Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age

ATOMIC DOCTORS is an important work. It is not casual, easy reading, nor can it be given the subject matter. The author tackles the difficult and complicated history behind the development and use of nuclear weapons including huge personalities with conflicting agendas. One of the themes that jumped out was the management of public relations before and after the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even “facts” can be manipulated to shade the truth and manage the narrative given to the general public. The author uses a great variety of sources, including personal interviews to attempt to balance that narrative of what happened and why.To make matters yet more excruciating to analyze -- his grandfather James F. Nolan MD., unbeknownst to the author until recently, was at the center of it. If you engage with the material and consider its ongoing implications, the reward will be yours. The “reward” however means having to encounter the dilemmas, quandaries, and complexities highlighted in this book. Not only this work however, it will force your consideration of such complexities in your personal life vis-à-vis current events: new technology in all its forms, climate change, beneficial uses of dangerous materials (nuclear and otherwise), mask use in the era of Covid-19, and the mundane everyday choice of your dish soap (petroleum-based or not).Do not speed read this book. To take a clip from page 211, “…pay attention, reason, be patient, read deeply…” This may allow you to gain a new perspective on old events. It did for me.

I don't find this account to be credible because the author claims the U-235 bomb was delivered to Tinian Island on the same U.S.S. Indianapolis that delivered the Plutonium Implosion Device that was dropped secondly on Nagasaki. How could two different designs, using two different types of fuel be perfected at the exact same time and delivered by the same cruiser? (What a risk that would be! The ship may have been sunk on the way).I have read many books on the subject and NO ONE has described WHEN the first bomb (dropped on Hiroshima) was perfected, tested, and delivered to Tinian Island. It seems to be a top secret. You can see the problem. If the first bomb dropped was ready three months earlier and it wasn't used, people would ask why wasn't the war ended sooner. And where was the U-235 bomb tested, Port Chicago?Why would you drop an untested bomb first on Hiroshima, and only AFTER the Plutonium Trinity Test was a success. This account of the delivery of Little Boy lacks credibility, and that aspect of events is not footnoted.