Taiwan and Southeast Asian Arts
On Air
⏩Hersey worked as war correspondent during World War 2. He used his connection with the US military to get access to visiting Hiroshima in May 1946. There, he met Reverent Kiyoshi Tanimoto who would come to play a pivotal role in Hersey's coverage of the atomic bombing and the surviving victims hibakusha. Upon his return to the US, Hersey got in touch with the editor of The New Yorker and wrote what people often refer to as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century journalism, "Hiroshima." Because of the sensitive nature of his work, the publication was carried out in secrecy and Hersey took precaution to temporarily relocate his family from New York City to a remote location. His writing was a sensation. Henry Stimson, Secretary of War in WW2, reacted with a magazine article, which became the foundation for a US thinking to justify the dropping of the atomic bombs: it spared a million US soldiers' lives and brought an end to the war. Hersey was gradually shunned away from the US mainstream media and "Hiroshima" too had retreated from the front line of the world affairs for the time.
⏩ 第二次世界大戦中は従軍記者として名をはせたハーシーは、米軍とのコネクションを生かし1946年5月広島入りする。そこで、牧師・谷本清と出会い英語での書簡か交わし、凄まじい被爆体験に触れた。帰国後、雑誌「The New Yorker」の編集長と接触、20世紀ジャーナリズムの金字塔と言われる「HIROSHIMA」が出る。この出版にはリスクを伴うため秘密裏に行い、家族も大都市から地方に避難させていた。アメリカ社会に衝撃が走り、戦争中の米軍制服トップ、ヘンリー・スティムソンによる論文が発表される。「原爆投下で100万人アメリカ兵が救われた」との原爆投下の正当化の原型が作られていく。一方、ハーシーは米ジャーナリズムの主流から”放逐され”、長らくHIROSHIMAは忘れ去られる。
