Home > Programs
> Democracy
Now! > Fri., Aug. 5, 2005
Democracy Now!
ATTN: ALL STATIONS
From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 8-5-05
PRSS Channel: A67.7
Hiroshima Cover-up: Stripping the War Department's Timesman
of His Pulitzer
The Atomic Bombers Speak
Long-Suppressed Nagasaki Article Discovered
Film Suppressed; The US Government Classifies Hiroshima Nagasaki
Footage For Decades
From Oak Ridge to Lawrence Livermore to Los Alamos: Hiroshima
and Nagasaki Remembered
Hiroshima Survivor: No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis,
No More War
Hiroshima Cover-up: Stripping the War Department's
Timesman of His Pulitzer
This weekend marks the sixtieth anniversary of the U.S.
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. William Laurence, the New
York Times reporter who covered the bombings was also on the
US government payroll. Journalists Amy Goodman and David Goodman
call for the Pulitzer Board to strip Laurence and his paper,
The New York Times, of the undeserved prize. [includes rush
transcript]
This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there are commemorations being
held in Japan and many other countries around world, including
here in the US. Later in the show we're going to take an extensive
look back at the bombings. But first Amy, you've co-authored
an oped piece in the Baltimore Sun today called Hiroshima
Cover-up, challenging the New York Times coverage of this
issue 60 years ago.
My brother and fellow journalist David Goodman and I are
filing an official request with the Pulitzer committee to
strip New York Times correspondent William Laurence of the
Pulitzer he was awarded for his reporting on the atomic bomb.
Laurence was not just a reporter for the Times, he was also
on the payroll of the US government. He wrote military press
releases and statements for President Harry S. Truman and
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, all the while faithfully
parroting the line of the US government in the pages of the
New York Times. We feel that his reporting was crucial in
launching a half century of silence about the deadly lingering
effects of the bomb. It is high time for the Pulitzer board
to strip Hiroshima's apologist, William Laurence, and his
newspaper, the New York Times of their undeserved prize.
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima;
three days later Nagasaki was hit. General Douglas MacArthur
promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the press.
Over 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities,
but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told
the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto
the USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese
surrender.
One reporter defied the ban and took a train for thirty hours
to Hiroshima, the first Western reporter to arrive on the
scene.
- Wilfred Burchett, journalist who wrote the first report
from Hiroshima.
- David Goodman, independent journalist and co-author of
"The Exception to the Rulers."
The Atomic Bombers Speak
Colonel Paul Tibbets named his plane the Enola Gay after
his mother. He bombed Hiroshima. Captain Kermit Behan describes
the bombing of Nagasaki. [includes rush
transcript]
On this eve of the sixtieth anniversay of dropping of the
two atomic bombs, we turn to archival government clips of
the men who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These excerpts
are from the Atomic Cafe -- a 1982 film of compiled U.S. government
footage designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb
was not a threat to their safety.
Long-Suppressed Nagasaki Article Discovered
Defying US occupation forces, George Weller was the first
reporter into Nagasaki after the US dropped the atomic bomb.
His 25,000 word report did not get past the US military censors.
Now dead, we speak with Weller's son who has just discovered
the carbon copy of the long-suppressed article. [includes
rush
transcript]
George Weller was one of the most intrepid foreign reporters
of the twentieth century. Weller worked for the Chicago Daily
News and was a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist. He was the
first reporter to enter Nagasaki, defying General MacArthur's
ban on the press in southern Japan. Weller hired a row boat
to get himself there and wrote a 25,000 word report on the
horrors that he encountered. When he submitted his story to
the military censors, MacArthur personally ordered that the
story be killed and the manuscript was never returned. Weller
later summarized his experience with the government censors
saying “They won.”
Last month Weller's son Anthony discovered a copy of the
suppressed dispatches among his late father's papers –
George Weller died in 2002 – and unable to sell it to
an American publisher, sold the report to a Mainichi Shimbaum,
a large Japanese newspaper. Now on the sixtieth anniversary
of the atomic bombings, Weller's account can finally be read.
Film Suppressed; The US Government Classifies Hiroshima
Nagasaki Footage For Decades
Footage of the devastation after the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki that was commissioned by the US occupying forces
was suppressed for decades. Erik Barnouw reads the words of
the Japanese filmmaker Akiro Iwasaki. We turn to footage that
was taken after the bombs were dropped. A Japanese filmmaker,
Akiro Iwasaki, went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to film the
aftermath of the bombings. The U.S military at first forced
him to halt filming but then ordered him to continue.
More than twenty years later, Erik Barnouw received a letter
from an environmentalist named Lucy Lemann alerting him to
the existence of this footage. Barnouw obtained the footage
from the National Archive and edited the footage down to sixteen
minutes. We play an excerpt of that piece. The images are
graphic and horrifying. Our radio listeners can go to our
website to see some of those images. The film is narrated
by Kazuko Oshima and Paul Ronder.
- Erik Barnouw, Documentarian.
From Oak Ridge to Lawrence Livermore to Los Alamos:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered
Activists around the nation are commemorating the 60th anniversary
of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Grass-roots
organizers speak about the ongoing nuclear weapons activity
and community resistance. Sixty years after the U.S. atomic
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States continues
to maintain the largest store of atomic weapons in the world.
Saturday, August 6, peace activists around the country are
participating in national days of remembrance and action at
active nuclear weapons sites. In this protest preview, organizers
explain the link between past and present nuclear weapons
activity.
- Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley Cares in Northern California
- Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States
Legal Foundation
- Frances Mindenhall, Speak Out (S.O.S)
- Ralph Hutchinson, Coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental
Peace Alliance
Hiroshima Survivor: No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis,
No More War
Sunao Tsuboi survived the bombing of Hiroshima. Speaking
at an anti-nuclear weapons rally in New York, he said, "Even
if you luckily survive you...suffer from psychological and
physical disruption...until your life ends." Sunao Tsuboi
survived the bombing of Hiroshima. Speaking at an anti-nuclear
weapons rally in New York, he said, "Even if you luckily
survive you...suffer from psychological and physical disruption...until
your life ends."
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
|
Listen
to the show
Help
whole
show
