Blown to Hell

"“[An] excellent book. . . . Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Pincus’s book contains a wealth of novelistic detail. . . . No national leader in the world today has seen a nuclear explosion, much less the detonation of a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb. . . . When announcing the destruction of Hiroshima, President Harry Truman described the atomic bomb as ‘a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed.’ Pincus laments that ‘Truman’s dramatic picture of what one atomic bomb could do has faded from peoples’ minds.’ Blown to Hell is a vivid—and needed—reminder.” —Washington Post “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Pincus’s scathing exposé of how our nation’s nuclear pioneers devastated the people of the Marshall Islands is a tour de force. Using previously undiscovered declassified intelligence, Pincus’s ground-breaking reporting rewrites the history of the birth of the Atomic Age, revealing America’s complicity in an astounding cover-up on an unimaginable scale. Blown to Hell is a spell-binding scientific detective story, must reading for anyone who wants to learn about one of the worst governmental abuses in US history.” —Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent/Anchor “In riveting detail, Walter Pincus recounts the tragic encounter of a pre-modern people with history’s most powerful nation. He pierces the secrecy that shrouded America’s nuclear weapons tests and reveals the huge risks and outright deceptions officials willingly embraced. For those exposed, it was an awful reality. For us, it should be a timely and chilling warning.” —Jerry Brown, former California governor and executive chairman of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “Every voter should read this revelatory book. After all, we’re all responsible for our government!” —Gloria Steinem “Walter Pincus has taken on the vital and largely ignored subject of our nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Long overdue, this work will find its place on the bookshelves of policy makers, historians, and military planners. I certainly wish it had been available to me as I took over US Strategic Command. It would have provided a perspective not otherwise available.” —General Eugene E. Habiger, USAF (Ret.), former Commander in Chief of United States Strategic Command “For more than half a century, Walter Pincus has been among our greatest reporters and most persistent truth-tellers. Blown to Hell is a story worthy of his talents—infuriating, heart-breaking, and utterly riveting.” —Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Liberation Trilogy “The final lesson of Blown To Hell is clear—only by banning nuclear testing forever will we reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear war, and achieve the goal of a more peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.” —Senator Edward J. Markey, Co-chair of the Congressional Working Group on Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control “Pulitzer winner Pincus, a former national security reporter at the Washington Post, debuts with a shocking account of the destruction wrought by atomic bomb testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958.... Pincus delves into the race with the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons and the selection of Bikini Atoll (which was evacuated) as a testing site, and shows that U.S. government officials were more concerned about the costs of relocating people from other inhabited atolls than the danger of nuclear fallout. As a result, adults and children living on Rongelap and Utirik atolls were exposed to radioactive ash and contaminated drinking water in the aftermath of the Castle Bravo test, and went on to suffer low white blood cell counts, thyroid tumors, and numerous cancers.... Pincus makes a persuasive case that in ‘seeking a more powerful weapon for warfare, the U.S. unleashed death in several forms on peaceful Marshall Island people.’ Readers will be appalled."" —Publishers Weekly"