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When it came to its control of media reports on the atomic bombing, the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) was particularly unnerved about the issue of long-term health effects. A series of changes made to the “Key Log,” a document of guidelines for censors that had been created to promote comprehensive adoption of the press code, highlighted that reality.

In November 1945, a reporting session was held for the first general meeting of an academic research council’s special committee for the investigation of A-bomb damages, formed by Japan’s Ministry of Education (present-day Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). At the session, the GHQ revealed it would prohibit publication of scientific findings, given that the Allied Forces deemed such material to be highly classified information about the atomic bombings.

Scientific papers designated as classified

In fact, all medical papers from universities and other research institutions in Japan were designated as classified and their publication prohibited. When looking through the GHQ materials archived in the reference room of materials on constitutional government in Japan’s National Diet Library, however, we found numerous scientific papers that had been designated as classified.

With that, one wonders how many newspaper articles with content about A-bombing effects made it into print.

Our investigative work at the University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange Collection, in which many publications censored during the Allied occupation of Japan are archived, identified 27 such articles carried in the Chugoku Shimbun during the period for which newspaper copies remain (some editions from March 24, 1946 to October 13, 1949, were found to be missing).

Fifteen of the articles were written based on information from major sources such as Masao Tsuzuki, professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Tokyo Imperial University (present-day University of Tokyo), and the Hiroshima Teishin Hospital, now located in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. These sources represent people and organizations that engaged in surveys of the devastation soon after the atomic bombings. The other 12 articles involved reporting on the issue of the U.S. side’s communication of information.

One article that reported on progress made by the special committee for the investigation of A-bomb damages, published one year after the bombing (on August 8, 1946), noted that analysis of the A-bombings’ effects on human health and follow-up of the children of A-bomb survivors represented a future challenge. Another article, published on July 14, 1949, covered congressional testimony made by the director of the division of biology and medicine at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The article reported how the director had explained that no persistent effects from the bombings had been observed, as well as his denial of any long-term effects from exposure to A-bomb radiation. The statements made by the director at that time were incorrect when viewed through the lens of the present-day.

The GHQ strictly controlled the release of information pertaining to health effects in humans, but it did release certain kinds of information. How were those two kinds of information delineated?

While looking into the GHQ materials, we found a document that might serve as an answer to the above question. The document, dated April 10, 1947, was a record of internal discussions about whether or not to permit publication of the book The Bells of Nagasaki, which was ultimately released in January 1949.

The author of the publication was Takashi Nagai, an assistant professor at Nagasaki Medical College (present-day Faculty of Medicine, Nagasaki University) who survived the atomic bombing of that city. In The Bells of Nagasaki, Mr. Nagai described his injuries from the bombing and the relief work in which he engaged at the time. The GHQ document described how the Public Health and Welfare Section (PHW) had responded it did not oppose publication of the book when asked for its opinion by the Economic and Scientific Section (ESS). As reasoning for the opinion, a PHW official indicated that the book’s descriptions represented common-sense knowledge about the physical effects on human health from Nagasaki’s atomic bombing and that such information had repeatedly been reported in newspapers and elsewhere.

The information appears to have no longer been worth the classified designation or its release could have suited the United States’ purposes. It is certain that such criteria were also reflected in the controls placed on the reporting of such information.

Finally published after conclusion of occupation

The details of research papers whose publication had been prohibited by the GHQ finally saw the light of day in Japan in March 1953. The Collection of Reports on the A-bomb Damage (edited by the Japan Science Council committee for publishing A-bomb damage survey reports) was released as a compilation of 130 articles that included detailed data on residual radiation, leukemia, and other such information. That was nearly a year after the occupation of Japan had ended.

(Originally published on September 26, 2023)