Two Sides

Even 50 years later, the effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima were still being felt. Even today they are still being felt. NBC aired this piece five decades after the devastating event because it still carried an impact on the world. As was said in the video, "The effects [of the atomic bomb] are still being felt", "…the damage is immeasurable in some ways". Even after the initial causalities, radiation poisoning causes sickness and genetic effects for long after a nuclear weapon is dropped. Today, the bomb is still present in our thoughts. There is no way that something causing damage of such magnitude could ever leave our minds entirely, and people still struggle with the right/wrong debate of dropping the atomic bomb. Americans are divided on this issue: veterans defend the dropping of the atomic bomb as the only option while others cannot get past the horror of it—how anyone could have lived with themselves after having a hand in the dropping of the bomb. The NBC video is well done because it really points out what causes this divide. When the bomb was dropped, Americans were not told of the destruction it caused Japan—only that the war was finally ending. Looking back on it 50 years later is a very different matter. The NBC broadcast included interviews of survivors in order to make sure the real story of what happened that day in Hiroshima was told. However, it also defends the American people, essentially saying that they were completely ignorant to the extent to which the bomb would violate the ethics of "decent people". President Truman is in effect blamed for the atomic bomb. He is only mentioned in the video when he is relieved by the test atomic bomb detonation going well and when he gives the "go" order for the bombing of Japan. The video describes his reaction as "exaltation". The video clearly shares the bias of many other people, favoring the opinion that dropping the bomb was the wrong decision. But overall, I think the video did a good job of retelling the event with a different tone than it was told with right afterwards, as well as also presenting a defense for the decision of battle-weary America.