RaveThe New York Times Book Review... tightly focused ... The author is Lesley M. M. Blume, a tireless researcher and beautiful writer, who moves through her narrative with seeming effortlessness — a trick that belies the skill and hard labor required to produce such prose ... a warning without being a polemic ... a book of serious intent that is nonetheless pleasant to read. There are knowable reasons for this, including Blume’s flawless paragraphs; her clear narrative structure; her compelling stories, subplots and insights; her descriptions of two great magazine editors establishing the standards of integrity that continue at The New Yorker and other high-end magazines today; the oddball characters like General Groves who keep popping up; and most of all, the attractive qualities of her protagonist, John Hersey ... does suffer from two flaws. The first is the claim that the United States mounted an important cover-up to hide the realities of radiation sickness from public knowledge. Blume’s publisher chose to hype this claim in the subtitle — a mistake — and then, in a letter accompanying the advance proof, went so far as to describe the cover-up as the biggest of the century and a \'cloak and dagger tale.\' It must be embarrassing for Blume. It’s obvious to anyone who has been around the U.S. Army that whatever ineffective obfuscation occurred during the months following the atomic bombings resulted from the same old stuff — a mixture of authentic ignorance, reflexive secrecy and incompetent military spin. The book’s second flaw is the unnecessary claim that Hersey’s work altered the course of history, changed attitudes toward the arms race, and has helped the world avoid nuclear war ever since. This is just silly, though there are indications that Hersey himself may have believed some of it in his old age. If so, given his contributions to humanity he may be excused. But what altered the course of history was the acquisition of nuclear weapons by countries other than the United States — particularly the Soviet Union in 1948 — and the certainty of retaliation should ever a nuclear weapon be used again ... But against the scale of the subject these are quibbles, and do not detract from the excellence of Blume’s work.
