70 Years Under a Cloud:

Information and Social Imaginaries of the

Atomic Bombs
Silvia Lidia GONZALEZ

This work reviews the widespread visions that the world inherited from
the atomic bombs, 70 years after they were dropped for the first time on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some news reports related with atomic bomb-
ings, in connection with the historical facts, give us an opportunity to
reassess the value of images as an object of historical study and also as
part of a complex cultural process that forms our social imaginaries on
the subject of nuclear bombs.

Keywords: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, perception, experience, representation,

social imaginary

NEW STORIES, OLD PERCEPTIONS

Beyond the historical dates of August 6th and 9th that every year
lead the journalism to depict images and cover the commemorative
acts of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, recent
news stories have shown, once again, contrasting social perceptions on
this topic.
According to some communication studies, our knowledge, or the
conception we have about the things we know, affects our perceptions
in some way. In addition, our experience may also be considered
significant in the construction of our vision.

VISIONS UNDER THE CLOUD

With the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an important number of mass
media around the world turned their eyes to these Japanese cities.
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Again the voices of survivors are a reminder of the human dimension

of that historic event. The indelible chronicle of their pain, the mean-
ings of their historical lessons or their constant appeal for peace seem
to attract the world.
However, there are very few direct witnesses of those experiences.
One of them, Hiroyuki Miyagawa, commented in 2000 that among
tens of thousands of victims, or hibakusha who remained in Hiroshi-
ma, only 100 people usually share their memories (González, 2000a).
The silence of the survivors is related to factors of complex per-
sonal, psychological and social nature. Mourning, physical and moral
suffering, social discrimination and official censorship imposed on the
nuclear topics blocked many attempts of expression from those af-
fected.
The experience of being personally in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to
listen direct testimonies from the people in situ contributes to the
formation of a different vision —or perhaps many others— about the
significant historical events that these cities represent.
An important part of the public opinion in the world shares the
iconic vision of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an abstract cloud, accom-
panied by a brief lesson learned in elementary education. As a con-
trast, there is a human vision of life and death that marked those who
inhabited these cities on August 1945.
From the journalistic approach it is also possible to find some di-
vergent visions in newspaper archives. Considering the example of
Hiroshima: on August 7, 1945, none of the major newspapers in
Japan had headlines, graphics or texts to highlight the event that
would mark the historical transcendence of the city. Only one na-
tional newspaper (Asahi) published a short article with three lines
referring to a bombing that had caused “some damage” in the city. By
contrast, in the United States and the Allied countries the debut of
the most powerful weapon in the world occupied large spaces.
From the personal to the social perception, it is possible to dis-
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cover more contrasting views of Hiroshima: from the journalistic

views or from the historical narratives; from the bomber Enola Gay
or from the mainland at ground level; from the Japanese press or the
American press; from the silence of censorship or from dissemination
through propaganda; from the perspective of the victors or the per-
spective of the defeated in the war; from the perspective of scientists
or the perspective of the military strategies; from the political dis-
course or from a humanitarian voices.
There are many ways of perceiving Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This
work is not intended to thoroughly explore all these possibilities, but
somehow outline confrontations in the perceptions from various an-
gles, especially from visual resources and experiences of receptors in
different parts of the world that have influenced the formation of col-
lective imaginaries about atomic weapons.

PANELS: HORRORS, GUILT AND RESPONSIBILITIES

In this commemorative year some news evoked contrasting views
about the atomic bombings and the end of the war. On one side, as
we have noted, many people put special emphasis on Japan and the
bombed cities. However, there are other forms of perception in dif-
ferent geographical areas.
In the US, the population of New Mexico lived a celebratory mood
as they recalled 70 years of manufacturing and testing the first atom-
ic bombs in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos laboratory. News
stories of this area deployed large share of people between Science
Festival and the recreation of the first atomic test with a new “Trin-
ity supercomputer” with the possibility to get a modern dimension on
3D. Part of the town supports the official version that atomic weapons
ended the war, and there is a special pride and sense of belonging to
that episode, being part of the families that originally worked on that
project.
Meanwhile, in the capital city there was a different vision to evoke
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the events, with the sample of 6 works from The Hiroshima Panels by
the Japanese artists Iri and Toshi Maruki, as part of “Hiroshima-
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition” open to the public in the Amer-
ican University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.
Iri Maruki was born in Hiroshima and after the bombs he traveled
with his wife to look for their relatives. From their impressions and
later research on what happened, they created more than 15 works in
30 years, not only describing the horror of the massacre, but also
criticizing the war and weapons, in a general sense.
Some critics and visitors to this exhibition expressed messages of
regret, solidarity with the victims or, in some cases, even surprise
while getting for the first time a non conventional perspective. How-
ever, for others the paintings do not modify the repeated historical
justification of the use of bombs and the Japanese blame for provok-
ing the war.
These dialectics on innocence and guilt and war responsibilities
maintains a significant influence on the perceptions of society related
with a same object or representation of a same historical episode. A
controversy of this kind happened in 1995 during the 50th anniver-
sary of the atomic bombings, when the Smithsonian Museum of Air
and Space abandoned plans to display artifacts belonging to victims
of the bombing, and instead highlighted the plane that delivered the
bomb, the Enola Gay, in the middle of a controversy from War Vet-
erans groups and spokespersons of various social groups, with com-
pletely different arguments and views.
The murals of Maruki can help change the view of the American
people and to challenge the government’s argument that the bombs
were necessary. However, for some people, especially from Asia, it is
not easy to see the Japanese as innocent victims in the Second World
War.
Precisely for this reason, the exhibition —opened this summer in
Washington and scheduled to go on several institutions in the eastern
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United States— deliberately included the panels Crows (The Hiro-

shima Panels, 1972) and Death of American prisoners of war (The
Hiroshima Panels, 1971). These works criticize discrimination against
Koreans who were conscripted to perform forced labor and illustrate
the death of some prisoners of war from the Allied side who died
during the bombing or, according to some witnesses, were killed by
angry survivors in Hiroshima stoned on them. All this was displayed
with the idea of presenting the Japanese as not the only victims, as
explained by professor Peter Kuznick, director of the Institute of
Nuclear Studies at American University.
This prominent historian has long experience lecturing on the sub-
ject and traveling every summer to Hiroshima and Nagasaki with his
students. Kuznick is aware that the students’ impressions and feelings
after being in the bombed cities and having close contact with hiba-
kusha changed significantly. In these young generations a different
social imaginary is being created, challenging the official and repeated
notions on the same topic.

ANOTHER CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE

Other contrasting views can be found in the disclosure of images
through information networks such as the Internet. As an example, in
May 2008, the archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford Univer-
sity declassified photographs from the Robert L. Capp Collection
allegedly corresponding to the bombing of August 6, 1945, in Hiro-
shima.
According to the institution, the images came from a photographic
film, found in a cave by Capp, while in a military mission in Japan,
at the end of the war.
This version was widely reported in the media worldwide as well as
in the book Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use
the Bomb Against Japan, by Sean L. Malloy, professor in the Univer-
sity of California.
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A group of researchers from the Peace Museum in Hiroshima and

Chūgoku newspaper as well as the scholar and the Hoover Institution
had to acknowledge later on that that some of the pictures shown,
may not correspond to the tragedy of Hiroshima, but to the great
Kanto earthquake that had affected Tokyo, Yokohama and surround-
ing areas in 1923 (Hoover Institution, 2008).
This correction did not have the same impact as that of the “nev-
er-before-published photographs” allegedly from Hiroshima. Beyond
the analysis of image content or significance of the scenes of death and
devastation, hundreds of websites have been devoted to show con-
trasting visions that are associated, sometimes more with historical
conventions than with a deep knowledge of the theme.
Evidently, after 70 years of chronological distance from the events
captured in these images, the forms of dissemination are infinitely
faster and have more possibilities for a global impact.
The publication of these alleged new photographs of a past event
(even when there was uncertainty on their fidelity), opened a debate
with all kinds of expressions. Hundreds of messages posted on the
Internet, strongly criticized the US government decision to use atom-
ic bombs at the end of World War II. On the other side, there were
also repeated messages of pride or justification for such actions, and
opponents of the Japanese side in the confrontation.
Beyond the criticism of governments representing these two nations
at the end of the war, the comments were sometimes simplified by
blaming “the other”: the Japanese, the Americans. Few comments
were really focused on observing the details in the pictures, or the
authenticity of the object of historical analysis. Overall, the event of
the disclosure came to gain more attention than the content of the
images.
Once again, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the focus of an unfinished
debate. From the emblematic photograph of the mushroom cloud ris-
ing over the sky of the affected towns until these detailed scenes of
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bodies stuck to the ground, there are still many perspectives associ-
ated with previous notions or social constructions on these historical
events.
In contrast to the abstract icon of the mushroom cloud, and though
far less known in global scenarios, the visions from the victims or
close people in the Japanese context, may bring more elements to the
debate on the significance of nuclear weapons, while adding to our
knowledge the significance of the direct experience.

IMAGES AND CULTURAL PROCESSES

In previous studies I have tried to explore the possibilities of the
journalism in 1945 to publish the news about the atomic bomb, de-
spite a strong process of censorship, both in the media in the United
States and the Allied world, as in the same Japanese territory.
Although in this work there are no detailed references to those pre-
vious analyses, we may recall the well-documented process of censor-
ship that was imposed on Japan following its defeat. Further than the
censored notes, reports, photographs and other works that could have
had reveal what happened after the atomic bombs, and the propa-
ganda to inform only official versions, there were also artistic forms of
expression that were silenced.
Images have been considered as cultural objects studied in the field
of communication disciplines, and have also an important value for
historical analysis. Likewise, various forms of visual art, have contrib-
uted to the dissemination of knowledge and experience about the
atomic bombings, and therefore somehow have affected the social
perception on these issues.
In addition to the image itself as an object of analysis, its exhibition
is immerse in a cultural process, that is, involving the debate on
whether the visual object faithfully represents the external reality or if
it is a subjective art product, we must always consider that the re-
ceivers are always decoding these signals, according to their own ex-
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perience, knowledge or social conventions.

This leads us to recognize that in every process to register an expe-
rience is possible to get influences from any participant in the com-
municative act. That is why the people somehow involved with the
atomic bombings had a wide range of perceptions depending on their
positions or roles. That happened for example with the experience
and views from the crew that dropped that bombs contrasting with
those who were attacked. Similarly, the visions that these same actors
could communicate from their experiences, have been reproduced ac-
cording to some subjective conventions, and have nourished radically
different perceptions in different parts of the world, even after 70
years.

SOCIAL IMAGINARY
For the anthropologists Ardevol & Muntañola (2004): “The concept
of imaginary let us explore the processes of creation and configuration
of subjectivity, while bringing us with the idea of a collective imagi-
nation, as the result of a specific era and of some social conventions
and cultural norms” (p. 15).
In his book Ways of Seeing, John Berger confirms the idea that
knowledge affects the way to look and proposes a path to the histori-
cal, cultural and contextual analysis of the artwork, and production of
visual images. “For Berger, what we know affects what we observe, so
we never see the object itself, but the relationship we have with this
object intervenes in our eyes”. (Ardevol & Muntañola, 2004, p. 18).
Beyond this individual perception are the conventions for this look,
that somehow can be studied under the concept of the social imagi-
nary of the French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (1983), as a
result of a complex series of relationships among discourses and col-
lective actions, or among visions, values, perceptions, ideas, prefer-
ences and behaviors of those belonging to a culture.
According to these ideas, the collective imaginary does not produce
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uniform behaviors, but trendsetting, and these also are changing, often
with the significant participation of the mass media.
The exhibition of the previously referred Marukis panels appeared
in traditional and web media, and motivated comments from the pub-
lic even without having directly attended the event. In some cases
there were comments on the historical theme, more than on the works
themselves.
The same would happen with the photographs released by the
Hoover Institution. They underwent as a kind of social thermometer.
More than a scientific observation, they caused hundreds of manifes-
tations from the collective memories, still under the umbrella of cer-
tain historical and cultural conventions.
Few people discussed the quality or authenticity of the historical
object itself and they mainly expressed their perceptions affiliated to
the social imaginary on the issue. In that sense, Ardevol & Munta-
ñola (2004) consider that:

Photography is much more than an image, understood as a copy

or reproduction of the real world, is a place of negotiation of
power and identity, a space for theoretical and methodological
reflection, a means of intercultural communication, a social link,
a means of discovery, a field of experimentation (p. 24).

In different works, Michael Foucault describes how power pro-

duces somehow effects of truth and knowledge (Foucault, 1995). The
images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been exposed from different
perspectives, under aesthetic standards and specific power guidelines
since the end of World War II until today.
Among this clash of visions, from the perspective of power, some
artistic expressions have sought to be an escape, or the transmission
of experiences that, as mentioned at the beginning, may be connected
with knowledge, to influence the way we look something.
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BETWEEN THE EXPERIENCE AND ART

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki kept at the bottom of
their atomic experiences, an aspect that many artists in the world have
appreciated further than the traditional canons of aesthetics: the vision.
No one else in the world has had that experience and has the possi-
bility to convey it in such an authentic way as the hibakusha. John
Berger has devoted part of his work to the, saying that: “Hiroshima
summarizes the importance of retaining the look, as a measure of
knowledge and moral vision”. This author notes that Western coun-
tries need information on the effects of the atomic bombings and
there has been a systematic and horrific suppression of significant
facts. According to Berger, we have been far from assimilating the
original significance of Hiroshima, a significance that once was “so
clear, so horrifying vivid” (Maclear, 1999, p. 17).
For some poets who survived the bombs, after the experience,
words were not enough to describe everything they had seen, heard
and felt in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; images were also missing. Those
who could miraculously register graphically what had happened had
in their hands a precious resource to show the world the effects of the
atomic bombs. That is precisely why the Allied Command Forces
that occupied Japan after the war embraced the popular paradigm: a
picture can say more than a thousand words.
The strength of the conspicuous images of Hiroshima and Naga-
saki had hit the rigorous censorship of the occupation and it was even
more severe as graphic evidence. Some texts may have had the for-
tune of escaping the barriers of American censors, but in the case of
photographs or films it was less likely.
Considering photography as a form of expression, usually located
between journalism and art, graphics captured from the planes that
bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as those that some survivors
could take right on the very days of the attacks may represent the first
visual evidence of what happened with the atomic bombs.
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Far from the abstract mushroom cloud, Yoshito Matsushige was

the first man to rescue his camera and hit the streets of Hiroshima to
capture the only five pictures that were taken on the very day of the
explosion in the city. According to Matsushige, his photos were not
published until October of that year. The photographer was not fully
aware of the censorship policies and dared to publish the historical
graphics in the evening edition of the newspaper Chūgoku. He was
reprimanded by US Army officers who confiscated his photos. How-
ever, he kept the negatives, which later would be used for reprints
and released worldwide (González, 2000b). They transcended as the
very first graphic evidence of the reality under the emblematic and
abstract atomic clouds.
The photographer and writer Robert Del Tredici commented that
the famous photograph of the mushroom cloud was a “grotesque ex-
ample” of the kind of image that remains isolated in an abstract dis-
tance, and misinforms on a matter of vital importance (Maclear, 1999,
p. 17).
The collection of photos taken by the investigating committee
ABCC (Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission) to study the radiation
effects on the victims was not declassified for decades. These graphics
censored by the US government were finally disclosed in 1980, and
they keep two visions that were out of the reach for the public for a
long time: the human remains, and the subsequent suffering from the
nuclear attacks.
There are images of the mountains of skeletons, completely naked
teens showing off their charred bodies, the bodies of mothers and
children, and the boy with black face after the “black rain”, holding a
rice ball (onigiri) in his hand, holding on tightly to life.
The photos taken by Yosuke Yamahata on August 10, 1945 in Na-
gasaki, have been rescued and exhibited worldwide, and are the main
part of the book Nagasaki Journey, published for the 50th anniver-
sary of the bombing by Pomegranate Artboooks. It highlights the
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faces of civilians, who unfortunately sometimes seem to be invisible in

wartime.
In 1978 Hiroshima-Nagasaki: A Pictorial Record of the Atomic Bomb
Destruction was published, a work that intended to open the eyes of
the Americans, with the collaboration of thousands of Japanese who
recovered images of what US officials had censored.
After the occupation, many of these realistic testimonies have
moved to artistic fields, with the creativity of photographers like Sho-
mei Tomatsu, who recovered several graphs from the ruins of the
church of Santa María (now widely known as the Urakami Cathedral)
that have been exhibited since 1962 in the collection 11:02 Nagasaki.

LEGACY FOR THE WORLD:

PICTORICAL ART AND SOCIAL SENSIBILTY
In the 50s the Japanese Communist Party promoted the realization
of “reporting paintings”. At that time, artists such as Yamashita Ki-
kuji chose the atomic issue. Shusaku Arakawa was also inspired by
Hiroshima for his exhibitions, with obvious social concerns, between
realism and surrealism or abstraction.
Such demonstrations have been associated with remote works as
The Disasters of War, that Francisco de Goya painted to depict the
Napoleonic invasion of Spain in his art. The needlework of Chilean
women Arpilleras who suffered repressions of Augusto Pinochet and
thus manifested with complaints through crafts are also remembered.
The painter Keisuke Yamamoto created a mural entitled Hiroshima
with notable reminiscences of the famous Guernica, painted by Pablo
Picasso in 1937.
Moreover, in Japan since the late 60s, millions of young people
have had contact with the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
through the series of autobiographical drawings by Keiji Nakazawa,
Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen). And also in this country, as previ-
ously noted, the Maruki panels have had an important impact depict-
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ing the experiences of the bombed cities.

In a different geographical space, Andy Warhol in 1965 became one
of the first American visual artists to make specific reference to Hiro-
shima and Nagasaki in his painting Atomic Bomb. Another renown
creator, the Spanish master of surrealism, Salvador Dali was inspired
by what he called “nuclear mysticism” to represent his particular vi-
sion in works such as Melancolía atómica e idilio de uranio, Las tres
esfinges de Bikini and Leda Atómica.
Similarly, a considerable number of artistic works related with the
bombs can also be found in Latin-American countries such as Nica-
ragua and Colombia.
In the library of the Direction of the Peace Memorial Museum in
Hiroshima, can be found a book titled in Spanish Cuaderno de Hiro-
shima. It is a compilation of 40 works of Venezuelan painter Alirio
Rodriguez, as a result of a visit to Hiroshima, accompanied with texts
by the poet José Ramón Medina (Rodriguez & Medina, 1996).
Another Venezuelan painter had previously expressed his concerns
about the meaning of atomic weapons. As reported by the Venezuelan
researcher Willy Aranguren, the local artist Salvador Valero, also re-
flected in his work La inmolación de Hiroshima, a scene of “really
bloody, painful, with languorous figures, pitiful, horrified at the trag-
edy, the fire, the shed blood. Figures are presented nude or partially
nude, headless, hieratic, that remind death, desolation, the Holocaust
and human misery” (Aranguren, 2001, p. 98). To Aranguren, despite
the remoteness of Valero, sometimes rather than to concentrate on
simple daily matters in a small village, this artist had a broad histori-
cal awareness.
In Mexico, the muralist movement characterized by its social inspi-
ration also reflected the theme in the work El átomo by David Alfaro
Siqueiros. Particularly this artist, close friend with the Japanese Taro
Okamoto, had great influence in the creation of Asu no shinwa (The
myth of tomorrow), an important mural completed in Mexico in 1968
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that is currently exhibited in the center of Tokyo. In his work, the

Japanese artist also reflects in bright colors and with a symbolic touch
his views on the significance of nuclear weapons as a threat to the
future of humanity.
Further than the pictorial record, many other artistic works from
other disciplines are related with the atomic bombs and somehow can
also influence the vision that people have inherited about these his-
torical events.
Transcending the lines written in Japanese or American newspa-
pers, all these evidences of cultural production, speak on behalf of
those who felt a need to express their dramatic and sobering experi-
ence. During the occupation of Japan, almost all cultural production
was censored: films, novels, children’s books, records. And yet, in all
these areas there have been recovered evidences of how the bombs
were perceived at the time.
In seven decades, many important artistic works have been added,
as well as new graphic or audiovisual evidences about these historical
events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. None of them will be a light that
illuminates absolutely our knowledge on the subject, nor will sum-
marize the experience of those who lived through the atomic bomb-
ings from the air or from the ground. However, all may contribute to
our visions, and to reshape the way we build the social imaginary
about the atomic bombs.

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(eds.) (2004). Representación y cultura audiovisual en la sociedad contem-

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