Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial

The use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations has weighed heavily on our national conscience - with profound effects, argue Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they have written the first book that assesses the political, ethical, and psychological impact of Hiroshima on our nation. The book opens on August 6, 1945, the day of the bombing of Hiroshima, with the official statement by President Harry S. Truman, which began our government's extensive distortion of information and management of the news media. The story comes to a climax nearly fifty years later, with an inside view of the recent debacle at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., when a wave of opposition forced the museum to cancel a full exhibit about the atomic bombing and its human effects. Throughout Hiroshima in America, the authors offer a powerful and thought-provoking analysis of what we have lost by our unwillingness to face the truth about Hiroshima. They also present a landmark portrait of Harry Truman and an exploration of the factors that led him to authorize using the bomb, and defend that act for the rest of his life.