Japan Paper Runs Censored A-Bomb Stories, page 1

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 02:07 PM

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George Weller and American journalist who was able to get into Nagasaki soon after being bombed by the U.S.A. in WWII only to later have his news stories of the death and distruction censored by the U.S. military and kept that way for 60 years, now has his work published in a Japanese news paper...

ABCNEWS.com Full Article Link

TOKYO Jun 19, 2005 — An American journalist who sneaked into Nagasaki soon after the Japanese city was leveled by a U.S. atomic bomb found a "wasteland of war" and victims moaning from the pain of radiation burns in downtown hospitals.

Censored 60 years ago by the U.S. military, George Weller's stories from the atom bombed-city surfaced this month in a series of reports in the national Mainichi newspaper.

A woman at a hospital "lies moaning with a blackish mouth stiff as though with lockjaw and unable to utter clear words," her legs and arms covered with red spots, Weller wrote.

Others suffered from a dangerously high-temperature fever, a drop in white and red blood cells, swelling in the throat, sores, vomiting, diarrhea, internal bleeding or loss of hair, his censored dispatch said, describing the then-unknown effects of atomic radiation.

By hiring a Japanese rowboat, catching trains and later posing as a U.S. Army colonel, Weller, an award-winning reporter for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News, slipped into Nagasaki in early September 1945, Mainichi said about a month after the Aug. 9 bombing that killed 70,000 people.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

What could have been so damaging in Weller's reports that they were kept censored for 60 years?

Related News Link:

Son tells story of first foreign reporter to see aftermath of Nagasaki A-bombing

Interesting Page:

Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman Won a Pulitzer

[edit on 19-6-2005 by UM_Gazz]

Rasputin13

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 03:17 PM

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What could have been so damaging in Weller's reports that they were kept censored for 60 years?

The decision to drop the A-bomb was a controversial one, even to this day. I happen to be one who completely agreed with Truman's decision, as an invasion of Japan would have likely resulted in far more casualties on both sides than the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Some say if the bomb wasn't dropped that we would have had to fight every last Japanese citizen before victory could be declaired.

To answer your question, if I can, I would guess that the War Dept. didn't want the public to see the more horrific and longterm effects that the A-bomb had on civilians and the environment. I don't think the public at the time could even comprehend the effects of radiation from an A-bomb. Hearing about innocent men, women and children having their skin melt off their bodies and having deformed children is something that could work against America's heroic world image at the time. That's just my guess...

UM_Gazz

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 03:32 PM

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Some of a few images available of the A-Bombing of Nagasaki.

Beneath the center of the explosion, temperatures were hot enough to melt concrete and steel. Within seconds, 75,000 people had been killed or fatally injured with 65% of the casualties nine years of age and younger.

One can only imagine the horrors George Weller seen first hand.

[edit on 19-6-2005 by UM_Gazz]

UM_Gazz

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 09:28 PM

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I've tried to find the full text of George Weller's censored reports.. and no luck.

May have to wait for a full translation from the Japanese paper?

Or maybe it will never be published in full in the U.S.A.

From the link in the first post in this thread:

In a 1990 radio interview, Weller said that the war had finished by the time he entered Nagasaki and that Allied Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur had no right to ban his reports.

"MacArthur does not have any authority to stop this. I wrote the story and passed it to him. If he is going to stop such an important story, he is the one who is going to take responsibility for it," Anthony Weller, the journalist's son, quoted his father as saying.

Authorities never returned Weller's stories. In a diary entry from 1984, Weller wrote: "Months and years after the two decisive bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world was still asking: Why have we heard nothing about the burntout cases?"

[edit on 19-6-2005 by UM_Gazz]

Valhall

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 10:34 PM

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This matter isn't about whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do. This matter is about the observed aftermath and how those observations were intentionally kept from not only the U.S. population but the world population...and allegedly to prevent backlash in the government's desire to build a nuclear arsenal.

This is a blatant example of how you really don't know a damned thing about what your government is doing in the world around you - not if knowing the truth puts your government in a bad light.

bah!

UM_Gazz

posted on Jun, 19 2005 @ 10:40 PM

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Originally posted by Valhall
This matter isn't about whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do. This matter is about the observed aftermath and how those observations were intentionally kept from not only the U.S. population but the world population...

And for 60 years!!

I can understand why it was done.. not that I agree with it.. and I can see how many believe the A-bombing of Japan actually saved lives.

But to censor reports like this for 60 years?

Why?

WestPoint23

posted on Jun, 20 2005 @ 04:16 AM

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They forgot about it? Besides the man could have just spoken out about what he saw or just write the report over.