Patriotic Correctness: the Hiroshima cover-up
author: jds
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This is a repost of an article originally published to portland indymedia in March 2002, in conjunction with the Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage. [For voluminous coverage of that event in audio, photos, and text, see portland indymedia's special "dharmawalk" page, here.] This article, which is drawn from the book, "Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial", shows how the media and government have covered up the full story of the U.S. atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, then and since. Lessons from this historic episode are applicable to the current "war on terrorism" even more so now than when the article originally appeared. Reposted to mark Hiroshima Day: August 6.
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| | | | | In August, 1945, World War II was drawing to a close. Nazi Germany had been conquered by the Allied Powers (Great Britain, the United States, and the U.S.S.R.), the U.S. had taken over most of Japan's possessions in the Pacific, and Japan itself was "on the verge of collapse"(1).On August 6, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb over the center of the Japanese city of Hiroshima during the morning rush hour, killing tens of thousands of people and reducing most of the city to rubble instantly. On August 9, the U.S. dropped another bomb over Nagasaki, with similar results. Five days later, Japan surrendered. The debate over whether the U.S. should have used these atomic weapons began then, in August, 1945, and is still ongoing. The full story and actual details of how the decision was made have never fully entered the mainstream American consciousness, and many myths remain to this day. Though much scholarship has been produced on the subject, it has emerged only in bits and pieces because numerous documents relating to the decision were kept classified for decades. Film footage and photographs taken by the Japanese were seized by the U.S. and hidden for years before being returned or released. Over forty years passed before a fairly complete account became clear.
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Hiroshima, Japan: August 6th, 1945, 8:15 am: "The mushroom cloud looms over the city and tens of thousands of people are killed instantly." (peacewire.org*)
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| By digging into the barely known history of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we can discover not only why the U.S. acted as it did then, but also gain insight into how it operates now, for example, in respect to the 'war on terrorism' embarked upon in 2001 after the attacks on the East Coast on September 11. As Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell put it in their 1995 book, Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial: "With the decision making process that led to the dropping of the bomb, we encounter nothing less than a set of models for decision making, and for what happened to America, and the world, in what we call the nuclear age"(2) [emphasis added]. These models are not democratic; they function in secrecy (insofar as they are able), are driven by a lust for power, and cloak themselves in propaganda. This essay draws upon Hiroshima in America to reveal these models, how they led to the decision to attack Japan with atomic weapons in 1945 and how the facts were kept hidden.
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| In describing the two contrasting accounts of history that emerged after Hiroshima, Lifton and Mitchell use the terms "official narrative" and "counter narrative". The official narrative was the justification story that the Truman administration wanted Americans to believe. Others, predominantly veterans, also helped create and disseminate this narrative, but government and military officials were most responsible for its careful crafting. Mainstream media--including the nation's major newspapers and television broadcasting networks--have rarely wavered in their support of the official narrative, and have produced very little investigative reporting about its details or even verity. The counter narrative--which questions whether atomic weapons should have been used--was developed by many of the scientists who were responsible for the bomb's creation, as well as religious leaders, some journalists, and other intellectuals.
| | The central tenet of the official narrative is that the atomic bomb was the only way to end World War II. Several reasons are supplied, but two are the most often cited: a) the Allied Powers (the U.S., Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R.) would only accept "unconditional surrender" from Japan, and b) a full-scale invasion of Japan would have cost thousands (even "millions") of lives. Additionally, the official narrative depends on giving little attention to the grisly suffering of the victims. The lasting dominance of the narrative is undeniable: Lifton and Mitchell point out that when the Smithsonian announced an exhibit to commemorate the bombings on their fiftieth anniversary in 1995, the curators were pressured by political and popular pressure to make it adhere strictly to the official narrative and leave out any references to the counter narrative.
| "General Groves [Director of the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bombs] left nothing to chance. Before Hiroshima, he had prepared an order prohibiting U.S. commanders in the field from commenting on the atomic attacks without clearance from the War Department. 'We didn't want [General] MacArthur and others saying the war could have been won without the bomb,' Groves later explained. Indeed, MacArthur and many of the other commanders believed the bomb was not needed to end the war."(3)
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| | The official narrative is, however, almost entirely a fabrication. It is built on false assertions, inaccuracies, and outright lies. It became the narrative only through a coordinated disinformation campaign waged by officials in the Truman administration, including the President himself. Hiroshima in America reveals the untruths in the narrative and how it was created.
| | Cover-up of the human effects |
| When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, its effects were deliberately underplayed by the U.S. government. The War Department press releases on Hiroshima (ghost-written by New York Times journalist, William L. Laurence; see side-bar) did not mention Japanese casulties, "emphasizing instead that the obliterated area housed major industrial targets". In actuality, "less than ten percent of the city's manufacturing, transoportation and storage facilities had been damaged", according to the government's own survey of the damage.(4) From a military stand-point, then, the raid was not a great success.
| | From a human stand-point, the atomic attacks were brutal. 200,000 people were killed in the two cities, about 20% of those from radiation and heat burns in the days and weeks immediately after the raids. "Tokyo radio called Hiroshima a city of the dead with corpses 'too numerous to be counted'" and observed that one could not "distinguish between men and women."(8) 
Hiroshima: Woman with secondary burns from the atomic attack. The pattern of the dress she was wearing that day was burned into her skin by the intense heat of the explosion. (gensuikin.org)
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The American people were not aware of the human effects right away, though. Afraid that issuing casualty estimates would "make us look like barbarians," in the words of Gereral Curtis LeMay(9), the U.S. government worked to conceal the gruesome details, and enjoyed the cooperation of much of the mainstream media in their efforts. When United Press and Associated Press began carrying stories about the high number of casualties, U.S. newspapers countered by vigorously defending the official narrative. The New York Times, for example, accused the Japanese of "trying to establish a propaganda point that the bombings should be stopped".(10) 
Nagasaki: "A mother tries to feed her infant at Michi-no-o Station, 3.6 km from the hypocenter, the day after the atomic bombing." (peacewire.org*)
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| Professional journalist secretly lends talents to the propaganda effort The foundations of the official narrative were laid months beforehand, and involved a representative of the major media. William L. Laurence, Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for the New York Times, wrote "a majority of the reports" that were released by the Pentagon the day after Hiroshima. "The articles disclosed, among other things, the genesis of the bomb project, the story of the first atomic chain reaction, and the test of the new weapon" at Los Alamos, New Mexico.(5) Under the direction of General Leslie R. Groves, Laurence met with the scientists involved in the project, visited the laboratories, witnessed the first test (code-named "Trinity"), and even rode along on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. He kept all these experiences secret at the time, even from his employer. "Mine has been the honor, unique in the history of journalism, of preparing the War Department's official press release for world-wide distribution. No greater honor could have come to any newspaperman, or anyone else for that matter."(6) --William L. Laurence
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In Laurence, the government knew they had someone who would toe the line. He performed his duties happily, was honored to have the position, and showed no perturbation over his key role in shaping the story to reflect only one point of view, that of the government. Certainly not what one would characterize as "objective journalism". Indeed, Laurence was a pro-bomb partisan with a nearly worshipful admiration for modern science, and he never explicitly strayed from the official narrative, even years later when more facts were revealed. "His intense and creative contributions to the emerging narrative powerfully influenced the way Americans came to perceive Hiroshima,"(7)that is, exactly as the government wanted Americans to perceive it.
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| The first articles about Hiroshima and Nagasaki by mainstream American journalists did not hit the press until September 1945, nearly a month after the attacks. General MacArthur allowed the reporters to visit the shattered cities only with close military accompaniment (if at all) and his occupation government carefully censored much of what was written(11). These measures were not enough by themselves; the State Department made a transparent attempt to help justify the atomic raids by picking the same day to release a report of "more than two hundred atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war"(12).
| | "In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly-- people who awere uninjured in the cataclysm-- from an unkown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague.... I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as warning to the rest of the world." (13) --Wilfred Burchett, for the London Daily Express
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| The effects of radioactive fallout from the use of atomic weapons "was absent in every [War Department] account of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb. Of all the secret aspects of the bomb considered too sensitive for public consumption, fallout was perhaps the most sensitive of all."(14) The first article that did mention the effects of radiation appeared on September 5, 1945. Entitled, "The Atomic Plague", it was written by Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett and published in the London Daily Express. In defiance of General MacArthur's orders, Burchett had traveled to Hiroshima and visited one of few hospitals still standing, where he found patients with purple skin hemorrhages, fever, nausea, gangrene, rapid hair loss, and white-cell counts about 1/10 the normal number. The article was reprinted in newspapers around the world, making it "an international sensation".(15) Another maverick was George Weller of the Chicago Daily News, who expressed disgust that his colleagues would be satisfied with guided tours from the military, and slipped off to Nagasaki on his own, before any other American journalists visited. Weller made the mistake of sending his report to MacArthur for clearance first. It never appeared anywhere.
| The other journalists who visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki at this time were under military escort, and--though they too visited the hospitals and saw what was happening--did not describe the human effects of the bombs in their articles, leaving Americans in the dark about the full consequences of atomic attacks. These reporters had the opportunity to share the truth but chose to support the government cover-up instead.
| | | As stated previously, the two most popular justifications for the bombing of Hiroshima were that a) the Allied Powers would accept nothing but an "unconditional" surrender from Japan, and b) the atomic attacks were the only way to avoid an invasion that would have cost "millions" of lives. Both reasons, as Lifton and Mitchell show, are groundless. Japan's "unconditional surrender" In July, 1945, the Allied Powers issued the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded "unconditional surrender" from Japan. Japan rejected the declaration because it wanted one condition: to keep its Emporer, Hirohito, on the throne. When Japan refused, Truman signed the order authorizing the military to use atomic bombs against Japan. However, the Japanese surrender accepted by the Allied Powers on August 14--after both bombs had been dropped--allowed Hirohito to remain Emporer. When Truman lied and called it "unconditional" anyway, the press did not refute it.(26) The distinction was overlooked by most Americans in their joy that the war was finally over. Lifton and Mitchell show that government officials and military advisors alike knew in the Summer of 1945 that Japan was "looking for an excuse to surrender".(27) The U.S. only needed to offer the same conditional terms it ultimately accepted, terms that Japan extended that summer, only to be rebuffed. The U.S. Stategic Bombing Survey--an impartial group of engineers, doctors, architects and other professionals--concluded that atomic weapons were unnecessary to end the war. Their study--which was done in Japan in the Fall of 1945 at Truman's orders--revealed that the Japanese government "had decided as early as May of 1945 that the war should be ended even if it meant acceptance of defeat on Allied terms." The Survey instead gave credit for the surrender to Japan's defeats in the Pacific, the naval blockade of their home islands, and the entry of Russia into the war.(28) The bombs were dropped not because Japan refused to surrender unconditionally, but for some other reason(s). Lifton and Mitchell are not alone in suggesting that the attacks were intended to intimidate Russia. In fact, this concept was discussed in-depth in the White House during pre-Hiroshima deliberations. Truman and his advisors were well aware--or at least very hopeful--that demonstrating the immensely destructive power of atomic weapons against populated cities would put the U.S. into a dominant position in world affairs. If the U.S. had accepted conditional surrender of Japan without using atomic weapons, it would have lost the opportunity to swing its big new stick. The cost of this politicking: 200,000+ Japanese lives.
| The post-war creation of a million casualties The more unsubstantiated--but largely uncontested--of the two myths of the official narrative is that the government and/or military estimated that an invasion of Japan would result in a million or more American casulties. The number is often trotted out for anniversary stories in the media without investigation, and is an accepted article of faith in most circles. Lifton and Mitchell show that this number is purely "a post-war creation".(16) The following timeline shows the development of the number. Summer 1945: 20,000 to 63,000, U.S. military planners.(17) Summer 1945: 46,000, George Marshall, military chief of staff.(18) August 1945: "well over 1,200,000 Allied lives, a million of them American", Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain.(19) 1945-1952: 200,000 to 250,000, Truman, on various occasions during the remainder of his presidency.(20) 1947: "over a million", from an article about Hiroshima in Harper's magazine by Henry Stimson, Truman's Secretary of War and a respected American statesman.(21) 1953: "five hundred thousand", Truman, claiming erroneously to quote Marshall (see actual Marshall figure, above).(22) 1985 (fortieth anniversary): "up to a million", Life magazine; one million, George Will, well-known syndicated columnist; "hundreds of thousands of lives", Ted Koppel, on Nightline.(23) 1992: a million, David McCullough, in his best-selling biography, Truman. McCullough admitted in 1994 that he was mistaken.(24) 1994: "six million", USA Today.(25) Lifton and Mitchell suggest that Truman and others used inflated numbers because they wanted to justify use of the bomb, especially after word leaked of its gruesome effects. Perhaps this betrays some guilty feelings on their part. If so, any one of them could have done their consciences and the world a favor by coming clean. The mainstream media has been fully complicit in keeping the mythical numbers alive for over fifty years now, despite evidence to the contrary.
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| | An atrocious history has been hidden from us, and we have been denied the opportunity to learn from it and forbid it from being repeated. We have been told that the atomic attacks on Japan in August 1945 were the only way to end World War II and that they saved "millions" of American lives. Lifton and Mitchell's book, Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial, makes it clear that this official narrative is a fabrication. My impression after reading their book is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed mainly for two reasons: 1) to threaten the Russians and guarantee U.S. control of Japan, the region, and its resources, and 2) to satisfy a sick sense of curiosity about the effects of such a horrific weapon on human lives.
|  Nagasaki: Doctors remove maggots from a boy's burns. (peacewire.org*)
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| The party most responsible for hiding this history from us is the media. One expects the government and military to be secretive, but the press claims to be objective, factual, and free. Far from being independent, though, the corporate media acted as the government's agent in furthering the official narrative, attempted to squash any dissenting facts, and questioned the 'patriotism' of those who raised concerns. This complicity has continued to the present day, not just with the story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with many subjects, especially war. Parallels with contemporary corporate coverage of the current "war on terrorism" are easy to find. The Pacific component of World War II was like many wars before and after it: officially justified as morally imperative and a battle for "freedom", but in actuality corporate driven campaign to control industrial resources. That the effort was funded through taxes collected from regular citizens by the government is an additional layer of injustice. At least two hundred thousand lives--mostly civilians--were brutally snuffed out in Japan in this quest for higher profits, and the price they paid helped not regular citizens--as we have been told--but that small wealthy class that collects the profits. | Some might say that war is always economic; perhaps that's true. What has changed, though, is the destructive power of the weapons used in war. When we discuss technological development and its effects, we must always weigh what we feel might be its benefits against what are undeniably its costs. The ability to kill millions of people in an instant is a serious cost to the safety and well-being of the human race. This danger will be with us as long as even one bomb exists. Herein lies the lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the Powers-That-Be strive to hide from us: the "advances of science" advance very little aside from the greedy interests of a small few at the expense of the vast majority. I believe that it would be naive to think the government, military and corporate media are not lying to us now about the current "war against terrorism" in much the same way they lied fifty-six years ago about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eisenhower warned us in 1960 of what he called "the military-industrial complex". The financial relationships of these institutions are more closely intertwined now than they were then, and, with most of the media in the hands of a half dozen corporations with defense and energy interests, we have a media-military-industrial complex. Yet, sadly, people still believe the corporate media's conceit that its content is "objective", even many who ought to know better. As long as we rely only on institutions such as CNN, FOX, and the New York Times for our news, we will never know what's actually going on. They have proven themselves completely unreliable and we must expose them as often as possible and create new forms of media that are dedicated to truth. The dangers of civilization's present course--of which war is only one--make this task vital to our very survival. Let's dig up the truth and publish it ourselves. Your turn!
| "All we can do is try to convey to the American public the human consequences of our government's repeated use of violence for political and economic gain. When enough of them see and feel what is happening to the people just like us--to families, to children--we may see the beginning of a new movement in this country against militarism and war." --Howard Zinn, On War
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References
All references from Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial by Robert J. Lifton and Greg Mitchell (G. P. Putnam's Sons: New York, NY: 1995).
| | | (1) p. 240, quoting General Hap Arnold.
(2) p. 114.
(3) p. 11.
(4) p. 24.
(5) p. 10.
(6) p.p. 16-17.
(7) p. 13.
(8) p. 25.
(9) p. 51.
(10) p. 25.
(11) p. 51.
(12) p. 46-47.
(13) p. 47-48.
(14) p. 44. | (15) p. 47-49.
(16) p. 179.
(17) p. 179.
(18) p. 109.
(19) pp. 179-180.
(20) p. 180.
(21) p. 180.
(22) p. 180.
(23) pp. 268-270.
(24) p. 293.
(25) p. 286.
(26) p. 32.
(27) pp. 140-142.
(28) pp. 82-83.
| | | | Websites
There are many useful websites with information about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but these are the ones I used in researching this article: |
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Paul Fussell, not a conservative by any means, wrote a book called "Thank God For The Atom Bomb" - he was a American combat infantryman in Europe, whose unit was being shipped off to the Pacific when the bombs were used. They assumed that they were all going to die in the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombings, horrific as they were, kept millions of American and Japanese soldiers and Japansese civilians from being killed in the invasion of Japan that was planned for the fall of 1945.