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
History
xviii, 425 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780399140723, 9780615007090, 0399140727, 0615007090
32312339
pt. 1. Explaining Hiroshima
the official narrative
The announcement
The official story unfolds
First breaks in the narrative
Secrecy and suppression
Restraining the scientists
A counter-narrative emerges
Reasserting the narrative: the Stimson article. pt. 2. Making and defending the decision
Harry Truman's tragedy
Influencing Truman
the psychological field
Truman himself: the man in the decision
The afterlife
Living his own history. pt. 3. Memory and witness
struggles with history
Introduction: On historical memory
American presidents and the lessons of first use
Defending the bomb: pioneers, pilots and crewmen, veterans
A different witness: scientists and activists
The media, the historians, and the illusion of consensus
Commemorating Hiroshima: the Smithsonian controversy. pt. 4. Hiroshima's legacy
moral, psychological, political
Our own nuclear entrapment
Moral inversion
Desecration
National self-betrayal
Apocalyptic concealment
American numbing
Futurelessness and cultural disarray
Late twentieth century death
and renewal
"A Grosset/Putnam book."