Peter Jennings Reporting: Hiroshima–Why the Bomb was Dropped

The August 6, 1045 atomic bombing of Hiroshima signaled the end of World War II and the origins of the Cold War. As the 50th anniversary of the bombings approached, Pete Jennings and ABC News producers David Gelber, Martin Smith, Sherry Jones, and Elizabeth Sams began exploring the inside story of the decision to use the bomb. From diaries, letters and memoirs of decision-makers to Hollywood depictions of events, Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped repeals the profoundly complicated and controversial decision made by President Harry Truman to use atomic bombs in the effort to end the conflict. The debate over whether to use atomic weapons paralleled the ground battles in the Pacific during the summer of 1945, just as the presentation of this program coincided with a controversial exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. These historical arguments, framed in the context of an examination of America’s moral dilemma as the first (and only) nation to use nuclear weapons, are at the heart of this thought-provoking program. For presenting a pointed and accurate account of the decision leading to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Peabody to ABC News for Peter Jennings Reporting: Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped.