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John Whitehead's Commentary

55 Years Ago, America Unleashed a Nuclear Hell That is Still with Us

John Whitehead
It was 55 years ago, shortly before dawn on August 6, 1945, that an American B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay took off from Tinian Island, in the Marianas. Arriving over Hiroshima, Japan at 8:15 a.m., it released its solitary bomb on the city's 350,000 unsuspecting residents. In an instant, 80,000 people died, and most of Hiroshima simply ceased to exist. A mere four days later in Nagasaki, America dropped a second bomb, this time killing 40,000.

President Harry S. Truman called the atom bomb "the greatest achievement of organized science in history." A mere 16 hours after the bomb's delivery, he warned the Japanese that if they did not immediately surrender, they could "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." On August 14, Japan surrendered.

Such horror had never before been unleashed. Within half an hour of the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, the atomic flash had ignited fires that quickly spread out of control. The rising plume of hot gas generated strong winds that further fed the firestorm, winds that reached 40 mph within hours of the blast. At ground zero, the air burned at temperatures ranging from 5,400 to 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit, almost the intensity of the sun's surface.

Elsewhere, in the firestorm's center, temperatures reaching 3,450º F. burst wood and fabric into flame and distorted steel bridges and building frames out of shape. Glass and stone melted and fused. The sea of flames destroyed five square miles of the city--63% of the buildings were completely destroyed, while 92% were partially destroyed or damaged.

Some 140,000 people were killed as a direct result of the bomb within two months or so after it was dropped. Of course, the exact numbers will never be known.

The hot winds carried radioactive material high into the atmosphere and caused "black rain," as it came to be known, to fall back to the earth. The sticky, dark, radioactive water delivered radiation poisoning to those helpless beings who had not already been vaporized or killed by the bomb's initial blast.

Thus, a few days after the explosion, people began to develop fevers; their hair fell out and thick, blackish blood began to exude from their mouths. Many began to die; others simply went insane. Doctors and others began to realize that yet another new terror had been unleashed upon them: "A-bomb disease."

They knew instinctively that there was no treatment. Nothing could help. Most of those at ground zero who had A-bomb disease died immediately or during the first day; one-third of all the deaths had occurred by the fourth day; 90% of the deaths had taken place by the end of the third week.

Houses, schools, prisons and places of work and worship were now rubble. The river was filled with the dead and dying people who had inhabited them. There were few to help with rescue efforts, but there were few people to rescue. The only real work was to recover and dispose of tens of thousands of corpses that were piled on bridges and along river banks or floating in the rivers where they had sought refuge.

Debate continues on the necessity of using nuclear weapons against Japan. Critics of the move note that Emperor Hirohito had already urged his cabinet to begin cease-fire negotiations. Others, however, argue that Japan was prepared to fight indefinitely and that by dropping the atom bomb, more lives were saved.

Unfortunately, however, we don't often see the consequences of our acts. We now possibly face greater dangers as science moves forward with the manipulation of human beings through genetic tinkering and cloning. And biological warfare, more prevalent than is known, may pose an even greater threat than nuclear war.

But one thing is certain: after "the bomb," life changed inalterably as humanity was ushered into the nuclear age where fear and anxiety have now become the norm. As a result, the shadow of "the bomb," and the nightmare it unleashed, have never left us.

Perhaps the poet Hermann Hagedorn caught the moment better than most. He wrote that dropping the atomic bomb "dissolved something vitally important to the greatest of them, and the least.

What it dissolved were their links with the past and with the future. It made the earth, that seemed so solid, Main Street, that seemed so well-paved, a kind of vast jelly, quivering and dividing underfoot." Let us pray that it never happens again.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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