August 6, 1945 in hiroshima. This Program Includes scenes of atomic bomb victims that some viewers may find disturbing. It was the sixth of august. Which have been known before throughout the district was the two for the time being. It was an unusually calm and clear morning. A few minutes after 8 00, two super fortresses in formation appeared over the city. Then a bomb came down from one of the giant bombers. There was a blinding flash then a deafening explosion. In an instant, hiroshima was a scene of unprecedented chaos. Hiroshima was instantly transfigured. There was nothing left but ruins. Nothing standing to hinder a full view of the city. Greg in the first days after the atomic bombing of your shema and then hiroshima and then nagasaki three days later, 75 years ago now, the leading japanese news reel team sent one or more cameramen to the two cities. And they shot footage of the aftermath. Just buildings, but survivors and victims told the whole story. This footage was shipped back to tokyo where it was soon suppressed by the American Occupation when they arrived in the early september. The news reel then tried again, and they sent several people, to hiroshima and nakasaki. And again, they shot footage, extensive footage of the next month. And then when the americans arrived in nagasaki, again, the footage was seized. And the japanese however since , they had been there before the americans, and had totally historic footage, that showed medical effects as well as physical effects, the americans then ordered them to continue their work but under american supervision. And so the japanese went back to work. They shot more footage. They were then ordered to edit and narrate a documentary, which they did, two hours and 40 minutes. But again, under american supervision. They finished this documentary, and then it was seized by the American Military, and basically American Military, and basically suppressed for decades, really until late 1960s. The americans meanwhile, we can get into that, began shooting color footage of the aftermath. And that footage too was suppressed for decades. It is really a story in my book, and my film, and in my current book, ill talk about how this footage brought black and white and color for both japanese and americans and was totally suppressed for decades as a way to control what americans were allowed to see about the aftermath of the atomic bombings. As we drew close to the epicenter we found that because , the blast came from overhead, such perpendicular objects like the torii gateway which is not a , strong object, remained erect on the ground. This building was built 300 meters from the epicenter. Why did the japanese make these films that are so scientific and carefully constructed . Greg well when they first , arrived, they of course they , did not know what they were going to find. It was shocking just to be there. And of course they were the victims. We can talk about them being the perpetrators of the war, but in terms of the atomic bomb, they were victims. Up to 200,000 died. 90 were civilians. And even the survivors suffered horribly from these unique burns and radiation effects. They were shooting in the hospitals, makeshift hospitals, shacks, documenting the aftermath where people were you know, they were suffering from a new disease. You could say it was incredibly important just from a medical standpoint because they were documenting the emergence of a new disease in the world. Radiation sickness caused by an atomic bomb. A brother and sister who were upstairs in their house two kilometers southwest of the epicenter. It was reported after a week, they begin to develop symptoms of the depredation, anorexia and fever. Mother and daughter shown here, were both inside their house two kilometers southwest of the epicenter. The daughter was injured when an ice box fell on top of her. The mother had no visible injuries and was nursing her daughter outside of the city when a month later she became , seriously ill. Greg and so thats why they were intent on capturing that and they did. But also it was important for the u. S. To then hide that footage because they did not want americans to see the effects. They wanted the americans to turn the page. The war was over, and they did not really want to see what happened to thpeople, the civilians, and they were almost all women and children, elderly men. I think we still wanted people to believe we had bombed military facilities and killed soldiers and so forth, but it just was not the case. And they, i mean the japanese , did, for prosperity and for the occupiers, the american luke perry, they tried to do an honest job they had American Military, they tried to do an honest job with the footage they had. A few days after the tragedy they visited hiroshima. The date the ninth of august, 1945. Today was calm, bright and windless. Thet summer sun shone upon city. Since the Early Morning the air alarm was on. Then it was lifted, but for 2. 5 hours the alarm continue to prevail. Then exactly at 11 00, two super fortresses appeared over the city from the northeasterly direction, flying at a high altitude. The first plane dropped three objects attached to parachutes. At 11 02 the second plane , dropped an object. Its dissent taking about 40 seconds. Then came a blinding flash. Followed by an explosion and a blaze. The destruction was the greatest by man. Ked wrought all buildings stay those of reinforced concrete were demolished. The whole of this neighborhood with wooden houses and small factories, now it has flattened out. Only pebbles and broken tiles remain. Greg they were directed to make this documentary, focusing on mainly on the physical effects, the effects on plants, the effects on other things in the Natural World with some focus on injuries to people. Its mainly not showing the survivors. Its mainly showing a wide range. I think youre scrolling through here a good variety of what was shown. Shadow effects of course are quite dramatic. How the flash of the bomb through up permanent shadows on the buildings, sidewalks and so forth. The footage shows scientists japanese scientists studied nying this making measurements , and calculating the direction of the bomb and so on. Its quite an amazing document. And people can view it at the National Archives or even online. It is available, but nobody in america saw it until around 1970. My film, that will eventually be coming out, we did the first 4k modern transfers so the quality is better. If people want to know more about your film, thats not released yet but will be soon, tell us what they can do. Greg well, they can go to my blog, pressing issues, where i have put up four brief clips from the film. The film is about 50 minutes long. These clips are short, but they do include footage of the blackandwhite footage, and the color footage, and a little bit about whats being shown. It is a very good it gives you a very good idea of what my film is about and what the footage is about and why its important. There is really quite a dramatic story about this whole project. The americans after the japanese , completed this two hour, 40 minutes documentary, the American Military suddenly arrived and seized not just the original print, but every scrap of outtake, everything that was not used, hours of footage. That footage was never surfaced. It is known as the phantom film in japan. Because even though this twohour and 40 minute documentary did emerge eventually from the shadows, all the outtakes, all the visual scraps and leftover material has never surfaced. It is either still buried, or it was destroyed by the americans. Thats the phantom film, but what happened was when the japanese newsreel team found out they were about to be raided by the americans, they did spirit out one, i guess the original print, and had a copy made at risk, great risk of imprisonment by the americans. They had one copy made and then they came back and hid that copy an editinging of fleet where it remained for 20 years. Everything was shipped back to the u. S. The japanese kept it in the ceiling. And then after several years, they brought it out. The first even small bits of it that anyone saw in the west was sort of smuggled out to rene for his feature, i miss feature hiroshima which as you know, is , not a documentary, its a drama set in hiroshima. But he used small bits of it in a foreignmon amour, film. That is how the west saw even tiny bits of it. But a larger part of it was never seen, until we can talk about this if you want. It was aired on pbs just after 1970. Tell us about this film. Out in theeric found late 1960s. He was at columbia at the time and already a famous writer on documentary films. He found out that this footage had been quietly declassified at the National Archives. And so he then made a 15minute rather artful, understated documentary, which we are looking at right now, called hiroshima, nagasaki, 1945. And managed to get Public Television to air it around another august 6 anniversary. This caused great controversy at the time. Some people thought this was not a proper idea id. At least one station refused to run it. And when it was aired, there was a panel that came on after to discuss it, i guess to give it more of a context rather than let it speak for itself. He basically to the two hours and 40 minutes, took 15 minutes of highlights with the narration, and it did cause quite a stir. And it was available for many years as a vhs tape. In hiroshima on that day, half the doctors were killed. At the hospitals, between 3000 and 10,000 people came each day for help. And each day, 2000 of them died. They were buried together because there were too many to bury separately. Greg it was a historic moment. Now this was in, like i said, 1970, 1971. The color footage, shot by the americans at that point, was still unknown, and no one had ever seen. We are seeing the first bits of it here. Actually that card there, it is a very interesting story. If you want to hold that cameraman harry nomura. Its not a name Many Americans know, but he was a wellknown japanese cinematographer who was born in japan, actually went to hollywood, worked on mainstream hollywood movies in the 1930s. Went back to japan, and actually in 1942 was the cinematographer sawas veryuro movie. First thats how prominent he was. He was then enlisted by the americans to shoot most of their footage. And so that is again the level of quality that went into this. And harry nomura then shot much of this footage, which is what you will see now. The scene is nurses marching into the Red Cross Hospital in hiroshima, which was badly damaged. And they were, this footage was shot in the fall or winter following the atomic bombing. Where was this color footage . Its marked at the National Archives as United States air force, but when did people first learn about this . Greg well, i guess it is kind of a long story, but one of the handful of men who took part in this project was a man named Herbert Sussman. He got out of the military and went on to be one of the pioneering network tv producers and directors. He was haunted by what he had seen there. He tried for years to get permission to get access to this footage, which was kept on the basically the military archives for so long. It was never allowed. Then in the late 1970s he happened to attend a u. N. Exhibit of the photos from hiroshima and saw an image, basically a still from this footage. And he told the organizer, i shot that, or you know, my team shot that footage. He said what are you talking about . He said, this is footage i shot back in 1945, 1946. And that led to the japanese to then investigate. They found that the color footage had all been declassified at the National Archives two years earlier, but no one knew about it. It was just as if it had not been declassified. So the japanese then launched a Mass Movement called the 10 foot campaign. You would donate a certain amount of money, and you could the 90,000 feet of footage. They ended up getting all the relative footage back in japan and started films in the early 1980s. The first time i was exposed to this was in new york in 1982 when that first japanese documentary was shown. And Herbert Sussman spoke before it. I then became good friends with herbert. I edited at a magazine called nuclear times. The first article ever about this suppressed footage. And then it became a mini sensation. Documentary filmmakers then started to use it. Everyone knew about it. Thanks to herbert and the japanese, the footage finally emerged after 35 years. How have you seen the japanese documentaries using this footage greg yes, i have. How would you compare it to american works . Greg they did a very interesting thing . From the very start. This was a big, new project in the news in japan, as you can imagine. It was covered as this incredible finding. And so the press covered this. And they located some of the people who were shown in this footage. In couple in fact a couple of them i met myself later in japan. They track down some of the people shown in the original footage, then they would show the original footage and talk to the person in about how they know,elt about it, or you the story behind it. So thats pretty much how they handled it. They definitely did kind of a before and after treatment in most cases. Do you know if president truman or other policy leaders ever saw these films . Greg i dont really. You know, they were classified, top secret at the start, and then they kind of remained. They got shuffled through military, you know, repositories. But i as far as i know, no top , person had that. There was a screening of the japanese black and white footage, which i document in the book. Where more of the top grass that grass was shown. Ok, here is what we have. Out of that came, ok, you have to keep the secret. And so, that just injured. Endured. Unless someone takes a step into declassified and releases it to the media, nobody knows about it. Thats what happened in this case. Do you think that americans in 2020 should watch these films . Greg well obviously i do. I just made a film based on them. Why . Greg you know. Thew, you are selections you are showing they are representative in some ways. The footage could be edited into a long feature, with subtlety, not necessarily focusing on the most graphic images. I mean, these images are pretty hard to take. I understand that. I wouldnt expect i would not make it feel more people have to sit there for an hour watching this. You can put it in context, you can show, you know the stories , of the filmmakers, which is basically what my film was about. Really about the japanese and american filmmakers, their stories. The whole film is told first person. The japanese filmmakers, cameramen talk about what they saw, how they experienced it and the american filmmakers. Its the entire point of view of the filmmakers. As you know, half of the american soldiers or officers. It is not very sympathetic to the American Military in trying to shoot this footage and the people who did it. But ultimately the same military and government hid the footage. So its kind of a story of these elite filmmakers versus the government, and versus the publics right to know. Should have the public been allowed to see the footage from the start . Would it have made a difference . My latest book is about how mgm made a film that was revised and sabotaged by the white house and the military in the same, very same year they were suppressing this footage. So it was part of an overall drive by those in authority to manage what i call the hiroshima narrative, to get keep the story focused on the use of the bomb that was allegedly the only thing that could end the war and saved a american lives and so million forth. It was important to keep that not interrupted by images and stories that might make people have second thoughts about that. So thats all part of this postwar routine. Your new book the beginning or the end how hollywood and america learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb, what is that film about what is that about basically . Greg immediately very shortly after the bombing, a group of atomic scientists within the Manhattan Project approached mgm, a giant studio and said we really want to do , this through the actors without a read, which is kind of interesting. To make a film that would warn the world about the dangers of continuing down this path, to make more powerful weapons, more weapons, Nuclear Arms Race with the soviets, hydrogen bomb, and so forth, everything that did follow. Could they make a big drama, and the head of mgm said yes. It would be the most important movie ever made. They immediately embarked on this. The first scripts were, you know very balanced. , they showed effects in hiroshima on the ground. They raised some questions about the use of the bomb. They certainly raised questions about the creation of the bombs and bigger bombs. And then mgm allowed both general gross, who was head of the Manhattan Project, and the white house, and president truman himself to intervene and have script approval. So the book charts how over the following year, both the military and president truman intervened in an unprecedented fashion to revise the script, cut out things they did not like at all, such as the bombing of nagasaki, which somehow was eliminated entirely and does not turn up even once in the film. And basically shape a movie that was probomb propaganda came out in early 1947. Again, in the very same month this documentary footage that we have been talking about was suppressed. So that film then eventually came out, and hollywood has only made two movies about the bomb, about the creation and use of the bomb since. So its kind of remarkable when you think about it. Three films, three movies in 75 years. But the book goes back to the origin of that and how this first film was totally turned in a different direction. The whole thing is terrifying. You must have spent many sleepless nights over it. I have consulted with mr. Churchill. With all my top military and naval advisors. I talked with the civilian heads of our war effort and all these , advisers tell me the bomb will shorten the war by at least a year. Where are we going to use it . That is another question i had to think about. The army has selected several japanese cities as prime military targets. So 25 years ago, you coauthored this book with robert j. Lifton hiroshima in america 50 years of denial. 75 years after the