{"id":176458395,"date":"2015-08-10T02:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T07:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176458395"},"modified":"2015-08-10T02:00:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T07:00:18","slug":"video-how-american-journalists-covered-the-first-use-of-the-atomic-bomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2015\/08\/10\/video-how-american-journalists-covered-the-first-use-of-the-atomic-bomb\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: How American journalists covered the first use of the atomic bomb"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"nsnbc\"
\n<\/a>Sat, Aug 8th, 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How American<\/span><\/h1>\n

journalists covered <\/span><\/h1>\n

the first use of <\/span><\/h1>\n

the atomic bomb<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

Christopher B Daly (TC) :<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seventy years ago this week, the US military revealed the greatest (and best-kept) secret of the Allied effort to win World War II.\u00a0The use of the atomic bomb proved to the world that it was indeed possible to make one. But how had it been possible to keep the secret? And how did US journalists break the news?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

From New York to Oak Ridge<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In April of 1945, General Leslie Groves of the US Army approached the managing editor of The New York Times. Based on the research for my history of journalism,\u00a0Covering America<\/a>, my belief is that this was a critical step in finally informing the public. The general wanted to borrow the Times\u2019 science writer,\u00a0William Laurence<\/a>, for the remainder of the war.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without many more preliminaries, Laurence headed off to his new assignment in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There, Groves pulled back the shroud protecting the nation\u2019s biggest wartime gamble and introduced Laurence to the Manhattan Project.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Army wanted a civilian on board who could help with drafting press releases, writing news stories, and explaining the vast and complex undertaking to the general public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laurence was a good choice. A native of Lithuania, Laurence had immigrated to the United States as a teenager and attended Harvard and Boston University. At the Times, he had pioneered covering science for a general newspaper and had won a\u00a0Pulitzer Prize<\/a>\u00a0in 1936.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once attached to the Manhattan Project, Laurence had virtual carte blanche to travel to the various bomb-making sites around the country, interviewing the top scientists and engineers, and he soon knew more about the project than all but a handful of the thousands of people working on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In July, Laurence went to a site near Alamagordo in the New Mexico desert to witness the first test explosion of an a-bomb, code-named\u00a0Trinity.<\/a>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n