How We Unleashed the Nuclear Age

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.

Hello, I'm Amy Westervald, host of the podcast Drilled and author of the new book brought to you by How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public and Broke Democracy. This is a deep dive into how corporate propaganda has infiltrated our media, undermined democracy, and now threatens the very nature of truth itself. If you're fed up with big industry, getting away with polluting our information ecosystem and the environment, this book is for you. Brought to you by is available now wherever you find your books and audio books, including on Spotify.

Matthew Bunn (0:37)

Rowhome Productions.

SPEAKER_3 (0:41)

A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT.

SPEAKER_4 (0:56)

The explosion was a big ball of fire. Anyone not having dark glasses would have received a visual shock several miles away.

One of the crew members said, My God, when he saw what had happened.

SPEAKER_5 (1:07)

Most of the city appears to have been obliterated. Four square miles of desolation are reported, but it's noticeable that a number of steel-framed buildings are still standing.

Jane Perlez (1:29)

Hiroshima, Japan, 8:15 a.m., August, 2026

It's a busy morning. People are rushing around, buying coffee and boarding the green and white trams. Not too dissimilar to the morning 81 years ago, when the American military dropped the first nuclear bomb on the unsuspecting civilian population of Hiroshima.

Alex Wellerstein (1:53)

Recording, recording test, one, two, three, one, two, three.

Jane Perlez (1:57)

We're approaching the spot where the atom bomb actually dropped.

SPEAKER_4 (2:02)

Oh, it's right here. Yeah, it's right here.

Jane Perlez (2:05)

I came to Hiroshima with our associate producer, Frank Zhou. It's a fairly inconspicuous spot, but there's traffic going by us.

There's really no way to tell where it is until you come right across it. I wanted to see for myself what that fateful decision to drop the bomb 81 years ago meant, and what it means for us today. We're now standing in front of a stone marker, and it says the first atomic bomb used in the history of humankind exploded approximately 600 meters above this spot.

Keiko Ogura (2:47)

I saw the flash. Everything turned to white, and soon after that, a very strong wind came.

Jane Perlez (3:17)

Keiko Ogura was just eight years old when the bomb went off. Immediately after the blast, she was blown onto the road where she lay unconscious.

Keiko Ogura (3:35)

When I opened my eyes, everywhere was just dark, no sound.

Jane Perlez (3:44)

She is one of a dwindling number of survivors determined to share their stories to warn us about the consequences of nuclear war.

I'm Jane Perlez, and this is Face-Off Nuclear Anarchy, a series about the world on the brink of nuclear crisis and how we got here. Today on the show, the race to build the bomb. How did this scientific breakthrough change the world forever? We'll also hear from Matthew Bunn, faculty chair of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard.

On August 6, 1945, Keiko's father kept her home from school. He had an uncanny sense of foreboding that morning. She was playing on the street outside their house when the bomb hit at 8:15 a.m. So maybe five minutes, I was unconscious.

Keiko Ogura (4:45)

Then I found that everywhere was destroyed. Rooftops were scattered and the houses were broken. And the first sound was my little brother, you see. Three years younger. Just I heard his cries.

Jane Perlez (5:02)

Miraculously, Keiko's family survived the blast. But when she left her house, what she experienced will never leave her.

Keiko Ogura (5:11)

I step out and saw a line of people. First, I smelled burnt hair.

And then, swollen faces, people wounded. And the skin was peeling off from the tip of the fingers, most of them. So many people came and they were told, go to Shinto shrine, the Buddhism temple.

Jane Perlez (5:36)

We're in the densely packed neighborhood of Keiko, the survivor we interviewed. We're climbing a small hill. I can see beautifully manicured bonsai trees, very pretty, and the ever-present cicadas. And we're just about to go to the Shinto shrine, where Keiko ran to after she was knocked down on the street on August 6, 1945

Keiko told us there were a lot of victims lying on these stairs, too wounded to move, and nobody to help them. So we have to assume that a lot of people died here. Their wounds were so open, and this must have been a scene of unbelievable disaster.

Keiko Ogura (6:24)