John Hersey Quotes

“I covered it up, and John Hersey uncovered it,” [McCrary] stated. “That’s the difference between a P.R. man and a reporter.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“But as the document of record – read over years by millions around the world – graphically showing what nuclear warfare truly looks like, and what atomic bombs do to humans, “Hiroshima” has played a major role in preventing nuclear war since the end of World War II. In 1946, Hersey’s story was the first truly effective, internationally heeded warning about the existential threat that nuclear arms posed to civilisation. It has since helped motivate generations of activists and leaders to prevent nuclear war, which would likely end the brief human experiment on earth. We know what atomic apocalypse would look like because John Hersey showed us. Since the release of “Hiroshima,” no leader or party could threaten nuclear action without an absolute knowledge of the horrific results of such an attack.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“Upon hearing the news about Hiroshima, Hersey was immediately overwhelmed by a sense of despair.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“…Hiroshima terrified Hersey from the moment he arrived; the fact that a single bomb had caused this destruction would torment him throughout the duration of his assignment.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“Journalism allows its readers to witness history,” [Hersey] later said”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“Every American who has permitted himself to make jokes about atom bombs, or who has come to regard them as just one sensational phenomenon that can now be accepted as part of civilization, like the airplane and the gasoline engine… ought to read Mr. Hersey,” the editorial read.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“The disasters at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were our handiwork,” the Times editorial stated. “They were defended then, and are defended now, by the argument that they saved more lives than they took – more lives of Japanese as well as more lives of Americans. The argument may be sound or it may be unsound. One may think it sound when he recalls Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa. One may think it unsound when he reads Mr. Hersey.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

“I think that what has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been a deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory,” [Hersey] said in 1986, in a rare interview. “The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World