2020-08-07 10:45:04

75 Years After Hiroshima/Nagasaki Were Nuclear Bombs Really Needed?



Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Gar Alperovitz about if nuclear weapons are truly necessary.

August 6th marks the 75th anniversary of the first time in human history that a nuclear bomb was dropped onto a major city as an act of war. American students of history are told that the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then 3 days later on Nagasaki, was necessary in order to send a message to Japan and decisively end World War II.

My guest just wrote in an op-ed in the LA Times that, “the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.” 

Read Gar Alperovitz’s op-ed in the LA Times, U.S. leaders knew we didn’t have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway,’ HERE.

Gar Alperovitz, formerly a Fellow of Kings College Cambridge, the Institute of Politics at Harvard, and Lionel Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. He is also currently a Principal of The Democracy Collaborative, an independent research institution in Washington, D.C. 

Rising Up with Sonali is a radio and television show that brings progressive news coverage rooted in gender and racial justice to a wide audience. 

Rising Up With Sonali was built on the foundation of Sonali Kolhatkar's earlier show, Uprising, which became the longest-running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman. 

RUS airs on Free Speech TV every weekday.

Missed an episode?  Check out Rising Up on FSTV VOD anytime or visit the show page for the latest clips.

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Free Speech TV Gar Alperovitz Hiroshima Japan Nagasaki Rising Up with Sonali Sonali Kolhatkar World War II

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