For Veterans Day: Two Soldiers and Hiroshima

A little more than sixty-seven years ago, U.S. military arrived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and began seizing footage of the aftermath of the atomic bombings shot by Japanese newsreel teams.  Later, our military started shooting its own footage--which subsequently would be suppressed by our own government for decades.

Published one year ago, my 12th book and e-book:   Atomic Cover-Up:  Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and The Greatest Movie Never Made (Sinclair Books).  This is a haunting account of how the shocking cover-up even extended to MGM and Hollywood -- and to President Truman.    See brief video with some of the footage below.

I interviewed the man who directed the U.S. filming and one of his top colleagues who tried for decades to get the footage released. 

America's "nuclear entrapment" continues to this day.  Atomic Cover-up  takes a wide angle look at the use of the bomb in 1945--and its impact right up to 2011.  It might be sub-titled "From Hiroshima to Fukushima."  You can buy the e-book edition for Kindle, all phones, Blackberry,  iPad, Macs and PCs (for just $3.99) via Amazon, and you do not need a Kindle.  Print edition also now available via Amazon.

David Friend of Vanity Fair calls it "a new work of revelatory scholarship and insight by Greg Mitchell that will speak to all of those concerned about the lessons of the nuclear age." A lengthy piece summarizes key parts of the book at The Nation, where I am a daily writer.   Major piece on Nagasaki, the "forgotten city."    

And don't miss the wild Hollywood angle -- when the Truman White House censored the first major movie about The Bomb, from MGM, and even got the actor playing Truman fired!   Atomic Cover-Up also charts my own visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and latest news and views right up to this summer.

Why did the cover-up of the film footage matter?  While Americans were denied important truths about The Bomb -- filmed by their own military -- a costly nuclear arms race ensued, nuclear power became entrenched, and millions of Americans were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in our own country.   Email me at:  epic1934@aol.com.   The video trailer below: