Ex post facto judgmentalism over Hiroshima

An apparently three-year old (as of 2023) NPR interview with Lesley Blume, author of "Fallout," stimulated this issue in my mind, unless Fresh Air reinterviews her every year (which is possible). I blogged-ahead this 11 3/4 months to post it on the 2024 anniversary of Hiroshima.

(That said, the book itself, per 1- and 2-star reviews, seems to be little more than a rehashing of John Hersey, and her other books look like fluff.)

Per the 2021 interview (bits of which I heard last year), the amount of "you knows" by Blume would be irritating. Also, it seems she is really not THAT insightful about the Manhattan Project. 

But, I digress. Back to the main point.

And, that is that at the time the bomb was dropped, then the second one on Nagasaki (adding it as more than a throw-in, as you shall see), the Manhattan Project scientists, while by this time having a general sense of the dangers of radioactivity, via colleague Marie Curie, what was starting to become known about the so-called "Radium Girls" and more, they had no idea of the exact radiation dangers of a U-235 bomb. And, setting aside its limited natural occurrence due to beta decay, since plutonium is an artificial element, they had even less than no idea about it.

With plutonium even more than U-235, they had no idea of exactly what fissile daughter elements would spill out in what proportions, what exact wavelengths of gamma radiation would occur and what substances in Nagasaki this might irradiate with further fallout, etc.

JSTOR talks about this ignorance:

The tremendous explosive power of the A-bombs was stressed, even celebrated, but officials worked hard to keep people ignorant of the terrible effects of radiation poisoning, effects which seem to have surprised many who worked on the bombs and ordered their use.

There you go.

At the same time, the ignorance wasn't total, as Slate notes; however, it did admit of definite degrees. I quote:

Before the bombs were dropped, most scientists assumed that blast and heat would be the dominant effects. Radiation would be a footnote; anyone who received a lethal dose of radiation would be close enough to the explosion to die from the blast or the heat.

Again, there you go. That's for the more credulous precincts of the left, or on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the more obtuse precincts. That's especially true, since from Lesley Blume through Jeff St. Clair at Counterpunch and on to Gar Alperowitz, Thomas Frank and "Downfall," with a great add-on by Marc Gallicchio at "Undefeated," have your number.