Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 231

What Boston Bomber Got 'Right'

New BBC report today reveals that older brother Tamerlan embraced "right-wing extremist literature" and subscribed to right-wing magazines that pushed white supremacy--"Hitler was right" and so forth--anti-government ideas and conspiracy theories, also gun rights.   Program airs tonight.

Spirit in the Sky

Just the greatest piece of "religious" (I'd use the word, "spiritual") music ever, the Benedictus from Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis."  Depicts grace offered to everyone.

Death of a Legend

Famed "throat singer" from Tuva, "Ondar," has died at 51, with full obit in NYT.  It mentions this famous (almost unreal) appearance on Letterman:

The Greatest x3

Back in 1925, possibly the century's greatest singer joined the greatest musician to sing the most-recorded song ever,  "St. Louis Blues."

Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven

For this week's weekly, long-running, feature:  Probably my favorite two dozen notes in all of music (along with the opening of "Like a Rolling Stone") are the ones that come at the very beginning of LvB's Piano Concerto No. 4.  As many know, they were also revolutionary in their time--the mere thought of opening a concerto with a solo passage!  Somehow, in researching ourbook, I came across this three-minute video at YouTube which collects the very varied renditions of those few notes by several famous pianists, including Schnabel, Arrau, Gould,  and Aimard. 

Countdown to Hiroshima, August 4, 1945: Pilot Briefs Crew

Each summer I count down the days to the atomic bombing of Japan (August 6 and August 9, 1945),  marking events from the same day in 1945.  I've been doing it here for more than two weeks now.    I've written  three books on the subject:  Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton),  Atomic Cover-Up (on the decades-long suppression of shocking film shot in the atomic cities by the U.S. military),  and Hollywood Bomb   (the wild story of how an MGM 1947 drama was censored by the military and Truman himself).

August 5, 1945 :

—On Tinian, Little Boy is ready to go, awaiting word on weather, with General LeMay to make the call. With the weather clearing near Hiroshima, still the primary target, taking off the night of August 5 appears the most likely scenario. Secretary of War Stimson writes of a “troubled” day due to the uncertain weather, adding: “The S-1 operation was postponed from Friday night [August 3] until Saturday night and then again Saturday night until Sunday.”

—Hiroshima remains the primary target, with Kokura #2 and Nagasaki third.

—Paul Tibbets, pilot of the lead plane, the Enola Gay, finally briefs others in the 509th Composite Group who will take part in the mission at 3 pm. Military police seal the building. Tibbets reveals that they will drop immensely powerful bombs, but the nature of the weapons are not revealed, only that it is “something new in the history of warfare.” When weaponeer Deke Parsons says, “We think it will knock out almost everything within a three-mile radius,” the audience gasps.

Then he tries to show a film clip of the recent Trinity test—but the projector starts shredding the film. Parsons adds, “No one knows exactly what will happen when the bomb is dropped from the air,” and he distributes welder’s glasses for the men to wear. But he does not relate any warnings about radioactivity or order them not to fly through the mushroom cloud.

 —On board the ship Augusta steaming home for the USA after the Potsdam meeting, President Truman relaxes and plays poker with one of the bomb drop’s biggest booster, Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes. Truman’s order to use the bomb had simply stated that it could be used any time after August 1 so he had nothing to do but watch and wait. The order included the directive to use a second bomb, as well, without a built-in pause to gauge the results of the first and the Japanese response—even though the Japanese were expected, by Truman and others, to push surrender feelers, even without the bomb, with Russia’s entry into the war on August 7.

--Gen. Douglas MacArthur,  who directed the U.S. war in the Pacific, and would soon become the head of our occupation of Japan, had still not been told of the existence and planned use of the new bomb.  Norman Cousins, the famed author and magazine editor, who was an aide to MacArthur, would later reveal:  "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed....When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Just One Catch....

I'm not generally a giant fan of the typical home run saving catch that others rave about--usually an OF goes to wall, has time, jumps up and catches ball near top of wall.  Yes, ball might have gone over, dramatic,  but the physical feat not all that.  But last night, a quite different thing in Angels game.  Below that one some have also called the play of the year.

Anthems for an August Saturday

From Mr. Leonard Cohen:  "The birds they sing/at the break of day/start again/I hear them say."  Searching for "the crack in everything."  Then a visit to the streets of Arklow with Van the Man.  Finally, the greatest complete performance of St. Ludwig's "Pastoral" symphony from Klemp.

Countdown to Hiroshima for August 3, 1945: Truman Knows Japan 'Looking for Peace'

 
Each summer I count down the days to the atomic bombing of Japan (August 6 and August 9, 1945),  marking events from the same day in 1945.  I've been doing it here for more than two weeks now.    I've written  three books on the subject:  Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton),  Atomic Cover-Up (on the decades-long suppression of shocking film shot in the atomic cities by the U.S. military),  and Hollywood Bomb   (the wild story of how an MGM 1947 drama was censored by the military and Truman himself).

--On Tinian, Little Boy is ready to go, awaiting word on weather, with General LeMay to make the call. Taking off the night of August 5 appears most likely scenario.

--On board the ship Augusta steaming home for USA after Potsdam meeting, President Truman, Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Leahy, and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes--a strong A-bomb booster--enjoy some poker. Byrnes aide Walter Brown notes in his diary that "President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes) agreed Japan looking for peace. (Leahy had another report from Pacific.) President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia instead of some country like Sweden."

--Leahy had questioned the decision to use the bomb, laterwriting: "[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... [I]n being the first to use it, we...adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

 --Our "Magic" intercepts show Japan monitoring the Soviets' military buildup in the Far East (prelude to the declaration of war in four days). Also, Japanese still searching for way to approach Molotov to pursue possible surrender terms before that happens. Another Magic intercept carried the heading, "Japnese Army's interest in peace negotiations." War Department intel analysts revealed "the first statement to appear in the traffic that the Japanese Army is interested in the effor tto end the war with Soviet assitance." A segment of Prime Minister Togo's message declared: "The Premier and the leaders of the Army are now concentrting all their attention on this one point."

John McCloy, then assistant secretary of war and a well-known "hawk" in his later career, would later reflect, "I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."

 --Soviet General Vasilevskii reports to Stalin that Soviet forces ready for invasion from August 7.

Correction on Iran and Israel--Which Leader of the Latter Ignores

NYT notes, and produces video, that shows that the new leader of Iran did NOT call for the destruction of Israel as widely quoted (gleefully, by some). I love this:  "Even after video showed that Iran’s incoming president had been misquoted, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli leader stood by his initial response to the false statement... Hours later, the prime minister’s official spokesman to the Arab media, Ofir Gendelman, posted an Arabic translation of Mr. Netanyahu’s rejoinder on Facebook without mentioning that the comment that prompted the response was never made."