Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrors recalled, undiminished

The dropping of atom bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago is given new focus in a special exhibition at American University in Washington DC.

The presentation challenges the commonly accepted account that the bombs’ use was necessary so that American lives would not be thrown away in a full invasion of mainland Japan, which was rejecting surrender as the Second World War raged on in the Pacific.

US President Harry Truman then gave the order to unleash the secret weapon.

Curator Peter Kuznick is co-author of the book Rethinking the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Kuznick told us: “The atomic bombs not only killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people unnecessarily during the war, but opened the door to the possibility of the annihilation of all life on our planet. And the thing that is so shocking to me is that Truman knew that this was the likely outcome.”

The chief scientist of the Manhattan Project that produced the bombs, Rob