August 2005 (II): History, Lost And Found;Disputed And Denied

It's the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (8/6) and Nagasaki (8/9).

And the 10th anniversary of the Smithsonian's bow to right-wing pressure over its proposed Enola Gay exhibit. The media joined in the attack, as described in FAIR's 1995 piece, "Media to Smithsonian: History Is Bunk"—

...words were often turned on their heads: Because the proposed exhibit contained more than one viewpoint on the bombing, it was called "one-sided"; because it relied on contemporary documents rather than later apologetics, it was called "revisionist"; because it didn't strictly adhere to the official version of history, it was called "politically correct."

...The planned exhibit was often condemned as bad history, although evidence was rarely offered to contradict the Smithsonian's proposals.

Instead, pundits and editorialists decreed that dropping the bomb had been the only way to end the war and save American lives. Which is refuted, FAIR notes, by wartime "indications that... U.S. officials knew that Japan was on the verge of surrendering."

A view confirmed by well-placed observers of the events—

"My belief [was] that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary," Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs (Mandate for Change, p. 312).

"The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan," declared Adm. William Leahy, who presided over the Joint Chiefs of Staff (I Was There, p. 441). "Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

As FAIR notes, the opinions of Eisenhower and Leahy are now considered "anti-American." And on the media's role in guarding against airing of "anti-American" views—

There are many other historical questions about Hiroshima that pundits have not only failed to answer seriously, but have declared unaskable. A high-water mark in this sort of know-nothingism was achieved on ABC's This Week With David Brinkley (8/28/94), when all four commentators present agreed that even raising such issues was reprehensible.

...Cokie Roberts concurred [with George Will] that questioning history is pointless: "I think that this business of trying to rewrite history in the context of 50 years later makes very little sense."

Two years after all this, a book is published about the incident,Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy.

This book, on what FAIR calls "one of the great intellectual scandals of American history," is out of print now. A good review from 1997 is Jennifer Scarlott's, "The Legend of Hiroshima."

The right's outrage over "revisionism" led the Smithsonian to censor "controversial" references to the Eisenhower and Leahy memoirs. Scarlott notes some key points:

• The current view that dropping the bomb was a matter of military necessity and an uncontroversial decision was not a foregone conclusion, but was cultivated by the Truman Administration in the weeks and months after August 1945.

• Director of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, insisted the bomb was meant to threaten the USSR, not Germany. Leading informed witnesses "to wonder whether the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not only the final act of World War II, but the opening act of the Cold War as well."

• The targets—and main victims—of the bomb were civilians.

• 155 Manhattan Project scientists signed a July 17 petition to Truman, imploring that he not use an atomic weapon against Japan.

Over a dozen years after the Smithsonian incident, Adam Harrison Levy's, "Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs" tells the story of how a nearly-buried piece of history came to light.

The day after Japan's August 14, 1945 surrender, President Truman commissioned the United States Strategic Bombing Survey for the Pacific Theater of War. Paul Nitze, Vice Chairman and "de facto author of the Survey" later said the goal was to "measure as precisely as possible the exact effects of the two bombs...so that people back home would have a factual frame of reference within which to draw conclusions about the bomb’s capacities as well as its limitations."

Photo: National Archives

A Physical Damage Division created teams of 150 military engineers, ordinance experts and other technicians, including photographers.

Photography was crucial to assessing and documenting the damage, and a few pictures from the Survey pictures were later published by the government, in a 1946 limited edition report.

But soon after the surrender, the U.S. had imposed strict censorship on Japan, including the dictate that "nothing shall be printed which might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility." Levy notes—

The U.S. government was ostensibly wary of the emotions of grief and anger that could be unleashed in Japan as a result of the circulation of images of the destroyed city; it was probably just as concerned to keep the physical effects of its new and terrible weapon a secret. But this suppression of visual evidence served a third purpose: it helped, both in Japan and back home in America, to inhibit any questioning of the decision to use the bomb in the first place.

Levy tells of the chance events by which the photos fell into the hands of someone haunted by their power. He didn't know what to do with them—just kept them for almost three decades, until accidentally losing them in a house move. They were retrieved by a second man who recognized their importance—and also didn't quite know what to do. Ultimately, the photos were given to the International Center for Photography, and its Hiroshima collection pages begin here.

It's a fascinating story, and a testament to the good instincts of a couple of ordinary citizens who wanted to do the right thing.

And a reminder of how we're now mired in a devastating war that we've caused, and that won't be televised. And how it's only through some rare individual actions that there have been small breaks in the regime's secrecy.

In 2004 Russ Kick of [the late] memoryhole.org filed a Freedom of Information Act request for military photos of coffins being returned to the U.S. The Air Force released photos directly to Kick, angering the Pentagon, but leading to publication around the Web and in some newspapers.

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse photos came to light in 2004 because Spc. Joseph Darby acted on his conscience.

As for benefiting from a knowledge of history: Cheney long ago learned "the lessons of Vietnam"—hide your wars from public view.

Even in Japan, rightists—and apathy—are threats to memory of the bombings and efforts to promote peace, as The Times reports this month.

An ultranationalist's desecration of the Hiroshima peace cenotaph was the most recent of periodic vandalism at the memorial. This particular vandal wanted to obliterate the cenotaph's inscription, which he thought blamed the Japanese for the bombing.

Bomb survivors who travel Japan to tell their stories in schools report incidents of abuse and taunting by bored students. The Times cites a peace activists' term, heiwa boke, translated as, "'peace senility'...or the complacency of the generation that has not known war."

It's a description that fits generations of Americans only too well—our wars are out of sight, out of mind. As for the part of the populace whose only economic opportunity is the military—they're just fresh fodder for the perpetual manipulation of the lower classes into acting against their own interests. There will be no exposure of the general public to pictures of the war, but there will be 24/7 sloganeering—"fight 'em over there"/"support the troops"/"freedom isn't free"...

Naturally, the Disinformer-in-Chief does his own bizarre versions of the sales pitch. Defending his invasion: "This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. Now there are some who would like to rewrite history--revisionist historians is what I like to call them."

Said with the usual smirk...Maybe he believes he's coined the term his handlers have fed him. Or else he assumes—no doubt correctly—that the term, "revisionist," is new to his audience, who will believe Bush thought it up all by hisself.

Some historians respond, with needed "revisionist" correction of the lies Bush told to start his war.