at shawn king on twitter. and on instagram. [inaudible] in san francisco thanks so much for having both of us. i can't wait to welcome you and your family back to the bay. in the work continues thank you overmuch for attending this night. >> thank you to carapace macbook tv continues now on cspan2. television for serious readers. cement good evening welcome to tonight's virtual program for they'll be discussing faking the truth of the true impact of the atomic bomb. we are mentally honored to host tonight's speakers author of the new book the fall out will be joining conversation by writer. my name is bo and i am the manager of wish we could welcome you to our principal location i'm so honored and

honored to bring you to our virtual programs that we've been able to shift to and looking forward to having you join us more in the coming weeks. before we get to the subject of tonight's program i just want to share a little bit about some things we have coming up, things to look forward to. more virtual programs you may be interested in joining us. we'll be hosting next week a separate teach outcome anticorruption expert and former neck state attorney general candidate will be sharing her new book, break them up in a conversation. he'll be exploring the connection between big-money and its impact on democracy. that will be on august 11 the following week we will be hosting in a conversation with jeffrey toobin discussing rick felson's new book dragon which continues an exploration we've been doing of recent history

of the republican party in that is on august 19. we are also proud to partner with the foundation on an upcoming series living kicking off on the 18th and moderator kel willis to discuss issues pertaining to bodies of women throughout time and how they continue to be spiked with contention. look forward to hosting many more virtual programs as they come together. you can learn more about the offerings that we will have for you at our website. in just a moment i'll be welcoming tonight's speakers to the virtual space. this is a powerful conversation we are looking forward to tonight.

of course mercy 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb in hiroshima. and tonight is the 75th anniversary of the same thing happening. these are events that shaped much of the 20th century. and we will be discussing the events themselves and their immediate impact, we are also talking about the role of journalism in sharing stories with people so we could truly understand the potential of atomic warfare. the human cost and the danger that it imposed. reflecting today on the recent passing of the legendary journalist pete hamill who else had the pleasure of hosting a few years ago. i want to share a quote of that is the work of a journalist to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. so today, and her landscape of fakeness, such a narrative of potential danger of misinformation and propaganda

how journalism can help us cut through to see the truth is something that brings at all the more important. without further do i like to welcome tonight speakers. who are very honored and glad to have them joining us tonight. the alley joined by leslie bloom who is the author of fall out. she is a "new york times" best-selling author. her work has appeared in vanity fair, near times, wall street journal, the lawsuit journal magazine the los angeles review of books, paris reviewed daily, vogue, teen, and your bio magazine, and many, many more, shall be joining conversation by adam got nick is running for the new yorker since 1986 during his more than 30 years at the essays and personal memoirs she reviews and profiled with the much reporting from abroad with fiction humor and part

criticism. as the conversation unfolds, i want to remind you that we will be taking questions for if you have any questions for speakers you can submit them via the q&a box at the bottom of your scree screen. mcginley subject of tonight's discussion is all out. we had teamed up our friends at community bookstore space here in brooklyn if you'd like to learn more about the book and possibly purchase your copy you can do so via the link that is in the chat now. without further do, please welcome leslie and adam. can you hear me? civic yes loud and clear. think you both for being here, looking forward. >> thank you for hosting. they give for doing this. thank you for this extraordinary book. the hold up hardcover. >> is my second born. the hiroshima covid part and should be hiroshima or

hiroshima? i mix them up and i shouldn't because it should be hiroshima. but if i lapse please forgive me. lovely small moment in the book by publishing this damn thing i want to know how to pronounce it. he met hiroshima. and he explained you got is a hiroshima. not hiroshima. it's an extraordinary book. catastrophic event. but even more importantly about the coverage of that event. and how it has turned into words. they called the hiroshima cover-up. she not leslie i have a very particular and i'm i'm sorry very parochial entrance in this book. the history of a new yorker the development of a new yorker. but before we get to that and

the internal dynamics of the narco shape this book in many ways, what do you mean by the cover-up? what was the state of play when he would off to japan to do the reporting the produces legendary peace on hiroshima which filled an entire issue of the new yorker the first time that had ever happened. year after the bombing. >> the audience should now that you are sounding board for me since the very beginning. when i first started researching this project i didn't realize the extent to which cover-up is can play a role in this narrative at all. but truly just wanted the back story for taoist approach these journalists -- the story of hiroshima has always been about outsiders. except no one really looked at how the story in first place. i started my career "nightline" newsroom as a production coordinator. they make you learn how the

story comes down entirely t the ground how we got in. so start looking at how arthur education nation of japan at the time started to realize just how impossible it would've been dead and as an independent reporter's to getting their help. the more research the subject, i came across town of his administration how much he had impressed the japanese press in particular. the magnitude of the cover-up, it has been previously by scholars never to the extent that i felt it should have been and ended up being the six stream essential to the story. one who effectively wrote it. >> what book are they covering up leslie in a sentence or

two? >> guest: they seem to almost a statically advertising the light of the bomb when they had an experiment to weapon on hiroshima. it was 20000 tons of tnt. it was the biggest bomb that it ever in the history of warfare. the united government release pictures of the mushroom clouds in the landscape devastation. but what hurt the editors to pick up on, was there was weirdly no reporting on the human toll. nobody was happening to the human being only humans in history what people were taught. >> on blessedly still are to this day. let's move then, if that was the environment and which they've started reporting this peace. let's talk a little bit about the new yorker in 1945. and where it was. as we have discussed many times, the new yorker was in

transition at that moment when hershey began the reporting for this peace. it had changed in the course of four years of 1941 from the onset of the war of pearl harbor until the end of the war. more dramatically than it had changed and now, 90 or history, because as you write underwrote beautifully, as is been essentially a humor local reporting magazine noted for fiction still very much in the initial imprint of how it brought then the war broke out , when one editor in particular played an outside role in making the magazine take on a much more ambitious anonymous magisterial role in its reporting. and that was to william.

absolutely. these were newsmen and disguised in a way as it started as you say 20 years earlier and these humor magazines. never at that point had any aspirations for the magazine begin a news operation but he had been a news man before that. and so had william shawn. and as you say once pearl harbor happened, that was it. agassi went to wartime printing right away. album amounts to one of his editors, it could not be a humor magazine anymore because quote nothing feels funny anymore. sue and many of the writers on hand went off to the war and found themselves as writers. it was a looker feature writer within it off and became a.j. liebling, she report the war in north africa and the

normandy invasion and the rest of it. it was the next generation that made that trip they had correspondence all over the world. one and paris and is part of war, they had a pretty deep relationship with the war department and their public relations operation. mcelroy whose work i once edited must actually working for curtis lemay and pr throughout the cold war. so he was the linchpin of the new yorker's operation. there's also a lot of overlap like that. not a lot but a handful of correspondence with they were in the armed forces there acting for the armed forces. in york or randy profiles on military sometimes with the editors given permission for

military figures, sometimes a public relations man to keep things cozy with the war department. but for the most part, it was mysterious. very much so william shawn was the hinge man. for he had correspondence in the field. he didn't know what the scoop was going to be just in third b1. >> he trusted his writer he believed in his writer. >> so why john hersey? kristi was actually not born and bread as a new yorker. he came from from a loose organization, what made sean trust that hersey could get this of all hard stories? >> he could not of done less from a new yorker he's writing for "time" magazine.

i'm ahead of the new yorker hated each other like voluptuous lee hole larry slee, publicly hated each other. reporting for time since 1939. and one point really grooming him to time inc. >> i hate to interrupt but very timing as the kids would say no now, of that type. he was not a fat new or jew like a j liebling. [laughter] >> and he was also from yale, skull and bones. [laughter] whatever it is. >> and also when you read the way the dispatch wrote, it is a far cry from what he was

writing for the new yorker later on. >> as someone who cares only about literary style and think that is hugely important point of it. hold that for a moment. >> you run with it. you run with it. >> he had written one usually significant peace in historical terms for the new yorker before that. right? >> yes. got about a back tuna second after queued up, that's how they came to the new yorker. he breaks up because he's far too chauvinistic patriotically chauvinistic. he said thanks but no thanks instead of being is that media empire be the freelancer in 1945. in 1944 he had managed somehow to do a story that william

shawn had really wanted to bring hersey in. hersey had a story that was rejected. and it was come this way. it was the story of john f. kennedy. in the pacific. so hersey's wife had been the former of jfk. >> is a significant class of people right? >> hersey is on his way back to the pacific. i'm sorry erase that. jfk was on his way back from the pacific he's in new york. one night he's at a nightclub. some people say it's a martinique club. runs and hersey and his wife. jf hale selling hersey what's happened.

jfk had been part of the vote that was sliced in half by the japanese destroyer. and he's like i went that story. he said it was significant because he was just candy sign because it was a story in its own way. they rejected he brings it to the new yorker. and they expected to have it at last. so in many ways that story helps make kennedy's political career. i got trotted out by kennedy and campaigns team for every political campaign that he had. it also makes john hersey's career. as to the magazine that would make him famous he's going nowhere fast. sue any mention to that old joe kennedy hated the fact that it appeared to the new yorker. that was not a big enough magazine. life would have been great if the new yorker was just a little pie for him. and so he even badgered harold

ross into having it syndicated and i think reader's digest. it was another magazine. i don't know how kennedy twisted his arm, but it did end up being in the reader's digest. so to get the publication of story first son. sue and speaking of publication you make a footnote about this to the thing about the new yorker the war years is the pony edition appeared in a smaller addition which was available to servicemen. her driving up circulation i make important to those coming home would buy tonight 46. so hersey has a relationship with sean base. and then what happened? how did he get to japan? and how does he break through the cover? >> like they said one should

never assume for the first lesson of not just journalism but life. >> she said never assume. [laughter] i did. i was initially very bad journalist. i chastise myself publicly for that right now. that's because the future of hiroshima has a story. as a feeling of an expose an exposé. i was him getting in getting out somehow is unilateral. the reporters had made a run that way. don't stoop crazy into hiroshima and nagasaki. as a given york of august of 195 cares about it has mixed feelings about hiroshima and think is going to end the war. i think is totally criminal action. he knows he's going to cover

but he doesn't know exactly how just yet. and he has lunch with william shawn. they talk about the coverage. and they realized what he'd been again was a story about the human toll. what happened to the human beings when there is this huge mushroom crop cloud. it's likely that they knew the extent or some of the extent of the restrictions being placed in the japanese reporters in tokyo because the journalism community was very close to beckman. a lot of former worktime friends and colleagues, they probably knew that the only way in is a paddle from guam to japan. he had to get military clearance to get in. he's going to do a major reporting trip that starts first in china which is a country he was born in.

and then apply for clearance is going to be accredited in china. having reestablished himself of the military there, apply for clearance to get into tokyo. and it works. he gets cleared. >> but one of things that interest me are reading this wonderful book, they both have in a certain sense less freedom because everyone expects you to conform to the need for the military to the patriotic reflex that you could do both. but at the same time, more because the whole business of post- vietnam with the military wedding to keep reporters as far away as humanly possible is not in place yet. they expected to be traveling with guys who would be writing. >> guest: it was the buddy system throughout the war. that's when the things that give hersey the huge advantage to getting cleared to get in. hersey had been with the

military during the war. had written glowing profiles with jfk, he was a war hero. he helped evacuate wounded marines on the islands where he was covering as a historic -- covering a battle between u.s. and japanese forces. most significantly perhaps he had written a glowing biography of general douglas macarthur and his forces. which he later thought was so lotta tour he wanted to take it out of circulation. they definitely thought to come into the country. they were really betting journalist coming and going into japan. he may have seen or been seen as a relatively an aqueous

company man still. >> so then he gets it from china gets to japan. when he gets to hiroshima finally, tells about how he does that. the extraordinary step forward as he talks to people rather than reporting on events. on how would it be at their port the find of the great people? >> guest: i just say that was incredibly important departure. it may seem obvious now to just focus on a few individuals to focus on the element of the story. those pretty revolutionary then. because what he was proposing to do is dehumanize japanese victims and enemy number two there's not one because that attacked us directly. right? so when he eventually is admitted to tokyo. and by the way he does not have free reign because his

been the company man. he is not really being monitored by mccall through its author are just operation there prayed the fbi knows he's on the ground. they notify fbi d.c. it's surveying. but at the same time you don't want to read too much into it what you ate, what you thought, how many cigarettes you smoked everyday. but they gave hersey clearance to go to hiroshima for two weeks. that may include substantial but that includes 36 hours of travel in that time. and when he gets there, he has the help of a german priest who had been living there and had returned and spoken english. one other japanese administer who had been educated at emory

university and spoke english, these two gentlemen, not only gave hersey their own testimony, but they also made the introduction for hersey among the black survivors who had been returning to try to rebuild their lives among the ashes. and ultimately later on they could member exactly he had in tribute, we'll just say several dozen the most accurate will be six. spirit coming back to something that preoccupied me, i don't think frivolously. one of the things that makes hiroshima such an important work of journalism and literature is that hersey saw his subject in a novelistic way. and even as you revealed had a very specific novelistic pattern and template is not just he's going to show it

from the individual point of view. obese six individuals lives introspective. and also their lives in the moment with the lead up of exactly what they were at that exact moment of detonation. and how their past cross in the hours and days of the aftermath. sometimes pretty shocking ways. and so basically he was leaving a neighborhood, a neighborhood narrative anyway. that people who had ultimate profile were rather folks. when he was doing was creating empathy for them. as american readers cannot fathom the physics of how the bottom works is fathom the fallout of nuclear war it looks like. they would be able to relate

to the stories of let's say a mother with three young schoolkids or young clerk or young doctor who's going about their business feeding their families, getting on the bus to work that is when the moment catastrophe strikes. sue and i thinking specifically the novel clearly was the kind of -- gave him an organizing principle with the story of how six able strangers them selves share a moment of common disaster. >> that's quite theoretical. he literally did have that is it inspiration he was covering in china since he gotten the horrible flu he was laid up >> ed china fluid china flow lesli leslie. [laughter] >> guest: a godly freaked cursor china flu. >> he read the novel he was recovering in china. and so when he began to try as

we all do and we are reporting something with any kind of definition, said that is the way i can tell the story of these intersecting lives. >> guest: yeah absolutely. it gave it a real cohesive structured italics. he knew he wanted to be novelistic. the state facts is going to be graphic was going to confront people with what they had the fourth of july attitude about the bombing it would be embarrassing to the government. everybody has every incentive to hot potato it out of their hands, right? if he could make it novelistic and for people not to put it down, she was a trojan horse or party getting into japan and this is why the trojan force material with people and why. >> coming back one step, what

did, if anything, what did the occupying force with the army think he was going to be doing in hiroshima? basically doing follow-up peace of the bombing? >> guest: he knew his going down there. there is evidence militarily he was in hiroshima, and then he was out about talking to people. by that point they'd start letting other reporters in who were not reporting on the aftermath of hiroshima anymore they're hearing. he is by that point. when reporters were admitted, they were really there to do these more fluffy stories if you can believe that. subic here she was going into a fluff peace. but the gardens look like so you you see it coming back and people are back. >> soap military subsidy in mind it was oh hiroshima is

coming back having a bomb dropped on it. >> you could see it wasn't so bad. >> exactly that was a story that they imagined. i would think you and i have both reported things, you more ambitiously than me on a more provincial new york scale. it's hard when you are reporting something not to be altered by the people you meet. do we know hersey state of mind as the stories which still are hard to read. of people not only losing family but losing their entire existence in this moment of existential belief. >> guest: was a hardened workhorse. i'm not saying bitter calloused or anything like that. [inaudible] he is reported in europe. let's just say he has seen everything in his reporting

and combat concentration camps. and he has seen tokyo raise, somebody describes one of his contemporary reporters describe tokyo is looking like an ashtray with the cigarette butt sticking out of it. his frame of reference, she was tough-minded. but when he got to hiroshima he was horrified by what he had seen. not because he wasn't used to seeing devastation. in the worst of human nature and healthy doses or unhealthy doses rather. but because it was a single bomb that had done this. i mean hiroshima was leveled. i don't want to be graphic in this and bypass. >> they're still fighting remains in hiroshima, their flaxen graveyards. so when you got there, he was so disturbed by what he was finding there, and even they

were not entirely wrong pretty mean there was a regrowth of flora. but things have been unnaturally stimulated to grow back. so everything about it was horrible and unnatural for it he values going to try to get the recording done as quickly as he couldn't get the hell out of there because it was so traumatizing for him. >> and did bit wordy action to his writing? switch it very smartly, he believed sean decide is going to do is recording and bring it back to new york. even though wartime censorship had ended in the state, in the fall of 1945, japan and america was still officially at war during the occupation of censorship. and so it happened. he got out of hiroshima and came back to new york. >> host: this is a kind of detail that only writers relish. but i do. he had his notebooks on the

interview. switch it okay that was another thing i was really interested in, how did hersey take -- we knew his -- they recalled later that he had taken notes and little notebooks. his notebooks do not exist in his files. they remember that. and also, i made my question which was on answered his duty to them in shorthand? does he had been an assistant to before hand. it's thoughtful that is that that way. all of his protagonists when they read the account later on remark at the extreme accuracy of his memory. and to take notes like that in real time. you have to have some kind of system to be able to get everything. so i don't know what happened to the notebooks but i would give anything to know what happened to the notebooks. he did make it from point a to

point b with materials enough to create an accurate account. sue and it is a mind-boggling disappeared before any recording, stomach there was no voice recordings, nothing like that. >> one recorder, alex wilkinson who taught himself shorthand with that very idea in mind. to be able to do it. so he cuts back to new york city. and he starts the process of writing. and they know at this point or sean knows, that they want the peace and what would seem to us given to scale of the ambition, very short order. >> guest: there's originally the anniversary, it will be the first anniversary of the bombing. it's important to mention that her she was there in may an early june. they would really only have a couple times a turnover. and so, i don't think they all

knew how huge the story was going to be. but ends it being the 3,031,000 monster. said if he needed to he would write what he called the white heat. in some of the previous books have been written that way. he was used to writing under wartime pressure of a deadline. this was not just that. is meeting the anniversary doing under enormous pressure to. pain is what he is writing is going to really embarrass the u.s. government and show the truth about their x mental mega weapon. >> so he produces this. and submits it to william shawn. and then sean persuades howard roth to do something that was very balls the. an unparalleled in its

ambition. and that is to make it an entire issue of the new yorker. >> guest: that was what one former new york editors, harold ross are you crazy? it's a year later they've just gotten back to the post war, there's a sense of normalcy coming back to the magazine, cartoon, subic they want to read the talks of the tampered part of the continuity of their lives to have that. >> they knew they had to disrupt that continuity. >> guest: that is the question. again it presents them with a really essential question. is it continuous wartime purpose of fearless reporting or does it revert entirely to something. two you tell something i would say is unforgettable. it's how ross finally persuaded himself to do it

robert shaw who is admired and trusted with trusting him to do. not to think about the future of the magazine. i think about that magazines past. very dna. >> guest: he went back and looked at his original statement that he had published in 19205. that altered the perspective that he had created in 19204 when he tried to convince backers to back the new yorker. and he said he written it himself and is probably in a moment that the magazine was always to have serious purpose despite the frivolity, the nature of levity this magazine had. and it was going to report without fear or without favor which is a really important. so harold ross drew inspiration from himself. he comes back he says tashawn i will give you the green light. william shawn is really the driver on this whole story. and in terms of having sent

him to first place, championed it to run at full length. champion it to run the single issue instead of four installments because people would've lost interest. >> host: glasses essential form. if the essential form is the intersection of the stories. not just having them chronologically one after another. >> guest: exactly. the cliffhanger as he intervenes a story as it only if it's one wrong peace. and so, ross is convinced to do it. i mean it is a hell of a gamble. not only are they about to drop this on their readers who have no idea that it is coming. they are in peace time motor this point. they are not expecting a huge wartime atrocity story. they are expecting -- they are innate moment of recovery of regaining again the feeling of normalcy. are of what albert ines i would say escaping to ease of pleasure without confronting

the past. they're about to be confronted with the past. >> again because it's so vital to everything the story is about. the division between fact reporting and a robotic journalistic form. and writing with great extension to structure and sense this is a division. and i think percy's work demonstrates that. one of the very good points you make is that percy had written about the bomb before, tom life wrote a lot about the bone. it was always in terms of these enormous wartime but the fate of man and the destiny, the adam, the promise of science. >> exactly. it was all impossibly high level of rhetorical extraction. the key to what hersey was doing wizards absently note rhetorical distraction anywhere.

>> guest: no, no, no, the boiled it down for it again when talk short writing for time, his time writing was pretty pronounced, styling, it had a little swagger to it. this was stripped down. her she said he did not want any outrage it was entirely about laying out the facts, letting the people who had given them, him their testimony to speak in their own words and just let the story and revel in that way. that the less the story had outrage, the higher -- the more effective it would be. and it really worked. because by dialing it down from the sky outside point of view down to the human antigen message point a lot of people put themselves in the shoes of the people who see this very fair sort of way.

schematics of the peace comes out, sean persuades ross, ross persuades himself through ross, her she rates a speed that is still astounding considering the quality of the writing and the testimony. it comes out and what happens? >> guest: partially uses the word explosive to describe the action for the solder workout entrance not a book i used. it created an international furor. it's funny there's nothing on the cover of the issue that indicates the content of the issue. speech is a fascinating decisio decision. you know covers are decided this then then they were decided. in less than a day actually. >> guest: said this one, the cover them and slated for the august 31 issue was sort of really dreamy park landscape.

people were horseback riding, playing tennis, there are trees. the new yorker then had note writing on the cover. or even a table of contents to indicate what the contents of the magazine were prayed to the editor decided to keep this cover on there. i could not find anything from strong or ross on the record of why they decided to keep it. it really does symbolizes sleepwalking america. the more gruesome interpretation of that is that it looks a lot like a park that is described in hiroshima as people are enjoying themselves and it later becomes a refuge for many of those blast survivors and their dying hours. >> host: david made the same decision to take out all the cartoons in the top section

the week after 911. that was the case where the cover, clearly spoke to the events. it comes off and it sells off the newsstands, right? soon at contraband new yorker. >> i'm sorry i interrupted you. that is terrible. >> just coming back to the main line of the story. it is a sad quote i hate to say commercially, all the talk about the week it comes out. >> there is one in hersey's contemporary reported that today report on it. they said we guarantee you that even if you do not remit it's all going to be talking about. and it was true. it was syndicated not in its entirety and paper across the country but around the world. and abc, it was read verbatim over four nights. >> i could not get over that. it was read verbatim. >> guest: they had four actors read it, no music nothing like

that. the identities of the actors were not even revealed until after it had aired so would not detract at all from it. but not interrupt you leslie, but what was it that people learned that they could not have imagined before they read it? >> guest: what it's like to be a human being on that attack. he learned what it was to be young mother with the baby in your young arms in your house collapses on you and you have to dig your way out of rubble before firestorm consumes your neighborhood. again i don't want to be too graphic. but you learned about what happened. i think too, it was the point you make. people were with customs for this is the end of the most destructive war in human histor history, 30 million people were killed. germany wasn't ruined. london wasn't ruined. it was not structural only as a story. something about the idea of

destruction on this scale and of this finality. i was destroying skin on human flesh. it was imprinting shadows on walls. it was transformational of no one had imagined before and no one understood. >> guest: it was truly apocalyptic. as a journalist and editor it's rightly after hiroshima was bombed, and quickly recognized it was a story of not just war but modern times. humanity had finally after many centuries of the worst possible methods of warfare to eviscerate themselves in the most gruesome way possible. some of the scenes in hersey's book, when you read it, you read it when you're 15 you will remember when you're 75. it is really completely horrifi horrific. it is a great and ghoulish

reminder that happens individuals, casualty statistics are composed of individuals who have skin that can be slipped off. cement leslie someone is asking and it's a good question to. when she concerned about nuclear contamination about fallout a year later? what do you make of that? >> is unclear if he was worried about it. although other people were. interestingly, after hiroshima hapten, down into mexico, the trinity testing site to show a bunch of reporters how little radiation there was. and how you could live there forever. the fact is that comment trinity site was probably far more contaminated than hiroshima not the sake were a year later. because the point of

detonation of the bomb. the trinity test the bombing had been on the ground of the ground been contaminated. hiroshima was generally said that a lot of the radiation was in the atmosphere. with that said there had been reports that had been u.s. occupation worse is had robust areas of habitual radiation. perhaps they do not totally understand what they had created that point. sue and another thing that strikes is extraordinary and all of the years since, in the decades since hiroshima was -- knowing his challenges testimony of the ethics. >> that's another thing i was interested in proving when i was doing research is anyone tried to discredit her she or discredit it was really embarrassing. i knew now, even when they did

in cold blood, legions of reporters went and tried to cover it up. they were on the ground fact checking him. but several things first of all occupation for several more years after he was on the ground and to get in and interviewed the protagonists and checks but they were feeling about the accuracy of their stories. but then after occupation liste listed, they were international figures. every year on the anniversary of the bombing, reporters would contact the protagonists and ask them to comment on their stories. none of them come to the best of my knowledge, ever came forward and said that they had been misquoted and that nobody ever seems to -- misquoted or had their stories mischaracterized.

the most of my knowledge no reporters ever seem to find inaccuracies. scenic to be impeccable peace of reporting on incredibly difficult time incredibly resistant circumstances. >> there were a few things started my career as a researcher and a fact checker. i mean they did not have fact checking in a way that we do today. there's going to get in in fact check to verify the reporting he had brought. i mean little things, but for instance the reverend who was one of the protagonists profiled him and his wife and their daughter and they characterized her as an infant son. and really little things like that. otherwise harold ross and

shawn were maniacs granular accuracy. they knew their fight for hours over whether be called a doorway or doorframe. >> something that still goes on. after hiroshima, his career goes on to write many novels after hiroshima, interestingly and social conscience novels. >> very much in the tradition of louis wood being his mentor early on. select absolutely. i feel going to be rediscovered. it is for the sheer content of

his interest alone is very interested in relations. and you know, they're still good reporting even his fictional work. whenever you see john hirschi, the headline of his obituary was john hersey, author of your shema. >> host: we don't have a lot of time. i can go on talking about the subject indefinitely. where the things we're talking about not long ago was he got caught up at the end of his year in a kind of plagiarism. i would not call it a scandal, that i was actually witnessed too. i was already a young editor when that took place. and it was the beginning of a new kind of hyper scrutiny. it was being given to journalism of all kind, very much a part of the moment we

are living in now. you are sanctioning part of the expectations of journalism in hirschi's time was that you had a much broader license collate, to take things are many places without maniacally crediting the sources at every moment. >> guest: when i was looking, even though his notebooks from his interviews and longer exist exists, coincidental and don't exist the don't exist among papers. [inaudible] if they emerge i want to be the first crack at them. they do include many of the reports the scientific reports that he referred to it he was writing here shema. my researchers will look through them. sent c and the report a description which was very close to how it had ended up. a report of the geography that

hiroshima with the rivers,. [inaudible] it was an informational pole. so you imagine this reporter was writing on deadline he has material and he's picking and picking and picking and picking pre-there's a report that he had on the effects of radiation on botanical growth and hiroshima pre-there's one line in this report that not only did the radiation not kilter and stimulated them. it stimulated comic poles that language for his own. >> host: directly from the report he looked at. its accuracy. it's meant to be accurate. you are quoting a source. you have a music source of information. he had additional times and he was on the ground especially talk about medical because he wanted absolute accuracy. the question of whether something like that was plagiarism was being pulled

from an informational report. it is therefore the reference of the public and for experts and for journalists. sue and leslie don't have much time. we now have a radical term from points i guess i would have to say. it's one many people are asking about. how did hirschi feel again, especially we could debate and argue about today. did we do the necessary death the right thing by dropping the bomb? or was it a work crime? an active evil? how did hirschi feel about that after he'd ridden hiroshima, and how do you feel about it having known everything about hiroshima? >> guest: and the immediate aftermath, her she felt, her shema he had complemented feelings about it. and what had it intended for humanity. not the fact that it was again

a total criminal action. i think later on, he thought that the memory of what happened at hiroshima has put caught them from subsequent use. whether or not that's true or not, thinking definitely say it has been lamented. it's actually a controversial that hiroshima did not have to happen to prevent future hiroshima helps. my personal feeling is that i have still found the then government argument about why there's a demonstration bomb and an uninhabited area. i. stu mack that was as you know. that was often hires desire his announced desire after the fact that should've dropped it

or at least on an uninhabited area, shipyard or a purely. [inaudible] >> guest: they had the press junket at the keeper they could've done in an uninhabited area. they said the government that day and retort to her statement that what had they done? what had they assembled news within work should we be discredited and they drop it on the city with the population. sue and i guess, you mentioned this to come it is one of the reasons to be resolutely antiwar as much as we can be. the logic of warfare made it seem if not palatable at least inevitable. we are now the bombing, the firebombing of tokyo as you talked about was actually more

destructive in terms of lives in landlocked lies the actual bombing of hiroshima. people get caught up in the logic and becomes almost impossible conveyor belt. >> i agree. there are ghoulish in different ways. tokyo, i cannot remarry the exact square miles but is in a norm is part of it was 100,000 lives lost. as gruesome as on hiroshima, but again her shema was brought on by one single primitive atomic weapon at the time. and again but that intended for our ability to wipe out, every a compliment, every human life in one fell swoop in the future. that is the thing that nuclear attacks apart from more conventional attacks. sue went we live under that shadow still. and we have lived under it and it seems to recede and then come forward.

and never really disappears. but the story is permanent. it makes me proud just spent my adult life as a new yorker to know that was a key moment in our history. you've written an extraordinary book about it. congratulations is rare you see a book begins a tiny a court of an idea you share of friends as they do think there's anything in that? and then it becomes a major work of reporting on its own prs leslie thank you so much. >> guest: thank you my friend. : : :

the new york times justice reporter adam goldman, "after words" is a weekly interview program with relevant guest hosts, interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. all "after words" programs are also available as podcasts. >> my name is adam goldman i'm a reporter of the new york times. where i worked for about four