Conversation. And the manager programs here at the Brooklyn Historical society we wish you we can welcome you to our physical location we have the privilege of welcome you to our virtual programming and we look forward to have you join us for more in the coming weeks. Before we get to tonights program he went to share what we have coming up and look forward to. And next week we will be hosting the former new York State Attorney general candidate and they will be exploring the connection between big money and its impact on democracy august 11. The following week we will host a conversation discussing and exploration of the recent history of the Republican Party and america modern conservativism. Were also proud to partner on the upcoming series women in power after the 19th amendment kicking off august 18 the 100 anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment. And then we will discuss issues pertaining to bodies of women throughout time. And we will host more virtual programs as they come together. In just a moment we will welcome tonight speakers to the virtual space. A powerful conversation because tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on hiroshima these are events that shaped the 20th century we are also talking about the role of journalism to share stories so we could understand the potential of the atomic warfare and the danger it poses. Reflecting on the passing on those who had the pleasure of hosting a few years ago it is the work of the journalist to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Today and the landscape of fake news and potential danger of propaganda and how it can help us to see the truth is more important. While coming tonight speakers we are honored and glad to have them joining us tonight the author of fallout and awardwinning journalist and New York Times bestselling author in the Hollywood Reporter and many many more and will be joining conversation writing for the new yorker since 1986 during his more than 30 years at the magazine writing hundreds of essays and memoirs along with much reporting from abroad as the conversation unfolds the want to remind you we will be taking questions you can submit them view through the q a box in the subject of tonights discussion we have teamed with our friends at the Community Bookstore if you like to purchase your copy you could do so so without further ado please welcome leslie and adam. Can you hear me. Thank you both for being here with that forward to you being here. Thank you for doing this. Congratulations on this extraordinary book. Its hiroshima that sometimes i mix it up. The editor of the new yorker said the new way i have to pronounce it. It is an extraordinary book. And i started to realize how impossible would have been to get in as an independent reporter. The more i researched the subject we came across macarthur how much he had suppressed the Foreign Press and the magnitude of the coverup previously that never to the extent i felt it should have been and was central to the story. What were they covering up . Interestingly the government and president truman was advertising the bomb being dropped on hiroshima with 20000 tons of tnt, the biggest bond in the history of warfare. The government released pictures of the Mushroom Cloud but what they were quick to pick up line is that weirdly there was no reporting on the human toll. Nobody knew what was happening to the human beings that was at the receiving end. And also to this day. That was the environment so talk about the new yorker in 1945 and where it was. The new yorker was in transition and it had changed in the course of four years from the onset of the war because as we write beautifully it is still essentially a humor and locally reporting magazine but also very much with that imprint and then the war broke out and one editor in particular played a role to make the magazine take on a much more ambitious and magisterial role in its reporting. Absolutely. These were news man disguised in a way and at that point never had aspirations we parallel the news and not report the news. And wants pearl harbor half and that was it. And then he bemoaned one of the coeditors it couldnt be because nothing feels funny anymore. Many other writers were already on hand and found themselves as writers and artists as a local feature writer who went off to report the war in north africa and the normandy invasion and the rest. Theres a whole generation who made that trip today dispatch correspondence all over the world and they had a deep relation with the pr department. And one of the work i once edited was working for curtis throughout the war said he was the linchpin. There is some overlap for those that were in the armed forces also acting for the armed forces and the new yorker brand profile for those commissions from military figures a van Public Relations to keep it cool with the War Department for the most part they were in the mix i love the way when he says he throws them into the field he just knew there would be a scoop. He trusted his writers. Actually he was not born and bred at the new yorker so what made sean trust he could get this story . And then writing for a Time Magazine and they voluptuous leave publicly hated each other and then since 1939 but they were grooming him to be the heir apparent to time inc. He was of that type he was not arafat new york could you. He was also from yale and also hotchkiss if you read the time its a far cry. And someone who cares only about literary style thats a hugely important point. Run with it. He will one hugely significant piece actually he breaks up because lewis is part two chauvinistic for him and he says thanks but no things. Instead of the heir apparent for the empire now he is a freelancer in 1945. But he did manage to do a story that they wanted to bring her cnn and hersey had a story that was rejected they said come this way. And it was the story of jfk in the pacific. So percys wife the former paramore of jfk. This is a significant class of people. They all knew each other and slept with each other. Jfk was on his way back from the pacific. One night he is at a nightclub and runs into hersey and his wife and jfk tells what had happened and percy says i want the story. That is significant because it was in his own way so william sean is excited to have it at last. That story help me kennedys political career. And his Campaign Team also help make john hersey career because it provided a route to the magazine that would make him famous. And they hated the fact it appeared in the new yorker. That was not a big enough magazine. But he even badgers him and where the readers digest. I dont know how kennedy twisted his arm. So just a quick footnote from the new yorker is what appeared in a smaller edition driving in circulation to make that more important for the guys who were coming home buying it in 1946. So percy has a relationship with bates and then what happens . How does he get to japan and break through the walls of the coverup . Never assume. But i did. But because hiroshima does have the story of the feeling of the expose. That he was getting in and getting out so they went to crazy lengths. So he is in new york in august 45 for the bombing and he hears about it and has mixed feelings of hiroshima. Nagasaki he thinks its a criminal action. He knows he will cover it but not exactly how just yet. Then he has lunch with william shah and talk about the coverage so what happened to the human beings from the Mushroom Cloud . Nobody was reporting on that. It is likely that they knew the extent or some of the restrictions on foreign and japanese reporters. Allied former wartime friends and colleagues so they probably knew he would not paddle boat from guam but have to get military clearance. So he starts a major trip starting in china and then apply for clearance and accredited in china and then we establish himself with the military there to get into tokyo. And it works. And there are certain restrictions with that. The reporters have less freedom because everyone expects you to perform to the needs of the military. But at the same time the whole business vietnam they wanted to keep reporters away as far as humanly possible. It was the buddy system and that gave huge advantage because he was with the military during the war. He had written growing profiles. He was a commended war he well. He helped to evacuate wounded marines and covering battle between us and japanese forces. And has written a growing biography of general macarthur. But that definitely helps the cause to come into the country. Even though hiroshima and nagasaki were restricted topics then hersey may have been seen as an oculus. He gets into japan and when he gets to hiroshima finally, tell us how he does that so now he talks to people rather than reporting on events. How did you find the people clack. That was an incredibly important departure. It may seem obvious now to focus on a few individuals but that was pretty revolutionary then especially because he was proposing to humanize the victims and enemy number two because they attacked us directly. So when hersey is admitted to tokyo, he didnt have free reig reign. Not only monitored by staff with the macarthur operation, but at the same time you dont want to read too much into it what you a tour what you thought or how many cigarettes you smoke every day. But they gave him clarence clearance for two weeks with 24 through 36 hours of travel and when he gets there he has the help of the german priest who was living there and returned and spoke english. And one other japanese minister who was educated at emory and spoke english. These two gentlemen that only gave their own testimony but also made enormous introductions for hersey among the last survivors who were returning to rebuild their lives among the ashes. Later hersey didnt remember how many he interviewed probably a couple dozen. And something that preoccupies me and what makes hiroshima the important work is that herseys subject and even as he revealed has the novelistic pattern he was applying to his material. Right. It wasnt enough to show it from the individual point of view and those that are introspective. And that was in the lead up to they were at the moment of detonation so it was like he was leading a neighborhood narrative. And with that profile he was creating empathy. So not all of them can follow the specifics with the all out nuclear war but to relate to the stories of a young clerk or a doctor and getting on the bus to work and then a catastrophe strikes. That the novel gave him the organizing principle for the story how people share a moment of common disaster. That is theoretical. And that china flew. [laughter] the precursor. And he wrote this great novel while recovering and then he began to try. So thats the way i can tell the story of the intersecting lives. Absolutely. It gave it a cohesive structure. He knew he wanted it to be an awful. People have incentive not to leave though on read the work. Graphic that they had the fourth of july attitude. Everybody had every intention to hot potato out of their hands. But if he could make it like a novel then he was the trojan horse reporter and getting it into people. What if anything did the Occupying Force think he would do in hiroshima . They knew he was going down there. There is evidence he had military police that he was out and about and talking to people but by that point they let in other reporters who were not reporting on the aftermath anymore. It was considered an old story. Before admitted they were there to do more fluffy stories. So i get it is coming back and people are coming back. They are thinking it is coming back. Then it wasnt so bad. Host thats a story they imagined. That you and i have both reported and you more ambitiously, but its hard when you are reporting something not to be altered by the people you meet. Do we know his state of mind and his stories which are still hard to read of people losing family and their entire existence of existential believe. Speed it he has been around. He reported in europe and he has seen tokyo. And then looking at an ashtray with a cigarette that. His frame of reference was toughminded but when he got to hiroshima he was toughminded not because he was seeing the devastation and the worst of human nature that because it was a single bomb. Hiroshima was leveled. Not to be graphic in this broadcast but they were flat and graveyards. So when he got there he was so disturbed by what he was findin finding. There was a re growth the floor but it was a naturally stimulated everything about it was horrible the not natural so he would get the reporting done to get the hell out because it so traumatizing. Host and he did. Where did he do his writing . Smartly he decided he would bring it back. Even though it had ended in the states in the fall of 45 japan and america were still officially at war. So he got out and came back to new york. Host this is a detail only writers relish but he had his notebooks from the interview. That was another thing is how did hersey take his notes . And that he had taken notes in the notebooks they do not exist in his file. But also my question is because all of his protagonist when they read the account read the extreme accuracy of his memory to take notes with that in real time. I dont know what happened to the notebook i would give anything to know. But he did take it from point a to point b with enough material to create the accurate account. Host but also before any reporting. No voice recordings or apparatus. And wilkinson taught himself with that idea to do it. So he cuts back to new york cit city. And that what would seem to us given the scale of the ambition in short order. It would be the First Anniversary of the bombing. And he only had eight weeks to turn it over. I think they knew how huge it would be. But hersey said previous books were written that way and he was used to writing under the wartime pressure of a deadline but also the anniversary because he knows what he is writing will embarrass the Us Government and show the truth. So he produces this and then submit it and then sean persuades howard ross to do something that was unparalleled in ambition to make it an entire issue of the new yorker. It was called the unprecedented splurge. I you crazy . Is one year later. There is a sense of normalcy coming back to the magazine there are cartoons. And then they said we have to disrupt the continuity. So it presents with the essential question and with that were time name purpose fearless reporting or does that revert . But the way ross persuaded himself was pressing him to do was not think about the future of the magazine but the past and its dna. Looking at the original statement and prospectus he created in 1924. And one of the sentences he had written it was to have serious purpose despite the frivolity and without fear or favor. So he got inspiration and he says i will give it a great night. But william sean is the driver and champion to run at full length and the single issue. That he lost his form which is the intersection of those stories not just one after another. Exactly and it only works as one long piece. So he is convinced to do it and that is one hell of a gamble that only did a job this on the readers who have no idea its coming and they are in peace time though they are not expecting the wartime atrocities story. They are in a moment of recovery and of normalcy and what einstein would say with that easy pleasure and they were about to be confronted with the past. It is so vital with that division with a robotic journalistic form with paying attention to structure. And his work demonstrates that. Percy had written about the bomb before but its the generalization and the promise of science with this high level of attraction but there is no abstraction and in any way. Again it had a little swagger to it. It was strippeddown. He said there was no outrage it was just laying out the fact that had given and their testimony and to let it unravel in that way that the outrage the more effective it would be. And really it worked because by a diet doing it down that allowed people to put themselves of those in that fair sort of way. The piece comes out and hersey rights it is still astounding considering the quality of the writing and testimony he comes out and what happens . He uses the word explosive. Thats not the word that i used but the sentiment is accurate creating the international furor. Theres nothing on the cover that indicates the content. That was a fascinating decision. New york covers were decided so the covers slated for that issue was a dreamy park landscape and horse black on horseback riding and playing tennis and then new yorker to look at the contents of the magazine so he decided to keep the cover on their as a narrative i couldnt find anything on the record why they decided and then the more gruesome interpretation is it looks a lot like of hiroshima where people are enjoying themselves and then become the refuge for those survivors. Host david made the same decision to take out all of the cartoons the week after 9 11. That was the case where the cover spoke to the event but it comes out. Contraband new yorker. But it is a success commercially but all anybody talks about. Yes one of herseys contemporary reporters who said we guarantee you this is all you will talk about and it is true and it was indicated around the world and then it is read verbatim. I could not get over that. It was read verbatim. For actors read it no music the identities of the actors were not even revealed until after it aired so wouldnt detract. Host so what was it that people learned they could not have imagined before they read it . What its like to be a human being on the receiving end for god sakes a young mother with a young baby in your arms in your house collapses and you dig your way out before firestorm consumes your neighborhood. Not to be too graphic but you learn about what happened. And the point that you make that this was at the end of the most destructive for in Human History with 30 Million People killed and germany and will win still and london. Wasnt just instruction but the idea that on this scale and finale destroying the skin on human flesh putting shadows on walls and transformational destruction that no one had ever imagined and understood. It was truly apocalyptic. As a journalist and editor as quickly to recognize it was of modern times because humanity had finally eviscerated themselves in the most gruesome way possible. If you read it at 15 you remember it at 75. It is completely horrific it is a horrific reminder that happens to individuals and for those who have skin that can be taken off. Host was hersey concerned about fallout one year later or contamination . It is unclear if he was worried about it although other people were. Interestingly after hiroshima happened at the trinity testing site to show how little radiation there was. In fact it was probably far more contaminated a year later because of the point of detonation because the definition one it detonated on the ground and the ground was contaminated it said a lot of the radiation went back into the atmosphere but there have been reports Occupation Forces came in and they tried to look at possible radiation because the fact they didnt totally even understand what they had created at that point. In the decades since nobody has challenged. Thats another thing i was interested in doing research did anybody try to discredit hersey or the testimony . Thats embarrassing for the us even and Truman Capote did in cold blood they tried to cover him in fact check. But first of all six or seven years after he was on the ground it wasnt easy to get in on the ground and check. But then after the occupation lifted, every year on the anniversary of the bombing reporters would contact the protagonist and ask them to comment on their stories. None of them to the best of my knowledge ever came forward and said they were misquoted or had their experiences mixed up. It seems to be the impeccable piece of reporting on incredible circumstances. There were a few things as my career as a researcher and fact checker. It wasnt the way we do today like to go back and verify. But the Little Things went percys main protagonist and should she was characterized as an infant son is that of the infant girl what she took him to task for. But things like that and otherwise harold was a maniac for a granular accuracy and argue for hours if it is a doorway or a doorframe. Host something that still goes on. So after hiroshima, the career goes on but he doesnt write quite anything of this significance or scale again. Now. Ironically he felt he could tell stories more effectively in nonfiction. So he writes many novels after hiroshima and the interesting and social conscience novels. I feel like he will be we discovered if not just for the sheer content alone. And good reporting that went into his fictional work. But you are right. We dont have a lot of time left i could talk about this and definitely not long ago is that and then to be part of this that what i was a witness to. Already a young editor at the magazine when that took place. It was the beginning of a new hyper scrutiny which is part of the moment were living in now. And the was that you had a much broader license to collate with out maniacally crediting the sources at every moment. Even though. If they emerge but they do include many of the reports that he referred to in one of my researchers once in a while they would say that then how it ended up that and then dad geography. It is the informational poll so you imagine this reporter who is a fan there is a report on the effects of radiation on the whole group then you hiroshima and one line says not only did it not kill certain plants but it stimulated them. Thats directly from the report he was looking at. Its meant to be accurate. You are using the source. He pulled an additional translator because he wanted absolute accuracy. If you wonder if it is plagiarism when he pulled from the informational report therefore the reference and for experts and journalist. Host we dont have much time but i want to make a radical turn. So how did he feel this is what we debate today did he do the necessary if not the right thing . Or is it a war crime and how do you feel about it having rich in hiroshima . In the immediate aftermath hersey felt he had complicated feelings. At what he thought it was. But later on the memory of what happened and with those Nuclear Weapons whether that is true or not we can say its been an element. So actually its controversial so then it did help. My personal feelings are that i still have found that he had the announced desire or at least on the uninhabited area or a shipyard or something purely. They had press briefings when they were testing but one of the argument state but then the one that did not work and it is one of the reasons to be resolutely antiwar. The brutality of warfare make it unpalatable or inevitable. Because the firebombing of tokyo was more destructive in land loss and property loss in the actual bombing of hiroshima. People get caught up and it is the conveyor belt. I agree. They are ghoulish in different ways. Why would it be destroyed in one night but but then that was the opportunity to write out every accomplishment with one fell swoop to the future. That is one thing that the nuclear attack. Host we live under that shadow and never really disappears but herseys story is permanent. It makes me proud to have spent my adult life at the new yorker that that is a key moment in our history. Ever in an extraordinary book. Its rare you see a book starting with an idea and then to become a major work of reporting on its own. Thank you my friend. Host thank you all for being with us. A big thanks to the Brooklyn Historical society if only we could be there. Talk again soon. Good evening virtual audience i am pleased to introduce this event with the new book faceles faceless. Joining conversation. Thank you for joining us tonight. Virtual events like tonight