Hiroshima Massacre Gets a Hollywood Makeover
President Barack Obama will finish up his current Asia trip by becoming the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, site of the fateful atomic bombing attack on Aug. 6, 1945, that killed tens of thousands of Japanese citizens.
The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered unspeakable horrors that day, and in the months and years, that followed. Some in the US government didn’t want Americans to see what really happened. For perspective — and revelations — on that paradigm-changing event, in concurrence with Obama’s visit, WhoWhatWhy revisits past coverage of a painful final chapter of World War II.
What follows is author Greg Mitchell’s piece (which originally ran in 2014), examining Hollywood’s role in sanitizing the devastation and suffering at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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The script called for shots of a bombed-out Hiroshima as ghostlike ruins, with close-ups of a baby with a burned face. The underlying message reflected the regrets of many of the scientists who had worked to create the bomb: It would have been better to continue the war—even if it meant a full-scale invasion of Japan—“than release atomic energy in the world.”
But then something happened, and the “message” of The Beginning or the End shifted radically.
The reason for the shift was clear: General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project who was back at the Pentagon, had secured the all-important right of script approval—along with a then-hefty $10,000 fee—and was playing an active role in reshaping the film.
Unlike Groves and Truman, nearly all of the scientists impersonated in the film—even Albert Einstein—were not given script approval (although they signed releases). The Hollywoodization of the bomb had begun.
Facts were suppressed, and events were completely fabricated:
Suppression of fact:
In revised scripts, the decision to use the bomb was presented as justifiable, even admirable. The doubts raised earlier just disappeared. And now, after scenes depicting the bombing of Hiroshima, no victims were shown, just a charred landscape filmed from the air.
Suppression of fact:
Under General Groves’ guidance, the revised script made light of nuclear fallout.
Fabrication:
The B-29s flying over Hiroshima were pelted with heavy flak, a detail that made the attack seem more courageous. In fact, there was no anti-aircraft fire over Hiroshima.
Fabrication:
One scene depicted fictional German scientists visiting a fabricated Japanese nuclear facility in—Hiroshima!
Fabrication:
In another entirely false episode, Matt Cochran, a young scientist arming the bomb, prevents a chain reaction from blowing up 40,000 people on a Pacific island—and thereby exposes himself to a fatal dose of radiation. But before he dies, Matt concludes,
“God has not shown us a new way to destroy ourselves. Atomic energy is the hand he has extended to lift us from the ruins of war and lighten the burdens of peace.”
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