Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 260

67 Years Ago: The Tragic 'Atomic Cover-up" Began

Sixty-seven years ago this month, a key member of a U.S. military film crew who shot color film footage documenting the atomic attack on  Hiroshima and Nagasaki lugged much of it home to the Pentagon.  It would then be suppressed by our own government for decades.

Published one year ago, my  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  extended to President Truman and the U.S. media.    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 the present day.  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  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!  It's the subject of my current e-book Hollywood Bomb. 

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:

Banging Clapper

So my former columnist at Nuclear Times, Fred Kaplan, at Slate today called for Clapper's firing due to his outright lies about the NSA surveillance.  Good, but not a shocker, limited impact, etc.  But now Andy Rosenthal, longtime editorial page editor at NYT, seemingly has joined the call in his blog post.   I dig this line:  "You have to wonder about giving a position of vast responsibility to someone who can beat Mr. [Alberto] Gonzales in dishonesty."  He adds:

I doubt Mr. Obama is going to do that [fire him]. But, as Mr. Kaplan said, Mr. Clapper’s participation in any public discussion of the limits of data mining will be of no value, since we are going to have to parse his meanings of complex words like “yes” and “no.”

Only a Pawn in Their Game

For the 50th anniversary of the shooting of Medgar Evers, one of the greatest Dylan "protest" songs, and Phil Ochs'  "Here's to the State of Mississippi."

Blogging Interruptus

Love this just now from Krugman, in its entirety, under headline, "Blogging Disrupted by Bomb Threat."

 Seriously — the whole Princeton campus is being evacuated. In a coffee shop now, but as you can imagine some things I was supposed to have done have been pushed back, and blogging will have to wait.

Well, could be worse: He could be on a plane. 

'Ghost of Tom Joad' Returns (Again)

Great new vid by Mumford and Sons and Elvis Costello, doing one of my favorite Springsteen songs (memorably in live Morello/Bruce version), "The Ghost of Tom Joad," mixed with one of my favorite Woody Guthrie tunes, "Do-Re-Mi," for global anti-poverty campaign. Concludes with a bit of "So Long It's Been Good to Know Ya"--and even a reference to "So Long, Marianne."   Many more here.

Ai Weiwei on NSA Revelations, U.S. and China

The famous and famously jailed artist writes column for The Guardian.

Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights.

I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue. The US has a great tradition of individualism and privacy and has long been a centre for free thinking and creativity as a result.

In our experience in China, basically there is no privacy at all – that is why China is far behind the world in important respects: even though it has become so rich, it trails behind in terms of passion, imagination and creativity.

For Edward Snowden: Run, Boy, Run

My super-talented son created, for Warner Brothers, just-released official trailer for new game, "Dying Light."  With soundtrack of song, "Run, Boy, Run."

Blogging the Bradley Manning Trial, Day #5

  As I did last week, I will closely follow reports from those on the scene.  Among those inevitably there, the stalwart Kevin Gosztola, co-author of my Truth and Consequences book about the case, just updated to last week.  All times ET .

8:30  Getting ready for another day, enjoy this item about Clark Stoeckley, famed driver of the Wikileaks Truck, which has taken him to the Manning trial (yes, he gets in) every day.  Now comes word that he is drawing the scene and will produce a record of the trial--in comic book form--this fall.  His view of Manning supporters at left (they have to wear their TRUTH t-shirts inside-out to gain admission).

Old Columnists vs. Young Snowden

David Brooks babbling even more usual in an all-out assault on Edward Snowden--and young Americans everywhere.  Apparently he feels they have betrayed failed institutions rather than failed institutions betraying him.  Yet he demands more, not less, fealty to those institutions.   And BTW, my 25-year-old son sounds nothing like the younger folks he lacerates: "the apparently growing share of young men in their 20s who are living technological existences in the fuzzy land between their childhood institutions and adult family commitments." And the idiocy proven in this statement: "Young people in positions like that will no longer be trusted w/ responsibility."  Right.  And Brooks, who declares Snowden an anti-social misfit, is probably the one glued to his computer right now--looking at those photos of Snowden's girlfriend in Hawaii. 

Meanwhile, longtime, alleged "liberal" Wash Post columnist Richard Cohen--who was so wrong, wrong, wrong on Iraq--just weighed in on Edward Snowden.  You should read the whole thing but here's one of several money quotes or money shots if you will:  "Greenwald said that 'Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers.' I think he’ll go down as a cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood."

Amanpour on Greenwald

Interview for CNN just posted.