I'm Brooke Ladstone with a podcast extra.

President Obama is in Japan, and he'll visit Hiroshima, the first sitting U.S. president to do so,

to deliver a speech about the U.S. bombing of that city and of Nagasaki.

We immediately remembered two relevant stories we did a few years back that we really liked,

so here they are for your listening

pleasure.

In the late morning of August 9, 1945, U.S. Air Force Major Charles Sweeney flew a B-29 bomber into an

overcast sky above southern Japan. During a break in the cloud cover, he released his payload,

a 10,000-pound atomic bomb codenamed Fat Man, which fell for more than a minute before exploding

over the port city of Nagasaki. Tens of thousands of civilian Japanese died immediately.

The atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be made a signal,

not for the old process of falling apart, but for a new era, an era of ever closer unity and ever closer friendship among peaceful nation.

President Truman spoke at the Navy Day celebration in New York City in October, 1945.

By that time, many thousands more Japanese were dying of a mysterious disease. But journalists were barred

from the affected areas, so few accounts of the suffering would reach readers here at home. In fact,

the very first reporter on the scene, George Weller, wrote a series of articles that were never

published until 2005, when his son found old carbon copies

in his home after he died. I asked author Greg Mitchell about George Weller, who he was,

and how did he manage to get into Nagasaki and get the story? Well, Weller was a celebrated war correspondent

for the old Chicago Daily News. He was in

Tokyo with other reporters who came in in early September, and they were told by General

MacArthur's headquarters not to go anywhere near Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and most of the reporters

...