The 50th anniversary observance of the Peace Resource Center continues on Sept. 9 with Wilmington College Theatre’s staged reading of the play, Atomic Bill and the Payment Due, at 7:30 p.m. in Hugh G. Heiland Theatre. Admission is free and reservations are not needed.
The play’s program notes describe Atomic Bill and the Payment Due as “a true story about media manipulation at the dawn of the Atomic Age and the New York Times reporter who sold his soul to get the story.”
Playwright Libbe HaLevy spent 13 years researching and writing the play that addresses the alleged media deception surrounding the atomic bombings of Japan in World War II. It centers upon William L. Laurence, the Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist who coined the term “Atomic Age.” Laurence, known as Atomic Bill, was the official historian of the Manhattan Project as the only journalist given full access to the secret program to develop nuclear weapons. Also, he was the lone journalist who witnessed both the Trinity test and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Yet, the New York Times reporter dismissed firsthand evidence of the catastrophic effects of radiation sickness as Japanese propaganda at the behest of American military officials.
HaLevy has hosted the podcast Nuclear Hotseat for 14 years, reaching audiences in 124 countries. While researching the 2012 podcast on the Trinity atomic bomb test in New Mexico in 1945, she became suspicious of news reports at the time in light of evidence to the contrary that surfaced years after the A-bomb test, which led to the atomic bombings in August 1945. It shows Laurence’s news coverage may have blurred the line between true journalistic reporting and his assuming the role of a military press agent.