Greg Mitchell

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 in Cuba. Ah, I remember it well. The below focuses on the … Continue reading “As New Nuclear Dangers Emerge: A Look Back at Cuban Missile Crisis”

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 the end of the month. A blog post here … Continue reading “New Film Reveals Why Hiroshima Matters Today”

"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 enduring a viewing of the first Hollywood drama about the creation and use … Continue reading “How Truman and the Military Subverted the First Atomic Bomb Movie”

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 around the United States. As the first use of the new weapon against Japan neared, seventy-five summers ago, … Continue reading “When New York Times Reporter Was Chief Propagandist for Atomic Bomb”

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 U.S. nuclear blasts in the Pacific, which would fuel the … Continue reading “The Evil Revealed in First US Nuclear Test: 74 Years Ago Over Bikini”

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 spending four weeks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki … Continue reading “New Film Explores US Suppression of Key Footage from 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 commentary on that network. Would he question what … Continue reading “The Truth About Hiroshima and Nagasaki”

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, of course, was Saddam Hussein’s wacky minister of information, … Continue reading “John McCain:
The New ‘Baghdad Bob’?”

As the U.S. death toll neared 4,000 in Iraq – four more killed this weekend – President Bush gave the country another pep talk this week on staying the course, while continuing to argue that history will wash the blood off his hands. Nothing has changed in his claim that when humans, or God, look … Continue reading “4,000 Periods and One Comma”

[Excerpt from the new book by Greg Mitchell, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits – and the President – Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press).] On March 6, 2003, less than two weeks before he ordered the country to war, President Bush conducted a televised press conference, stating in his intro, … Continue reading “Questions We Wish They’d Asked Five Years Ago”