Hiroshima Directory:
Historical Perspective and Study

• Historical Study (32)
• Enola Gay Controversy (16)
• Academic Program & Conference (5)
• Audio Materials (2)

Historical Study

• Leo Szilard Home Page
  A gold mine of information, this page is a link to multitudes of information. The title of this page is deceiving: although Szilard is featured frequently, other information about every aspect of the atomic bomb is listed. Over 20 documents are listed "Atomic Bomb: Decision" section, the Franck report, numerous petitions, and a telephone transcript between Groves and Oppenheimer. Web links to other Hiroshima and Nagasaki-related sites are also given, including general information about the city itself.
• Hiroshima Bibliography (from Hiroshima: Was It Necessary?)
  This frequently updated site is a good source of official narrative-challenging sources. Linked up to recent articles, other organizations, and other A-bomb sites, this simple page is a good starting place for controversial research. The bibliography linked to the page is amazingly extensive, inc ks>

• Sources of Information about the History of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
  This site, created by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, provides a list of publications containing information about the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC). It includes books and journals that would be useful for seeking specific information about scientific studies done after the bomb.

• Los Alamos 50 Years Ago
  A list of articles written periodically, this site provides good information about the activities that occurred in Los Alamos and other locations previous to August 6, 1945. Beginning with the pre-war years and ending with Trinity, this site chronologically lays out the steps involved and the decisions made regarding the New Mexican laboratory and its amazing secret. Photographs also included.

• Enola Gay Perspectives: Development of the Atomic Bomb
  Developed by a group from the University of Maryland, this page provides information on the people, places, and things involved in the first Atomic bomb. Many of the people involved in Atomic bomb activities are represented, with long and descriptive biographies: Oppenheimer, Einstein, Szilard, Groves, Bohr, and others. Make sure to check out the letter from Einstein to the president under his section, a graphic image of the actual letter, though difficult to read, is provided along with the text. The "places" section gives information on Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, while the "things" section includes nuclear bomb information, Enola Gay information, and the assembly of explosives. Another interesting graphic is a layout of the labs in Los Alamos, listed under the photo-album section.

• Atomic Bomb:Decision (Hiroshima)
  List of documents on the decision to use the atomic bomb. President Truman's radio speech excerpt is included.

• Clearing the Debris
  An article by Bernard Lown from Technology Review magazine that charts the history of the Atomic bomb and through the Cold War. It ends with an arguement against nuclear weapons.

• Atomic Bomb:Decision-Groves/Oppenheimer Transcript, August 6, 1945

• State Compensation for Atomic Bomb Victims

• Fifty Years Since Hiroshima (article from Tokyo Kaleido Scope, an online news journal)

• Another A-Bomb Exhibition in Washington (article from Tokyo Kaleido Scope, an online news journal)

• Fifty Years From Trinity
  A collection of writing by Bill Dietrich of the Seattle Times. There are also pointers to related articles from the newspaper.

• The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. vol. 27 no. 2, April-June 1995.
  This is a special issue entitled "Remembering the Bomb: The Fiftieth Anniversary in the United States and Japan."
  • Hein, Laura. "The Bomb as Public History and Transnational Memory."
  • Linenthal, Edward T. "Between History and Memory: The Enola Gay Controversy at the National Air and Space Museum."
  • Sherry, Michael S. "Patriotic Orthodoxy and U.S. Decline."
  • Fenrich, Lane. "The Enola Gay and the Politics of Representation."
  • Kurihara, Sadako. "America, Land of Mercy." (poem)
  • Sodei, Rinjiro. "Hiroshima/Nagasaki as History and Politics."
  • Yui, Daizaburo. "Between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima/Nagasaki: A Psychological Vicious Circle."
  • Hammond, Ellen H. "Politics of the War and Public History: Japan's Own Museum Controversy."
  • Winnacker, Martha. "War Crimes and Heroism in Vietnamese Commemorations of the U.S. War: Observations in 1977 and 1992."

• Diplomatic History. vol. 19 no. 2 1995. A special issue entitled "Hiroshima in History and Memory: A Symposium"
  • Leffler, Melvyn P. "New Approaches, Old Interpretations, and Prospective Reconfigurations." pp. 173-96.
  • Bix, Herbert P. "Japan's Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation." pp. 197-226.
  • Bernstein, Barton J. "Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory." pp. 227-74.
  • Dower, John W. "The Bombed: Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in Japanese Memory." pp. 275-96.
  • Boyer, Paul. "Exotic Resonances: Hiroshima in American Memory." pp. 297-318.
  • Walker, J. Samuel. "History, Collective Memory, and the Decision to Use the Bomb." pp. 319-28.
  • Tachibana, Seiitsu. "The Quest for a Peace Culture: The A-bomb Survivors' Long Struggle and the New Movement for Blueressing Foreign Victims of Japan's War." pp. 329-46.
  • Minear, Richard H. "Atomic Holocaust, Nazi Holocaust: Some Reflections." pp. 347-66.
  • McMahon, Robert J. "Making Sense of American Foreign Policy during the Reagan Years." pp. 367-84.

• Bernstein, Barton. "Atomic Bombing Reconsidered." Foreign Affairs. January-February 1995.

• Alperovitz, Gar. "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess." Foreign Policy Summer 1995: pp. 15-34.

• The Pacific War Research Society. The Day Man Lost. New York: Kodansha International, 1972.

• Cook, Haruko Taya and Theodore Failor Cook. Japan at War: An Oral History. New York : New Press, 1992. (ISBN: 1565840143)

• Grew, Joseph C. Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years 1904-1945. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952.

• Leahy, William D. I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.

• Lifton & Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial.

• Lindee, M. Susan. Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima

• Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race. New York: Knopf, 1975 (ISBN 0394497945). New York: Vintage, 1977 (ISBN 0394721489). New York: Random House, 1987
  The appendix of the second (1986) edition (pp. 335-363) includes the complete documents of the Joint War Plans Committee's estimates of June 14, 1945, and the presentation of these estimates to Truman on June 18, 1945.

• Stimson, Henry L. and McGeorge Bundy. On Active Service in Peace and War. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948.

• Terkel, Studs. "The Good War" : an oral history of World War Two. New York: Pantheon, 1984. (ISBN: 0394531035)

• Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

• Yoneyama, Lisa. "Memory Matters: Hiroshima's Korean Atom Bomb Memorial and the Politics of Ethnicity." Public Culture Vol. 7 no. 3, Spring 1995.

• Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings. New York: Basic Books, 1981.

• "Memorandum for Chief, Strategic Policy Section, S&P Group, OPD, Subject: Use of the Atomic Bomb on Japan." (April 30, 1946) ABC 471.6 Atom (17 August 1945) Sec 7, Entry 421, Record Group 165, National Archives.

• "Notes on talk with President Eisenhower." (April 6, 1960) War Department Notes envelope, Box 66, Herbert Feis Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division; and, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, "Memorandum of Conference with the President"

• William D. Leahy's private diary (in particular the June 18, 1945 entry) available at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

• Letter from Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, to John A. Shane, Dec. 27, 1960 on target selection, in the Groves Papers, Record Group 200, National Archives.

Enola Gay Controversy

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum - Enola Gay Exhibit

• Enola Gay Perspectives: Development of the Atomic Bomb
  Developed by a group from the University of Maryland, this page provides information on the people, places, and things involved in the first Atomic bomb. Many of the people involved in Atomic bomb activities are represented, with long and descriptive biographies: Oppenheimer, Einstein, Szilard, Groves, Bohr, and others. Make sure to check out the letter from Einstein to the president under his section, a graphic image of the actual letter, though difficult to read, is provided along with the text. The "places" section gives information on Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, while the "things" section includes nuclear bomb information, Enola Gay information, and the assembly of explosives. Another interesting graphic is a layout of the labs in Los Alamos, listed under the photo-album section.

• War and Remembrance: An upcoming Smithsonian Institution exhibition of Hiroshima angers some American veterans
  An article from Time Magazine discussing the Smithsonian Institution Enola Gay exhibit and the resulting furor concerning its presentation fo "facts" versus "opinions."

• The Cancellation of the Smithsonian Exhibit on the Atomic Bomb (1): The US Government Should Make Historical Facts Known to the American People by Masayoshi Oiso (Professor of University of Shizuoka)

• About the Smithsonian Museum's decision to suspend the Atom Bomb exhibit (2): America Was Not Mature by Mitsuko Shimomura (Journalist)

• About the Smithsonian Museum's decision to suspend the Atom Bomb exhibit (3): Regarding the US decision to suspend the Smithsonian A-bomb exhibit by Shinichiro Kurimoto (Member of the House of Representatives, Liberal League Secretary General ).

• Refuting Yoshimi Ishikawa's Article Entitled, 'On The Issue of the Enola Gay: United States to Become a Great Nation Again' (No.9) by Kazuhiko Hagiwara (Asian & International Studies, Griffith University, Australia)

• Capaccio, Tony and Uday Mohan. "Missing the Target." American Journalism Review vol. 17 no. 6, July-August 1995: pp. 18-26.
  American journalism review : AJR_ ISSN 1067-8654/LCCN sn93003630 is published by the University of Maryland at College Park, College of Journalism since 1993. It is a continuation of Washington Journalism Review (old ISSN 0741-8876).

• Two Sides to Every Story: The Smithsonian Hiroshima Exhibit You Won't See
  An article from The Ethical Spectacle.

• Fenrich, Lane. "The Enola Gay and the Politics of Representation." The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. vol. 27 no. 2, April-June 1995.

• Linenthal, Edward T. "Between History and Memory: The Enola Gay Controversy at the National Air and Space Museum." The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. vol. 27 no. 2, April-June 1995.

• Nobile, Philip ed. Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Marlowe & Company. (ISBN 1-56924-841-9) Includeds the first script of Enola Gay Exhibit with afterword by Barton Bernstein.

• Sayle, Murray. "Did the Bomb End the War?" The New Yorker July 31, 1995,
  Interspersed in the Sayle article are paintings by Hiroshima survivors. The issue also contains an excerpt from John Hersey's Hiroshima, which originally appeared in full in the August 31, 1946 issue of the same magazine.

• Wallace, Mike. "The Battle of the Enola Gay." Radical Historians Newsletter no. 72 May 1995.

• Also, see the entry above of the special issue of Diplomatic History vol. 19 no. 2 (Spring, 1995) entitled "Hiroshima in History and Memory: A Symposium."

• "Enola Gay Exhibit to 'Report the Facts." Washington Times March 11, 1995.

Academic Program & Conference

<Course Syllabi Available>

• Atomic Bomb: Experience, History, Memory.
  Taught by Prof. Gerald Figal in the Fall of 1995 at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon.

• Hiroshima and After: The First 50 Years of the Atom Bomb.
  Taught by Prof. Barbara Gold and her three colleagues in the Fall of 1995 at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York.

<Course Syllabi *NOT* Available>

• Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the Literature of Survival
  Examination of the ways in which the Japanese have tried to come to terms with the experience of nuclear war through a study of memoirs, novels, essays, plays, and films at Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

<Conference>

• Australian War Memorial History Conference
  A conference entitled "1945: War and Peace in the Pacific" was held on 25-28 September 1995.
  For information contact: Historical Research Section, Australian War Memorial, PO Box 345 CANBERRA ACT 2601

• Retrospective" of the Hiroshima Bombing
  Held at the University of Illinois-Urbana in Spring Semester, 1995 by Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS) .
  Most of presentations are gathered together in summary form in a special issue of ACDIS' quarterly, Swords and Ploughshares.
  This includes reflections by Prof. Al Wattenberg, who was then a graduate student working on the Manhatten Project at the U of Chicago, David Desser, who examines Hiroshima films, John Lie, who examines the Korean response, Edward Kolodziej who discussed the impact of the bomb on international relations, David Goodman, who examined the impact of the bomb on Japanese society, Kevin Doak, who considers the postwar history of the bomb, and several others.

Audio Materials

• Books, Films, Videos
  This brief site discusses some materials created by Nagasaki City. They include educational vidoe recordings of personal accounts by survivors.

• Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped.
  Broadcasted as Peter Jennings Special Report by ABC on July 27 (Thursday), 1995 on the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.
  ABC is offering a copy of the video at about $29.95 (800-913-3434) or a transcript for a few dollars (800-All-News).

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