Talk:William L. Laurence

Laurence correctly denied fallout at Hiroshima after Burchett quoted a lie from Dr. Harold Jacobsen that people were dying from fallout radiation which would make Hiroshima uninhabitible for 75 years and that everyone living in the city after the bomb was doomed

"Hiroshima is contaminated with radiation. It will be barren of life and nothing will grow for 75 years. Hiroshima will be barren of human and animal life for 75 years. Any scientists who go there to survey the damage will be committing suicide." - false claim made by Dr. Harold Jacobsen (a Manhattan Project health physicist who knew nothing about the fallout particle size distribution in the air burst over Hiroshima), published in the Washington Post on August 8, 1945. Both Groves and Laurence were attacking this lie that caused panic in the survivors [[1]]. Most of the casualties in both cities were due to blast and thermal radiation, with infected wounds made worse by the synergism of initial radiation exposure (which lowers the white blood cell count). There was no local fallout because the fireball did not touch the ground. The neutron induced activity in Hiroshima was (as intended) too low even at ground zero to cause radiation sickness, owing to the height of the detonation. The "black rain" in Hiroshima originated from the firestorm which began 30 minutes after the explosion, by which time the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown many miles downwind by the wind. The actual radioactive fallout around Hiroshima was not lethal and was due not to the firestorm "black rain" or fallout but to the "cloud seeding" rainout effect from hydroscopic salt crystals in sea level coastal air being entrained unto the mushroom cloud by the afterwinds [[2]]. Groves and Laurence were quite correct to debunk the false claims about radiation that were causing panic. The recent "controversy" is contrived propaganda by people who have no idea of the situation in 1945. 82.21.58.162 (talk) 20:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The "Burchett" in the heading is Wilfred Burchett. The Goodmans' failure to acknowledge his political leaning and history while using him as a major source speaks for itself regarding their agenda.--Reedmalloy (talk) 07:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Should mention controversy

There has recently been some controversy over Laurence's role in reporting the aftermath of the atomic bombing. There is a claim that he won the Pulitzer for essentially spreading false US propaganda, for which some believe he should be stripped of the prize.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-20.htm

• I saw this when I first made the page, and it seemed to me then that the only people who cared about this were the Goodmans, and that they had basically written up one press release that was re-printed on similar-minded sites, but that besides this there was no "controversy". If any discussion of this has taken place in a major mainstream news outlet, then I think it should be included, but otherwise I am dubious. --Fastfission 00:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• On a factual note: It is also worth noting that knowledge about radioactivity and the effects of the atomic bombs was almost nil at the time. When the military men dismissed the reports of radiation sickness as propaganda, they were doing so out of ignorance. There is lots of documentary evidence to suggest that not even the physicists working on the bomb project thought lingering radiation would be a major by-product, and their experience with the Trinity test had not shown anything to the contrary (there was almost no debris in the Trinity test, and so would be very little fallout). It was not until after the Nagasaki blast that Groves even assembled a team to look into these reports seriously, and not until the occupation began that they were able to confirm them with their own scientists. I think the Goodmans are essentially mistaken in their historical understanding of this, which is probably why their "call" has not been taken very seriously. The U.S. government and military was not going to report things that their scientists told them were false. If anyone is to be blamed for a "cover up" it is Robert Oppenheimer, but it is more likely that he was simply wrong about it. --Fastfission 17:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• It has been getting some mainstream media attention more recently, such as in NPR's On The Media (http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/08/10/02). I came to the wiki entry specifically to get wiki's take on the topic. So at some point soon this probably merits coverage. Also the Goodmans didn't just write a press release, the wrote a book (The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them). --Psm 23:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• It has also been mentioned in Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell. 68.229.46.160 (talk) 23:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

the current presentation of this is rather one-sided, containing only attacks on him. (But I am not convinced by the argument that the dangers of radioactivity were unknown in 1945. I;d like some references) DGG ( talk ) 10:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• William L. Laurence was on the payroll of the US War Department at the time he wrote this article. That's all we need to know: It is evident that he is not a journalist . Laurence is a shill. His September 12, 1945 NYT article states very clearly that there was no radioactivity whatsoever in those cities. And then Laurence even takes it a step further stating that it’s only “the Japanese continuing their propaganda . . . ” That doesn't sound like a science writer, but someone in lip-sync with US propaganda, reporting Government talking points rather than cold-hard, dispassionate analysis and reasoning. He was the chief science writer for the NYT. And to illusrate that Laurence purposely passed on (and flaunted) unadulterated US propaganda, here's a cut from the Wikipedia article (hey folks, if it barks like a dog, wags it's tail like a dog, it's a dog. Laurence is a shill. There is no contoversy there)"From the wikipedia article "Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki":

“Estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945 from initially non lethal burn and blast injuries, acute radiation syndrome and related disease, the effects of which were aggravated by lack of medical resources, range from 90,000 to 166,000. One speculative estimate suggests that up to, or in excess of, 200,000 had died as a consequence of Little Boy, in the "five-year death toll", as cancer and other long-term effects took hold. An epidemiology study by the Japanese Radiation Effects Research Foundation states that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancer deaths among the bomb survivors were due to radiation from the bombs, the statistical excess being estimated to 200 leukemia and 1700 solid cancers.” Christian Roess (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Was his Pulitzer Prize revoked?

There is no mention of what action was taken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.229.151.139 (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm related to William Laurence, but don't know how.

On my mother's side...anyone who can help me with contact info for Mr. Laurence's family members, who might have or know of someone with info on his family tree, I'd appreciate them contacting me.

Tom Leland tomleland@sbcglobal.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.36.216 (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Confusing and probably OR addition

Laurence denied that the black rain fallout in Hiroshima was significantly radioactive because it originated from the firestorm that began 30 minutes after explosion, when the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown many miles downwind. Most survivors were injured mainly by blast and heat. Laurence was proved right: Hiroshima was not made barren of human and animal life for 75 years. [May not be relevant]

This seems to be an OR addition since it is unsourced. Parts of it are confusing and also don't seem particularly relevant. For example the claim 'Laurence was proved right: Hiroshima was not made barren of human and animal life for 75 years' appears to be about someone else's statements at the time but while it may be true he was right about this, it doesn't appear to be what he's been criticised for (and it's definitely not responding to anything in the article just offering a confusing statement about him being right and about something that didn't happen). Nor does the fact others went too far in the other direction somehow negate the criticism of Laurence. Note that I'm not saying the criticism of Laurence is valid, simply pointing out this apparent OR response doesn't really appear to address the criticism very well and instead seems to go off on a tangent. Nil Einne (talk) 08:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I concur; I removed the last sentence, and added a CN tag to the first part. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but let's be clear on one thing. The inclusion of this "controversy" section in the article was agenda-driven at the onset, both by the wiki editor and the sources he cites. The addition to it discussed here needs to be sourced to be sure, but its context is clearly given above in the first section on this page, which the author appears to have placed on the page on or about the same time as the edit. I seriously doubt that it's OR, given the above, but was clearly POV.--Reedmalloy (talk) 07:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Article missing the fact govt was paying for coverage

This New York Times article headline sums up the POV problem: "How a Star New York Times Reporter Got Paid by Government Agencies He Covered". That needs to be more clearly addressed in the article, and certainly in the lede. --- Possibly ☎ 18:05, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The article now cites the NYT article and the fact that Laurence got paid by the government (I assume it was added after you wrote this). The subhead of Broad's article is, "A pair of new books tell how William L. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times known as ‘Atomic Bill,’ became an apologist for the American military and a serial defier of journalism’s mores." The NYT's own story condemns Laurence's ethics even more strongly than this WP article does. There is no question that accepting money from sources in exchange for favorable coverage -- not only the military but also Robert Moses -- would be not only unethical but a firing offense in today's NYT. According to Broad's story, at that time, NYT editors allowed him to do it, but many journalists would take that as an example of the NYT's own ethical failings.

Laurence repeated the government line that the bomb killed by blast, not radiation, but as Broad says, John Heshey wrote about the radiation effects in The New Yorker.

And as the NYT also acknowledged, a black journalist, Charles H. Loeb, in Japan for the Atlanta Daily World and its press syndicate, did accurately report on the radiation effects. According to the NYT, Loeb had been a pre-med student, but couldn't get into medical school, so he understood what the doctors were talking about; Laurence actually didn't understand science too well. So the white guy lied and won a Pulitzer, while the black guy told the truth and didn't win anything (except the satisfaction of getting the story right and scooping the NYT for the readers of the Combined Negro Press Syndicate). Maybe there is something to critical race theory. --Nbauman (talk) 01:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)