NH #758: BOMBSHELL! – Explosive New PBS Documentary on Atomic Bomb Media Manipulation + Parallels to Libbe’s Play!

KEYSTONE COVER PHOTO: NYTimes science reporter William L. Laurence – aka “Atomic Bill” –
with Gen. Leslie Groves at the Trinity site. Credit: U.S. Army Corp of Engineers

This Week’s Special Featured Interview:

Atomic bomb “bedtime story” sold to Americans and the media manipulation it took to create it.
Having spent more than 13 years researching and writing my play about William L. Laurence, the NYTimes science reporter who was embedded in the Manhattan Project and who is a central source of the disinformation about the bomb from its earliest days, I was astonished to meet two people as obsessed with this obscure journalist as I was. Together, they have made a brilliant documentary film that covers not just Laurence, but the entire story of how the atomic aka nuclear story has been manipulated and how what we accept as gospel about the bomb and its use in WWII is a carefully constructed lie.

Ben Loeterman directed and Gaia de Simoni produced BOMBSHELL, which carries the tag line: “They created the bomb; then created its story.” It tells of not just Laurence, but other journalists, including John Hersey, whose work fed into or contradicted the government-approved atomic bomb narrative at the end of WWII. It’s an astonishing piece of filmmaking that premiered January 6, 2026, on PBS American Experience. 


I first met Ben and Gaia last September at the Westheimer Peace Symposium at Wilmington College in Ohio, where we shared a panel discussion and a lot of energetic side conversation. In this full-length interview, I was able to ask them all the questions I wanted to know about the film, its content, their process, and even how it relates to my play.

You can access the full film HERE. Or go to their WEBSITE.

Libbe’s Play ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE Featured at the ATHENA PROJECT “READ AND RANT” January 19

Libbe HaLevy’s Play ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE, dealing with William L Laurence and issues of media manipulation raised in BOMBSHELL, will be offered free of charge to the general public on Monday, January 19, 2026, 8:30 pm Eastern/5:30 pm Pacific time. REGISTER HERE to access PDF of the script and to participate in the online feedback session. Once registered, you will receive an email with links to the scripts – we ask that these by read in advance of the event.

As the Athena Project explains:
Athena Project’s Read & Rant program seeks to combine the sharing of theatrical work with the wider public and the new play development aspects of our former Plays In Progress Series while also fostering collaboration between playwrights and dramaturgs. Think book club for plays! Learn what makes a good script, discuss how it affects us, and explore the ways it links to the larger world.

January 19, 2026: Atomic Bill and the Payment Due by Libbe HaLevy

SYNOPSIS: The Oppenheimer-adjacent true story of media manipulation at the dawn of the Atomic Age and William L. Laurence, the New York Times reporter who sold his soul to get the story.  While researching another story for her anti-nuclear podcast, Jessie stumbles across mention of a reporter embedded in the Manhattan Project who was the source for all the earliest public information about the bomb. Through her search for long-suppressed information, interactions on the spiritual plane with dead journalists, and her own time-limited future, she embarks on a secret, deadly plan to raise visibility for nuclear issues. 

BOMBSHELL director Ben Loeterman on ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE:

“In the work Gaia and I do as documentary filmmakers, we feel we’re working with handcuffs. We can only use a picture we find. And we can only use it if we find it. We can only use the written words we find. We don’t have the creative license, we don’t have the creative spirit to think about what could have been or how to break this down more psychologically. And that (your play) is astounding to me and it’s astounding to me that you did it. So I would say the same word, “audacity,” today. It was really terrific.” – Ben Loeterman