Censorship and reportage of atomic damage and casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Abstract

In the summer of 1945 a number of leading scientists on the Manhattan Project, members of the newly created Committee on Social and Political Implications headed by James Franck, argued against the unannounced use of the atomic bomb against Japan. The committee's report, known as the Franck Report, was shaped by Leo Szilard, who focused on the problem of using the bomb during the war rather than the problem of developing atomic energy after the war, as did many of his colleagues. Although the report did not take up the moral question of the bomb's use so much as the pragmatic question of its international control, it did contain the following comments on the moral implications of using the bomb: “The military advantages and the saving of American lives achieved by the sudden use of atomic bombs against Japan may be outweighed by the ensuing loss of confidence and by a wave of horror and repulsion sweeping over the rest of the world and perhaps even dividing public opinion at home.” It is true that in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombings “horror and repulsion” did arise, even in the United States; however, the report was surely off the mark in predicting “a wave of horror and repulsion sweeping over the rest of the world.” Why was this so?

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Glenn D. Hook

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference on Discourse and the Nuclear Arms Race, Ballyvaughan, Ireland, 8–15 August 1987, organized by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California (San Diego). The paper first appeared in a special issue of Multilingua, vol. 7, nos. 1 and 2 (1988), pp. 133–58. In addition to the conference participants, I would like to thank Barton Bernstein, Monica Braw, Matsuo Masatsugu, and David Swain for their valuable comments.