HIROSHIMA: The Decision to Drop the Bomb

It was August 1945, and American Marines were being slaughtered by the thousands as they advanced on the islands surrounding Japan. What the U.S. needed was a secret weapon that would end the war swiftly. Or did it? Investigate the disturbing events that led to the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan alongside leading historians and military experts. Hear why Japan’s ability to fight effectively had largely been eliminated before the bomb was dropped. Examine new evidence that has come to light in the 75 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did President Truman order the attack despite knowing Japan was willing to surrender? Was it political motivation that drove him to defy his closest advisors? Find out for yourself in this powerful documentary program.

The Venona Secrets presents one of the last great, untold stories of World War II and the Cold War. In 1995 the Venona documents secret Soviet cable traffic from the 1940s that the United States intercepted and eventually decrypted finally became available to American historians. Now, after spending more than five years researching all the available evidence, espionage experts Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel reveal the full, shocking story of the days when Soviet spies ran their fingers through America s atomic-age secrets.

Included in The Venona Secrets are the details of the spying activities that reached from Harry Hopkins in Franklin Roosevelt s White House to Alger Hiss in the State Department to Harry Dexter White in the Treasury. More than that, The Venona Secrets exposes: information that links Albert Einstein to Soviet intelligence and conclusive evidence showing that J. Robert Oppenheimer gave Moscow our atomic secrets How Soviet espionage reached its height when the United States and the Soviet Union were supposedly allies in World War II The previously unsuspected vast network of Soviet spies in America How the Venona documents confirm the controversial revelations made in the 1940s by former Soviet agents Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley.

The role of the American Communist Party in supporting and directing Soviet agents How Stalin s paranoia had him target Jews (code-named Rats ) and Trotskyites even after Trotsky s death How the Soviets penetrated America s own intelligence services The Venona Secrets is a masterful compendium of spy versus spy that puts the Venona transcripts in context with secret FBI reports, congressional investigations, and documents recently uncovered in the former Soviet archives. Romerstein and Breindel cast a spotlight on one of the most shadowy episodes in recent American history a past when treason infected Washington and Soviet agents were shielded, either wittingly or unwittingly, by our very own government officials.

The Venona secret US army project of the 1940’s was a monumental achievement in this history of American code breaking and one of the America’s most closely guarded secrets. This book exposes the greatest domestic counter-espionage operation that has ever been launched against the Soviet Union.

Excellent archive of articles, books, and speeches by one of most authoritative experts on Soviet espionage, counter-intelligence and KGB/GRU penetration of American domestic institutions.

 

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3:39 pm on August 5, 2020