Global Research, November 04, 2019
Theme: History, Militarization and WMD
A couple of years ago an American writer named Greg Mitchell wrote an informative book on the huge cover-up orchestrated by the US government on the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Japan, and the censorship of the first Hollywood movie on the subject. (1) The government was in possession of much live film footage shot by the US military of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki that Mitchell says would have shocked viewers, with ghostlike ruins and babies with burned faces. He includes many of these original photos in his book, and details the extensive efforts to hide the facts and evidence of the use of the atomic bombs and the tapestry of lies created after the fact to justify this atrocity and present it as a necessary evil.
The Hollywood movie arose because the film industry wanted to warn the people of the world about the coming dangers of a nuclear arms race, Mitchell claiming the early scripts presented a shocking picture that would definitely have provoked disarmament, but the eventual Hollywood version of the official narrative was that the bomb was absolutely necessary to end the war and save American lives.
He writes that as the scripts were increasingly revised the bombing became not only justifiable but even admirable. Robert Oppenheimer, the prominent Jewish physicist primarily responsible for the development of the bomb, was assured that in the movie his character would display “humility” and “a love of mankind”. But that’s not quite how it was. “At the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb on July 16, 1945, “Oppenheimer was beside himself at the spectacle. He shrieked, “I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds.” (2)
The movie script was further altered to show American president Truman agonising over the decision when in truth he proudly boasted that he never lost any sleep over it, and further wrote in a letter to a critic, “I have no qualms about it whatever”. (3)
Hollywood had begun the creation of yet another myth of American history. From Mitchell’s notes, even minor details in the movie were altered to make the bombing appear justified. Nuclear radiation fallout was dismissed as trivial, and fabricated scenes were inserted to depict the American bombers as being heavily bombarded with flak (untrue) to make the attack appear more courageous.
Claims were fabricated that the use of the atomic bombs would shorten the war by a year, which was 100% false since the Japanese had already repeatedly offered to surrender, as well as claims that use of the atomic bomb would save at least half a million American lives, also patently untrue. In fact, the bombings saved no American lives since it was already abundantly clear that no invasion of Japan would be necessary to effect a surrender, and in fact the prospect of a physical invasion was never even on the table. But the bombings did needlessly claim at least an additional nearly one million Japanese lives, even though Wikipedia states this at little over 100,000.
Another myth created by Hollywood was that the targets – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – had been chosen for their military value, but in truth both were entirely civilian cities and were chosen only because they hadn’t been bombed before and could clearly demonstrate the destructive power of this new weapon.
