Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Original Ground Zero

Almost lost in the debate is the footage, which remains one of the clearest historical records of the bombings' aftermath.

After the footage was quietly declassified in 1973, bits of it were used for the first time in the seminal 1974 British television history series "The World at War," according to Mark Meader, archive specialist in the motion picture division of the National Archives. Portions showed up in Japanese documentaries, on anniversaries of the bombings and in a 1983 U.S. documentary called "Dark Circle."

Then it would disappear again.

"It gets 'rediscovered' every decade or so," says Meader. "It's on 16-millimeter film, which means it can't really be used at good quality in large-screen motion pictures. . . . People hear it's been classified, they don't remember hearing about it and they always think it's never been seen before."

The irony of the footage today is this: Originally shot as propaganda for the U.S. military, it is now used almost exclusively by people opposed to nuclear weapons and to the military.

McGovern was not surprised by this, he once told Mitchell.

"I always had the sense that people in the Atomic Energy Commission were sorry we had dropped the bomb," Mitchell quotes McGovern as saying years ago. "The Air Force -- it was also sorry. I was told by people in the Pentagon they didn't want the images out because they showed the effect on man, woman, child."

McGovern, now 95 and living in California, could not be reached by phone yesterday.

In late 1945, he and a crew had gone to Japan to begin filming. They eventually shot 90 reels of 16mm film, containing 30 hours of footage. About five hours pertain to the damage and death in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The rest is about everyday life in Japan.

Viewing the silent, unedited raw footage today -- anyone can, it's in public access at the archives -- is a historical experience on several levels. First, there is the documentary aspect in seeing rare footage from postwar Japan. Second, there's what it says about the people behind the camera. The hospital footage is morbid in the way it lingers over wounds. It's disturbing that the filmmakers had women undress in front of the camera, exposing their breasts and radiation damage.

And in the final image that they shot, on the very last reel, there is a boisterous group of boys out fishing. They have bamboo poles. They jostle. One little boy -- this image is included in "Original Child Bomb" -- smiles, all bright eyes and jug ears, and you marvel at him, there in the sunlight 60 years ago, the very image of childhood resilience against war, death and heartbreak.