Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood. Nagasaki Day arrives again on Friday. Naturally I wrote a major piece about this atrocity – and Oppenheimer barely mentioning it – last year at Mother Jones, my third...
Truman’s A-Bomb Announcement Set ‘Hiroshima Narrative’ To This Day
Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood. My photo, above, on another August 6, out on a branch of the Ota River, where thousands died, seeking relief. In the movie Oppenheimer the scientists at Los Alamos...
As New Nuclear Dangers Emerge: A Look Back at Cuban Missile Crisis
Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood. A little change of pace today, as we look back 61 years this week to the beginnings of the gravest nuclear crisis of our era, involving JFK, Castro, and Soviet missiles...
New Film Reveals Why Hiroshima Matters Today
Since 1982, I have written three books, hundreds of articles and thousands of posts related to the atomic bombing of Japan. This week my first film as writer and director, Atomic Cover-up, has premiered at the Cinequest Film Festival, and can be viewed by all until...
How Truman and the Military Subverted the First Atomic Bomb Movie
"If our sin as scientists was to make and use the atomic bomb," Leo Szilard, famed physicist would admit, "then our punishment was to watch The Beginning or the End." Szilard's exposure to the 1947 MGM movie, however, went far beyond merely...
When New York Times Reporter Was Chief Propagandist for Atomic Bomb
William L. Laurence earned the nickname "Atomic Bill" several times over. He was a Pulitzer-winning New York Times science reporter who became embedded with the Manhattan Project and followed its creation of the first atomic bombs at several sites...
The Evil Revealed in First US Nuclear Test: 74 Years Ago Over Bikini
Besides revealing how the Truman White House and military sabotaged the first movie about the atomic bomb, from MGM, my new book, The Beginning or the End explores other key nuclear-related events of that crucial year of 1946. Among the most important: the start of...
New Film Explores US Suppression of Key Footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Last month, I completed work on my first film, writing and directing a documentary titled Atomic Cover-up. Below you can watch via a link four brief clips. The story for me began, however, thirty-eight years ago this month. That day also helped set me on the path to...
The Truth About Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Chris Wallace of Fox News has published his first book, Countdown 1945. It’s about the final days of the run-up to dropping the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You might have hoped that it would be a bit contrarian – like some of his interviews and...
John McCain:
The New ‘Baghdad Bob’?
On his recent trip to Iraq, John McCain acted relentlessly upbeat about the outlook there, even as he mangled basic facts and inspired mockery from some in the media. That made me realize that McCain sounds more like the notorious "Baghdad Bob" every day. Baghdad Bob,...