Host Michael Azevedo is joined on this episode by Ben Loeterman, the writer and director of Bombshell, a new documentary that Explores How The U.S. government manipulated the narrative around the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ben’s film will premiere on PBS as part of the American Experience series on January 6 and will be available on the PBS app and the American Experience website thereafter.
Through propaganda, censorship and the co-opting of the press, the government presented a benevolent picture of atomic power, minimizing the horrific human toll of the bombings.
The U.S. media became pivotal in promoting — and then piercing — the official narrative.
While President Truman publicly declared that “it has never been the habit of the scientists of this country or this government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge,” that is precisely what General Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project, insisted upon.
Bombshell sheds light on the efforts of courageous journalists to inform the world about the human costs of nuclear weapons, despite government censorship.
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