Powerful Legacy

Seventeen seconds after 8:15 on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, a sheet of fire as hot as the sun swept over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Within seconds, four square miles of the city’s center were reduced to a reddish-brown scar.

And so the world was introduced to the power of nuclear weapons.

Three days later, on Aug. 9, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Five days after that, Japan surrendered and World War II was effectively over.

The nuclear age had barely begun.

It was to be an era of military buildup unprecedented in world history. Terms such as Cold War, plutonium half-life, radioactive waste, nuclear power plant, Polaris submarine, Three Mile Island, nuclear holocaust and Chernobyl would become cultural catchwords.

The main legacy of that first blast on that bright August morning nearly 50 years ago was knowledge: Mankind suddenly knew how vulnerable it was to the power of this perniciously harnessed form of nature. And along with that knowledge came fear.

“The Nuclear Legacy: A Film Festival,” which begins Friday in Spokane, is a look at the lasting effects of that first blast. For three consecutive weekends, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, films exploring issues related to nuclear weaponry and nuclear power will be shown on Fridays and Saturdays at Gonzaga University.

Sponsored by the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, the film series studies every aspect of the nuclear movement, from the decision to bomb Japan to the dangers that the nuclear industry still pose to a mostly unsuspecting public.

“I think a lot of people still don’t realize how bad Chernobyl was,” says Rusty Nelson, PAJALS director. “And here we are, the Cold War supposedly over, and we’re still cranking out nuclear weapons.”

Outside of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings - estimated to have killed anywhere from 150,000 to 340,000 people - Chernobyl is considered the world’s worst nuclear-related disaster.

It occurred April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine. The official death toll at the site is listed at 31. But according to a recent report issued by the Ukrainian health minister, the effects of radiation on the nearby city of Kiev have resulted in more than 125,000 additional deaths.

The tragedy of Chernobyl and its aftermath is the focus of Saturday’s program, which features the documentary “Living Under the Cloud: Chernobyl Today.” Also on that program, a 22-minute short titled “Nick Mazzuco: A Nuclear Vet” studies the effects that nuclear testing has had on some 250,000 soldiers who were ordered to witness atomic blasts detonated in the American Southwest in 1955.

Nelson, an avowed pacifist despite being a Vietnam veteran, is not trying to fool anyone: This PAJALS-sponsored film series does not attempt to offer a balanced view. The films are highly critical of government decisions, from the order to bomb Japan to the continuing manufacture of nuclear weapons in an age of ostensible world peace.

“My mother always thought for years that (the Hiroshima bombing) had something to do with her husband coming home safe from World War II,” Nelson says. “And I think we need to realize that that’s not the case, that there were some ulterior motives that had nothing to do with defeating the Japanese. And that all those lives were sacrificed for that.”

The two films that open the series deal with that very subject: the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Hiroshima-Nagasaki 1945” is only a short documentary, but it is no easy 20-minute view. Narrated over black-and-white newsreel footage, it shows scene after scene of the carnage caused by those seminal nuclear explosions. The most tragic scenes involve the survivors, tortured and disfigured by horrible burns; the most haunting depict the shadows of humans, long vaporized, emblazoned by the blasts’ heat onto walls and sidewalks.

As the woman narrator says, “I think: ‘If I am in hell, it is like this.”’

“Summer of the Bomb” is less a documentary than a “dramatized reconstruction” of Harry S Truman’s approval of the two bombings. Based on personal memoirs, diaries and official documents - many of which have been made public only recently - the film makes a compelling case that Japan, facing the imminent prospect of war with Russia, was ready to surrender long before Aug. 6.

It even quotes Gen. Curtis LeMay, later to be George Wallaces’s 1968 presidential running mate, as saying that the A-bomb “had nothing to do with the end of the war.” In LeMay’s view, the war would have been over within two weeks anyway.

So why did Truman give the go-ahead to bomb Hiroshima? According to this movie, it was to send a message of warning to Russia.

Convincing or not, “Summer of the Bomb” and the rest of this series do serve a purpose: They provide an alternate perspective to the more traditional view of the role that nuclear power has played in the past half-century.

That perspective includes the stories of the Hanford Downwinders. It also details the complex web of problems facing those who attempt to transport and store nuclear waste, and questions whether the United States still needs its nuclear arsenal.

Above all else, Nelson says, it’s as important to look back with compassion as it is to look ahead with intelligence.

“On the 50th anniversary,” he says, “I think we most want to focus on reconciliation and healing from the actual use of nuclear weapons.”

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ‘NUCLEAR LEGACY’ FILM SCHEDULE “The Nuclear Legacy: A Film Festival” will begin its three-week run Friday at Gonzaga University. Admission is free, though donations are requested. The schedule is as follows: Friday, 7 p.m., at Jepson Hall - “Hiroshima-Nagasaki 1945” (20 minutes), “Summer of the Bomb” (60 minutes). Saturday, 7 p.m., at Jepson Hall - “Living Under the Cloud: Chernobyl Today” (70 minutes), “Nick Mazzuco: A Nuclear Vet” (22 minutes). July 21, 7 p.m., at Administration 101 - “Dawn” (60 minutes), a documentary look at the development of the atom bomb; “Harvest of Nuclear War” (46 minutes), HiroshimaNagasaki survivors suffering from long-term effects of radiation. July 22, 7 p.m., at Jepson Hall - “Dark Circle” (80 minutes), a documentary look at the selling of the atomic bomb; “Deadly Deception” (30 minutes), the story of GE’s release of hazardous chemicals into the air and water and the Downwinders who suffered from it. July 28, 7 p.m., at Administration 101 - “Bound by the Wind” (40 minutes), the effect of nuclear testing on those who live near U.S. and French sites; “Transportation of Nuclear Materials” (40 minutes), the problems faced in France, Russia and the U.S. July 29, 7 p.m., Administration 101 - “Building Bombs” (54 minutes), the dangers and costs of maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal; “Does the United States Need Nuclear Weapons?” (28 minutes), a look at the need for a nuke-free world.