News Release

Truman: Hiroshima a “Military Base”

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The U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. On Aug. 9, it dropped another on Nagasaki and President Harry Truman delivered a radio address in which he falsely claimed: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”
Audio and text are available.

JOHN STEINBACH
Steinbach is able to arrange media interviews with a number of Japanese atomic bomb survivors (Hibakusha) currently visiting Washington, D.C.
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WARD WILSON
Editor of the website Rethinking Nuclear Weapons, Wilson said today: “It’s well known that nuclear weapons won the war against Japan — largely by killing civilians. Nuclear weapons are considered essential, in part, because Hiroshima proves they work. But new historical research shows that the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had apparently little or no impact on the Japanese decision to surrender. The Soviet declaration of war on Aug. 9, 1945, the same day as the bombing of Nagasaki, forced the Japanese to surrender. If nuclear weapons didn’t win the war, the case for keeping nuclear weapons is seriously weakened.”

NORMAN SOLOMON
Solomon is author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” and is featured in the documentary of the same name. He is also executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Note to producers: You may want to use the song “Enola Gay” as a musical lead-in.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167