On Aug. 9, 1945, as Japan’s high command met on surrender plans, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki killing 74,000 people instantly, a decision that’s never been adequately explained, writes John LaForge.
After the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, there then ensued a U.S. propaganda campaign to claim the slaughter of more than 200,000 people saved lives, writes John LaForge.
On the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1995 historians at the Smithsonian tried to present a truthful accounting of that U.S. decision-making but were stopped by right-wing politicians who insist on maintaining comforting myths, recalls Gary G. Kohls.
The head of the Manhattan Project said, “The purpose of the whole project was to subdue the Russians,” writes Scott Ritter in this excerpt from his book Scorpion King.
In this introduction to the memoir of a Nagasaki bombing victim, historian Peter Kuznick shows why the bombs were dropped and how some victims’ anger propelled the Japanese anti-nuclear movement.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of premeditated mass murder unleashing a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of 21st century U.S. war propaganda, casting a new enemy, and target – China.
Japan was ready to surrender, making the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki two days later, totally unnecessary and morally indefensible, say a panel of scholars in two video discussions.
When FDR died in 1945, Truman took over as president. Had it been Henry Wallace, history may have taken a much different course, writes Marjorie Cohn.
Health industry executives themselves are at risk because they’ve put profit before public health, says Joe Lauria.
As the annual AIPAC conference wraps up in Washington on Tuesday, historian Walter Hixson looked back on the Israel Lobby’s origins in this speech last Friday to the “Israel Lobby & American Policy Conference” at the National Press Club.