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Lesley M.M. Blume Books

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“I think that what has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been a deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory,” [Hersey] said in 1986, in a rare interview. “The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.”

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Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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“But as the document of record – read over years by millions around the world – graphically showing what nuclear warfare truly looks like, and what atomic bombs do to humans, “Hiroshima” has played a major role in preventing nuclear war since the end of World War II. In 1946, Hersey’s story was the first truly effective, internationally heeded warning about the existential threat that nuclear arms posed to civilisation. It has since helped motivate generations of activists and leaders to prevent nuclear war, which would likely end the brief human experiment on earth. We know what atomic apocalypse would look like because John Hersey showed us. Since the release of “Hiroshima,” no leader or party could threaten nuclear action without an absolute knowledge of the horrific results of such an attack.”

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Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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“The disasters at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were our handiwork,” the Times editorial stated. “They were defended then, and are defended now, by the argument that they saved more lives than they took – more lives of Japanese as well as more lives of Americans. The argument may be sound or it may be unsound. One may think it sound when he recalls Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa. One may think it unsound when he reads Mr. Hersey.”

Hiroshima And NagasakiJohn HerseyNew York Times Magazine
Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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“Every American who has permitted himself to make jokes about atom bombs, or who has come to regard them as just one sensational phenomenon that can now be accepted as part of civilization, like the airplane and the gasoline engine… ought to read Mr. Hersey,” the editorial read.”

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Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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“Summoned by Congress that November to testify about use of the bombs on Japan and their after-effects, the [General Groves] eventually conceded that radiation had been responsible for some of the deaths in the atomic cities, but informed the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy that doctors had assured him that radiation poisoning “is a very pleasant way to die.”

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Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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