"Even one military move by either of these nuclear-armed
neighbors," USA Today's front page reported in big type, "could set
off an unstoppable chain reaction that could lead to the holocaust the
world has feared since the atomic bomb was developed." The June 10
edition of Newsweek includes a George Will column with a chilling
present-day reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis: "The world may be
closer to a nuclear war than it was at any time during the Cold War --
even October 1962."
Yet when it comes to nuclear weapons, the mainstream American
press has scant emotional range or professional zeal to scrutinize the
progression of atomic perils. From the start of the nuclear era, each
man in the Oval Office has carefully attended to public relations,
with major media rarely questioning the proclaimed humanitarian goals.
Making an announcement on Aug. 6, 1945, President Harry Truman
did his best to engage in deception. "The world will note that the
first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base," he said.
"That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as
possible, the killing of civilians."
But civilians populated the city of Hiroshima -- as well as
Nagasaki, where an A-bomb struck three days later. Hundreds of
thousands died as a result of the atomic bombings. American military
strategists were eager "to use the bomb first where its effects would
be not only politically effective but technically measurable,"
Manhattan Project physicist David H. Frisch recalled.
For U.S. media, the atomic bombings of the two Japanese cities
have been pretty much sacrosanct. So, in 1994, a national uproar broke
out when the Smithsonian Institution made plans for an exhibit marking
the 50th anniversary.
Much of the punditocracy was fit to be tied. "In the context of
the time ... the bombing made a great deal of sense," Cokie Roberts
said on network television -- and, she added, raising critical
questions a half-century later "makes no sense at all." On the same
ABC telecast, George Will sputtered: "It's just ghastly when an
institution such as the Smithsonian casts doubt on the great
leadership we were blessed with in the Second World War."
Columnist Charles Krauthammer, denouncing "the forces of
political correctness," wrote that the factual display on the museum's
drawing board "promises to be an embarrassing amalgam of revisionist
hand-wringing and guilt."
Such intense media salvos caused the Smithsonian to cave in
rather than proceed with a forthright historical exhibition. Even five
decades later, a clear look at the atomic bombings was unacceptable.
This summer, as the leaders of Pakistan and India ponder the
nuclear-weapons option, they could echo the punditry. After all, "in
the context of the time," they might conclude, an atomic bombing makes
"a great deal of sense," without need to question their "great
leadership" or engage in "hand-wringing and guilt."
Back in 1983, a statement by U.S. Catholic Bishops perceptively
called for a "climate of opinion which will make it possible for our
country to express profound sorrow over the atomic bombing in 1945.
Without that sorrow, there is no possibility of finding a way to
repudiate future use of nuclear weapons."
But American officials and leading journalists continue to be
highly selective with their repudiations. In medialand, a
red-white-and-blue nuclear warhead is not really a "weapon of mass
destruction."
Three months ago, the U.S. government's new Nuclear Posture
Review caused a nearly incredulous response from Pervez Hoodbhoy, a
peace advocate who is a professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam
University in Islamabad: "Why should every country of the world not
develop nuclear weapons now that America may nuke anyone at any time?
The Bush administration has announced that it views nuclear weapons as
instruments for fighting wars, not merely as the weapons of last
resort. Resurgent American militarism is destroying every arms control
measure everywhere. Those of us in Pakistan and India who have long
fought against nuclearization of the subcontinent have been
temporarily rendered speechless."
What goes around has a tendency to come around. Washington's
policymakers keep fortifying the U.S. nuclear arsenal with abandon
while brandishing it against many other countries -- declaring, in
effect, "do as we say, not as we do." But sooner or later, such
declarations are not very convincing.
___________________________________________
Norman Solomon is co-author of "Killing Our Own: The Disaster of
America's Experience with Atomic Radiation" (Delacorte Press, 1982).
The entire book is posted online at:
www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/