 10,000 Catholics among its 250,000 residents.
Most of them lived in the outlying Urakami district, the poor part of
town, where a magnificent cathedral seating 6000 had been built.<br />
<br />
At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, "Fat Man" was detonated more than a
mile off target, almost directly over the Urakami Cathedral, which was
nearly leveled, killing dozens of worshippers waiting for confession.
Concrete roads in the valley literally melted.<br />
<br />
While Urakami suffered, the rest of the city caught a break. The
bomb's blast boomed up the valley destroying everything in its path but
didn't quite reach the congested harbor or scale the high ridge to the
Nakashima valley. Some 35,000 perished instantly, with another 50,000 or
more fated to die afterwards. The plutonium bomb hit with the force of
22 kilotons, almost double the uranium bomb's blast in Hiroshima.<br />
<br />
If the bomb had exploded as planned, directly over the Mitsubishi
shipyards, the death toll in Nagasaki would have made Hiroshima, in at
least one important sense, the Second City. Nothing would have escaped,
perhaps not even the most untroubled conscience half a world away.<br />
<br />
Hard evidence to support a popular theory that the chance to
"experiment" with the plutonium bomb was the major reason for the
bombing of Nagasaki remains sketchy but still one wonders (especially
when visiting the city, as I recount in <a href="http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/" target="_hplink">my new book</a>)
about the overwhelming, and seemingly thoughtless, impulse to
automatically use a second atomic bomb even more powerful than the
first.<br />
<br />
Criticism of the attack on Nagasaki has centered on the issue of why
Truman did not step in and stop the second bomb after the success of the
first to allow Japan a few more days to contemplate surrender before
targeting another city for extinction. In addition, the U.S. knew that
its ally, the Soviet Union, would join the war within hours, as
previously agreed, and that the entrance of Japan's most hated enemy, as
much as the Hiroshima bomb, would likely speed the surrender ("<i>fini </i>Japs"
when the Russians declare war, Truman had predicted in his diary). If
that happened, however, it might cost the U.S. in a wider Soviet claim
on former Japanese conquests in Asia. So there was much to gain by
getting the war over before the Russians advanced. Some historians have
gone so far as state that the Nagasaki bomb was not the last shot of
World War II but the first blow of the Cold War.<br />
<br />
Whether this is true or not, there was no presidential directive
specifically related to dropping the second bomb. The atomic weapons in
the U.S. arsenal, according to the July 2, 1945 order, were to be used
"as soon as made ready," and the second bomb was ready within three days
of Hiroshima. Nagasaki was thus the first and only victim of automated
atomic warfare.<br />
<br />
In one further irony, Nagasaki was not even on the original target
list for A-bombs but was added after Secretary of War Henry Stimson
objected to Kyoto. He had visited Kyoto himself and felt that destroying
Japan's cultural capital would turn the citizens against America in the
aftermath. Just like that, tens of thousands in one city were spared
and tens of thousands of others elsewhere were marked for death.<br />
<br />
General Leslie Groves, upon learning of the Japanese surrender offer
after the Nagasaki attack, decided that the "one-two" strategy had
worked, but he was pleased to learn the second bomb had exploded off the
mark, indicating "a smaller number of casualties than we had expected."
But as historian Martin Sherwin has observed, "If Washington had
maintained closer control over the scheduling of the atomic bomb raids
the annihilation of Nagasaki could have been avoided." Truman and others
simply did not care, or to be charitable, did not take care. That's one reason the US suppressed all film footage shot in Nagasaki and Hiroshima for decades (which I probe in <a href="http://bit.ly/VTOXs3">my book and ebook</a><a href="http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/" target="_hplink"> </a><i>Atomic Cover-up</i>).<br /></p><p>After hearing of Nagasaki, however, Truman quickly ordered that no
further bombs be used without his express permission, to give Japan a
reasonable chance to surrender--one bomb, one city, and seventy thousand
deaths too late. When they'd learned of the Hiroshima attack, the
scientists at Los Alamos generally expressed satisfaction that their
work had paid off. But many of them took Nagasaki quite badly. Some
would later use the words "sick" or "nausea" to describe their reaction.<br />
<br />
As months and then years passed, few Americans denounced as a moral
wrong the targeting of entire cities for extermination. General Dwight
D. Eisenhower, however, declared that we never should have hit Japan
"with that awful thing." The left-wing writer Dwight MacDonald cited
America's "decline to barbarism" for dropping "half-understood poisons"
on a civilian population. His conservative counterpart, columnist and
magazine editor David Lawrence, lashed out at the "so-called civilized
side" in the war for dropping bombs on cities that kill hundreds of
thousands of civilians.<br />
<br />
However much we rejoice in victory, he wrote,
"we shall not soon purge ourselves of the feeling of guilt which
prevails among us.... What a precedent for the future we have furnished
to other nations even less concerned than we with scruples or ideals!
Surely we cannot be proud of what we have done. If we state our inner
thoughts honestly, we are ashamed of it."<br />
<i><br />
<b>Greg Mitchell's <a href="http://bit.ly/VTOXs3">books and ebooks include</a> "Hollywood Bomb" and "Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and The Greatest Movie Never Made." Email: epic1934@aol.com</b></i></p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-19174637131849517932022-08-08T08:30:00.000-04:002022-08-08T09:34:30.415-04:00When Donna Reed Inspired Hollywood's First A-Bomb Movie
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Excerpt from my book, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</i></b></a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The letter addressed to Mrs. Donna Owen arrived at
her oceanfront Santa Monica home on October 28, 1945. The return address on the
envelope revealed that it came from her beloved high school chemistry teacher
back in Denison, Iowa, when she lived on a farm and was still known as Donna
Belle Mullenger. She had stayed in touch with handsome young Ed Tompkins for a
few years after graduation, but then he suddenly vanished, without explanation,
and had not responded to any of her letters.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This seemed odd. Tompkins had
deeply influenced her outlook on life a decade earlier when she was an aimless sophomore,
after he gifted her a copy of the popular Dale Carnegie <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_pKpjUavKW6LcYAuuGuUK-QBa_UceSn6PmAV1ERnyj23KrHxgxNJc970qgHEaBvVrOAS-2DUhpi5rTbX81lWD-_htMMp8Vv1aXp4e2uil9BTYUW6TdVgcvVvzYpnhg-0IHk3WTSuLRs/s1600/gettyimages-515461474-2048x2048+%25281%2529.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1369" data-original-width="1600" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_pKpjUavKW6LcYAuuGuUK-QBa_UceSn6PmAV1ERnyj23KrHxgxNJc970qgHEaBvVrOAS-2DUhpi5rTbX81lWD-_htMMp8Vv1aXp4e2uil9BTYUW6TdVgcvVvzYpnhg-0IHk3WTSuLRs/w427-h365/gettyimages-515461474-2048x2048+%25281%2529.jpg" width="427" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tompkins and former student</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
self-help book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Win Friends and Influence People</i>.
In short order her grades soared, she secured the lead role in the high school
play (Ayn Rand’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Night of January 16</i>),
and she was voted Campus Queen. Donna Belle wanted to become a teacher but her
parents could not afford a major school, so she moved to the West Coast to
enroll in low-tuition Los Angeles City College. While she appeared in stage
productions, she had no aspirations to become a professional actress. Soon the
honey-haired beauty attracted the attention of talent scouts, leading to
several screen tests. Signed by MGM to a seven-year contract at the age of
twenty, she appeared in her first movie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Get-Away</i>, billed as Donna Adams.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many supporting roles followed, with her
name changed to one she hated, feeling it had a dull, harsh sound that didn’t
reflect her personality at all: Donna Reed. Still, she secured roles in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shadow of the Thin Man, The Picture of
Dorian Gray</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apache Trail</i>,
and married her makeup man. She graduated from Mickey Rooney’s love interest in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Courtship of Andy Hardy</i> to John
Wayne’s object of desire in John Ford’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They
Were Expendable</i>. She could play midwestern wholesome in her sleep, but some
directors felt her range was narrow, and MGM had a flock of other young
actresses to draw on. (Fearing she’d lose out if she took time off, she endured
an abortion.) Along the way she became a popular girl-next-door pinup during World
War II for homesick GIs, and personally answered many of their letters. She got
divorced and in June 1945, still only twenty-four-years-old, married her agent,
Tony Owen.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then, that autumn, she signed with RKO
for perhaps her biggest role yet, as Mary Bailey, wife of James Stewart in
Frank Capra’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s a Wonderful Life</i>,
after Ginger Rogers turned it down as “too bland.” At the same time she finally
discovered what had happened to Ed Tompkins. A newspaper story revealed that he
had been sworn to silence for several years after joining thousands of others
in helping to create the first atomic bomb at the Manhattan Project site in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee. After reading the article, she sent him another letter, this
time care of Oak Ridge.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now she had received a reply. Opening the
envelope, she unfolded a typed, single-spaced, two-and-a-half-page letter from
Dr. Tompkins. The tone, given their formerly close relationship, was
surprisingly formal (despite its “Dear Donna” salutation), and urgent. “The
development of atomic explosives necessitates a reevaluation of many of our
previous modes of thought and life,” he began. “This conclusion had been
reached by the research scientists who developed these powerful new explosives
long before August 6, 1945.” That, of course, was the day the first atomic bomb
exploded over the city of Hiroshima in Japan, killing more than 125,000, the
vast majority of them women and children. Three days later, Nagasaki met the
same fate, with a death toll reaching at least 75,000.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The day before Reed received the Tompkins
letter at her modest beach house more than ninety thousand locals had gathered
in the Los Angeles Coliseum to witness a “Tribute to <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi_uSnb-kaeTio3VI4WjWIT7mswa7Z68ng0TVqz3IXV34EVzP7lJUlcfC-kUflsB88ELStDc8ZOTD8G4svaJgByp5k1JtQRJawkSaGf_c6AjUZz5frxdwa8L1nvC4JSFgCmWZ1x0hIpk/s1600/Donna+Reed+%2526+Groves+edited+%25282%2529.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi_uSnb-kaeTio3VI4WjWIT7mswa7Z68ng0TVqz3IXV34EVzP7lJUlcfC-kUflsB88ELStDc8ZOTD8G4svaJgByp5k1JtQRJawkSaGf_c6AjUZz5frxdwa8L1nvC4JSFgCmWZ1x0hIpk/s320/Donna+Reed+%2526+Groves+edited+%25282%2529.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Victory” program. It
featured a re-creation of the bombing of Hiroshima, narrated by actor Edward G.
Robinson. A B-29 bomber, caught in searchlights, dropped a package that
produced a large noise and a small mushroom cloud. The crowd went wild.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Americans, weeks after the Japanese
surrender, were relieved that the war was over but nervous about atomic energy.
Scientists, political figures, and poets alike were sounding a similar
theme—splitting the atom could bring wonderful advances, if used wisely, or
destroy the world, if developed for military purposes. Atomic dreams, and
nightmares, ran wild. “Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors
with such a sense of uncertainty and fear,” warned radio commentator Edward R.
Murrow, with “survival not assured.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the rather dense letter to his former pupil, Tompkins explained that the scientists’
initial “excitement” and pride in what they had accomplished were now subsumed
by much soul-searching. Until the Hiroshima blast, many of his colleagues were
unaware they had been working on a munitions project. Others had signed
physicist Leo Szilard’s futile petition asking President Harry S. Truman to
hold off using the new weapon against Japan. In any case, a large number were
now opposed to the building of new and even bigger earth-shattering bombs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tompkins revealed that thousands of Manhattan
Project scientists had now formed associations in Oak Ridge, Chicago, Los
Alamos, and New York to deliver their warnings and “to foster thought and
discussion which can lead to adoption of international control of atomic
energy.” Contrary to claims by military leaders and politicians, there was “NO
possibility” that the United States could keep a monopoly on production of
these weapons. The so-called secret of the atomic bomb was known
internationally. The Soviets, for example, would surely build their own bombs
within a few years. Finally, there could never be an effective defense against
these weapons, and “a hundred long-range rockets carrying atomic explosives
could wipe out our civilization in a matter of minutes.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In light of all this, it was imperative
that effective international controls be established as soon as feasible. But
what did Donna’s old chem teacher (and positive thinking advocate) want <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i> to do about it? Tompkins revealed
that the new associations were showering elected officials in Washington with
leaflets, lobbying influential reporters and commentators, and preparing a
major book. This was “a good start but much remains to be done,” he noted. It
seemed to him “there would be a large segment of the population that could be
reached most effectively through the movies.” His final paragraph featured an
explicit pitch:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><ext>Do you think a movie could be
planned and produced to successfully impress upon the public the horrors of
atomic warfare. . . . It would, of course, have to hold the interest of the
public, and still not sacrifice the message. Would you be willing to help sell
this idea to MGM? Or if not, could you send us the names of the men who should
be contacted in this matter? We would be not only willing but anxious to offer
our technical advice in the preparation of the script and settings. . . . You
can, no doubt, think of many forms which such a picture could take.</ext></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Never inserting even a hint of personal
familiarity from their days in Iowa, or asking about her life or career,
Tompkins concluded with the plea, “Will you give the whole matter your
consideration and perhaps discuss it with others at the studio? I’d appreciate
hearing your reaction to the suggestion as soon as possible.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just days later, after speaking to other
members of the activist group at Oak Ridge, Tompkins fired off a second letter
to “Mr. and Mrs. Tony Owen.” He had polled his peers and found they were
willing and eager to wander down the Hollywood path, but not quite blindly. Tompkins
boldly proposed that the couple fly east to Oak Ridge at their own expense the
following week to discuss the project, with no time to waste. Together they
could hash out a scenario for “a very good picture with a lot of public appeal”
that would hit the theaters before any other entry—and then catch a short
flight to Washington to gain the required approval of the Manhattan Project
director, General Leslie R. Groves. “I wish to thank you for the great interest
you have taken in this matter,” Tompkins concluded. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well, that was a lot for Donna Reed, or
anyone, to digest. Just seven years earlier the same man had been delivering
quite a different lesson in a classroom. Fortunately she had someone to share
it with and, as she told Tompkins in a brief phone call, carry the ball in
responding to his feverish pleading. This was her new husband, Tony Owen, a
slick, fast-talking dynamo who was thirteen years her senior. Owen, a native of
New Orleans and Chicago (real name: Irving Ohnstein), had served as vice
president of the Detroit Lions pro football team after brief careers as an
actor and as a newspaper reporter. Following a stint in the military, he
settled in Los Angeles and secured his first clients as a talent agent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When he finished reading the Tompkins
missives, Owen started calling producers to gauge their interest, if any. Having
not heard from Donna again, Tompkins called her at home. She said she had
started three letters to him but each became outdated by events. Her husband
had learned from studio insiders that it might be a simple matter to get such a
movie produced if the military signaled its approval—and exclusive dramatic
rights for key figures in the story could be obtained. Reed warned Tompkins,
however, that Hollywood studios were reluctant to make any pictures with “political
repercussions.” When he told her that scientists were already sketching
scenarios for a script, she advised that surely any of them would be “completely
rewritten” by the studio. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tony Owen, meanwhile,<span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">is wifeHis</span> called his friend Samuel
Marx, a top producer at MGM, where Reed was still under contract. Marx agreed
to meet him the next day for breakfast at the swanky Beverly Wilshire Hotel. There
he would find Owen in a highly animated state. Owen showed him the letter to
his wife from Tompkins, which the producer found fascinating. (Marx got the
impression that Tompkins may have once had something of a secret “crush” on his
pupil.) The producer offered to take Owen to meet with Louis B. Mayer, one of
the most powerful men in town and the studio chief since the 1920s, straight
away. So they raced their automobiles to the studio lot at Culver City. Mayer
knew Owen well, had even attended his recent wedding.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As it happens, MGM had expressed some
interest in an atomic bomb film nearly two months earlier, with the Japanese
victims of the attacks still smoldering in the ruins. On August 9, just hours
after the assault on Nagasaki, MGM’s Washington representative, Carter Barron,
phoned the chief of the Pentagon’s Feature Film Division to discuss the
possibility of the studio rushing ahead with an exclusive movie about the bomb
project. Five days later, Barron wrote him to reveal that MGM was “now working”
on a movie tentatively titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Atomic Bomb</i>
and would appreciate any useful “information or material.” The heroine would be
a physicist associated with the genesis of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner, who
had fled Germany for Sweden in 1938. But nothing came of Barron’s interest and
the idea seemingly expired at the studio. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now, MGM was being handed, via Donna Reed
and Ed Tompkins, a unique and exclusive entry point to a far more ambitious cinematic
bomb project. To date the studio’s main reference to the new weapon was
crowning its newly signed starlet Linda Christian “The Anatomic Bomb” (leading
to a full-page photo of her in a swimsuit in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life</i> magazine). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ___</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In his massive office at the studio,
sitting behind his pure-white oval desk in the sprawling Thalberg Building,
L.B. Mayer greeted the fervent Marx and Owen. The actress Helen Hayes once
called Mayer “the most evil man I have ever dealt with in my life,” yet called
MGM “<i>the</i> great film studio of the world—not just of America, or of
Hollywood, but of the world.” Sam Marx considered him ruthless, an unprincipled
pirate, but like others recognized that Mayer’s deceptions and bullying—not to
mention his eye for talent and understanding of movie audiences—proved pivotal
for the studio. Mayer, no intellectual, tolerated “social issue” pictures but
loved escapist entertainment. Among MGM’s greatest films were an inordinate
number of musicals, from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wizard of Oz</i>
to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An American in Paris</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Listening to the atomic bomb pitch, Mayer
grew excited. Now in his early sixties, overweight, and white-haired, King
Louis remained vigorous, vulgar, tyrannical, and, as always, quick to judge. With
little prompting, he promised that if the necessary approvals and rights were
gathered he would make an epic film on this subject his top priority for 1946! He
would budget at least $2 million for it, a lofty sum for that time. It might
one day be “the most important movie” he would ever film (and this was the man
who had made <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gone with the Wind</i>),
perhaps in the vein of his 1943 film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Madame
Curie</i>, but more topical. This was a man, born in Minsk and raised in
Canada, so patriotic he falsely claimed he had been born on the Fourth of July
(the actual date was July 12) and for years staged an elaborate studio picnic
that day to mark the occasion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Eager to rush forward, Mayer urged Owen
and Marx to seek clearances that very minute, straight from the top—“from the
horse’s mouth,” as Mayer put it. “Let’s call President Truman himself,” he
suggested. Mayer was a rock-ribbed Republican, but the studio titan believed
Truman would surely accept his call. It took some persuading, but Owen finally
talked him down from that idea. Instead, Mayer ordered Marx to call the studio’s
representative in DC, Carter Barron, to find out if White House and military
approvals were likely to come. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The following day Barron assured him on
this score, but added that to make sure of that—and, also, gather background
information and gauge the mood of scientists and generals—Marx and Owen should
visit both Oak Ridge and Washington as soon as possible. Louis B. Mayer ordered
Marx to “take the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Starwind</i>” (MGM’s
private plane) and “come back and tell me what you find.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Excerpted from </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><b><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</i></b></a>.</span></div>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-20912979101460334622022-08-07T06:30:00.004-04:002022-08-07T10:40:01.423-04:00Hiroshima: The Day After<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNq4uBdpddsTX3VilP-GC6PUhlMFcR3kx4hQFtpGcJ-dgDnUJmQdjLUjoLVKyr0oy6SByzVNnz89b8Nup9pTvsQmrllpF1YoB1Cq1uW0FpUzHrtr_JUNEKM1oo4JtuIeLkK8XI7MVV6z8/s1787/Atomic+Coverup+still+%25232.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="1787" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNq4uBdpddsTX3VilP-GC6PUhlMFcR3kx4hQFtpGcJ-dgDnUJmQdjLUjoLVKyr0oy6SByzVNnz89b8Nup9pTvsQmrllpF1YoB1Cq1uW0FpUzHrtr_JUNEKM1oo4JtuIeLkK8XI7MVV6z8/w640-h504/Atomic+Coverup+still+%25232.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Another post related to <span data-offset-key="6enjm-0-0"><span data-text="true">my new film, <a href="https://gregmitch.medium.com/atomic-cover-up-earns-festival-screenings-and-awards-208503e4f52b"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a>, and new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i><b>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</b></i></a><i><b>. </b></i></span></span><br />
<br />
President Truman's announcement to the nation--in which he carefully IDed Hiroshima only as a "military base," not a large city--broke the news of both the invention of an atomic bomb and its first use in war. By that evening, radio commentators were weighing in with
observations that often transcended Truman's announcement, suggesting
that the public imagination was outrunning the official story.
Contrasting emotions of gratification and anxiety had already emerged.
H.V. Kaltenhorn warned, "We must assume that with the passage of only a
little time, an improved form of the new weapon we use today can be
turned against us."<br />
<br />
It wasn't until the following morning, Aug. 7, that the government's
press offensive appeared, with the first detailed account of the making
of the atomic bomb, and the Hiroshima mission. Nearly every U.S.
newspaper carried all or parts of 14 separate press releases distributed
by the Pentagon several hours after the president's announcement. They
carried headlines such as: "Atom Bombs Made in 3 Hidden Cities" and "New
Age Ushered."<br />
<br />
Many of them written by one man: W.L. Laurence, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the <i>New York Times,</i>
"embedded" with the atomic project. General Leslie Groves, military
director of the Manhattan Project, would later reflect, with
satisfaction, that "most newspapers published our releases in their
entirety. This is one of the few times since government releases have
become so common that this has been done."<br />
<br />
The Truman announcement of the atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, and
the flood of material from the War Department, firmly established the
nuclear narrative. It would not take long, however, for breaks in the
official story to appear.<br />
<br />
At first, journalists had to follow where the Pentagon led. Wartime
censorship remained in effect, and there was no way any reporter could
reach Hiroshima for a look around. One of the few early stories that did
not come directly from the military was a wire service report filed by a
journalist traveling with the president on the Atlantic, returning from
Europe. Approved by military censors, it went beyond, but not far
beyond, the measured tone of the president's official statement. It
depicted Truman, his voice "tense with excitement," personally informing
his shipmates about the atomic attack. "The experiment," he announced,
"has been an overwhelming success."<br />
<br />
The sailors were said to be "uproarious" over the news. "I guess I'll
get home sooner now," was a typical response. Nowhere in the story,
however, was there a strong sense of Truman's reaction. Missing from
this account was his exultant remark when the news of the bombing first
reached the ship: "This is the greatest thing in history!" <br />
<br />
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://hometownbyhandlebar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2-press-aug-6-45-1024x547.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://hometownbyhandlebar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2-press-aug-6-45-1024x547.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>
On Aug. 7, military officials confirmed that Hiroshima had been
devastated: at least 60% of the city wiped off the map. They offered no
casualty estimates, emphasizing instead that the obliterated area housed
major industrial targets. (In fact, 80% of the casualies would be civilians, mainly women and children.) The Air Force provided the newspapers with an
aerial photograph of Hiroshima. Significant targets were identified by
name. For anyone paying close attention there was something troubling
about this picture. Of the 30 targets, only four were specifically
military in nature. "Industrial" sites consisted of three textile mills.
(Indeed, a U.S. survey of the damage, not released to the press, found
that residential areas bore the brunt of the bomb, with less than 10% of
the city's manufacturing, transportation, and storage facilities
damaged.)<br />
<br />
On Guam, weaponeer William S. Parsons and Enola Gay pilot Paul
Tibbets calmly answered reporters' questions, limiting their remarks to
what they had observed after the bomb exploded. Asked how he felt about
the people down below at the time of detonation, Parsons said that he
experienced only relief that the bomb had worked and might be "worth so
much in terms of shortening the war."<br />
<br />
Almost without exception newspaper editorials endorsed the use of the
bomb against Japan. Many of them sounded the theme of revenge first
raised in the Truman announcement. Most of them emphasized that using
the bomb was merely the logical culmination of war. "However much we
deplore the necessity," the <i>Washington Post</i> observed, "a
struggle to the death commits all combatants to inflicting a maximum
amount of destruction on the enemy within the shortest span of time."
The <i>Post</i> added that it was "unreservedly glad that science put this new weapon at our disposal before theend of the war."<br />
<br />
Referring to American leaders, the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>
commented: "Being merciless, they were merciful." A drawing in the same
newspaper pictured a dove of peace flying over Japan, an atomic bomb in
its beak. Meanwhile, the unthinking atomic assembly line had rolled out another bomb, targeted on Kokura with Nagasaki as backup. No separate order was required or given by Truman.</p><p><b>Trailer for <a href="https://vimeo.com/509903756"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a> film.</b><br /></p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-16336689488502514772022-08-06T08:10:00.003-04:002023-08-04T22:00:16.733-04:00American POWs Died at Hiroshima<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjebZH7W8Ih0SvK5Y6EyDC6BSLpp5B1uyIxUVzAPjmh-AXrO3J13yFPkLUtjnqJVIxAUUJbg6QAFUCtuuLptBNSEcUCSB5NbaEIUDooNSUfK9tISH7RJk3YB9cgozztv2xYkgItirGGKQ/s1600/494846204.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjebZH7W8Ih0SvK5Y6EyDC6BSLpp5B1uyIxUVzAPjmh-AXrO3J13yFPkLUtjnqJVIxAUUJbg6QAFUCtuuLptBNSEcUCSB5NbaEIUDooNSUfK9tISH7RJk3YB9cgozztv2xYkgItirGGKQ/s320/494846204.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><p>
The deaths have been known for awhile but the reports still shock most people. I've written about it for years. Few Americans know that among the tens of thousands victims in Hiroshima were <a href="https://www.bu.edu/articles/2018/max-esposito-paper-lanterns-documentary/">at least a dozen</a> and perhaps more American prisoners of war. They came from three bombers that had been shot down.<br />
<br />
This was kept from the American people—even the families of the victims—for decades, along with so much else related to the atomic bombings (that's one victim, John Hantschel, at left). </p><p>One night, as a pair screamed in pain in their cells—asking to be put out of their misery—the other Americans asked the Japanese doctors to do something. “Do something?” one of the doctors replied. “You tell me what to do. <i>You</i> caused this.” The two men died later that night.<br />
<br />
Three days after the Hiroshima blast, perhaps as many as a dozen Dutch POWs were killed in the bombing of Nagasaki. One American soldier there, a Navajo from New Mexico, survived in his cell.<br />
<br />
<br />
More on suppression of evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in my new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-End-Hollywood-Learned-Worrying/dp/1620975734"><i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</i></a> and earlier book <a href="http://bit.ly/VTOXs3"><i>Atomic Cover-up</i></a>. <br />
<br /></p>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4290152190457552426.post-138972705146742072022-08-06T01:00:00.000-04:002022-08-06T08:42:54.770-04:00Inside a Mound in Hiroshima<br />
<br />
<a href="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2298/2077976128_9d9f30106a_o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2298/2077976128_9d9f30106a_o.jpg" width="682" /></a><p><br /></p><p>In the northwestern corner of the Hiroshima Peace Park, amid a quiet
grove of trees, the earth suddenly swells. It is not much of a mound --
only about ten feet high and sixty feet across. Unlike most mounds,
however, this one is hollow, and within it rests perhaps the greatest
concentration of human residue in the world.rey clouds rising from sticks of incense hang in the air, spookily. Tourists do not dawdle here. Visitors searching for the Peace Bell, directly ahead, or the Children's Monument, down the path to the right, hurry past it without so much as a sideways glance. Still, it has a strange beauty: a lump of earth (not quite lush) topped by a small monument that resembles the tip of a pagoda.<br />
<br />
On one side of the Memorial Mound the gray wooden fence has a gate, and down five steps from the gate is a door. Visitors are usually not allowed through that door, but occasionally the city of Hiroshima honors a request from a foreign journalist.<br />
<br />
Inside the mound the ceiling is low, the light fluorescent. One has to stoop to stand. To the right and left, pine shelving lines the walls. Stacked neatly on the shelves, like cans of soup in a supermarket, are white porcelain canisters with Japanese lettering on the front. On the day I visited, there were more than a thousand cans in all, explained Masami Ohara, a city official. Each canister contained the ashes of one person killed by the atomic bomb.<br />
<br />
Behind twin curtains on either side of an altar, several dozen pine boxes, the size of caskets, were stacked, unceremoniously, from floor to ceiling. They hold the ashes of about 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb. If, in an instant, all of the residents of Wilmington, Delaware, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, were reduced to ashes, and those ashes carried away to one repository, this is all the room the remains would require.<br />
<br />
More than 100,000 in Hiroshima were killed by The Bomb, the vast majority of them women and children, plus elderly males. Fewer than one in ten were in the military. <br />
<br />
Most of those who died in Hiroshima were cremated quickly, partly to prevent an epidemic of disease. Others were efficiently turned to ash by the atomic bomb itself, death and cremation occurring in the same instant. Those reduced by human hands were cremated on makeshift altars at a temple that once stood at the present site of the mound, one-half mile from the hypocenter of the atomic blast.<br />
<br />
In 1946, an Army Air Force squad, ordered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to film the results of the massive U.S. aerial bombardment of Japanese cities during World War II, shot a solemn ceremony at the temple, capturing a young woman receiving a canister of ashes from a local official. That footage, and all of the rest that they filmed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealing the full aftermath of the bombings, would be suppressed by the United States for decades (as I probe in my book <a href="http://bit.ly/VTOXs3"><i>Atomic Cover-Up</i></a>).<br />
<br />
Later that year, survivors of the atomic bombing began contributing funds to build a permanent vault at this site and, in 1955, the Memorial Mound was completed. For several years the collection of ashes grew because remains of victims were still being found. One especially poignant pile was discovered at an elementary school.<br />
<br />
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The white cans (that's my photo) on the shelves have stood here for decades, unclaimed by family members or friends. In many cases, all of the victims' relatives and friends were killed by the bomb. Every year local newspapers publish the list of names written on the cans, and every year several canisters are finally claimed and transferred to family burial sites. Most of the unclaimed cans (a total of just over 800 in 2010, for example) will remain in the mound in perpetuity, now that so many years have passed.<br />
<br />
They are a chilling sight. The cans are bright white, like the flash in the sky over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. From all corners of the city the ashes were collected: the remains of soldiers, physicians, housewives, infants. Unclaimed, they at least have the dignity of a private urn, an identity, a life (if one were able to look into it) before death.<br />
<br />
But what of the seventy thousand behind the curtains? The pine crates are marked with names of sites where the human dust and bits of bone were found -- a factory or a school, perhaps, or a neighborhood crematory. But beyond that, the ashes are anonymous. Thousands may still grieve for these victims but there is no dignity here. "They are all mixed together," said Ohara, "and will never be separated or identified." Under a mound, behind two curtains, inside a few pine boxes: This is what became of one-quarter of the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.<br />
<br />
My new book is <a href="https://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2020/07/excerptsarticles-today-and-on-way.html"><i><b>THE BEGINNING OR THE END: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</b>, </i></a>Greg Mitchell http://www.blogger.com/profile/05627773627527089158noreply@blogger.com0