Conversation by adam gopnik. My name is bo mendez, manager of program progressive communications. Brooklyn Historical Society. While we walk in the tort physical location i am still honored and have opposed to welcome you all to our virtual programs. We look forward to hopefully having you join us for more in the coming weeks. Before we get to the subject of two Nights Program i want to share a little bit about some things we have coming up, things to look forward to more virtual programs. We will be hosting next week will be hosting former new York State Attorney general kenneth philby shared her new book in the conversation with they will explore the connection between big money and impact on our democracy. That would be on august 11. Following week will be hosting Rick Perlstein in a conversation with Jeffrey Toobin discussing his new book which continues in the expiration we been doing with the recent history of the Republican Party in modern american conservatism. That will be august 19. 19th. We are also proud to partner with the ms. Foundation on an upcoming series entitled women in power, or just after the 19th amendment which will be kicking off on august 18, the 100 Year Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, with the discussion of body power. They will discuss issues pertaining the bodies of women throughout time and have continued to be spiked with contention and often oppression. We look forward to hosting many more virtual programs as they come together to learn more about the offerings will do for you on your website, brooklyn history. Org. In just a moment i will be welcoming to nights speakers to the virtual space. This is a powerful conversation we are looking for to tonight where tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on hiroshima, and tonight is the 75th anniversary of [inaudible] these are events that shaped much of the 20th century, and while 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 post. Reflecting today on the recent passing of legendary journalist pete hamill we also had pleasure posting a few years ago i want to share a quart of his that is the work of a journalist to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. So today in our landscape of fake news, such a narrative of potential danger of misinformation and propaganda and how journalism can help us cut see the truth, its something that is all the more important. Without further ado i would like to welcome to nights speakers. We are very honored and glad to have them joining us tonight. Tonight we will be joined by lesley blume who of course is the author of fallout, she is an Award Winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author her work is been vanity fair, the New York Times, the wall street journal, wall street journal magazine, the los angeles review of books, paris review daily, both, the New York Times style magazine, the hollywood reporter, slate and many, many more. She will be joined in conversation by adam gopnik was been writing for the new yorker since 1986, during his more than 30 years of the magazine he has written hundreds of essays from personal memoirs to reduce and profiles along with much reporting from abroad along with section, schumer and art criticism. As the conversation unfolds i want to remind you that we will be taking questions if you have any questions you can submit them via the q a box at the bottom of your screen and begin the subject of tonight discussion is of course the book fallout. We have teams with the friends at Community Bookstore baster in brooklyn if you 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 adieu please welcome lesley and add in. Can you hear me . Loud and clear. Thank you both for being here. Looking forward to this conversation, and thank you all for participating. Thank you for hosting. Adam, thank you for doing this. Delighted to do it. First of all congratulations on this extraordinary book. I will hold up the hardcover. This is my second born. The hiroshima cover. By the way is it hiroshima or hiroshima . I mix them up and it should because it should be hiroshima but if i lapse, please forgive me. Theres a a lovely small mot in the book were the editor of the new yorker said that only in my publishing i have learned a new way to pronounce it. It should be pronounced hiroshima, not hiroshima. Its an extra ordinary book. Its about both catastrophic event but even more and more portly about the coverage of that event and how it was turned into words. You call it hiroshima cover up. I have as you know lesley a very particular and im afraid very parochial interest in this but because its very much about the history of the new yorker and evolution of the developer of the new yorker that before we get to the new yorker and the internal dynamics of the new yorker shake this book in many ways, what do you mean by the coverup . What was the state of play when john hirschi went off to japan to do the reporting that produced is legendary piece, hiroshima which filled an entire issue of the new yorker, the first time that had ever happened, a year after the bombing. The audience should know you are a sounding board for me since the beginning. When i first are researching this project i didnt realize the extent to which the coverup we even play a role in this narrative at all. I just would want to to know the back story. The story of hirschi has was been about outside success. Nobody ever look at how they got the story the first place. I started my career in nightline news and where you learn how the story comes out entirely to logistics and whoever controls the ground controls the story. I wanted to look at how they got in. When i started looking at how much General Macarthur and his occupation force had total domination of japan at the time i start to realize how impossible it wouldve been for hirschi to get in as independent reporter as opposed the more i researched, i started come across historical accounts of macarthur, administration, how much he crush the Foreign Press and the Japanese Press in particular. The magnitude of the coverup. It is been addressed previously but never to extent i felt it should of been and into being extremely central story. What with the covering up in a sentence or two . Interestingly, the government and president rivlin seem to be advertising the bomb that they drop maggot experiment a weapon on hiroshima. It was 20,000 tons of tnt. It was a big bomb that it ever been used in history of warfare. The government released pictures of the mushroom cloud. They released pictures of the devastation but there was weirdly no reporting on the human toll. Noting no is happening, human beings have been among the humans in his at the receiving end of this bomb. Lets move then, that was the environment in which her she began reporting this piece. Lets talk about the new yorker in 1945. Please. And where it was. As we discussed many times, the new yorker was in transition at that moment when hersey begin reporting for this. It had changed in the course of four years from 1941 from the onset of the war to pearl harbor until the end of the war. More dramatically than press ever changed in it now 90 history because, as you write in the book beautifully it then essentially not entirely but essentially an schumer and local reporting magazine noted for its fiction, noted for its elegant and stylish reporting but pretty much in the initial imprint of how it brought inspiration. Then the war broke out, and when editor in particular i think played an outsized role in making the magazine take on a much more ambitious and almost at registrable in its reporting, and that was william cheung. Absolutely. They both were newsmen in disguise in a way. The magazine have been started 20 years earlier, as a human magazine. Harold ross never at that point had any aspirations for it to be big news operation. He had been a news man before that and as you say when pearl harbor happened, that was it. The magazine went to wartime printing right away. Harold ross wrote to one of his coeditors, quote nothing feels funny anymore. And many of the writers were already on hand went off to work and really outdid themselves as writers anarchists. I think about a. J. A bubble who is a local feature writer who then went off and became, went off to report the war and north africa, eventually the normandy invasion and the rest of it and was whole generation who made that trip. They dispatch correspondence all over the world, in many theaters of war and they had a pretty deep relationship with the War Department and their Public Relations operations. [inaudible] whose work i once edited was working for curtis lemay npr throughout the whole or so he was the linchpin of the new yorkers operation. Was a lot of overlap like that, a lot of, not a lot but a handful of the correspondence anarchists were in the armed forces also acting for the armed forces. The new yorker ran a ton of profiles on military, sometimes the editors even commissioned stories from military figures, something even Public Relations man just to keep things cozy with the War Department. For the most part they were serious. They were in the mix. Very much so. William shawn is quoteunquote the hunch meant what he would send one of this corresponds into the field and he didnt know what the scoop is going to be. He just knew there would be one. He trusted his writers. He believed in his writers here so why john hersey . Hersey was actually not read, born and bred as a new yorker. He came from what made hersey, what made shawn trust that hersey could get this story . Hersey couldnt have been less of a new yorker. Hes writing for time magazine. They hated each other. Hersey reported for the times in 1939, and they were grooming him to be heir apparent to time inc. Not to enroll, its very timing by sq to say now, he was of that type turkey was not a fat new york jew. He wasnt elegant figure. And he was also, you know, from yale school. And also when you read this, the time and the way, the dispatches hersey wrote, they were a far cry from what he was writing for the new yorker later on. And he says thanks but no thanks and hes the heir apparent to this burgeoning media empire. Hes a freelancer in 1945 but in 1944 he had managed somehow a story that william sean at the new yorker had released and percy had a story that rice had rejected and he brought it to sean and sean said come this way and it was the story of john f. Kennedy in the pacific. Pt 109. So percys wife had been her former paramore of jfk. This is a significant class of people. They all knew eachother. And so percys on his way back from the pacific. Im sorry, erase that. Jfk was on his way backfrom the pacific. Hes in new york and one night hes at a nightclub , he runs into percy and his wife and jfk is telling her she the story of what had happened. That jfk had had this pt boat whichwas swiped in half by a japanese destroyer. And percy is like i want that story. He always said it was significant not just because he was Joseph Kennedys son but it was a great story in its own right so he brings it to the new yorker and william sean is excited to have it at last. In many ways that story else make kennedys political career and that got trotted out by just kennedy and kennedys Campaign Team for every Political Campaign he has it also helps make her shes career because it provided this inroad to the magazine because he knew he was going nowhere fast. You mentioned that old joe kennedy hated the fact it appeared in the new yorker. I was not a big enough magazine. Life would have been great but the new yorker was just a little piece of the pie for him. He even badgered Harold Ralston and having it syndicated in Readers Digest which was another magazine that harold despised. And i dont know how kennedy twisted his arm but he did syndicate in Readers Digest so kennedy got his mass publication of that story after all for his son. If you click footnotes another thing about the new yorker in those war years is what was the socalled phony edition which appeared in a smaller addition which was available to servicemen. It was key in driving up its circulation and making it more important for the guys coming home who would buy it in 1946. Hershey has this relationship with sean on the pt 109 piece and then what happens . How does it get to japan and how does he break through the walls of the coverup . Like i said, one should never assume. Its the first lesson of not just journalism but life. Is a line in a burn movie too. She said never assume. I was initially a very bad journalist. I cant find myself publicly for that right now but because hiroshima does have this story it has all the feeling of anexpose. I assumed that it was in getting in and getting out somehow because of the reporters had made a run of the story that way and it went through crazy length. So hershey is in new york in august 1945 when the bomb explodes and hehears about it. He has mixed feelings about hiroshima, mostly horrified. He thinks its criminal action and he knows hes going to not just yet and he has onewith wallace shawn. And what happened to the human beings under that class. Nobody was reporting on that. Its likely that they knew the extent or some of the extent of the restrictions that were being placed on both foreign and japanese reporters by mccarthysforces. The Journalism Community was closely related back then and a lot of her shes friends were part of the occupation force though they probably knew that the only way in was the paddle boat from juan into japan. He was going to have to get military clearance to get in so he starts his, major reporting trip that starts in china which is the country he was born in and applied for clearance. It is going to be accredited in china and establishing himself with themilitary there. Apply for clearance to get into tokyo and it works. He gets cleared. What was interesting to me reading your wonderful book is the reporters in this period in a certain sense less freedom because everyone expects you to conform to the needs of the military. Theres a kind of patriotic reflex but at the same time more because the whole business of postvietnam of the military wanting to keep reporters as far away as humanly possible wasnt in place yet. Expected to be traveling. It was a buddy system throughout the war and they have this huge advantage when they came to get in because hershey has been quite a buddy to the military during the war. He had written blowing profiles and of military figures includingjfk. He was a commended war hero. He helped evacuate wounded marines in the Solomon Islands while he was covering a story, covering a battle betweenus and japanese forces. Most significantly he had written a glowing biography of general unless macarthur which he later bought was so laudatory he wanted to take it out of circulation but that definitely helps the cause when youre applying to General Macarthur to come to the country. So even though oshima on nagasaki were restricted topics and they were really vetting journalists comingand going into japan , percy may have seen or been seen as a relatively innocuous. Reliable man. Exactly, a company man. So then he gets to china, he gets tojapan and when he gets to hiroshima finally , you can tell us how he does that. The extraordinary step forward is he talks to people rather than reporting on events. How does he begin to find the people who will form the spine of the greatpc rights . That was an incredibly important departure and it might seem obvious now to just focus on a few individuals to bring out the Human Element of the story but it was revolutionary then and especially because the what hes proposing to do is to the humanized japanese victims and japanese enemy number twobecause they attacked us directly. So when hershey eventually is admitted to tokyo and by the way he did not have free reign just because hes a company man. Hes not only being monitored by staff which is macarthurs operation there, but the fbi so hes on the ground and they notify fbi dc. Theyre surveying but at the same time you dont want to read too much into it. They know what you thought, how many cigarettes you smoke every day but they gave hershey clearance to go to your oshima for 2 weeks which might sound substantial but includes 24 to 36 hours of travel to get there in that time. And when he gets there, he has the help of the german priest who had been living there and had returned and spoke english and through the german priests, and one other japanese minister who had been educated at Emory University and therefore spoke english these two gentlemen not only gave hershey their own testimony but they also made introductions for hershey among the survivors who had been returning to hiroshima to try to rebuild their lives among the actresses and ultimately later on hershey didnt remember exactly how many hehad interviewed. Will just say several dozen. He would saysix. Coming back to something that preoccupied me i dont thinkfrivolously , one of the things that makes your oshima such an important work of journalism and literature is that hershey saw his subjects and he even as you reveal at a very specific novelistic pattern and template that he was applying to secure. It wasnt just enough that he was going to show the events from the individual point of view. He decided he was going to, these individuals whose lives intersected. And also their lives in the moments leading up to where they were at that exact, at the moment of detonation and how their paths crossed in the hours and the days of the aftermath, sometimes in pretty shocking ways. And so it was basically he was leading a neighborhood narrative in a way and be