George Anthony Weller (1907–19 December 2002) was an American novelist, playwright, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times and Chicago Daily News, and former editorial chair of The Harvard Crimson. He was the first foreign correspondent to reach Nagasaki, Japan, following the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945. Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. ... The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and published between 1876 and 1978. ... The Harvard Crimson, the breakfast daily of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. ... Megane-bashi, the Eyeglasses Bridge Nagasaki (長崎市; -shi) is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture located at the south-western coast of Kyushu, Japan. ... The Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter. ... is the 221st day of the year (222nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Life & career

Weller was born in Boston on July 13, 1907, and graduated from Harvard College in 1929. He studied acting in Vienna, Austria as the only American member of Max Reinhardt's theater company. Weller was named to the Balkan reporting team of The New York Times, and during the 1930s also published two novels, numerous short stories, and freelance journalism from around Europe. is the 194th day of the year (195th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

George Weller was married twice. He married Katherine Deupree and they had a daughter, Ann Weller Tagge, in 1932. His grandchildren are Anne Katherine Tagge and Peter Russell Deupree Tagge. His great grandchildren are Katherine, Anne, and Nicholas Tagge. In December, 1940, soon after the beginning of World War II, he began working for the Chicago Daily News Foreign Service and covered the war in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific as one of the war's great correspondents, winning a 1943 Pulitzer Prize. Having divorced in 1944, he met reporter Charlotte Ebener in 1946, when the two were among a group of correspondents held for three weeks in Manchuria by the advancing communist Chinese army. They were married in 1948. The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1943. ...

For many years Weller covered the Balkans, Mideast and Africa from Rome, where he headed the Daily News bureau until retiring from the newspaper in 1975. Charlotte died in 1990. In 1957 Weller had a second child, Anthony, by the British ballet teacher and scholar Gladys Lasky Weller (1922-1988), with whom he maintained a relationship for over thirty years. Weller died at his home in San Felice Circeo, Italy, on December 19, 2002. is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ...

Awards & inspiration

Weller won a 1943 Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting, for a story on an emergency appendectomy performed on a submarine in enemy waters, in which the crew had to use a tea strainer and spoons. General Douglas MacArthur honored him by conferring a special distinction: "It is a real pleasure to me to award you the Asiatic-Pacific Service Ribbon in view of your long and meretorious services in the Southwest Pacific Area with the forces of this command. You have added luster to the difficult, dangerous and arduous profession of War Correspondent." [source: letter 15 March, 1945]. Weller was also awarded the 1954 George Polk Memorial Award, and a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard (Class of 1948). Late in life he received Italy's Premio Internazionale di Giornalismo. He also provided the inspiration for longtime friend Sean O'Faolain's 1974 short story "Something, Everything, Anything, Nothing". Tea leaves in a Chinese gaiwan. ... General of the Army Douglas MacArthur KCB (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964), was an American general and Field Marshal of the Philippines Army. ... The George Polk Awards is an American journalism award. ... Nieman Fellowship is an award given to mid-career journalists by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. ...

Nagasaki Report Suppressed by U.S. Censors

Weller reports that he was the first outside observer to reach Nagasaki, on September 6 1945, four weeks following the U.S. atomic bombing of the city.

However, Charles Sweeney, the only person to have flown both atomic missions (he was the commander of the plane which dropped the bomb on Nagasaki and the pilot of the instrument plane for the Hiroshima bomb operation), accompanied by a party of twenty which included Colonel Paul Tibbetts (the commander of the aircraft which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima), describes their visit in early September in the book War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission 1997 by Major General Charles W. Sweeney and Attorneys James A. & Marion K. Antonucci [literary agent: James D. Hornfischer, author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour and Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors]. "As our C-54 set down, [at Omura, about fifteen miles away] we were the first Americans to arrive in the area of Nagasaki."[page 252] "On the outskirts of Nagasaki, we came upon a small resort inn nestled among ancient trees....We decided to spend the night there before pressing on to Nagasaki....I watched as Paul walked up to the desk, swiveled the register around toward him, and in a clear hand wrote, 'Colonel Paul W. Tibbets USAAF.' I stepped right up after him and signed 'Major Charles W. Sweeney USAAF,' and in turn each of our party registered."[page 254] "The next morning we proceeded to Nagasaki....From a distance, the destroyed armaments plants looked like erector sets a child had twisted and bent and carelessley tossed away. We had driven through the verdant hills to a wasteland. As we descended into the valley, we were the first Americans to set foot in Nagasaki and survey the damage."[page 255] "Standing amid the rubble, I felt a sadness that so many had died on both sides, not only there but in all the horrible places where the war had been fought....I took no pride or pleasure then, nor do I take any now, in the brutality of war, whether suffered by my people or those of another nation. Every life is precious....My crew had flown to Nagasaki to end the war, not to inflict suffering. There was no sense of joy among us as we walked the streets there."[pages 257-258]

U.S. occupiers declared Nagasaki off-limits to reporters after the U.S. released the atomic bomb called Fat Man over the city. Fat Man is the codename of the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945. ...

However, correspondents from the group with Colonel Tex McCrary visited both Nagasaki and Hiroshima in early September 1945, publishing dispatches which covered both atomic cities. Weller traveled to Nagasaki with U.S. Army Sergeant Gilbert Harrison, the future Chairman of the American Veterans Committee and Publisher of the New Republic magazine.

To gain the cooperation of the Japanese authorities he posed as a U.S. Army colonel. He spent a total of three weeks in Nagasaki and in the nearby Allied P.O.W. camps — some of which he "opened". The U.S. military in Tokyo censored approximately 55,000 words of his dispatches, along with more than 100 photographs.

Weller reports that he pretended to Japanese authorities that he was a U.S. Army Colonel on an official U.S. Government mission sending reports to Washington. Weller reports that he gave his dispatches to a series of unnamed Kempetai [Japanese military police] personnel who were to carry his dispatches to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo. No corroboration has been presented of Weller impersonating an officer, or of Weller falsely claiming to Japanese authorities that he was a U.S. Army Colonel on an official U.S. Government mission sending reports to Washington, or of Weller using Kempetai as couriers to carry his dispatches to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo. No corroboration has been presented of any Kempetai personnel actually delivering any dispatches from Weller to MacArthur's General Headquarters in Tokyo.

For sixty years Weller's own carbon of these dispatches were presumed lost, until they were discovered by Weller's son, Anthony, six months after George Weller's death.

The official United States narrative of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki downplayed civilian casualties and dismissed reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation. Reporters whose dispatches conflicted with the official version of events sanctioned by the U.S. were silenced.^[1] Weller, then with the Chicago Daily News, slipped into Nagasaki and wrote a series of stories on the situation he found there.

On September 8, 1945, Weller wrote, "The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be."^[2] is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Later that same day when he visited Nagasaki hospitals, and saw civilians, including women and children, lying on the floor, with their hair falling out and covered in red blotches, one month after the nuclear bombing, he grasped that the people were in terrible shape and called what they were experiencing "Disease X." In 1945, most people outside the nuclear industry did not understand the enduring effects of radiation disease. Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor and Publisher, trade magazine of the newspaper industry, said in a radio interview that Weller's later accounts varied greatly from the first sentence of his first story about the atomic bombing. But all of his stories on the effects of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki were suppressed and did not turn up for 60 years, when they were found after his death by his son in an Italian villa where the family had lived.^[2] Greg Mitchell is the editor of Editor and Publisher, the magazine founded in 1884 that covers the news and newspaper industry. ...

The long-suppressed stories were published in book form in 2006 as First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War.

Publications

Fiction

• Weller, George (1933). Not to Eat, Not for Love. New York: Smith & Haas. OCLC 2234457.  A novel of undergraduate life at Harvard.
• Weller, George (1936). Clutch and Differential. New York: Random House. OCLC 1836558.  A novel of linked short stories of the American panorama.
• Weller, George (1937). The Promised Land. New York: W.W. Norton. OCLC 55181699. .
• Weller, George (1949). The Crack in the Column. New York: Random House. OCLC 1746333.  A novel of wartime Greece.

OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ...

Non-fiction

• Weller, George (1941). The Belgian Campaign in Ethiopia: a trek of 2,500 miles through jungle swamps and desert wastes. New York: Issued by the Belgian information center. OCLC 1452395.  War reporting.
• Weller, George (1943). Singapore is Silent. New York: Harcourt, Brace. OCLC 1398217.  Eyewitness account of the fall of Singapore.
• Weller, George (1944). Bases Overseas: an American trusteeship in power. New York: Harcourt, Brace. OCLC 1248297.  Political history.
• Weller, George (1958). The Story of the Paratroops, illustrated by W. T. Mars, Eau Claire, Wisconsin: E. M. Hale. OCLC 1742787.  For young readers.
• Weller, George (1962). The Story of Submarines. New York: Random House. OCLC 850464.  For young readers. (Later published under the name All About Submarines.)
• Stenbuck, Jack (1995). Typewriter Battalion: Dramatic front-line dispatches from World War II. New York: W. Morrow. ISBN 9780688141905. OCLC 31411136.  An anthology containing Weller's “Flight from Java,” a 1942 dispatch concerning his escape.
• Weller, George (1999). Oral history appendectomy performed on fourth war patrol of USS Seadragon, 1942, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center. OCLC 43564256. 
• Weller, George; Anthony Weller (2006). First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War. New York: Crown. ISBN 9780307342010. OCLC 67239853. 

OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... The Naval Historical Center (NHC) is the official history program of the United States Navy. ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ... OCLC Online Computer Library Center was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). ...

References

Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 217th day of the year (218th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• [1] Anthony Weller vs. Ann Tagge and Fleet Bank [now Bank of America]. Massachusetts Appeals Court judgment against Anthony Weller. No FAR [Further Appellate Review]. Rescript issued. Decision (handed down 9/28/2006) at FindLaw; briefs and record appendix at Westlaw.
• Weller was the first western reporter to reach Nagasaki but his dispatches on radiation illness among the people were suppressed by U.S. censors. His original news stories were published for the first time 60 years after they were written in The Daily Mainichi, Japan's oldest newspaper, but are no longer online. The Guardian (London) published excerpts.
• The city as Weller saw it in September 1945: Catholic Church in Nagasaki "torn down like gingerbread" by atom bomb.
• Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Dies at 95
• Reporter sneaked into Nagasaki before Gen. Douglas MacArthur's forces