The Progressive Socialist Democrat: Hiroshima Nagasaki

Hiroshima Nagasaki

Book Excerpt: "Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department’s Timesman Won a Pulitzer"
As the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, read a chapter of Amy and David Goodman’s book, "Exception to the Rulers," to learn how how the Pulitzer Prize–winning science reporter, William L. Laurence, was on the payroll of the War Department while also reporting for The New York Times on the U.S. attacks and their aftermath.
The Hiroshima Cover-Up
The discovery of reporter George Weller’s firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.
Hiroshima Organizes Scientific Teams and Medical Treatment Centers to Receive Victims of Radiation Poisoning
For more on the emergency response effort, we speak with Steven Leeper of the Peace Culture Foundation, which manages the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. “In Hiroshima, we are pretty sensitive to radiation issues, and we’re very sensitive to disaster issues,” Leeper says. “We are known as a place that knows about radiation. We have a team of doctors. They left yesterday to go up into that area with their equipment to try to figure out what kind of radiation is up there. We’ve also prepared a lot of apartments, and the hospitals are making preparations to receive radiation victims, people who are suffering from radiation poisoning." [includes rush transcript]
"A Warning to the World" By Amy Goodman
In the aftermath of the largest recorded earthquake in Japanese history and the tsunami that followed, killing thousands, the Japanese nuclear crisis has sparked global repercussions.
Nagasaki 65 Years Later: A Look Back at the Censored Dispatches of Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist George Weller
Today, we remember the US bombing of Nagasaki through the story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, the first reporter to enter Nagasaki, defying General MacArthur’s ban on the press in southern Japan. Weller worked for the Chicago Daily News and hired a rowboat to get himself to Nagasaki. He 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." [includes rush transcript]
US Attending Hiroshima Memorial "Enormously Important," Says Robert Jay Lifton
Sixty-five years ago today, the United States dropped a bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people died immediately or succumbed to burns and radiation sickness soon after the blast. This year, Japan marked this somber anniversary with a representative of the US government in attendance for the very first time. We speak with leading American psychiatrist, author and longtime opponent of nuclear weapons, Robert Jay Lifton. [includes rush transcript]
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Look Back at the US Atomic Bombing 64 Years Later
This year marks the sixty-fourth anniversary of the US atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed over 150,000 people instantly. Commemorations this weekend in Japan and around the world marked the US bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then on August 9th, of Nagasaki. We play the report of Wilfred Burchett, the first journalist to make it into Hiroshima, as well as Anthony Weller, the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki after the bombing, and we hear from Hiroshima survivor Shigeko Sasamori. [includes rush transcript]
"For the 64th Time: No More Nuclear War"–A Roundtable Discussion on Disarmament
Sixty-four years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we host a roundtable discussion on the present nuclear landscape. We speak with nuclear physicist and disarmament activist Pervez Hoodbhoy, peace activist Frida Berrigan, and Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Over the next year, Ellsberg will release regular installments of his insider’s memoir of the nuclear era, "The American Doomsday Machine." [includes rush transcript]
Hiroshima Survivor Yuko Nakamura Marks 62nd Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the bombing on August 6, 1945. Three days later, another U.S. airplane dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. We speak to Yuko Nakamura and Anthony Weller, the son of the journalist George Weller, who provided a first-hand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki.
Nagasaki Marks 61st Anniversary of U.S. Atomic Bombing
In Japan, the city of Nagasaki is marking the 61st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing. Over 200,000 people died in the 1945 atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We play an excerpt of a speech by a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing. [includes rush transcript]