Charles Loeb: The Black Reporter Who Exposed an Atomic Bomb Lie

The military itself soon cast light on the enormity of the misinformation campaign. In June 1946, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey said most medical investigators saw the radiation emissions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as responsible for up to 20 percent of the deaths. If the bombings took roughly 100,000 to 200,000 lives — today considered a credible range — the radiation killed up to 40,000 people.

The rays also produced a dark legacy. Over decades, studies of the survivors revealed that they endured high rates of cancer, stroke, cataracts and heart disease. Babies in utero at the time of the bombings suffered poor development, epileptic seizures and reduced head size.

Mr. Loeb died in 1978 at 73. While getting no credit for his atomic scoop, he became known late in life among other journalists as the dean of Black newsmen. In 1971, he spoke of his long career in an oral history interview with Columbia University. Then 66 and managing editor of The Cleveland Call and Post, Mr. Loeb said that he regretted not going back to medical school but that he felt he probably did more social good as a journalist than he would have as a surgeon.

His great good fortune, he added, was marrying a woman who put personal goals ahead of money. “We’ll starve together,” he recalled his wife, Beulah Loeb, saying.

Mr. Loeb said nothing of his radiation article or what he had witnessed at Hiroshima but spoke at length about Black publishing and the community it served.

“One of our functions is to tell the Black side of any story,” he said, as Black readers were often skeptical of the white news media. Even when Black papers got scooped on big stories, he added, “our readers still buy our newspapers to see what we said about it.”

Black newspapers perform “a real service” not only for Black people but also, Mr. Loeb said, the press in general because they reliably present alternative points of view and fresh perspectives.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/science/charles-loeb-atomic-bomb.html